Everyone in US under virtual surveillance - NSA whistleblower

[imschur]

Video here

The FBI has the e-mails of nearly all US citizens, including congressional members, according to NSA whistleblower William Binney. Speaking to RT he warned that the government can use information against anyone it wants.

­One of the best mathematicians and code breakers in NSA history resigned in 2001 because he no longer wanted to be associated with alleged violations of the constitution.

He asserts, that the FBI has access to this data due to a powerful device Naris.

This year Binney received the Callaway award. The annual award was established to recognize those, who stand out for constitutional rights and American values at great risk to their personal or professional lives.

RT: In light of the Petraeus/Allen scandal while the public is so focused on the details of their family drama one may argue that the real scandal in this whole story is the power, the reach of the surveillance state. I mean if we take General Allen – thousands of his personal e-mails have been sifted through private correspondence. It’s not like any of those men was planning an attack on America. Does the scandal prove the notion that there is no such thing as privacy in a surveillance state?

William Binney: Yes, that’s what I’ve been basically saying for quite some time, is that the FBI has access to the data collected, which is basically the e-mails of virtually everybody in the country. And the FBI has access to it. All the congressional members are on the surveillance too, no one is excluded. They are all included. So, yes, this can happen to anyone. If they become a target for whatever reason – they are targeted by the government, the government can go in, or the FBI, or other agencies of the government, they can go into their database, pull all that data collected on them over the years, and we analyze it all. So, we have to actively analyze everything they’ve done for the last 10 years at least.

RT: And it’s not just about those, who could be planning, who could be a threat to national security, but also those, who could be just…

WB: It’s everybody. The Naris device if it takes in the entire line, so it takes in all the data. In fact they advertised they can process the lines at session rates, which means 10 gigabit lines. I forgot the name of the device (it’s not the Naris) – the other one does it at 10 gigabits. That’s why the building Buffdale, because they have to have more storage, because they can’t figure out what’s important, so they are just storing everything there. So, e-mails are going to be stored there for the future, but right now stored in different places around the country. But it is being collected – and the FBI has access to it.

RT: You mean it’s being collected in bulk without even requesting providers?

WB:Yes.

RT: Then what about Google, you know, releasing this biannual transparency report and saying that the government’s demands for personal data is at an all-time high and for all of those requesting the US, Google says they complied with the government’s demands 90% of the time. But they are still saying that they are making the request, it’s not like it’s all being funneled into that storage. What do you say to that?

WB: I would assume, that it’s just simply another source for the same data they are already collecting. My line is in declarations in a court about the 18-T facility in San Francisco, that documented the NSA room inside that AST&T facility, where they had Naris devices to collect data off the fiber optic lines inside the United States. So, that’s kind of a powerful device, that would collect everything it was being sent. It could collect on the order over one hundred billion one thousand character e-mails a day. One device.

RT: You say they sift through billions of e-mails. I wonder how do they prioritize? How do they filter it?

WB: I don’t think they are filtering it. They are just storing it. I think it’s just a matter of selecting when they want it. So, if they want to target you, they would take your attributes, go into that database and pull out all your data.

RT: Were you on the target list?

WB: Oh, sure! I believe I’ve been on it for quite a few years. So I keep telling them everything I think of them in my e-mail. So that when they want to read it they’ll understand what I think of them.

RT: Do you think we all should leave messages for the NSA mail box?

WB: Sure!

RT: You blew the whistle on the agency when George W. Bush was the President. With President Obama in office, in your opinion, has anything changed at the agency – in the surveillance program? In what direction is this administration moving?

WB: The change is it’s getting worse. They are doing more. He is supporting the building of the Buffdale facility, which is over two billion dollars they are spending on storage room for data. That means that they are collecting a lot more now and need more storage for it. That facility by my calculations that I submitted to the court for the electronic frontiers foundation against NSA would hold on the order of 5 zettabytes of data. Just that current storage capacity is being advertised on the web that you can buy. And that’s not talking about what they have in the near future.

RT: What are they going to do with all of that? Ok, they are storing something. Why should anybody be concerned?

WB: If you ever get on the enemies list, like Petraeus did or… for whatever reason, than you can be drained into that surveillance.

RT: Do you think they would… General Petraeus, who was idolized by the same administration? Or General Allen?

WB: There are certainly some questions, that have to be asked, like why would they target it (to begin with)? What law were they breaking?

RT:In case of General Petraeus one would argue that there could have been security breaches. Something like that. But with General Allen  – I don’t quite understand, because when they were looking into his private e-mails to this woman.

WB: That’s the whole point. I am not sure what the internal politics is… That’s part of the program. This government doesn’t want things in the public. It’s not a transparent government. Whatever the reason or the motivation was, I don’t really know, but I certainly think, that there was something going on in the background, that made them target those fellows. Otherwise why would they be doing it? There is no crime there.

RT: It seems that the public is divided between those, who think that the government surveillance program violates their civil liberties, and those, who say: “I’ve nothing to hide. So, why should I care?” What do you say to those, who think that it shouldnt concern them.

WB: The problem is if they think they are not doing anything that’s wrong, they don’t get to define that. The central government does, the central government defines what is right and wrong and whether or not they target you. So, it’s not up to the individuals. Even if they think they are doing something wrong, if their position on something is against what the administration has, then they could easily become a target.

RT: Tell me about the most outrageous thing that you came across during your work at the NSA.

WB: The violations of the constitution and any number of laws that existed at the time. That was the part that I could not be associated with. That’s why I left. They were building social networks on who is communicating and with whom inside this country. So that the entire social network of everybody, of every US citizen was being compiled overtime. So, they are taking from one company alone roughly 320 million records a day. That’s probably accumulated probably close to 20 trillion over the years. The original program that we put together to handle this to be able to identify terrorists anywhere in the world and alert anyone that they were in jeopardy. We would have been able to do that by encrypting everybody’s communications except those, who were targets. So, in essence you would protect their identities and the information about them until you could develop probable cause, and once you showed your probable cause, then you could do a decrypt and target them. And we could do that and isolate those people all alone. It wasn’t a problem at all. There was no difficulty in that.

RT: It sounds very difficult and very complicated. Easier to take everything in and…

WB: No. It’s easier to use the graphing techniques, if you will, for the relationships for the world to filter out data, so that you don’t have to handle all that data. And it doesn’t burden you with a lot more information to look at, than you really need to solve the problem.

RT: Do you think that the agency doesn’t have the filters now?

WB: No.

RT: You have received the Callaway award for civic courage. Congratulations! On the website and in the press release it says: “It is awarded to those, who stand out for constitutional rights and American values at great risk to their personal or professional lives.” Under the code of spy ethics (I don’t know if there is such a thing) your former colleagues, they probably look upon you as a traitor. How do you look back at them?

WB: That’s pretty easy. They are violating the foundation of this entire country. Why this entire government was formed? It’s founded with the constitution and the rights were given to the people in the country under that constitution. They are in violation of that. And under executive order 13526, section 1.7 (governing classification) – you can not classify information to just cover up a crime, which this is- and that was signed by President Obama. Also President Bush signed it earlier executive order, a very similar one. If any of this comes into Supreme court and they rule it unconstitutional, then the entire house of cards of the government falls.

RT: What are the chances of that? What are the odds?

WB: The government is doing the best they can to try to keep it out of court. And, of course, we are trying to do the best we can to get into court. So, we decided it deserves a ruling from the Supreme court. Ultimately the court is supposed to protect the constitution. All these people in the government take an oath to defend the constitution. And they are not living up to the oath of office.             

RT: Thank you for this interview.WB: You are welcome.

[unforgiven]

No surprises here brother,there is absolutely 0 privacy on the confuser.Even hi-tech geeks that bounce signals from different points thru more elaborate devices that the average person could imagine are found out eventually.I hear quite some time ago that the internet will be free to facilitate the gathering of information.I phones with geo-tagging,all social media people give up all there privacy voluntarily.People need to wake up they are walking right into the snare.Texts are another way of giving up privacy as all this info can be retrived when needed.Careful what you type/text. :cookoo:

[imschur]

The thing that concerns me is the wacked out emails I receive. There is a lunatic fringe out there. Then there's the emails from the middle east. So far the best one was from Libya. When all the crap was going down this dude emailed me for info on an AK he picked up after a battle. I checked his IP and he was legit.

Then theres the emails I send to my Governor  <lmao>

[98Z5V]

^^^  Not to mention what I've already sent YOU...  :o

We're both goin' down, man.  In flames.  <lmao> <laughs>

[unforgiven]

As long as it isn't terroist poop fuk em all. >:D

[imschur]

^^^  Not to mention what I've already sent YOU...  :o

We're both goin' down, man.  In flames.  <lmao> <laughs>

yeah but the hot blondes will distract the straight feds.

[Matt.Cross]

I'm not too worried about it. This is just another in a long list of hypocrisies the .gov engages in for the sake of maintaining the status quo. It will meet with failure just like every other historical bid for tyrannical rule.

[Magwa]

yeah but the hot blondes will distract the straight feds.

  Damn I missed that memo!

[shepp]

Email don't worry me, social media is my downfall. Prolly more worried about my bulk ammo orders in the past year then anything. Not gonna worry about it there's bigger poop to worry about

[rc229]

Not news.

Read Bruce Schneier.

"They" do word/phrase searches on email and telephone conversations. Mostly "they" don't have the time to analyze the information unless you float to the top for some reason.

RC

[MaDuce]

With the way yahoo, facebook, PSN, xbox live etc. are configured, I have always suspected this sort of thing.

[planeflyer21]

Ever heard of The Thing?  Not the wonderful roadside freakshow near Wilcox, AZ. 

It was a simple device of metal hidden in a wooden plaque presented to the U.S. Ambassador by the USSR.  Nothing electronic, just a little piece of metal.  After a few years it was learned that a KGB agent could sit across the way with a radio receiver, and monitor the vibrations on this little strip, and record whole conversations.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(listening_device)

It has been claimed that this technology has been perfected to the point that you can be monitored through your toaster oven or wall clocks, or any other device in your home.

I don't have the article anymore but every commercial computer made since like 1998 has had a NSA accessable keystroke monitor/recorder installed.

A few years back it was reported and acknowledged that, unless the battery is removed from your cell phone, that device can be used to monitor its surroundings.

Call BS if you want but if the technologically inferior Russians can implement a passive listening device back in the 1950s (60 years ago), just think how far the technology has advanced.

Jon

[98Z5V]

Ever heard of The Thing?  Not the wonderful roadside freakshow near Wilcox, AZ. 

It was a simple device of metal hidden in a wooden plaque presented to the U.S. Ambassador by the USSR.  Nothing electronic, just a little piece of metal.  After a few years it was learned that a KGB agent could sit across the way with a radio receiver, and monitor the vibrations on this little strip, and record whole conversations.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(listening_device)

It has been claimed that this technology has been perfected to the point that you can be monitored through your toaster oven or wall clocks, or any other device in your home.

I don't have the article anymore but every commercial computer made since like 1998 has had a NSA accessable keystroke monitor/recorder installed.

A few years back it was reported and acknowledged that, unless the battery is removed from your cell phone, that device can be used to monitor its surroundings.

Call BS if you want but if the technologically inferior Russians can implement a passive listening device back in the 1950s (60 years ago), just think how far the technology has advanced.

Jon

When we meeting for breakfast again, brother?

[unforgiven]

And now with the black boxes in cars insurance companies will have an out.With GPS / I Pass they know where you are and where you are going.Just sayin. <dontknow>

[planeflyer21]

When we meeting for breakfast again, brother?

Tell me the where and I'll give you the when!

You'd think the NSA would be tired of watching people jack it.

Jon

[SPBCTS]

This guy has mega cajones for stepping forward and giving us a view from the inside of what is going one at that level. I thank him, and all the people like him, for that.

I think the internet itself has been the biggest windfall for government looking to collect data on it's people since the invention of the written word.

Sometimes I wonder how far we are going to fall, and if, once we bottom out, will there be enough people left with the courage and strength to dust off the Constitution and restore it. Or, will the world have to wait a few centuries for free people to rise up again, somewhere, and create a republic like ours once was.