Homeland Stupidity

The Real, Terrifying Reason Why British Authorities Detained David Miranda

"Those in power were angry and impulsively acted on that anger. They're lashing out: sending a message and demonstrating that they're not to be messed with -- that the normal rules of polite conduct don't apply to people who screw with them. That's probably the scariest explanation of all. Both the U.S. and U.K. intelligence apparatuses have enormous money and power, and they have already demonstrated that they are willing to ignore their own laws. Once they start wielding that power unthinkingly, it could get really bad for everyone." Continue reading →

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NSA Officers Spy on Love Interests

"National Security Agency officers on several occasions have channeled their agency’s enormous eavesdropping power to spy on love interests, U.S. officials said. The practice isn’t frequent — one official estimated a handful of cases in the last decade — but it’s common enough to garner its own spycraft label: LOVEINT. Spy agencies often refer to their various types of intelligence collection with the suffix of 'INT,' such as 'SIGINT' for collecting signals intelligence, or communications; and 'HUMINT' for human intelligence, or spying. The LOVEINT violations involved overseas communications, officials said, such as spying on a partner or spouse." Continue reading →

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NSA; The Not Secure Agency

"It's not a 'sophisticated' bypass, the NSA didn't protect databases from Database and Systems Administrators. Here's a blog article by a database security product vendor's research group about this widely known problem from January of last year. Even then, the information in the blog article was long in the tooth. This implies that everything the NSA has said about the careful auditing they do to prevent unauthorized access by employees and contractors is a joke - it's not possible when you don't take these basic precautions." Continue reading →

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Guardian teams up with New York Times over Snowden documents

"In a brief story posted on its website, the Guardian said it 'struck a partnership' with the Times after the British government threatened the Guardian with legal action unless it either surrendered or destroyed files it received from Snowden about Government Communications Headquarters - Britain's equivalent of NSA. 'In a climate of intense pressure from the UK government, the Guardian decided to bring in a US partner to work on the GCHQ documents provided by Edward Snowden. We are working in partnership with the NYT and others to continue reporting these stories,' the British newspaper said in a statement." Continue reading →

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Run Snowden Run!

"NSA leaker Edward Snowden set the world on fire when he stood up to the powerful and secretive National Security Agency, exposing its illegal and unconstitutional spying to a global audience. Since that time, statists, neoconservatives, and supporters of the Obama administration have called for him to stand trial for treason. Meanwhile, civil liberties activists have hailed him as a whistleblower and a hero. Some have even suggested that the NSA should be disbanded, that its officials should be held accountable, and that Edward Snowden deserves a ticker tape parade. Today's Enemies Domestic short tackles this national conversation head-on." Continue reading →

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Why Amazon’s Fighting So Hard for a CIA Cloud Contract

"Amazon actually won the contract to build private-cloud infrastructure for the CIA in January, but IBM asked the GAO to reopen the agreement to bidding. Amazon locking down a $600 million cloud contract was clearly viewed as a serious competitive threat by IBM, which already supplies IT infrastructure to the U.S. intelligence community. Big Blue managed to successfully argue that, because it bid lower than Amazon, the contract-approval process should be reconsidered. If Amazon wins the contract and pulls that project off to the CIA’s satisfaction, it could open the door to still more federal contracts—and make the online retailer a genuine threat to longtime fed-tech contractors." Continue reading →

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Can Bitcoin make a good first impression with top federal agencies?

"The discussions are to involve many of the country’s top law enforcement and financial agencies, including the FBI, the Secret Service, the IRS, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security. Also attending will be officials from the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, National Credit Union Administration, Money Transmitter Regulators Association and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors would also be in attendance, a Treasury official confirmed. Congress has also asked the Obama administration for information on its plans for regulating digital currencies." Continue reading →

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Arab-American Group Asks Government to Intervene in Bank Account Closures

"A Dearborn-based Arab-American advocacy group is asking the federal government to investigate banks in southeastern Michigan for closing accounts of community members. Abbas said since the Bank Security Act (BSA) went into effect in 2001, Arab Americans have been increasingly targeted with account closures. The act requires financial institutions to monitor and report certain transactions to the FBI. 'Banks are misinformed and they are using their discretion to close accounts as a preemptive strike. If they are in doubt, they shut it down,' he said." Continue reading →

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Papers Please: TSA-Style Checkpoints at UK Bus & Train Stations

"‘Airport-style’ security checkpoints are being rolled out at local bus and train stations up and down the UK after local pilot schemes conducted over the last two years were deemed a success by police. The checkpoints comprise metal detector arches, drug-sniffing dogs, police pat-downs and bag searches. The reason? To 'help people who use public transport feel safer.' Over the last couple of years more and more of these ‘security’ checkpoints have been quietly introduced at local bus and train stations across the UK under a number of pretexts that simply don’t bear scrutiny." Continue reading →

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Arbitrary enforcement, secrecy, self-interest, and the loss of government legitimacy

"The drug war and the national security scandals have overlapped in so many ways, not the least of which is a growing sense of the erosion of the very foundation of legitimacy of government. There are laws you must follow, but we’re not going to tell you what they are, or our interpretation of what they mean, but you must follow them anyway, and we’re going to gag you so you can’t talk about these laws you must follow, and if you try to take it to court, we’re going to invoke national security and say that the courts can’t be allowed to discuss it, plus since it’s secret it doesn’t exist anyway." Continue reading →

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