New Snowden Documents Reveal the NSA’s War on Internet Security and Tools to Protect Yourself

The NSA’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. (photo: DPA/NSA)

Der Spiegel | Reader Supported News | December 29, 2014

US and British intelligence agencies undertake every effort imaginable to crack all types of encrypted Internet communication. The cloud, it seems, is full of holes. The good news: New Snowden documents show that some forms of encryption still cause problems for the NSA.

hen Christmas approaches, the spies of the Five Eyes intelligence services can look forward to a break from the arduous daily work of spying. In addition to their usual job — attempting to crack encryption all around the world — they play a game called the “Kryptos Kristmas Kwiz,” which involves solving challenging numerical and alphabetical puzzles. The proud winners of the competition are awarded “Kryptos” mugs.

Encryption — the use of mathematics to protect communications from spying — is used for electronic transactions of all types, by governments, firms and private users alike. But a look into the archive of whistleblower Edward Snowden shows that not all encryption technologies live up to what they promise.

One example is the encryption featured in Skype, a program used by some 300 million users to conduct Internet video chat that is touted as secure. It isn’t really. “Sustained Skype collection began in Feb 2011,” reads a National Security Agency (NSA) training document from the archive of whistleblower Edward Snowden. Less than half a year later, in the fall, the code crackers declared their mission accomplished. Since then, data from Skype has been accessible to the NSA’s snoops. Software giant Microsoft, which acquired Skype in 2011, said in a statement: “We will not provide governments with direct or unfettered access to customer data or encryption keys.” The NSA had been monitoring Skype even before that, but since February 2011, the service has been under order from the secret US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), to not only supply information to the NSA but also to make itself accessible as a source of data for the agency.

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Behind Yahoo’s Surveillance Battle With the Government

Cora Currier | The Intercept | Reader Supported News | September 13, 2014

ore than 1,000 pages documenting a secret court battle between Yahoo and the government over warrantless surveillance will soon be released, the company said Thursday afternoon.

In 2007, Yahoo fought back against the government’s demand for information on certain overseas customers, saying that the request was over-broad and violated the constitution.

Yahoo’s challenge ultimately failed, knocked down by both the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC, which oversees secret government spying) and its review court. The company then became one of the first to hand over information to the NSA’s PRISM program, which allowed the government access to records of internet users’ chats, emails, and search histories, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden. The targeted user was supposed to be foreign, but U.S. communications could still be swept up in the effort. Google, YouTube, AOL, and Skype were also among the companies that provided communications data to PRISM. According to the Washington Post, the government used the FISC court’s decision in the Yahoo case to pressure those others to comply.

In a statement on the company tumblr, Yahoo’s general counsel wrote that the government at one point threatened to fine Yahoo $250,000 per day if it did not release the data. That revelation is among the 1,500 pages of documents that the company plans to post shortly, he said. Also included is the original FISC opinion from 2008 forcing Yahoo to acquiesce to the government’s  demands.

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Effort underway to declassify document that is legal foundation for NSA phone program

Ellen Nakashima,Carol D. Leonnig | The Washington Post | Social Reader | October 13, 2013

In the recent stream of disclosures about National Security Agency surveillance programs, one document, sources say, has been conspicuously absent: the original — and still classified — judicial interpretation that held that the bulk collection of Americans’ data was lawful.

That document, written by Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, then chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), provided the legal foundation for the NSA amassing a database of all Americans’ phone records, say current and former officials who have read it.

Now, more officials are saying that Americans should be able to read and understand how an important precedent was established under the 2001 USA Patriot Act, which was passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

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In Secret, FISA Court Contradicted US Supreme Court on Constitutional Rights

English: The United States Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States, in 2010. Top row (left to right): Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer, Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. Bottom row (left to right): Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, and Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yochai Benkler | Guardian UK | Reader Supported News | September 22, 2013

Declassified Fisa rulings reveal a permissive approach to fourth amendment violations disturbingly at odds with supreme justices’

On Tuesday, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) declassified an opinion in which it explained why the government’s collection of records of all Americans’ phone calls is constitutional, and that if there is a problem with the program, it is a matter of political judgment, not constitutional law. So, should Americans just keep calm and carry on phoning? Not really.

Instead, we should worry about a court that, lacking a real adversarial process to inform it, failed while taking its best shot at explaining its position to the public to address the most basic, widely-known counter-argument to its position. The opinion does not even mention last year’s unanimous US supreme court decision on the fourth amendment and GPS tracking, a decision in which all three opinions include strong language that may render the NSA’s phone records collection program unconstitutional. No court that had been briefed by both sides would have ignored the grave constitutional issues raised by the three opinions of Justices Scalia, Sotomayor, and Alito in United States v Jones. And no opinion that fails to consider these should calm anyone down.

The newly-released FISC opinion, the first to opine on the legality of the phone metadata collection program since the Snowden leaks brought the program to national attention, is based on two straightforward points.

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Secret Spy Court Demands Surveillance Transparency From Feds

English: NSA chart as of 2001 Français : Organigramme de la NSA en 2001 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

David Kravets | Wired | Reader Supported News | September 15, 2013

The secret spy court at the center of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s leaks today ordered the government to begin declassifying its opinions involving the Patriot Act.

The court, set up in 1978, said the move “would contribute to an informed public debate” (.pdf) by shedding light on interpretations of a surveillance law that requires the nation’s phone carriers to hand over to the NSA metadata associated with every call in the United States.

Today’s order by Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) means the government likely will have to make public opinions surrounding the court’s legal interpretations of Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

As one of the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act, the section allows the FISC to authorize broad warrants for most any type of “tangible” record, including those held by banks, doctors and phone companies.

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