<\/h3>\nGovernment Is Spying On Us Through Our Computers, Phones, Cars, Buses, Streetlights, at Airports and On The Street, Via Mobile Scanners and Drones, Through Our Smart Meters, and In Many Other Ways<\/h4>\n
Security expert Bruce Schneier confirms<\/a> what we\u2019ve been saying for years \u2026 don\u2019t get too distracted by the details, because the government is spying on everything<\/em>:<\/p>\n Honestly, I think the details matter less and less<\/strong>. We have to assume that the NSA has EVERYONE who uses electronic communications under CONSTANT surveillance<\/a>.<\/strong> New details about hows and whys will continue to emerge \u2014 for example, now we know the NSA\u2019s repository contains travel data<\/a> \u2014 but the big picture will remain the same.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n John Lanchester writes<\/a> in the Guardian:<\/p>\n This is the central point about what our spies and security services can now do. They can, for the first time, monitor everything about us, and they can do so with a few clicks of a mouse and \u2013 to placate the lawyers \u2013 a drop-down menu of justifications.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As shown below, Schneier and Lanchester are right.<\/p>\n The NSA is tapping the very backbone of the Internet<\/a>. It then stores metadata on everyone for up to a year<\/a>.<\/p>\n As the New York Times reported this week, the NSA is also constructing sophisticated graphs of our social connections<\/a>:<\/p>\n Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans\u2019 social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information<\/strong>, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with officials.<\/p>\n The spy agency began allowing the analysis of phone call and e-mail logs in November 2010 to examine Americans\u2019 networks of associations for foreign intelligence purposes after N.S.A. officials lifted restrictions on the practice, according to documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The agency can augment the communications data with material from public, commercial and other sources, including bank codes, insurance information, Facebook profiles, passenger manifests, voter registration rolls and GPS location information, as well as property records and unspecified tax data, according to the documents. They do not indicate any restrictions on the use of such \u201cenrichment\u201d data<\/strong>, and several former senior Obama administration officials said the agency drew on it for both Americans and foreigners<\/strong>.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The decision to revise the limits concerning Americans was made in secret, without review by the nation\u2019s intelligence court or any public debate. As far back as 2006, a Justice Department memo warned of the potential for the \u201cmisuse\u201d of such information without adequate safeguards.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The agency has multiple collection programs and databases, the former officials said, adding that the social networking analyses relied on both domestic and international metadata.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n A series of agency PowerPoint presentations and memos describe how the N.S.A. has been able to develop software and other tools \u2014 one document cited a new generation of programs that \u201crevolutionize\u201d data collection and analysis \u2014 to unlock as many secrets about individuals as possible.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Phone and e-mail logs, for example, allow analysts to identify people\u2019s friends and associates, detect where they were at a certain time, acquire clues to religious or political affiliations, and pick up sensitive information like regular calls to a psychiatrist\u2019s office, late-night messages to an extramarital partner or exchanges with a fellow plotter.<\/p>\n \u201cMetadata can be very revealing,\u201d said Orin S. Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University. \u201cKnowing things like the number someone just dialed or the location of the person\u2019s cellphone is going to allow them to assemble a picture of what someone is up to. It\u2019s the digital equivalent of tailing a suspect<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The N.S.A. performed the social network graphing in a pilot project for 1 \u00bd years \u201cto great benefit,\u201d according to the 2011 memo.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n In the 2011 memo explaining the shift, N.S.A. analysts were told that they could trace the contacts of Americans as long as they cited a foreign intelligence justification. That could include anything from ties to terrorism, weapons proliferation or international drug smuggling to spying on conversations of foreign politicians, business figures or activists<\/strong>. [This definition is so broad that knowing a cheese maker in France or a climate activist in England could drag an American into the NSA surveillance net.]<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n The documents show that significant amounts of information from the United States go into Mainway. An internal N.S.A. bulletin, for example, noted that in 2011 Mainway was taking in 700 million phone records per day<\/strong>. In August 2011, it began receiving an additional<\/strong> 1.1 billion cellphone records daily from an unnamed American service provider<\/strong> \u2026.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The budget document, disclosed by Mr. Snowden, shows that the agency is pouring money and manpower into creating a metadata repository capable of taking in 20 billion \u201crecord events\u201d daily and making them available to N.S.A. analysts within 60 minutes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n A top-secret document titled \u201cBetter Person Centric Analysis\u201d describes how the agency looks for 94 \u201centity types,\u201d including phone numbers, e-mail addresses and IP addresses. In addition, the N.S.A. correlates 164 \u201crelationship types\u201d to build social networks and what the agency calls \u201ccommunity of interest\u201d profiles, using queries like \u201ctravelsWith, hasFather, sentForumMessage, employs<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n A 2009 PowerPoint presentation provided more examples of data sources available in the \u201cenrichment\u201d process, including location-based services like GPS and TomTom, online social networks, billing records and bank codes for transactions<\/strong> in the United States and overseas.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n If the N.S.A. does not immediately use the phone and e-mail logging data of an American, it can be stored for later use, at least under certain circumstances, according to several documents.<\/p>\n An internal briefing paper from the N.S.A. Office of Legal Counsel showed that the agency was allowed to collect and retain raw traffic, which includes both metadata and content, about \u201cU.S. persons\u201d for up to five years online and for an additional 10 years offline for \u201chistorical searches.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The NSA chief<\/a> and Director of Intelligence<\/a> have largely confirmed the program.<\/p>\n The government is spying on you through your phone \u2026 and may even remotely turn on your camera and microphone when your phone is off<\/a>.<\/p>\n As one example, the NSA has inserted its code into Android\u2019s operating system — bugging three-quarters of the world\u2019s smartphones<\/em><\/a>. Google \u2013 or the NSA \u2013 can remotely turn on your phone\u2019s camera and recorder<\/a> at any time.<\/p>\n Moreover, Google knows just about every WiFi password in the world<\/a> \u2026 and so the NSA does as well, since it spies so widely on Google.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not just the Android. In reality, the NSA can spy on just about everyone\u2019s<\/em><\/a> smart phone.<\/p>\n Cell towers track where your phone is<\/a> at any moment, and the major cell carriers, including Verizon and AT&T, responded to at least 1.3 million law enforcement requests<\/a> for cell phone locations and other data in 2011. (And \u2013 given that your smartphone routinely sends your location information<\/a> back to Apple or Google \u2013 it would be child\u2019s play for the government to track your location that way.) Your iPhone<\/a>, or other brand of smartphone<\/a> is spying on virtually everything you do<\/a> (ProPublica notes: \u201cThat\u2019s No Phone. That\u2019s My Tracker<\/a>\u201c). Remember, that might be happening even when your phone is turned off<\/a>.<\/p>\n The NSA has gathered all of that cellphone location information<\/a>.<\/p>\n The government might be spying on you through your computer\u2019s<\/em> webcam or microphone<\/a>. The government might also be spying on you through the \u201csmart meter\u201d on your own home<\/a>.<\/p>\n NSA also sometimes uses \u201cman-in-the-middle\u201d tactics, to pretend that it is Google or other popular websites<\/a> to grab your information.<\/p>\n The FBI wants a backdoor to all<\/em> software.<\/a> But leading<\/a> European computer publication Heise said in 1999 that the NSA had already<\/em> built a backdoor into all Windows software<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n Microsoft has long worked hand-in-hand with the NSA<\/a> and FBI so that encryption doesn\u2019t block the government\u2019s ability to spy on users of Skype, Outlook, Hotmail and other Microsoft services.<\/p>\n And Microsoft informs intelligence agencies of with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix<\/a>, so that information can be used by the government to access computers. (Software vulnerabilities are also sold<\/a> to the highest bidder<\/a>.)<\/p>\n A top expert in the \u2018microprocessors\u2019 or \u2018chips\u2019 inside every computer \u2013 having helped start two semiconductor companies and a supercomputer firm \u2013 also says<\/a>:<\/p>\n He would be \u201csurprised\u201d if the US National Security Agency was not embedding \u201cback doors\u201d inside chips produced by Intel and AMD, two of the world\u2019s largest semiconductor firms, giving them the possibility to access and control machines.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n [The expert] said when he learned the NSA had secured \u201cpre-encryption stage<\/a>\u201d access to Microsoft\u2019s email products via the PRISM leaks, he recognised that \u201cpretty much all our computers have a way for the NSA to get inside their hardware\u201d before a user can even think about applying encryption or other defensive measures.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Leading security experts say that the NSA might have put a backdoor in all encryption standards years ago<\/a>. \u2026 meaning that the NSA could easily hack<\/a> into all encrypted communications. And the NSA hacks into encrypted \u201cVPN\u201d connections<\/a>, and TOR<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s gotten so bad that some of the largest encryption companies are warning that their encryption tools are compromised<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cBlack boxes\u201d are currently installed in between 90%<\/a> and 96%<\/a> of all new cars. And starting in 2014, all new cars<\/a> will include black boxes that can track your location.<\/p>\n License plate readers mounted on police cars<\/a> allow police to gather millions of records on drivers<\/a> \u2026 including photos of them in their cars<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you have a microphone in your car, that might also open you up to snoopers. As CNET points out<\/a>:<\/p>\n Surreptitious activation of built-in microphones by the FBI has been done before. A 2003 lawsuit<\/a> revealed that the FBI was able to surreptitiously turn on the built-in microphones in automotive systems like General Motors\u2019 OnStar to snoop on passengers\u2019 conversations.<\/p>\n When FBI agents remotely activated the system and were listening in, passengers in the vehicle could not tell that their conversations were being monitored.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A security expert and former NSA software developer says that hackers can access private<\/em> surveillance cameras<\/a>. Given that the NSA apparently already monitors public cameras<\/a> using facial recognition software<\/a> (and see this<\/a>), and that the FBI is building a system which will track \u201cpublic and private<\/em> surveillance cameras around the country\u201d<\/a>, we can assume that government agencies might already be hacking into private surveillance cameras.<\/p>\n The CIA wants to spy on you through your dishwasher<\/a> and other \u201csmart\u201d appliances. As Slate notes<\/a>:<\/p>\n Watch out: the CIA may soon be spying on you\u2014through your beloved, intelligent household appliances, according to Wired<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In early March, at a meeting for the CIA\u2019s venture capital firm In-Q-Tel, CIA Director David Petraeus reportedly noted that \u201csmart appliances\u201d connected to the Internet could someday be used by the CIA to track individuals. If your grocery-list-generating refrigerator knows when you\u2019re home, the CIA could, too, by using geo-location data from your wired appliances, according to SmartPlanet<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe current \u2018Internet of PCs\u2019 will move, of course, toward an \u2018Internet of Things\u2019\u2014of devices of all types\u201450 to 100 billion of which will be connected to the Internet by 2020,\u201d Petraeus said in his speech<\/a>. He continued:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters\u2014all connected to the next-generation Internet using abundant, low cost, and high-power computing\u2014the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n ***<\/p>\n ITworld\u2019s Kevin Fogarty thinks that J. Edgar Hoover, were he still with us, would \u201cdie of jealousy<\/a>\u201d upon hearing about the tools soon to be at Petraeus\u2019 disposal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n And they\u2019re probably bluffing and exaggerating, but the Department of Homeland Security claims they will soon be able to know your adrenaline level, what you ate for breakfast and what you\u2019re thinking — from 164 feet away<\/a>. (In addition, people will probably soon be swallowing tracking devices for medical purposes<\/a>)<\/p>\n The government is allegedly<\/a> scanning<\/a> prisoners\u2019 brains without their consent at Guantanamo. In the near future, brain scanners may be able to literally read our thoughts<\/a> (and see this<\/a>).<\/p>\n The government is currently testing systems for use in public spaces which can screen for \u201cpre-crime\u201d. As Nature reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n Like a lie detector, FAST measures a variety of physiological indicators, ranging from heart rate to the steadiness of a person\u2019s gaze, to judge a subject\u2019s state of mind. But there are major differences from the polygraph. FAST relies on non-contact sensors, so it can measure indicators as someone walks through a corridor at an airport, and it does not depend on active questioning of the subject.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n CBS News points out<\/a>:<\/p>\n FAST is designed to track and monitor, among other inputs, body movements, voice pitch changes, prosody<\/a> changes (alterations in the rhythm and intonation of speech), eye movements, body heat changes, and breathing patterns. Occupation and age are also considered. A government source told CNET that blink rate and pupil variation are measured too.<\/p>\n A field test of FAST has been conducted in at least one undisclosed location in the northeast. \u201cIt is not an airport, but it is a large venue that is a suitable substitute for an operational setting,\u201d DHS spokesman John Verrico told<\/a> Nature.com in May.<\/p>\n Although DHS has publicly suggested that FAST could be used at airport checkpoints\u2013the Transportation Security Administration is part of the department, after all\u2013the government appears to have grander ambitions. One internal DHS document (PDF<\/a>) also obtained by EPIC through the Freedom of Information Act says a mobile version of FAST \u201ccould be used at security checkpoints such as border crossings or at large public events such as sporting events or conventions.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The risk of false positives is very real. As Computer World notes<\/a>:<\/p>\n Tom Ormerod, a psychologist in the Investigative Expertise Unit at Lancaster University, UK, told Nature<\/em>, \u201cEven having an iris scan or fingerprint read at immigration is enough to raise the heart rate of most legitimate travelers.\u201d Other critics have been concerned about \u201cfalse positives.\u201d For example, some travelers might have some of the physical responses that are supposedly signs of mal-intent if they were about to be groped by TSA agents in airport security.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Various \u201cpre-crime\u201d sensing devices have already been deployed<\/a> in public spaces in the U.S.<\/p>\n The government has also worked on artificial intelligence for \u201cpre-crime\u201d detection on the Web<\/a>. And given that programs which can figure out your emotions<\/a> are being developed using your webcam, every change in facial expression could be tracked.<\/p>\n According to the NSA\u2019s former director of global digital data \u2013 William Binney \u2013 the NSA\u2019s new data storage center in Utah will have so much storage capacity that<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cThey would have plenty of space \u2026 to store at least something on the order of 100 years worth of the worldwide communications<\/strong>, phones and emails and stuff like that,\u201d Binney asserts, \u201cand then have plenty of space left over to do any kind of parallel processing to try to break codes<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n [But the NSA isn’t stopping there.] Despite its capacity, the Utah center does not satisfy NSA\u2019s data demands. Last month, the agency broke ground on its next data farm at its headquarters at Ft. Meade, Md. But that facility will be only two-thirds the size of the mega-complex in Utah.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The NSA is building next-generation quantum computers<\/a> to process all of the data.<\/p>\n NBC News reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n NBC News has learned that under the post-9\/11 Patriot Act, the government has been collecting records on every phone call made in the U.S.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This includes metadata \u2026 which can tell the government a lot<\/em> about you<\/a>. And it also includes content<\/a>.<\/p>\n The documents leaked by Edward Snowden to Glenn Greenwald show<\/a>:<\/p>\n But what we\u2019re really talking about here is a localized system that prevents any form of electronic communication from taking place without its being stored and monitored by the National Security Agency<\/strong>.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t mean that they\u2019re listening to every call, it means they\u2019re storing every call and have the capability to listen to them at any time, and it does mean that they\u2019re collecting millions upon millions upon millions of our phone and email records<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In addition, a government expert told the Washington Post that the government \u201cquite literally can watch your ideas form as you type.\u201d<\/a> (And see this<\/a>.) A top NSA executive confirmed to Washington\u2019s Blog that the NSA is intercepting and storing virtually all digital communications<\/em> on the Internet<\/a>.<\/p>\n McClatchy notes<\/a>:<\/p>\n FBI Director Robert Mueller told a Senate committee on March 30, 2011, that \u201ctechnological improvements\u201d now enable the bureau \u201cto pull together past emails and future ones as they come in so that it does not require an individualized search.\u201d<\/p>\n The administration is building a facility in a valley south of Salt Lake City that will have the capacity to store massive amounts of records \u2013 a facility that former agency whistleblowers say has no logical purpose if it\u2019s not going to be a vault holding years of phone and Internet data.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Thomas Drake, a former NSA senior executive who challenged the data collection for several years, said the agency\u2019s intent seems obvious.<\/p>\n \u201cOne hundred million phone records?\u201d he asked in an interview. \u201cWhy would they want that each and every day? Of course they\u2019re storing it.\u201d<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Lending credence to his worries, The Guardian\u2019s latest report quoted a document in which Alexander purportedly remarked during a 2008 visit to an NSA intercept station in Britain: \u201cWhy can\u2019t we collect all the signals all the time?\u201d<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n One former U.S. security consultant, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect his connections to government agencies, told McClatchy he has seen agency-installed switches across the country that draw data from the cables.<\/p>\n \u201cDo I know they copied it? Yes,\u201d said the consultant. \u201cDo I know if they kept it? No.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n NSA whistleblower Russel Tice \u2013 a key source<\/a> in the 2005 New York Times report<\/a> that blew the lid off the Bush administration\u2019s use of warrantless wiretapping \u2013 says that the content<\/em> and metadata<\/a> of all<\/em> digital communications are being tapped by the NSA.<\/p>\n The NSA not only accesses data directly from the largest internet companies, it also sucks up huge amounts of data straight from undersea cables<\/a> providing telephone and Internet service to the United States.<\/p>\n After all, the government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act so that \u201ceverything\u201d is deemed relevant \u2026 so the government can spy on everyone<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n The NSA isn\u2019t the only agency which is conducting massive spying.<\/p>\n The Wall Street Journal notes<\/a>:<\/p>\n The rules now allow the little-known National Counterterrorism Center to \u2026 copy entire government databases\u2014flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and many others. The agency has new authority to keep data about innocent U.S. citizens for up to five years, and to analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior. Previously, both were prohibited. Data about Americans \u201creasonably believed to constitute terrorism information\u201d may be permanently retained.<\/p>\n The changes also allow databases of U.S. civilian information to be given to foreign governments for analysis of their own. In effect, U.S. and foreign governments would be using the information to look for clues that people might commit future crimes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s breathtaking\u201d in its scope, said a former senior administration official familiar with the White House debate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Reason notes<\/a>:<\/p>\n Gazillions. That\u2019s the number of times the federal government has spied on Americans since 9\/11 through the use of drones, legal search warrants, illegal search warrants, federal agent-written search warrants and just plain government spying. This is according to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who, when he asked the government to tell him what it was doing to violate our privacy, was given a classified briefing. The senator \u2014 one of just a few in the U.S. Senate who believes that the Constitution means what it says \u2014 was required by federal law to agree not to reveal what spies and bureaucrats told him during the briefing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Even if the US government weren\u2019t recording all of that data, England\u2019s GCHQ spy agency is \u2026 and is sharing it with the NSA<\/a>.<\/p>\n Germany<\/a>, Australia<\/a>, Canada and New Zealand<\/a> are also recording and sharing massive amounts of information with the NSA.<\/p>\n Private<\/em> contractors can also view all of your data<\/a> \u2026 and the government isn\u2019t keeping track of which contractors see your data and which don\u2019t<\/a>. And because background checks regarding some contractors are falsified,<\/a> it is hard to know the types of people that might have your information.<\/p>\n And top NSA and FBI experts say that the government can retroactively<\/em> search all of the collected information on someone since 9\/11<\/a> if they suspect someone of wrongdoing \u2026 or want to frame him.<\/a><\/p>\n The American government is in fact collecting and storing virtually every phone call, purchases, email, text message, internet searches<\/a>, social media communications<\/a>, health information, employment history, travel and student records<\/a>, and virtually all other information of every American.<\/p>\n The Wall Street Journal reported that the NSA spies on Americans\u2019 credit card transactions<\/a>. Senators Wyden and Udall \u2013 both on the Senate Intelligence Committee, with access to all of the top-secret information about the government\u2019s spying programs \u2013 write<\/a>:<\/p>\n Section 215 of the Patriot Act can be used to collect any type of records whatsoever \u2026 including information on credit card purchases, medical records, library records, firearm sales records, financial information and a range of other sensitive subjects<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Many other government agencies track your credit card purchases as well<\/a>. In fact, all<\/strong><\/em> U.S. intelligence agencies \u2013 including the CIA and NSA \u2013 are going to spy on Americans\u2019 finances<\/a>.<\/p>\n The IRS will be spying on Americans\u2019 shopping records, travel, social interactions, health records and files<\/a> from other government investigators.<\/p>\n The Consumer Financial Protection Board will also spy on the finances of millions of Americans<\/a>.<\/p>\n As Washington Monthly noted in 2004, Congress chopped off the head of the Total Information Awareness program \u2026 but the program returned as a many-headed hydra:<\/a><\/p>\n A program can survive even when the media, the public, and most of Congress wants it killed. It turns out that, while the language in the bill shutting down TIA was clear, a new line had been inserted during conference\u2014no one knew by whom\u2014allowing \u201ccertain processing, analysis, and collaboration tools\u201d to continue.<\/p>\n \u2026.Thanks to the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, which had lobbied for the provision, TIA didn\u2019t die\u2014it metastasized. As the AP reported in February [of 2004], the new language simply outsourced many TIA programs to other intelligence offices and buried them in the so-called \u201cblack budget.\u201d What\u2019s more, today, several agencies are pursuing data mining projects independent of TIA, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, the CIA, the Transportation Security Administration, and NASA\u2026.Even with TIA ostensibly shut down, many of the private contractors who worked on the program can continue their research with few controls.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The government is flying drones over the American homeland<\/a> to spy on us<\/a>. Indeed, the head of the FBI told Congress<\/a> that drones are used for domestic surveillance \u2026 and that there are \n