The NSA & our country's culture of secrecy has permeated every govt agency
NSA claims their systems are too complex to stop deleting evidence!
The NSA's B/S excuse for why it can’t stop deleting data evidence that could be used against it, despite receiving multiple court orders to stop – they claim they don’t know how.
Technology focused privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation, which currently has a case pending against NSA alleging the agency illegally intercepted client data, discovered through a Justice Department email slip-up last week that the agency was deleting evidence it had already been ordered to keep by multiple courts.
After failing to comply with an order to retain data collected under both executive authority and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authority, DOJ claimed in March it misunderstood the order to read it only had to keep data acquired under the former. Pointing to documents proving otherwise, a FISA Court judge accused the department of attempting to mislead the court, and again ordered the retention of data in both circumstances.
Upon learning the destruction of such data was still going on, EFF immediately filed a restraining order against NSA and DOJ, which California U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White issued against the government the same day along with a demand for an immediate explanation from the government for violating the March order.
The NSA responded with a request for the court to immediately overturn its order, and that failing to do so would force the agency to shut down a significant portion of their spying apparatus.
“A requirement to preserve all data acquired under section 702 presents significant operational problems, only one of which is that the NSA may have to shut down all systems and databases that contain Section 702 information,” NSA Deputy Director Richard Ledgett wrote in the agency’s response, along with its intention to file a follow-up explanation.
According to Ledgett, NSA systems are too complex for such a request, and following through with the court’s order would have ”an immediate, specific, and harmful impact on the national security of the United States.”
“Communications acquired pursuant to Section 702 reside within multiple databases contained on multiple systems and the precise manner in which NSA stays consistent with its legal obligations under the [FISA Amendments Act] has resulted from years of detailed interaction” with the FISA Court and the Department of Justice.
http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/10/nsa-our-systems-are-too-complex-to-stop-deleting-evidence/
Our country's culture of secrecy has permeated everything:
A culture of secrecy that originated in global geopolitical Cold War espionage is now spreading to local law enforcement, threatening the transparency that our criminal justice system requires.
Here are a few recent examples:
The U.S. Marshals Service swept in and seized public records from a Florida police department in order to prevent them from being turned over as required by law in response to a request under the state's open-records law.
Tallahassee police used the controversial Stingray cellphone surveillance device hundreds of times without ever informing a judge.
Police in City of Sunrise, Florida, served with a lawfully binding ACLU public records request, responded in March by refusing to confirm or deny the existence of any records relevant to our request. This so-called "Glomar" response, which has been approved by the courts in some circumstances when used by the CIA (though greatly abused by that agency), has no basis whatsoever in law when invoked by a local law enforcement agency.
The government routinely asks judges to indefinitely seal requests for electronic surveillance in connection with ordinary criminal investigations, as the Wall Street Journal recently reported. The surveillance orders remain sealed long after investigations have ended, hiding the government's surveillance practices from the public at a time of rapid technology change when the public needs to know more than ever how its government is using new technologies. The Journal reviewed more then 2,000 court filings and found that more than 90% of the surveillance applications were sealed.
Around the nation, while lobbying in state legislatures for new privacy protections on issues such as drones, license plate readers, electronic communications, and location tracking, we have found that law enforcement's top lobbying priority around such bills has been to fight transparency requirements.
And of course as Reuters revealed in August, the Drug Enforcement Administration has been using NSA intercepts to launch criminal investigations of Americans, while hiding the source of its information not only from the public but also from defense lawyers, prosecutors and judges. In doing so, it has imported the secrecy of our spy agencies deep into the heart of our domestic criminal justice system.
At the federal level, the corruption that secrecy brings is growing not just within the executive branch, but is spreading to the legislative and judicial branches as well.
To begin with, we are increasingly becoming a society of secret laws, which corrupts not only the democratic legislative process but also the open judiciary that is so crucial in a democratic society. Examples include the secret FISA Court extending its reach into interpretive constitutional rulings, and the Justice Department refusing to reveal how it is interpreting and carrying out numerous laws, including those involving Patriot Act surveillance, the war powers used to order drone strikes against American citizens, and GPS and other location-tracking technology.
The secrecy system has also served to hamstring oversight by Congress. Not only does it mean that many executive branch activities are hidden from most lawmakers, but even when a lawmaker is "read in" to a secret program, that disclosure serves more to handcuff and neuter the lawmaker than it does to empower them to fight questionable activities. Former House Intelligence Committee ranking member Jane Harman described in 2008 how congressional "notification" works:
As far as notes go, you—I suppose one could take some notes but they would have to be carried around in a classified bag, which I don’t personally own. You can’t talk to anybody about what you’ve learned, so there’s no ability to use committee staff, for example, to do research on some of the issues that are raised in these briefings. And the whole environment is not conducive to the kind of collaborative give and take that would make for much more successful oversight.
The House and Senate intelligence committees, which are supposed to carry out oversight over the most secretive executive branch agencies such as the NSA and the CIA, have actually exhibited the same secretive behavior as those agencies rather than serving as a conduit for information to the rest of Congress. They have refused to share information with their colleagues despite repeated requests from lawmakers outside the committees.
Courts simply are not set up for, and do not have the administrative capacity to independently oversee, what is happening in the outside world. They are not administrative agencies like the EPA or USDA, which have inspectors out in the world able to verify first-hand what is taking place on the ground. Our courts are centuries-old institutions that evolved in an environment of mutually reinforcing openness, honesty, and adversarial process, and they depend upon such an environment to function properly and come anywhere close to ascertaining the truth about what’s going on beyond the four walls of the courthouse.
The relatively recent growth of a gigantic national security juggernaut that because of secrecy is neither open, nor honest, nor subject to an adversarial process is distorting and disrupting the courts and their functions—up to and including, it is now clear, our highest court.
The New York Times reported last month on dissatisfaction among some Senators over the Justice Department's squirrelly response to revelations that the government had misinformed the Supreme Court during arguments in the ACLU's case Clapper v. Amnesty. During arguments in this case, the government told the Supreme Court two key things:
That a suspect would be notified when charged with a crime based on the use of surveillance authorized under the FISA Amendments Act (the constitutionality of which we were challenging).
That the NSA could only listen to Americans' conversations without a warrant when it was targeting a foreigner who happened to communicate with an American.
Both of these assertions were cited by the majority in its 5-4 ruling. Neither assertion turned out to be true.
On the first untruth, the DOJ has tried to defend its behavior, but, once this lie became public, began notifying defendants of the NSA’s role in their case—surely an admission of sorts.
But on the second falsehood, the Justice Department argues that it was justified in deceiving the Supreme Court because that information was classified at the time. Apparently we have reached a situation in which the executive branch feels justified in lying to the Supreme Court, which is charged with interpreting the ultimate governing document of our society, our Constitution, simply because that executive branch decided to stamp certain information as "classified."
When one party to a dispute before a court, including the Supreme Court, can make assertions that the other party cannot dispute because of “state secrecy,” then distortions, inaccuracies, and outright lies inevitably follow and should surprise no one.
Secrecy powers are inherently dangerous in a democracy, and need to be very tightly confined to those specific circumstances where the national interest genuinely requires that they be granted. Unfortunately, in the absence of strong checks and balances, government secrecy is metastasizing throughout our democracy. Drastic reform is needed to fix this situation. Nothing else will do.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty/secrecy-cancer-our-democracy
Spying on people in their homes is being justified as ‘good for the economy’
Forbes Magazine published an article entitled, Smart Meters: Between Economic Benefits And Privacy Concerns. This is an example of a new type of propaganda we’re increasingly seeing, which could be called a “limited hangout” (ie. partial truth-disclosing) industry puff-piece.
The column admits to concerns regarding the eradication of your in-home privacy, but ignores basic facts (such as, economic benefits to whom exactly?), and comes wrapped in a mind-numbing tone attempting to leave the reader with the false idea that there is nothing they can do. The use of this tactic isn’t surprising, with the magazine’s status as voice for mainstream corporate business. Their inherent conflicts of interest make it unlikely that it would present anything other than the perspective that corporates deserve more money and more control. Our utility service contracts have been altered — without our knowledge nor approval — to one that harms our rights, we can remove our consent to a “smart” or “advanced” meter deployment in our home. Utilities take advantage of loopholes purposefully written into civil codes (see Sec 1624(3)(B)), which are designed to legally bind you to a contract (or a change of terms) if you are given notice and say nothing.
“A voluntary acceptance of the benefit of a transaction is equivalent to a consent to all the obligations arising from it, so far as the facts are known, or ought to be known, to the person accepting.”
-California Civil Code, Sec 1589
Interestingly, the “limited hangout” disclosure-propaganda such as the Forbes article uses virtually the same practice as utilities themselves: give people notice of what’s being done, and achieve an “implied consent” legal agreement by means of non-action.
Here's a template on how to remove your consent:
Templates such as this NY lawyer’s Notice of Non-Consent and Demand, with Affidavit of Negative Averment, and others, are being used by tens of thousands to demand one’s rights and assert the financial and criminal liability of the those who are perpetrating the harm.
As numbers continue to increase toward critical mass — great numbers of us who are awakening, moving through fear, and redefining our relationship to authority — I believe the use of this type of administrative process has the capability to completely halt this and all corrupt corporate agendas.
The tone of resignation, apathy and fear of reprisal is always at the crux of the deliberate disinformation agenda. The establishment of greed and control is scared to death of the rising tide of human beings who are waking up, demanding their unalienable rights (which only exist if they are asserted), and holding white-collar criminals liable.
Those who sow seeds of fear and harm will reap their own fearful destruction. In order for this to happen and life itself to be preserved, those causing the harm need our conscious participation and willingness to serve as “mirror,” as we wakefully defend our basic rights and co-create a positive transformation around the world.
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/06/06/in-home-spying-is-good-for-the-economy/
Widespread U.S. police surveillance is happening in total secrecy:
Thousands of government requests for electronic surveillance in connection with alleged criminal investigations remain under seal long after the investigations have ended, Jennifer Valentino-Devries of The Wall Street Journal reports.
The practice is unlike nearly all other aspects of American judicial proceedings, where courts have held that search warrants eventually should be made public.
The thing is that getting permission for electronic surveillance techniques — including tracking metadata and gathering all cellphones connected to a cell tower — is easier than getting a search or wiretap warrant.
The Obama administration has argued in court that cellphone customers "have no privacy interest" in their location data.
Further, most of the cases in question do not involve national-security matters — which led the National Security Agency to gather phone data on millions of Americans — but use many of the same surveillance methods.
Several judges and former prosecutors told the Journal that the ubiquitous confidentiality "makes it difficult for the public and lawmakers to monitor whether the U.S. is abiding" by the federal law enabling the electronic surveillance.
"Congress can't regulate what it can't see," Stephen Smith, a Houston magistrate judge who has written extensively on electronic surveillance, told the Journal. "In fact, it's difficult for me to find out what's going on in another district if the case is sealed."
The government contends that unsealing the records can reveal informants, cooperators, and the technical tools used in investigations, even after they are dropped or the suspect is apprehended.
Police have begun using 'NeoFace' facial recognition technology to identify YOU!
The first man to be arrested in Chicago based on facial recognition analysis was sentenced last week to 22 years in prison for armed robbery. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the Chicago Police Department acquired the technology via a $5.4 million DHS grant.
In February 2013, Pierre Martin robbed a man at gunpoint while on a Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) train. After taking the man’s phone, Martin jumped off the train. However, his image was captured by CTA surveillance cameras and was then compared to the Chicago Police Department’s database of 4.5 million criminal booking images. Martin, who already had priors, had a mugshot in the database. He was later positively identified by witnesses.
What you're not being told is your biometric image has been cataloged by the NSA, FBI and DHS's own "Facial Recognition Data Collection Project" which police have unlimited access to.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/first-chicago-robber-caught-via-facial-recognition-gets-22-years/
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-police-surveillance-happening-in-secret-2014-6
