Judge Napolitano Hot Take

BOMBSHELL! @Judgenap: Hiliary caused murders of US intel agents! @realDonaldTrump @ktmcfarland @AnnCoulter #dtmag pic.twitter.com/mNT7OMBRIM

— Trump News Global (@tfgnews) August 13, 2016

Greenwald's Finale:

Naming Victims of Surveillance. 

Real Clear Politics, Toby Harnden

Greenwald said the names would be published via The Intercept, a website funded by Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire founder and chairman of eBay. Greenwald left The Guardian, which published most of the Snowden revelations, last autumn to work for Omidyar.

“As with a fireworks show, you want to save your best for last,” Greenwald told GQ magazine. “The last one is the one where the sky is all covered in spectacular multicoloured hues.”

Good. I cannot wait. I've had a difficult time appreciating Greenwald but I'm coming around. Here is the link to firstlook.org where  The Intercept is hosted.

The article does not specify when, I assume soon. Most likely in drip, drip, drip form as Breitbart made popular, for ease of digestion, and to allow things to sink in, to induce people to take positions, and then see their own names. This is going to be good.

"Edward Snowden to Speak at SXSW Interactive Via Videoconference"

"On Monday, March 10 at 11:00 am, join us for a conversation between Edward Snowden and Christopher Soghoian, the principal technologist of the American Civil Liberties Union. The conversation will be focused on the impact of the NSA's spying efforts on the technology community, and the ways in which technology can help to protect us from mass surveillance. Hear directly from Snowden about his beliefs on what the tech community can and must do to secure the private data of the billions of people who rely on the tools and services that we build."

This session will be moderated by Ben Wizner, who is director of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project and Edward Snowden’s legal advisor. Audience members will have the opportunity to ask questions.

However, if you cannot be at SXSW Interactive on Monday, March 10 at 11:00 am CST, then you can watch a free livestream of the session courtesy of The Texas Tribune.

If you had the opportunity, what would ask Snowden?

I would ask Snowden for his thoughts on his obfuscating, neighbor invading, missile test lunching host, Vladimir Putin. But, maybe, I would not be allowed to ask that.

SXSW Interactive

"FLASH: Rand Paul to Sue Obama over NSA Spying"

"Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is leading a class-action lawsuit with hundreds of thousands of Americans against President Barack Obama’s National Security Agency (NSA) over its spying on the American people, Breitbart News has learned."

Sen. Paul will be discussing the lawsuit in an exclusive appearance on Fox News with host Eric Bolling at 10 PM ET on Friday. Breitbart News has learned that Paul will file the class action lawsuit soon in the D.C. District Court and that he will be filing it as an individual, not as a U.S. Senator.

Snowball chance? What do you think?

It's the smiley face that did it

Two engineers close to Google exploded in profanity when they saw this sketch. This is a slide from an NSA presentation called "Google Exploitation" It depicts the point where "Public Internet" meets "Google Cloud," the point where all the juicy user data resides. 

Story at washingtonpost

The Snowden revelations of NSA secretly breaking into the main connections linking Yahoo and Google (this is different from the sketch above) and intercepting emails, documents, and other electronic communications (that would be pictures) between companies has shocked representatives and intelligence officers and are inflaming the relationship between the Obama administration and American technology companies.

They say "likely to inflame" but I changed it for drama. 

American companies.

They're driving business elsewhere. Entire nations are moving business elsewhere. 

One place to go is a Chinese company Huawei. 

Chinese, and it's the same thing all over again. It has to be and yet within the comments here at cableforeignpolicy a Huawei representative claims otherwise. I thought that was interesting that they would pop up like that in comments to an article and sell themselves with a good pitch, and have that pitch batted right down with a sharp rebuke attached to it, "Bull." 

"'We're Really Screwed Now': NSA's Best Friend Just Shivved The Spies"

"One of the National Security Agency's biggest defenders in Congress is suddenly at odds with the agency and calling for a top-to-bottom review of U.S. spy programs. And her long-time friends and allies are completely mystified by the switch."

"We're really screwed now," one NSA official told The Cable. "You know things are bad when the few friends you've got disappear without a trace in the dead of night and leave no forwarding address."

In a pointed statement issued today, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Dianne Feinstein said she was "totally opposed" to gathering intelligence on foreign leaders and said it was "a big problem" if President Obama didn't know the NSA was monitoring the phone calls of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She said the United States should only be spying on foreign leaders with hostile countries, or in an emergency, and even then the president should personally approve the surveillance."

It was not clear what precipitated Feinstein's condemnation of the NSA. It marks a significant reversal for a lawmaker who not only defended agency surveillance programs -- but is about to introduce a bill expected to protect some of its most controversial activities."

Excepts from an article by Shane Harris and John Hudson as it appeared in Foreign Policy

Update: White House OKd spying on allies, U.S. intelligence officials say

“Everybody’s a reporter,” said Hayden

He should’ve taken the quiet car.

But that’s not what Michael Hayden did on Thursday afternoon as he boarded Acela No. 2170, bound for New York.

Instead, the former NSA director [Michael Hayden] nestled into a regular coach seat and soon began what for many travelers is an Amtrak ritual: talking, often nonstop, on a cellphone as the train rolled on.

A passenger a few seats away couldn’t help but be intrigued by the conversation...

It took nearly half an hour, but then it clicked for Matzzie, a former Washington director of the political group MoveOn.org. He whipped out his phone and began tweeting.

“Former NSA spy boss Michael Hayden on Acela behind me blabbing ‘on background as a former senior admin official,’ ” Matzzie wrote. “Sounds defensive.”

While a CIA strike team never burst onto the train, someone must have tipped Hayden off, because when the former official finished one of his calls, he got up — and walked straight over.

“Would you like a real interview?” he asked Matzzie.

“I’m not a reporter,” Matzzie replied.

The two proceeded to have a conversation about the Fourth Amendment and the NSA’s surveillance activities. They agreed to disagree, but before they parted, Hayden posed with Matzzie for a photo.

And then, Hayden swept off the train at Newark.

WAPO The Switch

What else sends some people into fear-based silence?

Answer:
1) Because it involved "Israel", which sends some people into fear-based silence; 2) Because it happened in the middle of Syria, which took up most oxygen; 3) Because the New York Times published nothing about it, for ignominious and self-serving reasons highlighted by its own public editor; and 4) Because there is some NSA fatigue: a sense that nothing that is revealed can surprise any longer."

Question:
Why do you think the leak about forwarding data to Israel received relatively little attention compared to other leaks?

We're Glenn Greenwald and Janine Gibson of the Guardian US, and we’ve been breaking stories on the NSA Files since June. Ask Us Anything!

reddit

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Why? ... Because Obama

"to ensure they were "not shady characters""

"A National Security Agency employee was able to secretly intercept the phone calls of nine foreign women for six years without ever being detected by his managers, the agency's internal watchdog has revealed."

The unauthorised abuse of the NSA's surveillance tools only came to light after one of the women, who happened to be a US government employee, told a colleague that she suspected the man – with whom she was having a sexual relationship – was listening to her calls.

The case is among 12 documented in a letter from the NSA's inspector general to a leading member of Congress, who asked for a breakdown of cases in which the agency's powerful surveillance apparatus was deliberately abused by staff.

The letter, from Dr George Ellard, only lists cases that were investigated and later "substantiated" by his office. But it raises the possibility that there are many more cases that go undetected. 

The Atlantic lists those twelve incidents.

Wake up, People, NSA

No Means No.

Agitprop video. They're trying to get us exercised about forfeiting our privacy. You see, *hand on hip* when you enjoy privacy as stone cold solid you tend to take it for granite.

Until it is taken away.

They say that in the video.

That part got me. Privacy like a physical thing that, whoop, there it goes. Who did that?

If you are like me you have no patience for videos like this. Zero. It ran and the guy droned in the background. I could have written it myself with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back and the other hand tangled in a mousetrap. Possible exaggeration there. And I imagine everybody similar to me.

And yet, the comments to this show a vast span of difference in opinion. That's why I'm bothering.

The whole premise of the video pisses me off. It does not work for me because I am not sleeping (on this issue), the assumption is offensive. They're talking to somebody else. Talking down to somebody else. Maybe you. Maybe this works for you. I would hope not.

NSA used their eavesdropping program to spy on their lovers

Reports The Telegraph, in the U.K., a place that is not the U.S., where we go for information these days.

It even has its own codename, "love-int."

Chair of Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, gassed, "Don't worry, NSA told me it's just a few isolated incidents. Once a year over 10 years."

So that's like, what, 10, but who's counting?

And they were not within the US.

So they don't count anyway.

John DeLong, chief compliance officer, said, "mostly unintentional"

You see, they have zero tolerance policy about these thing over there.

Feinstein insists errors are identified, reported and corrected. So shut up already.

They give names to things at the NSA that are unimportant and happen only once every decade or so.

Random Integer Generator - 2 out of 34

Generate 2 random integers
Each integer should have a value between 1 and 34
34 stories to choose from Drudge (as of this morning)

****

 

REVEALED: NSA'S SECRET ORG CHART...

****

Christie Gets Into Heated Exchange With Father Over Medical Marijuana...

'Please Don't Let My Daughter Die, Governor'...

Glenn Greenwald will testify before Congress

via video-link with American Civil Liberties Union and the Cato Institute.

This testimony or hearing or whatever is organized by the same coalition that tried to pass an amendment to reign in the scope of NSA surveillance, and failed.

There have already been hearings about this. Mediate notes one the hearings Congress organized on the NSA programs last June was titled "How Disclosed NSA Programs Protect Americans, and Why Disclosure Aids Our Adversaries."

Another Congressional hearing was titled "How NSA Surveillance Lead to Healthier Gums and Brighter Teeth and Disclosure Advances Fowl Breath."

So they thought maybe we had just get our licks in.

It will be interesting to see what Glenn Grenwald says.

Josh Feldman Mediaite.

The lies! The lies!

Michael Hirsh for nationaljournal

the Surveillance State

Jeffrey Smith, a former general counsel at the CIA, says, “Generally as the IT community matured in this country, a number of things happened. They all opened Washington offices … and they came to an understanding, after some initial arrogance, that they needed to deal with the government.” The companies also came to understand that, in a very real way, they were now part of the nation’s infrastructure, and they would need plenty of help from the government in securing it.

The tech companies appear to understand that by keeping the whole process of cooperation superserial, they have jeopardized their reputations, and possibly violated the law.  <---98% exact quote.

And this.

which has had unique access to NSA documents because of the personal relationship between its correspondent Glenn Greenwald and Snowden...

Wuhchewtalkin'bout?

...said Microsoft “has collaborated closely with U.S. intelligence services to allow users’ communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company’s own encryption.” The documents show, among other things, that Microsoft effectively helped the NSA bypass the company’s own security features so the agency would be better able to intercept Web chats on the new Outlook.com portal.

Oh, Lordy.