Category Archives: NSA

NEW DELHI: Union home minister Rajnath Singh called a high-level meeting on Tuesday to review the situation in the wake of the killing of Amarnath pilgrims by terrorists and decided to focus on upgrading the technology used to gather intelligence and security apparatus of the country.

NSA Ajit Doval, top officials of the home ministry, intelligence agencies and central paramilitary forces attended the meeting.

Security experts present in the meeting said registration of vehicles carrying Amarnath pilgrims and a relook at the way forces were deployed in various parts of J&K were among the top priorities for the Centre. What is also important is that there should be no backlash in any part of the country. We have asked all states to monitor that, a senior official said.

Immediately after the meeting, NSA briefed PM Modi about the deliberations as well as steps taken to enhance security on the Amarnath route (see map), sources said. A high-level team led by MoS for home Hansraj Ahir visited J&K to assess the security situation. MHA officials also said they were in regular touch with Gujarat to ensure the families of the dead and injured were informed and assisted with necessary help.

Earlier in the day, J&K deputy CM Nirmal Singh admitted to security lapses, and said officials would investigate why the bus was allowed to travel after 5 pm. The security protocol for the annual pilgrimage bars vehicles from moving after sundown.

Excerpt from:
Rajnath, NSA assess situation at high-level security meeting - Economic Times

The parent company of The Intercept online news outlet announced Tuesday that it is helping the legal defense of the Augusta suspect in the National Security Agency leak investigation. At the same time, The Intercept admitted some fault in Reality Winners predicament.

The ongoing criminal case prevents us from going into detail, Intercept editor-in-chief Betsy Reed wrote online Tuesday, but I can state that, at several points in the editorial process, our practices fell short of the standards to which we hold ourselves for minimizing the risks of source exposure when handling anonymously provided materials.

The U.S. Justice Department has accused Winner of leaking to The Intercept a top-secret NSA report about Russias meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The Intercept published the report, which says Russian military intelligence officials tried to hack into the U.S. voting system just before last Novembers election.

Owned by First Look Media, The Intercept provided federal officials a copy of the classified information, court records show. Investigators said the pages appeared "folded and/or creased, suggesting they had been printed and hand-carried out of a secured space." They quickly identified six people who had printed the materials, including Winner, and found she had email contact with the news agency.

The government has until Aug 2. to translate 302 pages from the former government contractor's handwritten notes from Farsi into English.

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Owner of The Intercept assisting accused NSA leaker's legal defense - Atlanta Journal Constitution

Donald Trump Jr. is an odd fellow. Like his father, President Trump, Trump Jr. spends much of his time sending out emotional and somewhat confusing tweets.

Earlier today, however, Trump Jr. released emails confirming Trump campaign efforts to collude with the Russian government. We can say this with confidence because of his tweet below.

Note the email line from Rob Goldstone: "This obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump helped along by Aras and Emin."

That line has relevance for three reasons.

First, because Aras and Emin Agalarov (father and son) are well-known intermediaries (or "cutouts, the formal intelligence community term) for the Kremlin. But this email indicates they were intermediaries for the most sensitive element of Russia's 2016 election intelligence operation: communications with the Trump campaign regarding the anti-Clinton effort.

As I explained last week, Russian intelligence, and Putin in particular, thrive on using cutouts to conduct sensitive intelligence activities. In effective terms, one could replace "helped along by Aras and Emin" with "helped along by Igor and Sergey" (the heads of Russia's GRU intelligence service).

Second, Goldstone's clarification ("part of Russia and it's government's support for Mr. Trump") is offered at face value. That strongly implies Goldstone already knew that Trump Jr. knew what the Russians were doing.

Third, the meeting took place after this email exchange. That's the crunch point. It shows that Trump Jr. was willing to meet with a hostile foreign government in the pursuit of information that would damage a U.S. political opponent.

Now don't get me wrong here, I recognize that campaigns often seek out "dirt" on opponents. But the difference in this case is quite simple. It's the Russian government. Only an idiot or a traitor would seek to form an alliance with Russian intelligence and hope it ends up positively.

There's one final takeaway here: The nature of Agalarov publicist and former British journalist, Rob Goldstone. Why is he relevant? Again, for intelligence reasons.

As I've noted before, there are major differences between the U.S. intelligence relationship with the Five-Eyes intelligence alliance and, say, France. But because Goldstone has a sustaining relationship with Russian intelligence intermediaries (Agalarovs), he has almost certainly been under the attention of British intelligence services.

Based on his failure to secure his Facebook profile, I would assess that Goldstone is not a very operationally secure man. Correspondingly, it is very likely that every phone and email conversation Goldstone had was recorded by GCHQ, the British equivalent of the NSA. There is likely much more to this story than we currently know.

What does all this mean?

As former NSA officer John Schindler, put it to Washington Examiner, "we are still in the early stages" of what will eventually become public. Still, Schindler adds that this is big news for a simple reason.

We've never had a key person in any administration a core person in Trump's business empire and the current First Family admit to collusion with a hostile government in a presidential election. Considering that government and its intelligence services are known by our spy agencies to have illegally and clandestinely aided in Trump's election in 2016, the implications of this revelation are obvious and deeply troubling.

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How the intelligence community is decoding Donald Trump Jr.'s emails - Washington Examiner

Print Monday 10th July, 2017 Accra, July 10, GNA - Frederica Mensah-Davies, the Public Relation Officer of the National Sports Authority (NSA) says the NSA does not know exactly when renovation works at the Accra Sports Stadium would start. Three sections of the Accra Sports Stadium (VVIP, VIP and Media Stands) were closed down last week due to its deplorable state. Mrs Mensah-Davies told the GNA Sports that it was appropri

Accra, July 10, GNA - Frederica Mensah-Davies, the Public Relation Officer of the National Sports Authority (NSA) says the NSA does not know exactly when renovation works at the Accra Sports Stadium would start.

Three sections of the Accra Sports Stadium (VVIP, VIP and Media Stands) were closed down last week due to its deplorable state.

Mrs Mensah-Davies told the GNA Sports that it was appropriate to close down the stands to avoid any unforeseen disaster.

She said the decision to close the stands was as a result of a directive from the Ministry of Youth and Sports and that the NSA does not know exactly when the renovation works would begin.

"The VVIP, VIP and the Media Stands are in a bad state and very risky for people to sit there, so the Minister told us to close it down as soon as possible.

"We do not know when the renovations would begin but I am sure the Minister is working hard on it. They have to secure procurement and I think it would take some time.

"We have not been given any exact date but I think they would start work after this league season, Frederica Mensah-Davis said.

GNA

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Renovation works yet to start on Accra Sports Stadium NSA - Ghana News Agency

The following op-ed was co-authored by Ashkhen Kazaryan, an affiliated fellow at TechFreedom.

Early last month, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coatsreneged on a promisethat the National Security Agency would provide an estimate of just how many Americans have seen their communications collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It was the same broken promise made to Congress by his predecessor, James Clapper.

Indeed, for the past six years, the NSA has flummoxed congressional oversight with its reluctance to give lawmakers this kind of hard data. And yet, despite this pattern of obfuscation of promising transparency and then dialing back said promisesCongress is now debating a bill that would give immense power to that same agency.

The legislation, which has left many privacy advocates aghast, comes in the form ofa proposalby Sen. Tom Cotton,R-Ark., for a so-called clean reauthorization that would leave the current Section 702 intact. Of course, it isnt actually clean, in that Cottons bill would remove the sunset provision that forces the program to expireDec. 31unless Congress explicitly re-authorizes it. In other words, even as Coats now deems it infeasible that the NSA will ever tell Congress how many Americans have been surveilled under Section 702a number that likely would shock the conscienceCotton wants to ensure 702 is never up for debate again.

If the NSA will not honor promises to Congress and civil-society groups nowwhen 702, a program Coats has called thecrown jewel of the intelligence community, is up for reauthorizationhow is the public to trust the agency will honor privacy and liberty when the program becomes law in perpetuity? Make no mistake, this is not fear mongering. This is a constitutional issue where the very notion of checks and balances between the branches of government is quietly under threat.

Coatsexplainedto the Senate Intelligence Committee last month that the NSA ended about collectionthat is, the practice of collecting digital communications in which a foreign target is mentioned, but is not the sender or recipientdue to technical limitations on the agencys ability to protect wholly domestic communications. However, he didnt rule out resuming about collection if the agency discovers a technological fix. Paul Morris, deputy general counsel for operation at the NSA,toldthe Senate Judiciary Committee several weeks later they might decide to come back to it anytime. NSA representatives also havewarnedthey would oppose a permanent legislative ban on this type of collection.

A recurring theme from law-enforcement and intelligence community representatives in recent House and Senate hearings is that technological developments can drastically change how government conducts surveillance. But even as agency representatives tell us how rapidly surveillance methods change, a permanent reauthorization of current surveillance methods presumes that future revolutions in technology wont affect Americans relative privacy. Not long ago, few could have conceived of an email or that it would become a major tool of communication.

If the intelligence community decides to resume about collection, a method proven to have violated Americans rights in the past, Congresss oversight role should not be hamstrung by a permanent reauthorization. Eliminating the laws sunset provision would limit Congresss ability to revisit these questions and examine exactly how surveillance methods might change in the future. With far-reaching technological change always looming, Congress must periodically revisit the legal authority behind these intelligence tools both to ensure they remain effective at protecting the nation, and that adapting an old law to new technologies doesnt open the door to abuse.

Establishing a sunset for the program shouldnt be anathema to those who are primarily concerned with national security. To the contrary, it is the best way to ensure the program remains viable and accomplishes the purpose of keeping Americans safe. Permanent reauthorization would limit any attempts to modify surveillance. It also increases the risk of another leak and public outcry, which easily leads to a knee-jerk reaction. Intelligence agencies could shy away from reasonable and effective procedures, absent any obligation to report to congressional oversight.

A kid genius working from a basement today may change the way our systems work tomorrow, crippling the effectiveness of Section 702 or opening the door to abuse. Giving law enforcement and the intelligence communitys great power without built in opportunities to revisit that authorization would be a disservice to the security and civil rights of the American people. In the end, the most critical reform to Section 702 might already be part of thestatus quo.

Image byg0d4ather

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/technology/341230-granting-nsa-permanent-authority-for-bulk-surveillance-would-be#.WWOP7CFYzqU.twitter

The Hill

The rest is here:
Granting NSA permanent bulk surveillance authority would be a mistake - R Street

A current civil lawsuit represents a legal battle against top U.S. intelligence officials that started when Barack Obama was president. Elliott J. Schuchardt, the plaintiff, claims surveillance programs have violated his Fourth Amendment rights. (Darkside354 / Wikimedia)

Elliott J. Schuchardt is suing Donald Trump for violating Schuchardts rights under the Fourth Amendment. The Tennessee lawyer has filed a civil lawsuit in Pennsylvania against the president of the United States, the director of the Office of National Intelligence, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the director of the National Security Agency who is also chief of the Central Security Service. Schuchardt contends that the defendants are unlawfully intercepting, accessing, monitoring and/or [his] private communications.

The lawsuit represents a longstanding legal battle Schuchardt has waged against top U.S. intelligence officials that started when Barack Obama was president. William Binney, a former U.S. intelligence official and NSA whistleblower, is supporting Schuchardts most recent legal case.

The plaintiff claims that his Fourth Amendment rights have been violated by government surveillance programs. According to Ars Technica, Schuchardt argued in his June 2014 complaint that both metadata and content of his Gmail, Facebook, and Dropbox accounts were compromised under the PRISM program as revealed in the documents leaked by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden.

That case was dismissed for lack of standing, but Schuchardt has continued to file amended complaints related to U.S. intelligence activities.

Im making an allegation that no one else is making: Im contending that the government is collecting full content of e-mail, Schuchardt told Ars Technica in 2014. Im contending that theyre not doing it by PRISM but via [Executive Order] 12333. Im not saying that this is being done on a case by case basis but that theyre grabbing it all. Where is that email residing? Is it back at the Google servers? Im contending that this is on a government server. I am the only person in the U.S. who is objecting to those set of facts.

Schuchardt, whose legal works focuses on civil litigation, corporate law, personal injury, bankruptcy, divorce and child custody cases, felt compelled to challenge the highest levels of American government.

Ive been following the issue before Snowden came forward, Schuchardt said three years ago. Then I started to watch it for that first year, and then when Congress was dragging its feet, I decided I was going to file the case when nothing got done, and when nothing got done, I decided to move forward.

Last week, Binney, the NSA whistleblower, gave an affidavit in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Pennsylvania, opposing the defendants renewed motion to dismiss the second amended complaint.

2. I have reviewed the complaint in the complaint in the above-captioned civil lawsuit. It is my understanding, based on the Complaint, that the Plaintiff, Elliott Schuchardt, contends that the Defendants are unlawfully intercepting, accessing, monitoring and/or storing [his] private communications. (Complaint, &?para; 50.)

3. It is my understanding, based on the complaint, that Mr. Schuchardt is a consumer of various types of electronic communication, storage and internet-search services. These include the e-mail services provided by Google and Yahoo; the internet search service provided by Google; the cloud storage services provided by Google and Dropbox; the e-mail and instant message services provided by Facebook; and the cell phone and text communication service provided by Verizon Communications. (Complaint, &?para; 49.)

4. The allegations in the Complaint are true and correct: Defendants are intercepting, accessing, monitoring and storing the Plaintiffs private communications.

Read Binneys complete affidavit below.

Click the following links to see Exhibits 1, 3 and 6 from Binneys affidavit.

LISTEN: Robert Scheer Talks With William Binney About Blowing the Whistle on the NSA

Posted by Eric Ortiz.

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In a Lawsuit Affidavit, NSA Whistleblower William Binney Confirms US Government Spies on Citizens - Truthdig

NEW DELHI: India's external security challenges, evolving regional power play as well as threat of terrorism were today deliberated at a meeting attended by Defence Minister Arun Jaitley, NSA Ajit Doval and the three service chiefs.

The Unified Commanders' Conference, an annual forum to take stock of the country's security preparedness, is also understood to have discussed the situation in Jammu and Kashmir and issues relating to maritime domain.

In his address on the first day of the two-day congregation, Jaitley is learnt to have expressed satisfaction over the level of preparedness by the Army, Navy and the Indian Air Force to deal with any security challenge facing the country.

There was no official word on deliberations at the meeting and it was not clear whether the ongoing standoff between armies of India and China in Sikkim sector figured in it.

The meeting is also understood to have discussed the need for ensuring coordination among the three services to ensure optimal use of resources as well as in effectively dealing with challenges facing the country.

Key operational and logistical issues also figured.

Chief of the Navy Staff Admiral Sunil Lanba, Army Chief Gen. Bipin Rawat and IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal B S Dhanoa also presented their views during the conference.

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Arun Jaitley, NSA, service chiefs review security challenges - Economic Times

The man whodesignedthe NSAs electronic intelligence gathering system (Bill Binney) sent usan affidavitwhich he signed on the Fourth of July explaining that the NSA is still spying on normal, every day Americans and not focused on stopping terror attacks (Ive added links to provide some background):

The attacks on September 11, 2001 completely changed how the NSA conducted surveillance . the individual liberties preserved in the U.S. Constitution were no longer a consideration. In October 2001, the NSA began to implement a group of intelligence activities now known as the Presidents Surveillance Program.

The Presidents Surveillance Programinvolved the collection of the full content of domestic e-mail trafficwithout any of the privacy protections built into [theprogram that Binney had designed]. This was done under the authorization ofExecutive Order 12333. This meant that the nations e-mail could be read by NSA staff members without the approval of any court or judge.

***

The NSA isstill collecting thefull contentof U.S.domestice-mail, without a warrant. We know this because of the highly-detailed information contained in the documents leaked by former NSA-contractor, Edward Snowden. I have personally reviewed many of these documents.

I can authenticate these documents because they relate to programs that I created and supervised during my years at the NSA.

[U.S. government officials] have also admitted the authenticity of these documents.

***

The documents provided by Mr. Snowden are the type of data that experts in the intelligence community would typically and reasonably rely upon to form an opinion as to the conduct of the intelligence community.

[The Snowden documents prove that the NSA isstill spyingonmost Americans.]

When Mr. Snowden said that he could read the e-mail of a federal judge if he had that judges email address, he was not exaggerating.

***

The NSA is creating a program that shows the real-time location of all cell phones, tablets and computers in the world, at any time. To have a state-actor engaging in this sort of behavior, without any court supervision, is troubling.

***

In their public statements, [government officials] claim that collection of information is limited, and is being done pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). FBI Director James Comey recently described Section 702 of FISA as the crown jewel of the intelligence community.

Defendants, however, are not being candid with the Court. Collection is actually being done pursuant to Executive Order 12333(2)(3)(c), which to my knowledge has never been subject to judicial review. This order allows the intelligence community to collectincidentallyobtained information thatmay indicateinvolvement in activities thatmay violatefederal, state, local or foreign laws. Any lawyer can appreciate the scope of this broad language. [Background.]

***

According to media reports, President Obamas former National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, requested email and phone records on President Trump and various members of his political campaignduring and after the 2016 election.

According to these reports, the National Security Council (NSC) has computer logs showing when Rice requested and viewed such records. The requests were made from July 2016 through January 2017, and included President Trump and various members of his campaign staff According to an internal NSC report, the accessed information contained valuable political information on the Trump transition. Rices requests into Trump-related conversations increased following the presidential election last November. None of the requests were reviewed by any independent court.

***

We also know that certain NSA staffers have used their access to e-mail and phone calls to conduct surveillance on current and former significant others. The NSA has referred to this sort of action as LOVEINT, a phrase taken from other internal-NSA terms of art, such as SIGINT for signals intelligence.

***

Bulk collection makes it impossible for the NSA to actually do its job.

For example, consider the Pinwale program, discussed above, in which the NSA searches the collected data based on certain pre-defined keywords, known as the dictionary. The results from the dictionary search are known as the daily pull.

Eighty percent of the NSAs resources go towards review of the daily pull. The problem is that the daily pull is enormous. It is simply not possible for one analyst to review all questionable communications made by millions of people generating e-mail, text messages, web search queries, and visits to websites. Every person making a joke about a gun, bomb or a terrorist incident theoretically gets reviewed by a live person. This is not possible. When I was at the NSA, each analyst was theoretically required to review 40,000 to 50,000 questionable records each day. The analyst gets overwhelmed, and the actual known targets from the metadata analysis get ignored.

This is clear from some of the internal NSA memos released by Edward Snowden and published by the Intercept. In these memos, NSA analysts say:

NSA is gathering too much data. . . . Its making it impossible to focus.

Analysis Paralysis.

Data Is Not Intelligence. Overcome by Overload.

Bulk collection is making it difficult for the NSA to find the real threats. [Indeed.] The net effect from the current approach is that people die first. The NSA has missed repeated terrorist incidents over the last few years, despite its mass monitoring efforts. The NSAcannot identifyfuture terrorism because 99.9999% of what it collects and analyzes isforeseeably irrelevant.This is swamping the intelligence community, while creating the moral hazards and risks to the republic .

After a terrorist incident occurs, only then do analysts and law enforcement go into their vast data, and focus on the perpetrators of the crime.This is exactly the reverse of what they should be doing.If the NSA wants to predict intentions and capabilitiespriorto the crime, then it must focus onknownsubversive relationships, giving decision-makers time to react and influence events.

There is a second reason why data mining bulk collected data is a waste of time and resources: the professional terrorists know that we are looking at their e-mail and telephonic communications. As a result, they use code words that arenotin the dictionary, and will not come up in the daily pull.

***

Thus, collecting mass amounts of data and searching it to find the proverbial needle in a haystack doesnt work. It is fishing in the empty ocean, where the fish are scientifically and foreseeably not present.

Binney explains what we should do instead:

The truth is that there has always been a safe, alternate path to take.Thats a focused, professional, disciplined selection of data off the fiber lines.

***

I serve as a consultant to many foreign governments on the issues described in this affidavit. As such, I have testified before the German Parliament, the British House of Lords, and the EU Libe Committee on Civil Liberties on these issues. I also consult regularly with members of the European Union on intelligence issues.

***

it is my understanding that the European Union intends to adopt legislation requiring its intelligence community to get out of the business of bulk collection, and implement smart selection.

***

Smart selection is not enough. Governments, courts and the public need to have an absolute means of verifying what intelligence agencies are doing. This should be done within government by having a cleared technical team responsible to the whole of government and the courts with the authority and clearances to go into any intelligence agency and look directly into databases and tools in use. This would insure that government as a whole could get to the bottom line truth of what the intelligence agencies were really doing

I would also suggest that agencies be required to implement software that audits their analytic processes to insure compliance with law and to automatically detect and report any violations to the courts and others.

Indeed, Binney has patiently explained for many years thatwe know howto help prevent terrorism andcorruption is whatspreventing us from doing it.

Binney thinks we shouldget seriousabout motivating the intelligence agencies to do their job.

Originally posted here:
Whistleblower: The NSA Is Still Collecting the Full Content Of US Domestic E-Mail, Without a Warrant - Center for Research on Globalization

The Hindu

PMO, NSA tracking impact of Chinese FDI in South Asia The Hindu PMO, NSA tracking impact of Chinese FDI in South Asia. Arun S. New Delhi, July 08, 2017 23:56 IST. Updated: July 08, 2017 23:56 IST. Share Article; PRINT; AAA. The Centre has begun its first ever in-depth assessment of Chinese investments in India's ... and more »

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PMO, NSA tracking impact of Chinese FDI in South Asia - The Hindu

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow warned other media outletson Thursdaythat she believes she was provided forged National Security Agency documents alleging collusion between a Trump campaign official andRussia's efforts to influence last year's presidential election.

I feel like I need to send this up like a flare for other news organizations in particular, Maddow said on her programThursday night.

Somebody, for some reason, appears to be shopping a fairly convincing fake NSA document that purports to directly implicate somebody from the Trump campaign in working with the Russians in their attack in the election, she said.

Maddow explained that she and her producers compared the document they received with a leaked NSA document published last month by The Intercept. That document quickly resulted in the arrest of a 26-year-old federal contractor, Reality Winner.

Maddow said she thinks the document she received was created by copying elements of the document published by The Intercept.

The MSNBC host made a similar allegation back in March when she suggested Trump himself may have leaked his 2005 tax documents.

He's the only person who could leak it without concern of being sued by Trump or anyone else, she said at the time. They're trying to threaten us for publishing them which is complete bull.

David Cay Johnston, the reporter who obtained the tax documents, also said while discussing the documents on The Rachel Maddow ShowTuesdaythat Trump could have been behind the leak, as did MSNBC "Morning Joe"co-host Joe Scarborough.

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Maddow warns other media of fake NSA documents - The Hill