Will: Obama has turned the press room into part of Congress. Washington Post columnist George Will declared President Barack Obama has in some ways made the White House briefing room its own part of the legislative branch.
As Will explained on this weekend’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” Obama has shown a willingness to bypass the legislative process and alter laws when needed which makes the press room its own part of Congress. “Well, I think Republicans have offered serious alternatives all along,” Will said. “But right now — no, I mean, the president, his name is on it. He did it without any other votes, so live with it. One Republican put it brazenly, Scalise of Louisiana — congressman.
“It was nine months ago, an official of the Centers on Medicaid and Medicare Services told a conference, what we want to avoid [is] a third-world experience. Forget the Backdoor: The Government Now Wants Keys to the Internet. Photoillustration by Matt Connolly Internet privacy relies heavily on the ability of tech companies to hide user content—such as your emails and bank information—behind a secure wall.
But the Department of Justice is waging an unprecedented battle in court to win the power to seize the keys of US companies whenever the US government wants. Edward Snowden has shown that the government is already doing a great job at getting companies to hand over information, breaking down weak doors, and scooping up unlocked material. Stop the NSA "Fake Fix" Bill. Panasonic a Finalist in GSN Magazine’s Homeland Security Awards Program. Did The NSA Think The Public Can't Do Math? Attempt To Downplay Data Collection Fails Miserably. Last week we wrote about the NSA's ridiculous attempt to justify its surveillance efforts, including this really wacky callout designed to show just how "little" data the NSA collects.
Scope and Scale of NSA CollectionAccording to figures published by a major tech provider, the Internet carries 1,826 Petabytes of information per day. In its foreign intelligence mission, NSA touches about 1.6% of that. However, of the 1.6% of the data, only 0.025% is actually selected for review. The net effect is that NSA analysts look at 0.00004% of the world's traffic in conducting their mission -- that's less than one part in a million. Put another way, if a standard basketball court represented the global communications environment, NSA's total collection would be represented by an area smaller than a dime on that basketball court.
Senate Democrats warn reported NSA privacy violations only 'tip of the iceberg' Sens.
Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) warned Friday that recent revelations of privacy violations by the National Security Agency (NSA) were “just the tip of a larger iceberg.” On Thursday, The Washington Post published an internal NSA audit and other documents leaked by Edward Snowden that showed the NSA had broken its own privacy rules thousands of times since 2008. Udall and Wyden, who both sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a joint statement that the new leak vindicated past claims that “violations of [privacy] laws and rules were more serious than had been acknowledged.” They implied, however, that privacy violations when far further than was revealed Thursday. HBGary, Palantir, Prism, Facebook & The Industrial Surveillance Complex. Two years ago, a batch of stolen e-mails revealed a plot by a set of three defense contractors (Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and HBGary Federal) to target activists, reporters, labor unions and political organizations.
The plans— one concocted in concert with lawyers for the US Chamber of Commerce to sabotage left-leaning critics, like the Center for American Progress and the SEIU, and a separate proposal to “combat” WikiLeaks and its supporters, including Glenn Greenwald, on behalf of Bank of America— fell apart after reports of their existence were published online. But the episode serves as a reminder that the expanding spy industry could use its government-backed cyber-tools to harm ordinary Americans and political dissident groups. “I think we need to highlight people like Glenn Greenwald. Glenn was critical in the Amazon to OVH [data center] transition and helped WikiLeaks provide access to information during the transition. US defense contractor’s Sock-Puppet scheme busted: Your social media is infected!
HBGary Federal, a US defense department cyber security firm, was hacked (supposedly by a 16 year old girl) and their emails were uploaded to torrents and websites.
In those emails, the public learned that prominent law firms hired HBGary to create fake Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube accounts to post online as if they were real people, and influence your opinion. One person can run more than 50 different accounts, all with complete “online” life histories to add authenticity. Their purpose? Discredit all associated with Wikileaks through coersion. Convince people online that the (fake) majority of people don’t like Wikileaks, Glenn Greenwald, or Julian Assange.
Barrett Brown (self claimed Anonymous member) did extensive research on the emails released during this hack, here is his findings: Basically, government lawyers paid this team to create sock-puppets to discredit Wikileaks activists.