Oops. Snowden does it again.
 

"You've never heard of XKeyscore, but it definitely knows you. The National Security Agency's top-secret program essentially makes available everything you've ever done on the Internet ? browsing history, searches, content of your emails, online chats, even your metadata ? all at the tap of the keyboard.

The Guardian exposed the program on Wednesday in a follow-up piece to its groundbreaking report on the NSA's surveillance practices. Shortly after publication, Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former Booz Allen Hamilton employee who worked for the NSA for four years, came forward as the source.

This latest revelation comes from XKeyscore training materials, which Snowden also provided to The Guardian. The NSA sums up the program best: XKeyscore is its "widest reaching" system for developing intelligence from the Internet.

The program gives analysts the ability to search through the entire database of your information without any prior authorization ? no warrant, no court clearance, no signature on a dotted line. An analyst must simply complete a simple onscreen form, and seconds later, your online history is no longer private. The agency claims that XKeyscore covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the Internet."

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/31/te...rticle_sidebar

They can use mine to bore people to death.

Anyone who thinks they can use the internet from home and not be traced are kinda stupid.

I'm starting to think they have gone about this whole ordeal in a dumb way. There is so much info it's like everyday something new is being released. There is very little shock value left at this point and people are just accepting it as something they can't do anything about.

It might of been better to just do a mass dump at once as what happened with Manning. That possibly could have put enough shock and awe at once to motivate people into mass protests, that might of changed something..

this xkeyscore revelation was actually one of the first revealed by snowden way back in july, it was reported on extensively. the story then also was that any mid-level nsa snoop could pull the data from it. nsa went on record saying that's not true and yes we have xkescore.

many point to this app as the illegal one. it is THE tech that allows snooping of an american without a fisa court approval.

this program crystallizes one of Snowden's most infamous admissions from his video interview on June 10:

"I, sitting at my desk," said Snowden, could "wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email."
While United States officials denied this claim, the XKeyscore program, as the public understands it, proves Snowden's point. The law requires the NSA to obtain FISA warrants on U.S. citizens, but this is pushed aside for Americans with foreign targets ? and this program gives the NSA the technology to do so. The training materials claim XKeyscore assisted in capturing 300 terrorists by 2008.

The Guardian article breaks down how the program works with each activity, from email monitoring to chats and browsing history, and includes screenshots from the training materials.

The Guardian reached out to the NSA for comment prior to publication. The agency defended the program, stressing that it was only used to legally obtain information about "legitimate foreign intelligence targets in response to requirements that our leaders need for information necessary to protect our nation and its interests."

I think think the information is all misleading. I believe that such a program exists, but it's targeting people outside the US. If in the US, a court order is needed.

here is the original guardian story, it's a good read, for those who like to read good.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...am-online-data

here is the 2008 nsa training presentation and story on xks

http://www.theguardian.com/world/int...l-presentation

I honestly don't give a shit who is looking at my browsing history -- except for my wife.

On one hand this is really fucking scary.... If I read this right, it seems that they can see what you are doing in real time.

On the other hand... If you read the document, page six... Has a world map showing server locations... And it seems the only locations are outside of the US. A few might be in the US, but they might be Canada or Mexico.

Also, if you read page 12.... It doesn't seem to allow anyone to read your email, only it indexes what phone numbers you see, email addresses you see, and contacts in buddy lists. Meaning, it's pulling certain data and trying to contact dots.

It's exactly what I would expect our government to be doing, and it seems to be done perfectly legally and outside of the US.

I don't either.

I understand that in the US we have the right privacy, but.... I could care less. If the government wants to read my work emails or text messages sent to my wife, great, fine. They'll know about a new dating site we just created and what our dinner plans are for tonight. Kind of boring.

On the other hand, no one seems to be concerned about the information businesses are collecting about us. I shouldn't be surprised but I discovered that UPS knows every address I've ever lived at and a whole lot more. Google knows exactly what kinds of cars I drive; I get ads for Jaguar and Jeep all day long. Google also knows I travel to Hawaii three or four times a year too. It's scary.

that's what my conclusion on that was as well. the fact that the program is rife for exploitation doesn't prove it has been used illegally. whom do i believe less on this, snowden or the nsa, it doesn't really matter at this point.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

i gotta wait for that punch line! :1orglaugh

Ignorant as usual.

>>

>>

But you are taking some big steps here. You are saying "without any prior authorization ? no warrant, no court clearance, no signature on a dotted line" but I don't believe this is true.

Snowden claims he could pull up any information any time without a warrant. This might be true. Somewhere along the line there are in fact computers that can pull this information - there always has been so long as we've had phone companies. But to access this data without a warrant is illegal.

Getting a warrant seems to be easy, it's a rubber stamp process, so... Why wouldn't they just get a warrant? It seems to be nearly instant and automatically approved.

Until you get charged for something...

Article is from August, this was big news.

It's a fallacy for anyone to think the government is listening in and/or analyzing every piece of email, phone calls, text messages or whatever. They don't have the ability to do it, for one thing. I'm not saying they're not up to some shit, but everyone's a little overly paranoid about some things that most likely aren't happening in the totality they believe they are.

the other side of that coin is you don't believe the totality of what they are doing

and more importantly, what they're capable of doing..

It's impossible for them to listen in / read each email or phone call. But instead what they seem to do is store everything so they can search it later. So, if there is an attack on "flight 237" after the fact they can go back and search records for "flight 237" and then read those emails or phone conversations (they transcribe phone conversations into text).

The question is... They can do this to anyone outside the US (because US law does not apply), but do the do it to the US citizens in the US?

about sums it up :1orglaugh

Actually its law they don't spy on 4 other countries as well as them selfs, the 5 i's as they put it.

deep. this will turn out to be an interesting century after all.

its "old" article, from July...

for complete NSA leaks visits up to date visit:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-nsa-files

:)

Recording everything you do in millions of people scale is scary and not a DEMOCRATIC for sure, but they dont care :)

I understand what you are saying, but actually I think that this is better, in 2 ways.


1. It's keeps these things in the news over the long haul. People would have been shocked and appalled for a couple of months..... and then football season would have started and that would be that.


2. It allows people to watch the government lying and denying things to us..... and then be proven wrong a few months later. It is a nice way of highlighting how things actually work and showing people how their government deceive them so often.





Frankly, I do find it interesting that when you lie to a government official, you get charged with a crime, but when a government official lies, everybody shrugs, and says it's just politics, and nothing happens to them.




.:2 cents:

This is not true. This is exactly what the CIA and NSA do.

They've been doing this since the 1930s....

I think people are shocked. Some of us are shocked because they never thought our government spies on other countries, as if it's new. Others are shocked because they completely misunderstand how involved the spying is and how it affects them - I still have yet to see where the NSA is spying on Americans without warrants.

I don't think you understand the true threat of what they are doing. It's not about actively listening to to you now. Of course given the numbers it's unlikely they care what you had for dinner last night. However if you are ever charged with something, they would be able to search you history online in their data base. They could then make even a saint look bad given enough data to cherry pick through..

BINGO....

With the 10s of thousands of federal regulations being written every year without legistlative oversight, pretty much every person in the country is guilty of breaking some federal law at this point, often on a daily basis.



.

Someday we will find out the Google=Government:2 cents:

imo, it's even worse than that, the technology and availability of it to a large amount of nsa snoops means a jealous husband or pissed-off neighbor working at the nsa can use the program to snoop.

This is one of the problems the NSA has - trying to figure out exactly where the law is, and what they can and cannot do under it. Last year the NSA went back to Congress and told them they couldn't do something because they thought it was illegal.

this thread needs some britney!

Pretty much this.. Justice in this country is no longer dished out with a sense of guilty or innocent of a specific crime. That all ended with Al Capone, when the govt realized they couldn't get him for racketeering or being a mobster but rather could nail him for tax fraud.

The so called dept of justice does not care if you are innocent of a specific crime, they only care if they can get a conviction or not. This is why people are never charged with a single crime but rather a shopping list of anything the DOJ thinks they can get a conviction on.

All this data is being stored.. Phone records, anything you do on the net, who your social connections are..and who knows what else. It's only a matter of time before they bend the rules far enough to allow this stored data to be used. They sure as hell aren't storing it for no reason. It will be used.

We already know they have been giving anonymous tips to the local PD's via the FBI for various drug busts.. This has been leaked already. It's not that big of a stretch to think they won't do the same for other crimes.. The adult industry is at a pretty high risk of being a target. Right now we have an admin that isn't worried about making adult a target.. But what happens if we ever get one of these religious nut jobs in office or in charge of the DOJ?

The world is run by global crime syndicates, banking industry, oil industry, war industry etc All of them are so powerful that they're above the law or they hide behind it like big corporations do when it comes to not paying tax etc

One rule for the poor, another rule for the rich.

"Do as I say, not as I do!"

Yeah years or decades down the line when thought crimes become a more serious criminal offense and you're sentenced to years in prison for some comment you made on a messageboard, Twitter or Facebook many years earlier :disgust