Obama’s NSA Close to Knowing AllAbout Us

Infowars.comThursday, April 5, 2012

Aaron Dykes covers the giant NSA spy center beingbuilt in the Utah desert.

Obama's NSA: Close to Knowing All About Usvideo belowhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8N6t49T-ZU

Government Surveillance CrackdownOn Internet Goes Into Overdrive

Steve WatsonInfowars.comApril 5, 2012

Cyber bills legislate for mass surveillance; FormerCybersecurity Czar calls for Homeland Security data“customs inspections”

In a New York Times editorial, former governmentcybersecurity czar Richard A. Clarke has called for thecreation of customs checks on all data leaving and enteringUS cyberspace.

Clarke makes the call in relation to Chinese hackers stealinginformation and intellectual property from US firms.

“If given the proper authorization, the United Statesgovernment could stop files in the process of being stolenfrom getting to the Chinese hackers.” Clarke writes.

“If government agencies were authorized to create a major

program to grab stolen data leaving thecountry, they could drastically reducetoday’s wholesale theft of Americancorporate secrets.”

While Clarke may well be coming at thissubject well intentioned, the fact thatgovernment has a long history ofattempting to crackdown on internetfreedom and control the web will mean hiswords are a cause of concern for many.

“Under Customs authority, the Departmentof Homeland Security could inspect whatenters and exits the United States incyberspace…” Clarke continues.

“And under the Intelligence Act, thepresident could issue a finding that wouldauthorize agencies to scan Internet traffic

outside the United States and seize sensitive files stolen from within our borders.”We have seen with the recent attempts to pass legislation such as SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA, thatthe federal government is hell bent on skirting around legal oversight in order to seize morecontrol over web content and communications.

While those particular bills have more of a focus on copyright protection, there is a huge moveafoot to use the issue of cybersecurity as a means to crack down on the free internet.

The Obama administration is going all out to muster support in Congress for a bipartisancybersecurity bill co-sponsored by Republican Senator Susan Collins and Independent SenatorJoseph Lieberman and Democratic Senators Jay Rockefeller and Dianne Feinstein.

Critics contend that the bill contains several provisions thatrepresent a sweeping power grab on behalf of the federalgovernment.

A measure recently added to the bill by Collins andLieberman, and supported by Obama, would empower theDepartment of Homeland Security to conduct “riskassessments” of private companies in sectors deemed criticalto U.S. national and economic security, forcing them tocomply with expensive mandates to secure their systems.

ISPs AT&T and Comcast have denounced the provision,declaring that federal oversight will stifle innovation.

“Such requirements could have an unintended stifling effecton making real cybersecurity improvements,” EdwardAmoroso, chief security officer for Dallas-based AT&T, saidin testimony at a recent hearing. “Cyber adversaries are

dynamic and increasingly sophisticated, and do not operate under a laboriously defined set of rulesor processes.”

As we have previously reported, the bill originally legislated for an Internet ‘kill switch’ thatwould allow the President to shut down parts of the Internet in an emergency.

There are a whole host of other cybersecurity bills in the works including a GOP bill, co-sponsored by John McCain known as The Secure IT Act, and a newly introduced GOP bill knownas The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), sponsored by MichiganRepublican Mike Rogers.

All of the bills have the same vague wording and do not clearly define what a cybersecurity threatis. This has prompted groups such as The Electronic Freedom Foundation and The Center forDemocracy and Technology to speak out about what they see as legislating for broad informationsharing between private companies and the government for ill-defined purposes.

“The Rogers bill gives companies a free pass to monitor and collect communications and sharethat data with the government and other companies, so long as they do so for ‘cybersecuritypurposes,’” the EFF said in a blog post. “Just invoking ‘cybersecurity threats’ is enough to grantcompanies immunity from nearly all civil and criminal liability, effectively creating an exemptionfrom all existing law.”

Kendall Burman of the Center for Democracy and Technology spoke about CISPA in aninterview with RT:

“We have a number of concerns with something like this bill that creates sort of a vast hole in theprivacy law to allow government to receive these kinds of information.”

Burman added that the bill, as it stands, allows the U.S. government to involve itself in any onlinecorrespondence if it believes there is reason to suspect “cyber crime”, which it does not evenclearly define. Watch the interview:

Worse than SOPA? CISPA to censor Web in name of cybersecurity video below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rVV5tFCuqo

Both the EFF and the CDT have noted that CISPA effectively legislates for monitoring andcollecting online communications without the knowledge of the parties concerned and funnelingthem directly to the National Security Agency or the DOD’s Cybercommand. Essentially all ofthese bills legislate for moves by the federal government to access and monitor the onlinecommunications of all Americans, much like the more open agenda of the British governmentto snoop on citizens. With the additional ongoing construction of a city sized secret NSA datacollection center in the Utah desert, about which the agency will not even give details toCongress about, it is clear that the powers that be fully expect to go ahead with such plans, withor without the legislation to do so.

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