Hi everyone, glad to be here

Mark, Welcome to the Lake.

Marcy, Thank you for Hosting today’s Book Salon.

Mark

Welcome, thanks for joining us! A lot of us having been following this story closely.

While we’re waiting for people to arrive, I wanted to ask about timing. In your book, you said the room on Folsom street went into action in 2002. In what you’ve heard about the other splitters, did you get a sense of when those went online?

Thanks, I’m glad people are listening

Sorry–splitter on Folsom in 2003, right?

We were working pretty hard with you on the lobbying around the FISA amendments. It was a disappointing fight.

I was amused by your description of DiFi (Feinstein). Have you seen her piece in HuffPo, saying that now this program is all legal?

Judging by the dates on the documents I obtained, the room at Folsom St. was being engineered in late 2002, and was just being completed when I visited the building in Jan. 2003 in a tour of the office. So I can only assume the other rooms in other cities were going in around the same time. When I finally was assigned to Folsom st in Oct. 2003, i discovered by talking to other techs back East that similar facilities were in operation by then

No questions here, just want to thank EW and Mr. Klein for the work done and being done and to be done in the future. You two are serving the interests of ‘We The People’, something our own government is not doing across the board on SO many issues.

Takes courage to joust these powerful windmills, so thanks again, both.

No I missed DiFi’s piece. In general she is very good at PR and putting on a pretty face for civil liberties, but then undermines it all when it comes to bills and voting

the room is on 6th flr of Folsom, and is connected to splitter on 7th, where the public internet is located. that’s were the wiretapping first occurs

Mark -

Thank you so much for your defense of American values of individual liberty, and for your staying power in the face of Congressional (and media) indifference and hostility.

I wonder if you could shed some light for us on the technical capabilities and capacity of today’s communications technology?

For example, James Bamford helpfully explains in his most recent book:

“Like much of the equipment used for bugging, the Narus [-brand] hardware and software was originally designed for a different purpose. With the growth of the Internet and digital communications, data began flowing over fiber-optic lines in ‘packets.’ The only way a company can determine exactly whom to bill for how much time is being used or how many megabytes are being sent is to analyze those millions of packets as they flow from the incoming cables to the routers at the speed of light. Thus, as the e-mail from [Indonesia to Ohio] zaps through the room [in AT&T’s San Francisco/611 Folsom Street facility] and onto a Sprint router, the Narus equipment can record its details – known as ‘metadata.’ With this information, AT&T can charge Sprint and Sprint is then reimbursed by the subscriber in Cincinnati.

Following the attacks on 9/11, [the foreign-owned] Narus began modifying its system and selling it to intelligence agencies around the world, who used it not for billing purposes but for mass surveillance.”

- The Shadow Factory

1. Is it true that such Narus equipment, when spliced into the fiber-optic cables at landing stations on our coasts, as done in the ATT building in San Francisco, is able to determine in advance of interception where every phone call originates and ends? [So that the NSA could filter out all “foreign-to-foreign” calls from foreign-to-domestic calls prior to interception?] Or can that equipment only track international calls part-way, because of varying national/corporate ownership of cables, and who gets to do the billing for each leg of the call?

[As I understand it, email (and voicemail?) is another kettle of fish, TSP/FISA-wise, since it’s not a real-time two-way communication, and the NSA has to account for the location of a party at the actual time of retrieval of an email/message, rather than just the location of the sender and recipient(s) at the time an email is sent, as with phone calls.]

2. Do you know whether or not converting spoken digital data into written data (phone call data as compared to email/texting data) is a significant impediment for government spies?

One other aspect of your book–and this story–that I had never seen mentioned before I read your book is the way that AT&T was deunionizing the workforce–firing the union technicians and then hiring them back in non-union jobs.

I’d love to hear more about this. Do you think this was connected to AT&T’s cooperation with the govt, or just something that made everything for workers very insecure while AT&T was spying on Americans?

So what’s your take on the people doing this? Do they see themselves as patriots? Are they capable of admitting that this is wrong?

Mark, I consider you an American hero for your role in uncovering this assault on privacy and human rights. Did you ever feel your life in danger? At what point? And, do you now?

Have you been threatened by anyone in government or anonymously?

I was looking at some docs related to the Fusion centers and discovered a training doc on VOIP, which undoubtedly presents its own problems along those lines.

Mark – this is a great book. Thank you so very much for writing it – an easy read of a complicated subject described so that even I could understand it.

Knowing now what you did not know then, would you have done anything differently?

Hi Mark, thanks for being here. I haven’t read your book yet (I’m looking forward to it though), but I’m curious if you could shed some light on how you imagine the NSA is handling all the traffic they are intercepting. Do you think they are equipped to archive all of the data that comes their way or do you think they filter it on the fly and only archive part? It is hard for me to imagine the storage requirements if they saved everything, but I certainly wouldn’t put it past them. They seem more interested in haystacks than needles.

Thanks Mark Klein for your book. I’m typing from a computer in Best Buy so I won’t be able to stay for this salon.

Noticed Verizon “reports to the credit bureaus”. Not sure if this has always been the case or something new. An excuse maybe to keep records on us? Not that they have needed excuses…

Welcome, Mark Klein. For those who have not listened to Mark’s 90 minute interview with Peter B. Collins which is posted on bradblog, here is the link.

Thank you, Mark, for speaking out and taking the heat for it. If not for you and a few others we would still be ignorant of what our secret government has done and is still doing.

How best can just ordinary people (like me) fight this?

One thing I should add to Suzanne’s point–that it’s an easy read–It’s also a quick read, a quick review of these events in a fairly short narrative (for those who don’t have the time to read all of James Bamford, for example!).

I should clarify: Verizon printed this message at the bottom of my monthly landline phone bill

Oh, and as a person whose teenage years were spent watching The Prisoner, I must say that the choice of type font on the book’s cover is quite apposite.

One creepy aspect of the book is when Mark describes John Negroponte working with the LAT–to convince them not to publish Mark’s story. While it got a lot less press than NYT’s hold on their own story, it was a very similar attempt to prevent citizens from learning about this.

The great thing about Mark’s disclosures, however, is that he didn’t have security clearance, so they can’t claim he was leaking classified information.

DiFi is a true Traitor of the Constitutional rights of the good people of this country!
Mark thank you for being so brave as to rock the boat and bring these technological atrocities to the light of day. It must have taken a lot of courage to speak up. I for one truly understand exactly what was done. They copied every bit of information going over the major backbones in the country. Talk about Vacuuming up info they only thing they didn’t get was when two cans and a string were used to transmit info!!.
Thanks again Mark!

I less familiar with the old-line phone system, my experience is with the fiber optics and Intenet networks.
The Narus is far more capable than just picking up metadata (addressess), it can look deep into the CONTENT of messages, and they boast about this. It is the ultimate spy tool
1) As I point out in detail in my book, the splitter, where the first intercept takes, is a dumb device and has no capability to select out for international stuff or any other category. The splitter sweeps up EVERYTHING and sends it to the secret room. That’s what makes this a dragnet and highly illegal. Their lawyers might claim that later, inside the secret room the Narus selects out international stuff, but who knows? It’s all secret and there is no oversight.
Anyway, many experts have noted that it’s not so easy to select out international from domestic because of the nature of IP addresses (it’s not like old wired phone numbers which are unambiguously attached to streets
2) I think there is some considerable difficulty still in getting machines to change spoken words into written text, particularly if the volume is very high, but i’m not an expert on this.

Mark,

Thank you so much for your courage and perseverance as you fought to expose the truth of what our government is doing. There have been several politicians who have flirted with doing the right thing on this issue, only for those in power to quash them (and you) over and over. Which politician would you say has been the most consistent voice for what is right through this process? Chris Dodd certainly started off well with his filibuster threat and Sheldon Whitehouse and Rush Holt also have made some good statements. Have any politicians helped you (in a way that you can acknowledge publicly)?

the theme of downsizing and attacking the unions is an important background theme of my book. Basically, a workforce in fear of losing their jobs is afraid to speak up or protest anything, let alone become whistleblowers.

Here’s the DiFi piece in HuffPo.

General Hayden also implies that because Congress amended FISA last year to allow this kind of surveillance, Congress therefore endorsed the president’s surveillance program. To the contrary: The fact that Congress passed legislation to bring the surveillance program back within the law illustrates that Congress recognized the need for all intelligence tools to be soundly rooted in the law, with appropriate oversight from the Executive Branch, Congress, and the courts.

There are two issues on which I agree with General Hayden. First, I agree that there is no evidence of the intentional misuse of this program. I have a great deal of respect for the men and women of the NSA, and I have no reason to think that this program was abused to spy on the private communications of Americans.

Second, General Hayden’s op-ed acknowledged the finding of the Inspectors General that the surveillance program was of value, albeit not a linchpin of counterterrorism efforts that it was sometimes made out to be.

Mark describes reaching out to DiFi’s office on this, only to be dropped totally by an attorney in her office.

First time I ever heard of NARUS was in this post by Kevin @ cryptogon

NSA, AT&T and the NarusInsight Intercept Suite

Mark, thank you for being a real patriot!
Question:

did you ever notice different types of activity, i.e., room access, change in band width, reporting capabilities, tied to legislative events? i.e., after AUMF, the FISA votes, etc.? Did those change the level and intensity of activity?

the techs who are immediately doing the work are just trying to protect their jobs and not buck management, altho there’s always a few who think it’s a patriotic thing. the higher you go this is less true, and for the top management is just to get business from the government and not stick their necks out.

I understand you’re going to be on Ed Brayton’s show next week. We were talking about your book this week–and we both discussed one of the most important points you make in your book. If they had wanted the international traffic, they would have tapped into the networks in other locations. By tapping in in SF (and other cities), they are guaranteed to get a bunch of US data.

You also pointed out that the guys with access to the secret rooms were all senior enough to be non-union. I was really fascinated by this subtext of your book.

I retired from at&T in May 2004, so was not there after to observe events. But in the intro Marcy posted, she mentions some signs I picked up that the activity was expanded a) after Bush was re-elected in 2004 and b) perhaps during or after Obama was elected. I heard nothing to indicate it’s slowed down or stopped

yes, that’s important, downtown SF is NOT a cable landing station, nor is Atlanta, another city where a secret room is located at AT&T. The fact that NSA chose these places to tap into fiber means, to me, that they WANTED to pick up large volumes of domestic data. If they wanted only intnational, they could have restricted it to cable stations, like in Morro Bay in S. Cal

The great thing about Mark’s disclosures, however, is that he didn’t have security clearance, so they can’t claim he was leaking classified information.

One of the points about security clearances that the gov’t always emphasizes in various briefings is how the details of classified operations can be individually unclassified but classified as a whole.

They still don’t like it though when reasonably intelligent individuals figure out a classified op by putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

The former “administration” was intent on legislating against whistleblowers. Did this have any effect on your decision to come forward? Also, in connection to unions, were any examples made by your former company of union sympathizers for your personal benefit? For other workers’ benefit?

One thing that recent IG Report revealed is that the NCTC was involved in targeting in this program. John Brennan, now Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor, was head of that organization (and oversaw the group that did the targeting before then, too).

So he’s utterly complicit in this program and in interviews published before it was clear how involved he was in this, he really really pushed for it hard.

And now he’s one of Obama’s closest national security advisors.

The 2 guys they chose to give clearance to and work in the secret room in SF (in sequence, one was laid off then they chose another) came from a title called Field Support Specialists, who are management-level techs used for hi-level troubleshooting and special assignments. I assume they don’t trust any unionized people for this

mark, did you have trouble finding a publisher for your book? i’m sure there are those in our government who would have preferred to be able to quash the book — just as the forkers quashed the LATimes story.

Where’s the best place for us to buy your book? Does EFF sell it?

While it got a lot less press than NYT’s hold on their own story, it was a very similar attempt to prevent citizens from learning about this.

With the press in dire financial straits lately, it seems they will be all the more vulnerable to corporate financial and political will.

Thank you, Mr. Klein, for fighting this vital fight. What if a whistleblower blows the whistle in the forest and no one with integrity and/or courage is there to hear it? Can democracy be saved? Certainly seems a “no good deed goes unpunished” surreal society.

The fact that they were warning those with security clearances in 2006 made it clear that i was the only one who could come forward without being threatened with prosecution on that score, and the documents i had were not classified. Still, there was the danger that the govt might conjure up some imaginary crime to charge me with, so it was worrisome

Thank you for your courage and patriotism, Mr Klein.

Everything about this story proves the maxim that governments will expand to utilize technological capabilities whenever they exist, regardless of constitutional and legal safeguards. That the facilities are vastly expanded since your initial reports is no surprise. It’s also no surprise that our senior Senator is closely involved in suppressing this story — she is no friend of civil liberties, and her husband’s companies profit immensely from the wars we wage here and abroad.

My question is this: how is it possible that someone could know all you do without a security clearance? My dad developed old-time networks for the government and had the highest level clearances, so I know the government understood very early that their networks were a vulnerability, and that security around them was important. How did the government permit the intersection of their capability with a commercial network without layers of classification? How did you find out what you did without any clearance?

Thanks again for everything you’ve done. I look forward to buying and reading your book.

Piggybacking on Suzanne’s question.

I know you self-published, one reason being because other publishers wanted you to do things wrt content that you weren’t willing to do. Can you tell us what they wanted you to do?

the big publishers never called me, and it’s impossible to even approach them unless one has a publicist, which i dont. So i sent queries to the smaller, independent publishers. About half of them never replied, others had various excuses, such as “it’s too short for a book, try a magazine” or “it does not fit into our projects for the year,” or “the writing is not up to standards.” whatever. Only one small publisher made an offer, but they wanted to cut out ALL the appendices and then puff up the writing with i-dont-know-what, so i refused. (how could one not publish the AT&T documents??)

Mark,

Not to pry, but were you allowed to retire with your benefits and seniority intact, or did they manage to strip that from you?

I will always believe that Brennan’s continued success is a matter of wanting adversaries inside the tent pissing out versus outside the tent pissing in, to quote LBJ. He seems very dangerous and knowledgeable, in ways that make our policymakers want him very close.

Oh, and as a person whose teenage years were spent watching The Prisoner,

What a great show. Patrick McGooghan … wasn’t it?

You talk some about the early combined lawsuits before Judge Walker in SF. Are you still following them as closely as you were? It seems like your disclosures are even more important as EFF tries to prove standing in the Jewell case against the govt.

Serving on both Judiciary & Intelligence committees, DiFi had her chance to PPDCUS or betrayed it for the past ten years.

She’s part of the Specter/Lieberman/Graham constitutional sellout brigade.

EFF is not is book biz, the main place to buy it is at Amazon.com If you’re a bookstore you can get bulk discount by contacting BookSurge directly, i can provide phone # I think it’s also on Alibris and ABEbooks

You’re a bit more charitable than me. My take is Obama wanted someone with Brennan’s national security cred, and now Brennan is stomping over Obama’s previous stated support (however politically convenient) for civil liberties and rule of law.

Wiring Up The Big Brother Machine via Amazon

AT&T never touched my retirement pension or benefits. They obviously wanted to be squeaky clean while they were in court trying to get EFF’s case dismissed. The only time they came after me was initially in April 2006, demanding that I shut up and return the documents, but the judge refused to order me because I was not a party to the lawsuit. AT&T did not want to sue me, they only wanted to get out of court.

Mark,
Welcome! and thanks for your persistence.

Bob in HI

I follow all the cases, and show up at hearings in Jewel and Hepting (now dismissed). But the likelihood that the cases will revive is pretty small. I have not yet even been called to testify, either in court or to Congress.

Here’s the Amazon link to buy the book

What Congresscritters have you found receptive, and is there any pressure to be applied that might get you in front of a committee anytime soon?

That is certainly understandable, sir. When did you first decide to consult a lawyer and what was the act or realization that pushed you there?

I think Walker has seen enough to sustain the newer Jewell one.

A detail that never got published, but I think is important, is that when Obama’s Administration finally had to allow Walker to review the al-Haramain documents, they said, “oops, we discovered an error” and submitted a bunch of new declarations about what the program was.

I’m betting those were pretty enlightening…

I have not yet even been called to testify, either in court or to Congress.

Wow, that’s just criminal that you have not been called to testify in Congress, given the central role you have played in exposing the blatant lawlessness involved. That just proves that Congress has no interest in getting to the truth.

I wonder how many AT&T executives and attorneys have testified to Congress since your disclosure…

the problem for the govt. was at some point they had to connect their secret spy equipment into the public Internet, and that’s where ordinary technicians like me worked. The biggest clue I got was when I found out that the secret room they were building, which us techs were not allowed to enter even tho they were installing our telecom equipment, was being run by one manager who had been given clearance by NSA. After that, I only had to look at the engineering documents, which had been given to the techs so they could know how to connect things up, and it became obvious what they were doing. 2+2=4

In your Collins interview you stated that the Narus STA 6400 was created in 1979 by 5 Israelis. Do you think that it was used by NSA in Ft. Meade prior to 2003?

it was clear starting way back with DiFi in Feb. 2006 that Congress, and Democrats as well as Republicans, only wanted to get this matter covered back up and quieted down. that’s why she avoided me, and so did all the relevant committees of congress. There were some notable exceptions, such as Sen. Dodd–perhaps because his father was the #2 prosecutor at Nuremberg in 1945–but they were overridden by the Dem Party leadership during the fight over immunity.

Sorry I’m late to the party.

Thanks so much for your insights.

The newly apponited trust buster, Christine Varney has her sight set on AT&T. Any chance of some of these shenanigans coming to light in discovery?Any opinions?

U.S. News to Rank the Law FirmsJuly 7, 2009, 10:59 AM ET.Section 2 of the Sherman Act: Back from the Nearly Dead
.
By Ashby Jones
Let’s circle back to Monday’s news, broken by the WSJ’s Amol Sharma, that the Justice Department has launched an initial review of telecom giants AT&T and Verizon. At issue: whether the companies abused their sizable market power, in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. (Click here for our blog post on the matter.)

In Tuesday’s WSJ, we wrote this brief primer to the Sherman Act, in which we explored (quickly) the history of the Act’s Section 2, which, generally speaking, prohibits companies with monopoly market power from acting anticompetitively to hold onto or increase that power. The Act was largely dormant under President George W. Bush, but the Obama administration has so far indicated it tends to dust off Section 2 and start going after entities with big market share.

In any event, the move — which may or may not morph into a more serious formal investigation — didn’t surprise many practitioners.

“The pendulum is swinging back,” said Shepard Goldfein, the practice leader of the antitrust group at Skadden. DOJ antitrust head Christine Varney “is clearly rejecting the policies of her predecessor. But how far she goes is an open question.” (linky to follow)

Congress also declined to get testimony from the email providers–Google, MS, and Yahoo–who were at the center of this. The email providers were actually opposed to immunity (probably bc they were pissed that the telecoms were screwing with the security of their customers).

the Obama admin has followed closely in Bush’s footsteps as far as the courtroom battles in these cases, it’s remarkable, right down to pushing for preventive detention, military commissions, and all the rest.

Mark, thanks for speaking out so courageously & consistently in FISA violations debate.

With the Cheney administration’s level of malfeasance and lawlessness, why do you think so few insiders have chosen your path to reveal what they know?

Yes! And word is they’re bringing the show back.

Bob in HI

I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of where/when it’s been used elsewhere, except for the docs I have which unambiguously show it installed at the Folsom st. faciltiy. Of course, in my book i point out in a memo I wrote in 2004 that the Narus was touted at a “Lawful surveillance” conference in McLean, Va. back then, attended by AT&T, Verizon, FBI, DEA, and various other spy agencies, so you can be sure it’s all over the US telco infrastructure

people are afraid of losing their jobs. I just heard Russell Tice on Sibel Edmons podcast, he was complaining that he has many sympathizers in NSA but they are afraid of coming out, even now under Obama, because they will get no protection, certainly not from Congress, and will only become unemployed like Tice.

As the saying goes Keep your enemies the closest of all relationships! You can trust your friends but!

Hi just got here any evidence that the stockmarket is being listened to?

Thank you for joining us Mark. Can you talk about the differences between how different types of data is treated and mined off the main taps? And also can you give an indication, even if speculation, how and where all the data collected up is segregated for storage and where and how it is stored for later retrieval and mining?

FWIW, excerpt from article on Spy Factory on information clearing house:

http://www.informationclearing…..e21902.htm

Thus, since 9/11, the agency has turned its giant ear inward to monitor the communications of ordinary Americans, many of whom are on the government’s secret watch list, now more than half-a-million names long.

But how effective is this monumental monitoring effort in countering security threats? The NSA is faced with an enormous and ever-expanding archive of phone calls and e-mail messages. Many experts in data mining and analysis are skeptical about the value of collecting so much information without the ability to understand it, as it may lead to critical clues being lost in the static. …

Among those interviewed on “The Spy Factory” are former NSA, CIA, and FBI analysts and officials, many speaking publicly for the first time. Among these is Mark Rossini, the senior FBI agent in the CIA’s Osama bin Laden tracking unit. For the first time, Rossini tells how intelligence agency turf wars prevented him from notifying his FBI superiors that Al Qaeda terrorists were heading for the U.S. with valid visas in early 2000.

Dodd was the one with the most guts, as I note in my book, he spoke from Senate floor and read my technical revelations. Rush Holt was very friendly, and Sen. Boxer invited me to an private meeting where i presented my info. But these were exceptions to the main response: as a body, Congress would not come near me.

Mark, do you think those ‘accidents’ which cut those undersea cables were accidents? If you’d rather not answer, I understand.

Thanks, Bob … hope they make it work as well this time.

It really is despicable that Congress continues to imperiously look the other way, in this and so many other areas that are their responsibility and solemn public trust for hundreds of millions of Americans.

Here’s hoping Judge Walker decides it’s finally time to seriously rock the boat, in his pending ruling on the motion to dismiss in Jewel.

The basic issues Walker needs to decide have been on his desk since at least early last December, and by now he should have given them a lot of thought. No corporate profits at risk this time, just American privacy rights and open, honest government, if he decides to pass the buck again.

Good Luck to EFF & partners, and to Mark, in their Hepting 9th Circuit appeal, and in the hanging-fire Jewel decision.

One thing I wondered when I read that the secret room has become an entire floor is whether they need to tap into different circuits for each kind of data? I mentioned VOIP above–would that be accessed the same way?

What about Russ Feingold?

Storage is a big issue. It’s apparent that the stuff they decide to keep is being stored forever, and there’s mountains of it. That’s why NSA has been building huge new data warehouses outside of Ft. Meade for the first time, one in Aurora (Denver), one in San Antonio, and a huge new one coming in Salt Lake City. The govt. lawyers have a clever line that they’re not eavedropping one anyone unless a human actually listens to it or reads it, so that way they can claim that the millions they collected are not (yet) being eavesdropped on. But next year, or later, if you come into their radar, they could call up all that stuff they got on you.

I’ve read recently the CIA still does not have enough foreign language translators. So the idea this spying is on foreigners is false from the beginning.
So just who are the spying on and why? If they are spying on FireDogLakers its a waste of money. I’m a little boring.

Mark,

Please don’t fly in small planes, drive alone on back roads, or trust anyone who smiles at you and is well-dressed.

I don’t have any specific information. I know there is a technique, when certain spy agencies want to tap into an underwater fiber cable, they send a specially-equipped submarine which can pull up a section into the sub, and connect a special tap for fiber. I read somewhere that this kind of operation can be hidden while it’s being done by first cutting the cable elsewhere, so that during the outage the sub can install its tap while elsewhere the repair is going on.

I don’t know if anyone mentioned this upthread-perhaps its in the book, but HOW and WHY was San Francisco chosen for this ?

I remember reading somewhere that the Bay Area Monterey coast of California,near Stanford ,was rife with IT connections with China.

It’s like Giuliani who began fingerprinting all the subway turnstile jumpers in NYC. Those prints are in storage waiting for any escalated crimes committed. Effective and efficient, but is it legal/ethical?

The CIA’s startup fund is investing heavily in a UT company (with all the returned missionaries, UT is one of the best sources of translators anywhere) that claims to be able to translate and analyze at the same time.

With congress eliminating whistleblower protections even when it involves revealing real betrayals of national security and the Constitution, I can see why Tice, etal. are limiting their exposure.

Also, gone are the days when Katherine Graham had Ben Bradlee’s back at the Washington Post in holding Nixon, Mitchell & Bork accountable to the rule of law.

Maybe like Operation Ivy Bells

How can I find out if I made the list? How can I find out just how big a threat Bush considered me? What comments on the blogs did they consider threatening? Or did they just save everything and if anything happened 10 years from now they can backtrack my past?

VOIP is carried on the same fiber along with everything else (email, web browsing, pictures, video, etc.) it does not matter, it’s all mixed together as ones and zeros and you can tap into it with the splitter. It’s the Narus that has the capability of selecting the VOIP traffic and reconstructing it, and any other packets no matter what type (picture, video, email, etc) and “read” it

Good Grief!! That sure fits their “shiny object” distraction MO.

that’s the point i made above, that it does not make sense to do this at Folsom street unless they WANT domestic traffic. For internat’l they could just go to the cable stations.

Mark, now that I’ve caught up with the comments, I want to thank you again for your work on this subject. Obama has written about the audacity of hope– well, I hope that your work may yet bear good fruit. St. Augustine is credited with writing that “Hope has two children. The first is anger at the way things are. The second is courage to do something about it.”

Your work nurtures the children of hope!

Aloha,
Bob in HI

This description scans like a quote out of Rod Serling’s screenplay for Seven Days in May.

Feingold valiantly stood by Dodd when he was filibustering almost by himself in Dec. 2007 to stop the immunity bill, so he deserves credit for that. The two of them were bucking the party leadership led by Reid.

iirc it is because San Francisco is where many of The Asia Pacific cables come into the country!! There are several other “Hubs” around the country where Data streams are combined into the major back bones of the country!!

I’d love to know that stuff myself, TCU!

Mark, is there another way of supporting you financially besides just buying your book?

When i first brought the docs to EFF and others, I had no lawyers, but when the LA Times told me they were talking to the DNI director (Negroponte), I realized I better get hold of some lawyers real fast. I lucked out with some fine lawyers who offered their services pro bono.

there’s no way to know, until they arrest you for something. I would say if your arab-american your odds are worse, but everyone else is threatened too. It depends on the whim of government, since now there are virtually no legal restraints, in my view, since Congress wimped out

Isn’t one of Brosnahan’s partners now in the Administration?

You can get a “Packet Sniffer” from Microsoft for FREE and see and dissect every packet your network adapter sees. The Narus is just a tool to dissect things quicker and make it easy for the operators to zero in on what they want to see/hear as Mark said it is all just ones and zeros… it is all bandwidth analysis of what is contained in the stream of Data…

buying my book is enough, thank you. I have modest income of a retiree, and my wife still works, so i’m ok. This is not about making money, after all.

Thank you for the answer. Do you have any familiarity with an outfit by the name of ManTech in this scheme? They are both national and international, and have an absolutely huge facility symbiotically adjacent to the military intel facility at Ft. Huachuca in Southern Arizona. They use up so much water cooling the computers and storage equipment there it is literally killing a nearby river and ecosystem. The rumor has long been they are tied in with the surveillance program.

John, thanks so much for that link. I’m older’n water and never heard about this at all!

The Naras does work like a packet sniffer, but its capabilities are vastly bigger, from what i know. They boast the ability to look at 10 GIGBIT/sec lines and look into the CONTENT of all that stuff on the fly and SELECT OUT whatever you program it to do in real time. That’s pretty impressive

never heard of them

And incidentally, I loved when you captured Brosnahan’s reaction to the story being spiked.

It was a good solid interview [with 60 Minutes] and they had a blockbuster news story. Then we waited, and waited, and waited, and they kept putting us off as to the air date. Four months flew by while my mouth was taped shut since we had given CBS an “exclusive,” so I was silent during the entire 2006 election period. My lead attorney at this time, the well-known and well-connected Jim Brosnahan, was astonished: “This has never happened to me,” he said, adding that they had “no good reason” on the phone for the delay.

We’ve been following Dan Rather’s suit against CBS closely here–I suspect we’ll find that 60 Minutes decided in 2004 to do whatever the Administration wanted them to.

Dianne Feinstein’s husband has extensive Asian investments.

I had some primo links on this but my hard drive went nuts and I lost everything.

I would like to throw a few things out,however, relating the the Bay Area.

Baidu, Madrone Capital ,Stanford University and Jane,Missouri Data Center.

Understood. I was not aware your attorneys were working pro bono. I will certainly buy your book. You are a true patriot.

Thanks EW bookmarked a complete list of CIA investments why they were chosen and how they performed compared to the regular market, and just what did happen to the money would be a great read.
Iran Contra we sell Iran weapons, then use that cash to sell drugs then we used all that cash to help the Contras without nobody like Ollie North getting a little taste?
Crony Capitalism seems the way the rest of the government does business I wonder if the CIA is hurt by this tendency to pay contractors who electrocute your shower?

that is very ironic. Tony West, who was one of my lawyers working with Brosnahan at Morrison/Foerster, and he did a fine job–in the first days of the Obama admin, Tony was nominated to be head of DOJ Civil division, where he is now. ironic.

No freedom of information act etc to find out? Everyone is spied upon and later if they want to get you you are pre spied upon.
I no Obama is busy but I hope he plans to do something about this.

it seemed obvious there was some political interference from higher-ups at CBA

Oh yeah as always bigger faster and better for the operator of the Device/program… And it must have boat loads of memory and storage in fact Farms of storage on network storage devices… Terra-bits and terra-bits of data for their perusal later…
thanks Mark for all you have done to make the American people freer from Government intrusion… But shit the Asshole have codified it into law!!

Off to a wedding.. see all you Pups later…. take care…

And when Bernanke testified he couldn’t say where the trillions in bailout money were going–maybe he just couldn’t tell…..

Famously featured in the film of Tom Clancy’s Clear & Present Danger (1994).

Every month when I sign my check to AT&T, I write in the lower left-hand corner, “Stop helping the NSA spy on us.” It’s good to know that I’m not paranoid.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/spyfactory/ask.html

FWIW, Jim Bamford, Spy Factory:

A: The role of both the Senate and House intelligence committees is to provide oversight over the intelligence community. They were established originally in the mid-1970s largely to make sure the agencies did not violate the rights of Americans. By the 1990s, however, they had instead become little more than cheering galleries for the agencies they were supposed to oversee. They certainly share in the responsibility for the failure of information cooperation by the agencies.

—

A: While there have been some restrictions on the movement of certain wiretap intelligence between intelligence agencies and law-enforcement organizations, there is no question that NSA could have obtained a FISA warrant to eavesdrop on the international communications of suspected terrorists in the U.S. The FBI could also have legally obtained a FISA warrant to eavesdrop on the domestic communications of suspected terrorists in the U.S. The problem was the NSA never told the FBI that there were terrorists within the U.S.

—

A: NSA is behind the curve in some technologies, particularly voice translation and linguistics, and ahead of the curve in others, such a computer and satellite technology. Echelon is a legacy system, because most telecom providers have switched from satellites to undersea fiber-optic cables.

—–

A: Since 9/11, significant changes have been made to correct some of the problems. NSA analysts are now posted at the other intelligence agencies and instructed to share and coordinate to the best of their ability. Thus, in theory many of the problems have been corrected, but we’ll never really know until the next terrorist incident takes place. A key problem with the post-9/11 investigations is their lack of examination of NSA’s failures. I do believe there should be disciplinary actions taken against those at CIA and NSA who prevented the information from being passed. Instead, most remain unnamed and were eventually given significant promotions.

—-

Q: Thanks to NOVA for covering this topic and especially to James Bamford for writing about it. It is a shame NOVA did not interview a constitutional scholar to discuss the implications to our liberty.

If I understood NOVA correctly, the NSA is recording and storing essentially 100% of electronic communications anywhere the U.S. can intercept them, including of Americans inside the U.S. talking to one another. They are only able to review a very tiny fraction of those communications, especially the most important ones, because few of the people they have listening are fluent in foreign languages. One infers they preferentially review communications in English, because those are easy. The remainder of conversations are reviewed by computer keyword searching. This implies that they are penetrating into the inner communications envelope, not merely looking at information on who is sending or receiving.

A: Based on my research, it appears that the NSA has gained access to most of the data communications entering, leaving, and within the U.S. Those communications, such as e-mail messages, are filtered through NSA equipment that scans them for key words, names, addresses, and other criteria. With regard to phone calls, the NSA has less access, targeting specific communications channels but not all channels, because the scanning requires humans rather than just computers.

I don’t think they save everything that scoop, that’s one purpose of the Narus, to provide some sifting out according to whatever parameters they choose on any given day. But after it’s collected, they have a propensity to save everything. that’s what all the new data warehouses are for.

Yeah. I was particularly interested in Dean Baquet’s role in spiking the LAT story.

He has gone on to spike or water down some politically sensitive stories for the NYT now. I guess that’s how you get ahead in this world…

If the Government was found to have manipulated the stockmarket with inside information and given the potential for profit the temptation would be hard to resist so its very likely they did.
Then we discredit the spying to save American lives talking point. We also open the Bushies to huge law suits.
The economics blogs if you could talk to them might have a few ideas when the market might have been fixed.

Even while the gubmint is now defending Yoo.

Mark, I guess your time here will end soon. Thanks again for coming and sharing all this info with us. Since you’re retired, come back and visit with us as often as your schedule allows. We never run out of questions around here.

It’s just plain good to know that a person of your caliber still lives in America.

Wait given the fact the government spies on everyone why don’t we get his phone records? Bwahahaha!

The second we spy on the rich is the second we get GOP support to kill this program.

Freedom of Information Act — has become a triple oxymoron.

Yes, echoing acquarius’ sentiments. You are a true patriot, role model and hero. Thank you!

Actually, we’re now PAYING for Yoo’s lawyers. But Miguel Estrada is doing the actual defense work. Some people say that’s so Yoo can blame others. But I doubt it–I just think DOJ had to stop defending him before the OPR report comes out showing that he should be disciplined.

The Nova show provided some good coverage
Russell Tice estimated a couple days ago that in another 10 years NSA could scoop up ALL communications, a point not yet reached

Did he do that in person or is there a link?

Who’s to say that all that spyin’ and siftin’ hasn’t been directed at journalists -specificallyin order to gain info ,then use it to corral reporters?

it was telling about the NY Times that they hired Baquet after he spiked the story. Of course, the NY times has done some spiking of its own in its time…

Thanks for the reply — that certainly makes more sense than keeping every last bit. Still, one wonders if over time as technology continues to evolve that they will choose to keep it all. “Hoovering” indeed, as in J Edgar as well as the vacuum.

That’s actually what Tice has said–that it was set aside, but then tapped. And some of the people we know to have been tapped: Christiane Amanpour and Lawrence Wright, are journalists.

Why do you think so many Americans, Mark, are so apathetic about giving up their privacy? Low grade fear or overtrust of authoritarianism, or that old chestnut, well, why not I don’t have anything to hide? Infatuation with technology. And the younger generation has grown up in the world of data mining and face book and so much a less discrete world with few protective boundaries. A media that is so invasive.

Sorry.. I am answering the question I asked you. What do you think?

In the corporate media today, all they have to hear is “national security” and they lie down like rugs.

DiFI says there was “no evidence of misuse” !! that’s rich. That’s because she didnt’ want to see it, only cover it up.
It wasn’t only her lawyer who broke off contact. My attorney Brosnahan, very well connected, occasionally talked to Feinstein directly about other unrelated routine matters, but when he tried to raise my case directly with her, she did not want to discuss it. This was a very conscious decision on her part, not a matter of it not being brought to her attention.

Ah, now I see the answer to my wondering question is yes. Big Brother is winning.

Thanks for everything you’re doing and for your time here today, Mark. I’ll be getting your book.

And to the NSA monitoring this book salon thread, we hope you’ve enjoyed your time spying on Americans who know the difference between honoring and betraying the Constitution.

Better yet, Mark, how about joining up with us? All you need is a goofy name and password, and wall-lah, you’re a firepup.

That’s precisely what happened with Thomas Tamm–he went to SSCI and they didn’t want to talk to him.

It seems like whistleblowers should go to Russ Feingold and almost no one else (I’m agnostic about Sheldon Whitehouse, though he would know how to leverage what he learned).

They should make a movie about your story. Maybe then the public would GET IT!!!!!

Note, he’s already got the password and ID…

;-p

Our goal is to kill this program. If the government starts investigating the rich this program dies.
Halibutron Cheney’s old firm did business in Iran and Venezuela.
I wonder if the Government has any calls made by their employees?
Iran is a terror sponsor doing business with them is illegal talking to terrorist is what is suppose to get you spied on so Hal should be investigated.
The second that the Rich get investigated watch how fast the GOP changes direction on this issue!

The fear factor is one part of it. Another is that Americans right now are too busy worrying about their very survival, with the loss of jobs, homes, health care, etc. that they have neither the time nor the power to fight back on civil liberties. Fight how? It’s clear Congress doesn’t listen to letter writing. I’m an old ’60s protester, and experience shows the powers-that-be tend to ignore you unless there are thousands of angry people in the streets. That’s why I think it’t important to revive the union movement.

I know some people are working on a short movie about the Comey confrontation. Maybe now that we’ve got more and more evidence that it was this hoovering aspect of the program (and the data mining) that set them off, maybe they can combine it into one.

I give you triple Snark points for that one:)

PAGING OLIVER STONE! MR.STONE! PAGING OLIVER STONE!

By the way, have you done any book chats in a union context? Like I said, it was an interesting aspect of the book, and it certainly adds more context to one of the underlying threats to union jobs.

well, i’d be happy to drop by when i can. I’ve followed this site occasionally, and particularly Glenn Greenwald at salon–he really speaks truth to power.

an old ’60s protester, and experience shows the powers-that-be tend to ignore you unless there are thousands of angry people in the streets. That’s why I think it’t important to revive the union movement.

Yes, agree. And with the corporate media those thousands of angry people in the streets would have their numbers minimized or ignored and go unreported.

How best to revive the union movement?

Al Franken just reclaimed Paul Wellstone’s seat. His impertinent question at the Sotomajor hearings about executive branch authority post 9/11 was a rare flash of content in the parade of senatorial political posturing.

He and Feingold would make a good team on Judiciary

The unions are right now rigidly controlled by a corrupt bureaucracy, and generally don’t want to do anything that might piss off the Democratic congresspeople they are always courting. One reporter i gave an interview with was from Bridgeton, MO, where the AT&T Network center is located, and I suggested he also talk to the local CWA about the “secret room” at that important location. He tried, but got nowhere, they were too afraid to talk. That’s the state of the unions, unfortunately. They need a fresh new leadership that can recall the 1930s.

That would be helpful. Continue the momentum.

Obama’s early betrayal ambush on all this really whammied this issue and those fighting for privacy and Bushco/telecom in-bed-ness.

Must be high high profits in invasion of privacy.

That’s very interesting about DiFi making a conscious decision not to know about your information, since her counsel while she served as chair of the Defense Appropriations (?) Subcommittee had as his job informing her whenever contracting came in front of her that had to do with her husband’s (Richard Blum) businesses. I have to wonder if her stiff-arming your attorney about your information means that Blum was profiting from some part of this spying/sniffing/storage enterprise.

WILL make a good team.

But that doesn’t get him read into programs like this.

Frankly I was surprised they even let him on Judiciary, but probably figured it accorded him the least power and therefore they might be rid of him.

Ha! Shows what they know.

Isn’t Bridgeton where they fired every union person and hired in new people for the splitter?

Damn right! The clock is ticking on rebuilding unions. The huge unemployment numbers must lead the way. The millions now out of work really have nothing (jobs) to lose and are not a happy bunch.

I don’t have magic answers, except to note what has not worked: relying on the lawyers, lobbying in Washington, and the Democratic Party. Give me an old fashioned general strike. what’s needed first off is a revival of the economy so working people feel confident enough struggle again. That cannot be sucked out of our thumbs, it just has to happen.

Marcy and Glenn, laser-like truth seeing.

Are there other non-attorneys on Judiciary beside Franken and Feinstein?

Great Angle we need an investigation a rich Senator profiting from inside information would discredit this program.

Suggested working title: This is your Ashcroft. This is your Ashcroft on drugs … any questions?

It will look like a remake of the hospital scene from Godfather I without anyone’s jaw getting broken.

Stephen Colbert should play Comey.

Coburn.

I think there are a few more–I was surprised as I watched the Soto hearings. But it may be just DiFi, Franken, and COburn.

Hello, Mr. Klein. You are a hero, and a person i admire very much. Thank you for your stand for our Constitutional right to privacy.

Too short.

Echoing many other people here, you’re one of the people’s all time heros, Mark. Good job on the detective work and on the courage and persistence to bring the info forward. My deepest gratitude.

I’m sending his office this link right now.

Well, those bonus babies are doing all they can to piss people off. Bruce Shiller on Charlie Rose this week, Yale economist, admitted to being proud of his students who understood and worked the economy so adeptly, but admitted he was sorry about the poor, demoralized lower classes that should have some benefit from taxing the rich. Still, he believed in free market capitalism and actually used the sandbox metaphor of little kids regulating themselves and not wanting big government butting in. I couldn’t believe my ears.

How about “Theft of a Nation”?

Not with a Sarkozy soap box and LOTR’s camera angles.

As we come to the end of this Book Salon,

Mark, Thank you for stopping by the Lake today and spending the afternoon discussing your new book with us and your experiences.

Marcy, Thank you very much for Hosting this great Book Salon.

Everyone, if you haven’t bought Mark’s book yet – here is a link.

Thanks all.

# 23 Feinstein’s Conflict of Interest in Iraq | Project CensoredDianne Feinstein—the ninth wealthiest member of congress—has been beset by … From 1997 through the end of 2005, Feinstein’s husband Richard C. Blum was a …
http://www.projectcensored.org/……..t-in-iraq/ – Cached – Similar

yes, that happened early 2002, they fired all the union techs, then slowly brought them back in a non-union title. I don’t think it was a coincidence that about the same time they were planning to install a secret room for the NSA. Union-busting goes hand-in-hand with govt. spying. They want people to be totally defenseless and full of fear.

Thanks Mark. Hope to see you again.

re Oliver… meant to give you a smile on this! :)

Do you think the “revoultion” will be televised? Inquiring minds want to know. My guess that it will all end with a wimper.

Union-busting goes hand-in-hand with govt. spying. They want people to be totally defenseless and full of fear.

I’m sending that to Tula, with the AFLCIO!

Thanks, Mark, et al.! Great salon. Courage is contagious, and am sure you passed a lot on here to keep the ripples going.

thanks for having me. see you again

Mark

Thanks so much for giving us your time today. I’ll look for you if I ever make it out to Vaughn Walker’s courtroom on these issues.

And everyone else–support American values! buy the book!!

How can you proud of teaching ponzai scheming conmen who are to dumb to make an honest buck? All that education and they still steal? And what do they steal imaginary profits without the bank bailout how many of them would be broke.
Ponzai scheming corporate welfare cheats Yale, Harvard all the Ivy league schools should just give up teaching economics their students have failed the real world.

Good talk Mark:)

I googled him and wrote him with the same outrage you are expressing @ Yale. Asked him if he ever thought to incorporate the subject of ethics into his curriculum. Also, Charlie Rose sat there, nodding. Remember what journalists are supposed to do, Charlie? Oooops. Forgot. He is of your gated-community elite and you are enthralled to the rich and powerful.

All I could think listening to them was Marie Antoinette’s line, “Let them eat cake.” Geeeeeesssssh.

elbelle is upstairs at Attackerman!
Let go of you heart, let go of you head

Wall Street collided with Madison Avenue in the 1970’s with
John Houseman’s authoritative persona on TV:

Smith Barney, we make money the old fashioned way …
We steal it.

Did Mr. Klein say ATT head quarters is in Mssouri?

Tula,especially, would be interested in the Jane,Missouri data center that, according to a 2004 New York Times article, had enough storage capacity to contain twice the amount of all the information available on the Internet.

For the technically minded, the exact amount was for 460 terabytes of data. The prefix tera comes from the Greek word for monster, and a terabyte is a trillion bytes, the basic unit of computer storage.

Thanks again, Mark & Marcy, for today’s discussion.

Thank you, Mark, and thanks Marcy for another great Book Salon (and of course thanks also to Bev!)

Memory of Reagan and the air traffic controllers massacre.

Am noticing older people getting laid off often, and maybe it is not just due to the age and insurance and pay rate factors, but leadership factor, i.e., willing to call out management on its outrages. The newbies are less likely to balk at loss of rights and privileges.

Mark, thank you for a very informative discussion. I echo the others who invite you back to join the discussion threads any time.

True, the “youngins” want to be celebrities or very rich. That’s what they’re indoctrinated for. Conscience? Who needs it when there’s money to be made.

Data center remains mysteryMay 28, 2006 … A Globe request for information about the Jane data center was referred at … To facilitate the project, the Missouri Department of …
http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/loca…..printstory – Cached – Similar

Mark – a great place to selll your book would be NetRoots Nation in Pittsburg (a week from now?)

No, it’s one of their big network centers where there’s another splitter.

Thank you for the feedback-and please ask Tula to take a look at the Jane data center.

I wish I had posted the folowing info while the guest was here,

Another excerpt from the always superb,leveymg:

ACLU: “Matrix” Terror Profiling System Shared Data on 90 percent of Americans with CIA/NSA
Posted by leveymg in Editorials & Other Articles
Sun Jul 19th 2009, 07:14 AM
http://acluutah.org/matrix.htm

Stephanie Peterson, Safe and Free advocate for the ACLU of Utah said, “Our concern about MATRIX is similar in many ways to our concerns about sections of the USA PATRIOT Act and raise the same issues among privacy advocates. Both programs make personal and financial information easily available for use by law enforcement that go beyond combating terrorism. They are based on the flawed and dangerous intelligence idea that to catch terrorists, the government needs to spy on people who have done nothing wrong.”

“The first step to treating every American like they could be a criminal is to start collecting information on people who have done nothing wrong.” said Calbrese.

The trouble with MATRIX, said Calbrese, is the volume of data it contains, much of which was purchased unbeknownst to states by Seisint Inc. Seisint is the Florida information-technology company that developed the idea for MATRIX and landed a $1.6 million contract with that state’s Department of Law Enforcement to pilot it.

“We”re probably talking about 90 percent of the country,” said Calbrese.

Also, Blue, if you never had a sense of real “privacy” to cherish how can you begin to appreciate what you are losing? What a surreal society they have been bombarded with, the young-in’s and must survive. Idealism never had time to grow, pragmatic cynical realism at best?

I wish someone would do an benign but effective intervention on America. There is a definite imperialistic, hubristic power and control addiction going on.

Gamesmanship, not statesmanship. Consumer society. Style not substance. Money trumps morality.

“The first step to treating every American like they could be a criminal is to start collecting information on people who have done nothing wrong.” said Calbrese.

Well, look at how accurate they were putting people in Gitmo. Cheney looks at the tv camera imperiously and declares they were all the worst of the worst. Only a fraction have not been released right now. The ones released did not belong there apparently, though God forbid the press ever express that, or our leadership.

@202

“Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish caught will we realize we cannot eat money. ~”

Cree Indian Proverb

Wow, Gitch. So glad I caught this. Talk about sobering.

@205

Pretty much sums it ALL up,doesn’t it?

“SHILLer”,now there’s a name that fits.

Wonder if he ever read “Lord of the Flies”…no,that’s NOT about Shrubya, however…..

Some diary! Upstairs!
I Am a Gang Member

Note, he’s already got the password and ID…

;-p

Who wants to bet the NSA has it, too?

Marcy and Glenn, laser-like truth seeing.

No question. Both the best at what they do.

Mark, if you see this. Have you been on radio wnyc with Lopate or Lehrer to pitch your book? Love their shows.