Wired’s Expose on Massive New Spy Center in Utah

9 Comments

1. 

   Oui on April 23, 2012 at 5:55 am

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   See my recent diary Obama to Pardon Israeli Spy Pollard?.

   Shady Companies With Ties to Israel Wiretap the U.S. for the NSA

   … In a rare and candid admission to Forbes, Retired Brig. Gen. Hanan Gefen, a former commander of the highly secret Unit 8200, Israel’s NSA, noted his former organization’s influence on Comverse, which owns Verint, as well as other Israeli companies that dominate the U.S. eavesdropping and surveillance market.

   According to a former chief of Unit 8200, both the veterans of the group and much of the high-tech intelligence equipment they developed are now employed in high-tech firms around the world. “Cautious estimates indicate that in the past few years,” he told a reporter for the Israeli newspaper Ha’artez in 2000, “Unit 8200 veterans have set up some 30 to 40 high-tech companies.

   Equally troubling is the issue of corruption. Kobi Alexander, the founder and former chairman of Verint, is now a fugitive, wanted by the FBI on nearly three dozen charges of fraud, theft, lying, bribery, money laundering and other crimes. And two of his top associates at Comverse, Chief Financial Officer David Kreinberg and former General Counsel William F. Sorin, were also indicted in the scheme and later pleaded guilty, with both serving time in prison and paying millions of dollars in fines and penalties.

   AT&T Whistle-Blower’s Evidence
   AT&T, at the behest of the National Security Agency, had illegally installed secret computer gear designed to spy on internet traffic. At the time I thought this was an outgrowth of the notorious Total Information Awareness program which was attacked by defenders of civil liberties. But now it’s been revealed by The New York Times that the spying program is vastly bigger and was directly authorized by President Bush.

   Another “Cut-In and Test Procedure” document dated January 24, 2003, provides diagrams of how AT&T Core Network circuits were to be run through the “splitter” cabinet. One page lists the circuit IDs of key Peering Links which were “cut-in” in February 2003, including ConXion, Verio, XO, Genuity, Qwest, PAIX, Allegiance, AboveNet, Global Crossing, C&W, UUNET, Level 3, Sprint, Telia, PSINet and Mae West. By the way, Mae West is one of two key internet nodal points in the United States (the other, Mae East, is in Vienna, Virginia). It’s not just WorldNet customers who are being spied on — it’s the entire internet.

   • The Billionaire and the Fugitive

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

2. 

   Oui on April 23, 2012 at 6:42 am

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   Israel’s Nuclear Triggers: Secret files reveal brazen espionage and dangerous immunity

   … Perhaps trying not to be outdone, President Barack Obama announced at AIPAC’s Washington conference that he will soon take center stage in the Israeli nuclear Théâtre de l’Absurde. According to author Avner Cohen, Israeli President Shimon Peres was a key architect of Israel’s nuclear weapons program from its very beginning. In 2010, scholar Sasha Polakow-Suransky released secret documents revealing how Peres even offered to sell nuclear-tipped Jericho missiles to the foundering apartheid regime in South Africa. That is why this summer, when Obama personally awards Peres a Presidential Medal of Freedom, he’ll be conferring America’s highest civilian award to the Middle East’s most notorious nuclear proliferator.

   Cross-posted from my recent diary – Obama to Pardon Israeli Spy Pollard?

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

3. 

   ask on April 23, 2012 at 7:21 am

   Back in 2005, I wrote a post called The legacy of East-Germany. I recall being flabbergasted by the news I had read that day:

   Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff this week floated an idea to start a nonprofit group that would collect information on private citizens, flag suspicious activity, and send names of suspicious people to his department.
   (snip)
   According to one techie who attended the April 27 meeting, Chertoff told the group, “Maybe we can create a nonprofit and track people’s activities, and an algorithm could red-flag individuals. Then, the nonprofit could give us the names.”

   Let’s ask the population of previous East-Germany what they think of such a system.
   And by a non-profit, hmm, who will govern this non-profit?

   Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America, organized the gathering of about 50 security-industry executives from companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, and Verizon.
   (snip)
   One meeting participant said that Chertoff told the group that having a nonprofit collect names rather than the government “would alleviate some of the concerns people have.” Not so for this participant: “This is what made me sort of shift in my seat. It sounds like investigating every person for no reason.” He was particularly concerned that an unknown formula created by this new group would determine the red flags.

   And then it turns out that reality is so much worse…

4. 

   Oui on April 23, 2012 at 8:47 am

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   Overseas wiretapping for NSA

   Overseas, Menwith Hill, the NSA’s giant satellite listening post in Yorkshire, England that sports 33 giant dome-covered eavesdropping dishes, is also undergoing a multi-million-dollar expansion, with $68 million alone being spent on a generator plant to provide power for new supercomputers. And the number of people employed on the base, many of them employees of Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, is due to increase from 1,800 to 2,500 in 2015, according to a study done in Britain. GCHQ

    « click to enlarge

   Closer to home, in May, Fort Meade will close its 27-hole golf course to make room for a massive $2 billion, 1.8-million-square-foot expansion of the NSA’s headquarters, including a cybercommand complex and a new supercomputer center expected to cost nearly $1 billion.

   Spying in the UK: GCHQ Awards Lockheed Martin £200m Contract, Promises to “Master the Internet”  

   • Body of Secrets: How America’s NSA and Britain’s GCHQ Eavesdrop on the World
   • Israel’s Omniscient Ears by Nicky Hager

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

   • 

     Superpole on April 23, 2012 at 9:55 am

     I wonder which companies get the hardware/software contracts for these facilities?

5. 

   BooMan on April 23, 2012 at 11:22 pm

   the assumption now has to be that we have no privacy.  You could create a tourist industry that promises actual privacy. No email, no phones, no cars, no GPS, no computer chips or cameras or recording devices…

   People will seek that.  

   • 

     Superpole on April 24, 2012 at 10:34 am

     Wow.. I’m not sure why we need to “create a tourist industry” catering to privacy– given certain people here tout the U.S. as the greatest example of individual freedom in history.

     But you’re correct- privacy is finished. The assumption that this is acceptable, and the time/money spent by our government invading our privacy is also acceptable- is a big problem.

     • 

       BooMan on April 24, 2012 at 10:56 am

       Maybe we do need it, but I didn’t say that.

6. 

   Oui on May 2, 2012 at 6:06 pm

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   Secret meeting between MI6 and police hours after discovery of spy Gareth Williams’s death

   (Telegraph) – Mr Hague subsequently signed a public interest immunity certificate authorising the withholding of details from the inquest about Mr Williams’s secret work and joint operations with the Americans. it is understood that as a result NSA and FBI officers who would have been called as witnesses at the inquest will no longer be asked to attend.

   Mr Williams had been working at NSA shortly before his death, where he was helping to develop a joint GCHQ-NSA defence against cyber attack’s on the west’s computer infrastructure, particularly in the banking and transport sector.

   At one stage during his work at NSA, shortly before he returned to London, Mr Williams was given security clearance to visit its facility in the Utah desert, which the agency classifies as “above top secret”.

   Mr Williams also spent several months at Menwith Hill, the secret listening station in Yorkshire used by the United States to intercept coded messages, and Fort Meade in Maryland, the home of the NSA.

   Cross-posted from my diary – Gareth Williams Murder – Cheltenham GCHQ/ NSA Spy Thriller

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."