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Category Archives: NSA

DC Pork Bill Passed, Torture Report Distraction, Congress Allows All NSA Spying – Video

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DC Pork Bill Passed, Torture Report Distraction, Congress Allows All NSA Spying
It looks like the House voted not to shut down the government with the budget it just passed. Conservative Republicans hate that Obama Care and illegal immig...

By: Greg Hunter

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DC Pork Bill Passed, Torture Report Distraction, Congress Allows All NSA Spying - Video

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NSA reveals it used to have a Clown Club

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Brittany Hillen

We've seen many NSA-related details surface, but none of them quite as unexpected as the latest revelation: the agency used to have a Clown Club. Less you think that is some cheery codename for a secret collective or program, it's not -- it was a literal Clown Club. It sounds almost too odd to be true, but the information was revealed by the NSA itself in an unclassified scan titled "Cryptologic Almanac 50th Anniversary Series" posted on its website. The club no longer exists, but its legacy apparently lives on.

The report starts off, "Once upon a time, a man named Ned Clark worked for the National Security Agency. And while he had an ordinary job at the Agency like everyone else, that's not how he left his mark here: he gained his NSA fame through clowning."

Clark, having served in the Marine Corps before joining the NSA in the 50s, worked as a typewriter repairman at the Agency. By the late 50s, Clark took up clowning under the moniker "Uncle Ned" as part of his work with children and charities. His life as a clown eventually spilled over to his job at the agency, where he "could always be counted on to entertain at the NSA Christmas Party or any other NSA family party."

In the 1970s, the agency had its own NSA Clown Club, of which Clark was the president. The Club contained the Clarkwheel Clowns, and was intended to "promote and develop among the membership interest, knowledge, and skill in being a clown." Clark is said to have given at least one lecture on clowning at the Friedman Auditorium during his time.

Clark passed away at the age of 67 in 1992, and at a time that isn't known the club was disbanded. However, as of 2002, one of the club's members going by the name "Snaggs" was still working for the NSA.

SOURCE: BuzzFeed

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NSA reveals it used to have a Clown Club

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Looking for a Hoodie With NSA Documents on It? This Is Your Store

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If youve ever dreamt of owning a mouse pad adorned with the contents of leaked classified documents (and who hasnt?) youre in luck. Just in time for the holidays: The Big Data Pawn Shop, an online emporium of useless items screen printed with very important information.

Screenshot: WIRED

The shop is the work of artists Adam Harvey, Sam Lavigne, and Surya Mattu, and its the first installment of an ongoing project dedicated to reframing the discussion around privacy, surveillance, and big data. In the Zazzle store you can buy any number of items emblazoned with text and graphics from the NSA ANT catalogue, a 50-page document leaked last year that details the NSAs technology arsenal. Youll see the pages of the document printed onto ping pong paddles, tank tops, clocks and pillows. I bought a coffee mug, says Harvey.

Repurposing the documents as consumer products could be read as a joke, and Harvey doesnt shy away from the idea that theres a certain lightheartedness to the idea. Its intentionally made to soften the impact of discourse which for the most part is terrifying, he says.

The way he sees it, the conversation could use areframinganyway. After more than a year of heavy media coverage dedicated to privacy and surveillance, Harvey worries people have begun to grow tired of the catch phrases and buzzwords. At the simplest level, I want to continue the conversation about these topics, he says. As heknows through his work with the Privacy Gift shop and his umbrella company Undisclosed, its not just about keeping these ideas relevant, its about making them accessible. And really, what better way to remind us of our discomforting lack of privacy than staring it in the face every day with our morning cup of coffee?

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Looking for a Hoodie With NSA Documents on It? This Is Your Store

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No NSA Reform, No CIA Reform

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The Democrats serving on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Diane Feinstein of California, have released their summary report on CIA torture. What is ahead now that the report is out?

Expect a merry season of verbose handwringing, with endless protestations of (momentary) embarrassment and mellifluous promise of immediate betterment. Even emphatic claims of Never Again!

Just dont believe it. All the statements by ever so embarrassed Senators, in the end, are but a highly ritualized form of appearing apologetic.

The news of the future will report that, despite the most earnest commitments to fundamental change of this critically important issue, nothing will happen. There will also be talk to hold an in-depth national conversation, including unrestrained readiness to look deep into our national soul. But that too is bound to be mostly lip service.

Remember the major embarrassment felt about the Snowden revelations that required urgent changes in the law in order to ensure that such gross betrayals of the rights of American citizens would never ever be repeated?

Or the statements that the NSA needed to be reined in? That it was an agency on autopilot? Well, there were high hopes for legislative reforms initially.

There were a spate of news articles and administration statements promising that real reform would come. Some people honestly thought that, given the immensity of the privacy violations by the NSA, this time things would be different.

In a parliamentary democracy, where majorities in the executive and legislative branches are by definition the same, reforms would likely have happened swiftly.

Not so in the United States, with its traditionally gridlocked domestic politics. There, it is never easy to achieve reforms. Still, after Snowdens revelations, many Democrats as well as some very right-wing Republicans, such as Rep. Sensenbrenner in the U.S. House, were adamant that things could not go on like that.

With such a wide-ranging coalition, along the entire U.S. political spectrum, what could possibly go wrong? A lot, as it turns out, led by a willy-nilly Obama Administration that always pretends to stand for principle before turning meek.

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No NSA Reform, No CIA Reform

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KeenON: Journalist and NSA Expert Barton Gellman

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Techonomy is proud to present KeenON, a series ofinterviews by techonologist and author Andrew Keen that explores the intersection of tech, business, and culture.

It isnt surprising that Edward Snowden chose then Washington Post reporterBarton Gellmanas one of the earliest recipients of his leaked NSA documents. Gellman is the author of abest-selling bookabout Dick Cheney as well as manyinfluential articlesabout the war on terror, and thus was a natural choice for Snowden when he sought a trustworthy journalist to publicize the PRISM materials.

So was Snowden a hero? Not surprisingly, Gellman wont be drawn into such a clichd analysis. What he does insist, however, is that Snowden was an important figure who has sparked a massively important conversationone, in his words, with legsthat is still going on today. Its a subject, Gellman insists, that has not only changed the way that Silicon Valley companies like Google and Twitter do their data business with the U.S. government, but may have changed the nature of journalism. Indeed, its such a vital subject that Gellman himself is currently writing a book about what he calls our surveillance-industrial state of affairs. The book, he says, will break new ground in how we imagine our electronically networked world.

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KeenON: Journalist and NSA Expert Barton Gellman

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