NSA taps in to user data of Facebook, Apple, Google and others, secret files reveal
• Top secret PRISM program claims direct access to servers of firms including Google, Facebook and Apple
• Companies deny any knowledge of program in operation since 2007
Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill
The Guardian, Friday 7 June 2013
Jump to comments (1829)
The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.
The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.
The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims "collection directly from the servers" of major US service providers.
Although the presentation claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies, all those who responded to a Guardian request for comment on Thursday denied knowledge of any such program.
In a statement, Google said: "Google cares deeply about the security of our users' data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data."
Several senior tech executives insisted that they had no knowledge of PRISM or of any similar scheme. They said they would never have been involved in such a program. "If they are doing this, they are doing it without our knowledge," one said.
An Apple spokesman said it had "never heard" of PRISM.
The NSA access was enabled by changes to US surveillance law introduced under President Bush and renewed under Obama in December 2012.
Prism
The program facilitates extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. The law allows for the targeting of any customers of participating firms who live outside the US, or those Americans whose communications include people outside the US.
It also opens the possibility of communications made entirely within the US being collected without warrants.
Disclosure of the PRISM program follows a leak to the Guardian on Wednesday of a top-secret court order compelling telecoms provider Verizon to turn over the telephone records of millions of US customers.
The participation of the internet companies in PRISM will add to the debate, ignited by the Verizon revelation, about the scale of surveillance by the intelligence services. Unlike the collection of those call records, this surveillance can include the content of communications and not just the metadata.
Some of the world's largest internet brands are claimed to be part of the information-sharing program since its introduction in 2007. Microsoft – which is currently running an advertising campaign with the slogan "Your privacy is our priority" – was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007.
It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012. The program is continuing to expand, with other providers due to come online.
Collectively, the companies cover the vast majority of online email, search, video and communications networks.
Prism
The extent and nature of the data collected from each company varies.
Companies are legally obliged to comply with requests for users' communications under US law, but the PRISM program allows the intelligence services direct access to the companies' servers. The NSA document notes the operations have "assistance of communications providers in the US".
....
Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's Center for Democracy, that it was astonishing the NSA would even ask technology companies to grant direct access to user data.
"It's shocking enough just that the NSA is asking companies to do this," he said. "The NSA is part of the military. The military has been granted unprecedented access to civilian communications.
"This is unprecedented militarisation of domestic communications infrastructure. That's profoundly troubling to anyone who is concerned about that separation."
A senior administration official said in a statement: "The Guardian and Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This law does not allow the targeting of any US citizen or of any person located within the United States.
"The program is subject to oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Executive Branch, and Congress. It involves extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court, to ensure that only non-US persons outside the US are targeted, and that minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about US persons.
"This program was recently reauthorized by Congress after extensive hearings and debate.
"Information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats.
"The Government may only use Section 702 to acquire foreign intelligence information, which is specifically, and narrowly, defined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This requirement applies across the board, regardless of the nationality of the target."
One of the early comments...
Quote:
The only surprising thing about this is that it took the media this long to report it. Governments have been spying on people without a warrant for years.
They don't even really have to try that hard, considering how much data we already surrender for the sake of being seen. Most smartphones record your location, and it would be silly to think that any major company wouldn't give up user information to the government of any country, in order to do business there.
The internet is the death of privacy, and the beginning of an open society. It could be a good thing, if it led to governmental transparency, but right now, it's simply a way to spy on everyone, all the time.
Another says
Quote:
Has the world always been this *?
Our once favourite Tech companies don't pay tax
Our banks rig the global system
Our energy companies fix prices
Our newspapers hack mobile phones
Our politicians take back handers at will
Our government think its 1984 - and take our rights away from us in the name of freedom and protection.
The richest run the whole god-damn thing
...the Prism programme appeared to allow the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) to circumvent the formal legal process required to obtain personal material, such as emails, photographs and videos, from internet companies based outside the UK.
White House invokes ‘state privilege’ to halt inquiries into data mining
By Ed Pilkington, The Guardian
Friday, June 7, 2013 21:16 EDT
Officials use little-known ‘military and state secrets privilege’ as civil rights lawyers attempt to hold administration to account
The Obama administration is invoking an obscure legal privilege to avoid judicial scrutiny of its secret collection of the communications of potentially millions of Americans.
Civil liberties lawyers trying to hold the administration to account through the courts for its surveillance of phone calls and emails of American citizens have been repeatedly stymied by the government’s recourse to the “military and state secrets privilege”. The precedent, rarely used but devastating in its legal impact, allows the government to claim that it cannot be submitted to judicial oversight because to do so it would have to compromise national security.
The government has cited the privilege in two active lawsuits being heard by a federal court in the northern district of California – Virginia v Barack Obama et al, and Carolyn Jewel v the National Security Agency. In both cases, the Obama administration has called for the cases to be dismissed on the grounds that the government’s secret activities must remain secret.
The claim comes amid a billowing furore over US surveillance on the mass communications of Americans following disclosures by the Guardian of a massive NSA monitoring programme of Verizon phone records and internet communications.
The director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has written in court filings that “after careful and actual personal consideration of the matter, based upon my own knowledge and information obtained in the course of my official duties, I have determined that the disclosure of certain information would cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States. Thus, as to this information, I formally assert the state secrets privilege.”
The use of the privilege has been personally approved by President Obama and several of the administration’s most senior officials: in addition to Clapper, they include the director of the NSA Keith Alexander and Eric Holder, the attorney general. “The attorney general has personally reviewed and approved the government’s privilege assertion in these cases,” legal documents state.
In comments on Friday about the surveillance controversy, Obama insisted that the secret programmes were subjected “not only to congressional oversight but judicial oversight”. He said federal judges were “looking over our shoulders”.
But civil liberties lawyers say that the use of the privilege to shut down legal challenges was making a mockery of such “judicial oversight”. Though classified information was shown to judges in camera, the citing of the precedent in the name of national security cowed judges into submission.
“The administration is saying that even if they are violating the constitution or committing a federal crime no court can stop them because it would compromise national security. That’s a very dangerous argument,” said Ilann Maazel, a lawyer with the New York-based Emery Celli firm who acts as lead counsel in the Shubert case.
....
The government goes further and says that the state secrets privilege also covers “allegations that the NSA, with the assistance of telecommunications carriers such as AT&T and Verizon, indiscriminately intercepts the content of communications and also collects the communication records of millions of Americans.”
The second case, Jewel versus National Security Agency, was lodged in 2008 following the disclosures of an AT&T whistleblower, Mark Klein. He revealed in 2006 that the telecoms firm had set up a secret NSA room within its San Francisco office in which all phone calls from the region were passing through a splitter cabinet that sent a copy to the NSA.
Mark Rumold, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation working on Jewel, said that this week’s disclosures by the Guardian would make it increasingly difficult for the administration to claim the state secrets privilege.
“The Guardian‘s disclosures may fundamentally alter the government’s approach as they are going to have a tough time convincing a judge that this stuff is secret,” he said.
Ministers are under mounting pressure to explain whether they authorised GCHQ to gather intelligence on Britons from the world's biggest internet companies via a covertly run operation set up by America's top spy agency.
The US government’s secret internet surveillance programme, codenamed Prism, began when the National Security Agency signed up Microsoft as its first partner on Sept 11, 2007, less than a month after the passing of the Protect America Act which authorised it.
♦ Yahoo was added on 12/3/2008, Google on 14/1/2009, Facebook on 3/5/2009, PalTalk on 7/12/2009, YouTube on 24/9/2010, Skype on 6/2/2011, AOL on 3/3/2011 and Apple in October 2012, , according to a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation obtained by the Guardian and the Washington Post .
♦ The companies liaise with the NSA through the FBI’s data intercept technology unit. Twitter is conspicuously absent from the list.
♦ The collectible data include email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, stored data, VoIP, file transfers, video conferencing, notification of target activity, online social networking details and what are described as “special requests”.
♦ It was portrayed as a mechanism to monitor foreigners’ communications, including those that pass through the US– which much of the world’s communication does because electronic data seek the cheapest path not the shortest.
♦ But Prism searches reportedly only had to be “designed to produce at least 51 per cent confidence in a target’s ‘foreignness’” and that if searches happened to turn-up the private information of Americans, “it’s nothing to worry about”.
♦ People in a suspect’s inbox or outbox would be included in any investigation. Anyone in those people’s inboxes and outboxes would probably be included, the Post reported, adding that agents might even “hop” out to another layer of contacts.
♦ According to the Powerpoint slides, the data obtained through the Prism programme became the NSA’s main source of raw intelligence for its analytic reports, including the US president’s daily intelligence briefing.
♦ The NSA monitors trillions of communications each year and one in seven of its reports used data obtained through Prism as its main source.
♦ Companies involved denied knowledge of the programme or involvement in it. But the Post quotes a report saying that the programme was set up in such a way as to allow “collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations,” rather than directly to company servers.
♦ The FISA Amendment Act, passed in July 2008, granted retroactive immunity for telecoms companies which were working with the NSA and gave the government a four-year extension to its warrantless spying powers. It was extended for five years in 2012 with little fanfare.
From the "trust the professionals" file: "disappear them" edition
by digby
Quote:
Steve Clemons @SCClemons
In Dulles UAL lounge listening to 4 US intel officials saying loudly leaker & reporter on #NSA stuff should be disappeared recorded a bit
4:42 PM - 8 Jun 2013
989 Retweets 197 favorites
The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.
The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," he said.
Snowden will go down in history as one of America's most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world's most secretive organisations – the NSA.
The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.
The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," he said.
Snowden will go down in history as one of America's most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world's most secretive organisations – the NSA.
Erinys International is a British private security company registered in the British Virgin Islands. The Group operational HQ is in Dubai, UAE and other offices are in Andover, Hampshire (Erinys UK Ltd) and Johannesburg (Erinys South Africa Ltd).
Erinys International has subsidiaries in the UK, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo and Republic of Congo and associated companies in Iraq and Nigeria.
Erinys Group companies provide security and support (for example: communications and logistics) services for personnel and assets, except for Erinys South Africa, which specialises in the provision of ongoing and ad hoc risk evaluations of countries and projects particularly in Africa.
Origin of the name [edit]
The word "Erinys" refers to the avenging deities in Greek religion, who lived at the entrance to the Underworld. Their first duty was to see to the punishment of those who had committed some crime in the world above, but had arrived at Hades without obtaining absolution from the gods. Sometimes this duty extended to the world of men, where the Erinys (also called Dirae, Furiae, Eumenides or Semnae) would pursue criminals, at the behest of Nemesis, permitting the fugitive no rest.
Staff [edit]
Erinys International was founded by Jonathan Garratt (a retired British Army officer) in 2001. In 2002, Erinys South Africa was formed after acquisition of the risk assessment business of Strategic Concepts Pty Ltd, a company formed by Sean Cleary (a former South African diplomat), who was a director of Erinys International until he resigned in 2003 after the company secured its first contract in Iraq.
The Group was further strengthened with the arrival of Alistair Morrison OBE MC in early 2003 until his departure in March 2004 to take up a senior position in Kroll. Alastair rejoined the Executive Board in December 2008.
Iraq [edit]
Erinys Iraq Ltd was registered in BVI in August 2003 (and subsequently in Iraq) and was granted a contract by the Coalition Provisional Authority to recruit and train an Oil Protection Force (OPF) for the Iraq Ministry of Oil. Initially the requirement was for 6,500 personnel to guard designated pipelines and installations, but this grew over the period of the contract to reach 16,000 Iraqi staff guarding 282 locations and included an aerial surveillance capability. The OPF contract ended in December 2004 with the transfer of the Force and its assets to the Ministry of Oil. An account of the OPF is available at www.erinys.net
Other significant contracts in Iraq included the provision of reconstruction security and support services to the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Gulf Region Division (GRD). The principal role of Erinys support to the GRD mission across Iraq was to provide security escort services for civilian personnel whose role was to monitor reconstruction projects in Iraq. Erinys also furnished the GRD with a nationwide radio communications network and specialist security survey and assessment services.
Controversy [edit]
Erinys was at the centre of a row in 2004 when it emerged that its employees had mistreated a prisoner whilst in their custody. Photos supplied to the British newspaper The Observer revealed that the 16-year old Iraqi youth they were interrogating in a garage in Kirkuk had been restrained with six car tyres around his body. The boy looked to be frozen in fear in a room riddled with bullet holes. The newspaper was also told that the prisoner had been denied food and water for 24 hours. Erinys denied the allegations, saying that the boy was released unharmed after minutes to his father. One of the employees pictured in the photo however was later suspended from duty.
Waking the Dead [edit]
In April 2005, the BBC television series Waking the Dead aired an episode entitled "Duty and Honour" which featured a character named John Garrett. The fictional Garrett was a former British Army officer who left to set up a private security company. In May 2008 the BBC issued an apology, clarifying that the murderer and war criminal featured in the show was entirely fictional and not intended to bear any resemblance to the real Jonathan Garratt and that his company was not in any way based on Erinys International.
Notes [edit]
FBI chief Mueller says spy tactics could have stopped 9/11 attacks
Robert Mueller dismisses congressional concerns and vows to take action against NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden
Yeah, right! If they had total control of all information everywhere and everybody was completely predictable and they could install whatever government they wanted, then the CIA wouldn't have to engineer false flag ops!
Category: Christopher Bollyn - Created on 14 June 2013
At the center of the NSA scandal is a gang of Israeli high-tech criminals which is connected to the false-flag terror attacks of 9-11. These connections underline the involvement of the same Israeli criminals to both 9-11 and the NSA's secret program to collect and store our personal information and conversations, which came about mainly as a consequence of 9-11.
Two Israeli companies, Narus and Verint, are involved in the National Security Agency (NSA) spy scandal in which copies of our phone calls and email data are sent to secret rooms at NSA buildings across the country. These Israeli companies are closely connected to Unit 8200, the electronic espionage unit of the Israeli military. (Narus was acquired by Boeing in 2010.)
Jacob "Kobi" Alexander
The founder and former chairman of Verint is wanted by the FBI for a long list of crimes. He is veteran Israeli intelligence officer.
Jacob "Kobi" Alexander, the former head of Comverse, the parent company of Verint, is a wanted criminal who has fled U.S. justice to Africa and probably subsequently to Israel. It is important to note that Kobi Alexander and Comverse were closely connected to Odigo, the Israeli messaging system that was used to warn Israelis to stay away from the World Trade Center on 9-11.
Furthermore, the NSA has used Israeli encryption software from RSA Security, Inc. since 2006, which means that Israelis hold the encryption keys to the entire NSA computer network. The Israelis obviously have easy access to everything at the NSA.
The following video clip is of James Bamford discussing the two Israeli companies, Narus and Verint, who are involved in the massive collection of our telephone and Internet data. Bamford was on "Democracy Now!" on October 14, 2008, discussing the role of these Israeli companies, who are closely tied to Israeli intelligence.
To have access to personal phone calls and emails allows Israeli intelligence to blackmail and control people, like General David Petraeus, who was forced to resign from his position as director of the C.I.A. after an extra-marital affair was revealed by unknown agents who had access to his personal email.
Bamford wrote an article entitled "Shady Companies With Ties to Israel Wiretap the U.S. for the NSA" for Wired.com in April 2012 in which he discussed the Israeli companies and the criminals who ran them:
In addition to constructing the Stellar Wind center, and then running the operation, secretive contractors with questionable histories and little oversight were also used to do the actual bugging of the entire U.S. telecommunications network.
According to a former Verizon employee briefed on the program, Verint, owned by Comverse Technology, taps the communication lines at Verizon, which I first reported in my book The Shadow Factory in 2008. Verint did not return a call seeking comment, while Verizon said it does not comment on such matters.
At AT&T the wiretapping rooms are powered by software and hardware from Narus, now owned by Boeing, a discovery made by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein in 2004. Narus did not return a call seeking comment.
What is especially troubling is that both companies have had extensive ties to Israel, as well as links to that country’s intelligence service, a country with a long and aggressive history of spying on the U.S.
In fact, according to Binney, the advanced analytical and data mining software the NSA had developed for both its worldwide and international eavesdropping operations was secretly passed to Israel by a mid-level employee, apparently with close connections to the country. The employee, a technical director in the Operations Directorate, “who was a very strong supporter of Israel,” said Binney, “gave, unbeknownst to us, he gave the software that we had, doing these fast rates, to the Israelis.”
Several of the top people involved in these Israeli wiretapping companies are if fact criminals who are currently wanted for serious crimes committed in the United States, as Bamford explains in the 2012 article:
Like Narus, Verint was founded in Israel by Israelis, including Jacob “Kobi” Alexander, a former Israeli intelligence officer. Some 800 employees work for Verint, including 350 who are based in Israel, primarily working in research and development and operations, according to the Jerusalem Post. Among its products is STAR-GATE, which according to the company’s sales literature, lets “service providers … access communications on virtually any type of network, retain communication data for as long as required, and query and deliver content and data …” and was “[d]esigned to manage vast numbers of targets, concurrent sessions, call data records, and communications.”
In a rare and candid admission to Forbes, Retired Brig. Gen. Hanan Gefen, a former commander of the highly secret Unit 8200, Israel’s NSA, noted his former organization’s influence on Comverse, which owns Verint, as well as other Israeli companies that dominate the U.S. eavesdropping and surveillance market. “Take NICE, Comverse and Check Point for example, three of the largest high-tech companies, which were all directly influenced by 8200 technology,” said Gefen. “Check Point was founded by Unit alumni. Comverse’s main product, the Logger, is based on the Unit’s technology.”
According to a former chief of Unit 8200, both the veterans of the group and much of the high-tech intelligence equipment they developed are now employed in high-tech firms around the world. “Cautious estimates indicate that in the past few years,” he told a reporter for the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz in 2000, “Unit 8200 veterans have set up some 30 to 40 high-tech companies, including 5 to 10 that were floated on Wall Street.” Referred to only as “Brigadier General B,” he added, “This correlation between serving in the intelligence Unit 8200 and starting successful high-tech companies is not coincidental: Many of the technologies in use around the world and developed in Israel were originally military technologies and were developed and improved by Unit veterans.”
Equally troubling is the issue of corruption. Kobi Alexander, the founder and former chairman of Verint, is now a fugitive, wanted by the FBI on nearly three dozen charges of fraud, theft, lying, bribery, money laundering and other crimes. And two of his top associates at Comverse, Chief Financial Officer David Kreinberg and former General Counsel William F. Sorin, were also indicted in the scheme and later pleaded guilty, with both serving time in prison and paying millions of dollars in fines and penalties.
When asked about these contractors, the NSA declined to “verify the allegations made.”
Kobi Alexander is also closely connected to the 9-11 criminal atrocity. Alexander and Comverse are connected to the Israeli Odigo messaging company through which warnings were sent to the Israelis who were expected to be at work at the World Trade Center on 9-11. As I explained in an article entitled "Why was Kobi Alexander Allowed to Flee? The Israeli Fugitive, Odigo, and the Forewarning of 9/11" in August 2006:
The case of the Israeli criminal Kobi Alexander is like the proverbial "tip of the iceberg." While Alexander's crimes, through which he became immensely wealthy, are now evident, they are but a very small piece of a much larger Zionist criminal network – connected to the 9/11 terror attacks – which remains hidden beneath the surface.
Alexander, former head of the Israel-based Comverse Technology, was, until his crimes were discovered, one of the highest paid executives in the United States.
In the year 2000, for example, he reportedly earned some $102.5 million, with $93 million coming from the "exercise of options." We now know that most of Alexander's money was made through the fraudulent "exercise of options."
Comverse Technology, the U.S.-based "parent company" of an older and much bigger Israel-based company with the same name, is the owner of the Verint, Ulticom, Starhome, Mercom and Startel companies. The key positions in these companies are all held by Israeli nationals.
Alexander, was recently allowed to flee the United States after he and two other former Comverse executives were charged with securities, mail and wire fraud by U.S. prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York. A warrant has been issued for his arrest...
While Alexander is obviously connected with Israel's military intelligence apparatus and George Soros through the mutually owned investment fund ComSor, what is not widely reported is his company's close links with Odigo, the Israeli-run instant messaging company that received – and conveyed – urgent warning messages about the imminent terror attacks on the World Trade Center, several hours before the first plane hit...
Shortly after 9-11, Odigo was completely taken over by Comverse Technology, which had been part owner of Odigo since early 2000, if not earlier. Shortly after 9/11, five executives from Comverse were reported to have profited by more than $267 million from "insider trading."
Avner Ronen, the "founder" of Odigo, was Vice President of Business Development of Comverse Technology in October 2005. This indicates that Ronen and Alexander, both Israeli military officers with computer backgrounds, have been close business partners since early 2000.
Sources and Recommended Reading:
"Israelis Hold Keys to NSA/US Military Computer Networks," by Christopher Bollyn, June 16, 2006, also published as "Israeli Code on U.S. Government Computers" in Solving 9-11: The Original Articles, p. 157
http://rense.com/general72/sisi.htm
"Why was Kobi Alexander Allowed to Flee? The Israeli Fugitive, Odigo, and the Forewarning of 9/11" by Christopher Bollyn, August 24, 2006, also published as "The Israeli Fugitive and the Forewarning of 9-11" in Solving 9-11: The Original Articles, p. 162
http://www.bollyn.com/why-was-kobi-alexander-allowed-to-flee/
Josh Halliday - The Guardian, Monday 17 June 2013 20.54 BST
It is not clear what impact the censorship warning has had on media coverage of Snowden’s revelations relating to British intelligence. Photograph: Handout/Reuters
Defence officials issued a confidential D notice to the BBC and other media groups in an attempt to censor coverage of surveillance tactics employed by intelligence agencies in the UK and US.
Editors were asked not to publish information that may "jeopardise both national security and possibly UK personnel" in the warning issued on 7 June, a day after the Guardian first revealed details of the National Security Agency's (NSA) secret Prism programme.
The D notice, which was marked "private and confidential: not for publication, broadcast or use on social media", was made public on the Westminster gossip blog, Guido Fawkes. Although only advisory for editors, the self-censorship system is intended to prevent the media from making "inadvertent public disclosure of information that would compromise UK military and intelligence operations and methods".
The warning was issued by defence officials in the UK as the BBC, ITN, Sky News and other newspapers and broadcasters around the world covered the surveillance revelations disclosed by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The leaks, reported extensively in the Guardian and also the Washington Post, have made headlines on both sides of the Atlantic for more than a week.
However, it is not clear what impact the warning has had on media coverage of Snowden's revelations relating to British intelligence. William Hague, the foreign secretary, who is reponsible for GCHQ, was not asked when he appeared on Monday's BBC Radio 4 Today programme about reports that the spy agency was involved in monitoring communications made by foreign delegates at the G20 summit in London 2009. Instead the subject was discussed in an item aired towards the end of the programme at 8.45am.
A BBC spokeswoman declined to comment on the D notice, but pointed out that the broadcaster did cover the G20 surveillance story on its radio news bulletins. She said the BBC believed it had "afforded the story" what the broadcaster described as "the appropriate level of coverage" among other significant news items, "including the ongoing G8 summit, the sentencing of Stuart Hall, the Co-op Bank bailout and the Ian Brady hearing".
According to the Guido Fawkes website, the warning said: "There have been a number of articles recently in connection with some of the ways in which the UK intelligence services obtain information from foreign sources.
A WikiLeaks-linked Icelandic businessman claims to have prepared a private jet to bring NSA leaker Edward Snowden to the country if his asylum request is approved. The whistleblower, who is wanted in the US, reportedly remains in Hong Kong.
"A private jet is in place in China and we could fly Snowden over tomorrow if we get positive reaction from the Interior Ministry. We need to get confirmation of asylum and that he will not be extradited to the US. We would most want him to get a citizenship as well," Reuters quoted Icelandic businessman Olafur Vignir Sigurvinsson as saying.
Sigurvinsson – the former head of DataCell, a company that handles donations for WikiLeaks – said that a Gulfstream G550 jet has been chartered for Snowden at a cost of more than $240,000 thanks to individual contributions received by his company.
He added that other means of transport had been arranged for Snowden as a backup, but the jet is the preferred mode of transport: "We need to play it as it comes, so we are basically ready for anything. We might need to go by boat for a bit, cars and planes will be involved."
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Wednesday he has been “in touch with Mr. Snowden's legal team,” and they are working on “the process of brokering his asylum in Iceland."
Snowden reportedly requested asylum in the Nordic island-nation earlier this week through WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson. The Icelandic government confirmed they had received Snowden’s appeal, but no decision has been made yet.
Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson confirmed there had been “informal talks” between his government and Hrafnsson to sound out the possibility of the country granting Snowden asylum. The PM declined to comment further on the matter.
"To apply for asylum in Iceland, the individual in question must be present in Iceland and make the application in his or her own name," an Interior Ministry spokesperson said. As a US citizen, Snowden is free to enter Iceland without a visa and can immediately apply for asylum. However, the US may move to arrest him before Icelandic immigration authorities decide his case. The asylum process could ultimately take more than a year, Reuters reported.
The Ministry’s spokesperson was reluctant to comment on whether Iceland would grant asylum or citizenship should Snowden arrive. The US has also not yet filed a formal request for his extradition from Hong Kong, where Snowden fled from Hawaii shortly before his disclosure of the NSA’s surveillance activities.
Snowden said he did not travel immediately to Iceland – a country known for promoting Internet freedom – as he feared the country could be “pushed harder, quicker” by Washington. The asylum process could ultimately take more than a year, Reuters reported.
Careless mistake reveals subversion of Windows by NSA.
A CARELESS mistake by Microsoft programmers has revealed that special access codes prepared by the US National Security Agency have been secretly built into Windows. The NSA access system is built into every version of the Windows operating system now in use, except early releases of Windows 95 (and its predecessors). The discovery comes close on the heels of the revelations earlier this year that another US software giant, Lotus, had built an NSA "help information" trapdoor into its Notes system, and that security functions on other software systems had been deliberately crippled.
The first discovery of the new NSA access system was made two years ago by British researcher Dr Nicko van Someren. But it was only a few weeks ago when a second researcher rediscovered the access system. With it, he found the evidence linking it to NSA.
Computer security specialists have been aware for two years that unusual features are contained inside a standard Windows software "driver" used for security and encryption functions. The driver, called ADVAPI.DLL, enables and controls a range of security functions. If you use Windows, you will find it in the C:\Windows\system directory of your computer.
ADVAPI.DLL works closely with Microsoft Internet Explorer, but will only run cryptographic functions that the US governments allows Microsoft to export. That information is bad enough news, from a European point of view. Now, it turns out that ADVAPI will run special programmes inserted and controlled by NSA. As yet, no-one knows what these programmes are, or what they do...'
'A second key
Two weeks ago, a US security company came up with conclusive evidence that the second key belongs to NSA. Like Dr van Someren, Andrew Fernandez, chief scientist with Cryptonym of Morrisville, North Carolina, had been probing the presence and significance of the two keys. Then he checked the latest Service Pack release for Windows NT4, Service Pack 5. He found that Microsoft's developers had failed to remove or "strip" the debugging symbols used to test this software before they released it. Inside the code were the labels for the two keys. One was called "KEY". The other was called "NSAKEY".
Fernandes reported his re-discovery of the two CAPI keys, and their secret meaning, to "Advances in Cryptology, Crypto'99" conference held in Santa Barbara. According to those present at the conference, Windows developers attending the conference did not deny that the "NSA" key was built into their software. But they refused to talk about what the key did, or why it had been put there without users' knowledge.
A third key?!
But according to two witnesses attending the conference, even Microsoft's top crypto programmers were astonished to learn that the version of ADVAPI.DLL shipping with Windows 2000 contains not two, but three keys. Brian LaMachia, head of CAPI development at Microsoft was "stunned" to learn of these discoveries, by outsiders. The latest discovery by Dr van Someren is based on advanced search methods which test and report on the "entropy" of programming code.
Within the Microsoft organisation, access to Windows source code is said to be highly compartmentalized, making it easy for modifications to be inserted without the knowledge of even the respective product managers...'
By the way, if I was Edward Snowden, I would have asked Cuba for sanctuary (Ideally present-Government Venezuela, but that vote was a tad close, and if the US 'Puppets' get in some time, they would extradite him like a shot). _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
'23 June 2013 Last updated at 21:12 Share this pageEmail Print Share this page
1.6KShareFacebookTwitter.Spy-leaker Edward Snowden asks Ecuador for asylumThe BBC's Daniel Sandford says Edward Snowden is staying in a transit hotel before attempting to continue his journey
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US spy leaksAs it happened: Snowden's journey
Could Hong Kong shelter Snowden?
Profile: Edward Snowden
Q&A: Prism and privacy
Edward Snowden, the former US intelligence contractor who leaked classified documents revealing US internet and phone surveillance, has asked Ecuador for asylum.
The request was confirmed by Ecuador's foreign minister on Twitter.
Mr Snowden had fled the US for Hong Kong but flew out on Sunday morning and is currently in Moscow.
A US extradition request to Hong Kong failed but Washington insists he should now be denied international travel.
Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino, who is in Vietnam, said on Twitter: "The Government of Ecuador has received an asylum request from Edward J. #Snowden."
Wikileaks said in a statement that Mr Snowden was "bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisers from Wikileaks".
And Guardian (get commenting!):
Edward Snowden asks for asylum in Ecuador - as it happened
I'm getting my beautiful (nicked, when the wouldn't let me buy one on my Aeroflot flight back from Managua) glass for some toasts to Snowden, China, Russia, Ecuador, Julian Assange & Bradley Manning!!
Wheee-Hah!!!! _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
There have been serious crimes over the last ten years - particularly since 9/11 when the war on terror started -- in Afghanistan, Iraq, in places like Yemen, Pakistan where many people were murdered through the use of drones and hellfire missiles completely illegally by mainly three countries -- Israel, the US and the UK. But this is what people don't necessarily understand: there will be information that Edward Snowden has that can actually bring some of these people to trial
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 11:52 pm Post subject:
okay - now over to the boss
There's a New Fascism on the Rise, and the NSA Leaks Show Us What It Looks Like
The power of truth-tellers like Edward Snowden is that they dispel a whole mythology carefully constructed by the corporate cinema, the corporate academy and the corporate media.
June 21, 2013 |
In his book, Propaganda, published in 1928, Edward Bernays wrote: "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."
The American nephew of Sigmund Freud, Bernays invented the term "public relations" as a euphemism for state propaganda. He warned that an enduring threat to the invisible government was the truth-teller and an enlightened public.
In 1971, whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg leaked US government files known as The Pentagon Papers, revealing that the invasion of Vietnam was based on systematic lying. Four years later, Frank Church conducted sensational hearings in the US Senate: one of the last flickers of American democracy. These laid bare the full extent of the invisible government: the domestic spying and subversion and warmongering by intelligence and "security" agencies and the backing they received from big business and the media, both conservative and liberal.
Speaking about the National Security Agency (NSA), Senator Church said: "I know that the capacity that there is to make tyranny in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law … so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."
On 11 June, following the revelations in the Guardian by NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Daniel Ellsberg wrote that the US had now "that abyss".
Snowden’s revelation that Washington has used Google, Facebook, Apple and other giants of consumer technology to spy on almost everyone, is further evidence of modern form of fascism – that is the "abyss". Having nurtured old-fashioned fascists around the world – from Latin America to Africa and Indonesia – the genie has risen at home. Understanding this is as important as understanding the criminal abuse of technology.
Fred Branfman, who exposed the "secret" destruction of tiny Laos by the US Air Force in the 1960s and 70s, provides an answer to those who still wonder how a liberal African-American president, a professor of constitutional law, can command such lawlessness. "Under Mr. Obama," he wrote for AlterNet, "no president has done more to create the infrastructure for a possible future police state." Why? Because Obama, like George W Bush, understands that his role is not to indulge those who voted for him but to expand "the most powerful institution in the history of the world, one that has killed, wounded or made homeless well over 20 million human beings, mostly civilians, since 1962."
In the new American cyber-power, only the revolving doors have changed. The director of Google Ideas, Jared Cohen, was adviser to Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state in the Bush administration who lied that Saddam Hussein could attack the US with nuclear weapons. Cohen and Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt – they met in the ruins of Iraq – have co-authored a book, The New Digital Age, endorsed as visionary by the former CIA director Michael Hayden and the war criminals Henry Kissinger and Tony Blair. The authors make no mention of the Prism spying program, revealed by Edward Snowden, that provides the NSA access to all of us who use Google.
Control and dominance are the two words that make sense of this. These are exercised by political, economic and military designs, of which mass surveillance is an essential part, but also by insinuating propaganda in the public consciousness. This was Edward Bernays’s point. His two most successful PR campaigns were convincing Americans they should go to war in 1917 and persuading women to smoke in public; cigarettes were "torches of freedom" that would hasten women’s liberation.
Bolivia accused European nations of an “act of aggression” for refusing to allow the plane of its President Evo Morales’ to travel in their airspace because of rumours that the US fugitive, Edward Snowden, was on board.
The diplomatic fallout from the US spying scandal drew in several more countries as the hunt continued for Mr Snowden, who is wanted by the US on charges of leaking secrets he gathered while working as a contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA).
President Morales had attended a summit in Moscow, where Mr Snowden is believed to be holed up at Sheremetyevo airport, and was flying back to Bolivia on Tuesday when his plane was diverted to Vienna. Bolivian diplomats claim that France, Portugal and Italy refused the plane permission to cross their airspace after US officials raised fears that the Bolivian delegation was harbouring Mr Snowden.
Officials from France and Portugal have since denied that they shut their air space to the plane, but Bolivia’s ambassador to the United Nations said they would be filing a complaint.
“We’re talking about the president on an official trip after an official summit being kidnapped,” Sacha Llorenti Soliz told reporters in Geneva.
While attending an energy summit in Moscow, Mr Morales had said that Bolivia may consider granting asylum to Mr Snowden, a former NSA contractor who is wanted for questioning in the US after revealing details of its secret surveillance programme.
A Vienna airport official told the Associated Press news agency that pilots on Mr Morales’ plane asked to land in Austria soon after take-off because of fuel shortages, although it was not clear if this was related to the aircraft being unable to travel through other airspace.
After spending the night on the tarmac, the plane was searched this morning before resuming its journey to Bolivia – with no sign of Mr Snowden on board.
Mr Soliz said Latin American presidents were planning an emergency meeting to discuss the incident, while the President of Argentina, Cristina Kirchner, said on Twitter that the re-routing of the plane was “crazy” as aircraft carrying heads of state had “total impunity”.
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 6060 Location: East London
Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 12:22 pm Post subject:
RT interview of Russell Tice, who tried to expose NSA illegal snooping years ago, but the media just wasn't interested (though they had been targetted):
NSA Blackmailing Obama? | Interview with Whistleblower Russ Tice:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35505.htm _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2013 11:26 pm Post subject:
“[Unit 8200] developed Stuxnet and Flame along with its colleagues in the NSA. Unit 8200 veterans founded numerous start-ups that commercialized their military applications for security use by companies and intelligence agencies.”
There has been much discussion recently of the way in which US technology companies such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft provide data to the NSA. However, a classified slide posted by the Washington Post indicates two streams of data collection.
One mode of collection is PRISM, an NSA program revealed by both the Post and Guardian newspapers in June. However, a classified slide on NSA surveillance shows that there is also a separate category called "Upstream." This stream involves accessing "communications on fiber cables and infrastructure as they flow past." The slide suggests that both forms of surveillance should be employed. The slide also speaks of PRISM, or downstream collection from tech companies that have already processed the data, as involving "collection directly from servers" of companies such as Google, Skype, Facebook and other tech giants. Many of the companies deny that there is such access, and claim that any access is limited and legally authorized by the FISA court.
The NSA slide makes it clear that both collection methods should be used and no doubt work in parallel. The slide has a heading "FAA 702 Operations," a reference to the 2008 law governing the collection of data on communications of foreigners overseas even when communicating with Americans in the US. The slide contains a general map of undersea cables used to transfer data worldwide. The slide also has circles with arrows that perhaps indicate collection points. There is also a list of code names associated with the Upstream program. The Post slide lists the code names as: Fairview, Stormbrew, Blarney and Oakstar. Previously, the Post reported that Blarney collects metadata that shows who is speaking and to whom and using what devices and networks to do so.
Apparently, Blarney functions by accessing data as it passes through what NSA calls internet "choke points." This probably refers to major internet service providers and major routing centers. Major routing centers are located in San Francisco and the Washington area. Blarney would mine the metadata from email and other communications such as file transfers.
What is known about the Blarney program appears to confirm testimony by whistleblower and former AT&T employee Mark Klein in Hepting v. AT&T. Klein worked at AT&T for 22 years and retired in 2004. He said he had witnessed the installation of a fiber-optic splitting device in the office where he worked. A copy of all data was diverted to a room controlled by NSA. In the room was powerful computer equipment that connected to separate networks that could analyze communications at high speed.
Klein's testimony and documents provided were used for the ongoing case Jewel v. NSA court. That case alleges “an illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet communications surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency (the ‘N.S.A.’)." The Obama administration has tried to stop the case from going forward, claiming it would reveal state secrets. Of course it probably would, namely the secret that the NSA is collecting data illegally in contravention of the US Constitution.
Klein's testimony has been backed by three former NSA intelligence analysts -- William Binney, Thomas Drake and J. Kirk Wiebe -- who also claim that NSA either has or in the process of obtaining the ability to seize and store most electronic communications such as is described in Klein's secret room. This other stream of NSA surveillance seems to have mostly dropped off the press radar even though there is still a court case active dealing with the issue.
northsunm32 is based in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, and is an Anchor for Allvoices.
Democratic establishment unmasked: prime defenders of NSA bulk spying
NYT: "The Obama administration made common cause with the House Republican leadership"
Follow Glenn Greenwald on security and liberty by emailBeta
Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 25 July 2013 10.09 BST
Jump to comments (1731)
One of the most vocal supporters of the Obama White House's position on yesterday's NSA debate: GOP Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images
One of the worst myths Democratic partisans love to tell themselves - and everyone else - is that the GOP refuses to support President Obama no matter what he does. Like its close cousin - the massively deceitful inside-DC grievance that the two parties refuse to cooperate on anything - it's hard to overstate how false this Democratic myth is. When it comes to foreign policy, war, assassinations, drones, surveillance, secrecy, and civil liberties, President Obama's most stalwart, enthusiastic defenders are often found among the most radical precincts of the Republican Party.
The rabidly pro-war and anti-Muslim GOP former Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Peter King, has repeatedly lavished Obama with all sorts of praise and support for his policies in those areas. The Obama White House frequently needs, and receives, large amounts of GOP Congressional support to have its measures enacted or bills its dislikes defeated. The Obama DOJ often prevails before the US Supreme Court solely because the Roberts/Scalia/Thomas faction adopts its view while the Ginsburg/Sotomayor/Breyer faction rejects it (as happened in February when the Court, by a 5-4 ruling, dismissed a lawsuit brought by Amnesty and the ACLU which argued that the NSA's domestic warrantless eavesdropping activities violate the Fourth Amendment; the Roberts/Scalia wing accepted the Obama DOJ's argument that the plaintiffs lack standing to sue because the NSA successfully conceals the identity of which Americans are subjected to the surveillance). As Wired put it at the time about that NSA ruling:
The 5-4 decision by Justice Samuel Alito was a clear victory for the President Barack Obama administration, which like its predecessor, argued that government wiretapping laws cannot be challenged in court."
The extraordinary events that took place in the House of Representatives yesterday are perhaps the most vivid illustration yet of this dynamic, and it independently reveals several other important trends. The House voted on an amendment sponsored by Justin Amash, the young Michigan lawyer elected in 2010 as a Tea Party candidate, and co-sponsored by John Conyers, the 24-term senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. The amendment was simple. It would de-fund one single NSA program: the agency's bulk collection of the telephone records of all Americans that we first revealed in this space, back on June 6. It accomplished this "by requiring the FISA court under Sec. 215 [of the Patriot Act] to order the production of records that pertain only to a person under investigation".
The amendment yesterday was defeated. But it lost by only 12 votes: 205-217. Given that the amendment sought to de-fund a major domestic surveillance program of the NSA, the very close vote was nothing short of shocking. In fact, in the post-9/11 world, amendments like this, which directly challenge the Surveillance and National Security States, almost never get votes at all. That the GOP House Leadership was forced to allow it to reach the floor was a sign of how much things have changed over the last seven weeks.
Edward Snowden's not the story. The fate of the internet is
The press has lost the plot over the Snowden revelations. The fact is that the net is finished as a global network and that US firms' cloud services cannot be trusted
...
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 12:28 am Post subject:
Who DOES trust Cloud or Synch 'services'? Not I.
NSA's XKeyscore gives one-click real-time access to almost any internet activity
Published time: July 31, 2013 16:31
The map of XKeyscore servers from a 2008 presentation (Image from theguardian.com)
New revelations about NSA surveillance systems show that it was enough to fill in a short ‘justification’ form before gaining access to any of billions of emails, online chats, or site visit histories through a vast aggregation program called XKeyscore.
The structure of XKeyscore, leaked by the UK’s Guardian newspaper, is sourced from a classified internal presentation from 2008 and a more recent Unofficial User Guide, presumably obtained by Edward Snowden when he was a contractor for the National Security Agency in the past year.
It shows that XKeyscore – then located on 750 servers around 150 sites worldwide – is a vast collection and storage program that served as the entry point for most information that was collected by the NSA. The Guardian claims that in one 30-day period in 2012 the program acquired 41 billion records.
The information is not just metadata – depersonalized analytical usage statistics that allow spies to spot patterns – but includes almost all types of personal information. Using any piece of personal data on a subject – an email address, or the IP address of a computer – an agent could look up all online user activities, such as Google map searches, website visits, documents sent through the internet or online conversations. The service operates both, in real time, and using a database of recently stored information.
All that appears to have been necessary to log into the system is to fill in a compulsory line on a form that gave a reason for why a certain person needed to be investigated. The form was not automatically scanned by the system or a supervisor, and did not require a US legal warrant, as long as the person whose name was typed in was a foreigner (even if his interactions were with a US citizen).
The slides appear to vindicate security specialist Edward Snowden’s claims made during the original video he recorded in Hong Kong last month.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 6:01 pm Post subject:
Russia being treated as if it WERE Syria and Iran now - but will Obama still be the puppet president when the nuclear button is pressed? I'm wondering more and more whether Snowden represents the 'goodies' in amongst the Western/Chinese/Russian Intelligence Services in any way? Particularly since he 'came out' in Hong Kong on the Saturday of the Watfors Bilderberg conference??
By Raf Sanchez, Washington - 6:12PM BST 07 Aug 2013
The high-profile diplomatic snub reflects weeks of US fury at the Kremlin for harboring the former spy but also a year of growing frustration with what Mr Obama called Russia's "Cold War mentality".
The White House called off the meeting in Moscow next month in protest at Russia granting Mr Snowden one-year asylum and the "lack of progress" in talks on Syria, missile defence and human rights.
"It was the unanimous view of the President and his national security team that a summit did not make sense in the current environment," said Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser.
The Kremlin said it was "disappointed" with the decision, which it said showed the US was not ready to deal with Russia "on an equal basis".
"It is clear that the decision is linked to the situation over the employee of the American special services Snowden which was absolutely not created by us," said Yuri Ushakov, Mr Putin's foreign policy adviser.
Mr Obama will still travel to St Petersburg for the G20 summit with other leaders but will not make the solo trip to Moscow for a one-on-one with Mr Putin. Aides said the two men had no plans to meet on the sidelines of the G20.
Instead, the President will add a one-day trip to Sweden to his itinerary.
In an interview on The Tonight Show, Mr Obama gave an unusually frank assessment of his frosty relationship with Mr Putin and said he was "disappointed" Russia had not handed over Mr Snowden.
"There have been times where they slip back into Cold War thinking and a Cold War mentality," Mr Obama said, noting that Mr Putin used to lead the successor to the KGB.
Asked about recent joint appearances, where Mr Putin has often looked glum and confrontational, Mr Obama said the Russian leader's "preferred style" is "sitting back and not looking too excited".
"Part of it is he’s not accustomed to having press conferences where you’ve got a bunch of reporters yelling questions at you," Mr Obama said in a thinly-veiled barb at Mr Putin's crackdown on media critics.
The two leaders last met in person on the sidelines of the G8 in Northern Ireland, where both sat grim-faced through a press conference and admitted wide-ranging disagreements.
Steven Pifer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, said the White House had long sensed that the meeting would not lead to progress on Syria or US plans for a missile shield in eastern Europe.
"The calculation at the end of the day was going to Moscow would have yielded no benefit to the President's agenda and he would have paid a political price over Snowden and human rights in Russia," Mr Pifer told The Daily Telegraph. "Looking at the cost-benefit analysis this trip didn't make a lot of sense."
Russia said last night that the invitation to Mr Obama remained open. John Kerry, the US secretary of state, and Chuck Hagel, the secretary of defence, are still due to meet their Russian counterparts in Washington on Friday.
Leonid Kalashnikov, the first deputy chairman of the international affairs committee in Russia’s lower house of parliament, said Mr Obama had been pressured into cancelling the visit.
“He did it in for the sake of certain interests in certain circles who wanted to make an elephant out of the fly called Snowden,” Mr Kalashnikov said.
Mr Obama risked further angering Russia by entering the charged debate on how the West should respond to the country's anti-gay laws during the 2014 Winter Olympics.
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If they had total control of all information everywhere and everybody was completely predictable and they could install whatever government they wanted, then the CIA wouldn't have to engineer false flag ops!
