“The Guardian recently said they have only published a very tiny percentage of the NSA documents provided to them by the now-infamous leaker Edward Snowden, and now a new revelation has taken a strange turn into the video game realm,” Paul Tassi reports for Forbes. “Documents provided by Snowden from 2008 say that the NSA and the UK’s GCHQ agencies planted agents inside MMOs like World of Warcraft and Second Life. The document, called Exploiting Terrorist Use of Games & Virtual Environments, was published this week, and tells tales of the spy agencies trying to track down terrorist communications through each of the games. Eventually, Xbox Live was considered a possible means for terrorist contact as well.”
Tassi reports, “The idea was that games like World of Warcraft and Second Life could be used as under the radar avenues for communication between terrorist, and even help transfer funds. The document also shows that the NSA tried to recruit gamers to help with the project, but ultimately, it’s never said that they found any evidence of terrorists using either game for communication or collaboration, or that any terror plots were stopped through their work in the virtual realms.”
“Since the revelation, Blizzard has spoken out saying that they were ‘unaware of any surveillance taking place,’ and never gave the NSA permission to infiltrate the game,” Tassi reports. “There’s no telling just how much data the NSA collected on ‘suspect’ players, which could include everything from personal information to text or verbal in-game communication. Yet again, privacy seems to mean little to the NSA, in this world or virtual ones.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’ve got a great iPhone game for the government spooks:
Learning the U.S. Constitution Made Easy
Pay special attention to the section on the Fourth Amendment, guys and gals.
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
Visit reformgovernmentsurveillance.com today.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “TheloniousMac” for the heads up.]
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