Showing posts with label NSA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NSA. Show all posts

September 29, 2013

NSA Monitoring US Citizens' Social Media Information

All of that personal information you have been posting on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. was not just interesting to your friends, family, and business associates. The National Security Agency finds that personal information interesting as well.

The NSA has been tracking and storing your personal and business relationships, travel history, GPS locations, and probably everything else you have been posting on your social media accounts. If your friends know every detail of your life, so does the NSA. So, if that weird friend you have from high school has been loosely associated with some sort of a criminal or terrorist organization, you are probably in some database right now as a possible associate. Do you know every single thing all of your social media contacts are doing? The NSA does.

Read all about it in the New York Times article by James Risen and Laura Poitras.

"NSA Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens"

August 9, 2013

Edward Snowden Is a National Hero

Barack Obama and many of the other big government statists are demonizing Edward Snowden and trying to convince the American people Snowden is a spy and/or a traitor. They are saying Edward Snowden is an enemy of America, because he put people's lives in danger by compromising secret illegal National Security Agency spying programs.

All Snowden did was tell the people of America the federal government was spying on the emails, phone calls, Internet activity, etc. of nearly every innocent person in America. How did this exposure place any lives in jeopardy? All this did was make people aware of what their government is doing to them and embarrass all of the control freaks in the federal government who ordered or support this wildly illegal domestic spying.

Here is the deal on Edward Snowden. We do not know much about him as a man and what his motives may have been. What we do know is that Snowden was aware of massive and egregious violations of civil rights that affect nearly every person in the country, and he put his whole life and career on the line to expose the truth. For that sacrifice and service alone, Edward Snowden is a national hero.

The biggest threat to the average American citizen is not China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, or even terrorism. Those are all real threats and things to worry about, but nothing threatens the daily lives, freedom, property, and physical safety of typical Americans more than out-of-control government.

Edward Snowden is a patriot who deserves to come back to America, be fully covered under whistleblower protection laws, and serve as an expert witness in a Congressional investigation into NSA abuses. The Stalinists who ordered these domestic spying operations should go to jail. Those leaders who knew about the spying and did nothing to stop it need to be thrown out of office. Most importantly, the President should be impeached for obscenely aggressive violations of the Fourth Amendment.

The United States government is spying on you. They even know you read this article. The only reason you know that they know is because Edward Snowden gave up everything for the benefit of his fellow Americans. Edward Snowden may have humiliated a lot of very powerful people, but those people brought it on themselves by trampling on the rights of Americans. Thanks to Snowden we know the truth now.

August 5, 2013

Agencies Falsify Investigation Histories to Mask Unconstitutional Involvement in Prosecutions

All of this spying the federal government does sometimes leads to criminal investigations for things like drug violations. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and National Security Agency (NSA) are all spying on Americans, and these agencies share information. The domestic spying is bad enough, but there is something even more sinister going on. Investigators sometimes alter records of investigations to conceal how and why the investigations began. An investigating agency such as the DEA can recreate and investigation to account for evidence that may have been obtained unconstitutionally.

To learn more about how agencies like the DEA recreate investigations to conceal the actual histories of the investigations, read, the Reuters article about the Special Operation Division (SOD), "U.S. Directs Agents to Cover up Program Used to Investigate Americans," by John Shiffman and Kristina Cooke.

July 31, 2013

NSA's XKeyscore Tracks Everything You Do Online

The XKeyscore program allows the NSA to run queries of virtually almost anything you do online. Facebook chats, IP addresses, email addresses, browsing histories, etc. are all fair game. If you do it online, the NSA can run queries on a database of your activity and anyone else in America (and probably many other countries in the world). All they need is one little piece of information like an email address, IP address, etc. The NSA can even see you that you read this article.

If you want to learn more, read Glenn Greenwald's article, "XKeyscore: NSA Tool Collects 'Nearly Everything a User Does on the Internet'," on The Guardian.

July 24, 2013

Amash Amendment to Limit NSA's Domestic Spying Voted Down in Congress

The House of Representatives voted on the Amash Amendment to H.R.2397 on July 24, 2013. This was a measure from Justin Amash of Michigan to reign in the NSA by preventing taxpayer dollars from being used to support warrantless surveillance of innocent Americans. As exposed by Edward Snowden, the NSA is currently collecting phone records, emails, and Internet activity of nearly every innocent person in the United States, and this is all going on without warrants. The NSA's program of spying on nearly everyone in America is clearly a violation of the Fourth Amendment, but the majority of Congressmen in the House of Representatives have chosen the NSA over the Bill of Rights.

Here is a list of the Republican and Democrat Representatives who voted against your Fourth Amendment Rights by voting down the Amash Amendment today.  (Democrats in italics.)

Aderholt
Alexander
Andrews
Bachmann
Barber
Barr
Barrow (GA)
Benishek
Bera (CA)
Bilirakis
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Boehner
Bonner
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Brooks (AL)
Brooks (IN)
Brown (FL)
Brownley (CA)
Bucshon
Butterfield
Calvert
Camp
Cantor
Capito
Carney
Carter
Castor (FL)
Castro (TX)
Cole
Collins (GA)
Collins (NY)
Conaway
Cook
Cooper
Costa
Cotton
Crawford
Crenshaw
Cuellar
Culberson
Davis (CA)
Delaney
Denham
Dent
Diaz-Balart
Duckworth
Ellmers
Engel
Enyart
Esty
Flores
Forbes
Fortenberry
Foster
Foxx
Frankel (FL)
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallego
Garcia
Gerlach
Gibbs
Gingrey (GA)
Goodlatte
Granger
Graves (MO)
Green, Al
Grimm
Guthrie
GutiƩrrez
Hanabusa
Hanna
Harper
Hartzler
Hastings (WA)
Heck (NV)
Heck (WA)
Hensarling
Higgins
Himes
Hinojosa
Holding
Hoyer
Hudson
Hunter
Hurt
Israel
Issa
Jackson Lee
Johnson (GA)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnson, Sam
Joyce
Kaptur
Kelly (IL)
Kelly (PA)
Kennedy
Kilmer
Kind
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kinzinger (IL)
Kirkpatrick
Kline
Kuster
Lance
Langevin
Lankford
Larsen (WA)
Latham
Latta
Levin
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Long
Lowey
Lucas
Luetkemeyer
Maloney, Sean
Marino
Matheson
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul
McIntyre
McKeon
McKinley
McNerney
Meehan
Meeks
Meng
Messer
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Murphy (FL)
Murphy (PA)
Neugebauer
Noem
Nunes
Nunnelee
Olson
Palazzo
Paulsen
Payne
Pelosi
Peters (CA)
Peters (MI)
Peterson
Pittenger
Pitts
Pompeo
Price (NC)
Quigley
Reed
Reichert
Renacci
Rigell
Roby
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rooney
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Royce
Ruiz
Runyan
Ruppersberger
Ryan (OH)
Ryan (WI)
Schakowsky
Schneider
Schwartz
Scott, Austin
Scott, David
Sessions
Sewell (AL)
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Sinema
Sires
Slaughter
Smith (NE)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Stivers
Stutzman
Terry
Thompson (CA)
Thornberry
Tiberi
Titus
Turner
Upton
Valadao
Van Hollen
Vargas
Veasey
Visclosky
Wagner
Walberg
Walden
Walorski
Wasserman Schultz
Webster (FL)
Wenstrup
Westmoreland
Whitfield
Wilson (FL)
Wittman
Wolf
Womack
Woodall
Young (FL)
Young (IN)

October 9, 2008

NSA Listens in on Phone Sex of Troops and Other Americans

The NSA has long been conducting warrantless eavesdropping on innocent American citizens, but things have taken another uncomfortable turn. According to ABC News, NSA whistleblowers are saying NSA employees are using recordings of intercepted phone calls as entertainment.

When travelers, journalists, contract workers, US troops, etc. call their families and friends in America from overseas, the NSA may listen in on the phone call. Sometimes the phone calls are about everyday matters like paying the mortgage and family illnesses, but sometimes the calls are of an intimate nature. Sometimes, couples who have been separated for months miss each other and engage in steamy intimate phone play. Apparently, these calls can get quite entertaining, because NSA employees are allegedly passing recording of these calls around like virtual trading cards.

Imagine if you were overseas and called home to engage in an intimate conversation with your spouse. How would you feel to see a group of NSA employees sitting around laughing about your intimate moments?

This is yet another offense in a long line of government intrusions into the private lives of honest Americans. This abuse of privacy also reveals that the work of the NSA must not be as critical as we are told. If the NSA is diligently monitoring the communications of terrorists, how do they have the time to sit around listening to Americans having phone sex? Every minute those voyeuristic perverts at the NSA spend listening to meaningless ear candy is another minute they cannot be spending listening to terrorists.

August 26, 2008

The Tale of the Homeless Man, the Little Girl, and the Political Parties

A little girl was walking home from school one day. She passed a homeless man who was sitting on the sidewalk. He looked gaunt, so the girl asked, “Mister, you look hungry. Are you okay?”

The homeless man responded, “I am very hungry. Would you mind walking down to that fruit stand and getting some food for me?”

The little girl replied, “I would, but I don’t have any money.”

The homeless guy replied, “Don’t worry about that. Just go take the food. The owner is rich. He shouldn’t mind if you take a little to feed someone in need.”

The girl walked down to the fruit stand, swiped some apples, slipped them into her Hello Kitty backpack, and brought them to the homeless guy. The man munched on the apples and thanked her.

The little girl said, “This worked well. You were hungry, the rich owner of the fruit stand had plenty of food, I got some for you, and it didn’t cost us anything.”

The homeless guy swallowed and replied, “Welcome to the Green Party.”

The little Green Party girl came home and told her mother what had happened. The mother was bothered that her daughter was stealing food for homeless people, so she suggested her daughter come up with better ideas.

The next day, the little girl excitedly told her mother, “I have a great idea. I will go to everyone in the neighborhood and collect money from each house. I can then use the money to buy food for the homeless man.”

The mother replied, “Welcome to the Reform Party.”

The little Reform Party girl went door-to-door attempting to collect money for the homeless man, but very few people wanted to donate. One of her neighbors could see the girl was discouraged, so he suggested, “Don’t be upset. Not everybody has extra money to give.”

A smile came over the girl’s face, and she exclaimed, “I know. I will just go to the big houses to ask for money! The people in the big houses have lots of extra money to buy food for the homeless man.”

The neighbor grinned and replied, “Welcome to the Democratic Party.”

The little girl tried to collect money from the people in the big houses, but many of them were not home because they were out working. In frustration, the little girl gave up and walked down the street to her father’s hardware store.

When she walked into the store, her father noticed she was sad. He asked, “What’s wrong?”

She replied, “Daddy, I have been trying to collect money to buy food for a homeless man, but most of the people are out working or not willing to give me money. Maybe I should tell the homeless guy to start working. Then he would have enough money to buy his own food.”

The little girl’s father replied, “Welcome to the Republican Party.”

Later, the father drove his little Republican daughter home. She was surprised to see a black Suburban and six agents from the National Security Agency in her front yard. The burly lead agent yanked the little girl from her car and informed the child that the "homeless" man she was helping was a suspected threat to national security.

The frightened little girl was then questioned for an hour about her plans to finance the suspect's activities through an unauthorized fundraising/money-laundering scheme. The agent added that the little girl had been under 24-hour surveillance and a continuous wiretap since her initial contact with the suspicious homeless man.

The little girl asked the imposing agent if he had a warrant for all of these intrusions on her Fourth Amendment rights. The agent chuckled, confiscated her Hello Kitty backpack, and marched back to his black Suburban. The other five agents simultaneously scattered and disappeared into the hedges, trees, and flowerbeds around the girl's house.

As the NSA agent pulled away in his black Suburban, the terrified little girl asked, "Daddy, if the Federal government wants to intimidate me and invade my privacy, shouldn't they have to get a warrant first?"

Just then, the girl’s older brother pulled up on his bicycle and said, "Welcome to the Libertarian Party."

May 11, 2006

NSA Is Tracking Domestic Phone Calls

Leslie Cauley of USA Today is reporting that the National Security Agency is collecting the domestic and international phone call records of most Americans. AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth are voluntary participants in the program and are federally compensated for surrendering the call records of ordinary Americans, even if those not suspected of any crime. At this point, Qwest is refusing to turn over call records to the NSA without a court order.

The NSA claims to want the information to build a database that will allow them to perform highly detailed analyses of America’s calling habits. The NSA contends that the measure is to increase national security.

Unless you are a Qwest customer, the NSA probably knows the time and date of every phone call you have made from your home, cell phone, office, etc. for the last few years. They also know the number you called and the number you called from. With that information, a simple query of public records can reveal your name and address as well as the name and address of the person you called.

You can read the entire article here.