NSA whistle blowers warn that the US government can use surveillance to 'see into your life'

NSA whistle blowers warn that the US government can use surveillance to 'see into your life'

current.com

National Security Agency whistle blowers Thomas Drake, former senior official; Kirk Wiebe, former senior analyst; and William Binney, former technical director, return to “Viewpoint” to talk about their allegations that the NSA has conducted illegal domestic surveillance. All three men are providing evidence in a lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against the NSA.

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Related News Links:
www.motivatedinohio.com
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So some whistle blowers have come out and said what we all know and that is that NSA is overstepping its boundaries and spying on innocent people are you scared yet well you should be now is the time to take action and end this ridiculous nonsense before it gets even worse then it aready has but i dont think that you will

current.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Many ways to keep an eye on what we do. One of the biggest and simplest IMO is the use of these preferred customer cards that every major retailer is using these days. Oh look, John Doe is stocking up on non perishable food items Hmmm and Jimbo just bought 5 boxes of .223 from Wally World.

We've signed up for this and didn't even realize it. Add to that all social media sites and our lives are open books for the Secret Squirrels who wish to learn more about us.

Surveillance takes on many forms these days.....

reply to post by ninjas4321

Exactly what does one do to challenge the national security apparatus? March up to the gate of the NSA and tell them to turn off all their gadgets?

Easier said than done. They have us by the shorties. They had a 70 year jump on us. The domestic network may be younger than the international network, but they're all sleeping in the same bed.

We're screwed.

The government is cracking down on us day by day. All of the laws being passed are to hurt us (the american people) and help them (the american government). the overall goal is to have total control over our nation, and they are almost there.

Yeah, the NSA knows everything. Luckily, they aren't affiliated with the Obama or Bush cartels or anything similar but are more of a neutral entity / mystery affiliation.

reply to post by darkbake

You're kidding right? I think you misunderstand the scope of the disease. It's global.

Bush is CIA, which isn't supposed to operate domestically.

Ha ha. Guess who the joke is on.

I don't believe it is accurate to contend that the "NSA has had a 'head start' on us."

Decades ago, in response to the Watergate scandal, then President Jimmy Carter established and set in motion a series of controls and policies that stood unbroken until Mr. George Bush (senior) took office and his administration dismantled it.

There were incredibly stringent rules about domestic spying. The Director of NSA, who had traditionally been a military leader vetted by Congress for the post, was instrumental in establishing the culture which can be best summarized by a notional quote which might go something like this: "If I find out that anyone in this agency is using our capabilities for anything other than foreign national intelligence targets, I will personally see them removed and punished for the offense."

Things are different "now." With the military industrial complex using all their resources to maintain their revenue stream growth; the political cabal and other organizations beholden to the (one) financial cartel, and the media making the high-stress, constant information overload a reality... this has engendered an entirely different culture in the intelligence community. They, just as we, are driven by what is "accepted" as the "mission" which now includes invisibly "theoretical" terror (we used to call it "crime.") So the NSA is now using it's resources according to whatever the DHS/CIA (political-appointee corporate masters) influence our legislators to accept.

Many old-timers of the "non-politically-appointed" flavor at NSA are very keenly sensitive to the change (which they are powerless to resist.) But since the dissolution of the protective intelligence directives that obliged the NSA to destroy any accidentally gathered, or inadvertently discovered domestic intelligence (as that was not their mandate) this is all moot.

It isn't only the NSA that can see into your life...that is narrow minded. It is ANYONE with access to resource which are capable of seeing your information... that includes the CIA, the FBI, the DHS, and nearly any law enforcement agency. If anyone wants to "see" into your life - given the resources, they can. The technical capability is no longer restricted to "military" or "government intelligence gathering" organizations.... heck, there are churches, political organizations, think-tanks, and of course corporations that can do it too.

Before diving off the paranoia board, remember; it costs money - so being targeted by the government is something people who figure prominently in their ever-growing list of "suspected XYZ" have to worry about and very few others.

Granted, these fools are of the 20th century metrics worshipers, so they think it is reasonable to cast a gigantic net to catch their 'showpieces' and they don't really concern themselves with things like "rights" and "laws" - especially since the entire operation is protected from scrutiny under the guise of national security.

I fear the same capabilities that are shared with the corporate world... especially the corporate "security" world.... and even more so the numerous "foreign" security contracts we have with other nations.

reply to post by ninjas4321


Honestly this should not suprise a single regular of ATS we have been seeing and hearing this for years.

There aren't .gov and .com anymore, they all work for the same people, doesn't matter who the people are, all that matters is they aren't you and they are stealing and selling for profit what is yours, your personal information.

Also what kind of mindless troll let's all these corporations into their personal lives than acts shocked they did what people do and exploited your ignorance. I know take responsibility for your information, stop giving it to them and they won't have it.

Hell I am off the grid, I have no worries about them tracking me. I have no bills in my name, I have 1 bank account that I opened 18 years ago, a saings account. I don't have a single credit card, nor will I . I mean what kind of idiot pays a company 18% interest on their own money just for spending their own money?

A local gas station rickers just started a new program to save 10 cents a gallon on gas, all you have to do is link your rickers card directly to your bank account. WTF? Why not just give the ten cents for swiping my card like speedway? Why the need to link it directly to my bank account? It iks so they have access to your personal info, so they can sell what is yours for a profit, sorry they won't be sharing any of it with you though.

I think it naive to believe we have not been spied upon by our own people, especially since WWII. That kind of blind trust in the "system" is precisely what put us in the position we are in today.

If you'll recall, the OSS was the precurser to the CIA. All spy agencies in the US proceeded from it and incorporated its tactics and apparatus into their own programs.

Don't think for a minute that they distinguish themselves from each other in any way other than their designations. To do so is the ultimate self-delusion.

Our government is not our friend anymore, if indeed it ever was. We need only to look to the Federal Reserve system to remind ourselves that we are but pawns on the board to the real kings and queens.

reply to post by jibeho


You've got that right!

Besides the preferred customer cards/Wal Mart cards/ Kroger cards etc. keeping a tally of everything you buy so that Uncle Sam knows what colour, size and style of pink undies you wear

... I had a haircut and this podunk, itty, bitty, (2 co-owners and no employees) little haircut shop wanted my ID for paying cash! I asked why she wanted my ID. She wanted it for the name, address, phone number and anything else she could milk out of me for her computer cash register! I told her, nope - I don't want to be on her spam mail/junk mail list. This went on and on until I just walked out on her. I should have taken back the generous tip I gave her!

You buy anything at Game Stop or Best Buy ... they want your undie colours too!

I'm fully aware that such technology exists and understand it's implementation in the modern day and age, thank you for the confirmation video.

While our forefathers lived in a completely different day and age when the original amendment was instituted, we can't deny that America has grown exponentially over the years population wise, and that there are more acts of unnecessary violence than ever before due to these factors that our forefathers may not have been able to foresee.

If such technology can prevent the loss of life of innocent civilians or thwart large scale threats, I understand why it's come down to this decision.

I grew up in an environment where I was fully aware of being monitored due to the sensitive nature of my fathers job, and the fact that this is not being manned by possible "over-reactionary" humans gives me comfort.

I know for a fact the NSA and it's computers are not interested in the minutia of our day to day lives, the things we might be embarrassed if the world found out, but rather focuses on legitimate threats....and I can say without a doubt that such information will not be used in an unprofessional manner.

reply to post by jibeho


Just to clarify: I have lived in 3 states in the last 10 years and no Wal Mart I have ever shopped at used these cards. I'm not trying to invalidate your point here, but you can't buy ammunition at Fry's either, so....

reply to post by GENERAL EYES

You're funny. Yes, trust the federal government not to violate us. What do you call what the TSA is doing to people?

The government allows the scum of the earth to brush our genitalia by the thousands on a daily basis. Do you seriously believe it has any scruples about domestic spying?

I cannot believe the level of naivete in this thread. I posted earlier that we are screwed. Based on the responses to this thread we are well beyond that.

Originally posted by 0zzymand0s
reply to post by jibeho

 

Just to clarify: I have lived in 3 states in the last 10 years and no Wal Mart I have ever shopped at used these cards. I'm not trying to invalidate your point here, but you can't buy ammunition at Fry's either, so....

Glad to know Wally World does not use those cards. Clearly, I don't shop there on a regular basis. Only when 9mm white box ammo is on sale

reply to post by jibeho


Wally has a Wally Credit Card. - same difference because if you use the wally credit card you get a big cash discount on the gas (Murphy USA).

That's the same as a preferred customer card in my books.

Once again - this is really nothing new.

The biggest change since 50 years ago comes from the internet and the accessibility of electronic databases. It's simply easier, tidier, and faster to organize electronic records than paper records. What would have taken weeks or months to pull up from paper records around the world can now be done in a few minutes to hours.

Not only have standard records - banking information, property titles, residences, employment, schooling/enrollment, etc made the move; but so have many means of interpersonal and personal communications. Blogs have become a sort of online journal/diary (people often treat them, psychologically, as though real people don't read them - just like a private journal/diary.... with interesting consequences), forums have become an international lunch-room, and sites like facebook act like the hyperactive friend trying to introduce you to every living thing on the planet.

A more recent expansion of the internet comes in the form of smart phones and "cloud" networking. Store much of what you do on the "cloud" so that you can access it from any of your fifty internet enabled devices (from your music player to your phone... your toothbrush and coffee mug will probably join the list before much longer).

Interested parties have -always- been able to obtain access to your records. If a record exists on you (and they've been kept for a long time by various interests for various reasons) - it can be viewed. It may be difficult for someone to do it without proper authorization (just as it may be difficult to get a look at your friend's journal) - but no defense is perfect. It's merely a matter of how much that information is worth to retrieve versus the difficulty of retrieving it compared to the available resources of the interested party.

In short - If someone wants to find you - they can. If they want to find out what shopping habits you have, they can. I may not be able to sit behind a computer and find out what you bought at the store yesterday - but I can hire someone to dig through your trash and find receipts - or convince someone in the store's security to keep an eye on what you buy... or just hire a third party to watch you.

There are tiers of anonymity/obscurity. Generally speaking, it's not all that easy to find out who a specific personality is on a forum. Provided they give no clues to their personal identification - the means to trace their account back to a physical location or resource is not readily possessed, and would likely require access to the servers of the forum (not impossible to do - but a hurdle that's not worth climbing over in most instances).

Now, on Facebook - since you often give your name and address... you've blown that tier out of the water. Further - posting on a forum things that make it worthwhile to track you down at high costs or information that can be pieced together to create a profile (such as my own comments related to my father's position and employment, my military status along with unit affiliation, state and even city of residence, etc) will increase the odds of someone successfully tracking you down from the internet.

Though a Facebook page doesn't necessarily compromise a forum identity - if someone -really- wants to, they can get your 'footprints' from the forum's server and compare them to sources with known or verified identities. VPNs add an extra layer of protection against this... but if you've keyed someone up enough to trace you down, it's not likely they will give up (depending upon the resources at their disposal and reason for tracking you - they'd likely just choose to wait until you made an error rather than hassle with defeating a VPN... but if they have a lot of resources at their disposal... or can apply legal pressure to your VPN provider - they're less likely to be patient).

I think about it the same way I would investigate a legal case. You do what it takes to identify the bad guy. Then you worry about finding evidence that can be admitted in court.

I may think that way in regards to people who are genuinely bad and need to be made to go away - but it doesn't mean that others don't think that way for other reasons. Others may not be looking to convict someone in court - just find them and make them go away (or put pressure on them - journalists are particularly clever at tracking down individuals for interviews).

At the end of the day - you're never "safe"; you can only present a measure of difficulty to those who would harm you. A thief likely cases your house once a week or more (depending upon where you live), and makes snap judgments of whether it's worthwhile to try and break in. A sexual predator eyes you for vulnerability - the list goes on.

The point is... you take reasonable measures and remain aware that the world isn't inherently safe, and learn to live life. Otherwise... you'll end up driving yourself insane with paranoia.

Surveillance is stalking ... simple.

I had a stalker in the 70's. He followed me everywhere, cut a friend's tires, even tried to get my daughter in the daycare center! Stalkers constantly watch.

If we are not criminals or suspects, there's no excuse for stalking us.

The hunter and the hunted ... the hunter and the prey ... the prey isn't just edible meat (bad guys) anymore ... it's us good people too.

It's just wrong, plain, simple, wrong.