Obama to Unveil Spying Reforms on January 17
Posted on January 11, 2014 by Kara Dunlap in Security
WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama will unveil reforms to the country’s spying activities on January 17, his spokesman said Friday, following a review of the National Security Agency (NSA).
White House spokesman Jay Carney said that Obama’s remarks next Friday would show the “outcomes of the work that has been done on the review process.”
The White House said on Thursday that the president was nearing the end of his soul searching about US spying reforms as he met lawmakers who oversee the intelligence community.
Obama met the delegation in Washington as part of consultations with players on all sides of the debate on how best to balance US security and privacy rights, following revelations of massive spy agency snooping by fugitive contractor Edward Snowden.
The meeting included several prominent critics of NSA phone and data sweeps. Obama says revelations over the program by Snowden have undermined public confidence in the work of the US intelligence community and reforms are needed.
Republican House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, who was one of the lawmakers in the meeting, called on the president to explain why such vast data mining programs — which spy chiefs say help piece together links between terror suspects worldwide — were necessary.
Senior US officials have indicated Obama is considering whether to permit the programs to continue while requiring data to be held either by technology companies or a third party instead of the NSA. Intelligence officers would have to obtain court permission to access the phone records.
© AFP 2013
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NSA Spying on Europe-Asia Undersea Telecom Cables: Report
Posted on December 29, 2013 by Kara Dunlap in Security
BERLIN – The US National Security Agency has collected sensitive data on key telecommunications cables between Europe, north Africa and Asia, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported Sunday citing classified documents.
Spiegel quoted NSA papers dating from February and labelled “top secret” and “not for foreigners” describing the agency’s success in spying on the so-called Sea-Me-We 4 undersea cable system.
The massive bundle of fibre optic cables originates near the southern French city of Marseille and links Europe with north Africa and the Gulf states, continuing through Pakistan and India to Malaysia and Thailand.
“Among the companies that hold ownership stakes in it are France Telecom, now known as Orange and still partly government-owned, and Telecom Italia Sparkle,” Spiegel said.
It said NSA specialists had hacked an internal website belonging to the operator consortium to mine documents about technical infrastructure including circuit mapping and network management information.
“More operations are planned in the future to collect more information about this and other cable systems,” Spiegel quoted the NSA documents as saying.
Der Spiegel has over the last several months reported on mass NSA spying on targets in the United States and abroad using documents provided by fugitive intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
A White House-picked panel this month recommended curbing the secretive powers of the NSA, warning that its spying sweeps in the “war on terror” had gone too far.
US President Barack Obama plans to address the report in January.
© AFP 2013
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US, Britain Spying on Global Online Gaming World: Report
Posted on December 9, 2013 by Kara Dunlap in Security
US, Britain ‘Spying on Virtual World’: Report
WASHINGTON – US and British intelligence have been spying on the global online gaming world because they fear terrorists could use the hugely popular platform to plot attacks, a report said Monday.
Spies have created characters in the fantasy worlds of Second Life and World of Warcraft to carry out surveillance, recruit informers and collect data, The New York Times said, citing newly disclosed classified documents from fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.
The report came as eight leading US-based technology companies called on Washington to overhaul its surveillance laws following months of revelations of online eavesdropping from the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor.
“Fearing that terrorist or criminal networks could use the games to communicate secretly, move money or plot attacks, the documents show, intelligence operatives have entered terrain populated by digital avatars that include elves, gnomes and supermodels,” the Times said.
“The spies have created make-believe characters to snoop and to try to recruit informers, while also collecting data and contents of communications between players,” the report said.
It added: “Because militants often rely on features common to video games — fake identities, voice and text chats, a way to conduct financial transactions — American and British intelligence agencies worried that they might be operating there, according to the papers.”
The report cited a 2008 NSA paper that warned that the virtual games — played by millions of people the world over — allowed intelligence suspects “a way to hide in plain sight.”
The documents do not give any examples of success from the initiative, the report said, adding that experts and former intelligence officials said “that they knew of little evidence that terrorist groups viewed the games as havens to communicate and plot operations.”
The surveillance, which also included Microsoft’s Xbox Live, could raise privacy concerns, noted the newspaper.
Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo, AOL and LinkedIn meanwhile wrote an open letter to President Barack Obama and the US Congress calling on Washington to lead the way in a worldwide reform of state-sponsored spying.
“We understand that governments have a duty to protect their citizens. But this summer’s revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide,” the letter said.
© AFP 2013
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