U.S. surveillance architecture includes collection of revealing Internet, phone metadata

Washington Post ^ | 06/16/2013 | Barton Gellman

[SeekAndFind]

On March 12, 2004, acting attorney general James B. Comey and the Justice Department’s top leadership reached the brink of resignation over electronic surveillance orders that they believed to be illegal.

President George W. Bush backed down, halting secret foreign-intelligence-gathering operations that had crossed into domestic terrain. That morning marked the beginning of the end of STELLARWIND, the cover name for a set of four surveillance programs that brought Americans and American territory within the domain of the National Security Agency for the first time in decades. It was also a prelude to new legal structures that allowed Bush and then President Obama to reproduce each of those programs and expand their reach.

What exactly STELLARWIND did has never been disclosed in an unclassified form. Which parts of it did Comey approve? Which did he shut down? What became of the programs when the crisis passed and Comey, now Obama’s expected nominee for FBI director, returned to private life?

Authoritative new answers to those questions, drawing upon a classified NSA history of STELLARWIND and interviews with high-ranking intelligence officials, offer the clearest map yet of the Bush-era programs and the NSA’s contemporary U.S. operations.

STELLARWIND was succeeded by four major lines of intelligence collection in the territorial United States, together capable of spanning the full range of modern telecommunications, according to the interviews and documents.

Foreigners, not Americans, are the NSA’s “targets,” as the law defines that term. But the programs are structured broadly enough that they touch nearly every American household in some way. Obama administration officials and career intelligence officers say Americans should take comfort that privacy protections are built into the design and oversight, but they are not prepared to discuss the details.

[RBW in PA]

What about the GPS companies such as Garmin, do they share data? I have a Nuvi and I know it stores trip history for some period of time. When I go to do a map or firmware update is my driving pattern uploaded and given to the NSA? The technology certainly lends itself for this.

[Vendome]

use Thompson maps. There is no electronic trail.

[justa-hairyape]

..use Thompson maps. There is no electronic trail.

Communication procedures for the Revolution

When we meet for our secret nightly revolutionary meetings, nothing is communicated electronically. All communications are written down on paper, passed around to be read and then the paper is burned in a burn barrel.

Drastic times call for drastic measures.

[thecodont]

This is going to sound kind of weird, and I don't claim to be a Constitutional scholar, but...

Wasn't Roe v. Wade based in some way on the right to privacy?

And if so, these same people who supported/support Roe v. Wade also support a complete lack of privacy in the (non-sexual) communications of the citizens of this country.

[Grampa Dave]

Speaking of how rotten our intel is. The following is interesting!

Intel chief calls Trump to disavow leaks

The nation’s top intel chief called President-elect Donald Trump Wednesday to personally deny leaking to the media a dubious dossier of allegations about sensitive information the Russians supposedly had about him.

Trump confirmed Thursday that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper spoke to him by phone, apparently sometime after a press conference in which Trump lashed out at media outlets, including Buzzfeed and CNN, that ran with the story and speculated it was leaked by federal officials.

“James Clapper called me yesterday to denounce the false and fictitious report that was illegally circulated,” Trump tweeted. “Made up, phony facts.Too bad!”

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/12/intel-chief-calls-trump-to-disavow-leaks.html