NSA Whistleblower: What Was Leaked Last Week is Just “the Tip of the Iceberg”

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The National Security Agency’s collection of phone data from all of Verizon’s U.S. customers is just the “tip of the iceberg,” says a former NSA official who estimates the agency has data on as many as 20 trillion phone calls and emails by U.S. citizens.

William Binney, an award-winning mathematician and noted NSA whistleblower, says the collection dates back to when the super-secret agency began domestic surveillance after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I believe they’ve been collecting data about all domestic calls since October 2001,” said Mr. Binney, who worked at NSA for more than 30 years. “That’s more than a billion calls a day.”

He called his figures “back of the envelope” estimates, adding that they include emails as well as telephone calls.

Mr. Binney, who left the agency in October 2001, said the data were collected under a highly classified NSA program code-named “Stellar Wind,” which was part of the warrantless domestic wiretapping effort — the Terrorist Surveillance Program — launched on orders from President George W. Bush.

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False: NY Times Says that NSA’s Surveillance Foiled Terror Plot Against NY Subways

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Yesterday both the NY Times and Reuters claimed the Zazi terror plot against New York subways was foiled by an NSA email collection program called PRISM. That was not the case. The key to stopping the Zazi plot was an arrest and investigation by British authorities.

Breitbart News reported the claim, made yesterday in a widely circulated Reuters story, that NSA’s PRISM program had helped foil the Zazi terror plot (including an expression of skepticism that PRISM was necessary to foil the plot). The claim that PRISM was responsible was also made by the New York Times. In a A1 story the Times claimed, “To defenders of the N.S.A., the Zazi case underscores how the agency’s Internet surveillance system, called Prism, which was set up over the past decade to collect data from online providers of e-mail and chat services, has yielded concrete results.”

But the mass collection of emails under PRISM apparently had little to do with stopping the Zazi plot. A blogger at a site called emptywheel raised questions about the Reuters story yesterday. Ben Smith built upon that in a piece at Buzzfeed. As Smith reports, already public information on the Zazi case shows the email account in question was flagged on a tip from British authorities following an arrest.

Read more from this story HERE.

Russia Nuclear Subs Exploiting Lack of US ABM Defenses in the South

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Russia’s decision to resume nuclear missile-equipped submarine patrols in southern seas following a 20-year lapse could exploit the lack of a viable U.S. missile defense against attacks from the vicinity of the South Pole, according to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

The plan to place submarines in the southern seas will enable the Russians to increase their own deterrence as well.

“The revival of nuclear submarine patrols will allow us to fulfill the tasks of strategic deterrence not only across the North Pole but also the South Pole,” according to a Russian General Staff announcement.

The submarines – which can carry 16 long-range nuclear missiles – can take advantage of a lack of U.S. defenses against missiles coming over the South Pole.

Most U.S. anti-ballistic missile Aegis defense systems are located primarily in a northerly position to defend against missile attacks to the West Coast.

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Houston Community’s Gun Giveaway Begins

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Strain’s northwest Houston community of Oak Forest is the first neighborhood in the country being trained and equipped by the Armed Citizen Project, a Houston nonprofit that is giving away free shotguns to single women and residents of neighborhoods with high crime rates.

While many cities have tried gun buy-backs and other tactics in the ongoing national debate on gun control, the nonprofit and its supporters say gun giveaways to responsible owners are actually a better way to deter crime. The organization, which plans to offer training classes in Dallas, San Antonio, and Tucson, Ariz., in the next few weeks, is working to expand its giveaways to 15 cities by the end of the year, including Chicago and New York…

Residents of Oak Forest say their neighborhood, made up of older one-story houses and a growing number of new townhomes, has experienced a recent rash of driveway robberies and home burglaries. On a recent Sunday afternoon, a group of 10 residents, including Strain, went through training at Shiloh Shooting, a northwest Houston gun range.

Kyle Coplen, the project’s 29-year-old founder said his group expects to train at least 50 Oak Forest residents and put up signs saying the neighborhood is armed.

Read more from this story HERE.

Limbaugh: ‘We are in the Midst of a Coup’

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This week’s revelations about the federal government collecting massive amounts of communication data on American citizens has the country’s most-listened-to radio voice saying President Barack Obama is leading a coup against the nation.

“What everybody knows and what nobody wants to come to grips with is we are in the midst of a coup taking place,” talk-show host Rush Limbaugh said Friday afternoon. “It’s almost on a par with [when I said] ‘I hope he fails.’ How does that sound now, by the way?”

“What’s wrong with calling this a coup?” he continued. “There’s a lot here to be concerned about.”

“This is the guy, don’t forget, convincing people that this kind of stuff was never going to happen here. … This is the guy who got elected president by telling us that what is happening now was never going to happen when he was president. … He got elected warning us that what was happening now was happening in 2008. … [Now] it’s more sweeping than it’s ever been.”

He pointed out that information gathering has already been used to target political supporters of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in the 2012 election cycle.

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Straining Credibility, Google, Facebook Deny Knowledge of Government Surveillance Program Now Acknowledged by Obama Admin

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Photo Credit: Galbraith/Reuters

By Dominic Rushe. America’s tech giants continued to deny any knowledge of a giant government surveillance programme called Prism, even as president Barack Obama confirmed the scheme’s existence Friday.

With their credibility about privacy issues in sharp focus, all the technology companies said to be involved in the program issued remarkably similar statements.

All said they did not allow the government “direct access” to their systems, all said they had never heard of the Prism program, and all called for greater transparency.

In a blogpost titled ‘What the…?’ Google co-founder Larry Page and chief legal officer David Drummond said the “level of secrecy” around US surveillance procedures was undermining “freedoms we all cherish.”

“First, we have not joined any program that would give the US government – or any other government – direct access to our servers. Indeed, the US government does not have direct access or a ‘back door’ to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called Prism until yesterday,” they wrote. Read more from this story HERE.

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Although Google and Facebook Deny it, UK Admits its Been Getting Info from US Gov’t Surveillance Program

By Nick Hopkins. The UK’s electronic eavesdropping and security agency, GCHQ, has been secretly gathering intelligence from the world’s biggest internet companies through a covertly run operation set up by America’s top spy agency, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.

The documents show that GCHQ, based in Cheltenham, has had access to the system since at least June 2010, and generated 197 intelligence reports from it last year.

The US-run programme, called Prism, would appear to allow GCHQ to circumvent the formal legal process required to seek personal material such as emails, photos and videos from an internet company based outside the UK.

The use of Prism raises ethical and legal issues about such direct access to potentially millions of internet users, as well as questions about which British ministers knew of the programme.

In a statement to the Guardian, GCHQ, insisted it “takes its obligations under the law very seriously”. Read more from this story HERE.

Rubio: Amnesty Guaranteed Under Immigration Bill No Matter What Happens with Border Security

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Sen. Marco Rubio said Friday that illegal immigrants will get legal status no matter what happens with border security, but said the Senate will have to stiffen enforcement in order to win the 60 votes needed to pass his bill through his chamber.

“Nobody is talking here about preventing legalization. Legalization will take place,” Mr. Rubio told Univision in an interview scheduled to air Sunday.

“First comes legalization, then comes this border security measure and then comes the permanent residency process. What we are talking about here is the permanent residency system,” the Florida Republican said, according to the English translation of the interview.

“Regarding legalization, a vast majority of my colleagues have already accepted that: that it must take place and that it must start at the same time we start with what has to do with security. That is not conditional. Legalization is not conditional.”

As one of the eight authors of the immigration bill, Mr. Rubio is fighting to keep it on track, arguing that it does not have the support to clear a filibuster in the Senate right now. But he said it could earn that support if his colleagues will do more to specify where security will be enhanced.

Read more from this story HERE.

Huge Leftist Donor Turns on Obama Due to Administration’s Unlawful Surveillance

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A wireless provider with ties to the secret dark money group the Democracy Alliance is pushing back against the Obama administration’s surveillance of customers. CREDO Mobile cofounder Michael Kieschnick said on Thursday he was “deeply disturbed” by the administration’s invasion of individual’s civil liberties.

“As the CEO of a mobile phone company, I’m deeply disturbed by the Obama administration’s growing record of executive power grabs at the expense of constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties,” Kieschnick said in a statement to CNN Money.

Kieschnick is a member of the invite-only progressive Democracy Alliance. The exclusive group since 2005 has funneled more than $500 million into liberal organizations such as the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA Action and the Center for American Progress, the influential liberal think tank.

Kieschnick has contributed millions to pro-Obama special interest groups through CREDO Mobile’s liberal activism network, CREDO Action, including the League of Conservation Voters and Planned Parenthood.

Read more from this story HERE.

Independents Blame White House for IRS Scandal

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By Neil Munro. A clear majority of independents, and even a plurality of Democrats, believe high-ranking IRS officials were aware of the agency’s harassment of conservatives’ political organizing, according to a new Gallup poll.

The poll’s results are risky for Obama, whose political approval rate has remained relatively high, despite the lousy economy, because of his relatively high personal ratings.

Sixty-two percent of adults disapprove of his handling of the IRS scandal, said the Gallup poll. Only 32 percent of adults approve of his reaction to the scandal.

If his approval ratings falls, he’ll have even more difficulty accomplishing his top political goals. Those goals include passage of an immigration bill and winning a Democratic majority in the House. Read more from this story HERE.

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Gallup: Majority of Americans Believe Obama has Mishandled IRS Scandal

By Lydia Saad. Nearly six in 10 Americans believe that high-ranking IRS officials in Washington were aware the IRS had a practice of targeting conservative political groups for greater scrutiny in recent years. One-quarter think knowledge of this was mainly limited to the agency’s office in Cincinnati where the mishandled applications for tax-exempt status were processed.

These findings are from a June 1-4 Gallup poll of 1,529 national adults. Gallup asked half of the respondents if they think IRS officials were aware of the partisan targeting, and separately asked the other half of respondents about whether high-ranking Obama administration officials were aware of the practice.

Half of Americans believe top administration officials were in the know, slightly less than the 59% saying this of IRS leadership. However, in both cases relatively few Americans believe knowledge was limited to the branch office in Cincinnati. Read more from this story HERE.

Republican Alternative to Obamacare Gives Tax Credits for Low Wage Earners to Buy Health Insurance

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Republicans, long criticized for pushing for the elimination of the health care reform law without a way to replace it, have come up with their own plan.

Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., an orthopedic surgeon, has authored a 247-page bill, entitled the “Empowering Patients First Act” [that is] one-tenth the size of the Affordable Care Act [and] repeals the entirety of Obamacare.

It offers in its place refundable tax credits of up to $5,000 for low-income individuals and families to purchase health insurance on the private market. And those who buy health insurance privately rather than through their employment, would be able to deduct the among on their taxes, which they are currently unable to do.

Other provisions in the bill include allowing insurance companies to sell policies across state lines, which some believe will lower costs by increasing competitiveness. The legislation also aims to reform the medical malpractice industry, which has dramatically raised insurance costs for doctors, by creating health care tribunals to review malpractice cases and make recommendations about liability and compensation.

Read more from this story HERE.