Saturday, 27 December 2014

USAHitman | Conspiracy News

New NSA reports show spy agency routinely collected intel on Americans

Posted: 26 Dec 2014 04:56 PM PST

Hundreds of pages of reports previously classified top-secret were released by the National Security Agency on Christmas Eve. They reveal dozens of instances of the NSA unlawfully spying on United States citizens over the last decade.
The cache of files — a collection of quarterly and annual reports sent from the NSA’s inspector general to the president’s Intelligence Oversight Board dating back to 2001— were published on Wednesday this week, pursuant to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union that has compelled the agency to provide public copies, albeit highly redacted ones, of the IG’s past findings.
A cursory glance though the documents shows NSA analysts wrongfully targeted US citizens for surveillance many times a year, and regularly collected signals intelligence, or SIGINT, on innocent Americans.
One document [PDF], a quarterly report compiled for the president’s Intelligence Oversight Board in early 2012, reveals that an NSA agent even routinely spied on her spouse for upwards of three years.
“In an interview,” the report reads in part, “…the analyst reported that, during the past two or three years, she had searched her spouse’s personal telephone directory without his knowledge to obtain names and telephone numbers for targeting.”
“Although the investigation is ongoing, the analyst has been advised to cease her activities,” the report continues.

Wednesday’s document dump was first spotted by Bloomberg News’ David Lerman, who wrote that the data suggests the NSA has violated either federal law or US policy for more than a decade.
“Because of the extensive redactions, the publicly available documents don’t make clear how many violations occurred and how many were unlawful. While the reports contain no names or details of specific cases, they show how intelligence analysts sometimes have violated policy to conduct unauthorized surveillance work,” Lerman wrote.
According to the information in the unredacted documents, human error, software flaws and ill-trained agents have all been blamed for policy breaches, in which American citizens were illegally subjected to NSA surveillance. These programs aimed to put foreigners’ internet records and phone logs in the hands of US intelligence for counterintelligence.
“NSA goes to great lengths to ensure compliance with the Constitution, laws and regulations,” the agency said in a statement accompanying Wednesday’s release. “As conveyed in the released materials, an array of technical and human-based checks attempt to identify and correct errors, some amount of which occur naturally in any large, complex system. Nevertheless, as the IOB reports make clear, NSA takes even unintentional errors seriously and institutes corrective action, typically involving at a minimum a combination of training and technical measures designed to prevent recurrences. Data incorrectly acquired is almost always deleted, referred to as the ‘purge’ process.”
The hundreds of pages published this week reveal that, in instances where the NSA admitted to wrongfully targeting US persons, data was destroyed. On some occasions, however, the issues at hand involved the dissemination of wrongfully collected material by and to persons unauthorized to access that information.
The reports show “how the NSA has misused the information it collects [sic]over the past decade,” Patrick Toomey, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project, told the Wall Street Journal, and “…show an urgent need for greater oversight by all three branches of government.”
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Volunteers without full background checks drive in Obama’s motorcade

Posted: 26 Dec 2014 04:01 PM PST

Outside the nation’s capital, it’s not highly trained Secret Service agents who drive the vehicles at the tail end of the presidential motorcade. Instead, volunteers with no training or security clearance shuttle around administration staff and the press.
Natalie Tyson, a 24-year-old San Francisco-area graduate student, drove a van in the motorcade when President Barack Obama arrived in the City by the Bay for a fundraiser this fall. She and other volunteers serve as “a link in the middle of the fastest, and highest-profile, chain of vehicles in the country,” the New York Times reported.
She got the gig after a childhood friend ‒ who is now a White House staffer ‒ texted her to see if she was interested.
“He just texted me and said, ‘Do you want to volunteer as part of this and drive in the motorcade?’ ” Tyson said. “It was kind of sudden. I didn’t even know the president was going to be in town.”
The security risk for those shuttling around low-level administration staff and reporters is far less important than their cost: “They are cheaper than the Secret Service personnel or local police officers who surround them on the road,” according to the Times.
As her only payment, Tyson took a picture with the president.
The practice of using volunteer drivers has been standard since at least the 1980s, according to the Secret Service. They “are briefed by the Secret Service agent responsible for the motorcade prior to any movements” about what to do in case of an emergency, like an attack, a spokesman for the agency said.
But in reality ‒ and despite a series of high-profile security breaches involving the Secret Service that led to the agency director resigning ‒ Tyson said she received little instruction from the agents tasked with protecting the president with their lives. What would she do if there was a high-speed emergency? She assumed that she should just follow the car in front of her no matter what happened, she told the Times’ Michael S. Schmidt in a phone interview.
Although agents are aware of ‒ and complicit in ‒ the use of uncleared, untrained chauffeurs they don’t approve. Dan Emmett, a Secret Service agent from 1983 to 2004 and the author of ‘Within Arm’s Length: A Secret Service Agent’s Definitive Inside Account of Protecting the President’, considers them a national security threat.
“You are face to face with a young person who is just completely full of themselves and enthralled,” Emmett told Schmidt, recalling the years when he was part of the motorcade’s counterassault team, which traveled in vehicles in front of the volunteers. “We were more concerned with that than an attack on the motorcade.”
The so-called secure package of vehicles that includes the president’s bulletproof and bombproof limousine, the agents traveling with him and an ambulance could easily detach from the vans and take off, Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said.
Indeed the press does get separated on occasion, as happened on Tuesday when the press pool bus lost a tire going 60 miles an hour on a Hawaii highway. It also occurred during a 2012 campaign event in San Antonio, Texas, David Nakamura explained in a Washington Post blog on Wednesday. He recounted losing sight of the president’s car in the motorcade, resulting in “a white-knuckled, police-escorted chase through the streets at upwards of 90 miles per hour.”
“Much to my chagrin, it was then that I learned the drivers of the press vans, unlike the presidential limo, are not highly trained Secret Service personnel but volunteers,” he recalled.
After Obama was elected ‒ but before he was sworn in as president ‒ volunteer drivers were used in Washington, DC, too.
In January 2009, Sophia Lear, a 23-year-old editorial assistant at The New Republic, was given the opportunity to drive a van in Obama’s motorcade, according to a February 2009 New Yorker article. She had to email her Social Security and driver’s license numbers to the Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC).
When she arrived for her assignment, she went through “something like airport security” before getting the keys to a rented Dodge minivan, in which she would chauffeur high-level staffers, including General James L. Jones and Lawrence Summers.
A Secret Service agent gave Lear some driving advice: “Don’t hit anything, and drive like you stole it.”
At one point, a staffer asked her to drive for the rest of the week. She declined, saying she had a job.
“I was, like, ‘what’s going on here? How could you possibly be so desperate for somebody to drive in the motorcade?’” Lear recounted to the New Yorker’s Lizzie Widdicombe.
On Inauguration Night, Lear told an Obama staffer of her “real-life Grand Theft Auto” experience. He seemed unimpressed, she said to Widdicombe. “He told me, ‘Yeah, they transitioned to the official Presidential motorcade today.’ As in ‘That was the last chance you’ll ever get.’”
Unless, of course, the motorcade is in San Francisco, San Antonio or any city outside Washington, DC
Source
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7 arrested for threatening to kill police – NYPD

Posted: 25 Dec 2014 04:34 PM PST

The New York Police Department says seven men have been arrested in connection with threats aimed at police following the fatal shootings of two NYPD officers last week.
The arrests came from the monitoring of online posts, erroneous claims made during 911 calls, direct threats to police, and one case in which a citizen called police after a Queens man allegedly threatened to kill cops in an overheard phone conversation, according to the NYPD and reports.
“All threats against members of the NYPD are taken seriously and are investigated immediately to determine the credibility and origin of the information,” an NYPD statement read.
The arrests come after the Dec. 20 slayings of two NYPD officers – Rafael Ramos, 40, and Wenjian Liu, 32 – by gunman Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who was reportedly angered by the ongoing police killings of black men.
Police brutality and racial profiling have been the subjects of nationwide protests after recent grand jury decisions not to indict white police officers who killed unarmed black men in Missouri and New York.
The NYPD said three of the recent arrests came from threats made on social media, including one man who posted photos of weapons on his Facebook page along with threats to kill police officers. Two arrests resulted in misdemeanor charges of false report incidents, or 911 calls claiming threats coming from a third party that were later proved false.
One arrest came from a direct threat to police made via a 911 call to the 84th Precinct – where Liu and Ramos had been stationed. A 41-year-old man asked if he could speak to Ramos and whether the bullets had been removed from the slain officer’s head so “he could kill more cops,” according to NYPD spokeswoman Sophia Mason.
The most dramatic of the seven arrests occurred on Wednesday, when a man was overheard threatening to kill cops before Christmas.
“They should have killed two white cops, instead of a Hispanic and an Asian, if the guy really wanted to send a message,” Elvin Payamps, 38, allegedly said during a phone conversation he had inside a TD Bank branch in Middle Village, Queens.
“I’m going to kill another cop,” he said, prosecutors alleged. “Another cop should be killed before Christmas. It should be a white cop.”
The conversation was overheard by Charles Otero, 54, according to the New York Daily News, who then phoned in a tip to the NYPD. Soon after, Payamps was spotted by police at a nearby mall. As he was exiting the mall, he was pulled over by police, who say they found a small bag of marijuana in the car.
With his wife’s permission, police searched Payamps’ home in Glendale, Queens. Investigators found a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol loaded with eight bullets, a 12-gauge shotgun that was missing its serial number, and two bulletproof vests – one of which was labeled Brooklyn Detention Center, according to the New York Daily News.
Payamps was charged with three counts of criminal possession of a weapon, unlawful possession of marijuana, and aggravated harassment regarding threats made over the phone, according to The New York Times.
“He was one step away from making good on his word,” prosecutor Talia Seidel said in court, according to the Daily News.
Payamps’ appointed attorney said the incident could be a case of hearsay. “When people overhear things, sometimes they don’t hear it right,” said Carol Siegel.
Payamps’ bail was set at $500,000. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio praised the arrest in a series of tweets.
“Thank you to the NYPD officers who today arrested a man who threatened to kill cops, and the good Samaritan who provided key information,” he said in one tweet.
Read More Here
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US, Japan and S.Korea to share intel on N. Korea

Posted: 25 Dec 2014 04:08 PM PST

Officials from Washington, Tokyo and Seoul will sign a trilateral intelligence-sharing pact in an effort to strengthen their surveillance network on the nuclear-armed pariah state of North Korea, Seoul officials said.
Although the United States already shares intelligence on North Korean activities separately with South Korea and Japan, the trilateral agreement marks a historic partnership for the three nations.
Due to historic tensions connected to Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945, the sharing of intelligence between Tokyo and Seoul marks a significant step forward in bilateral relations between the two Pacific powers.
In April, President Obama’s Asia tour seemed to have succeeded in reducing regional tensions over historical and territorial issues hampering Washington’s efforts at trilateral cooperation.
During his visit, the US leader gave Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe assurances that the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, which have been a matter of controversy with China, are Japanese territory. Obama thus became the first US president to have “overtly stated that the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands fall within the purview of the US-Japan security treaty,” the Diplomat reported.
Later, at a press conference with South Korean President Park Geun-hye, Obama touched upon the sensitive subject of so-called comfort women – females forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, which was “a terrible, egregious violation of human rights.”
These statements soothed historic tensions and helped seal the deal between Seoul and Tokyo.
According to the agreement, to be signed on Monday, South Korean and Japanese officials will share intelligence on Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, via Washington, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement, AP reported.
On October 9, 2006, North Korea stunned the world when it carried out its first underground nuclear test, followed by a second test almost three years later. On February 12, 2013, the closed communist country announced it had conducted its third underground nuclear test in seven years, although Japanese and South Korean investigators had failed to detect any radiation.
In light of these ongoing tests, Seoul believes North Korea has made progress in its efforts to develop and produce nuclear missiles that are capable of reaching US territory, or US military bases that are located in both South Korea and Japan.
The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War was concluded with an armistice as opposed to a formal peace treaty.
In October, troops of the rival Koreas exchanged gunfire along their heavily fortified border several times, though no causalities were reported.
Source
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Facebook must face class action lawsuit over message scanning

Posted: 25 Dec 2014 04:05 PM PST

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Facebook must face a class action lawsuit filed in California claiming the social networking site sifted through users’ private messages for targeted advertising purposes, violating both federal and state law.
Lead plaintiff Matthew Campbell and two others sued Facebook in December 2013, alleging the company scanned user messages for web links, translating them to “likes” on the user’s Facebook profile. Data lifted from the private messages was then used for targeted advertising, the plaintiffs claimed.
“Facebook’s practice of scanning the content of these messages violates the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA also referred to as the Wiretap Act), as well as California’s Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), and section 17200 of California’s Business and Professions Code,” the plaintiffs said.
On Tuesday, US District Judge Phyllis Hamilton denied Facebook’s motion to dismiss the ECPA and CIPA section 631 claims, while granting dismissal of claims pertaining to section 632 of the CIPA and section 17200 of the California Business & Professions Code, according to Tech Times.
Facebook “has not offered a sufficient explanation of how the challenged practice falls within the ordinary course of its business,” Judge Hamilton said.
The court said Facebook’s terms of service is too vague to surmise whether users ultimately consented to the company’s scan of their private messages for advertising uses.
Plaintiffs said they have a reasonable expectation of privacy within their user-to-user messaging.
Though it said it stopped the practice in question in late 2012, Facebook said in an October motion hearing, according to Courthouse News, that it has the right to analyze user messages, as it still does to some degree protect against viruses and helps filter out spam.
“The fact that Facebook can configure its code to scan message content for certain purposes, but not for others, leaves open the possibility that the challenged practice constitutes a separate ‘interception,’” Judge Hamilton wrote on Tuesday.
“Facebook moves to strike plaintiffs’ request for injunctive relief, arguing that it ceased the challenged practice ‘nearly two years ago,'” Hamilton wrote. “However, plaintiffs have adequately alleged that there is a ‘sufficient likelihood’ that Facebook could resume the practice, so the court denies Facebook’s request to strike the injunctive relief at this time.”
Neither Facebook nor attorneys for the plaintiffs responded to Reuters’ immediate request for comment.
In addition to Facebook, Yahoo! and Earthlink have faced similar lawsuits. Google’s Gmail is currently appealing accusations that it violated the Wiretap Act as it scanned Gmail messages for targeted-ad purposes.
Meanwhile, in Europe, Facebook is fighting off a class action lawsuit filed in August, which claims Facebook violated users’ privacy by cooperating with the National Security Agency’s PRISM surveillance program.
Source
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Kim Dotcom manages to ‘save Christmas for gamers’ by bribing hackers

Posted: 25 Dec 2014 04:00 PM PST

Gamers frustrated with the Christmas DDoS attack on X-box and PlayStation networks may have to thank fugitive filesharing mogul Kim Dotcom for the service being back online. At least, that’s what their Twitter exchange implies.
Dotcom, the founder of the Megaupload filesharing service, who is wanted by the US for trial over copyright infringement related crimes, is an affluent videogamer often calling on others to join him for a session of the multiplayer shooter game, Destiny.
But on Friday, he along with millions of others couldn’t play – due to access problems with gaming networks operated by Sony and Microsoft for their consoles.
The frustrating glitch is apparently the work of a hacker team called the Lizard Squad, who claimed responsibility for launching a distributed denial of service attack on the tech firms. The online assault was timed for Christmas and prevented many gamers from trying new games received as gifts.
The team’s Twitter accounts have been altering between taunting angered gamers, demanding a ‘ransom’ of 100,000 retweets for bringing the service back online, and bragging about the amount of grief they have caused.
But apparently, unlike other gamers, Dotcom found he had something to offer – 3,000 lifetime premium vouchers of his relaunched Mega service. Lizard Squad accepted the offer and the attack was stopped.
However, although Microsoft XBL is back up and running, PlayStation is still down for many, as the disruption has dragged on into a second day.
Dotcom didn’t miss the chance to criticize the US government, saying his deal shows diplomacy works, suggesting Washington should try it out sometime.
The terms of the deal made public by Dotcom require Lizard Squad to leave Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network alone for good. Otherwise their vouchers will be canceled.
Read More Here
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