http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order
Related: GOVT.SECRETSSnowden reveals HAARP's Global Assassination Agenda Snowden speaking from a Custom Faraday Cage in Sheremetyevo Airport’s Hotel Novotel (Photo: The Internet Chronicle) MOSCOW, Russia – Edward Snowden, NSA whistleblower and fugitive, released documents Tuesday to Internet Chronicle reporters proving that the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP, is definitively engaged in a program of assassination and mind control. EMERGENCY UPDATE: Snowden has revealed an oncoming global cataclysm. While the military prison industrial complex has routinely insisted that the Alaska-based HAARP is only meant to study natural phenomena in earth’s ionosphere, Snowden has managed to blow open a brutally massive charade. “The HAARP research station,” he said, “strategically based away from prying eyes near Gakona, Alaska, is actually used to terminate or manipulate would-be dissidents of global capitalism on the scale of millions of people.” Unbeknownst to victims or their loved ones, HAARP projects ultra-high-powered radio waves.
NSA files decoded: Edward Snowden's surveillance revelations explained Two factors opened the way for the rapid expansion of surveillance over the past decade: the fear of terrorism created by the 9/11 attacks and the digital revolution that led to an explosion in cell phone and internet use. But along with these technologies came an extension in the NSA’s reach few in the early 1990s could have imagined. Details that in the past might have remained private were suddenly there for the taking. Chris Soghoian
Global Information Grid The GIG Vision - Enabled by Information Assurance The Global Information Grid (GIG) vision implies a fundamental shift in information management, communication, and assurance. The GIG is the globally interconnected, end-to-end set of information capabilities for collecting, processing, storing, disseminating, and managing information on demand to warfighters, policy makers, and support personnel. Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell. The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," he said. Snowden will go down in history as one of America's most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning.
newyorker President Obama spent only a few moments of his State of the Union this week talking about the National Security Agency and civil liberties. A year before, he’d promised to “end” Section 215, the N.S.A.’s most controversial surveillance program, “as it currently exists.” In his speech last Tuesday, he said almost nothing concrete, aside from mentioning a forthcoming report “on how we’re keeping our promise to keep our country safe while strengthening privacy.” Since Edward Snowden revealed the extent of the N.S.A.’s activities in the summer of 2013, there have been a number of official reports on the troubled relationship between surveillance and privacy—one from the President’s Review Group, two from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and another, last week, from the National Academy of Sciences. But, while the government has made some moves toward transparency about its surveillance programs, it has enacted few substantial reforms of them.
Documents at Ukraine leader's home detail spending - Europe news KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Cash: $12 million. Decoration of a dining hall and tea room: $2.3 million. Statue of a wild boar: $115,000. FOIA Documents Reveal Massive DEA Program to Record American’s Whereabouts With License Plate Readers The Drug Enforcement Administration has initiated a massive national license plate reader program with major civil liberties concerns but disclosed very few details, according to new DEA documents obtained by the ACLU through the Freedom of Information Act. The DEA is currently operating a National License Plate Recognition initiative that connects DEA license plate readers with those of other law enforcement agencies around the country. A Washington Post headline proclaimed in February 2014 that the Department of Homeland Security had cancelled its “national license-plate tracking plan,” but all that was ended was one Immigrations and Customs Enforcement solicitation for proposals. In fact, a government-run national license plate tracking program already exists, housed within the DEA.
Cyber spying thrives as mankind bids farewell to a private life WASHINGTON – Eighteen months ago National Security Agency cyber spy Edward Snowden shocked the world when he emerged from the shadows to reveal the biggest government surveillance program mankind has ever known. By collecting bulk data on phone calls, emails and other social media communications, the U.S. government was essentially monitoring the private lives of pretty well everybody with a phone and/or Internet connection. Americans, Canadians, Europeans, Asians – it didn’t matter. We had all come under suspicion. Boosted by a decades-old intelligence gathering and sharing agreement called the “Five Eyes” – U.S., Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand – there was every reason to believe that not only was the U.S. sharing this information with its partners, but also these countries were watching their citizens with similar vigor.
The year we get creeped out by algorithms It turns out computers have a built-in “uncanny valley” (that creepy feeling android robots generate when they kind of look human). Just like we don’t want robots too human-shaped — we want them to know their place — it turns out we aren’t too happy when our computers go from “smart” (as in automating things and connecting us to each other or information) to “smart” (as in “let me make that decision for you”). Algorithmic judgment is the uncanny valley of computing. Algorithms (basically computer programs, but here I’m talking about the complex subset that is being used to calculate results of some consequence, which than shape our experience) have become more visible in 2014, and it turns out we’re creeped out.
Google Maps now lets you retrace all of your past steps You know Google is tracking your every move, right? If you own a mobile device, and have opted into location tracking in one or more of Google's many services, such as Google Photos or Google Now, the company is keeping a record of your past movements. You can check the places you visited through a new feature in Google Maps, the aptly named Your Timeline. It lets you check where you were at any given time — like that pretzel shop that gave you refuge on a cold, wet December day a few years ago. Google's location history — now replaced with Timeline — already offered all this data, daily and monthly, but in a less visually appealing and less curated format. Browsing through your past experiences can be fascinating, if time-consuming.
Eurozoned Out The euro crisis has been ongoing for three years and the European Union is beginning to get its act together to build a sustainable monetary union. But risk of failure still remains and in turn could be devastating to the U.S. economy. Justin Vaïsse and Thomas Wright wrote this memorandum to President Obama as part of Big Bets and Black Swans: A Presidential Briefing Book.