The latest release from fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden shows that the National Security Agency used a website that looked almost identical to Facebook as a way to plant malware on computers.
The deception was part of a program codenamed TURBINE that would plant malware on computers allowing the NSA access to the computer’s microphone and camera without the user’s knowledge.
The report said that as many as 100,000 computers worldwide have been infected with the NSA’s spying software using the false Facebook page.
In addition to allowing video and audio surveillance of the computer user, the NSA would be able to track internet browsing history, login details and passwords for websites, keystrokes by the users and could corrupt files on the user’s system.
The report says the system is so sophisticated that many people will never be able to spot the fake website.
Fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden told members of the European Parliament that many more spy operations are yet to be revealed that could show major violations of the rights of EU citizens.
Snowden said he’s going to allow the journalists to whom he’s given classified information to decide which operations are released to the public.
“I don’t want to outpace the efforts of journalists,” Snowden testified, “but I can confirm that all documents reported thus far are authentic and unmodified, meaning the alleged operations again Belgacom, SWIFT, the EU as an institution, the United Nations, UNICEF and others based on documents I have provided have actually occurred. I expect similar operations will be revealed in the future that affect many more ordinary citizens.”
Snowden testified that he still loves the United States and that the government likely missed terror plots because they were busy collecting large amounts of information and not taking the time to monitor it all.
Snowden invoked the Boston Marathon attack in his testimony, claiming the Russians had warned U.S. intelligence about one of the bombers but the FBI did only cursory investigations.
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul announced that he has filed one of the largest class-action lawsuits in history in response to spying operations by the National Security Agency against American citizens.
The suit was joined by the conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks and filed in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia.
The suit claims the NSA’s program that collects the metadata of American’s phone calls violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. The lawsuit wants the court to rule the program unconstitutional and order the government to immediately stop the program.
“There’s a huge and growing swell of protest in this country of people who are outraged that their records would be taken without suspicion, without a judge’s warrant and without individualization,” Sen. Paul told reporters.
A Justice Departments spokesman said that they expect to win the case because at least 15 other judges have ruled the program legal.
Representatives on the House Armed Services Committee reportedly were “shocked” by the amount of information the NSA fugitive leaker Edward Snowden released beyond the NSA’s surveillance program.
Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas said that the information given in the meeting of the panel’s Intelligence, Emergency Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee was “very highly classified” and thus it could not be discussed in public. However, Rep. Thornberry said the lawmakers “left the briefing disturbed and angered.”
Rep. Thornberry said that the information released by Snowden “went well beyond programs associated with the NSA and data collection.”
Rep. Buck McKeon of California said that he would have to later release a statement because of his anger after hearing the news.
“Ed Snowden isn’t a whistleblower,” Rep. McKeon said. “He’s a traitor.”
The National Security Agency “probably” has been collecting the phone records of Congressmen and Senators.
Deputy Attorney General James Cole admitted under questioning from lawmakers of the House Judiciary Committee that the NSA likely tracked the calls in and out of Congressional offices.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Ca.) asked Cole if they collected information from the prefixes used to call congressional offices.
“We probably do, Mr. Congressman,” Cole answered. “But we’re not allowed to look at any of those, however, unless we have a reasonable, articulable suspicion that those numbers are related to a known terrorist threat.”
While most security observers were not surprised that the spying had been happening, they were surprised that a member of the Justice Department admitted it so openly in a public hearing.
NSA Director Keith Alexander has previously told Senator Bernie Sanders that nothing the NSA did could be considered spying on members of Congress.
The man who stole classified information from the National Security Agency and then fled the country to avoid prosecution for his actions is now an official nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Two members of the Norwegian government nominated Edward Snowden.
Baard Vegard Solhjell, a former environment minister, and Snorre Valen released publicly their nomination for Snowden. They claimed that Snowden’s release of the classified NSA actions “has contributed to a more stable and peaceful world order.”
The members of the Nobel panel do not confirm nominees but people who make nominations are permitted to release the information to the public.
The nomination comes a few days after Snowden released new documents showing that the NSA and their British counterparts were doing real time spying on use of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
If you have played the mobile game Angry Birds on your phone at any time since its release, then you likely have a file at the NSA with your personal information.
A new document released by fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden shows that the NSA has a list of online games that have security leaks which can allow them to obtain information without having to hack into someone’s smartphone.
The program could capture everything from the model of phone and its screen size to someone’s age, gender and GPS location. The apps can also be used to determine sensitive personal information such as a person’s dating preferences or preferred restaurants.
Most smartphone users have no idea of the potential weaknesses in security of smartphone games and the ease with which security groups can obtain their most personal information.
The data skimming from games is part of a $1 billion budget the NSA has used for online spying targeting phones.
The National Security Agency’s mass phone data collection program is illegal and should be ended.
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board released a report Thursday that concludes a four-month review into the NSA and its data collection process. The report was leaked Wednesday to the New York Times and the Washington Post.
The panel says that the NSA actions could violate constitutional protections of right of speech, freedom of association and privacy.
“The connections revealed by the extensive database of telephone records gathered under the program will necessarily include relationships established among individuals and groups for political, religious, and other expressive purposes,” the board said in their report. “Compelled disclosure to the government of information revealing these associations can have a chilling effect on the exercise of First Amendment rights.”
Defenders of the NSA expressed their dislike of the report saying that multiple federal judges had approved of the program and it wasn’t the board’s charge to decide on legal issues related to the NSA program.
The National Security Agency reportedly has been collecting up to 200 million text messages a day from around the world.
The NSA has used the data to track locations, contact names and numbers and details of credit cards. The program, codenamed Dishfire, collections information from phones en masse and is not targeted only at subjects of surveillance.
The information was released by fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden to Britain’s Guardian newspaper.
The presentation from 2011 on the program was subtitled “SMS Text Messages: A Goldmine to Exploit.” The report claims that numbers from the United States were “minimized” from the database but confirmed numbers from citizens in Great Britain were used in the tracking.
Mobile phone companies in Europe immediately protested the actions of the NSA in spying on their customers.
