-=PCTechTalk=- Trust the US federal government....Trust the US federal government....(You are getting sleepy... So sleepy)....Trust the US federal government

  • From: LARRY SOUTHERLAND <larrysoutherland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: Bullhorn Best <thebullhornsbest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Bullhorn2 <the_bullhorn2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Puters N Such <Puters_N_Such@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, PC TechTalk <pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 15:05:45 -0700

[Disregard the numbers on the back of that man's hand and on his forehead.  It 
is really "999," but it is just upside down...] 
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/11/the-ultimate-goal-of-the-nsa-is-total-population-control
The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control
At least 80% of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and 
stored in the US, says whistleblower William Binney – that's a 
'totalitarian mentality'
        *  
        *       * Antony Loewenstein 
        *   
        * theguardian.com, Thursday 10 July 2014 19.54 EDT 
 William Binney testifies before a German inquiry into surveillance. 
Photograph: Getty Images 
William Binney is one of the highest-level whistleblowers to ever 
emerge from the NSA. He was a leading code-breaker against the Soviet 
Union during the Cold War but resigned soon after September 11, 
disgusted by Washington’s move towards mass surveillance.
On 5 July he spoke at a conference in London organised by the Centre for 
Investigative Journalism and 
revealed the extent of the surveillance programs unleashed by the Bush 
and Obama administrations.
“At least 80% of fibre-optic cables 
globally go via the US”, Binney said. “This is no accident and allows 
the US to view all communication coming in. At least 80% of all audio 
calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the US. The NSA 
lies about what it stores.”
The NSA will soon be able to collect 966 exabytes a year, the total of internet 
traffic annually. Former Google head Eric Schmidt once argued that the entire 
amount of knowledge from the beginning of humankind until 2003 amount to only 
five exabytes.

Binney, who featured in a 2012 short film by Oscar-nominated US film-maker 
Laura Poitras, described a future 
where surveillance is ubiquitous and government intrusion unlimited.
“The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control”, Binney said, 
“but I’m a little optimistic with some recent Supreme Court decisions, such 
as law enforcement mostly now needing a warrant before searching a 
smartphone.”

He praised the revelations and bravery of former NSA contractor Edward 
Snowden and told me that he had indirect contact with a number of other 
NSA employees who felt disgusted with the agency’s work. They’re keen to 
speak out but fear retribution and exile, not unlike Snowden himself, 
who is likelyto remain there for some time.

Unlike Snowden, Binney didn’t take any documents with him when he left the 
NSA. He now says that hard evidence of illegal spying would have been 
invaluable. The latest Snowden leaks, featured in the Washington Post, 
detail private conversations of average Americans with no connection to 
extremism.
It shows that the NSA is not just pursuing terrorism, as it claims, but 
ordinary citizens going about their daily communications. “The NSA is 
mass-collecting on everyone”, Binney said, “and it’s said to be about 
terrorism but inside the US it has stopped zero attacks.”

The lack of official oversight is one of Binney’s key concerns, particularly 
of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa), which is held out 
by 
NSA defenders as a sign of the surveillance scheme's constitutionality.
“The Fisa court has only the government’s point of view”, he argued. 
“There 
are no other views for the judges to consider. There have been at least 
15-20 trillion constitutional violations for US domestic audiences and 
you can double that globally.”
A Fisa court in 2010 allowed the NSA to spy on 193 countries around the world, 
plus the World Bank, though there’s evidence that even the nations the US 
isn’t supposed to monitor – Five Eyes 
allies Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand –  aren’t immune from 
being spied on. It’s why encryption is today so essential to transmit 
information safely.

Binney recently told the German NSA inquiry committee that his former employer 
had a “totalitarian mentality” that was the 
"greatest threat" to US society since that country’s US Civil War in the 19th 
century. Despite this remarkable power, Binney still mocked the 
NSA’s failures, including missing this year’s Russian intervention in 
Ukraine and the Islamic State’s take-over of Iraq.

The era of 
mass surveillance has gone from the fringes of public debate to the 
mainstream, where it belongs. The Pew Research Centre released a report 
this month, Digital Life in 2025, that predicted worsening state control and 
censorship, reduced public trust, and increased commercialisation of every 
aspect of web culture.
It’s not just internet experts warning about the internet’s colonisation by 
state and corporate power. One of Europe’s leading web creators, Lena 
Thiele, presented her stunning series Netwars in London on the threat of cyber 
warfare. She showed how easy it is for governments and corporations to capture 
our personal information 
without us even realising.
Thiele said that the US budget for cyber security was US$67 billion in 2013 and 
will double by 2016. Much of this money is wasted and doesn't protect online 
infrastructure. This fact doesn’t worry the 
multinationals making a killing from the gross exaggeration of fear that 
permeates the public domain.

Wikileaks understands this reality better than most. Founder Julian Assange and 
investigative editor Sarah Harrison both remain in legal limbo. I spent time 
with Assange in his current 
home at the Ecuadorian embassy in London last week, where he continues 
to work, release leaks, and fight various legal battles. He hopes to resolve 
his predicament soon.

At the Centre for Investigative Journalism conference, Harrison stressed 
the importance of journalists who work with technologists to best report the 
NSA stories. “It’s no accident”, she said, “that some of the best 
stories on the NSA are in Germany, where there’s technical assistance from 
people like Jacob Appelbaum.”

A core Wikileaks belief, she stressed, is releasing all documents in their 
entirety, something the group criticised the news site The Intercept for not 
doing on a recent story. “The full archive should always be published”, 
Harrison said.
With 8m documents on its website after years of leaking, the importance of 
publishing and maintaining 
source documents for the media, general public and court cases can’t be 
under-estimated. “I see Wikileaks as a library”, Assange said. “We’re 
the librarians who can’t say no.”With evidence that there could be a second 
NSA leaker, the time for more aggressive 
reporting is now. As Binney said: “I call people who are covering up NSA 
crimes traitors”.

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