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The FBI Just Edited Its Mission Statement ... and Took Out One Big Thing
Tom McKay's avatar image By Tom McKay  3 hours ago 5 COMMENTS
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The news: According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, they're no longer primarily a law enforcement agency.

They're a national security agency.

The FBI's shifted focus is nothing new — the agency immediately made counter-terrorism its top priority after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But it's taken them over 12 years to make it official. National security lawyer Kel McClanahan noticed the shift last month while scanning Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests returned from the FBI and upon reviewing his records, realized the shift occurred in summer 2013.

Just see below:



"What happened in the last year that changed?" McClanahan told Foreign Policy. "I think they're trying to rebrand. So many good things happen to your agency when you tie it to national security."

Marquette University professor Alan Theoharis, an expert on FBI history, also claimed that the timing was odd. "I can't explain why FBI officials decided to change the fact sheet ... unless in the current political climate that change benefits the FBI politically and undercuts criticisms," he said.

An FBI spokesman, Paul Bresson, said the agency is just trying to keep pace with the times and noted: "When our mission changed after 9/11, our fact sheet changed to reflect that." He further commented that "We rank our top 10 priorities and CT [counterterrorism] is first, counterintel is second, cyber is third. So it is certainly accurate to say our primary function is national security."

Why you should care: In 2010, the Washington Post reported that there were 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies "working on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States." All told, 854,000 people held security clearances. Many of the agencies do the same or similar work, creating an huge lack of focus and a pile of wasted resources.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines was tasked with reviewing the Defense Department's methods for tracking the most sensitive security programs. He said that "the complexity of this system defies description" and "because it lacks a synchronizing process, it inevitably results in message dissonance, reduced effectiveness and waste ... We consequently can't effectively assess whether it is making us more safe."

In other words: By 2010, America's security complex was far too large to track or even put under systemic oversight. That's years before Edward Snowden leaked details of the massive National Security Agency surveillance network which has collected unfathomable amounts of data on Americans' telecommunications use.

There are currently 17 agencies which fall under the branch of the U.S. intelligence community. Many of them are critical, but some agencies have mixed law enforcement and intelligence duties — such as the Drug Enforcement Agency, which might be one reason why the DEA is getting away with collecting information for criminal investigations from the NSA and covering it up.

Does it at least make us safer? According to Terror Factory author Trevor Aaronson, just 1% of the terrorists caught by the FBI are "real." Of the 500+ people charged with federal crimes involving international terrorism since 9/11 attacks, some 250 were charged with "things like immigration violations or lying to the FBI who are somehow linked with terrorism," while another 150 were caught in sting operations organized by the FBI. (Many of these cases are arguably entrapment.)

Aaronson says five real terrorists have been caught in the U.S. since 9/11, including Najbullah Zazi, who tried to bomb the New York subway system, and Faisal Shahzad, who tried to set off a car laden with explosives in time square. There's also Jose Padilla, who plotted an attack with a radiological weapon, and the underwear and shoe bombers, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and Richard Reid.

Does the FBI's shifted focus to terrorism make us any safer? And is it coming at the cost of the agency's original role in combating federal crime?

Former FBI agent Brad Garrett thinks so. He told Foreign Policy: "Violent crime, property crime and white-collar crime: All those things had reductions in the number of people available to investigate them. Are there cases they missed? Probably."

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NSA Carves Pathway Into International Computers, New York Times Reports
Reuters  |  Posted: 01/14/2014 9:44 pm EST


WASHINGTON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. National Security Agency has put software in almost 100,000 computers around the world allowing it to carry out surveillance on those devices and could provide a digital highway for cyberattacks, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

The NSA has planted most of the software through getting access to computer networks, but has also used a secret technology that allows it entry even to computers not connected to the Internet, the Times said, citing U.S. officials, computer experts and documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The Times said the technology had been in use since at least 2008 and relied on a covert channel of radio waves transmitted from tiny circuit boards and USB cards secretly inserted in the computers.

"The radio frequency technology has helped solve one of the biggest problems facing American intelligence agencies for years: getting into computers that adversaries, and some American partners, have tried to make impervious to spying or cyberattack," the newspaper said. "In most cases, the radio frequency hardware must be physically inserted by a spy, a manufacturer or an unwitting user."

Frequent targets of the program, code-named Quantum, have included units of the Chinese military, which Washington has accused of conducting digital attacks on U.S. military and industrial targets, the Times said.

The newspaper said the program had also succeeded in planting software in Russian military networks as well as systems used by Mexican police and drug cartels, European Union trade institutions and allies such as Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan.

The Times said there was no evidence the NSA had implanted software or used the radio technology inside the United States..........................>>>>..................>>>>................http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/14/nsa-international-computers_n_4599030.html

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"The NSA Can't Hack You If You Don't Have Internet" — This Has Now Been Debunked
Tom McKay's avatar image By Tom McKay  49 minutes ago 10 SHARES
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"The NSA Can't Hack You If You Don't Have Internet" — This Has Now Been Debunked Image Credit: AP
The NSA is able to spy on you, even if you're not connected to the Internet.

Using small radio transmitters embedded in circuit boards and USB cards, the NSA can hack into computers with their connectivity disabled. They've already done it 100,000 times, according to reports. Computers that aren't plugged into the Internet — or never have been — can then be cracked, giving NSA agents the ability to modify files and receive data from miles away from the target.

The radio tech allows access to systems previously thought impervious to outside interference. But there's a catch: the radio frequency hardware has to be physically inserted into the computer by a spy, manufacturer or even a user under the impression he's doing nothing more than transferring his files via USB stick.

One system, called Cottonmouth I, can be hidden in the end of a normal USB cable without significantly affecting its appearance. Using radio waves, it can communicate with a Nightstand relay station capable of affecting the target system in miliseconds — and it works up to eight miles away.

Here's what that looks like, according to the New York Times:



Getting the radio transmitters in the hands of the NSA's targets is easier than you'd think. For one, the NSA is increasingly relying on tricks like modifying computer hardware at their own warehouses before it even gets to its intended destination.

An NSA division called either Advanced or Access Network Technology builds the radio transmitters and other special hardware, such as software designed to provide backdoors into hard drive firmware and monitor cables that transmit what's on the screen of the device it's connected to. Getting their targets to accidentally expose their computer networks to compromised hardware can be as easy as interdicting their shipments and replacing or modifying the shipped goods with bugged components.

Who are they spying on and why? The NSA claims that it's only spying on America's enemies, but that list is now confirmed to have expanded to not just elements of the Chinese army accused of launching cyber attacks on the west, but Mexico's Secretariat of Public Security, Belgian telecommunications company Belgacom, European Union trade institutions and sometimes-shady partners against terrorism like Saudi Arabia, India, and Pakistan.

According to the Times, the NSA can now monitor 100,000 computers around the world. The Guardian revealed in October that the agency was spying on the conversations of and collecting the phone numbers of 35 world leaders.

As PolicyMic's Ben Cosman wrote, "The NSA's vast surveillance operations are symptomatic of a global bully doing what a global bully does best. America puts its business wherever it sees fit, other countries be damned ... This is a Cold War cliché. Regardless of ethics or legality – both of which are undeniably questionable – this should not come as a surprise to anyone."

In other words, they do it because they can, and they're going to develop increasingly sophisticated ways to do it.

One last thing: The leaked NSA catalog which originally publicized the radio-transmitting technology, published by Der Speigel months ago, came from 2008. In the nearly six years since, what else have they come up with?

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“There will come a time when it isn't 'They're spying on me through my phone' anymore. Eventually, it will be 'My phone is spying on me'.”
― Philip K. Dick

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Media Blacks Out New Snowden Interview The Government Doesn’t Want You to See

February 3, 2014 by POPEYE  


(BEN SWANN)   This past Sunday evening former NSA contractor Edward Snowden sat down for an interview with German television network ARD. The interview has been intentionally blocked from the US public, with virtually no major broadcast news outlets covering this story. In addition, the video has been taken down almost immediately every time it’s posted on YouTube.

In contrast, this was treated as a major political event in both print and broadcast media, in Germany, and across much of the world. In the interview, Mr. Snowden lays out a succinct case as to how these domestic surveillance programs undermines and erodes human rights and democratic freedom.

He states that his “breaking point” was “seeing Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress” denying the existence of a domestic spying programs while under questioning in March of last year. Mr. Snowden goes on to state that, “The public had a right to know about these programs. The public had a right to know that which the government is doing in its name, and that which the government is doing against the public.”

It seems clear that the virtual blackout of this insightful interview is yet another deliberate attempt to obfuscate the truth from the view of the American public. The media has continually attempted to shill the official government lies about mass domestic surveillance programs, justifying them as necessary to fight the “War on Terror”, while attempting to painting Mr. Snowden as a traitor.

In regards to accusations that he is a traitor or a foreign agent, he states, “ If I am traitor, who did I betray? I gave all my information to the American public, to American journalists who are reporting on American issues. If they see that as treason, I think people really need to consider who they think they’re working for. The public is supposed to be their boss, not their enemy. Beyond that as far as my personal safety, Ill never be fully safe until these systems have changed.”

The attempt to bury this interview by the government/corporate symbiosis has extremely dark implications. Additionally, the fact that government officials have openly talked about assassinating Mr. Snowden cannot be taken lightly, and Mr. Snowden obviously takes these threats to his life very seriously. Sadly, the reality of the US government assassinating an American citizen is not beyond the realm of possibility in the age we live in.

Quoted from bumblethru

Quoted from Box A Rox

Ron Paul is even dumber that I thought he was...
Or...
Ron Paul knows his audience will just automatically accept what he says as FACT so it doesn't really
matter that Paul's statement is flawed... none of his groupies can figure it out.

(Note.. Snoden made his information public to all... Enemy and Not...  not just to the American people).

Quoted from CICERO

All media outlets that published the information would be guilty of espionage too.  Snowden gave the info to the press, not to a foreign government.  The members of the press are guilty of facilitating this alleged espionage.  Paul's reasoning isn't flawed, yours is.  

The FACT is, all electronic communications of Americans is tracked and stored without a warrant.  

Quoted from joebxr

So now you are an expert on knowing everything that Snowden disclosed and can show he didn't divulge anything to foreign Governments that were not posted in the media.
Please, enlighten us on this insider information that you have. Can't wait to see your PROOF (like that would ever happen)!