Spying and Surveillance
For years, many have suspected that government trolls have been systematically causing havoc all over the Internet, but proving it has been difficult. But now thanks to documents leaked by Edward Snowden and revealed by Glenn Greenwald, we finally have hard evidence that western governments have been doing this.
Greenwald: How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations
A new report based on leaks by Edward Snowden reveals new details of how Western spy agencies manipulate information online. Writing at TheIntercept.org, Glenn Greenwald describes the tactics of a secret unit inside Britain’s top spy agency called JTRIG, or Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group. JTRIG’s self-identified goals are to discredit targets by posting fake material — including, for example, fake blog posts purporting to be by a target’s victim — and to manipulate online discourse. A newly revealed document titled, “Disruption: Operational Playbook,” lists tactics like “false flag operation,” or posting material online, then falsely attributing it to someone else. The targets appear to include those suspected of “hacktivism,” meaning online acts of political protest. “The broader point,” Greenwald writes, “is that … these surveillance agencies have vested themselves with the power to deliberately ruin people’s reputations and disrupt their online political activity even though they’ve been charged with no crimes, and even though their actions have no conceivable connection to terrorism or even national security threats.”
The FCC has a plan in the works to place agents in U.S. newsrooms, supposedly to learn all about how editorial decisions are made. As if illegal seizures of Associated Press phone records and the shadowy tailing of the mother of a Fox News reporter weren’t menacing enough, the Obama administration is going out of its way to institute a new intrusive surveillance of the press, as if the press wasn’t supine enough.
With the quickening pace of technological advancement it is no surprise to see “ideas” become reality quicker than ever before. Philip K. Dick explored the concept of pre-crime in his short story “The Minority Report” in 1956. We are now at the point where “Minority Report” is being used as a sound description of current technological applications, even in mainstream news, which means that the future is actually the present. Below you will find 10 signs that we have now entered the world depicted in fiction.
On January 29, RT published a photo of 5 presidential appointees lying through their teeth to Congress. All five of these Gestapo wannabes are in violation of their oath of office to protect the Constitution of the United States. They have relentlessly violated the Constitution, which makes these five, who are in charge of US intelligence and black operations, traitors to the United States. Yet, they have not been arrested and put on trial. Congress is content to sit there and listen to their ongoing lies time after time after time, despite the fact that these 5 have committed more and worse crimes against our country than the “terrorists” that serve as an excuse for the crimes committed by the intelligence agencies.
Today, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) finally did what he had been threatening to do for months: He officially filed a class-action lawsuit against the Obama administration, the National Security Agency and a host of other security officials regarding a US surveillance program that collects information on millions of American citizens.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has publicly acknowledged the supposedly covert CIA drone program. The CIA has denied a Freedom of Information Act request made by the ACLU about details of its targeting killing program. But Clapper indirectly acknowledged the CIA program at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday
The National Security Agency is using complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes – an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people.
In a House Intelligence Committee hearing looking into worldwide threats to U.S. national security on Tuesday, Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) suggested that journalists brokering leaked documents from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden are breaking the law. Later, Rogers called investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald, one of the reporters who first broke the NSA leak story, a thief for stealing government information. Greenwald responded on Twitter, saying, “Maybe there’s something that has become pretty sick about DC political culture if the idea of prosecuting journalists is now this mainstream.” RT’s Liz Wahl talks to WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson to see if journalists reporting on leaked documents are accomplices to treason, as some US government officials have suggested, or merely participating in their First Amendment rights to freedom of the press.
On Monday, an Arizona state senate committee became the first legislative body in the country to pass a bill designed to thwart surveillance programs from the National Security Agency (NSA). Senate Bill 1156 (SB1156), the Arizona 4th Amendment Protection Act, was introduced by Sen. Kelli Ward and 14 other sponsors and co-sponsors.
In one of the latest revelations based on the leaks of Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency spied on foreign governments before and during the 2009 U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen. An internal NSA document says its analysts and foreign partners briefed U.S. negotiators on other countries’ “preparations and goals,” saying, “signals intelligence will undoubtedly play a significant role in keeping our negotiators as well informed as possible throughout the two-week event.” We speak to Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth.
Snowden Leak: Canada Spied on Airport Travelers Who Used Wi-Fi For Days After They Left the Terminal
The Canadian version of the National Security Agency used information from airport Internet hotspots to track the wireless devices of thousands of airline passengers for days after they left the airport, according to the latest leaks by former government contractor Edward Snowden.
The British government gave the U.S. lessons in how to spy on users of popular websites, including YouTube and Facebook, in real-time and without the consent of users or cyber companies. This is according to a report released Monday afternoon by a team of NBC journalists, including Glenn Greenwald who is listed as a special contributor, based on NSA documents exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden held an online question-and-answer session on Thursday. Many people asked Snowden about his response to President Barack Obama’s speech that outlined his proposals to reform the NSA.
On February 11, the world will demand an end to mass surveillance in every country, by every state, regardless of boundaries or politics. The SOPA and ACTA protests were successful because we all took part, as a community. As Aaron Swartz put it, everybody “made themselves the hero of their own story.” We can set a date, but we need everyone, all the users of the Global Internet, to make this a movement.
