AFP — New documents show NSA routinely spied on phone records unrelated to terrorism cases

US intelligence officials declassified documents Tuesday revealing the National Security Agency violated privacy rules for three years when it sifted phone records of Americans with no suspected links to terrorists.

The revelations raised fresh questions about the NSA’s ability to manage the massive amount of data it collects and whether the US government is able to safeguard the privacy of its citizens.

The government was forced to disclose the documents by a judge’s order after a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit group promoting digital privacy rights and free speech.

The Raw Story
New documents show NSA routinely spied on phone records unrelated to terrorism cases
Agence Presse-France

Tech Dirt — Feds Abused Anti-Terrorism Database To Track Chelsea Manning Supporter, Seize His Computer

Feds Abused Anti-Terrorism Database To Track Chelsea Manning Supporter, Seize His Computer (via Techdirt)

We've written a number of times about the so-called Constitution-free zone that extends 100 miles inward from the borders of the United States, a place where the Border Patrol, along with the DHS and ICE, exercise the "right" to search electronic devices…

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Techdirt — Profile Of NSA Boss General Keith Alexander Reveals: He Wants All The Data, And He Doesn't Care About The Law

Profile Of NSA Boss General Keith Alexander Reveals: He Wants All The Data, And He Doesn't Care About The Law (via Techdirt)

Shane Harris has an explosive and fascinating profile of NSA boss General Keith Alexander for Foreign Policy magazine. You should read the whole thing, but I wanted to highlight a few key points that are really kind of eye-opening. His predecessor,…

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Arturo Garcia — Worse than PRISM: the NSA’s war against Internet encryption

Worse than PRISM: the NSA’s war against Internet encryption (via Raw Story )

The National Security Agency (NSA) has compromised encryption software needed to ensure the privacy of Americans’ day-to-day Internet activity, in part through a “breakthrough” in 2010 allowing for the mining of data through Internet cable taps…

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Gaius Publius: IRS is Using NSA Data Too. Who in Town Isn’t?

Summary of the sorry state that has come to pass in the US by trading faux security for liberty and constitutional rights.

Naked Capitalism

Gaius Publius: IRS is Using NSA Data Too. Who in Town Isn’t?

Jonathan Turley — Meet XKeyscore: The Latest Massive Surveillance Program Of U.S. . . . As Reported In The Foreign Media

This morning we have yet another article detailing a warrantless surveillance program by the National Security Agency that contradicts representations made by President Barack Obama and members of Congress. You may recall how Obama has tried to get citizens to embrace a new surveillance-friendly model of privacy after the disclosure of massive surveillance of citizens, including programs acquiring every call made by citizens. Various Democratic members came forward to admit that they knew of such programs and not to be afraid . . . they have our backs. Yet every story that has surfaced has contradicted claims that such programs are limited and do not involve the content of communications in emails and messages. The latest program being reported is called XKeyscore and is described as scouring emails, chat rooms, and browsing histories . . . all without a warrant. In the meantime, citizens in polls are saying that they are more concerned with the threat of their own government to their privacy than the threat of terrorism. Once again, citizens learned of this program not from their representative or their media but largely from the foreign press and the disclosures of Edward Snowden.....

With Congress now fully supporting this surveillance state, citizens are left with a dangerous vacuum in our constitutional system. The federal courts have created a blind spot where they bar judicial review on the basis of increasingly narrow standing rules and classification barriers. 

Even reading about these issues is difficult. As we have been discussing, the U.S. media has largely yielded to demands of the White House not to call Snowden a whistleblower and we often have to read about these programs from foreign sources like the Guardian.

How did we come to this point as a nation?

Meet XKeyscore: The Latest Massive Surveillance Program Of U.S. . . . As Reported In The Foreign Media
Jonathan Turley | Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law, George Washington University

Glenn Greenwald — Major opinion shifts, in the US and Congress, on NSA surveillance and privacy

Pew finds that, for the first time since 9/11, Americans are now more worried about civil liberties abuses than terrorism

Tide turning?

The Guardian (UK)

Major opinion shifts, in the US and Congress, on NSA surveillance and privacy

Glenn Greenwald

Max Blumenthal — Shocking 'Extermination' Fantasies By the People Running America's Empire on Full Display at Aspen Summit

A close up look at the scary people in charge. Well-intentioned but severely misguided about civil rights, human rights, the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, law, and democracy.

The military mind at work in the context of empire — the end justifies all means regardless of unintended and unforeseen consequences that the CIA calls "blowback." Frighteningly short-sighted and crass.

This is a big reason that there is civilian control of the military and separation of military and domestic security forces. The lines are now extremely blurred, and the wall of secrecy is so thick that it is difficult for the public to know what is going on or what their fate is.

AlterNet
Shocking 'Extermination' Fantasies By the People Running America's Empire on Full Display at Aspen Summit

Max Blumenthal

Sen. Ron Wyden On NSA Spying: It's As Bad As Snowden Says — Transcript of speech

Transcript from a speech given on Tuesday, July 23, at the Center for American Progress in Washington

AlterNet
Sen. Ron Wyden On NSA Spying: It's As Bad As Snowden Says
Ron Wyden

Sam Adler-Bell And David Segal — Why NSA Surveillance Should Alarm Labor

If unions are not speaking out against PRISM, it is because they have short memories.

Good history lesson. You don't have to be libertarian to understand that government often either colludes with the wealthy and powerful, or is captured by vested interests. There is along history of government being used to go against labor.

In these times with liberty and justice for all
Why NSA Surveillance Should Alarm Labor
Sam Adler-Bell And David Segal