The NSA's Bumblehive the mother of all data collection centers should concern every American
Article first appeared in kennysideshow.blogspot.com:
Bumblehive is the alleged code name for the NSA's new multi-billion dollar spy center in Utah although the official name appears to be Stellar Wind. . It is the mother of all data collection.
Bumblehive most likely is a spin off from this word. Who says the feds don't have a sense of humor?
Today is the reported day of some kind of ribbon cutting ceremony. Since there's little info to be found on the ceremony, it must be assumed it's a secret one and not many will get close enough to spy on the spies.
I've been trying to put myself in the shoes of the NSA to figure out what's going on. If I had to hire contractors to do the most sensitive, most secretive jobs in the inner workings of the facility, who would I get? Well, that's a no brainer. Of course it would be some shady companies with ties to Israel with a history of corruption and staffed with mostly unstable individuals. Backdoor men hanging the backdoor that leads straight to Tel Aviv. Why should we expect otherwise?
Here's a laugher. Rand Paul is in Silicon Valley, meeting with Facebook, Google and eBay to talk about privacy, tech and civil liberties — as well as to hold swank fundraisers. Rand says "Ultimately, the people going after privacy are the government, and if people mistake Google for government, then we’re in for a big problem" as he lobbies support for his privacy legislation which likely will never pass and if it does will never be enforced. So I guess we have a big problem because many of us see Google and Facebook as in bed with the NSA and always have been. I'm waiting for facts to the contrary.
The following comes from the Domestic Surveillance Directorate which says it is a parody of nsa.gov but I'm not so sure. It may be as simple as this...Before you destroy your enemy, you must tell him what you are going to do to him.
The National Security Agency is responsible for carrying out three of the country's most important intelligence activities - Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), Information Assurance (IA), and Domestic Surveillance (DS). SIGINT involves intercepting, decrypting, and analyzing foreign adversaries' communications. IA involves the protection of America's U.S. government information systems. DS involves the collection and warehousing of all domestically-generated information streams.
The mission of the Domestic Surveillance Directorate is simple: Collect, process, and store U.S. citizen data for the good of the Nation. We cope with the overload of information in our environment and turn that overload to our strategic advantage. We provide the ability for ubiquitous, secure collaboration both within our agency and through its interactions with various partners. We penetrate into the "hard" targets that threaten our nation wherever, whenever, or whomever they may be.
We're building a new data center to process the growing volume of information more quickly. Working closely with our partners, we are finding new ways to detect, report, and respond to all domestic threats. As the information age transforms the nation, we will also transform to keep our nation secure. We are the Domestic Surveillance Directorate. We work through you. For you. For our Nation.
Under the authority of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 6, which defines the integration and use of screening information to protect against terrorism, the NSA is authorized to collect and disseminate information about suspected foreign and domestic terrorists. In the past, this meant gathering information AFTER a target had been identified. This often led to missed intelligence and lost opportunities.
But what if we could collect the information in advance, before the target was known? What if the mere act of collecting information could result in the identification of new targets? What if we could build a national data warehouse containing all available information about every person in the United States? Under the authority of the classified Homeland Security Directive 15 (U.S. Strategy and Policy in the War on Terror), we can.
Every day, people leave a digital trail of electronic breadcrumbs as they go about their daily routine. They go to work using electronic fare cards; drive through intersections with traffic cameras; walk down the street past security cameras; surf the internet; pay for purchases with credit/debit cards; text or call their friends; and on and on.
There is no way to predict in advance which crucial piece of data will be the key to revealing a potential plot. The standard operating procedure for the Domestic Surveillance Directorate is to "collect all available information from all available sources all the time, every time, always".
For security reasons, it is unrealistic to expect a complete list of information we collect for our national citizen database. In the spirit of openness and transparency however, here is a partial list:
internet searches
websites visited
emails sent and received
social media activity (Facebook, Twitter, etc)
blogging activity including posts read, written, and commented on - View our patent
videos watched and/or uploaded online
photos viewed and/or uploaded online
music downloads
mobile phone GPS-location data
mobile phone apps downloaded
phone call records - View our patent
text messages sent and received
online purchases and auction transactions
bookstore receipts
credit card/ debit card transactions
bank statements
cable television shows watched and recorded
commuter toll records
parking receipts
electronic bus and subway passes / Smartpasses
travel itineraries
border crossings
surveillance cameras
medical information including diagnoses and treatments
prescription drug purchases
guns and ammunition sales
educational records
arrest records
driver license information