Brazil, Europe plan undersea cable to skirt U.S. spying

By Robin Emmott

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Brazil and the European Union agreed on Monday to lay an undersea communications cable from Lisbon to Fortaleza to reduce Brazil's reliance on the United States after Washington spied on Brasilia.

At a summit in Brussels, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said the $185 million cable project was central to "guarantee the neutrality" of the Internet, signaling her desire to shield Brazil's Internet traffic from U.S. surveillance.

"We have to respect privacy, human rights and the sovereignty of nations. We don't want businesses to be spied upon," Rousseff told a joint news conference with the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council.

"The Internet is one of the best things man has ever invented. So we agreed for the need to guarantee ... the neutrality of the network, a democratic area where we can protect freedom of expression," Rousseff said.

Rousseff postponed a state visit to Washington last year in protest at the U.S. National Security Agency spying on her email and phone and is now seeking alternative routes to U.S. cables.

Brazil relies on U.S. undersea cables to carry almost all of its communications to Europe. The existing cable between Europe and Brazil is outdated and only used for voice transmission.

EU leaders are sympathetic to Brazil's call following the revelations of fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that showed the agency also eavesdropped on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone and some EU institutions.

U.S. President Barack Obama has since banned spying on the leaders of close allies, but trust has been damaged.

Brussels is threatening the suspension of EU-U.S. agreements for data transfers unless Washington increases guarantees for the protection of EU citizens' data.

MERCOSUR'S MISSED DEADLINES

At the one-day summit, there was no public criticism of the United States, which remains the European Union's closest ally.

But Rousseff clearly took heart from Merkel's calls this month for a European Internet that is protected from U.S. surveillance, even if there are questions about the practicalities of setting up alternative networks in Europe.

Rousseff said Brazil and the European Union have "similar concerns" about U.S. dominance of fiber-optic cables and hoped to have a cable running from the Portuguese capital Lisbon to the northeastern Brazilian of Fortaleza from next year.

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US Government want to track your DNA like a license plate

The federal government doesn’t just want the ability to track down your car; it wants to be able to track down your body as well.

Just as details are emerging about a controversial, nationwide vehicle-surveillance database, WND has learned the federal government is planning an even more invasive spy program using “physiological signatures” to track down individuals.

The goal of this research is to detect – as well as analyze and categorize – unique traits the government can exploit to “identify, locate and track specific individuals or groups of people.”

According to the program’s statement of objectives, “The scope of human-centered [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or ISR] research spans the complete range of human performance starting at the individual molecular, cellular, genomic level.”

Documents WND located through routine database research reveal the ability to follow people by detecting “certain characteristics of operational interest” is designed for U.S. military and intelligence-gathering superiority.

It remains unknown when such capabilities might transition to the realm of domestic counterterrorism or law enforcement operations; however, the feds – through the Air Force Research Lab, or AFRL – are recruiting private-sector assistance in order to make this “biosignature” spying a reality.

Existing ISR systems are “ideal for identifying and tracking entities such as aircraft and vehicles, but are less capable of identifying and tracking the human,” the lab says in a planning document known as a Broad Agency Announcement, or BAA.

The Human-Centered ISR Leveraged Science & Technology Program will seek to develop, with outside help, technologies that the government can use “to identify, locate and track humans of interest within the operational environment,” according to solicitation No. BAA-HPW-RHX-2014-0001.

Research specific to fusing and analyzing sensor data has undergone consistent growth, but such efforts have been “system-centric” and fail to “adequately address the human element.”

This new research scheme seeks to strengthen the ability of intelligence analysts by placing the human component at the forefront of their efforts.

AFRL’s research could have implications for a variety of domains, such as air, space and cyberspace, it says. The program’s outcome also will broadly apply to other U.S. Department of Defense organizations and the intelligence community.

A second component of the AFRL initiative is the Human Trust and Interaction Program, which will conduct research into human-to-human and human-to-machine interactions.

This program segment entails several sub-areas, including Trust and Suspicion, which will focus on “the recognition of suspicious activities in the cyberspace realm.”

This segment will examine open-source data such as social media. It also will continue to leverage “more traditional intelligence sources.”

AFRL says it anticipates awarding three or four initial contracts for the overall initiative, which has an estimated program value of about $50 million.

The goal of this and other AFLR programs typically start out as largely theoretical, similar to the approach taken by the more widely known Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which created ARPANET, the defense-system predecessor to the Internet.

The Department of Homeland Security, on the other hand, merely has to solicit bids from industry for a National License Plate Recognition, or NLPR, database system.

While DHS is soliciting this service specifically for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, functions, the breadth of this NLPR service encompasses the gathering of transportation-movement data from major metropolitan areas nationwide.

This database, which would be fed with information gleaned from multiple sources, would “track vehicle license plate numbers that pass through cameras or are voluntarily entered into the system,” according to the program solicitation.

The vehicle tracking-data then would be “uploaded to share with law enforcement.”

The database will be compatible with smart phone technology, enabling law enforcement offices to download thousands of listings – as well as close-up photos – of vehicle license plates.

Once DHS secures this service, the contractor must retain and make available data from previous months, as well as update the system with “new and unique” data monthly.

DHS anticipates awarding a one-year contract with four one-year options by May 14. It did not disclose the estimated cost.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/02/feds-want-to-track-your-dna-like-a-license-plate/#CVzVTH4vqQlIKbtJ.99

NSA Analysts Intentionally Abused Spying Powers Multiple Times

Some National Security Agency analysts deliberately ignored restrictions on their authority to spy on Americans multiple times in the past decade, contradicting Obama administration officials’ and lawmakers’ statements that no willful violations occurred.

“Over the past decade, very rare instances of willful violations of NSA’s authorities have been found,” the NSA said in a statement to Bloomberg News. “NSA takes very seriously allegations of misconduct, and cooperates fully with any investigations -- responding as appropriate. NSA has zero tolerance for willful violations of the agency’s authorities.”

The incidents, chronicled in a new report by the NSA’s inspector general, provide more evidence that U.S. agencies sometimes have violated legal and administrative restrictions on domestic spying, and may add to the pressure to bolster laws that govern intelligence activities.

The inspector general documented an average of one case per year over 10 years of intentionally inappropriate actions by people with access to the NSA’s vast electronic surveillance systems, according to an official familiar with the findings. The incidents were minor, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified intelligence.

The deliberate actions didn’t violate the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or the USA Patriot Act, the NSA said in its statement. Instead, they overstepped 1981 Executive Order 12333, issued by President Ronald Reagan, which governs U.S. intelligence operations.

The actions, said a second U.S. official briefed on them, were the work of overzealous NSA employees or contractors eager to prevent any encore to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Defending NSA

The agency has taken steps to ensure that everyone understands legal and administrative boundaries, whom to consult when questions arise, and the consequences of violations or willful ignorance, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inspector general’s report is classified. The report was provided to the congressional intelligence committees, according to administration officials.

The compilation of willful violations, while limited, contradicts repeated assertions that no deliberate abuses occurred.

Army General Keith Alexander, director of the NSA, said during a conference in New York on Aug. 8 that “no one has willfully or knowingly disobeyed the law or tried to invade your civil liberties or privacy.”

Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Republican Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, have defended the NSA.

Careful Distinctions

Feinstein said in an Aug. 16 statement that her committee “has never identified an instance in which the NSA has intentionally abused its authority to conduct surveillance for inappropriate purposes.”

Rogers said on CBS Corp.’s “Face the Nation” television show on July 28 that there were “zero privacy violations” in the agency’s collection of phone records of Americans.

The lawmakers’ staffs since have parsed the comments by their bosses, distinguishing between violations of the law governing electronic surveillance and the deliberate violations of the 1981 executive order.

Susan Phalen, a spokeswoman for Rogers, said in an Aug. 16 statement that Rogers meant there hadn’t been “willful and intentional violations of law.”

Feinstein meant there hadn’t been any intentional violations of the NSA’s authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, according to her office.

Violating FISA

John DeLong, the NSA’s director of compliance, first referred to abuses of the 1981 executive order on Aug. 16, telling reporters there had been rare instances of “willful violations” of legal authority and the privacy rights of U.S. citizens. He said there had been “a couple over the past decades,” according to a transcript provided by the agency.

“When they do occur, right, they are detected, corrected, reported to the inspector general and appropriate action is taken,” he said.

Intelligence officials have attributed most abuses of the FISA restrictions on the NSA’s surveillance of domestic phone calls, e-mails and other communications to technical or inadvertent errors.

Legal opinions declassified on Aug. 21 revealed that the NSA intercepted as many as 56,000 electronic communications a year of Americans who weren’t suspected of having links to terrorism, before a secret court that oversees surveillance found the operation unconstitutional in 2011.

In a declassified legal opinion from October 2011, the court said the agency substantially misrepresented the scope of surveillance operations three times in less than three years.

A May 2012 internal government audit found more than 2,700 violations involving NSA surveillance of Americans and foreigners over a one-year period. The audit was reported Aug. 16 by the Washington Post, citing documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-23/nsa-analysts-intentionally-abused-spying-powers-multiple-times.html