Monthly Archives: February 2017

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Binney was an architect of the NSAs surveillance program. He became a famed whistleblower when he resigned on October 31, 2001 after spending more than 30 years with the agency.

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Asked whether he believes the NSA is tapping Trump, Binney replied: Absolutely. How did they get the phone call between the president and the president of Australia? Or the one that he made with Mexico? Those are not targeted foreigners.

Binney further contended the NSA may have been behind a data leak that might have revealed that Michael Flynn, Trumps national security adviser, allegedly misled Vice President Mike Pence and other Trump administration officials about the contents of his phone calls with Russias ambassador to Washington.

Regarding Flynns case, Binney stated of the NSA:

If they werent behind it, they certainly had the data. Now the difference here is that FBI and CIA have direct access inside the NSA databases. So, they may be able to go directly in there and see that material there. And NSA doesnt monitor that. They dont even monitor their own people going into databases.

So, they dont monitor what CIA and FBI do. And theres no oversight or attempted oversight by any of the committees or even the FISA court. So, any way you look at it, ultimately the NSA is responsible because they are doing the collection on everybody inside the United States. Phone calls. Emails. All of that stuff.

He was speaking on the podcast edition of this reporters talk radio program, Aaron Klein Investigative Radio, broadcast on New Yorks AM 970 The Answer and Philadelphias NewsTalk 990 AM.

During the interview, Binney referred to a 2008 report referencing two NSA whistleblowers who said they worked at the agencys station in Fort Gordon, Georgia and were asked to not only monitor phone calls of U.S. citizens but transcribe them.

Utilizing data provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the Guardian and Washington Post in June 2013 released a series of articles reporting that the NSA was collecting the telephone records of millions of Americans.

Prior to those reports, National Intelligence Director James Clapper claimed on March 12, 2013 during an open session of the Senate Intelligence Committee that the NSA was not wittingly collecting data on Americans.

Not wittingly, Clapper said when asked whether the NSA was spying on U.S. citizens. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly.

During the interview, Binney charged that the NSA was over-funded and out of control.

He offered recommendations for how he says Trump can reign in the agency:

He can order that they put a filter on the front end of all their collection that eliminates any U.S. citizens anywhere in the world unless they have a warrant for it. If they dont, then he has to put people in jail if they violated.

So, I mean, thats the way to do it. The other way is to cut their budget. I mean they are given too much money anyway. When they are given too much money, they get to do wild and crazy things. And this is wild and crazy. Violations of the Constitutions 4th, 5th, and 6th amendments.

On Wednesday, Trump singled out the NSA and FBI in a series of tweets about Flynns case as well as reports in the New York Times and Washington Post claiming further contacts between Trump advisors and Russia.

The Times on Tuesday seemed to be quoting from intercepted phone calls to report on alleged contacts between Trump campaign aides and Russian intelligence agents.

The Times reported:

Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trumps 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said.

Aaron Klein is Breitbarts Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. Follow him onTwitter @AaronKleinShow.Follow him onFacebook.

Originally posted here:
EXCLUSIVE NSA Whistleblower: Agency 'Absolutely' Tapping Trump's Calls - Breitbart News

This story, from the Jan. 12, 2017, edition of the New York Times, was little-remarked upon at the time, but suddenly has taken on far greater significance in light of current events:

In its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the governments 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.

The new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations, which are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws. These include collecting satellite transmissions, phone calls and emails that cross network switches abroad, and messages between people abroad that cross domestic network switches.

The change means that far more officials will be searching through raw data. Essentially, the government is reducing the risk that the N.S.A. will fail to recognize that a piece of information would be valuable to another agency, but increasing the risk that officials will see private information about innocent people.

One of the central questions behind the Mike Flynn flap that should have been asked but largely wasn't is: who was wiretapping the general? The answer, we know now, was the National Security Agency, formerly known as No Such Agency, the nation's foremost signals-intelligence (SIGINT) collection department.

Once compartmentalized to avoid injuring private citizens caught up in the net of the Black Widow(as we all are already) and her technological successors, the NSA was suddenly handed greater latitude in what it could share with other, perhaps more politicized bodies of the intelligence community. Why?

Let's call the roster of the bad guys:

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch signed the new rules, permitting the N.S.A. to disseminate raw signals intelligence information, on Jan. 3, after the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., signed them on Dec. 15, according to a 23-page, largely declassified copy of the procedures.

Previously, the N.S.A. filtered information before sharing intercepted communications with another agency, like the C.I.A. or the intelligence branches of the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The N.S.A.s analysts passed on only information they deemed pertinent, screening out the identities of innocent people and irrelevant personal information.

Now, other intelligence agencies will be able to search directly through raw repositories of communications intercepted by the N.S.A. and then apply such rules for minimizing privacy intrusions.

This is not expanding the substantive ability of law enforcement to get access to signals intelligence, said Robert S. Litt, the general counsel to Mr. Clapper. It is simply widening the aperture for a larger number of analysts, who will be bound by the existing rules.

Read the original:
Surprise: At the End, Obama Administration Gave NSA Broad New Powers - PJ Media

President Donald Trump (Photo: Twitter)

Attorney Larry Klayman, the founderof Freedom Watch, is asking a federal court to hold an emergency hearing on the National Security Agency, alleging likely CIA spying on President Donald Trump.

In an emergency supplement filed Wednesday with the U.S. District Court in Washington, he saidthe NSA and likely the Central Intelligence Agency are continuing to violate the [Fourth] Amendment to the Constitution and related statutes.

Klayman charged the agencies spied onPresident Trump, the White House, his former National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn and others in his administration.

He is requesting an emergency status conference to determine how to proceed.

See Klaymans explanation:

Klaymans newest filing was an addition to his argument to the court that his original cases should not be dismissed, as the government wants.

Police State USA: How Orwells Nightmare Is Becoming Our Reality chronicles how America has arrived at the point of being a de facto police state and what led to an out-of-control government that increasingly ignores the Constitution. Order today!

His issue was the governments program to obtain and keep metadata from all cell phone calls in the country. He brought the first case several years ago.

Related story:

Flynn defiant: Intelligence leaks a criminal act'

While the media is focused on the so-called Russian election hacking scandal, it ignores the fact that our own government has committed the biggest violation of constitutional rights in American history, leaving the intelligence agencies free to continue their pattern and practice of violating the law in its intelligence gathering operations, Klayman argued against a dismissal.

As plaintiff Klayman argued in this court on Nov. 18, 2013, We have never seen in the history of this country this kind of violation of the privacy rights of the American citizens. We live in an Orwellian state.'

His argument continued, This court concurred, finding the almost-Orwellian technology that enables the government to store and analyze the phone metadata of every telephone user in the United States is unlike anything that could have been conceived in 1979.

The arguments this week came shortly after Flynn resignedas national security adviser over his conversations about sanctions with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. Then on Wednesday followed reports of the leaking ofinformation in the Trump administration.

Klayman argued that the district court, which already is well into an advanced position regarding chargesof government spying, should take up the issue. He pointed out that judges are allowed access to classified information behind closed doors and that the continuing unlawful conduct of the government defendants is highly destructive of our republic.

Klayman charged in a filing before the election: The intelligence agencies conscious disregard for the law has been ongoing for decades, and there is no reason to believe that, all of a sudden, they will begin to respect the constitutional right of plaintiffs, and all Americans. Indeed, even today, [then-]President-elect Donald Trump credibly accused outgoing CIA chief, John Brennan, who worked with James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, of leaking false news reports and classified information to the media in an attempt to undermine him.

Trumps statement at that time was: Outgoing CIA chief, John Brennan, blasts Pres-Elect Trump on Russia threat. Does not fully understand. Oh really, couldnt do much worse just look at Syria (red line), Crimea, Ukraine and the buildup of Russian nukes. Not good! Was this the leaker of Fake News?

WND reported on Klaymans case oneyear ago, when U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, who previously said the NSAsspy-on-Americans cell phone monitoring program likely is unconstitutional, helda status hearing.

The judge had noted the cases were at the pinnacle of national importance.

Klayman, at that time, said: Mass surveillance of the citizenry cannot be permitted when it is likely based on reasons that go far beyond catching terrorists. Indeed, as Judge Leon found on two occasions in issuing his prior preliminary injunctions, Obama and his agents at the spy agencies have not been able to cite one instance when the unconstitutional mass surveillance caught even one terrorist.

Police State USA: How Orwells Nightmare Is Becoming Our Reality chronicles how America has arrived at the point of being a de facto police state and what led to an out-of-control government that increasingly ignores the Constitution. Order today!

In Klaymans case, Leon ruled Dec. 16, 2013, and again Nov. 9, 2015, that the NSA program likely was unconstitutional, barring the government agency and Obama from conducting mass telephonic metadata surveillance over the plaintiffs.

The cases involve not only telephonic metadata mass surveillance, Klayman said, but mass surveillance of all Americans Internet and social media activity.

Klayman, at the beginning of the case, originally sued the NSA, Barack Obama, then-Attorney General Eric Holder and a number of other federal officials. Other defendants include NSA chief Keith Alexander, U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Judge Roger Vinson, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA chief John Brennan, FBI chief James Comey, the Department of Justice, the CIA and the FBI.

Plaintiffs in the case include Klayman, Charles and Mary Ann Strange, Michael Ferrari, Matt Garrison and J.J. Little.

Two of Americas influential civil-rights groups, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have sided with Klayman.

The data that the NSA collects, they explained in a brief, reveals political affiliation, religious practices and peoples most intimate associations.

It reveals who calls a suicide prevention line and who calls their elected official; who calls the local tea-party office and who calls Planned Parenthood.

The groups brief said the relevant fact for whether an expectation of privacy exists is that the comprehensive telephone records the government collects not just the records of a few calls over a few days but all of a persons calls over many years reveals highly personal information about the person and her life.

See the original post:
Emergency hearing sought to stop NSA 'spying' on Trump - WND.com

Two quotes are associated with Angela Merkel's third term as chancellor. In the summer of 2015, when masses of refugees arrived in Germany, Merkel declared: "We can do this." The other famous statement she made referred to the revelation that the NSA had monitored her personal mobile phone: "Spying among friends - that is simply not done." If anyone searches the line in German on the internet, the Google results for the two lines differ greatly: There are about 1.6 million listings for the refugee policy quote and only 25,000 for the NSA scandal line.

The great difference unexpectedly, but clearly, reflects the perceived public relevance of the two subjects. Refugees still play a large role - in politics and in everyday life. The fact that intelligence agencies systematically spy on private lives has more or less become a topic for experts. The uproar over Edward Snowden's revelations, more or less, dwindled down within a year.

High-ranking witnesses

The German NSA inquiry committee has been meeting for the past three years. No one seems to be interested in its work unless high-ranking witnesses appear, like former foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier; the former head of the chancellery, Ronald Pofalla; his successor, Peter Altmaier, or the former president of the foreign intelligence agency, the BND, Gerhard Schindler. Now, Merkel will contribute to the evidence being taken by the inquiry committee. After that, the final report will be written and it will contain the statements and comments made by over 100 witnesses and experts who have testified. The report must be completed by the second half of June.

Altmeier, the head of the chancellory, already has the witness questioning behind him, unlike his boss, Merkel

The name Merkel will probably appear often in this enormous work. Nonetheless, German members of parliament do not expect much from the chancellor's testimony. Why would she know more about NSA activities than her specialists? Last Monday it become clear how little they allegedly knew about tapping the phones of allies when secret service commissioner Klaus-Dieter Fritsche; Altmaier and Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert, expressed their views on the matter.

How was Merkel's second most famous line meant?

The actual or staged unawareness can summed up in one line. Klaus-Dieter Fritsche said: "If you do not have any clues to ask about, then you do not ask." Yet many questions are still unanswered. Who knew - and when - that the BND, and not just the NSA, eavesdropped on allies? Why did the chancellery not know about it? After all, it is responsible for supervising Germany's foreign intelligence service. Merkel must prepare for these questions when she takes the witness stand at the inquiry committee. Above all, the members of parliament want to know what she meant by: "Spying among friends - that is simply not done."

Was it true indignation? Or was it a tactical move in the hope that the commotion would soon subside? The Social Democrats' chairman in the inquiry committee, Christian Flisek, suspects that Merkel had put up a "protection barrier" around herself in order to find out as little as possible about the behavior of intelligence agencies and that Fritsche was probably enlisted as her "personal firewall." However, Flisek had expected Merkel to make the NSA/BND affair a matter for the boss. The opposition also accuses the chancellor of lacking the will to solve the case.

Strbele at the first of many NSA investigation committee hearings in April 2014

Green Party member Hans-Christian Strbele is firmly convinced that "Merkel had a lot of information." On the one hand, he hopes for "truth, clarity and credibility" when she takes the stand before the inquiry committee. On the other hand, he expects flimsy answers to his questions and the questions of other parliamentarians "because we are in an election campaign." That is what Strbele suggested at the beginning of the NSA/BND affair a few months before German parliamentary elections in 2013. Merkel's then-head of the chancellery declared the whole affair to be over after a meeting of the Parliamentary Control Board for Secret Services.

From the opposition's point of view, he wanted to keep information about the actual scale of the spying activities out of the election campaign. Whatever the motives were at that time, it seems like things went Merkel's way. The affair will be remembered for that one line. Martina Renner, chairwoman of the Left Party in the inquiry committee, is annoyed. She has called it one of the greatest intelligence scandals with minimal consequences.

Go here to read the rest:
Germany's NSA inquiry committee under pressure - Deutsche Welle

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John Schindler, a former National Security Agency analyst and current columnist for the New York Observer, said Wednesday that the intelligence community will go nuclear against President Donald Trump.

The national security columnist also quoted a senior intelligence official telling him that Trump will die in jail.Now we go nuclear. [Intelligence community] war going to new levels. Just got an [email from] from senior [intelligence community] friend, it began: He will die in jail,' Schindler tweeted.

The Observer columnist has for months taken a strong stance against Trump. He recently wrote an article called The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins. (RELATED: Rep King: Leakers In Intel Community Have To Be Purged)

This came after President Trump angrily tweeted about continued leaks to major media outlets. Information is being illegally given to the failing [New York Times] & [Washington Post] by the intelligence community (NSA and FBI?). Just like Russia, Trump wrote. (RELATED: Journalists Go Nuts Over Rehashed New York Times Story)

Schindler received heat for his tweet suggesting a coup by the intelligence community.

ABC News chief foreign correspondent Terry Moran tweeted, If this source is for real, talk of a Deep State coup arent insane. [The president] will die in jail? Who do you think you are?

The former NSA analyst stood by his comment and said, Surprisingly, some US spies consider [the president] colluding with [Russian intelligence services] + Kremlin, [including] election theft, to be kinda treason-y.

Excerpt from:
Former NSA Analyst Claims Intel Community Will Go 'Nuclear' Against Trump - Daily Caller