Comrades,
There is a lot of discussion about the NSA spying on us the proletariat, the Workers of the World. I will tell you some things that the Obama Administration tells us about it, and these come from at least the year 2010. This information comes from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) itself, and some other federal agencies, the Secret Service (SS). But before I do that, I think I should take you on a “Back to the Future” moment.
Conception & Growth of the “Hyd(net)” (Hnet)
Do not let the title fool you, I am just making an associational analogy of a Hydra and Skynet to form “Hyd(net)”. What I am actually talking about is PRISM or Prism. PRISM stands for Protective Research Information System Management (PRISM). The purpose of this system is “record information”.
Before we get into all of that, we must rewind to September 11th, 2001. On that date, the United States suffered an attack of terror, on the continental US. This attack did not come from a nation, but a group or associations of citizens of foreign nations, foreign citizens and non-state sponsored associations. In response to this attack from these enemies, the House and Senate of Congress passed the Patriot Act, aka “The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism” (USAPATRIOT). This law was signed into action and executed by George W. Bush in 2001, and continued by Barack Obama.
This were not the only law, there were some auxiliary laws that were applied with that central law. Some of these auxiliary laws would be the “Homeland Security Act of 2002” (DHS) and the “Aviation and Transportation Security Act” of 2001 (TSA). The Patriot Act allowed “the Authority for delaying notice of the execution of a warrant” Section 213,”Pen Register and Trap and Trace Authority under FISA” Section 214, “Access to Records and other Items under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act” (FISA) Section 215,”Foreign Intelligence Information” Section 218. Section 214 and Section 215 are both very important for the PRISM program, for Hydnet.
NSA was created with the “National Security Act of 1947“. This agency is suppose to only act on Foreign citizens or spy on Foreign citizens. The FISA court was even created to have a judicial system that deals with those specific issues that arise in that processes.
George W. Bush directed for a government program to be implemented which would gather personal identification information on both foreign and domestic citizens. Further more, there was such a scandal over this because Bush did not go to the FISA Courts to begin with to spy on the foreign citizens, let alone the domestic citizens. This was a violation of American citizens protection to privacy and protection of warrant and seizure. This is simple because the Bush Administration said that their spy program would not pass “Probable Cause” criterion to even be legal. So they did not go to the court and ran the program without Judicial approval or Congressional oversight.
For a review of this event, which is an important point, you can watch this video from FRONTLINE episode called “Spying on The Home Front“.
How Did Congress Respond To The President Breaking the Law?
How did the American people respond when it was discovered that the President has a “secret” spying program going on, which was illegal and violated Civil Liberties that the government is prohibited from doing to American citizens? There an opinion poll which showed that 73% of Americans disapproved of that spying program. What did a Democratically controlled House and Senate Congress respond?
They gave Bush the legal structure that he didn’t have before, so that what he once did illegally is now something he can do legally. When Bush’s bullying was illegal, Congress made it so that Bush’s bullying was now legal. In other words, allowing a criminal to continue their criminal activities under the guise of legality.
The 4th amendment has two caluses:
(4a) Search and Seizure Clause: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”;
(4b) Warrant Clause: “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Generally, the government needs a Warrant to Search and Seize something from domestic citizens, as stated in 4th amendment. To obtain a Warrant from a judge, it is necessary that the government present “probable cause” to that judge. We would be subject to “unreasonable searches and seizures” if the government did not have “probable cause”. George W. Bush said that the government did not have “probable cause”.
George W Bush Administration said that “Probable cause ‘exists where the known facts and circumstances are sufficient to warrant a man of reasonable prudence in the belief that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found” and that “Reasonable suspicion is a standard more than a hunch but considerably below preponderence of the evidence, which justifies and officer’s investigative stop of an individual upon the articulable and particularized belief that criminal activity is afoot.”
Diane Feinstein is an extremely intelligent Congresswoman, and says that “the difference between this secret [Bush] program and the FISA law is not only the lack of involvement of court supervision, but a lowering of the standard of proof necessary to permit the collection: from ‘probable cause’ to ‘reasonable basis’…[and] the Department of Justice…[had] undertaking collection inside the United States using a lower “reasonable belief” standard, and was doing so without court supervision”. She even agreed that Bush should have the powers, i.e. lower standard to search citizens private information. Feinstein agreed, with Bush, that the government did not need to have “probable cause” to perform searches and seizures.
Bush’s Legal Policy of reducing the necessary requirement from “probable cause” to “reasonable basis ” was made legal with the passage of FISA Amendments Act of 2008. Democratically controlled House and Democratically controlled Senate passed the law, and Bush who started the original illegal program, now signed into law the ability to continue the program. Even Senator Barack Obama voted for the legalization of Bush spying and promotion of “reasonable basis”.
What can we learn from this? Both Diane Feinstein and Barack Obama both believe that the government did not need to have “probable cause” to perform searches and seizures. They, and Congress, responded to Bush’s spy program by legalizing, legalizing lowering from “probable cause” to “reasonable suspicion/basis”.
What Has the Government said about PRISM?
Who created spy program PRISM? “The United States Secret Service (Secret Service) has created and uses the Protective Research Information System Management (PRISM-ID) system to record information.” So the SS created PRISM, or Hydnet. More specifically, the SS created PRISM to record information”to assist the agency in meeting its protective mission that includes the protection of the President, Vice President, their immediate families, former Presidents and First Ladies, major candidates for the presidency and vice presidency, foreign heads of state visiting the United States, and other individuals authorized to receive Secret Service protection.”
What does PRISM collect? It “records data on threats, inappropriate or unusual behavior, and incidents that may impact the Secret Service’s mission to protect persons, events, and facilities” and “collects personally identifiable information”.
What is Personally Identifiable Information? It is your “Name or Alias, Address, E-mail Address, Date or Place of Birth, Social Security Number, Driver’s Licenses or State ID number, Passport Number, Alien Registration Number, FBI or State Criminal Record, Prisoner Number, Identification issued by foreign government units or domestic government units, and Case Numbers” and your “criminal history, health history, employment history, military service history, education history, immigration status, and other personal information provided by the subject or others familiar with the subject.”
It “maintains [the personally identifiable information] and life history information of individuals”, while the “[d]ata is collected in order to assess an individual, group, or incident that may pose a threat”. “All collected information that is entered in PRISM-ID…is retained.” The information is never deleted from PRISM once it is collected.
Which Private Companies were Involved in PRISM?
There are private companies and individuals which help to give information to PRISM. The companies of Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, AOL, Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile, are all involved. These are not the only companies that gave your Personally Identifiable Information to the government. Technically, other companies are possibly giving this information to the government as well.
The Central Contractor Registry (CCR) lists all the companies that the government is involved with. “The Central Contractor Registration (CCR) system is a highly secure, single repository of vendor data used governmentwide. Vendor registration provides common data in one central location via a simple web application accessed by a browser. You (the Vendor/Company) only need to register once. The companies “control the accuracy of [its] business information and it will be accessible to all Federal agencies with which you [the vendor/company] do business.”
It is a great deal for these private business to sign up with the CCR. “The United States Federal Government is the world’s largest purchaser of goods and services, spending over $536 Billion during FY 2011…The Federal Government buys products and services in nearly every industry imaginable. Contracting officers buy everything from janitorial and construction work to guns and staplers. Since the Federal Government does not produce anything itself, agencies must purchase what they need from private businesses. Government contracting can be a great source of revenue and growth for any business…It is absolutely vital that companies looking to break into the federal market take advantage of all the tools available to them in order to effectively market their capabilities to purchasing officers.”
All the companies that were specifically listed, will be existing the CCR program. Microsoft leaves in 3/20/13, Good leaves 5/20/14, Yahoo leaves 8/22/13, Verizon leaves 5/15/14, Sprint leaves 4/11/14, AT&T leaves 5/29/14, and T-Mobile leaves 1/03/14.
Here is a question: If government program broke the law & private corporations were involved with illegal government program that broke the law, then didn’t the private corporations break the law? AT&T did break the law when it was spying domestically on American citizens when Bush was originally collecting information illegally. But AT&T was a CCR company as well, as are many other companies.
Basically, CCR companies were forgiven when they helped the Federal government violate the US Constitution and The Law. But would the Federal government forgive Non-CCR companies that helped to violate the US Constitution and The Law?
Every company on that registry is open to PRISM or Hydnet.
FRONTLINE also did a show that touched upon the private company growth with recent spying programs. You may watch their to catch up on that with “Top Secret America“.
What Homeland Security says about PRISM
DHS has been data-mining for a while, and data-mining was defined in the “Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act of 2007“.
Data-Mining is “a program involving pattern-based queries, searches, or other analyses of 1 or more electronic databases, where—
(A) a department or agency of the Federal Government, or a non-Federal entity acting on behalf of the Federal Government, is conducting the queries, searches, or other analyses to discover or locate a predictive pattern or anomaly indicative of terrorist or criminal activity on the part of any individual or individuals;
(B) the queries, searches, or other analyses are not subject-based and do not use personal identifiers of a specific individual, or inputs associated with a specific individual or group of individuals, to retrieve information from the database or databases; and
(C) the purpose of the queries, searches, or other analyses is not solely— (i) the detection of fraud, waste, or abuse in a Government agency or program; or (ii) the security of a Government computer system.”
So data-mining is basically involving pattern based queries, searches, or other analyses of all electronic databases.
The definition points out that data mining “is limited to pattern-based electronic searches, queries or analyses” and “is limited to searches, queries or analyses that are conducted for the purpose of identifying predictive patterns or anomalies that are indicative of terrorist or criminal activity by an individual or individuals.”
One key point is that data-mining isn’t only for Terrorist, but also for criminals. All terrorist are criminals but some criminals are not terrorist. So this program looks for patterns, or anomalies, that are predictive of criminal activity by an individual or individuals. Another key point is that a “pattern0based electronic searches” would be something similar to someone who constantly searches “Patriot”, “Tea Party”, “Constitution”, “Kill the President”, and etc.
Homeland Security Report on PRISM
DHS, Homeland Security, has given reports to Congress on what PRISM is doing. These reports came out 2010, just like the SS report came out around 2009/2010.
“The OCPO [DHS Management Directorate] is the owner the PRISM contract writing management system. PRISM is a Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) software product that provides full procurement life-cycle support including all phases from advanced acquisition”. “PRISM,” works by providing “procurement/acquisition support at the desktop through a browser only, giving global access to all DHS procurement personnel and their customers. OCPO staff also access PRISM to obtain procurement data reports.”
The “users upload documents,” and are “strictly stored by PRISM and are not processed or acted on by the software.” “Procurement packages and documents can be viewed, checked out, and printed” by those that use PRISM.
“Central Contractor Registration (CCR) is the primary registrant database for the U.S. Federal Government. CCR collects, validates, stores and disseminates data in support of agency acquisition missions. Both current and potential federal government registrants are required to register in CCR in order to be awarded contracts by the federal government… Additionally, CCR shares the data with federal government procurement and electronic business systems.”
“Most vendor information is pre-loaded into PRISM via electronic download of CCR data on a monthly basis through a secure procedure where a DHS database administrator logs into the secure CCR website using the DHS agency user ID and password and downloads the complete vendor file…In some cases…contract specialist or contracting officer may manually enter information into the PRISM system.”
“PRISM collects vendor information mainly from CCR. The [Personal Identifiable Information] from the CCR is deemed reliable since the vendor supplies and maintains it directly. Other [Personal Identifiable Information] can be supplied by the vendor as part of a proposal that is necessary for proposal evaluation or contract management.”
“PRISM obtains vendor data from the CCR. The CCR is the primary registrant database for the U.S. Federal Government. CCR collects, validates, sotres, and disseminates data in support of agency acquisition missions, including Federal agency contract and assitance awards and is searchable by the general public.”
“Deletion,” of “accounts would eliminate pertinent historical elements of the procurement records.” The Personal Identifiable Information within “PRISM is not generally collected with the intent to share it outside the Department.”
“PRISM does not collect information without the user’s knowledge or consent. The collection of information from a DHS authorized user is not made prior to them receiving the PRISM User Account Request and Rules of Behavior forms.”
“Individuals,” do not “have the right to consent to particular uses of the [personal identifiable] information.”
Is Any of this STILL legal?
It is not still legal. The FISA court has ruled that PRISM violated the US Constitution and violates the Law. So the PRISM program, which is a continuation of Bush’s illegal wiretapping program, is also found Unconstitutional just like Bush’s spy program. This time the program, or continuation, was found Unconstitutional when Obama was using the program.
Kathleen Turner, who is the Director of Legislative Affairs, admits that its “true that on at least one occasion the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held that some collection carried out pursuant to the Section 702 minimization procedures used by the government was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment” and that “the governments implementation of Section 702 of FISA has sometimes circumvented the spirit of the law, and on at least one occasion the FISA Court has reached this same conclusion.” And this court opinion was given on October 3, 2011
Section 702 of The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 2008, the part of law that was violated, put in place Limitations that the program (1) “may not intentionally target any person known at the time of acquisition to be located in the United States”, (2) “may not intentionally target a person reasonably believed to be located outside the United states if the purpose of such acquisition is to target a particular, known person reasonably believed to be in the United States”, (3) “may not intentionally target a United States person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States”, (4) “may not intentionally acquire any communication as to which the sender and all intended recipients are known at the time of the acquisition to be located in the United States”, and (5) “shall be conducted in a manner consistent with the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States”.
But that is okay, the Obama Administration has even come out to respond to the American people:
How many lies did Obama say in there, based on what the Obama Administration has told the US Congress and FISA Courts? At least 2 or 3.
Let us take a listen from the person who leaked the story of NSA and PRISM, which was Edward Snowden. Snowden worked for the private corporation Booz Allen
Booz Allen is a CCR approved company, and it has no date at which it says it will leave the CCR program. Possible sources information for PRISM are “US government agencies, foreign government agencies, federal, state, and local law enforcement, the media, public records, concerned citizens,” and your “personally identifiable information or summary investigative information maintained in PRISM-ID” will possibly “be shared with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, other foreign and domestic government units, and with private entities on a need-to-know basis to support protective investigations”, and Booz Allen would be one of those private entities on need-to-know basis.
Here is what Snowden has to say about his experience of being a contractor for Booz Allen and working with PRISM:
Government Policy At Odds with Founding Fathers
Benjamin Franklin was one of the founding fathers of the US, and was involved in the debate over the creation of the US Constitution. Franklin has some simple famous words, which the Government and Obama Administration fundamentally disagree with. What do they fundamentally disagree with?
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
“The [Fair Information Practice Principles] are a widely accepted framework that is the core of the Privacy Act of 1974″ and “Professor Emeritus Alan Westin identified a number of ‘criteria of weighing conflicting interests’.” But one of those ‘criteria of weighing conflicting interests’ was dropped by the DHS, and this was for a simple reason:
“The Privacy Office has not adopted the notion of balancing privacy against other values because that paradigm results in a zero-sum outcome and privacy often is diminished at the expense of security.”
So we have here that the Obama Administration doesn’t view that the increase of security/safety comes at the expense of privacy/liberty. But does the Obama Administration view that the increase of security/safety comes at the expense of some other value besides privacy/liberty?
Comrade Conservative 