Dianne Feinstein Accidentally Confirms That NSA Tapped The Internet Backbone
Dianne Feinstein Accidentally Confirms That NSA Tapped The Internet Backbone
It's widely known that the NSA has taps connected to the various telco networks, thanks in large part to AT&T employee Mark Klein who blew the whistle on AT&T's secret NSA room in San Francisco. What was unclear was exactly what kind of access the NSA had. Various groups like the EFF and CDT have both been asking the administration to finally come clean, in the name of transparency, if they're tapping backbone networks to snarf up internet communications like email. So far, the administration has declined to elaborate. Back in August, when the FISA court declassified its ruling about NSA violations, the third footnote, though heavily redacted, did briefly discuss this "upstream" capability:
..............during Thursday's Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Dianne Feinstein more or less admitted that they get emails via "upstream" collection methods. As you can see in the following clip, Feinstein interrupts a discussion to read a prepared "rebuttal" to a point being made, and in doing so clearly says that the NSA can get emails via upstream collections:
She clearly means "backbone"rather than "background." She's discussing this in an attempt to defend the NSA's "accidental" collection of information it shouldn't have had. But that point is not that important. Instead, the important point is that she's now admitted what most people suspected, but which the administration has totally avoided admitting for many, many years since the revelations made by Mark Klein.
So, despite years of trying to deny that the NSA can collect email and other communications directly from the backbone (rather than from the internet companies themselves), Feinstein appears to have finally let the cat out of the bag, perhaps without realizing it.
MORE:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130927/13562624678/dianne-feinstein-accidentally-confirms-that-nsa-tapped-internet-backbone.shtml
and:
http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/09/27/whoa-whoa-whoa-stop-dianne-feinstein-misstates-the-2011-violations/#more-38428
= new reply since forum marked as read
Saves a ton of work for the rest of us.
I wish I agreed with you that the whistle blowers will some day be recognized as heroes but I doubt it. The current trend is to intimidate, jail, and hunt them down to extinction. With the big money in politics and big Corp control over politics growing by the hour, there's no way imho, that whistle blowers will ever get the statues...
to say, "yes we spy, and there is nothing you can do about it." I think Pres Obama has already been given that message.
I ONLY REGRET THAT I HAVE BUT ONE LIFE TO LOSE FOR MY COUNTRY
NATHAN HALE
CAPTAIN
ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES
BORN AT COVENTRY CONNECTICUT
JUNE 6, 1755
IN THE PERFORMANCE OF HIS
DUTY HE RESIGNED HIS
LIFE A SACRIFICE TO
HIS COUNTRY'S LIBERTY
AT NEW YORK
SEPTEMBER 22, 1776
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Nathan_Hale_%28statue%29
Virtually every network switch and router installed by US telcos and ISPs must have the capability of being tapped (signal recorded or diverted to a "trusted third-party"
since that 1995 Act was passed.
That's how the NSA does it. The answer is hiding in plain sight.
