A leaked document has laid bare the monumental scope of the government's surveillance of Americans' phone records -- hundreds of millions of calls

Glenn Greenwald Says Their Goal Is To End ALL Privacy!

MOXNEWSd0tC0M

 

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Monumental phone-records monitoring is laid bare

by DONNA CASSATA and NANCY BENAC / Associated Press

Posted on June 6, 2013 at 7:32 AM

Updated yesterday at 4:05 PM

Related:

• What you should know about sweeping phone data collection program

WASHINGTON -- A leaked document has laid bare the monumental scope of the government's surveillance of Americans' phone records -- hundreds of millions of calls -- in the first hard evidence of a massive data collection program aimed at combating terrorism under powers granted by Congress after the 9/11 attacks. At issue is a court order, first disclosed Wednesday by The Guardian newspaper in Britain, that requires the communications company Verizon to turn over on an "ongoing, daily basis" the records of all landline and mobile telephone calls of its customers, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries. Intelligence experts said the government, though not listening in on calls, would be looking for patterns that could lead to terrorists -- and that there was every reason to believe similar orders were in place for other phone companies. Some critics in Congress, as well as civil liberties advocates, declared that the sweeping nature of the National Security Agency program represented an unwarranted intrusion into Americans' private lives. But a number of lawmakers, including some Republicans who normally jump at the chance to criticize the Obama administration, lauded the program's effectiveness. Leaders of the House Intelligence Committee said the program had helped thwart at least one attempted terrorist attack in the United States, "possibly saving American lives." Separately, The Washington Post and The Guardian reported Thursday the existence of another program used by the NSA and FBI that scours the nation's main Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, emails, documents and connection logs to help analysts track a person's movements and contacts. It was not clear whether the program, called PRISM, targets known suspects or broadly collects data from other Americans. The companies include Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple. The Post said PalTalk has had numerous posts about the Arab Spring and the Syrian civil war. It also said Dropbox would soon be included One outraged senator, Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said of the phone-records collecting: "When law-abiding Americans make phone calls, who they call, when they call and where they call is private information. As a result of the discussion that came to light today, now we're going to have a real debate." But Republican Lindsay Graham of South Carolina said Americans have no cause for concern. "If you're not getting a call from a terrorist organization, you've got nothing to worry about," he said. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said the order was a three-month renewal of an ongoing practice that is supervised by federal judges who balance efforts to protect the country from terror attacks against the need to safeguard Americans' privacy. The surveillance powers are granted under the post-9/11 Patriot Act, which was renewed in 2006 and again in 2011. While the scale of the program might not have been news to some congressional leaders, the disclosure offered a public glimpse into a program whose breadth is not widely understood. Sen. Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat who serves on the Intelligence Committee, said it was the type of surveillance that "I have long said would shock the public if they knew about it." The government has hardly been forthcoming. Wyden released a video of himself pressing Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on the matter during a Senate hearing in March. "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" Wyden asked. "No, sir," Clapper answered. "It does not?" Wyden pressed. Clapper quickly softened his answer. "Not wittingly," he said. "There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect -- but not wittingly." There was no immediate comment from Clapper's office Thursday on his testimony in March. The public is now on notice that the government has been collecting data -- even if not listening to the conversations -- on every phone call every American makes, a program that has operated in the shadows for years, under President George W. Bush, and continued by President Barack Obama. "It is very likely that business records orders like this exist for every major American telecommunication company, meaning that if you make calls in the United States the NSA has those records," wrote Cindy Cohn, general counsel of the nonprofit digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, and staff attorney Mark Rumold, in a blog post. Without confirming the authenticity of the court order, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said such surveillance powers are "a critical tool in protecting the nation from terror threats," by helping officials determine if people in the U.S. who may have been engaged in terrorist activities have been in touch with other known or suspected terrorists. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., stressed that phone records are collected under court orders that are approved by the Senate and House Intelligence committees and regularly reviewed. And Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada played down the significance of the revelation. "Everyone should just calm down and understand that this isn't anything that's brand new," he said. "This is a program that's been in effect for seven years, as I recall. It's a program that has worked to prevent not all terrorism but certainly the vast, vast majority. Now is the program perfect? Of course not." But privacy advocates said the scope of the program was indefensible.


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Wyden calls government sweep of Verizon phone records a 'massive invasion of Americans' privacy'

By Jeff Mapes, The Oregonian on June 06, 2013 at 11:31 AM, updated June 06, 2013 at 12:15 PM

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Senate Intelligence Committee member who had previously warned that the government was collecting too much data on U.S. citizens, on Thursday charged that the government collection of Verizon phone records was a "massive invasion of Americans' privacy." Wyden, a high-ranking Democratic senator on the committee, said he had been concerned about such surveillance for a long time but continues to be barred by Senate rules from discussing many of the details that he learned in classified intelligence briefings. "However, I believe that when law-abiding Americans call their friends, who they call, when they call, and where they call from is private information," Wyden said. "Collecting this data about every single phone call that every American makes every day would be a massive invasion of Americans’ privacy." In a separate comment on his Twitter feed, Wyden also noted that James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, had assured him in a March hearing that the National Security Agency was not collecting data on millions of Americans -- an assurance that Wyden now appears to find suspect. The Guardian newspaper from Great Britain on Wednesday night revealed the existence of a four-page court order ordering Verizon to turn over the phone records of its customers who made calls from the U.S. to foreign countries or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.” The information sought by the government did not include the contents of the calls. Wyden has repeatedly expressed concerns about the extent of government surveillance following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the passage of the Patriot Act, which was used as the legal basis for the obtaining of the phone records. Added Wyden in his statement:

"The American people have a right to know whether their government thinks that the sweeping, dragnet surveillance that has been alleged in this story is allowed under the law and whether it is actually being conducted. Furthermore, they have a right to know whether the program that has been described is actually of value in preventing attacks. Based on several years of oversight, I believe that its value and effectiveness remain unclear.”

Wyden spokesman Tom Towslee said the senator was not immediately giving interviews on the subject. But on Wyden's Twitter feed, he made several more statements:

 Ron Wyden ✔ @RonWyden

Letter @MarkUdall & I sent to DoJ last year with our concerns about

 “business records” section of Patriot Act http://bit.ly/11k9Iuk #NSA

12:42 PM - 6 Jun 2013

Senators Ron Wyden, Mark Udall Letter to Attorney General Holder

This letter conveys the senators’ views on the Justice Department’s efforts to keep the government’s interpretation of the USA Patriot Act secret from the American public. Senators Ron Wyden (D -...

 

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Wyden in Intelligence Hearing on GPS Surveillance & Nat'l Security Agency Collection

SenRonWyden          

Published on Mar 12, 2013

March 12, 2013- Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asks questions in Senate Intelligence Committee on warrantless geolocation surveillance and National Security Agency tracking.

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US Says It Gathers Online Data Abroad

Published: Friday, 7 Jun 2013 | 2:45 AM ET

By: Charlie Savage, Edward Wyatt & Peter Baker

The federal government has been secretly collecting information on foreigners overseas for nearly six years from the nation's largest Internet companies like Google, Facebook and, most recently, Apple, in search of national security threats, the director of national intelligence confirmed Thursday night.
The confirmation of the classified program came just hours after government officials acknowledged a separate seven-year effort to sweep up records of telephone calls inside the United States. Together, the unfolding revelations opened a window into the growth of government surveillance that began under the Bush administration after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has clearly been embraced and even expanded under the Obama administration.
Government officials defended the two surveillance initiatives as authorized under law, known to Congress and necessary to guard the country against terrorist threats. But an array of civil liberties advocates and libertarian conservatives said the disclosures provided the most detailed confirmation yet of what has been long suspected about what the critics call an alarming and ever-widening surveillance state.
The Internet surveillance program collects data from online providers including e-mail, chat services, videos, photos, stored data, file transfers, video conferencing and log-ins, according to classified documents obtained and posted by The Washington Post and then The Guardian on Thursday afternoon.
In confirming its existence, officials said that the program, called Prism, is authorized under a foreign intelligence law that was recently renewed by Congress, and maintained that it minimizes the collection and retention of information "incidentally acquired" about Americans and permanent residents. Several of the Internet companies said they did not allow the government open-ended access to their servers but complied with specific lawful requests for information.
More From the NYT:
Despite Ambivalence, a Strong Embrace of Divisive Security Tools
Sounding the Alarm, but With a Muted Bell
Blogger, With Focus on Surveillance, Is at Center of a Debate
"It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States," James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said in a statement, describing the law underlying the program. "Information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats."
The Prism program grew out of the National Security Agency's desire several years ago to begin addressing the agency's need to keep up with the explosive growth of social media, according to people familiar with the matter.
The dual revelations, in rapid succession, also suggested that someone with access to high-level intelligence secrets had decided to unveil them in the midst of furor over leak investigations. Both were reported by The Guardian, while The Post, relying upon the same presentation, almost simultaneously reported the Internet company tapping. The Post said a disenchanted intelligence official provided it with the documents to expose government overreach.
Before the disclosure of the Internet company surveillance program on Thursday, the White House and Congressional leaders defended the phone program, saying it was legal and necessary to protect national security.
(Read More: US Secretly Mines Data From Internet Companies - Reports)
Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman, told reporters aboard Air Force One that the kind of surveillance at issue "has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terror threats as it allows counterterrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States." He added: "The president welcomes a discussion of the trade-offs between security and civil liberties."
The Guardian and The Post posted several slides from the 41-page presentation about the Internet program, listing the companies involved — which included Yahoo, Microsoft, Paltalk, AOL, Skype and YouTube — and the dates they joined the program, as well as listing the types of information collected under the program.
The reports came as President Obama was traveling to meet President Xi Jinping of China at an estate in Southern California, a meeting intended to address among other things complaints about Chinese cyberattacks and spying. Now that conversation will take place amid discussion of America's own vast surveillance operations.
But while the administration and lawmakers who supported the telephone records program emphasized that all three branches of government had signed off on it, Anthony Romero of the American Civil Liberties Union denounced the surveillance as an infringement of fundamental individual liberties, no matter how many parts of the government approved of it.
"A pox on all the three houses of government," Mr. Romero said. "On Congress, for legislating such powers, on the FISA court for being such a paper tiger and rubber stamp, and on the Obama administration for not being true to its values."
Others raised concerns about whether the telephone program was effective.
Word of the program emerged when The Guardian posted an April order from the secret foreign intelligence court directing a subsidiary of Verizon Communications to give the N.S.A. "on an ongoing daily basis" until July logs of communications "between the United States and abroad" or "wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls."
On Thursday, Senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the top Democrat and top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, said the court order appeared to be a routine reauthorization as part of a broader program that lawmakers have long known about and supported.
"As far as I know, this is an exact three-month renewal of what has been the case for the past seven years," Ms. Feinstein said, adding that it was carried out by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court "under the business records section of the Patriot Act."
"Therefore, it is lawful," she said. "It has been briefed to Congress."

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