Opening remarks by Supreme Allied Commander, Europe – NATO Chiefs of Defence Meeting, 22 MAY 2014 – Video

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Opening remarks by Supreme Allied Commander, Europe - NATO Chiefs of Defence Meeting, 22 MAY 2014
Opening statement by General Philip M. Breedlove, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, 22 May 2014. More from the event: http://goo.gl/jJ43rd.

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Opening remarks by Supreme Allied Commander, Europe - NATO Chiefs of Defence Meeting, 22 MAY 2014 - Video

Joint Press Conference, Questions and Answers – NATO Chiefs of Defence Meeting, 22 MAY 2014 – Video

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Joint Press Conference, Questions and Answers - NATO Chiefs of Defence Meeting, 22 MAY 2014
Questions and Answers session following the joint press conference with General Knud Bartels, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, General Philip M. Breedlove, Supreme Allied Commander,...

By: NATO

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Joint Press Conference, Questions and Answers - NATO Chiefs of Defence Meeting, 22 MAY 2014 - Video

NATO Confirms Russian Army Withdrawal Underway: Kremlin troops begin leaving Ukraine border area – Video

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NATO Confirms Russian Army Withdrawal Underway: Kremlin troops begin leaving Ukraine border area
NATO #39;s top military commander has said some Russian soliders positioned close to Ukraine #39;s border have started to move, suggesting troops may be preparing to...

By: Ukraine News One

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NATO Confirms Russian Army Withdrawal Underway: Kremlin troops begin leaving Ukraine border area - Video

Russian Military Threat: Washington assures European NATO allies protection amid Ukraine crisis – Video

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Russian Military Threat: Washington assures European NATO allies protection amid Ukraine crisis
About 1500 Lithuanian and US soldiers wrapped up joint military drills, as Washington tries to reassure its Eastern European allies worried by Russia #39;s role in the Ukraine crisis.

By: Ukraine News One

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Russian Military Threat: Washington assures European NATO allies protection amid Ukraine crisis - Video

Assange names country targeted by NSA's MYSTIC mass phone tapping program

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The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has been recording and storing nearly all domestic and international phone calls from Afghanistan, according to Wikileaks front man Julian Assange.

Wikileaks revealed the name of the country after The Intercept reported Monday that the NSA was actively recording and archiving virtually every cellphone call in the Bahamas and one other country under a program called SOMALGET. The Intercept said it did not name the second country because of concerns that doing so could lead to increased violence.

The voice interception program is part of a broader program called MYSTIC revealed in March when the Washington Post published documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

MYSTIC is used to collect phonecall metadata and is used in Mexico, Kenya and the Philippines, according to The Intercept. SOMALGET enables the NSA to gather and store the contents of every conversation in an entire country, it said.

The program gives the NSA the capability to record and store the phone calls of an entire nation for up to 30 days, according to the Washington Post. The paper decided not to identify the countries affected on request of the U.S. government.

While The Intercept revealed the identity of five of the Mystic target countries, Assange said the decision not to name Afghanistan was censorship.

Such censorship strips a nation of its right to self-determination on a matter which affects its whole population, ="https://wikileaks.org/WikiLeaks-statement-on-the-mass.html">he said on Wikileaks site. By denying an entire population the knowledge of its own victimization, this act of censorship denies each individual in that country the opportunity to seek an effective remedy, whether in international courts, or elsewhere, he said.

To protect his source, Assange did not disclose how Wikileaks confirmed the identity of the second country. However, he said, it can also be independently verified through forensic scrutiny of imperfectly applied censorship on related documents released to date, and through correlations with other NSA programs.

The censorship of a victim states identity directly assists the killing of innocent people, Assange said. The U.S. has been using mass interception programs as a key component in its drone targeting program that has killed thousands of people and hundreds of women and children in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia in violation of international law, he added.

We do not believe it is the place of media to aid and abet a state in escaping detection and prosecution for a serious crime against a population. Consequently Wikileaks cannot be complicit in the censorship of victim state X. The country in question is Afghanistan, he said.

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Assange names country targeted by NSA's MYSTIC mass phone tapping program

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NSA guy who made Obama's BlackBerry

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President Obama's BlackBerry was more difficult to create than you'd think.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

"It just really bothered a lot of people -- nobody wanted to put anything out there that wasn't completely secure," said retired NSA technical director Richard "Dickie" George in an interview with CNNMoney.

George's role was to review the BlackBerry's algorithms and write and engineer diagrams for the phone.

In response to Obama's request, the NSA set up a lab where dozens of experts performed surgery for several months on a high-profile patient: the soon-to-be presidential BlackBerry. The course of treatment was to manipulate the device's innards to weed out potential threats to secure communication.

In the end, that meant taking most of the fun out of the phone: the president can't play Angry Birds, for example.

"You try to get rid of any functionality that's not really required. Every piece of functionality is an opportunity for the adversary," George says.

According to George, the president simply wanted a phone that enabled him to communicate with his advisers. Though the president was a well known BlackBerry (BBRY) addict at the time, the choice of smartphone model was the NSA's, not Obama's, George explained.

What functionality the president's phone actually possesses is secret -- and the NSA won't even confirm that he can use it to send a text or write an email (but it's a pretty safe bet it isn't used for Oval Office selfies).

Related: Let's talk about text, baby

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NSA guy who made Obama's BlackBerry

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House Committee Puts NSA on Notice Over Encryption Standards

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Amendment would remove requirement that the National Institute of Standards and Technology consult with the NSA on encryption standards

Amendment would remove requirement that the National Institute of Standards and Technology consult with the NSA on encryption standards

by Justin Elliott ProPublica, May 23, 2014, 4:55 p.m.

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An amendment adopted by a House committee would, if enacted, take a step toward removing the National Security Agency from the business of meddling with encryption standards that protect security on the Internet.

As we reported with the Guardian and the New York Times last year, the NSA has for years engaged in a multi-front war on encryption, in many cases cracking the technology that is used to protect the confidentiality of intercepted communications. Part of the NSAs efforts centered on the development of encryption standards by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which sets standards that are adopted by government and industry.

Documents provided by Edward Snowden suggest that the NSA inserted a backdoor into one popular encryption standard, prompting NIST to launch an ongoing review of all its existing standards.

The amendment adopted this week by the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology would remove an existing requirement in the law that NIST consult with the NSA on encryption standards.

In a Dear Colleague letter, the amendments sponsor, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), quoted our story on the NSA from last year.

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House Committee Puts NSA on Notice Over Encryption Standards

Posted in NSA