Secret law is a 'direct threat' to Americans' privacy, says NSA whistleblower

[Reefa]

NEW YORK -- It's not often you walk out after having lunch with a polite and intelligent retiree and know that you're probably now on a government watchlist.

On Wednesday, I spoke with William Binney, a former National Security Agency official turned whistleblower, at a lunch event hosted by Contrast Security founder Jeff Williams.

Binney, who spent more than three decades at the shadowy intelligence agency, left a month after the September 11 attacks in 2001 when he saw that the foreign intelligence gathering program he helped develop was being turned domestically. After blowing the whistle to Congress, his house was raided by the FBI, though he was never charged with a crime. Binney remains one of the foremost thinkers in the agency's modern history. Edward Snowden said he was inspired in part by previous leakers and whistleblowers, a list that includes Binney.

After almost a decade-and-a-half in civilian life, I asked him what surprised him most about the Snowden leaks.

"Nothing," he answered earnestly.

What could possibly rattle a man who's not fazed by the biggest intelligence leak in a generation? A secretive executive order that spans back to the height of the Cold War, he said, ranks as one of his greatest concerns.

Executive Order 12333, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, became the bulk of the NSA's authority, expanding the agency's collection capabilities to both foreign and domestic targets. The order was amended three times in the wake of the September 11 attacks in 2001. Binney described it as a "blank check" for the intelligence community to use when all other laws fail, or simply don't reach far enough.

Though its text is public, how it is used and interpreted is highly classified. Snowden, too, internally raised concerns about the legal bounds of the order.

Binney described a scenario in which the NSA could use the order's legal powers to acquire the emails or call recordings of a terror or drug suspect. The order's authority is so far-reaching that the NSA will tap the cable to acquire not just the conversation, but everything else that flows past it too -- including the communications of innocent Americans.

"I can keep all the data that's collected because really I'm after that suspect," said Binney. "It's a direct threat to Americans' privacy."

The future of the NSA's surveillance programs continue to spur heated debate in Congress. In the lead up to the deadline of June 1 when the bulk phone records collection provision in the Patriot Act expires, members of both houses are drawing up legislation that aims to clip the intelligence community's wings.

Binney said the intelligence community would be "better off" limiting its access to bulk data and its vast collection pool as it would make the agencies better at responding to impending threats.

An NSA spokesperson did not return an email asking for comment.

zdnet.com

[steven36]

They already been doing this for along time and Microsoft , Google and others will comply with them. I guess its no worse than Canada and other Countries spying on what all people download too get a few people who downloads really bad things and sharing the info with other Countries. No email is safe no matter were your from so don't do nothing illegal with them and downloading is not safe ether no mater if p2p or filehost so use a vpn if its not banned were you live yet . ;)

[humble3d]

Yes, Everything in the 21st Century IS rigged... :wtf: :lol:

[CODYQX4]

They already been doing this for along time and Microsoft , Google and others will comply with them. I guess its no worse than Canada and other Countries spying on what all people download too get a few people who downloads really bad things and sharing the info with other Countries. No email is safe no matter were your from so don't do nothing illegal with them and downloading is not safe ether no mater if p2p or filehost so use a vpn if its not banned were you live yet . ;)

I'm surprised that although the RIAA is here and owns our politicians harder than elsewhere, that the rest of the world seems so ready and willing to deep throat them and experiment on just what they can get away with.

You guys are blocking sites at the DNS level, sending out the notices, suing ISPs, and banning VPNs, while shockingly the RIAA hasn't pushed against banning VPNs in the US. All they have to do is say "well only terrorists and pedos use those", and the people they didn't pay off would probably eat it up and all VPNs would be logged or cease to exist.

Let them do it. People don't seem to give a rat's ass about the NSA, yet shitty movies will be what gets us a new decentralized internet that they have no power over. Better make the hardware cheap and out of their control and hope that they don't push to make electricity illegal. You can't torrent if you don't have batteries or plugs right?

[VileTouch]

They already been doing this for along time and Microsoft , Google and others will comply with them. I guess its no worse than Canada and other Countries spying on what all people download too get a few people who downloads really bad things and sharing the info with other Countries. No email is safe no matter were your from so don't do nothing illegal with them and downloading is not safe ether no mater if p2p or filehost so use a vpn if its not banned were you live yet . ;)

I'm surprised that although the RIAA is here and owns our politicians harder than elsewhere, that the rest of the world seems so ready and willing to deep throat them and experiment on just what they can get away with.

You guys are blocking sites at the DNS level, sending out the notices, suing ISPs, and banning VPNs, while shockingly the RIAA hasn't pushed against banning VPNs in the US. All they have to do is say "well only terrorists and pedos use those", and the people they didn't pay off would probably eat it up and all VPNs would be logged or cease to exist.

Let them do it. People don't seem to give a rat's ass about the NSA, yet shitty movies will be what gets us a new decentralized internet that they have no power over. Better make the hardware cheap and out of their control and hope that they don't push to make electricity illegal. You can't torrent if you don't have batteries or plugs right?

solar, geothermal, wind, hydraulic, hydrogen boilers!. one of these days i'll pull the plug myself

[steven36]

​

They already been doing this for along time and Microsoft , Google and others will comply with them. I guess its no worse than Canada and other Countries spying on what all people download too get a few people who downloads really bad things and sharing the info with other Countries. No email is safe no matter were your from so don't do nothing illegal with them and downloading is not safe ether no mater if p2p or filehost so use a vpn if its not banned were you live yet . ;)

I'm surprised that although the RIAA is here and owns our politicians harder than elsewhere, that the rest of the world seems so ready and willing to deep throat them and experiment on just what they can get away with.

You guys are blocking sites at the DNS level, sending out the notices, suing ISPs, and banning VPNs, while shockingly the RIAA hasn't pushed against banning VPNs in the US. All they have to do is say "well only terrorists and pedos use those", and the people they didn't pay off would probably eat it up and all VPNs would be logged or cease to exist.

Let them do it. People don't seem to give a rat's ass about the NSA, yet shitty movies will be what gets us a new decentralized internet that they have no power over. Better make the hardware cheap and out of their control and hope that they don't push to make electricity illegal. You can't torrent if you don't have batteries or plugs right?

There's a fine line between people's privacy to watch a movie in own home not bothering no one than people who really do bad things . And if they use there emails , chat , etc to commit really bad crimes and get caught by NSA or any other agency in the world that's there own ignorance . They should have never been doing it to began with.. If there's nothing ever done about people who commit real crimes . Bad People will just be able to take over, so I don't always see it as a bad thing them getting caught. And it helps NSA a lot when you have really dumb ones that commit crimes on the public internet without even encrypting there stuff . :P

​

​Really I don't care what the RIAA do there just music there's many legal sites were you can ether download or record legal streams of almost all music for free . But the reason things will become decentralized is because of the MPAA so I agree with you because there's no good free services to watch movies really .

Even if they killed all domains to pirate movie and music sites you would still be able to find it on the dark net even if there was no sites on the internet I know how make my own disc and my own rips from renting movies or Rec them I been doing this kind of stuff since i was a kid.. so they will never stop it . In the UK they made it legal there to make your own DVDs or CDs even for personal use ..so there just biting off more than they can chew. :)

​

[CODYQX4]

​

They already been doing this for along time and Microsoft , Google and others will comply with them. I guess its no worse than Canada and other Countries spying on what all people download too get a few people who downloads really bad things and sharing the info with other Countries. No email is safe no matter were your from so don't do nothing illegal with them and downloading is not safe ether no mater if p2p or filehost so use a vpn if its not banned were you live yet . ;)

I'm surprised that although the RIAA is here and owns our politicians harder than elsewhere, that the rest of the world seems so ready and willing to deep throat them and experiment on just what they can get away with.

You guys are blocking sites at the DNS level, sending out the notices, suing ISPs, and banning VPNs, while shockingly the RIAA hasn't pushed against banning VPNs in the US. All they have to do is say "well only terrorists and pedos use those", and the people they didn't pay off would probably eat it up and all VPNs would be logged or cease to exist.

Let them do it. People don't seem to give a rat's ass about the NSA, yet shitty movies will be what gets us a new decentralized internet that they have no power over. Better make the hardware cheap and out of their control and hope that they don't push to make electricity illegal. You can't torrent if you don't have batteries or plugs right?

There's a fine line between people's privacy to watch a movie in own home not bothering no one than people who really do bad things . And if they use there emails , chat , etc to commit really bad crimes and get caught by NSA or any other agency in the world that's there own ignorance . They should have never been doing it to began with.. If there's nothing ever done about people who commit real crimes . Bad People will just be able to take over, so I don't always see it as a bad thing them getting caught. And it helps NSA a lot when you have really dumb ones that commit crimes on the public internet without even encrypting there stuff . :P

​

​Really I don't care what the RIAA do there just music there's many legal sites were you can ether download or record legal streams of almost all music for free . But the reason things will become decentralized is because of the MPAA so I agree with you because there's no good free services to watch movies really .

Even if they killed all domains to pirate movie and music sites you would still be able to find it on the dark net even if there was no sites on the internet I know how make my own disc and my own rips from renting movies or Rec them I been doing this kind of stuff since i was a kid.. so they will never stop it . In the UK they made it legal there to make your own DVDs or CDs even for personal use ..so there just biting off more than they can chew. :)

​

99.9999% of the people the NSA watches haven't committed any "really bad crime" that justifies government surveillance, meanwhile people have tried to shoot up the NSA HQ twice and they never saw it coming.

It isn't worth a damn, and it is all about power and having dirt on everybody.

But yeah if you pose on Facebook with the person you just shot, you got yourself caught.

[steven36]

​

They already been doing this for along time and Microsoft , Google and others will comply with them. I guess its no worse than Canada and other Countries spying on what all people download too get a few people who downloads really bad things and sharing the info with other Countries. No email is safe no matter were your from so don't do nothing illegal with them and downloading is not safe ether no mater if p2p or filehost so use a vpn if its not banned were you live yet . ;)

I'm surprised that although the RIAA is here and owns our politicians harder than elsewhere, that the rest of the world seems so ready and willing to deep throat them and experiment on just what they can get away with.

You guys are blocking sites at the DNS level, sending out the notices, suing ISPs, and banning VPNs, while shockingly the RIAA hasn't pushed against banning VPNs in the US. All they have to do is say "well only terrorists and pedos use those", and the people they didn't pay off would probably eat it up and all VPNs would be logged or cease to exist.

Let them do it. People don't seem to give a rat's ass about the NSA, yet shitty movies will be what gets us a new decentralized internet that they have no power over. Better make the hardware cheap and out of their control and hope that they don't push to make electricity illegal. You can't torrent if you don't have batteries or plugs right?

There's a fine line between people's privacy to watch a movie in own home not bothering no one than people who really do bad things . And if they use there emails , chat , etc to commit really bad crimes and get caught by NSA or any other agency in the world that's there own ignorance . They should have never been doing it to began with.. If there's nothing ever done about people who commit real crimes . Bad People will just be able to take over, so I don't always see it as a bad thing them getting caught. And it helps NSA a lot when you have really dumb ones that commit crimes on the public internet without even encrypting there stuff . :P

​

​Really I don't care what the RIAA do there just music there's many legal sites were you can ether download or record legal streams of almost all music for free . But the reason things will become decentralized is because of the MPAA so I agree with you because there's no good free services to watch movies really .

Even if they killed all domains to pirate movie and music sites you would still be able to find it on the dark net even if there was no sites on the internet I know how make my own disc and my own rips from renting movies or Rec them I been doing this kind of stuff since i was a kid.. so they will never stop it . In the UK they made it legal there to make your own DVDs or CDs even for personal use ..so there just biting off more than they can chew. :)

​

99.9999% of the people the NSA watches haven't committed any "really bad crime" that justifies government surveillance, meanwhile people have tried to shoot up the NSA HQ twice and they never saw it coming.

It isn't worth a damn, and it is all about power and having dirt on everybody.

But yeah if you pose on Facebook with the person you just shot, you got yourself caught.

Yes but not only NSA watches everyone every other government agency in the world does too ...Even Hackers and the bad guys are watching you too . I'm not a really young person but I'm not old enough to remember when NSA 1st started out in the 1950s . But I know they been around a lot of years and I personalty in real life don't know anyone who ever got put in jail by them but I can't say that about other agencies . If you're that paranoid best to not use the internet at all. I lived 20 some years before without it its not like we must have it no way. :lol: