“A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden,” Glenn Greenwald reports for The Guardian.
“The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its ‘widest-reaching’ system for developing intelligence from the internet,” Greenwald reports. “The latest revelations will add to the intense public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs. They come as senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, releasing classified documents in response to the Guardian’s earlier stories on bulk collection of phone records and Fisa surveillance court oversight.”
Greenwald reports, “The files shed light on one of Snowden’s most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10. ‘I, sitting at my desk,’ said Snowden, could ‘wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email.’ US officials vehemently denied this specific claim… But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: United States Constitution, Amendment IV:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
Join The Electronic Frontier Foundation in calling for a full congressional investigation here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Momentum builds against U.S. government surveillance – July 29, 2013
U.S. House rejects effort to curb NSA surveillance powers, 205-217 – July 24, 2013
Obama administration scrambles to shut down imminent U.S. House vote to defund NSA spying – July 24, 2013
Obama administration demands master encryption keys from firms in order to conduct electronic surveillance against Internet users – July 24, 2013
Apple, Google, dozens of others push Obama administration to disclose U.S. surveillance requests – July 19, 2013
Secret court agrees to allow Yahoo to reveal its fight against U.S. government PRISM requests – July 16, 2013
How Microsoft handed U.S. NSA, FBI, CIA access to users’ encrypted video, audio, and text communications – July 11, 2013
DuckDuckGo search engine surges 33% in wake of PRISM scandal – June 20, 2013
Yahoo: Since December 2012, we have received up to 13,000 U.S. gov’t requests for customer data – June 18, 2013
Apple: Since December 2012, we have received U.S. gov’t requests for customer data for up to 10,000 accounts – June 17, 2013
Nine companies, including Apple, tied to PRISM, Obama to be smacked with class-action lawsuit – June 12, 2013
U.S. lawmakers urge review of ‘Prism’ domestic spying, Patriot Act – June 10, 2013
PRISM: Do Apple, Google, Facebook have an ethical obligation not to spy on users? – June 8, 2013
Plausible deniability: The strange and unbelievable similarities in the Apple, Google, and Facebook PRISM denials – June 7, 2013
Google’s Larry Page on government eavesdropping: ‘We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday’ – June 7, 2013
Seecrypt app lets iPhone, Android users keep voice calls, text messages away from carriers, government eyes and ears – June 7, 2013
Obama administration defends PRISM data-collection as legal anti-terrorism tool – June 7, 2013
Facebook, Google, Yahoo join Apple in sort-of denying PRISM involvement – June 7, 2013
Report: Intelligence program gives U.S. government direct access to customer data on Apple servers; Apple denies – June 6, 2013
Why are you all surprised? Congress easily passed the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001, which pretty much authorized all these. In 2011, Congress renewed key provisions (PATRIOT Sunsets Extension Act of 2011). All of these bills are, and have always been, public record so please contain your panic.
I didn’t vote yes for that either.
Constitution? Rights? Freedom? What the hell are YOU talking about, citizen-serf?
Your ignorance really shines, dumbass.
For all of you that blame the NSA mess on Bush, read this:
“But he warned that Congress’ 2008 reform of the FISA system expanded the government’s authority by forcing the court to approve entire surveillance systems, not just surveillance warrants, as it previously handled.”
Please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. But, weren’t the democrats the majority in both houses in congress at that time?
http://news.yahoo.com/former-judge-admits-flaws-secret-court-145541583.html
I recall that at some time during the administration of G. W. Bush one of the intelligence agencies proposed amassing a huge database of information that would cover every person, business, and organization in the USA. The news evoked a huge outcry and the agency announced it was scrapping the plan.
Now, it would appear, thanks to Mr. Snowden’s revelations, that they simply proceeded through other, clandestine means to do exactly the same thing. I regard Mr. Snowden not only as a whistle-blower but a hero. If the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, then we owe Mr. Snowden a debt of gratitude. What, after all, are we to do when the system of checks and balances fails to do its job?
it was called “Total Information Awareness” and it kept popping up afterward under various guises.
Looks like Im buying an ar-15.
Yeah I’m insecure about my dick size as well.
You pussy.
Then you probably have small hands also. For your sake I hope Apple continues to make the iPhone 5S form factor going forward after they introduce the larger iPhone. Although I only see that happening for about a year. But of course I see many women with very small hands using larger phones with no problem so you should survive somehow. Good luck. And actually, it’s possible to have a big dick and own guns. Really, it is.
Nice tangent. Were you actually trying to make a point or are you still seeing stars from the pounding Uncle Daddy gave you last night?
Bothers ya doesn’t it?
Not at all. I’m just glad that I live in a country where an irrational desire to acquire guns is treated as a mental illness. And winding you halfwits up is kinda fun.
…you’re trying really hard just to make someone you don’t even know mad. Sheesh.
Trying hard? Not when it’s this easy, my boy.
a courageous man, that Edward Snowden is, to give up his family, his home, his woman and his work in to expose this horseshit. He is certainly “a man without a country” as his country no longer exists.
…if JFK were alive, he could have added another chapter to his Pulitzer prize winner, all about Mr. Snowden.
A Phillip Nolan indeed.
http://iam.bradleymanning.org/
All you folks drooling at this article might want to seek out some alternative sources of information. Yes, hard to believe but not everything you read is true (even around here).
A good start would be here: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/42338_Greenwalds_Latest_Article_Distorts_the_Truth_Again
While one cannot help but be impressed by any analysis from “Little Green Footballs,” it should be duly noted that no one is arguing that the Patriot Act allows unwarranted, unconstitutional eavesdropping on American citizens, the point is the Patriot Act itself is illegally contradictory to the Fourth Amendment. Obama Messiah had his opportunity to let the Patriot Act die, he failed. Congress had the opportunity to defund the NSA, it failed.
GreenFootballs mainly notes that doing this supposedly requires a warrant … I’m sure we can trust the intelligence community not to lie and evade that stipulation, at least not any more than they have in the past, and no more than they have ignored Constitutional prohibitions. The Patriot Act did open the door, and I see little reason to doubt the Guardian or Snowden.
Dump the chimp in the White House. Never again an orangutan.
That remark is without an ounce of merit. Get lost.
Cut out that obnoxious racist crap right now.
He may be crap, but there’s no need to pull the out your Alabama passport.
I’d bet you my bottom dollar that that SOB is not from Alabama, not from the South, not a Republican, and not a Conservative.
Not that there aren’t idiots from all walks, but even the racist I know don’t go around acting THAT stupid. But I DO know of a particular group that will stop at nothing to perpetuate a myth…….
Maybe a whistleblower, maybe not.
More information is needed (hence the congressional investigation) to find out exactly what is accessible and what isn’t. Can an analyst read email content beyond sender and recipients? That isn’t clear. One thing to keep in mind, some of this information that is part of the query is already open information. The NSA system has organized it making it searchable.
There are issues here that need to be addressed, but the information we are getting is limited.
I do think most people are unaware how open online communication already is, and their expectation of privacy is based on 18th century postal service code rather than 21st century technological realities. It’s a good thing this is coming out so people can decide if we need something more secure. It will cost us, but it may be worth it.
yeah, you mean the same congress that just re-funded the NSA illegal eavesdropping? Get real.
Thank you for making my point. You assume it’s illegal, or that eavesdropping is even occurring, but you don’t know. None of us do.
you’re an idiot, thanks for making MY point.
Now don’t be putting down idiots, thanks to them this is happening and you have a point.
Who says civility is dead?
it died the day after the Fourth Amendment.
fortunately we have honest men like Clapper to help us understand the legalities
oops, forgot the /S
wouldn’t want anyone to think I believe that guy
Kinda like saying: this is a joke, that /s…
The whole point of being sarcastic is that you don’t flag it…
Of course it does help the handicapped to recognize it in leu of capacity, I suppose.
Look up Justin Carter. He was arrested, charged and faces 10 years in jail for making a very sarcastic, over-the-top threat even though he included “lol” and “jk”. Just imagine how much worse it’d be if he hadn’t included those “disclaimers.”
Never make threats.
Unless you’re a government official, of course.
I’ve got a money making idea for the Federal Government – offer people access to their information for a low reasonable annual fee. That way if you lose the url for a website, you can contact the NSA and they’ll let you know what it is.
Free speech means nothing, our Constitution means nothing any more.
Welcome to the USSA, papers please!
I’m glad it is being made clear that warrants, as described in the US Constitution are REQUIRED for US citizens while they are on US soil. That has NEVER been the case once a US person leaves the country.
As for communication by a US citizen on US soil with someone OUTSIDE the USA, that’s a more tricky question. I’ve never read anyone trying to apply the 4th Amendment to such situations, and I can understand why.
In any case, it’s a FUD FUD FUD world, full of paranoia, propaganda, manipulation and fear fear fear. 😛 Not good.
NSA Tool Collects ‘nearly everything a user does on the internet’
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data
If we let these illegal, unconstitutional and un-American programs continue, if we let intelligence leaders continue to lie under oath to congress, if we let secret interpretations of laws stand, and secret courts make our decisions, if we continue to block court challenges of the above, we MAY prevent another terrorist attack, we MAY save a few dozen or a few hundred lives — but we WILL have lost the very country we were hoping to protect.
Without an informed citizenry and an empowered congress, we’ll have already lost America.
We stared-down a continent of Soviet conventional forces and 20,000 thermonuclear warheads, but we crap ourselves and throw away our own core values and freedoms for a (now dead) Arab waving an AK-47 and some improvised explosive devices?
A sad day for America. A sad day for democracy.
For the first time, I am having serious discussions with my family about leaving this country permanently. Is the evil and corruption so entrenched that the republic cannot be saved? Is this situation similar to 1933 Germany, when so many lives could have been saved if they had just gotten out when they still could? I don’t want my children and grandchildren growing up in this horseshit.
Where to?
Switzerland or New Zealand are the top two choices we have come up with.
My vote is New Zealand, ya know, find a nice sheep, settle down…sing “I Only Have Eyes For Ewe” to her. The Good Life.
I think you better stick with Switzerland. New Zealand is part of the Echelon system, and the extent to which our Government Communications Security Bureau should be able to spy on NZ citizens is a hot topic here right now.
Oh, yeah, and they have sheep in Switzerland too. Although not as pretty as ours, you should find one to suit you.
perhaps you’re right, to steal Willie Sutton’s response: “Why Switzerland?”…”cuz, that’s where da’ money is.” Howdy Heidi!
New Zealand (and even Canada!?!) were listed on the NSA PowerPoint. Not clear what the reference meant but I think that means the information could be shared out with them too.
This will have to be stamped out. NSA will have to be dismantled. No running away from it. Call your congressman today.
oh I have, I have…five of the seven representatives from my state voted against the NSA defunding. Fallen on deaf ears, pearls before swine, etc etc.
Please don’t come to Switzerland. We prefer rational, intelligent people.
hey Seamus! how ya’ doin’?
…learn Spanish and German. Or Russian and Mandarin.
Or move to THE UK! 🙂
All I say. Have nice day.
We have lost America already, haven’t you noticed that everything’s broke, truth, history, science, politics and even qualities of excellence are all being made up by the mighty thumb ( many puns intended).
We are so divided and confused about right and wrong that half of us hate the other half. We are so broke, we can’t even pay attention.
This is the perfect breeding ground, created by fear, in which to control and muscle in on freedom. We are too busy, lazy and comfortably detached…
Damm. You hit the nail on the head. Very few people realize that.
Keep everyone busy trying to get by, feed them Hollywood gossip, keep the real news on page 13.
With all that going on, you betcha freedom gets taken away, little by little. Then one day everyone wakes up and it far too late.
When they even lie about such mundane info as the GDP to cover their no-free-market-understanding asses (or they DO understand and this fits their plan), then it is time for Palin and Kucinich supporters to unite.
This is beyond ridiculous. It is surreal and it is scary……
Again, this article has as much to do with a Mac as an article on hydroelectric dams (hydro dams produce electricity, which powers stuff, including electronics, like a Mac).
It would be nice MDN, if you would stop using your website as your personal bully pulpit and devote the time saved to bringing us good Mac-based news.
But all US based tech companies (Apple) may be required by law to conform to NSA laws (for the safety of the public) Since Apple is possibly involved, I say that it is a relevant article.
guess you could start Greg L.’s MacDailyNews if you’d like.
…guess not, that’d take like, you know man, uh, work. ambition. intelligence. That sure leaves you out, Greg.
This is so surprising because the lid, over the past weeks, keeps opening a little wider each time spilling out another whole set of awfulness. First they claimed to never spy on Americans without a warrant. Then we learned that they are spying on Americans without a warrant. Then they said, well, yes, but we only collected META data. Now today, we learn that they are actively collecting the CONTENT of our every message or place visited for ANY NSA analyst to search with only the vaguest justification. Under a benevolent government this tool can be used to protect innocent civilians from terrorist or criminal organizations. I believe the current administration’s intent to to protect the country, but what’s to keep future, less benevolent administrations from targeting political rivals, or people or groups they just don’t like, or doing favors for corporate interests in exchange for campaign donations and support. A system like this in government hands is ripe for abuse. Just one small step further and the system can be used as a weapon against the people it purported to protect. It’s similar invasions of privacy for political purposes by the government of King George on his subjects is the reason the 4th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution. We should organize a day of no electronic communication what so ever.
I bet Obama will say this is a “bogus” scandal too.
I don’t know what everyone is so worried about, I mean really, if you’ve done nothing wrong than what’s the harm in the Government having access to every single piece of personal information there is on each one of us. Most likely, the one’s complaining are those who’ve broken the law and deserve to be caught and punished and I think that every person who complains such as those right now, posting Comments in this very forum should be investigated by the NSA, Homeland Security, and even the CIA. As honest, law abiding, and God fearing American Citizen’s each of us should be helping out these Government Protecting Agencies by providing them Instant Personal Update Information (IPUI) through a direct link, similar to the banking direct deposit App, to keep it simple, easy, and available to the Government on a 24/7 basis. By making this a Civic Duty for each American Citizen we become an active part of the Team to Stamp Out Terrorism and what better Teammate could we have than our own U.S. Government and as President Kennedy once said, “…ask what I can do for my country.”
fuck you.
Sarcasm
I thought that also, but I have seen countless comments from Seamus alone that have embraced that depth of stupidity. Insurance.
“ja wohl, Herr Villiams! Der Gestapo NEEDS our help. Ve must all enroll der kinder in der Obama Youth! Heil Messiah!”
You mean the same President Kennedy who vowed to “shred the CIA into million pieces and throw it into the wind” and got his head blown off for his efforts? THAT President Kennedy? fuck you twice.
Mr. Williams,
What you espouse is Fascism. You say that if a citizen complains about a government Unconstitutional action then they must have something to hide or are, therefore, against the government so they should be investigated. Can you not understand that that is authoritarian government? Since the NSA is sifting through all of our online communications, under one Administration simply what you wrote, above, paints a profile of a white-wing zealot who may warrant additional scrutiny for possible militant activity. Under a more conservative administration my comments might flag me as someone who is anti-administration so should be placed on their list for further scrutiny. That’s WHY the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was added. Our Founding Fathers knew all too well of the dangers of government officials intercepting one’s mail, searching their homes and persons without probably cause to catch anti-administration thoughts or just to intimidate those who would dissent. THey saw this oppression first hand from the way King George’s governors rules the 13 Colonies. What the NSA is doing violates the 4th Amendment–it’s illegal!
The rising tide of Fascism in America is alarming. People who say “Well if you have nothing to hide it doesn’t matter if the government listens to all of my phone calls or reads all of my messages” are missing the point. By all of our messages in email and online we are expressing our thoughts. Though you have committed no crime, the NSA can now profile people based their thought expression pattern. This places people into categories. Think of it as “racial profiling” for everyone. The system is ripe for abuse…can the NSA spy on Congress and the President, and other national leaders? Is it used to target and smash people exercising their first amendment rights of free speech that they just don’t agree with? Can a future right-wing administration target minorities they don’t like based on religious ideology? And on and on… If the government can spy on every American then they will abuse it. Great power has a corruption influence. What about Congressmen leaning on NSA agents to do favors for their corporate sponsors by checking out emails on their corporate rivals.
Your notion that people who defend the U.S. Constitution by decrying illegal, Unconstitutional acts by the government should be investigation and maybe prosecuted is Fascism! Your combining the Nation, The Government, and Religion as all one entity. That is Fascism and treasonous to The Republic which is based on laws, individual liberty, and separation of church and state. You describe a totalitarian state. You are a traitor to The Republic.
Great news, just like deer frozen in the headlights.
GM,
There you go again, pining away for a phablet!
Blah. Blah blah BLAH blah. Blah.