Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskillare are reporting that 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.

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.

What the NSA has is the world's largest "data warehouse."  While a database provides "information."  A data warehouse provides "knowledge."

The difference between a database and a data warehouse is similar to the difference between a photograph and a movie.  A photograph provides great detail about a moment in time, while a movie provides great detail over a period of time.

The phone company's "Call" database contains the phone number and location of calling and called person(s).  It contains call start and call end times.  It also contains a pointer to the calling and called party's account.

Over time, this data yields knowledge about who the person(s) is and the person's movements (locations) and associations.

The data acquired from the "social network" and other Internet sites are electronically scanned and matched against a list of "keywords" and "key phrases." Over time, this data yields knowledge about a person's interests, politics, activities -- and more associations.

The data acquired from Amazon, eBay and others provide information about a person's purchases.  Over time this data yields knowledge about a person's purchasing habits (stuff).

Using the data warehouse, the NSA knows "over time" and "at a minimum" your behavior -- your movements, family, associates, interests, politics, activities and what stuff you have or are looking for.

How's that for Big Brother?

And this is a summary.  It's even more insidious than I describe.

The postal service is photographing and storing the front and back of EVERY piece of mail it processes.  The NSA gets that stuff too.  There's more associations.

And the NSA is also acquiring commercially available data from industry sources (retail, banking, etc.) -- and it's all being analyzed inside their humungous data warehouse 24 X 7 X 365 by the biggest and fastest computers on the planet.

The short speech is that the NSA knows everything about all of us -- and let's not forget who Team Obama views as "the enemy."

Obama's on TeeVee right now justifying this violation of constitutional privacy by saying "no one is listening to your phone calls" and "no one is reading your emails."

There goes Obama, dissembling again -- the point is -- no one has to!  The NSA computers are! And he's outright lying when he says all the NSA is getting is metadata (which is technically "data about data").

But I can assure you that calling and called numbers, duration of call and location of parties are NOT metadata.  That's old-fashioned data data, and using analytics the NSA can derive past and future behavior from what is being collected, stored and analyzed hierarchically.

Watching the discussion of this matter on Fox's "Special Report"  it was observed that emails can be scanned, but not telephone conversations.

I'd like to remind everyone that modern telephone communications are "digital" -- just like "digital computers" -- and those "digital computer" scan and store 3 billion telephone calls every day.

If you don't get where I'm going, click here -- computers can understand the spoken word -- in real time and in any language.

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Beckwith . . .

Please use this thread for general "scandal" items only, such as the one that follows and post specific "scandal" items to the appropriate scandal threads.

Obama's scandals -- in no particular order:

The NSA's PRISM Program

Benghazi

Fast & Furious and Holder's involvement

Obama's bogus short and long-form birth certificates and draft registration

The profligacy of Barack, Michelle and Malia Obama.

IRS Malfeasance

Attacks on the ObamaMedia

State Department prostitution and drug rings cover-ups

Solyndra, LightSquared, A123, Obama Volt, and the rest of the "green scams"

The New Black Panthers and Holder's involvement (in Forum)

Bowing to the Protector of the Two Holy Places

Recess appointments and resulting court cases

Firing Gerald Walpin

Joe Sestak's bribe

Barack Obama -- a lifelong Marxist

The "spiritual mentor"

To be continued . . .

Add to this list -- send scandal tips to me -- click "Beckwith" in left column

Conservative groups seeking information from the Environmental Protection Agency have been routinely hindered by fees normally waived for media and watchdog groups, while fees for more than 90 percent of requests from green groups were waived, according to requests reviewed by the Conservative Enterprise Institute.

CEI reviewed Freedom of Information Act requests sent between January 2012 and this spring from several environmental groups friendly to the EPA’s mission, and several conservative groups, to see how equally the agency applies its fee waiver policy for media and watchdog groups. Government agencies are supposed to waive fees for groups disseminating information for public benefit.

“This is as clear an example of disparate treatment as the IRS’ hurdles selectively imposed upon groups with names ominously reflecting an interest in, say, a less intrusive or biased federal government,” said CEI fellow Chris Horner.

For 92 percent of requests from green groups, the EPA cooperated by waiving fees for the information. Those requests came from the Natural Resources Defense Council, EarthJustice, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, The Waterkeeper Alliance, Greenpeace, Southern Environmental Law Center and the Center for Biological Diversity.

Of the requests that were denied, the EPA said the group either didn’t respond to requests for justification of a waiver, or didn’t express intent to disseminate the information to the general public, according to documents obtained by The Washington Examiner.  CEI, on the other hand, had its requests denied 93 percent of the time. One request was denied because CEI failed to express its intent to disseminate the information to the general public. The rest were denied because the agency said CEI “failed to demonstrate that the release of the information requested significantly increases the public understanding of government operations or activities.” Similarly, requests from conservative groups Judicial Watch and National Center for Public Policy Research were approved half the time, and all requests from Franklin Center and the Institute for Energy Research were denied. “Their practice is to take care of their friends and impose ridiculous obstacles to deny problematic parties’ requests for information,” said Horner. Freedom of Information Act requests from CEI forced the EPA to release emails under the the “Richard Windsor” alias former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson used to conduct government business. CEI has also filed FOIA requests for emails, text messages and instant messages from Jackson and EPA nominee Gina McCarthy. Horner said he believes the EPA has denied CEI’s requests because his think tank is the most active group seeking to hold the agency accountable. “This is a clear pattern of favoritism for allied groups and a concerted campaign to make life more difficult for those deemed unfriendly,” he said. “The left hand of big government reaches out to give a boost to its far-left hand at every turn. Argue against more of the same, however, and prepare to be treated as if you have fewer rights.”

In all, the government seized those records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.

"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," Pruitt said.

The government would not say why it sought the records. U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have leaked information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an Al Qaeda plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

In testimony in February, CIA Director John Brennan noted that the FBI had questioned him about whether he was AP's source, which he denied. He called the release of the information to the media about the terror plot an "unauthorized and dangerous disclosure of classified information."

Prosecutors have sought phone records from reporters before, but the seizure of records from such a wide array of AP offices, including general AP switchboards numbers and an office-wide shared fax line, is unusual and largely unprecedented.

In the letter notifying the AP received Friday, the Justice Department offered no explanation for the seizure, according to Pruitt's letter and attorneys for the AP. The records were presumably obtained from phone companies earlier this year although the government letter did not explain that. None of the information provided by the government to the AP suggested the actual phone conversations were monitored.

Among those whose phone numbers were obtained were five reporters and an editor who were involved in the May 7, 2012 story.

The Obama administration has aggressively investigated disclosures of classified information to the media and has brought six cases against people suspected of leaking classified information, more than under all previous presidents combined.

Justice Department published rules require that subpoenas of records from news organizations must be personally approved by the attorney general but it was not known if that happened in this case. The letter notifying AP that its phone records had been obtained though subpoenas was sent Friday by Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney in Washington.

Spokesmen in Machen's office and at the Justice Department had no immediate comment on Monday.

The Justice Department lays out strict rules for efforts to get phone records from news organizations. A subpoena can only be considered after "all reasonable attempts" have been made to get the same information from other sources, the rules say. It was unclear what other steps, in total, the Justice Department has taken to get information in the case.

A subpoena to the media must be "as narrowly drawn as possible" and "should be directed at relevant information regarding a limited subject matter and should cover a reasonably limited time period," according to the rules.

The reason for these constraints, the department says, is to avoid actions that "might impair the news gathering function" because the government recognizes that "freedom of the press can be no broader than the freedom of reporters to investigate and report the news."

News organizations normally are notified in advance that the government wants phone records and enter into negotiations over the desired information. In this case, however, the government, in its letter to the AP, cited an exemption to those rules that holds that prior notification can be waived if such notice, in the exemption's wording, might "pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation."

It is unknown whether a judge or a grand jury signed off on the subpoenas.

The May 7, 2012, AP story that disclosed details of the CIA operation in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb plot occurred around the one-year anniversary of the May 2, 2011, killing of Usama bin Laden.

The plot was significant because the White House had told the public it had "no credible information that terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida, are plotting attacks in the U.S. to coincide with the (May 2) anniversary of bin Laden's death."

The AP delayed reporting the story at the request of government officials who said it would jeopardize national security. Once government officials said those concerns were allayed, the AP disclosed the plot because officials said it no longer endangered national security. The Obama administration, however, continued to request that the story be held until the administration could make an official announcement.

The May 7 story was written by reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman with contributions from reporters Kimberly Dozier, Eileen Sullivan and Alan Fram. They and their editor, Ted Bridis, were among the journalists whose April-May 2012 phone records were seized by the government.

Brennan talked about the AP story and leaks investigation in written testimony to the Senate. "The irresponsible and damaging leak of classified information was made ... when someone informed the Associated Press that the U.S. Government had intercepted an IED (improvised explosive device) that was supposed to be used in an attack and that the U.S. Government currently had that IED in its possession and was analyzing it," he said.

He also defended the White House's plan to discuss the plot immediately afterward. "Once someone leaked information about interdiction of the IED and that the IED was actually in our possession, it was imperative to inform the American people consistent with Government policy that there was never any danger to the American people associated with this Al Qaeda plot," Brennan told senators.

Originally posted by Seriously

Senior officials at the Internal Revenue Service were aware that its agents were targeting TEA Party groups as early as 2011, according to an Inspector General's draft report obtained by Fox News.

The IRS apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was "inappropriate" targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status. The agency blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware.

Lois Lerner, who runs the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, knew about the targeting of TEA Party groups since June 29, 2011.

Lerner learned at a meeting that the groups were being targeted, according to the watchdog's report. At the meeting, she was told that groups with "TEA Party," "Patriot" or "9/12 Project" in their names were being flagged for additional and often burdensome scrutiny, the report says. In addition, the Determinations Unit sent cases to a designated team of specialists to be worked that had issues including government spending, government debt, or taxes, or included statements in their files criticizing how the country is being run.

The 9-12 Project is a group started by conservative TV personality Glenn Beck.

Lerner instructed agents to change the criteria for flagging groups "immediately," the report says.

Continue reading here . . .

Obama has no trouble doing this -- he has refused to designate Boko Haram (Western education is bad) a terrorist org.

Authorities: At least 42 people killed in Islamic extremist attacks in northeast Nigeria.

By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, May 7, 5:30 PM MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Coordinated attacks by Islamic extremists armed with heavy machine guns killed at least 42 people in northeast Nigeria, authorities said Tuesday, the latest in a string of increasingly bloody attacks threatening peace in Africa’s most populous nation.

The attack struck multiple locations in the hard-hit town of Bama in Nigeria’s Borno state, where shootings and bombings have continued unstopped since an insurgency began there in 2010. Fighters raided a federal prison during their assault as well, freeing 105 inmates in another mass prison break to hit the country, officials said. Supporters wave towards a helicopter transporting Nawaz Sharif, leader of political party Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), as he leaves after his election campaign rally in Peshawar May 7, 2013. Pakistan's general elections will be held on May 11. Nick Miroff and William Booth 6:48 AM ET

Mexican President Peña Nieto aims to power the country forward with an overhaul of the state oil company.

What exactly happened in the attack remains unclear, though military spokesman Lt. Col. Sagir Musa said some 200 fighters in buses and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns attacked the barracks of the 202 Battalion of Nigeria’s beleaguered army. Musa said two soldiers died in the attack, while some 10 insurgents died. However, the military routinely downplays their casualties in such assaults.

“They came in army uniform pretending to be soldiers but were able to detect them,” Musa said.

The attackers struck the federal prison, killing 14 guards there, Musa said. They also attacked and razed a police station, a police barracks, a magistrate’s court and local government offices, the lieutenant colonel said.

At least 22 police officers, three children and a woman were killed in those attacks, said Bama police commander Sagir Abubakar. He said officers killed three insurgents in the fighting.

Calls rang unanswered or couldn’t connect Tuesday night to those living in Bama, a town 65 kilometers (40 miles) southeast of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

Repeated attacks by Islamic extremists have seen mobile phone towers bombed and burned to the ground there, making communication even more difficult for security officials and civilians as well in the region. At least 17 people died in an attack in Bama in late April alone.

Much of the violence has been blamed on the extremist network known as Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sacrilege” in the Hausa language of Nigeria’s north. That group has said it wants its imprisoned members freed and Nigeria to adopt strict Shariah law across the multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people.

While President Goodluck Jonathan has started a committee to look at the idea of offering an amnesty deal to extremist fighters, Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, has dismissed the idea in messages.

The Islamic insurgency in Nigeria grew out of a 2009 riot led by Boko Haram members in Maiduguri that ended in a military and police crackdown that killed some 700 people. The group’s leader died in police custody in an apparent execution. From 2010 on, Islamic extremists have engaged in hit-and-run shootings and suicide bombings, attacks that have killed more than 1,500 people, according to an Associated Press count.

Despite the deployment of more soldiers and police to northern Nigeria, the nation’s weak central government has been unable to stop the killings. Meanwhile, violent atrocities committed by security forces against the local civilian population only fuels rage in the region.

In late April, at least 187 people were killed in fighting between Islamic extremists and the military in Baga, another city in Borno state that sits along the banks of Lake Chad. Witnesses say soldiers angry about the death of a military officer set fire to homes there and killed civilians.

Human Rights Watch recently said an analysis of satellite imagery before and after the attack led them to believe the violence destroyed some 2,275 buildings and severely damaged another 125.

This thread is devoted to documenting the murders, the murderers and their political associations and philosophies.

I encourage you to help grow this list . . .

Keyword = shooters

Support The Obama File's mission to shine a light on the seditious activities of Obama, the Democrats, the unions, and the ObamaMedia.

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Thank you for whatever you can do.

Beckwith . . .

Explosion at JFY Library -- reported to be on fire.  Fire Department says its not certain they are related, but treating them as though they are.

#BostonMarathon

#prayforboston

Sean Higgins is reporting that Bloomberg has a lengthy story up about Jim Messina, Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign manager and now the head of Organizing for Action (OFA),  and how  he is trying to gin up grassroots support for the White House’s policy agenda.

OFA is the group that began as Obama for America -- it is Barack Obama's campaign organization. It still uses the url http://www.barackobama.com. The “about” section on the website plainly states:  ”Organizing for Action is a nonprofit organization established to support President Obama in achieving enactment of the national agenda Americans voted for on Election Day 2012.”

Nevertheless, Messina makes the following assertion to Bloomberg:

While the first OFA was housed inside the Democratic National Committee, the new group is “nonpartisan” and independent, organized as a nonprofit that is free of campaign-finance limitations on the size of donations. And Messina said the organization will focus its volunteer force more on local issues -- such as gay-marriage legislation in Illinois -- as well as federal legislative campaigns in order to enrich its member relationships and interactions.

Okay, show of hands of people who are actually buying what Messina selling here? Yeah, I thought so.

I just started this thread because Organizing for Action (OFA) will begin to play an active role in events and is going to need watching.  OFA can do all the things that Team Obama can't legally do.

OFA has been around for a long time.  The organization registered the Internet Domain name BARACKOBAMA.COM on December 28, 2004.

The White House released the statement early Tuesday after North Korea detonated a miniaturized nuclear device at a northeastern test site, state media said, defying U.N. Security Council orders to shut down atomic activity or face more sanctions and international isolation.

The underground explosion could take North Korea a big step closer to its goal of building a nuclear warhead small enough to be mounted on a long-range missile that could threaten the United States.

Official state media said the test was conducted in a safe manner and is aimed at coping with "outrageous" U.S. hostility that "violently" undermines the North's peaceful, sovereign rights to launch satellites. North Korea faced sanctions after a December launch of a rocket the U.N. and Washington called a cover for a banned missile test.

North Korea said the test was merely its "first response" to U.S. threats, and said it will continue with unspecified "second and third measures of greater intensity" if Washington maintains its hostility. After the blast took place a North Korean newsreader urged the Korean People's Army (KPA) to prepare for combat against its foes. She stressed that If an order was given "the KPA should blow up the stronghold of aggression at a strike". "And wipe out the brigandish US imperialists and South Korea puppet army to the last man and thus accomplish the historic cause of national reunification."

The North said it used a "lighter, miniaturized atomic bomb" that still has more explosive force than past tests.

Experts say regular tests are needed to perfect North Korea's goal of building nuclear warheads this third test puts Pyongyang closer to possessing nuclear-tipped missiles designed to strike the United States.

China expressed firm opposition to the test but called for a calm response by all sides.

Continue reading "About" here for details of test (cursor down) . . .

Related:  Obama calls for cuts in U. S. nuclear arsenal