http://news.linktv.org Link TV News Videos (Filtered by topics: Surveillance) en-us Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:17:00 -0700 Copyright 2011 Link Media, Inc. http://news.linktv.org/videos/nsa-whistleblower-us-hacking-hong-kong-china?start=0 Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who dropped the bombshell about the US' massive domestic spying program, has claimed that the US' National Security Agency has been hacking computers in Hong Kong and mainland China for years. South Korean broadcaster MBC takes a closer look at the damaging allegations and the potential fallout. Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:17:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/nsa-whistleblower-us-hacking-hong-kong-china US National Security Agency (NSA), Internet in the People's Republic of China, Cyber espionage, PRISM (surveillance program), NSA electronic surveillance program, Surveillance, Hong Kong, Mainland China, United States, Asylum Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who dropped the bombshell about the US' massive domestic spying program, has claimed that the US' National Security Agency has been hacking computers in Hong Kong and mainland China for years. South Korean broadcaster MBC takes a closer look at the damaging allegations and the potential fallout. http://news.linktv.org/videos/we-know-you-know-tao-spy-program-rattles-us-china-relations?start=0 Former CIA employee Edward Snowden claims he has proof of US cyber-espionage in Hong Kong and China, linked to a covert program called TAO, operated by the US' National Security Agency. Jeffrey Carr, CEO of Taia Global, examines the revelations, and how they could impact the US and China's cyber tug-of-war. Fri, 14 Jun 2013 11:12:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/we-know-you-know-tao-spy-program-rattles-us-china-relations US National Security Agency (NSA), Cyber espionage, Surveillance, PRISM (surveillance program), NSA electronic surveillance program, Sina Weibo, Internet in the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Social media, Barack Obama Former CIA employee Edward Snowden claims he has proof of US cyber-espionage in Hong Kong and China, linked to a covert program called TAO, operated by the US' National Security Agency. Jeffrey Carr, CEO of Taia Global, examines the revelations, and how they could impact the US and China's cyber tug-of-war. http://news.linktv.org/videos/big-brothers-brain-nsa-to-open-worlds-biggest-spy-data-center-in-us-state?start=0 As the world reacts to the news that the United States has been secretly mining unprecedented amounts of global phone and email traffic, the US National Security Agency is building a place to do it bigger and better. The secret NSA facility in Bluffdale, Utah will store an amount of information so large it is measured in zettabytes - each roughly equivalent to a billion terabytes. Al Jazeera's John Hendren has been to see it. Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:41:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/big-brothers-brain-nsa-to-open-worlds-biggest-spy-data-center-in-us-state PRISM (surveillance program), US National Security Agency (NSA), NSA electronic surveillance program, Bluffdale, Utah, Data center, American Civil Liberties Union, Surveillance state, Zettabyte, Data mining, Internet privacy As the world reacts to the news that the United States has been secretly mining unprecedented amounts of global phone and email traffic, the US National Security Agency is building a place to do it bigger and better. The secret NSA facility in Bluffdale, Utah will store an amount of information so large it is measured in zettabytes - each roughly equivalent to a billion terabytes. Al Jazeera's John Hendren has been to see it. http://news.linktv.org/videos/snoooping-nsa-boss-to-testy-senators-weve-stopped-dozens-of-attacks?start=0 Peeved US senators today grilled director of the National Security Agency General Keith Alexander, who remained relentlessly upbeat and positive as he defended the recently exposed agency Prism program that has been secretly amassing information gleaned from a huge array of residents' email and phones. Alexander insisted that the controversial program has disrupted or helped disrupt dozens of terrorist attacks, though he didn't have exact figures. After two hours of testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, the hearing was moved behind closed doors.<br /> Wed, 12 Jun 2013 13:53:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/snoooping-nsa-boss-to-testy-senators-weve-stopped-dozens-of-attacks US National Security Agency (NSA), PRISM (surveillance program), US Senate, Surveillance state, Surveillance, Email, NSA electronic surveillance program, United States, Mobile phone, Associated Press Peeved US senators today grilled director of the National Security Agency General Keith Alexander, who remained relentlessly upbeat and positive as he defended the recently exposed agency Prism program that has been secretly amassing information gleaned from a huge array of residents' email and phones. Alexander insisted that the controversial program has disrupted or helped disrupt dozens of terrorist attacks, though he didn't have exact figures. After two hours of testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, the hearing was moved behind closed doors. http://news.linktv.org/videos/how-it-went-down-greenwald-snowden-expose-surveillance-state?start=0 Speaking from Hong Kong where he broke the story of Edward Snowden outing himself as the NSA whistleblower, Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald joins Democracy Now! to discuss Snowden's actions and the multiple disclosures he's revealed about government surveillance. "There is this massive surveillance apparatus being gradually constructed in the United States that already has extremely invasive capabilities to monitor and store the communications and other forms of behavior not just of tens of millions of Americans, but of hundreds of millions, probably billions of people, around the globe," Greenwald says. "It's one thing to say that we want the US government to have these capabilities. It's another thing to allow this to be assembled without any public knowledge, without any public debate, and with no real accountability. What ultimately drove [Snowden] forward &mdash; and what ultimately is driving our reporting &mdash; is the need for a light to be shined on what this incredibly consequential [surveillance] world is all about and the impact it's having both on our country and our planet." Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:02:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/how-it-went-down-greenwald-snowden-expose-surveillance-state Glenn Greenwald, US National Security Agency (NSA), Surveillance, Hong Kong, PRISM (surveillance program), Whistleblower, NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, NSA electronic surveillance program, CIA, The Guardian Speaking from Hong Kong where he broke the story of Edward Snowden outing himself as the NSA whistleblower, Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald joins us to discuss Snowden's actions and the multiple disclosures he's revealed about government surveillance. "There is this massive surveillance apparatus being gradually constructed in the United States that already has extremely invasive capabilities to monitor and store the communications and other forms of behavior not just of tens of millions of Americans, but of hundreds of millions, probably billions of people, around the globe," Greenwald says. "It's one thing to say that we want the US government to have these capabilities. It's another thing to allow this to be assembled without any public knowledge, without any public debate, and with no real accountability. What ultimately drove [Snowden] forward — and what ultimately is driving our reporting — is the need for a light to be shined on what this incredibly consequential [surveillance] world is all about and the impact it's having both on our country and our planet." http://news.linktv.org/videos/feds-launch-probe-into-leaker-on-nsa-snoops?start=0 The Justice Department is launching a criminal investigation into the leak about widespread National Security Agency email and phone surveillance released by a former CIA contractor. Edward Snowden said he leaked the information to the Guardian because he believes the NSA has grossly overstepped its powers with such widespread eavesdropping on American residents. Now he wonders if his life is is danger.<br /> Mon, 10 Jun 2013 07:04:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/feds-launch-probe-into-leaker-on-nsa-snoops US National Security Agency (NSA), PRISM (surveillance program), Whistleblower, US Department of Justice, Email, NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, NSA electronic surveillance program, Surveillance, CIA, United States The Justice Department is launching a criminal investigation into the leak about widespread National Security Agency email and phone surveillance released by a former CIA contractor. Edward Snowden said he leaked the information to the Guardian because he believes the NSA has grossly overstepped its powers with such widespread eavesdropping on American residents. Now he wonders if his life is is danger. http://news.linktv.org/videos/raw-video-obama-says-spying-wasnt-really-secret-because-congress-knew-about-it?start=0 US President Barack Obama defends and explains a National Security Agency program that monitors domestic and international phone records. "The programs that have that have been discussed over the last couple of days in the press are secret in the sense that they're classified," Obama says, "but they're not secret in the sense that, when it comes to telephone calls, every member of Congress has been briefed on this program." Fri, 07 Jun 2013 15:26:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/raw-video-obama-says-spying-wasnt-really-secret-because-congress-knew-about-it PRISM (surveillance program), US National Security Agency (NSA), USA PATRIOT Act, NSA electronic surveillance program, Barack Obama, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), US Congress, Surveillance, Politics of the United States, Raw video US President Barack Obama defends and explains a National Security Agency program that monitors domestic and international phone records. "The programs that have that have been discussed over the last couple of days in the press are secret in the sense that they're classified," Obama says, "but they're not secret in the sense that, when it comes to telephone calls, every member of Congress has been briefed on this program." http://news.linktv.org/videos/a-massive-surveillance-state-glenn-greenwald-exposes-covert-nsa-program?start=0 Democracy Now! speaks with Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story Thursday that the US National Security Agency has obtained access the central servers of nine major internet companies -- including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and Facebook. The Guardian and the Washington Post revealed the top secret program, code-named PRISM, after they obtained several slides from a 41-page training presentation for senior intelligence analysts. It explains how PRISM allows them to access emails, documents, audio and video chats, photographs, documents and connection logs that allow them to track a person or trace their connections to others.&nbsp; Fri, 07 Jun 2013 09:09:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/a-massive-surveillance-state-glenn-greenwald-exposes-covert-nsa-program PRISM (surveillance program), US National Security Agency (NSA), Glenn Greenwald, NSA electronic surveillance program, USA PATRIOT Act, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Verizon Democracy Now! speaks with Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story Thursday that the US National Security Agency has obtained access the central servers of nine major internet companies -- including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and Facebook. The Guardian and the Washington Post revealed the top secret program, code-named PRISM, after they obtained several slides from a 41-page training presentation for senior intelligence analysts. It explains how PRISM allows them to access emails, documents, audio and video chats, photographs, documents and connection logs that allow them to track a person or trace their connections to others. One slide lists the companies by name and the date when each provider began participating over the past six years. "Hundreds of millions of Americans, and hundreds of millions -- in fact billions of people around the world -- essentially rely on the internet exclusively to communicate with one another," Greenwald says. "Very few people use landline phones for much of anything. So when you talk about things like online chat, and social media messages, and emails, what you're really talking about is the full extent of human communication." This comes after Greenwald revealed Wednesday in another story that the NSA has been collecting the phone records of millions of Verizon customers. "They want to make sure that every single time human beings interact with one another ... that they can watch it, and they can store it, and they can access it at any time." http://news.linktv.org/videos/nsa-whistleblowers-all-us-citizens-targeted-by-obama-administration-surveillance?start=0 A leaked court order has revealed the Obama administration is conducting a massive domestic surveillance program by collecting telephone records of millions of Verizon customers. The Guardian newspaper published a classified order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court directing Verizon's Business Network Services to give the National Security Agency electronic data, including all calling records on an "ongoing, daily basis." The order covers each phone number dialed by all customers, along with location and routing data, and with the duration and frequency of the calls, but not the contents of the communications. Democracy Now! is joined by Shayana Kadidal, senior managing attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, and two former National Security Agency employees turned whistleblowers: Thomas Drake and William Binney.&nbsp; Thu, 06 Jun 2013 09:34:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/nsa-whistleblowers-all-us-citizens-targeted-by-obama-administration-surveillance US National Security Agency (NSA), USA PATRIOT Act, NSA electronic surveillance program, William Binney, Verizon, Thomas Andrews Drake, Shayana D. Kadidal, Barack Obama, NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, Mobile phone A leaked court order has revealed the Obama administration is conducting a massive domestic surveillance program by collecting telephone records of millions of Verizon customers. The Guardian newspaper published a classified order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court directing Verizon's Business Network Services to give the National Security Agency electronic data, including all calling records on an "ongoing, daily basis." The order covers each phone number dialed by all customers, along with location and routing data, and with the duration and frequency of the calls, but not the contents of the communications. Democracy Now! is joined by Shayana Kadidal, senior managing attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, and two former National Security Agency employees turned whistleblowers: Thomas Drake and William Binney. In 2010, the Obama administration charged Drake with violating The Espionage Act after he was accused of leaking classified information to the press about waste and mismanagement at the agency. The charges were later dropped. "Where has the mainstream media been? These are routine orders, nothing new," Drake says. "What's new is we're seeing an actual order and people are somehow surprised by it. The fact remains that this program has been in place for quite some time it was actually started shortly after 9/11. The PATRIOT Act was the enabling mechanism that allowed the United States government in secret to acquire subscriber records from any company." Binney, who worked at nearly 40 years at the NSA and resigned shortly after the 9/11 attacks, says: "NSA has been doing all this stuff all along and it's been all the companies not just one. And I basically looked at that and said if Verizon got one, so did everybody else. Which means that, they're just continuing the collection of this kind of information of all US citizens." http://news.linktv.org/videos/feds-spy-on-ap-wire-service-furious?start=0 The president of the Associated Press has sent a strongly worded letter of protest to US Attorney General Eric Holder after the Department of Justice acknowledged seizing two months of phone records of reporters and editors. The department offered no explanation for why the information was seized. AP's president blasted the surveillance as a "massive and unprecedented intrusion." &nbsp; Mon, 13 May 2013 16:06:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/feds-spy-on-ap-wire-service-furious Surveillance, Associated Press, First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Journalism, Media, US Department of Justice, Eric Holder, US Attorney General, Russia Today The president of the Associated Press has sent a strongly worded letter of protest to US Attorney General Eric Holder after the Department of Justice acknowledged seizing two months of phone records of reporters and editors. The department offered no explanation for why the information was seized. AP's president blasted the surveillance as a "massive and unprecedented intrusion." http://news.linktv.org/videos/artist-unveils-anti-drone-duds?start=0 Down on drones? A New York artist has come up with what he claims is "drone-busting" gear designed to block out surveillance he expects when future skies are filled with Big Brother mechanical spies. Drones use thermal-imaging cameras to target a subject's heat signature, and even peer through clothing, complains artist Adam Harvey. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a very invasive technology,&rdquo; says Harvey. &ldquo;I wanted to find something to protect against it.&rdquo; Sun, 07 Apr 2013 17:47:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/artist-unveils-anti-drone-duds Thermography, Drone, Fashion, Surveillance, Thermal imaging camera, United States, Russia Today Down on drones? A New York artist has come up with what he claims is "drone-busting" gear designed to block out surveillance he expects when future skies are filled with Big Brother mechanical spies. Drones use thermal-imaging cameras to target a subject's heat signature, and even peer through clothing, complains artist Adam Harvey. “It’s a very invasive technology,” says Harvey. “I wanted to find something to protect against it.” http://news.linktv.org/videos/court-gives-berlusconi-year-in-jail?start=0 A Milan court has sentenced Silvio Berlusconi to a year in jail for his role in a wiretap scandal involving a political rival, but the conviction won't take him off the political scene: The former Italian PM will remain free and able to take a role in government during the lengthy appeals process. Thu, 07 Mar 2013 06:03:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/court-gives-berlusconi-year-in-jail Silvio Berlusconi, Italy, Piero Fassino, Politics of Italy, Unipol, Prime Minister of Italy, Milan, Surveillance, Euronews A Milan court has sentenced Silvio Berlusconi to a year in jail for his role in a wiretap scandal involving a political rival, but the conviction won't take him off the political scene: The former Italian PM will remain free and able to take a role in government during the lengthy appeals process. http://news.linktv.org/videos/secret-us-spying-cant-be-stopped-because-no-one-can-prove-it-exists?start=0 In what's being described as a Kafkaesque decision, the US Supreme Court has ruled a group of human rights organizations and journalists cannot challenge the government's warrantless domestic surveillance program because they can't prove they are targets of it. The American Civil Liberties Union and a coalition of human rights groups and journalists filed the lawsuit in 2008 hours after President Bush signed amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which gave the National Security Agency almost unchecked power to monitor international phone calls and emails of Americans. We're joined by the ACLU's Jameel Jafeer, who argued the case before the Supreme Court. <br /> Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:23:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/secret-us-spying-cant-be-stopped-because-no-one-can-prove-it-exists Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), US National Security Agency (NSA), American Civil Liberties Union, Supreme Court of the United States, Journalist, Jameel Jaffer, NSA electronic surveillance program, NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, United States, Surveillance In what's being described as a Kafkaesque decision, the US Supreme Court has ruled a group of human rights organizations and journalists cannot challenge the government's warrantless domestic surveillance program because they can't prove they are targets of it. The American Civil Liberties Union and a coalition of human rights groups and journalists filed the lawsuit in 2008 hours after President Bush signed amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which gave the National Security Agency almost unchecked power to monitor international phone calls and emails of Americans. We're joined by the ACLU's Jameel Jafeer, who argued the case before the Supreme Court. ---- A legal effort to block the government’s warrantless domestic surveillance program has failed after the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday a group of journalists, lawyers and human rights groups cannot challenge the law. In what’s been described as a Kafkaesque decision, the five-four conservative majority agreed with the Obama administration by concluding the plaintiffs lacked, quote, "standing" or jurisdiction to proceed, since they could not prove they had been targets of the secretive surveillance program. The American Civil Liberties Union and a coalition of human rights groups and journalists filed the lawsuit in 2008 hours after President Bush signed amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which gave the National Security Agency almost unchecked power to monitor international phone calls and emails of Americans. Other plaintiffs in the case included the Amnesty international, Global Rights, Global Fund for Women, Human Rights Watch, PEN American Center, Service Employees International Union, the journalists Naomi Klein and Chris Hedges, and several defense attorneys. All the plaintiffs said they could be targets of the surveillance program since their work requires them to communicate with dissidents located outside the United States. In his opinion for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito wrote the challengers’ argument was based on a, quote, "highly speculative fear" that the government could target their communications. Well, to talk more about the significance of the ruling, we’re joined by Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU, fellow at the Open Society Foundations. He argued the warrantless wiretapping case on behalf of the plaintiffs before the Supreme Court. Welcome to Democracy Now! Thank you. Well, you lost five to four. Talk about your response to the decision, Jameel. Sure. Well, you know, obviously it’s a very disappointing decision. And in some ways, the fact that it was five to four makes it even more disappointing. It was a challenge to, as you said, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and specifically to the amendments that were made in 2008. And those amendments essentially allow the National Security Agency to engage in dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international communications, so it’s a very broad surveillance statute. National Security Agency is agency— Engages in— Larger than the CIA. Larger than the CIA, and it engages in signals intelligence gathering by monitoring phone calls, monitoring emails, monitoring other electronic communications. It’s a massive agency that has incredibly sophisticated surveillance authority now. And that agency uses this particular statute, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, to, among other things, gather Americans’ international communications, communications between people here in the United States and people outside the United States. So, it’s a very broad surveillance statute, arguably broader than any surveillance statute that Congress has sanctioned in the past. And we brought a challenge to it right after it was passed. This was actually built on an earlier challenge to the warrantless wiretapping program, which is the program that President Bush inaugurated right after 9/11. So, right after 9/11, the National Security Agency was told, "You no longer have to seek warrants from federal judges in order to engage in surveillance of Americans’ international communications. You can do this on your own, without the involvement of federal judges." That was against the law. It was against the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as it was written at the time, and it was against the Fourth Amendment of the—to the Constitution. And we had challenged that. We had challenged it in a case called ACLU v. NSA. The Center for Constitutional Rights had also challenged it in a separate case. Those cases wound their way through the system, and eventually the government retired the warrantless wiretapping program, went back to Congress and said, "You need to change the law to make it legal to do everything that we have previously been doing illegally." And some of us naively thought that Congress would reject that proposal. Some of us even naively thought that there would be serious investigations into what was criminal behavior: the violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Instead, what Congress did in 2008 is pass this broad law, the Amendments Act, which not only codified the power that President Bush had previously been exercising, but expanded the power of the National Security Agency to engage in this kind of surveillance. And again, now the surveillance is not individualized; it’s not targeted at people who are thought to be engaged in terrorism. It’s dragnet surveillance. That’s what the new law allows, surveillance of hundreds or thousands or even, theoretically, millions of people, who might not be suspected at all of having done anything wrong. So that’s the law we challenged in 2008. And the decision yesterday was effectively a decision holding that we don’t have the right to challenge the law. So could you explain, Jameel Jaffer, the grounds on which the decision was taken yesterday, the basis, standing grounds, and what it means for a likely future judicial review of the amendment? Sure, right, right. I mean, so, when we brought the case, our claims were constitutional claims. We argued that the statute violated the First Amendment because it imposed a burden on expressive and associational activity without sufficient reason. We argued that it violated the Fourth Amendment, which generally requires warrants before the government engages in this kind of surveillance. And those were the arguments we made in the district court. But the government came back and said the courts shouldn’t reach those arguments at all, the courts shouldn’t consider whether the law is constitutional or not, because the ACLU’s plaintiffs can’t show that they, themselves, have been monitored under this law. And, of course, nobody can show that they’ve been monitored under the law, because the government doesn’t disclose who its targets are. Which is sort of why you’re challenging it. Right. I mean, that’s part of the challenge. And the government is sort of creating this hurdle that is insuperable, this barrier to judicial review, which will ensure that nobody can ever challenge this kind of statute in court. And they were successful at the district court. We then appealed to the 2nd Circuit in New York, and we prevailed in the 2nd Circuit; it was a three-zero decision in our favor. The government then asked the Supreme Court to hear the case, and yesterday’s five-four decision against us is the result. Let’s turn to National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney. He spent nearly 40 years at the NSA but retired about a month after September 11, 2001, due to concerns over unchecked domestic surveillance. He appeared on Democracy Now! last year. WILLIAM BINNEY: After 9/11, all the wraps came off for NSA, and they decided to—between the White House and NSA and CIA, they decided to eliminate the protections on U.S. citizens and collect on domestically. So they started collecting from a commercial—the one commercial company that I know of that participated provided over 300—probably, on the average, about 320 million records of communication of a U.S. citizen to a U.S. citizen inside this country. What company? WILLIAM BINNEY: AT&T. It was long-distance communications. So they were providing billing data. At that point, I knew I could not stay, because it was a direct violation of the constitutional rights of everybody in the country. Plus it violated the pen register law and Stored Communications Act, the Electronic Privacy Act, the intelligence acts of 1947 and 1978. I mean, it was just this whole series of—plus all the laws covering federal communications governing telecoms. I mean, all those laws were being violated, including the Constitution. And that was a decision made that wasn’t going to be reversed, so I could not stay there. I had to leave. We also interviewed Thomas Drake, another National Security Agency whistleblower, on Democracy Now! THOMAS DRAKE: The critical thing that I discovered was not just the massive fraud, waste and abuse, but also the fact that NSA had chosen to ignore a 23-year legal regime, which had been established in 1978, called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and which, at NSA, during the time that I was not only at NSA but also in the military flying on RC-135s overseas during the latter part of the Cold War, it was a contract, the one thing you did not do. It was the prime directive of NSA. It was the—the—First Amendment at NSA, which is, you do not spy on Americans— And what did you find? THOMAS DRAKE: —without a warrant. I found, much to my horror, that they had tossed out that legal regime, that it was the excuse of 9/11, which I was told was: exigent conditions now prevailed, we essentially can do anything. We opened up Pandora’s box. We’re going to turn the United States of America into the equivalent of a foreign nation for the purpose of a—of dragnet, blanket electronic surveillance. NSA former employee, Thomas Drake, was prosecuted. He was a whistleblower. And before that, William Binney. Jameel Jaffer, your response? And also, can you talk about President Obama himself, who, as senator in 2008, voted for the measure and has recently signed legislation in December extending the FISA amendment another five years? Right. Well, when we filed this case, we filed it in 2008 under the Bush administration, and so the arguments we were facing in the district court were arguments developed by Bush administration attorneys. But the case, you know, has been in the courts now for five years, and over the course of that time, obviously, the Bush administration has been replaced by the Obama administration, but the arguments have remained the same. The Obama administration lawyers have adopted all of the arguments that the Bush administration made to try to shield this statute from judicial review. And I think it’s important to recognize the limited proposition we were making. The case before the Supreme Court was not about whether this statute is constitutional or not. We hadn’t reached that stage. The only question before the Supreme Court is—or was: Should the courts actually evaluate whether this statute is constitutional or not? And this five-to-four decision yesterday was a decision that the court should not evaluate that decision. And that’s really a disturbing thing, that, you know, maybe there’s room for reasonable disagreement about whether a statute like this is necessary or lawful or constitutional, but those arguments should be heard in a court. The courts have a role to play in deciding whether this kind of surveillance is constitutional or not, and it’s very troubling that the courts are refusing to play that role. But you’ve also suggested that Justice Alito’s opinion seems to be based on the idea that a FISA court may at some point subject this law to constitutional review. What is a FISA court? Right. So there is a—there’s a passage in Justice Alito’s opinion for the court that suggests that the result of yesterday’s decision isn’t that the law will be altogether immunized from judicial review. And he points to this FISA court system, this secret court system in which judges selected by the chief justice of the Supreme Court hear government proposals for surveillance. So there is this secret court system that most Americans don’t know about. Where is it? Where are these courts? It’s in Washington, D.C. They meet—they used to meet in the Justice Department building. My understanding is they have their own building now. It’s 11— Secret building? —eleven judges. They meet. They meet in secret. Only the government appears before them. They don’t customarily publish their decisions. And so, for Justice Alito to suggest that this is a sufficient check against the possibility of abuse or a sufficient system to ensure that our laws, like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, are actually constitutional, you know, obviously I think that that is beyond wrong. It’s—the idea that the Fourth Amendment will be protected in secret with secret opinions and only the government appearing before the court, I think is an idea completely foreign to the Constitution. And obviously, you know, four justices at least agreed with that. Can I just ask very quickly what it was like to argue this before the Supreme Court? And also talk about those in the minority. Right. Interestingly, Elena Kagan, who was President Obama’s attorney, right, solicitor general— Right. —who argued on behalf of the administration before the Supreme Court. That’s right. So, Justice Breyer wrote the dissent. Justice Kagan, Justice Sotomayor and Justice Ginsburg joined it, so four justices in dissent. I think it’s a very powerful dissent, but unfortunately it is a dissent. You know, as to your other question about what it was like to argue it, you know, honestly, the argument itself was encouraging. There were statements made by Justice Kennedy and Chief Justice Roberts of the argument that suggested that they were at least to some extent sympathetic with the position of the plaintiffs. And it’s a little bit hard to explain how you can get from some of those statements made at argument to the decision that Justice Alito wrote and issued yesterday. Justice Kennedy, for example, said at oral argument that he thought it would be malpractice for lawyers not to take measures to protect against the possibility of surveillance by the NSA. It’s hard to understand how you can believe that but also sign onto an opinion that says that lawyers who take those measures are being paranoid or inflicting this cost on themselves. But, you know, that’s the nature of oral argument: It’s always very difficult to predict. Well, one of the plaintiffs in the case, author and journalist Chris Hedges, wrote about the decision that it’s a very depressing one, "but one that has become routine in a court system that when faced with what the government insists are matters of national security writes lengthy opinions about why the courts cannot defend the rule of law." Can you talk about how this decision fits into a wider range of decisions made recently? Well, I think that Chris Hedges is right, that there is a broader pattern here in which the courts are abdicating their role under our constitutional system. They are supposed to be ensuring that the government’s national security policies are consistent with the Constitution. Instead what’s happening is many of these challenges are being thrown out at the threshold. Different—there are different reasons. Sometimes it’s standing. Sometimes it’s state secrets. Sometimes it’s immunity. But the common thread is that all of these cases are being thrown out even before the courts reach the merits. And that is a disturbing thing that ought to be of concern to everybody. Jameel Jaffer, we’re going to go to break, but when we come back, I want to ask you about drones, because it looks like Brennan—the vote for him to be the director of Central Intelligence will be tomorrow, but Rand Paul, the tea-party senator, is threatening to filibuster. Jameel Jaffer argued the case before the Supreme Court about a group—on behalf of a group of human rights organizations and journalists that led to the Supreme Court decision saying that this group cannot challenge the government’s warrantless wiretap decision. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back with him in a minute. http://news.linktv.org/videos/us-city-bans-spy-drones?start=0 Cue the US drone wars. While the aircraft are widely used by America against foreign targets, some US cities are worried about drone surveillance within their borders. Charlottesville, Virginia, has now become the first city in the nation to ban drones, though Berkeley, California, and the entire state of Nebraska might not be far behind. As many as 30,000 drones are expected to be operating in US airspace by 2020. Mon, 18 Feb 2013 20:32:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/us-city-bans-spy-drones Charlottesville, Virginia, Drone, Virginia, Surveillance, United States, Berkeley, California, Al Jazeera English Cue the US drone wars. While the aircraft are widely used by America against foreign targets, some US cities are worried about drone surveillance within their borders. Charlottesville, Virginia, has now become the first city in the nation to ban drones, though Berkeley, California, and the entire state of Nebraska might not be far behind. As many as 30,000 drones are expected to be operating in US airspace by 2020. http://news.linktv.org/videos/kim-dotcom-vows-to-fight-government-web-surveillance?start=0 Kim Dotcom: Freedom fighter? The Megaupload founder talks about Internet freedom and the the US case against him in this interview with Russia Today. Dotcom says his goal is to encrypt half the Internet to restore the balance between individuals and spying governments.<br /> Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:19:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/kim-dotcom-vows-to-fight-government-web-surveillance Kim Schmitz, Megaupload, Internet, World Wide Web, Internet privacy, Cloud computing, Surveillance state, Surveillance, US Department of Justice, Copyright infringement Kim Dotcom: Freedom fighter? The Megaupload founder talks about Internet freedom and the the US case against him in this interview with Russia Today. Dotcom says his goal is to encrypt half the Internet to restore the balance between individuals and spying governments. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-7-2012?start=0 NYC groups call on the US Justice Department to investigate the NYPD’s "stop-and-frisk" policies. American Muslims file a class action suit over police surveillance. Plus the award-winning documentary "Five Broken Cameras," headlines, and more. Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:43:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-7-2012 NYPD, New York City stop-and-frisk program, New York City, Michael Bloomberg, US Department of Justice, African American, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Bil'in, Syria, United States Dozens of New York lawmakers and several advocacy groups are convening on Capitol Hill today to call on the Justice Department to investigate the NYPD’s controversial "stop-and-frisk" policies. Eight American Muslims from New Jersey have filed a federal lawsuit calling on the NYPD to stop its intelligence-gathering program that targets Muslim and Arab communities. And we discuss the award-winning new documentary, "Five Broken Cameras," which tells the story of a Palestinian farmer who got a video camera to record his son’s childhood, but ended up documenting the growth of the resistance movement to the Israeli separation wall in the West Bank village of Bil’in. Plus headlines, and more. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-7-2012?start=2190 Eight American Muslims from New Jersey have filed a federal lawsuit calling on the New York City Police Department to stop its controversial surveillance and intelligence-gathering program that targets Muslim and Arab communities. Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:43:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-7-2012 NYPD, New York City stop-and-frisk program, New York City, Michael Bloomberg, US Department of Justice, African American, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Bil'in, Syria, United States Eight American Muslims from New Jersey have filed a federal lawsuit calling on the New York City Police Department to stop its surveillance and intelligence-gathering program that targets Muslim and Arab communities. Under the controversial program, New York City police officers monitored the daily life of Muslims in the tri-city area and across the Northeast — including where people ate, prayed and even where they got their hair cut. We speak to Glenn Katon, legal director at Muslim Advocates, the group that filed the lawsuit. "When the NYPD says basically all Muslims are suspect, it seems clear to us that that violates equal protection of the law," Katon says. A group of eight American Muslims from New Jersey has filed a federal lawsuit calling on the New York Police Department to stop its surveillance and intelligence-gathering program that targets Muslims. The lawsuit was filed Wednesday by the national organization Muslim Advocates. This is Executive Director Farhana Khera. FARHANA KHERA: It is the first direct legal challenge by victims of the NYPD's discriminatory surveillance program. In fact, this lawsuit, titled Hassan, et al. v. The City of New York, is perhaps a most important legal challenge to date brought by the American Muslim community to protect their rights in our nation's founding values. Under the controversial surveillance program, New York police officers monitored the daily life of Muslims in New York and across the Northeast, including where people ate, where they prayed, and even where they got their hair cut. A Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press investigation revealed that, beginning in 2006, police infiltrated dozens of mosques and Muslim student groups and investigated hundreds more. Imam Deen Shareef, whose mosque was under surveillance, is a plaintiff in the lawsuit to stop the program. IMAM DEEN SHAREEF: We are Muslims. We are Americans. And we go about our daily lives trying to establish the best kind of contribution that we can make to the American society. And for us to find out that we are now under suspicion with respect to some criminal activity, without any explanation as to what the provocation was, what the motivation is, what are the people that they're looking for, it is very disturbing for us to find this out. And then to find out that the New York Police Department actually took photographs of our mothers, our children, and those individuals that come into our businesses has created an atmosphere where there is certainly an undue suspicion that has been cast upon the entire Muslim community. The New York Police Department has yet to respond to the lawsuit. Last month, the New Jersey attorney general determined the NYPD's activities there were legal. New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has said the surveillance is necessary in order to protect the city from terrorist attacks. We're doing what we have to do, pursuant to the law, to protect the city, a city that's been attacked successfully twice and had 14 plots against it in—you know, in the last two decades. For more, we're joined by Glenn Katon, a legal director for Muslim Advocates. His organization filed the federal lawsuit Wednesday. Glenn Katon, welcome to Democracy Now! Muslim Advocates is based in San Francisco, but you're here. Talk about the significance of this suit and what you're doing. Well, we think it's tremendously significant, because this is the first time American Muslims have challenged a broad-scale surveillance program. And there has been a lot of persecution, discriminatory treatment of Muslims in the post-9/11 era. But really, the revelation of these NYPD reports is the first time that we've seen, in such stark and disturbing detail, exactly what one government entity is doing. So, as those reports were revealed, I mean, people from the community were crying out that, you know, we've always sensed that we're being treated differently, but this is kind of akin to smoking-gun evidence that there is a really concerted and very sophisticated effort to target Muslims based on their faith. And in terms of your legal arguments, what constitutional violations are you alleging? We have three constitutional claims. The first is the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Most people are familiar with that in the context of race discrimination, but the law is clear that it applies to certain protected classes, like race, religion, national origin. So when the NYPD says basically all Muslims are suspect, it seems clear to us that that violates equal protection of the law. The other two constitutional claims are based on the religion clauses of the First Amendment. There is the Establishment Clause, which says that government cannot establish a religion. And the most common application of that provision of the Constitution is in the context of the government embracing or endorsing religion. So if the government—I mean, the famous cases are like the crucifix in the national park or the Christian version of the 10 Commandments on the courthouse steps. The flipside of that is that government also cannot denigrate or disfavor a particular religion. So when the policy of the NYPD is to treat all Muslims as suspects of what is traditionally criminal investigation types of activities, that disfavors the Muslim faith. Lastly, we have the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, which, when the government, again, targets religion in a way—or a particular religious faith in a way that interferes with people's ability to worship and practice their religion, that violates the Free Exercise Clause. And we've seen, most recently, Tuesday, there was another NYPD document released that has kind of a spreadsheet of the types of infiltration that the NYPD is carrying out and lists Muslim Student Association, lists mosques, and has a little check for "Do we have an informant there?", "Do we have an undercover officer there?" So, you know, how can people pray, talk to their imam, when the person standing next to them may be a cop? Well, what about the argument of the police department that they are—that this is surveillance, that they are not actually targeting or prosecuting, all they're doing is gathering information? Well, their—yeah, I mean, the idea that, "Oh, we're just in public places observing what anyone else could observe," is really a fallacy for two reasons. First of all, nobody wants to think that they are being photographed as they go in and out of their place of worship. Nobody wants to think that people are watching them in their Halal restaurant. So, it's an intrusion, even if it's in a public place, number one. More importantly than that is you're still targeting people based on faith. I mean, if the policy was, you know, we're going to watch—we're going to go to Catholic churches and photograph license plates, see who's coming in and out; we're going to go to kosher delis and only kosher delis, not the Italian delis, not the German delis—you know, I think people would very understandably be up in arms about that. This is Mayor Bloomberg speaking at Yale University after it was disclosed New York police officers had monitored students from Yale. MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: We have to keep this country safe. This is a dangerous place. Make no mistake about it. It's very cute to go and to blame everybody and say we should stay away from anything that smacks of intelligence gathering. The job of our law enforcement is to make sure that they prevent things, and you only do that to—by being proactive. You have to respect people's right to privacy. You have to obey the law. And I think the police officers across this country, and at a federal level, state level and city level, do that. But having said all of that, you have to be—you do not want to—you are not going to survive, you will not be able to be a journalist and write what you want to say, if the people who want to take away your freedoms are allowed to succeed. That's New York Mayor Bloomberg. Yale President Richard Levin had condemned the spy efforts, saying, quote, "Police surveillance based on religion, nationality, or peacefully expressed political opinions is antithetical to the values of Yale, the academic community, and the United States." Who exactly are you representing, Glenn Katon, and your response to what Mayor Bloomberg said? Let me respond first, since he was just on there. I mean, obviously the police have an enormous responsibility to keep us all safe. What we say to that is, you keep people safe by watching their behavior; you don't keep people safe by watching the religious practices, the color of people's skin. Those are antithetical to American values. We are representing a wonderful group of very brave plaintiffs that really represent the full spectrum of Muslims who were spied on. We have African-American imams. We have business owners. We have students at the Rutgers MSA, which was spied on. The Muslim Students Association. Yes. And we have a soldier, a U.S. Army Reservist, who was a decorated soldier from Iraq, who has said, basically, "I signed up to support and defend the Constitution, only to come back home and worry about pictures of me being—taking my mother to the mosque, that could jeopardize my security clearance." So it has a very—this has a very profound stigma in the abstract sense, but in a very practical sense in how people live their lives. Glenn Katon, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Thank you. Legal director for Muslim Advocates who has just filed a federal lawsuit demanding the New York Police Department stop its surveillance of mosques, businesses, college campuses and gathering spots in New York, New Jersey and beyond. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-25-2012?start=978 A three-month review by New Jersey's attorney general has concluded the New York City Police Department did not violate state laws when they conducted extensive surveillance of Muslim communities with help from the CIA. Fri, 25 May 2012 10:33:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-25-2012 Egyptian presidential election, 2012, Egypt, Ahmed Shafiq, Mohamed Morsi, United States, Montreal, Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster, Student debt, Education in the United States, Islam in the United States A three-month review by New Jersey's attorney general has concluded the New York City Police Department did not violate state laws when they conducted extensive surveillance of Muslim communities with help from the CIA. The review's finding means Muslims will have no recourse to state law to prevent the NYPD from monitoring and cataloging their daily life. The decision has angered Muslim groups who were seeking an end to the intrastate police operations and surveillance throughout the Northeast. We get reaction from Gadeir Abbas, staff attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. A three-month review of New York City Police Department operations in New Jersey has concluded that they did not violate state laws when they conducted extensive surveillance of Muslim communities. The ruling by New Jersey Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa means Muslims will have no recourse to state law to prevent the NYPD from monitoring and cataloging their daily life. The decision has angered Muslim groups who were seeking an end to the cross-border police operations. The Associated Press first revealed how a once-covert NYPD surveillance program targeting Muslims had extended far beyond New York and throughout the Northeast. The Associated Press reports exposed the vast operation built by the NYPD to monitor Muslim neighborhoods after 9/11. The revelation sparked a national controversy as more details revealed that hundreds of mosques, businesses and Muslim student groups were investigated, monitored, in many cases infiltrated. Police used informants known as mosque crawlers to monitor sermons, even without any evidence of wrongdoing. Also falling under the NYPD's scrutiny were imams, cab drivers, food cart vendors. According to the Associated Press, which won the Pulitzer Prize for its reports, many of these operations were built with help from the CIA, which is prohibited from spying on Americans. In the process, the New York Police Department became, one of the nation's most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies, targeting ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government. For more, we're going to the Washington, D.C., studio to talk with Gadeir Abbas, staff attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Gadeir Abbas, thank you for joining us. The New York—the New Jersey attorney general finding that what the NYPD did in New Jersey was not illegal, your response? Well, luckily, the attorney general's opinion on what is lawful and what is not unlawful has no bearing on an individual's constitutional rights in the U.S.. So, the First Amendment right to exercise your faith, the equal protection under law that the 14th Amendment provides you, those are things that the attorney general's opinion, frankly, is not germane to determining. The NYPD program, let's remember, is based on the notion that we are going—the NYPD is going to cast suspicion on Muslims because they're Muslims. And that sends an unmistakable message to the community at large that Islam and Muslims are somehow inherently, because of their faith, a danger to America. And that is a violation of the First Amendment. And so, whatever the attorney general's opinion is, that doesn't change the fact that the rights that the Constitution gives us belong to people and not to the attorney general of New Jersey. Let's go to an excerpt of the video that accompanied the first AP report on the NYPD program. AP REPORT: At this New Brunswick, New Jersey, apartment, an alarming scene was found inside unit 1076: terrorist literature strewn about and a wealth of computer and surveillance equipment. But this wasn't the command center of a terrorist cell. The materials belonged to a secret team of NYPD intelligence officers, a unit operating miles outside its jurisdiction. Now, Gadeir Abbas, what do you know were the actions that the NYPD conducted in New Jersey? So, for instance, in Newark, New Jersey, the NYPD conducted a wide-ranging program of mapping the Muslim community. So this involved analyzing what the Muslim community comprised—its institutions, the businesses that cater to the Muslim community—and conducted what is essentially a comprehensive analysis of the Muslim community in Newark. And in order to conduct this analysis, that involved, in Newark and in other place, placing informants in mosques, as well as deploying NYPD officers to take pictures of those mosques, to write down license plate numbers of cars parked in those mosques, and to be what the NYPD has termed "on their listening post," so NYPD officers and informants strategically placed throughout the community, not to uncover criminal wrongdoing, but to establish an infrastructure of continuously monitoring the community. And that is what has caused such a negative effect on the Muslim community in New Jersey, in New York and beyond. It's the case that when you monitor a community, that affects the ability of that community to function, because what one does in private and what one does when there isn't a reason to believe the government is watching is different than what one does when the government is watching. And for years, since September 11th, American Muslims everywhere, in the New Jersey and New York area included, have long harbored the suspicion that the government and law enforcement is listening. And the revelations of the NYPD program really confirm that, yes, in fact, law enforcement is listening. And it's not only a violation of American Muslims' constitutional rights, but it is an egregious waste of resources that the NYPD is spending time and money monitoring the innocuous religious exercise of the Muslim community in New Jersey, in New York and beyond. Gadeir, earlier this year, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg addressed students at Yale University. He defended the NYPD's surveillance program. MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: We have to keep this country safe. This is a dangerous place. Make no mistake about it. It's very cute to go and to blame everybody and say we should stay away from anything that smacks of intelligence gathering. The job of our law enforcement is to make sure that they prevent things, and you only do that to—by being proactive. You have to respect people's right to privacy. You have to obey the law. And I think the police officers across this country, and at a federal level, state level and city level, do that. But having said all of that, you have to—you do not want to—you are not going to survive, you will not be able to be a journalist and write what you want to say, if the people who want to take away your freedoms are allowed to succeed. That was New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, interestingly, speaking at Yale, where students were under surveillance, objected to by the Yale president when he learned of this, Richard Levin, who issued a statement. Gadeir Abbas, your response to Mayor Bloomberg? I think it's worth exploring the assumptions of Mayor Bloomberg's statement. His thought is that we need to be preventing acts of violence rather than reacting to them. But understand what he's proposing and what he has enacted in reality is Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD believe in order to prevent acts of violence, there needs to be a substantially pervasive monitoring of the Muslim community in New York City and New Jersey. And that carries with it the unmistakable belief that many in law enforcement—and Mayor Bloomberg seems to have this idea, as well—that the Muslim community and Islam itself is somehow predisposed to creating and fomenting acts of political violence. And that's a notion that is unfortunately bolstered by organizations and anti-Muslim figures that constantly put out this idea that Muslims and Islam is a threat. So, we really need to explore what is underlying Mayor Bloomberg's vacuous statement, because at the end of the day this has great implications for not only the American Muslim community inside of itself, but also the American Muslim community's relationships with law enforcement, its relationship with government. Since 9/11 and even before, the Muslim community has been an outspoken and strong ally in the fight against terrorism. And when law enforcement, instead of partnering with the Muslim community, decides to create a network of informants and infiltrators that constantly are monitoring the innocent exercise of Islam in America, that undermines a partnership that is important and vital to protecting America from those that want to actually do it harm. And Mayor Bloomberg has created a program that has conducted analytical assessments of mosques within a hundred-mile radius of New York City. And it's led to such objectionable actions as an undercover informant—an undercover agent of the FBI—of the NYPD going on a camping trip with MSA students. Nineteen-, 20-, 21-year-olds go on a camping trip, and an NYPD officer goes with them, writes down how often they pray, whether they talk about Islam or not. That report and that action doesn't make anybody any safer. And it has the effect of sending the message to society that Islam is inherently predisposed to violence, and it also undermines the trust in the community that is a necessary part of that community functioning. Well, Gadeir, this story broke last year, and it took many months, but finally, earlier this year, Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed that the Justice Department would review the surveillance. But I'm wondering now—so you have this review at the federal level, but what can the Muslim community do to respond right now? Yeah, so, the conversations regarding the Muslim community's response to the NYPD program have been going on since August, and are going on today and have gone on yesterday. And individuals that have been subject to this surveillance program obviously possess the constitutional rights to challenge the NYPD's program. And that is—those conversations are happening. And at some point, those rights will be asserted and likely adjudicated. But beyond that, so the Muslim community not only has a problem with the surveillance that the NYPD is subjecting it to, but it also has a problem with the surveillance that other law enforcement agents, such as the FBI, are subjecting it to, because the idea that there should be a ongoing monitoring of Islam in America is not an idea that the NYPD came up with by itself, and it's not an idea that they possess exclusively. Unfortunately, law enforcement across the country has taken the approach that wherever there is a mosque, wherever there is a Muslim, there is a danger of acts of political violence. And that is a misguided notion. And ultimately, it will be up to the American Muslim community to mobilize itself and stand up and push back against this, because it is not an acceptable way to conduct law enforcement in America. It does have great ramifications for the American Muslim community and beyond. And it will ultimately—because the American Muslim community is essentially the leading edge of being subject to these misguided, unconstitutional practices, it will be the contribution of the American Muslim community to revitalize these notions of restraints on law enforcement that have been lost. But, Gadeir Abbas, what does it mean that the attorney general of New Jersey now has said that nothing was illegal, as we come back to the original question? Yeah, yeah. All it means is that the state of New Jersey will not be intervening in the matter. And I don't think that there were many in our community that were holding their breath for that outcome. There is not necessarily a reason to believe that this is something that a government official or a politician is going to take it upon themselves to handle. This is something that American Muslims have known for some time, that it's really up to them to mobilize the resources and energies and talents of the community to push back against these types of surveillance tactics. Well, final comments—in the Wall Street Journal today, New Jersey's FBI chief, Michael Ward, was critical of the NYPD for not conducting the operations within the umbrella of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. He said the actions undermined the bureau's own efforts by sowing distrust of authorities among Muslims and weakened national security. And interestingly, in February, though he's accepted this report, Governor Christie of New Jersey said, "I know they think their jurisdiction is the world." He's talking about the New York Police Department. "Their jurisdiction is New York City. My concern is this kind of affectation that the NYPD seems to have that they are the masters of the universe." Gadeir Abbas, I want to thank you very much for being with us, staff attorney for the Council on American Islamic-Relations, speaking to us from Washington, D.C. When we come back, we go to Quebec, where massive student protests have been going on for a hundred days. This week, 400,000 students in the streets, nearly a thousand arrests. Stay with us. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-24-2012?start=1757 The US Senate is closer to renewing controversial measures that critics say allow the emails and phone calls of US citizens to be monitored without a warrant. Thu, 24 May 2012 10:07:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-24-2012 John Brennan, Egyptian presidential election, 2012, Egypt, Ahmed Shafiq, Politics of Egypt, Predator drone, Egyptian Revolution, United States, Drone, Obama administration foreign policy The Senate is closer to renewing controversial measures that critics say would allow the emails and phone calls of U.S. citizens to be monitored without a warrant. The Select Committee on Intelligence has voted to extend controversial amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that were set to expire at the end of this year. “What we're asking is that they slow down this process and start first with the question: What type of information are they picking up? How many Americans are being affected? What is the government doing with it?,” says Michelle Richardson of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has sued over the U.S. government's surveillance practices, saying agencies would be able to tap their communications with clients and sources overseas. We're also joined by William Binney, who served in the National Security Agency for nearly 40 years, including a stint as technical director of its World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group. Since retiring from the NSA in 2001, Binney has warned that the NSA's data-mining program has become so vast that it could “create an Orwellian state.” "This is a continuation of the mindless legislation that our Congress has been putting out just to justify what they've been doing for a decade or more,” Binney says. “Instead of living up to their oath of office [and] defend the Constitution, they've decided to violate the civil liberties and the rights of all U.S. citizens." The Senate is also set to vote soon on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act — a bill opposed by many civil liberties and privacy groups http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-27-2012?start=109 As the Obama administration continues to expand its use of drone strikes, activists and victims' advocates join a DC summit on the growing civilian death toll. The Vatican has reprimanded the largest group of Catholic nuns in the United States, saying they've focused too heavily on issues of social justice, while failing to speak out enough on abortion and same-sex marriage. And a transgender African-American woman is set to go on trial next week on charges of second-degree murder following an altercation in which she was reportedly physically attacked and called racist and homophobic slurs outside a Minneapolis bar last year. Plus headlines, and more. Fri, 27 Apr 2012 11:52:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-27-2012 United States, Barack Obama, Predator drone, Drone attacks in Pakistan, Drone, Yemen, Pakistan, Chrishaun 'Cece' McDonald, Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, Pope Benedict XVI House Passes Cyber Security Bill with Expanded Governement Powers in Surprise Vote The House has passed a controversial so-called "cyber security" measure in defiance of a veto threat from President Obama. On Thursday, 42 Democrats joined 206 Republicans to approve the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, in a surprise vote. The measure would allow private internet companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft to hand over troves of confidential customer records and communications to the National Security Agency, FBI and Department of Homeland Security, effectively legalizing a secret domestic surveillance program already run by the NSA. Backers say the measure is needed to help private firms crack down on foreign entities — including the Chinese and Russian governments — committing online economic espionage. But the bill has faced widespread opposition from online privacy advocates and drawn threats of a White House veto. The measure passed after lawmakers approved an amendment that would widely expand the government's ability to use the information it collects. Speaking to Democracy Now! on Thursday, Michelle Richardson of the American Civil Liberties Union said the bill would severely undermine privacy rights. Michelle Richardson: "Current law now creates a presumption of privacy in our phone calls, emails and internet records, and they say that companies have to keep them private unless there's an emergency or the government serves them with a subpoena or warrant. And in one fell swoop, this bill will say that these privacy laws simply no longer apply. So, all of the process afforded under those laws, the protections, the congressional reporting, the role of a judge, all of that is swept away in one bill and will allow companies to decide how much and what type of information they want to turn over to the government." http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-26-2012?start=0 Critics of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) warn that it will increase domestic surveillance and violate privacy rights, the Obama administration challenges Arizona's notorious anti-immigrant law, plus headlines and more. Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:21:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-26-2012 United States, Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, Surveillance, US National Security Agency (NSA), US Department of Homeland Security, FBI, Politics of the United States, Arizona SB 1070, Jacob Appelbaum, Anti-immigration Critics of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) warn that it will increase domestic surveillance and violate privacy rights. Targeted hacker Jacob Appelbaum talks about CISPA, surveillance, and the "militarization of cyberspace." The Obama administration challenges Arizona's notorious anti-immigrant law while overseeing unprecedented mass deportations. Plus headlines, and more. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-26-2012?start=774 Critics say the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) would allow internet companies to give confidential customer information to the US government, effectively legalizing the NSA's existing secret domestic surveillance program. Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:21:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-26-2012 United States, Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, Surveillance, US National Security Agency (NSA), US Department of Homeland Security, FBI, Politics of the United States, Arizona SB 1070, Jacob Appelbaum, Anti-immigration As it heads toward a House vote, critics say the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) would allow private internet companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft to hand over troves of confidential customer records and communications to the National Security Agency, FBI and Department of Homeland Security, effectively legalizing a secret domestic surveillance program already run by the NSA. Backers say the measure is needed to help private firms crackdown on foreign entities — including the Chinese and Russian governments — committing online economic espionage. The bill has faced widespread opposition from online privacy advocates and even the Obama administration, which has threatened a veto. "CISPA … will create an exception to all existing privacy laws so that companies can share very sensitive and personal information directly with the government, including military agencies like the National Security Agency," says Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "Once the government has it, they can repurpose it and use it for a number of things, including an undefined national security use." http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-26-2012?start=1657 Critics of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) warn that it will increase domestic surveillance and violate privacy rights. Targeted hacker Jacob Appelbaum talks about CISPA, surveillance, and the "militarization of cyberspace." The Obama administration challenges Arizona's notorious anti-immigrant law while overseeing unprecedented mass deportations. Plus headlines, and more.<br /> Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:21:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-26-2012 United States, Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, Surveillance, US National Security Agency (NSA), US Department of Homeland Security, FBI, Politics of the United States, Arizona SB 1070, Jacob Appelbaum, Anti-immigration Computer security researcher Jacob Appelbaum argues the measures included in the proposed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) would essentially legalize military surveillance of U.S. citizens. "When they want to dramatically expand their ability to do these things in a so-called legal manner, it's important to note what they're trying to do is to legalize what they have already been doing," Appelbaum says. He is a developer and advocate for the Tor Project, a network enabling its users to communicate anonymously on the internet, and has volunteered with WikiLeaks. Our guest, Jacob Appelbaum, is back with us from last Friday. He's a computer security researcher, developer and advocate for the Tor Project, a system that enables its users to communicate anonymously on the internet. He's going to be holding a public education seminar today in New York City for people to protect themselves online and using their phones, using their computers. But right now, this legislation. When SOPA was put forward, Jacob, the Stop Online Privacy Act, the Congress members, Republican and Democrat, thought it would sail through. And then there was just a wildfire on the internet, and they backed off. Michelle Richardson said she thinks it is possible it will pass tomorrow in the House, but the Obama administration has said it would veto it. They also said they'd veto the National Defense Authorization Act, and they ultimately didn't. But what are your thoughts? What kind of online activism is happening right now? Well, I think a lot of people are organizing around this. I think the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in particular, deserves a great deal of respect for the work that they've done and what they've written about this. For example, they show pretty clearly that this is a dramatic expansion of essentially powers of surveillance, not just in terms of the government, but in terms of corporations and their ability to be held liable. So there is this extremely scary part of the bill with a two-year statute of limitations. And the problem is that in the cases that the EFF has been fighting with the NSA, the government— That's the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Yeah. So they—essentially, the government has said that they invoke state secrets privilege, and so they've been in litigation for six years on some of their cases. So, a two-year statute of limitation, it's unlikely that we would even discover that our rights had been violated in that time frame. Additionally, FOIA exemptions would mean that companies wouldn't even be able, maybe, or would not disclose that information. So it's—the deck is essentially stacked against regular people. And this is basically what Bill Binney was talking about last week when he was talking about the warrantless wiretapping program. It's as if this week they decided to legalize all the stuff that Bill warned about and said that was already occurring. So that's a pretty scary prospect. I just want to correct one thing: I said the "Stop Online Privacy Act"; it's the Stop Online Piracy Act. Piracy Act, right. Juan? Yeah, I wanted to ask you about a recent report by the Brookings Institute, not exactly a liberal or progressive think tank. But they did a paper called "Recording Everything: Digital Stories as an Enabler of Authoritarian Governments." And some of the quotes here are astonishing. They say, quote, "Plummeting digital storage costs will soon make it possible for authoritarian regimes to not only monitor known dissidents, but to also store the complete set of digital data associated with everyone within their borders." They go on to say, "When all of the telephone calls in an entire country can be captured and provided to voice recognition software programmed to extract key phrases, and when video footage from public spaces can be correlated, in real time, to the conversations, text messages and social media traffic associated with the people occupying those spaces, the arsenal of responses available to a regime facing dissent will expand. ... Pervasive monitoring will provide what amounts to a time machine allowing authoritarian governments to perform retrospective surveillance." This is where the United States is heading, where other authoritarian regimes, much more authoritarian regimes than ours, are heading around the world. And yet, the level of public opposition, especially among some young people, to this continued invasion of their privacy is not that—I mean, it's strong, it's growing, but it's not where it should be. It's pretty concerning. I think one thing that's important to note here is that it's not a theoretical thing. For example, the WikiLeaks "Spy Files" showed that this kind of dragnet surveillance of all the phone calls of a country is in fact a product that is often sold. I believe it was Libya that purchased some of this equipment from a company called Amesys in France. So, it seems to me that people will try to dismiss it and say, "Well, they'll never be able to analyze that kind of data." But that's the problem they've been working on for the last 20 years, but especially in the last 10 years. So it's not only that this data is being collected, but now they want to share it with the Department of Homeland Security, with the FBI and the NSA, essentially legalizing military surveillance over U.S. civilians—and the whole planet, frankly. So this has dramatic international implications in addition to national implications. And this is the same FBI that abuses the national security letters that have been given to them in the USA PATRIOT Act that abuses their authority on a regular basis. And they want to be without some kind of judicial oversight for all of their actions. Last week, Laura Poitras, the filmmaker, and you, Jacob Appelbaum, and the NSA former official, William Binney, were on the show, and we played that clip from the Open Society meeting that you attended two Mondays ago. Can you introduce this clip for us? Who is this? So, my understanding is that this is the deputy general counsel of the FBI. And you questioned her. I did. Are you including national security letters in your comment about believing that there is judicial oversight with the FBI's actions? National security letters and administrative subpoenas have the ability to have judicial oversight, yes. How many of those actually do have judicial oversight, in percentage? What do you mean by that? How many have— I mean, every time you get a national security letter, you have to go to a judge? Or— No, as you well know, national security letters, just like administrative subpoenas, you don't have to go to a judge. The statute does allow for the person on whom those are served to seek judicial review. And people have done so. And in the case of the third parties, such as, say, the 2703(d) orders that were served on my — according to the Wall Street Journal — my Gmail account, my Twitter account, and my internet service provider account, the third parties were prohibited from telling me about it, so how am I supposed to go to a judge, if the third party is gagged from telling me that I'm targeted by you? There are times when we have to have those things in place. So, at some point, obviously, you became aware. So at some point, the person does become aware. But yes, the statute does allow us to do that. The statute allows us. Now, again, that's the deputy general counsel for the FBI talking to you, who was just in the audience, Jacob Appelbaum. She said, "as you know," so she must know you sounded like you had a national security letter, one of, what, hundreds of thousands given by the FBI, and if you even reveal that you have one, you could face five years in jail. Have you been handed an NSL? So, to the best of my knowledge, no, though there's some speculation that perhaps she was hinting at the national security letter which Google is trying to unseal right now in the Fourth Circuit, I believe. So it could be that she just accidentally disclosed that there is a national security letter about me, and "as I well know" could be some kind of allusion to that, which, if that's the case, then I hope that they hold her accountable for that kind of disclosure, since that seems to be something like they like to do to lots of people. So we'll see if they hold their own accountable, if that's true. And otherwise, maybe she was just suggesting I know quite a lot about this. But then the content of what she said and how this fits in with this legislation? I mean, it sounds to me like they are trying to expand that power to include all facets of the government, including the military, over civilian life with regard to surveillance and essentially to make it impossible for anyone to resist or to have judicial oversight. And that is a serious problem, in my opinion. And how would legislation, for instance, that—like this House legislation, affect the work of your organization, the Tor Project, or would it, if it was enacted? Because you are set up to be able to protect the anonymity of people communicating over the internet. Well, I'd like to think that it would mean that we'd have a lot more people using Tor every day. But— That's T-O-R Project-dot-org? Yeah. I mean, the network is made up of people who care, right? So someone downloads it and says, "I want to help," and then the network gets bigger. We don't run the network like Google runs the network. So, different people make it up. The problem is that if the U.S. government was allowed to spy on everything, they can try to watch all of the network. And that's where it starts to break down. So one of the scary things here is that we're just not even sure how to exist in a complete—what's called "global passive adversary world," where they can watch the entire internet. And so, this is, I think, an existential threat to anonymity online, to privacy and to security of everyday people. I mean, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, basic privacy practices that EFF recommends, like using the anonymizing service of Tor or even encrypting your emails, could be considered an indicator of a threat, under the Senate bills. Yeah, I think that that's a really interesting tell about this. They suggest that people who protect themselves online, especially from the state, which is known to abuse its authority and power against innocent people on a regular basis—to suggest that that means that you're a threat is an absolute scary, scary prospect. Let's go to William Binney, who you were on with last week, the National Security Agency whistleblower who appeared on Democracy Now! We asked him about the NSA's practice of collecting and storing emails. Do you believe all emails, the government has copies of, in the United States? I would think—I believe they have most of them, yes. And you're speaking from a position where you would know, considering your position in the National Security Agency. Right. All they would have to do is put various Narus devices at various points along the network, at choke points or convergent points, where the network converges, and they could basically take down and have copies of most everything on the network. That, again, National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney. He spent nearly 40 years at the agency but retired about a month after September 11, 2001, due to concerns over unchecked domestic surveillance. But after 9/11, all the wraps came off for NSA, and they decided to—between the White House and NSA and CIA, they decided to eliminate the protections on U.S. citizens and collect on domestically. So they started collecting from a commercial—the one commercial company that I know of that participated provided over 300—probably, on the average, about 320 million records of communication of a U.S. citizen to a U.S. citizen inside this country. What company? AT&T. It was long-distance communications. So they were providing billing data. At that point, I knew I could not stay, because it was a direct violation of the constitutional rights of everybody in the country. Plus it violated the pen register law and Stored Communications Act, the Electronic Privacy Act, the intelligence acts of 1947 and 1978. I mean, it was just this whole series of—plus all the laws covering federal communications governing telecoms. I mean, all those laws were being violated, including the Constitution. And that was a decision made that wasn't going to be reversed, so I could not stay there. I had to leave. That was NSA whistleblower William Binney. I mean, he's saying some explosive stuff. Six years later, in 2007, the FBI raided his home, pushing aside his son, his wife, held—he was in the shower. He also is a diabetic amputee. They put a gun to his head, the FBI. He was never charged with anything. This is a man who worked for the NSA for almost 40 years. Talk about the significance of what he's saying here, from Narus to reading all the email. Sure. I mean, basically what he's saying is that the government is lying about what they are doing and what they have done, and they have not been held accountable in the last 10 years. And so, when they want to dramatically expand their ability to do these things in a so-called legal manner, it's important to note what they're trying to do is to legalize what they have already been doing and to suggest that they will be held accountable in a system where they already are not held accountable when they're breaking the law. So if it were legal, it seems incredibly fishy that things would change and it would somehow improve, when in fact it seems to be just getting worse. So what Binney is saying here is amazing, because he spent 40 years at the NSA. To get a guy like that to come onto a show like this and to talk with us is an incredible thing. I mean, that says to me that he believes that it is a threat to national security in a way that everyone should be concerned about. We have to wrap up, but I want to go to the Whitney event you had, the Whitney Art Museum on Friday night, where a document was handed out listing the addresses of eight possible domestic NSA interception points. What are these points? What are they? Well, I think it's important for people to recognize the agency that they have every day in their life. And so, if the NSA is doing surveillance, as Mark Klein showed from AT&T's side, I thought it would be interesting to— He exposed AT&T spying on Americans' phone calls. With the NSA. So these addresses are addresses I believe are potential domestic NSA interception points, similar to the ones that Mark Klein exposed. And there's a website. IXmaps is the name of it, and it's a Canadian site. And they actually show when your internet traffic goes through potential NSA interception points, so you can actually test your internet connection. And that's the Internet Exchange Maps project. Where are they? They are all listed on that website now as a result of it being released at the Whitney thing. Do you know the cities? What the pamphlet said: St. Louis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Bridgeton, Missouri. Yeah. It would be great if people actually went and photographed these buildings and talked to the employees there and see if they're NSA people going in and out. They're not confirmed. This is something where people now have something that they can do. I mean, what they also need to do is visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation's website, eff.org, and actually take action against CISPA. We have to stop this legislation from passing. It is an incredible threat to our privacy, and it is a militarization of cyberspace. I want to point out one last thing, and that is that the chair of the Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers—he's the former FBI agent—he made headlines in August of 2010 when he called for the execution of accused Army whistleblower Bradley Manning for allegedly leaking secret documents to WikiLeaks. Rogers appeared on MSNBC. REP. MIKE ROGERS: Any of the operations of a soldier in the field that's released could lead to their death. That is an act of treason. And an act of treason is a capital offense, and it should be. That's my point. I argue that anyone that releases information of a classified nature to the enemy, to a third party that our enemy uses, is an act of treason. That is the chair of the Intelligence Committee, Republican Congress Member Mike Rogers of Michigan, who is the author of CISPA. Final comment, Jacob Appelbaum? Blowing the whistle on war crimes should not be a crime. We're going to leave it there. Jacob Appelbaum is doing a public security lesson today from 12:00 to 3:00 at 56 Walker Street in New York City. Jacob Appelbaum, computer security researcher, developer and advocate for the Tor Project—that's T-O-R Project-dot-org—which enables its users to communicate anonymously on the internet. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-23-2012?start=2158 Two years since the worst offshore oil spill in US history, Democracy Now! looks at its impact on the Gulf of Mexico's residents and wildlife, even as no BP officials have faced criminal prosecution for the disaster. And in part two of a national broadcast exclusive on growing domestic surveillance in the United States of dissident journalists, activists, and whisteblower, former NSA officer William Binney describes how the FBI raided his home and held him at gunpoint. Plus today's headlines, and more.<br /> Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:50:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-23-2012 BP, Oil spill, Gulf of Mexico, Deepwater Horizon oil spill, US National Security Agency (NSA), William Binney, Surveillance state, Environmental disaster, NSA electronic surveillance program, Jacob Appelbaum In part two of our national broadcast exclusive on the growing domestic surveillance state, we speak with National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney, and two targeted Americans: Oscar-nominated filmmaker Laura Poitras, and hacker Jacob Appelbaum, who has volunteered for WikiLeaks and now works with Tor Project, a nonprofit organization that teaches about internet security. Binney left the NSA after the 9/11 attacks over his concerns about the agency's widespread surveillance of U.S. citizens. He describes how the FBI later raided his home and held him at gunpoint and notes there is still no effective way of monitoring how and what information the NSA is gathering on U.S. citizens, and how that data is being used. Click here to watch part one of our special report. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-20-2012?start=0 In a special show, Democracy Now! examines growing domestic surveillance in the US, including an exclusive interview with National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney, who says the government intercepts and retains copies of almost all emails sent or received by people living in the US. And American filmmaker Laura Poitras and computer researcher Jacob Appelbaum discuss what it's like to be the target of widespread government surveillance, including being routinely detained and interrogated at US airports. Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:01:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-20-2012 US National Security Agency (NSA), United States, William Binney, Surveillance, Jacob Appelbaum, Interrogation, NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, Detention, US Department of Homeland Security, NSA electronic surveillance program In a special show, Democracy Now! examines growing domestic surveillance in the US, including an exclusive interview with National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney, who says the government intercepts and retains copies of almost all emails sent or received by people living in the US. And American filmmaker Laura Poitras and computer researcher Jacob Appelbaum discuss what it's like to be the target of widespread government surveillance, including being routinely detained and interrogated at US airports. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-20-2012?start=788 In his first television interview since he resigned from the NSA over its domestic surveillance program, William Binney discusses the agency's massive power to spy on Americans and why the FBI raided his home after he became a whistleblower. Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:01:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-20-2012 US National Security Agency (NSA), United States, William Binney, Surveillance, Jacob Appelbaum, Interrogation, NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, Detention, US Department of Homeland Security, NSA electronic surveillance program In his first television interview since he resigned from the National Security Agency over the its domestic surveillance program, William Binney discusses the NSA's massive power to spy on Americans and why the FBI raided his home after he became a whistleblower. Binney was a key source for investigative journalist James Bamford's recent exposé in Wired Magazine about how the NSA is quietly building the largest spy center in the country in Bluffdale, Utah. The Utah spy center will contain near-bottomless databases to store all forms of communication collected by the agency including private emails, cell phone calls and Google searches and other personal data. Binney served in the NSA for over 30 years, including a time as technical director of the NSA's World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group. Since retiring from the NSA in 2001 he has warned that the NSA's data-mining program has become so vast that it could "create an Orwellian state." Today marks the first time Binney has spoken on national television about NSA surveillance. Today we bring you a Democracy Now! special on the growing domestic surveillance state and the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to spy on dissident journalists and activists. In a national broadcast exclusive, we’re joined by National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney. He was a key source for James Bamford’s recent [exposé] in Wired Magazine about the NSA—how the NSA is quietly building the largest spy center in the country in Bluffdale, Utah. The Utah spy center will contain nearly bottomless databases to store all forms of communication collected by the agency, including private emails, cell phone calls and Google searches and other personal data. Binney served in the NSA for over 30 years, including a time as director of the NSA’s World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group. Since retiring from the NSA in 2001, he has warned that the agency’s data-mining program has become so vast that it could, quote, "create an Orwellian state." Today marks the first time Binney has spoken on national television about surveillance by the National Security Agency. We’re also joined by two individuals who have been frequent targets of government surveillance: Laura Poitras, the Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, and Jacob Appelbaum, a computer security researcher who has volunteered with WikiLeaks. Poitras is the director of the documentary films My Country, My Country and The Oath. Both Poitras and Appelbaum have been repeatedly detained and interrogated by federal agents when entering the United States. Their laptops, cameras and cell phones have been seized, and presumably their data has been copied. The Justice Department has also targeted Applebaum’s online communications. In November, a federal judge ordered Twitter to hand over information about his account. In October, the Wall Street Journal revealed the Justice Department had obtained a secret court order to force Google and the internet provider Sonic.net to turn over information about Appelbaum’s email accounts. William Binney, Laura Poitras and Jacob Appelbaum will be speaking tonight at the Whitney Museum here in New York for a teach-in on surveillance. The three of them join us here in our studio together in a broadcast for the first time. We’re going to begin with William Binney. You worked for the National Security Agency for more than three decades. Almost four. Almost four decades. Yeah. You, for a time, directed the NSA’s World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group. Tell us what you did and then why you left and what happened to you afterwards. Well, I was the technical director of that group, that basically looked at the world, so we looked at all the technical problems of—in the world, and see how we could solve collection, analysis and reporting on military and geopolitical issues all around the world, every country in the world. So, it was a rather large technical problem to tackle, but it—and one of the largest problems we thought we had was looking at the World Wide Web and all the ballooning and mushrooming communications in the world. And our ability to deal with that was diminishing over time, so I kind of referred to it as our inability to keep up with the rate of change. So, we were falling behind the rate of change. So we—I had a very small group of people in a lab, and we decided to attack that problem. And we did it by looking at how we could graph the network of communications and all the communications in the world, and then—and then focus in on that graph and use the graph to limit what we wanted to attack. And we basically succeeded at that, but in the process, of course, we scooped up Americans from different places, so we had to protect their identities, according to our laws and privacy rights of U.S. citizens. So, under USSID 18, we built in protections to anonymize their identities, so you couldn’t really tell who you were looking at. And that’s because the NSA could do surveillance from abroad, but not of U.S. citizens. Well, and, you see, the World Wide Web routes things all over, so you never really know where U.S. citizens’ communications are going to be routed. So, you—if you were collecting somewhere else on another continent, you could still get U.S. citizens. That’s—see, that was a universal problem. So we devised how to do that and protect U.S. citizens. So—and this was all before 9/11. And we devised how to do that, made that effective and operating. So we were actually prepared to deploy about eight months before 9/11 and actually have a system that would run and manage the—what I call 20 terabytes a minute of activity. So—but after 9/11, all the wraps came off for NSA, and they decided to—between the White House and NSA and CIA, they decided to eliminate the protections on U.S. citizens and collect on domestically. So they started collecting from a commercial—the one commercial company that I know of that participated provided over 300—probably, on the average, about 320 million records of communication of a U.S. citizen to a U.S. citizen inside this country. What company? AT&T. It was long-distance communications. So they were providing billing data. At that point, I knew I could not stay, because it was a direct violation of the constitutional rights of everybody in the country. Plus it violated the pen register law and Stored Communications Act, the Electronic Privacy Act, the intelligence acts of 1947 and 1978. I mean, it was just this whole series of—plus all the laws covering federal communications governing telecoms. I mean, all those laws were being violated, including the Constitution. And that was a decision made that wasn’t going to be reversed, so I could not stay there. I had to leave. And I wanted to get back to, for a moment, when you say that you were developing a way to cope with the fact that the agency was falling behind, just because the sheer volume of the material that they were sweeping up was so great, that it was impossible, at times, to find the important intelligence material. Yes. So you, in essence, were creating a program that filtered out the valuable stuff. Right. That’s right. What—did it have a name, the program? Well, it was called Thin Thread. I mean, Thin Thread was our—a test program that we set up to do that. By the way, I viewed it as we never had enough data, OK? We never got enough. It was never enough for us to work at, because I looked at velocity, variety and volume as all positive things. Volume meant you got more about your target. Velocity meant you got it faster. Variety meant you got more aspects. These were all positive things. All we had to do was to devise a way to use and utilize all of those inputs and be able to make sense of them, which is what we did. And when they didn’t use your system, they—the NSA developed another or attempted to develop another system to do the same? Well, that one failed. They didn’t produce anything with that one. And that one was called? Trailblazer, yeah. Trailblazer, and— I called it—I called it five-year plan number one. Five-year plan number two was Turbulence. Five-year plan number three is— And Trailblazer cost how much money? That was, I think, in my—my sense, was a little over $4 billion. Four billion dollars. Right. But it was scuttled. It was done away with in 2006? Yes, '05, I think it was. But yes, that's right. And we developed our program with $3 million, roughly. And Trailblazer was largely developed by SAIC, the— Well, they were contributing contractors, yeah. But they—I think they had the lead—they were the lead contractors in some of contracts, yeah. And why did they go with this one, though, ultimately, they did not use it? This is under Michael Hayden at the time? Yes. Well— Under the Bush administration? Well, I thought—my sense was it was a good employment program. And it was a large budget program. It would spend money, a lot of money, so it would build the budget and— Go to a major weapons manufacturer. Right. And heads of the agency, National Security Agency, would go back and forth working at NSA, working at SAIC. It was—we called it an incestuous relationship, yeah. What happened to you after you quit? You quit within a month of the 9/11 attacks. Thirty-first of October of 2001, yeah. And then what happened? Well, we tried to form out the company to at least help the government to deal with some of the massive data problems they had, like in—even in the FBI, and also Customs and Border Protection and NRO and various other agencies. And every time we went somewhere to try to develop something, why, we got canceled, our contract got canceled, for—basically because, we have heard, anyway, that they were told that certain agencies didn’t want them hiring us, so they didn’t want us working for them, so... And before you left, in that short period when it became obvious to you the direction that the NSA was going to, did you—when you raised objections or raised concerns, what was the response? Well, I went directly to the Intelligence Committee, because it was their job to—because, first of all, when that happened, I mean, the people they had to use to set it up—since they used part of the program we developed to set it up, they had to use our people to set it up, initially, because no one else knew the code, and no one else knew how to get it operating. So, when they did that, they came—those people came to me and said, "You know, they’re doing this," you know, and they told me what they were doing. And so I immediately went to the Intelligence Committee, because they were—the intelligence committees were formed to have oversight over the intelligence community to make sure they didn’t monitor U.S. citizens. This was a fallout of the Church Committee back in the '70s. And the member of the staff that I went to went to Porter Goss, who was chairman of that committee at the time, and he referred her to General Hayden for any further. When it was the job of that committee to do the oversight on all this domestic spying, they weren't doing it, OK? Basically, the—at the time, according to Dick Cheney’s interview on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, he said the—at that time, only the majority or minority leaders, the HPSCI and the SSCI, were involved in having knowledge about this program, Stellar Wind, which you had talked with Tom Drake about. The former NSA— Right, right. —employee who was also a whistleblower. And that was the program, of course, that Director Mueller reported was the issue that—with the hospital visit with Ashcroft. So— And explain that, very briefly, for—to remind people. Well, the whole program, I guess, had to be reauthorized every 45 days, and they had to have the director of NSA, director of CIA and the attorney general sign an affidavit that they still needed the program and that it was legal. And when Comey and Goldsmith in the DOJ decided that this really was a violation of the Constitution and was illegal, then that issue came up. And that’s what—that’s what got everybody kind of disturbed and ready to—ready, actually, to resign in 2004, early 2004, I believe that was. And as a part of it was coming up for reauthorization, and so Gonzales left the White House, along with one other person I can’t remember, and went to the hospital where Ashcroft was, because he was—had pancreatitis, I believe, and was in the hospital, and Comey was the acting attorney general. And so, at that point, they went to Ashcroft to see if he would overrule Comey, who had denied reauthorization and declared it basically illegal. And so, they tried to get Ashcroft to overrule that and went to the hospital to do that. And Director Mueller, I think, also quickly got to the hospital to help ensure that Ashcroft was not taken advantage of, I guess. So... When was your home raided? Twenty-sixth of July of 2007. What happened? Where did you I should—I should say that it was the morning of the second day after Gonzales’s testimony, the then-Attorney General Gonzales’s testimony, to the Senate Judiciary Committee on the TSP, the—what was called the TSP, which I refer to as a fabricated plan. It was created to cover a number of plans, one of which was Stellar Wind, and the others—which they didn’t want to discuss. And the others were wiretapping. And so, they picked on the wiretapping ones, because the public would generally say, "Yes, anybody that was potentially a terrorist, a foreign terrorist, communicating with anybody in the United States, we want you to monitor their communications." So that was the acceptable part of it. But it was grouped with Stellar Wind and some other programs, so that they could give cover to it, talk about some programs, say they’re talking about the Terrorist Surveillance Program, but it was basically a group of programs, some of which they did not want to talk about. And he did not testify to that at the—and I believe some of the—Whitehouse and Feingold, I think, were the two who were on the Senate Intelligence Committee that did challenge him at the time, saying he wasn’t being truthful, and that was—he wasn’t being completely honest. So... You live where? I live in Maryland, actually four miles from NSA. And what happened? They came busting in. Who’s "they"? The FBI. About 12 of them, I think, 10 to 12. They came in with the guns drawn, on my house. Where were you? I was in the shower. I was taking a shower, so my son answered the door. And they of course pushed him out of the way at gunpoint and came running upstairs and found me in the shower, and came in and pointed the gun at me while I was, you know— Pointed a gun at your head? Oh, yeah. Yes. Wanted to make sure I saw it and that I was duly intimidated, I guess. And what did they—what did they do at that point? Did they begin questioning you? Or they just took you to headquarters? Or— No, no. Yeah, they basically separated us from—I was separated from my family. Took me on the back porch, and they started asking me questions about it. They were basically wanting me to tell them something that would implicate someone in a crime. And so, I told them that I didn’t really know—they wanted to know about certain people, that was—they were the ones that were being raided at the same time, people who—we all signed—those who were raided that day, all of us signed the DOD-IG complaint. We were the ones who filed that complaint. The Pentagon— The Pentagon DOD-IG, against— —inspector general complaint. Against NSA, yes, talking about fraud—basically corruption, fraud, waste and abuse. And then— Tom Drake was raided at the same time? No, he was raided in November of that year. We were just the ones who signed it, were raided. So, and who were the other people that were raided that same day? Diane Roark, Kirk Wiebe and Ed Loomis. Diane Roark worked for the Senate committee? Diane was the senior staffer. She had the NSA account on the HPSCI side, on the House side. So she was monitoring. She was doing oversight. She was doing real oversight; the others weren’t. Basically, the others were simply taking what the NSA said verbatim and taking them at their word. So, basically, that was not oversight. But Diane would probe and be prying into what they were saying to find out really clearly what was going on. And— And ostensibly, they were searching for who was leaking information to the—who had leaked information to the New York Times. That was the pretext, yes. But I accused them of being sent there by someone outside the FBI. And that—their body language told me that I hit it right on the head. So—and I also—after a while, they were questioning me, and I couldn’t tell them anything, because I didn’t know anything that would implicate any of the four of us, so— They were looking for leaks. Well, that was the pretext, the leak on the—to give the New York Times thing. The real thing—what they were really doing was retribution and intimidation so we didn’t go to the Judiciary Committee in the Senate and tell them, "Well, here’s what Gonzales didn’t tell you, OK." That was what it was really all about. And also, it was retribution for that DOD-IG complaint, because it was a rather embarrassing report that they gave, so... And what is it that Gonzales didn’t tell them, in your perspective, in terms of what is happening to our national security surveillance situation? Well, it was about—it was about Stellar Wind and all of the domestic spying. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-20-2012?start=2265 In a special show, Democracy Now! examines growing domestic surveillance in the US, including an exclusive interview with National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney, who says the government intercepts and retains copies of almost all emails sent or received by people living in the US. And American filmmaker Laura Poitras and computer researcher Jacob Appelbaum discuss what it's like to be the target of widespread government surveillance, including being routinely detained and interrogated at US airports. Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:01:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-20-2012 US National Security Agency (NSA), United States, William Binney, Surveillance, Jacob Appelbaum, Interrogation, NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, Detention, US Department of Homeland Security, NSA electronic surveillance program We speak with Jacob Appelbaum, a computer researcher who has faced a stream of interrogations and electronic surveillance since he volunteered with the whistleblowing website, WikiLeaks. He describes being detained more than a dozen times at the airport and interrogated by federal agents who asked about his political views and confiscated his cell phone and laptop. When asked why he cannot talk about what happened after he was questioned, Appelbaum says, "Because we do not live in a free country. If we did, I could tell you about it." A federal judge ordered Twitter to hand over information about Appelbaum's account. Meanwhile, he continues to work on the TOR project, an anonymity network that ensures every person has the right to browse the internet without restriction, and the right to speak freely. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-20-2012?start=2668 In a special show, Democracy Now! examines growing domestic surveillance in the US, including an exclusive interview with National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney, who says the government intercepts and retains copies of almost all emails sent or received by people living in the US. And American filmmaker Laura Poitras and computer researcher Jacob Appelbaum discuss what it's like to be the target of widespread government surveillance, including being routinely detained and interrogated at US airports. Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:01:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-20-2012 US National Security Agency (NSA), United States, William Binney, Surveillance, Jacob Appelbaum, Interrogation, NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, Detention, US Department of Homeland Security, NSA electronic surveillance program National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney reveals he believes domestic surveillance has become more expansive under President Obama than President George W. Bush. He estimates the NSA has assembled 20 trillion "transactions" — phone calls, emails and other forms of data — from Americans. This likely includes copies of almost all of the emails sent and received from most people living in the United States. Binney talks about Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and challenges NSA Director Keith Alexander's assertion that the NSA is not intercepting information about U.S. citizens. Well, I wanted to ask William Binney about this issue. When it comes to snail mail, the old postal system, it’s very tough for the government to intercept mail, except in times of war, particular situations. When it comes to phone conversations, land phone conversations, you need a warrant to be able to intercept phone conversations. But what about email, and what about the communication now that is really the dominant form that not only Americans, but many people around the world communicate? What are the restrictions on the government in terms of email? Well, after some of the laws they passed, like the PATRIOT Act and their secret interpretation of Section 215, which is—my view, of course, is same as Tom Drake’s, is that that gives them license to take all the commercially held data about us, which is exceedingly dangerous, because if you take that and put it into forms of graphing, which is building relationships or social networks for everybody, and then you watch it over time, you can build up knowledge about everyone in the country. And having that knowledge then allows them the ability to concoct all kinds of charges, if they want to target you. Like in my case, they fabricated several charges and attempted to indict us on them. Fortunately, we were able to produce evidence that would make them look very silly in court, so they didn’t do it. In fact, it was—I was basically assembling evidence of malicious prosecution, which was a countercharge to them. So... Do you believe all emails, the government has copies of, in the United States? I would think—I believe they have most of them, yes. And you’re speaking from a position where you would know, considering your position in the National Security Agency. Right. All they would have to do is put various Narus devices at various points along the network, at choke points or convergent points, where the network converges, and they could basically take down and have copies of most everything on the network. Jacob, your email? Well, I selectively chose to use certain public services, like Sonic.net and Gmail, and I specifically did that so as to serve as a warning to other people. I didn’t use it for anything interesting, never once emailed Julian, for example, from those accounts. But the U.S. government again asserted in those cases, according to the Wall Street Journal, which is one way to find out about what’s going on with you—they asserted that they have the right to all that metadata. And it is possible—on Monday, I had a little interaction with the FBI, where they sort of hinted that maybe there might be a national security letter for one of my email accounts, which is also hosted by Google, specifically because I want to serve as a canary in a coal mine for other people. A national security letter—it’s believed the government has given out hundreds of thousands of those. Yeah. I have also written about NSLs. But if you get one, you are not allowed to talk about it, on pain of something like up to five years in prison, even to mention that you were handed a national security letter that said turn something over. Yeah. That was the case of Nick Merrill, for example, who’s a brave American, who essentially fought and won the NSL that was handed down to him. And the librarians of Connecticut— Yes. —who were taking on the USA PATRIOT Act and didn’t want to give information over about patrons in the library that the FBI wanted to get information on. Right, absolutely. So, an NSL, what’s specifically scary about it is that all that is required is for an FBI agent to assert that they need one, and that’s it. And you don’t have a chance to have judicial review, because you aren’t the one served. Your service provider will be served. And they can’t tell you, so you don’t get your day in court. Laura, can you set up this clip that we have? Yes, actually, this is what Jake was alluding to. On Monday, there was a panel at the Open Society Institute. And Jake—and there was a deputy general counsel of the FBI who was present, and Jake had the opportunity to question her about national security letters. Are you including national security letters in your comment about believing that there is judicial oversight with the FBI’s actions? National security letters and administrative subpoenas have the ability to have judicial oversight, yes. How many of those actually do have judicial oversight, in percentage? What do you mean by that? How many have— I mean, every time you get a national security letter, you have to go to a judge? Or— No, as you well know, national security letters, just like administrative subpoenas, you don’t have to go to a judge. The statute does allow for the person on whom those are served to seek judicial review. And people have done so. And in the case of the third parties, such as, say, the 2703(d) orders that were served on my — according to the Wall Street Journal — my Gmail account, my Twitter account, and my internet service provider account, the third parties were prohibited from telling me about it, so how am I supposed to go to a judge, if the third party is gagged from telling me that I’m targeted by you? There are times when we have to have those things in place. So, at some point, obviously, you became aware. So at some point, the person does become aware. But yes, the statute does allow us to do that. The statute allows us. Now, Jacob, explain who she was again. So, my understanding is that she’s the deputy general counsel of the FBI. And the significance of what she has just said? Essentially, what she says is, "We are just and righteous because you get judicial review. But there are some cases where you don’t, and we are still just and righteous. And you should trust us, because COINTELPRO will never happen again." That’s what I heard from that. And, in fact, later, someone asked about COINTELPRO and said, "How can we" — The counterintelligence program that targeted so many dissidents in the 1970s. Yeah. Tried to get Martin Luther King Jr. to kill himself, for example. The FBI wrote him a letter and encouraged him to commit suicide. So for her to suggest that it is just and right and that we should always trust them sort of overlooks the historical problems with doing exactly that for any people in a position of power, with no judicial oversight. William Binney, what about the companies that are approached by the government to participate or facilitate the surveillance? Your sense of the degree of opposition that they’re mounting, if at all? And also, has there been any kind of qualitative change since the Obama administration came in versus what the Bush administration was practicing? Well, first of all, I don’t think any of them opposed it in any way. I mean, they were approached to saying, "You’ll be patriotic if you support us." So I think they saluted and said, "Yes, sir," and supported them, because they were told it was legal, too. And then, of course, they had to be given retroactive immunity for the crimes they were committing. So— Approved by President Obama. And President Bush, yeah. It started with Bush, yeah. And the differences in the administrations? Actually, I think the surveillance has increased. In fact, I would suggest that they’ve assembled on the order of 20 trillion transactions about U.S. citizens with other U.S. citizens. How many? Twenty trillion. And you’re saying that this surveillance has increased? Not only the— Yes. —targeting of whistleblowers, like your colleagues, like people like Tom Drake, who are actually indicted under the Obama administration— Right. —more times—the number of people who have been indicted are more than all presidents combined in the past. Right. And I think it’s to silence what’s going on. But the point is, the data that’s being assembled is about everybody. And from that data, then they can target anyone they want. Bill Binney, talk about Bluffdale, Utah. What is being built there? Well, a very large storage device, basically, for remote interrogation and remote processing. That’s the way I view that. Because there’s not enough people there to actually work the data there, so it’s being worked somewhere else. Where do you get the number 20 trillion? Just by the numbers of telecoms, it appears to me, from the questions that CNET posed to them in 2006, and they published the names and how—what the responses were. I looked at that and said that anybody that equivocated was participating, and then estimated from that the numbers of transactions. That, by the way, estimate only was involving phone calls and emails. It didn’t involve any queries on the net or any assembles—other—any financial transactions or credit card stuff, if they’re assembling that. I do not know that, OK. And the original—the original allegations that you made, in terms of the crimes being committed under the Bush administration in terms of the rights of American citizens, could you detail those? Well, I made that—I reported the crime when I was raided in 2007. And it was that Bush and Cheney and Hayden and Tenet conspired to subvert the Constitution and violate various laws of the—that exist in the statute at the time, and here’s how they did it. And I was reporting this to the FBI on my back porch during the raid. And I went through Stellar Wind and told them what it did and what the information it was using and how they were spying on—or assembling data to be able to spy on any American. I want to go to a clip of Congress Member Hank Johnson—he’s the Georgia Democrat—questioning National Security Administration director, General Keith Alexander, last month, asking him whether the NSA spies on U.S. citizens. Does the NSA routinely intercept American citizens’ emails? No. Does the NSA intercept Americans’ cell phone conversations? No. Google searches? No. Text messages? No. Amazon.com orders? No. Bank records? No. What judicial consent is required for NSA to intercept communications and information involving American citizens? Within the United States, that would be the FBI lead. If it was a foreign actor in the United States, the FBI would still have the lead and could work that with NSA or other intelligence agencies, as authorized. But to conduct that kind of collection in the United States, it would have to go through a court order, and the court would have to authorize it. We are not authorized to do it, nor do we do it. That was General Keith Alexander, the NSA director, being questioned by Democratic Congress Member Hank Johnson. Bill Binney, he’s the head of your agency, of the NSA. Explain what he’s saying—what he’s not saying, as well. Well, I think it’s—part of it is a term, how you use the term "intercept," as to whether or not what they’re saying is, "We aren’t actually looking at it, but we have it," you know, or whether or not they’re actually collecting it and storing it somewhere. So the mistake of the congressman was not to ask, "Are you collecting information?" Well, he also said things like, "We don’t collect" — or, "We don’t collect against U.S. citizens unless we have a warrant." And then, at the same time, he said that we don’t—at the same interview, he said, "We don’t have the capability to collect inside this country." Well, those are kind of contradictory. Is he lying? Is General Keith Alexander lying? I wouldn’t—you know, the point is how you split the words. I wouldn’t say "lying." It’s a kind of avoiding the issue. Jacob Appelbaum, how does this relate to you? And how powerful is General Keith Alexander? I was saying to Bill that I think he’s probably the most powerful person in the world, in the sense that— More powerful than President Obama? Well, sure. I mean, if he controls the information that arrives on Obama’s desk, and Obama makes decisions based on the things on his desk, what decisions can he make, if—except the decisions presented to him by the people he trusts? And when the people he trusts are the military, the military makes the decisions, then the civilian government is not actually in power. Bill Binney, you’re nodding your head. Yes. I mean, well, for example, their responsibility is to interpret what they have and report up echelon. So, I mean, that’s the responsibility of all the intelligence agencies. So, they basically filter the information to what they believe is important, which is what they should do, because, you know, they’re occupying—it takes time for leaders to review material to make decisions. So they have to boil it down as best they can. So it’s a function of their processing, but it is important that they do it correctly to make sure the information that gets there is correct and complete as it can. Is General Alexander more powerful than President Obama? In the sense of making—of presenting information for decision making, sure. And Laura, the impact on journalists, who have to go through what you go—you’ve gone through the last few years, just to be able to report what’s going on with our government? The chilling effect that this has on—maybe not on you, but on many other journalists? Sure. I mean, I feel like I can’t talk about the work that I do in my home, in my place of work, on my telephone, and sometimes in my country. So the chilling effect is huge. It’s enormous. You keep your computers and telephones away from conversations you’re having in a room? Yeah. When we had a meeting with you, remember, we told you—we kicked all your cell phones and all your computers out of the room. You un—the wired phone, you unwired. Yeah. My cell phone, you didn’t allow me to have it in the room. And you made sure there were no computers in the room. Right. Why? Because we wanted—well, we wanted to talk about—because we were bringing—we were bringing William to New York. And— We have to leave it there, but we’re going to go online right now at democracynow.org. We’re going to continue this conversation with Bill Binney of the NSA, formerly with NSA; Laura Poitras and Jacob Appelbaum. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-17-2012?start=807 The Associated Press wins a Pulitzer prize for exposing NYPD's CIA-linked intelligence program, which led to widespread spying on Muslims. After 40 years in solitary confinement, two members of the "Angola Three" remain in isolation in a Louisiana Prison. And Norway's Johan Galtung, a peace amnd conflict pioneer, reflects on the Norwegian massacre and Afghanistan War. Plus today's headlines, and more. Tue, 17 Apr 2012 10:08:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-17-2012 NYPD, Muslim, Angola Three, Johan Galtung, Norway, CIA, United States, Solitary confinement, Anders Behring Breivik, Islam in the United States as I said before, it would be surprising to me if people didn't have strong—this is an important issue, so it would be surprising to me if editorial writers and pundits and regular people didn't have strong feelings about this one way or the other. You know, some of your viewers probably have strong feelings. The New York Post editorial staff has strong feelings. That's what democracy is all about, right? And democracy needs information. And we try to provide that information so people can make informed decisions. So, not surprised that there are strong feelings. And again, this wasn't a series we set out to do, so whether it continues, I think it continues if more information makes itself available. And we'll go where the story leads. Matt Apuzzo, I want to thank you for being with us. Again, congratulations. Matt is a reporter— Thanks a lot. —for the Associated Press. He and his colleagues were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for their series of articles revealing the extensive domestic surveillance program deployed by the New York Police Department in the wake of 9/11. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-040412?start=2932 Mitt Romney celebrates primary sweep, Martin Luther King remembered on the 44th anniversary of his assassination, and examining the history and modern practices of the FBI. Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:29:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-040412 United States, Politics of the United States, FBI, Mitt Romney, Wisconsin, Martin Luther King, Jr., J. Edgar Hoover, Wisconsin Republican Primary, 2012, US Department of Justice, Maryland Republican Primary, 2012 The American Civil Liberties Union has released new records showing the FBI’s San Francisco division collected information on Muslim religious activities protected by the Constitution. The FBI is banned by law from keeping records on people’s religious practices unless there is a clear law enforcement purpose. But the ACLU said documents show the FBI violated that law by using so-called "community outreach" to procure and store information about religious beliefs, practices and otherwise innocent activities of Muslim community members. This is just the latest revelation in a long string of surveillance tactics used by the FBI and other agencies to monitor Muslims post-9/11. The ACLU is now calling on the inspector general to launch an investigation into the violation of the Privacy Act. We speak with Mike German, the ACLU’s national security policy counsel. From 1988 to 2004, he served as an FBI agent specializing in domestic counterterrorism. ---- We want to talk about FBI surveillance today. Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union released records showing the FBI’s San Francisco division collected information on Muslim religious activities protected by the Constitution. The FBI is banned by law from keeping records on people’s religious practices unless there’s a clear law enforcement purpose. But the ACLU said documents show the FBI violated that law by using so-called "community outreach" to procure and store information about religious beliefs, practices and otherwise innocent activities of Muslim community members. This is just the latest revelation in a long string of surveillance tactics used by the FBI and other agencies to monitor Muslims post-9/11. The ACLU is now calling on the inspector general to launch an investigation into the violation of the Privacy Act. We want to bring Mike German into this conversation, who is now with the ACLU. He is the national security policy counsel there. From 1988 to 2004, though, he served as an FBI agent specializing in domestic counterterrorism. We’re staying with Tim Weiner, author of Enemies: A History of the FBI. We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Mike German, talk about what you’ve found, these documents you’ve gotten on San Francisco FBI’s so-called Muslim outreach. Back in November, we released an alert advising that the documents that we obtained from the FBI revealed that they were using community outreach programs as an intelligence-gathering tool under a program called "Domain Management" that was run through the intelligence directorate of the FBI. These latest documents that we released last week show that there was a separate program from that, also apparently part of the intelligence program, where the FBI used what they called "mosque outreach," where they would go to mosques—this was in northern California, we only have San Francisco records about this—and would tell the people that they were engaging with that this was part of their community outreach effort. But what they were actually collecting was innocuous information and conversations about the way the mosque was operated, congregants’ travel plans, you know, interest in buying new property, the names of sermons. And they were collecting that information in FBI files, labeling it "positive intelligence," and according to the documents, the information was disseminated outside the FBI to other intelligence or law enforcement agencies. So this appeared to be a program where they were using the guise of community outreach to get people to engage with them, specifically directed at Muslim Americans, and then collecting information they’re not entitled to possess, putting it in intelligence files and disseminating it outside the FBI. The ACLU and the FBI represent the tug-of-war that goes on in this country between civil liberties and national security. This tug-of-war has been going on since the Constitution was written, but it was really joined in 1920, when the ACLU was formed. And Hoover went right after it, and he promised Roger Baldwin, one of its founders in 1924, "Everything’s fine, Roger. We’re not going to spy on you anymore," and he just kept right on spying on them. Compared to the abuses of the past, this is not, you know, a huge smoking gun, but it is part of a pattern that has been going on for a century where the FBI oversteps its legal powers in spying on Americans. What’s good about what’s happening now—Mike may disagree—is that the ACLU and the FBI have been tugging at this, and the ACLU has been winning more than it’s losing, and the balance here between national security and civil liberties, which got so far out of whack under President George W. Bush, is, I think, nearing more of an equilibrium. And it’s because of the work of people like Mike German and some courageous journalists and outraged Americans who love their civil liberties and who want to be both safe and free, that this equilibrium is closer to a balance now than it was even a few years ago. AMY GOODMAN: Mike German, do they really have to be antagonists—national security and freedom? Talk about Mueller today, the FBI director, and the laws that have been passed under President Obama that have increasingly allowed, perhaps legally, Americans to be spied on in this country. I don’t think that civil liberties and security are antagonistic. I mean, in my experience working counterterrorism, any effort that I spent investigating somebody who wasn’t actually engaged in wrongdoing was a wasted effort, those were wasted resources, and that the way I became more effective was by focusing my investigations on people who I had a factual basis for believing were actually doing bad things, engaging in illegal acts or presenting a national security threat. So what I found is that the guidelines that were put in place after the Hoover abuses were discovered were actually very effective in compelling me, as an FBI agent, to focus on people who I had evidence to believe of wrongdoing, were engaged in wrongdoing. And the problem since 9/11 has been that those guidelines have been significantly watered down, both immediately after 9/11— \ If not obliterated, exactly. Immediately after 9/11, Attorney General John Ashcroft amended the guidelines. They were amended several times under the Bush administration, most devastatingly in December of 2008, just as the administration was walking out the door, which removed the requirement of any factual basis to believe somebody was engaged in wrongdoing to authorize the FBI to conduct really very intrusive investigations that have opened the door to some of the problematic programs that we’ve identified in our most recent Freedom of Information Act work, including a racial and ethnic mapping program where the FBI goes out and uses demographic information to identify communities based on race, based on these crass racial stereotypes about what groups are involved in different types of crime, and, you know, then identifying these communities for further investigation. So, part of the problem is that we’re not attuned enough to the fact that protecting civil liberties actually makes the government more effective. And what we see instead is the FBI is targeting the usual suspects, and that’s immigrants, racial and religious minorities and political dissidents. And we’ve seen that continuously since 9/11. And the ACLU has used the Freedom of Information Act to uncover a lot of these abuses, but we haven’t seen a change in the laws to come back. We haven’t seen the Obama administration amend the Bush attorney general guidelines. When the FBI goes down to Guantánamo in 2002, and they see what the CIA and the military are doing to prisoners in Guantánamo, they open up a file called "war crimes." When the FBI sees what’s happening in the CIA’s secret prisons and at Abu Ghraib, they report it up the chain of command. And this reaches the point where, in March of 2004, the FBI director, Bob Mueller, goes eyeball to eyeball with President Bush and says, "Mr. President, your secret electronic surveillance program is beyond the law and beyond your constitutional powers as commander-in-chief. And if you don’t scale it back, I’m going to resign. My letter of resignation is right here in my pocket. The attorney general is going to resign. His deputy is going to resign." And Bush sees his political life passing before his eyes. He has visions of the Saturday Night Massacre dancing in his head. We know this because he put it in his memoir. The government would have fallen, because the headline the next day would have said, "FBI Director Resigns, Reasons Unstated, Secrecy Cited." What’s the next question? What the hell is the president of the United States doing to cause the FBI director to resign? And he pushes back, doesn’t he, Mueller, and he wins. At this point, the tug-of-war, which has gone so far in favor of national security that civil liberties is about to tip over, starts coming back. Sure. I think that there were some FBI agents who did an admirable job trying to report detainee abuse that was happening, that they were witnessing. Unfortunately, the FBI did not give them any direction about whether they should participate in that activity, until after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. And the war crime file that some agents were collecting down in Guantánamo, they were actually ordered by FBI supervisors to destroy that file. So the FBI’s record in that issue, while there were certain agents that did a commendable job—in fact, three whistleblowers were retaliated against. http://news.linktv.org/videos/mosaic-news-013112?start=309 Iraq says the US must obtain permission from Baghdad to operate surveillance drones over US facilities in the country, a day after Barack Obama said drones are being used to protect the US embassy in Baghdad, reports Press TV. Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/mosaic-news-013112 Protest, Syria, Syrian Civil War, Bashar al-Assad, Mahmoud Abbas, Middle East Peace Process, Israel, Syrian army, Free Syrian Army, Amman Iraq says the US must obtain permission from Baghdad to operate surveillance drones over US facilities in the country. Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh made the comments a day after US President Barack Obama said US drones are being used to protect the US embassy in Baghdad. Ali al-Dabbagh says the US embassy needs to get the go-ahead from the Iraqi government for any sort of surveillance operations.