NSA vs The World | Unfilter 73

Posted on: October 30, 2013

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NSA vs The World | Unfilter 73

While Obama signals that surveillance reforms could be on the way, the heads of national spying apparatus took to the hill to defend their spying on world leaders, claiming it’s no big deal, everyone does it. But the strong reactions around the world and embarrassing verbal gymnastics of the Obama administration seem to be evidence it’s a huge deal.

Then a major revelations in how the NSA collections data directly from Google and Yahoo’s data centers, the big money getting into the GMO labeling fight.

Plus your feedback, our follow up, and much much more.

On this week’s Unfilter.

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— Show Notes —

PRISM Follow up

By tapping those links, the agency has positioned itself to collect at will from among hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans. The NSA does not keep everything it collects, but it keeps a lot.

According to a top secret accounting dated Jan. 9, 2013, NSA’s acquisitions directorate sends millions of records every day from Yahoo and Google internal networks to data warehouses at the agency’s Fort Meade headquarters. In the preceding 30 days, the report said, field collectors had processed and sent back 181,280,466 new records — ranging from “metadata,” which would indicate who sent or received e-mails and when, to content such as text, audio and video.

In a statement, Google said it was “troubled by allegations of the government intercepting traffic between our data centers, and we are not aware of this activity.”

Google has accelerated an initiative to encrypt data moving between its data centers, citing growing concerns about privacy and data security amid ongoing revelations about the code-breaking capabilities of the NSA and other global security agencies.

The Post writes: “Google officials declined to provide details on the cost of its new encryption efforts, the numbers of data centers involved, or the exact technology used. Officials did say that it will be what experts call ‘end-to-end,’ meaning that both the servers in the data centers and the information on the fiber-optic lines connecting them will be encrypted using ‘very strong’ technology. The project is expected to be completed soon, months ahead of the original schedule.”

Asked about the story, Gen. Keith Alexander, the agency’s leader, said earlier Wednesday he was unaware of it — adding the NSA is “not authorized” to access companies data centers and instead must “go through a court process” to obtain such content.

the NSA’s director, General Keith Alexander, actually demanded Thursday that the reporting being done by newspapers around the world on this secret surveillance system be halted (

Jessica L. Tozer sits down with NSA Director and CYCOM Commander General Keith Alexander to get the story straight about the National Security Agency’s most criticized foreign intelligence and cybersecurity programs.

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NSA is CRAZY

The president allegedly allowed US intelligence to listen to calls from the German
Chancellor’s mobile phone after he was briefed on the operation by Keith
Alexander, director of the National Security Agency (NSA), in 2010.

The latest claim, reported in the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, followed
reports in Der Spiegel that the surveillance of Mrs Merkel’s phone began as
long ago as 2002, when she was still the opposition leader, three
years before being elected Chancellor. That monitoring only ended in the
weeks before Mr Obama visited Berlin in June this year, the magazine added.

According to SPIEGEL research, United States intelligence agencies have not only targeted Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone, but they have also used the American Embassy in Berlin as a listening station. The revelations now pose a serious threat to German-American relations.

The Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has summoned the US ambassador to explain the latest revelations to emerge from the files leaked by Edward Snowden, which suggest the National Security Agency tracked more than 60m phone calls in Spain in the space of a month.

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.

The bill introduced by the Republican author of the Patriot Act aims to end bulk metadata collection, order greater transparency in intelligence gathering and close foreign loopholes

“The service Edward Snowden has done for the disclosure of the NSA spying methods are undeniable. Germany should, together with other European states, seriously look into whether it is possible to take Snowden in,” Lars Klingbeil, SPD internet policy spokesman told Handelsblatt over the weekend.

Royal Phone Hacking

Two of Rupert Murdoch’s top editors, Rebekah Brooks and Andrew Coulson oversaw a system of phone hacking and illegal payments to officials when they ran the now-defunct News of the World tabloid, a London court heard Wednesday.

Oh no… GMO?

Biotechnology giant Monsanto Co. on Monday dumped another $540,000 to fight a Washington state ballot measure requiring genetically engineered foods be labeled.

Food companies including Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Campbell Soup, and Hershey already sell GMO-labeled products in some of the 60-plus other countries around that world that require it, but have fought hard to avoid putting the same information on drinks and snacks in the U.S., their biggest and most lucrative market. So far, it’s worked: Deep pockets and effective lobbying through the GMA, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, have helped stall or defeat both state-by-state legislation and a nationwide FDA ruling to require labeling.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), which
represents more than 300 food and beverage companies, has put
roughly $11 million into fighting the measure, or roughly half
of the nearly $22 million raised by opponents of labeling,
according to Washington Public Disclosure Commission figures as
of Tuesday.

That far outstrips the roughly $6.8 million raised by
supporters of the labeling initiative, according to the
Commission.

“They are making this the most expensive race and are
desperately adding last-minute money to try and buy this
election,” said Liz Larter, spokeswoman for “Yes on 522”
campaign, a reference to the ballot measure’s number.

Regardless of the reason, the race has certainly tightened. In
September, one poll showed support for labeling up by a
staggering 45 percent. Two recent polls tell a much different
story, though: Supporters are still leading, but by much smaller
margins. One poll showed them ahead 45 to 38 percent, while the
other indicated an even slimmer advantage of 46 to 42 percent.

Feedback:

The document – obtained by Al Jazeera through a Freedom of Information Act request – contains talking points and suggested statements for NSA officials (PDF) responding to the fallout from media revelations that originated with former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Invoking the events of 9/11 to justify the controversial NSA programs, which have caused major diplomatic fallout around the world, was the top item on the talking points agency officials were encouraged to use.

Under the sub-heading, “Sound Bites that Resonate,” the document suggests the statement: “I much prefer to be here today explaining these programs, than explaining another 9/11 event that we were not able to prevent.”

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