CIA Power Struggle: War Mongers Versus Oil Barons

The endless, war-loving CIA/Military-Industrial Complex weapons manufacturer companies, with the motto "Always Be Bombing," always wants war and international conflict. They are responsible for most of our incredibly burdensome 20-TRILLION dollar debt, which continues to dangerously grow, robbing Americans of their money and governmental services. We're paying our goverment to play war to enrich the CIA/Military-Industrial Complex. Meanwhile roads, schools, hospitals, infrastructure, real employment, job growth, and American dreams continue to deteriorate, enriching only the Military-Industrial Complex that President Eisenhower warned us about 55 years ago.

There's a big power struggle going on right now between two usual allies: the CIA/Weapons Manufacturing Companies side of the Junta (what President Eisenhower referred to as the "Military-Industrial Complex") and the Oil Company side of the Junta led by Trump-appointed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the recent ExxonMobil C.E.O.  Where do you think all those leaked emails from the DNC, Hillary Clinton, and John Podesta came from? From Russian hackers? No, they came from the Oil Company faction of the Junta that wanted Trump to be President.

WhereIsFiber at Reddit wrote:

For those who might now know, CNN stands for "CIA News Network." Of course all the "mainstream" media are infiltrated by the CIA, making them propagandists more than journalists, but CNN is going the extra mile now by last night single-handedly resurrecting the phoney, CIA-produced, laughable, grammatical error-strewn, 35-page, so-called "Russia dossier" on Trump. Not that I'm a fan of Trump or Clinton (I voted for the Green Party. Green candidates are not professional liars like Donald Rump and Killery Clinton -- I call her Killery because she supported the CIA's plan for a No-Fly-Zone and perpetual war in Syria; even Obama resisted the crazy idea of a No-Fly-Zone there while President, though Obama did let the CIA go crazy in Syria in every other way).

NBC News is strong on the dark side of the force too when it had Cynthia McFadden promulgate in December or January more fake news about a closely related matter. Might as well call it NBCia News.

Did you all see NBC's Andrea Mitchell interview Undersecretary of State Tom Countryman shortly after Trump fired him AND ALL of the State Department's high-level "diplomats," most of which are likely CIA operatives. See the new film "Snowden" on more about how the State Department has always been infiltrated by CIA plants (not that I'm saying Tom Countryman is CIA -- I have no idea -- but you could just see Andrea Mitchell cringing on the inside when Tom appeared on her show the other week with a MULLET! LOL! Yes a mullet in back, though it lacked a ponytail.

I saw yesterday when Tom Countryman appeared on CNN to be interviewed by Brooke Bouldain that he finally had cut off his long hair in back. I have nothing against Mullets -- wear your hair any way you like LOL -- but if you're representing the U.S. government overseas, for goodness sake.... LOL!!! You can stop cringing now Andrea. The mullet's gone.

Of course Andrea Mitchell probably loves the CIA (she might even have ties with the CIA). A few weeks ago when Rick Santelli appeared on "Meet The Press," and called the Congressional Hearings into totally unproven CIA lies about fake foreign interference in the last presidential election "Kobuki Theater" (Santelli called the Congressional Hearings "Kobuki Theater"), Andrea Mitchell was visibly offended and countered Rick in support of the Congressional show trial.

Anyway, we could go on and on. But it's clear there's a power struggle right now between the CIA/Weapons Manufacturing Companies side of the Junta (what President Eisenhower referred to as the "Military-Industrial Complex") and the Oil Company side of the Junta (led by Trump-appointed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the recent ExxonMobil CEO).

In the past few years, Exxon has signed many deals with Russia's Vladimir Putin to drill for oil in Russia's arctic waters. The Russians don't have the technology to drill in the Arctic Ocean, so Rex and Vladimir are becoming bosom buddies. That means finally putting an end to the CIA's proxy war in Syria as The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald called it, saying Hillary Clinton (I mean Killary Clinton) made a point many times in the Hillary-Donald debates to support the CIA's desire to create a No-Fly-Zone in Syria, prolonging the death and destruction of that war, in which already half-a-million people have died and millions more displaced. Hillary is more pro-CIA than Obama, who said no to the No-Fly-Zone in Syria (Syria's government is a friend of Russia). As conservative commentator Roger Stone has said, it would be extremely dangerous for one nuclear power (the U.S.) to shoot down war planes of another nuclear power (Russia) in Syrian air space due to the creation of a No-Fly-Zone there.

Plus the endless, war-loving CIA/Military-Industrial Complex weapons manufacturer companies, whose motto is "Always Be Bombing," and who always want war and international conflict, are responsible for most of our incredibly burdensome 20-TRILLION dollar debt which continues to dangerously grow, robbing Americans of their money and governmental services. We're paying our government to play war to enrich the CIA/Military-Industrial Complex. Meanwhile roads, schools, hospitals, infrastructure, real employment, job growth, and American dreams continue to deteriorate, enriching only the Military-Industrial Complex that President Eisenhower warned us about 55 years ago. So I ask "Where is Fiber?" Hooking up America with a fiber-optic network from coast to coast would probably cost no more than 200 to 300 billion dollars, but there's no money for it or anything else either now because the CIA/Military-Industrial Complex wing of the Junta has maxed out our national credit card, wasting and stealing most of our 20-TRILLION-dollar national debt.

Anyway, there's a big power struggle going on right now between two usual allies: the CIA/Weapons Manufacturing companies side of the Junta (who wanted Hillary to be President) and the Oil companies side of the Junta (who wanted Donald/Rex/Pence to be President). Where do you think all those leaked emails from the DNC, Hillary Clinton, and John Podesta came from? From Russian hackers? No, they came from the Oil Company faction of the Junta.

See the new film "Snowden" about how the State Department has always been infiltrated by CIA plants.

Obama Commutes Manning’s Sentence

Pfc. Manning was sentenced in August 2013 to 35 years in prison for leaking 750,000 pages of classified documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks. A military judge convicted Manning in July 2013, sparing the former intelligence analyst from the most serious charge of aiding the enemy. The issue of Manning's gender identity repeatedly surfaced during the court-martial. An Army psychologist called by the defense said Manning appeared to be isolated and under intense pressure as a male soldier struggling with gender identity issues. Speaking during the sentencing phase of the court-martial, Manning said the decision to leak the documents came while "dealing with a lot of issues" -- a reference to the gender identity crisis. "I am Chelsea Manning." With those words, read from a statement on NBC's "Today" show, Bradley Manning immediately shifted public conversation away from the Army private's conviction on espionage charges to gender identity." As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me," Manning said in the statement. "I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition." [CNN]

January 17, 2017

Associated Press - President Obama has commuted the 35-year prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, paving the way for the Army intelligence analyst turned high-profile leaker to be freed on May 17, the White House announced Tuesday.

Manning was on a list of 209 commutations and 64 pardons released Tuesday, though they may not be Obama’s final acts of clemency before he leaves office at midday on Jan. 20. Edward Snowden’s name was not on the list.

Manning was convicted after leaking U.S. military incident logs and diplomatic cables, among other secret government documents, to WikiLeaks, in 2010.

In his final scheduled briefing for reporters, White House press secretary Josh Earnest described Manning and Snowden in starkly different terms.

“Chelsea Manning, as a member of the United States armed forces, went through a legal proceeding administered by the United States military under the laws that govern the conduct of members of the United States military, and there was a hearing and a conviction and a sentence,” Earnest said. “It all went through that regular process. And that’s the way we determine guilt or innocence in this country, particularly with regard to the conduct of men and women in our armed forces. And that’s the way that our system works.”

But Snowden “should return to the United States and face the serious crimes with which he’s been charged,” Earnest said. “He will, of course, be afforded the kind of due process that’s available to every American citizen who’s going through the criminal justice process. But the crimes that he’s accused of committing are serious. And we believe that he should return to the United States and face them rather than seeking refuge in the arms of an adversary of the United States that has their own strategic interests in disseminating information in a harmful way.”

Earlier this week, WikiLeaks said on Twitter that its founder, Julian Assange, would agree to be extradited to the United States if Obama granted clemency to Manning. He has been living in Ecuador’s embassy in London since June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he has been accused of sexual assault.

The Obama administration has accused the Russian government of using WikiLeaks to influence the 2016 election. The organization published emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Snowden Says Petraeus Disclosed ‘Far More Highly Classified’ Secrets ‘Than I Ever Did’

Come back to Yahoo News on Monday to watch the full clip of Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric’s exclusive interview with Edward Snowden.

Yahoo News - In an exclusive interview with Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric, Edward Snowden says that former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus — who is under consideration to become President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of state — disclosed “information that was far more highly classified than I ever did” and yet never “spent a single day in jail.”

The fugitive former National Security Agency contractor told Couric that Petraeus’s case is evidence that “We have a two-tiered system of justice in the United States, where people who are either well-connected to government or they have access to an incredible amount of resources get very light punishments.”

Snowden’s comments came in an exclusive interview with Couric in Moscow at a crucial moment for him. His lawyers in the United States, fearing that a Trump administration will take an unyielding hard line against him, are seeking either to get him a last-minute pardon from President Obama or to negotiate a plea bargain that would allow him to return to the country without spending a significant amount of time in federal prison for disclosing tens of thousands of classified government documents.

Asked by Couric what sort of plea bargain he might accept, Snowden, who is charged with multiple felonies for theft of government property and violations of the Espionage Act, argued that there were cases “where the government goes, ‘This person was acting in good faith. They were trying to do right by the American people. But they did break the law.’ No charges are ever brought, or they’re brought very minimally.”

Snowden did not cite any examples, but he immediately brought up Petraeus. “Perhaps the best-known case in recent history here is Gen. Petraeus — who shared information that was far more highly classified than I ever did with journalists,” he said. “And he shared this information not with the public for their benefit, but with his biographer and lover for personal benefit — conversations that had information, detailed information, about military special-access programs, that’s classified above top secret, conversations with the president and so on.”

“When the government came after him, they charged him with a misdemeanor,” Snowden continued. “He never spent a single day in jail, despite the type of classified information he exposed.”

Snowden’s remarks about Petraeus are likely to infuriate the retired four-star general’s supporters in Congress and elsewhere. Petraeus did plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge in April 2015 for mishandling classified information, receiving two years’ probation and a $100,000 fine. Court documents in the case show that he turned over a black book of highly classified “code word” documents — including the identity of covert officers and notes of National Security Council meetings — to Paula Broadwell, a biographer with whom he was having an affair.

But the “factual basis” for his plea also states that he retrieved the information from Broadwell three days later. Government officials have said that Broadwell, who was never charged, didn’t use the information in her book about Petraeus and that none of the information he disclosed to her was ever made public. (Petraeus made that same point in an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” While acknowledging that he “made a false statement” to the FBI about his disclosure to Broadwell, he added that “the FBI in the agreement acknowledged that nothing that was in my journals that I shared — certainly improperly — ended up in the biography or made it out to the public. I think that’s a fairly significant point.”)

Snowden, by contrast, disclosed tens of thousands of highly classified NSA documents to multiple journalists, who published them and caused what U.S. intelligence officials have consistently said was harm to national security, in part by making it more difficult for the NSA to intercept the communications of terrorist groups. The “damage done to our national security is profound,” said California Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, after the panel released a three-page executive summary of a report on Snowden in September. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., the chair of the panel’s subcommittee on the NSA and cybersecurity, added: “His actions harmed our relationships around the world, endangered American soldiers in war zones, and reduced our allies’ collective ability to prevent terrorist attacks.”

Snowden, in his interview, also cited Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as an example of “two-tiered” justice. In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in March 2013, Clapper denied to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that the NSA was collecting information on U.S. citizens — a claim that was later disproved by the release of one of the classified documents that Snowden disclosed.

“When we had the most senior intelligence official in the United States, Gen. James Clapper, who lied to the American people and all of Congress on camera, under oath, in the Senate, in a famous exchange with Ron Wyden, he wasn’t even charged,” Snowden said. “But giving false testimony to Congress under oath, as he did, is a felony. It’s typically punished by three to five years in prison.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook's Full Letter Responding to the FBI's Court Order to Create a Backdoor That Would Circumvent iPhone Security

"Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one." - Benjamin Franklin

Cook says that as good as the FBI’s intentions are, forcing Apple to create a backdoor into its otherwise heavily protected products doesn’t seem right. “And ultimately,” he concludes, “we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect.”

The following is a letter from Apple CEO Tim Cook in response to a Judge order for the company to hack the phone of a terrorist who killed 14 in San Bernardino in December.

A Message to Our Customers

The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers. We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand.

This moment calls for public discussion, and we want our customers and people around the country to understand what is at stake.

The Need for Encryption

Smartphones, led by iPhone, have become an essential part of our lives. People use them to store an incredible amount of personal information, from our private conversations to our photos, our music, our notes, our calendars and contacts, our financial information and health data, even where we have been and where we are going.

All that information needs to be protected from hackers and criminals who want to access it, steal it, and use it without our knowledge or permission. Customers expect Apple and other technology companies to do everything in our power to protect their personal information, and at Apple we are deeply committed to safeguarding their data.

Compromising the security of our personal information can ultimately put our personal safety at risk. That is why encryption has become so important to all of us.

For many years, we have used encryption to protect our customers’ personal data because we believe it’s the only way to keep their information safe. We have even put that data out of our own reach, because we believe the contents of your iPhone are none of our business.

The San Bernardino Case

We were shocked and outraged by the deadly act of terrorism in San Bernardino last December. We mourn the loss of life and want justice for all those whose lives were affected. The FBI asked us for help in the days following the attack, and we have worked hard to support the government’s efforts to solve this horrible crime. We have no sympathy for terrorists.

When the FBI has requested data that’s in our possession, we have provided it. Apple complies with valid subpoenas and search warrants, as we have in the San Bernardino case. We have also made Apple engineers available to advise the FBI, and we’ve offered our best ideas on a number of investigative options at their disposal.

We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good. Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.

Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession.

The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.

The Threat to Data Security

Some would argue that building a backdoor for just one iPhone is a simple, clean-cut solution. But it ignores both the basics of digital security and the significance of what the government is demanding in this case.

Snowden is a Patriot to the Citizens, But an Enemy to the Government

Spying on US citizens is illegal in America according to the fourth amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. Initially the NSA claimed they were eavesdropping only on foreign targets. In 2002, George W. Bush signed a presidential order, which allowed the NSA to monitor, without a warrant, the international (and sometimes domestic) phone calls and e-mail messages of hundreds of thousands of citizens and legal residents.

Real change, or rather the chance for real change, will come from those who are willing to lay down their lives to do what it takes to resist and fight against tyranny in America. Most of us here know what needs to be done, but we also know that if we say it clearly and honestly without using good encryption such as TOR with no-scripts activated, then we can expect our front door to be kicked in by the communist loving alphabet agency goons. - Seer, The Common Sense Show, May 26, 2014

Voltaire famously said, ‘ You know who your Masters are by whom you are not allowed to criticize.”

George Orwell once said, “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.”

Am I going to believe a proven chronic liar or Ed Snowden, who gave up his freedom and homeland to bring the truth of government tyranny to the people!

Snowden, an American hero, is trying to tell the Americans, who are sheep controlled by the criminals in DC, about the illegal actions the government is hammering us with every day. Thank you Snowden and all whistle blowers. If not for you DC would have an agent in every home before long. When a government is corrupted like ours, they are above the law. They ARE above the law because they are the law. I'm for anybody who can help get rid of DC criminals and help us win our country back. - David

The NSA has already forfeited the right to be believed on anything. They have consistently lied to the American people and described Snowden as a traitor for revealing their criminal activity to the enemy - us! Snowden should be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom and given a heroes welcome before the feds assassinate him for exposing their lies.- TrailR

"Now we know why Congress has had to wait for years for Obama and company to find the info that Congress needs to conduct inquiries into the governments improprieties or Snowden is lying on national television about something that can easily be confirmed. But, then again, this is the same NSA that stood up on national TV and denied any spying on American citizens, that same spying that was declared - illegal - by a court of law. So I guess the question is - who is the real liar ? Someone who has lost everything to try and bring out the truth (which has been verified) or a bunch of pinko commies that have been found guilty at every turn. - justyntoo, Yahoo!, May 29, 2014

"Why hasn't anyone been prosecuted for lying to Congress. James Clapper and that Admiral and general sure lied flat out. Yet they still have their passports and walk around as free men, still have access to their bank accounts. What about the violations to all the civil liberties of all AMERICANS. Have our people really forgotten the value of our 4th and 14th amendments? Have the people of America forgotten how mad Congress and the Senate got when they thought they were being spied on, yet they feel it's OK for the American people to be spied on. Why should it not be OK for them but be OK for us? Is my privacy less important than theirs? Hey, I'm not the one having affairs with my aids (gay or otherwise), buying drugs outside DC restaurants, taking bribes, or committing any other crimes. No wonder they got upset they were being spied on." - Commenter

"I remember reading in several news sources over the last many months that NSA personnel said they should have been able to predict his leaking of NSA activity due to the fact that he kept a copy of the Constitution (I'm not sure if all or just the Bill of Rights). They all said something to the effect of, "Looking back, we should have known someone with a Constitution document would be a high risk NSA employee". That says ALOT." - Doug

"If those in power cannot be trusted to tell the truth to us or protect our Constitutional rights, I am thankful for the courage Snowden showed to reveal these criminal wrongdoings." - Richard

"I believe the man who exposed the spying over the ones who are actively engaged in spying.Who do you trust?" - Victor

It is against the Constitution stupid!!! It is illegal search and seizure stupid!!! It's called privacy, and the government, our government, used the excuse of 9/11 as an excuse to question any U.S. citizen without due process and without a warrant in order to obtain information. How did this work before 9/11 when the terrorists were here? - D

The truth is that people who oppose this believe in democracy and are against the idea of a government giving itself power not granted to it by its people. And they understand knowledge is power. If you know every little secret about someone, you can make them do whatever you want. In this case, they can make anyone in the country do anything, even elected politicians and members of the military. Also, there is something called a law. Some people think the NSA and the government itself is not above the law. The Constitution means something you know - the part about search and seizure of personal property. It kinda sucks why the government just goes, "Screw that, we will violate that right on hundreds of millions of Americans." Are you the type of person that would have supported the Nazis because they were they government, and they were just trying to protect us, lol.- michaelg

Bust of Edward Snowden in Brooklyn's Fort Greene Park, New York

This photo provided by Aymann Ismail/ANIMALNewYork on Monday, April 6, 2015, shows an installation of a bust of the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in Brooklyn's Fort Greene Park, in New York. After several mysterious artists put a sculpted bust of Snowden on a New York City war memorial, parks officials have ordered the bust removed. Animal New York, a city news website, reported that the activists sneaked the 4-foot-tall, 100-pound bust of Snowden before dawn Monday.

The 4th Amendment of the Constitution: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

I'm sure that the Government should, in particular, note the phrase "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects...shall not be violated."

Of course, our espionage community, along with factions of our police state, hate that amendment and claim that it interferes with their ability to quickly enforce other laws they more highly regard than the Constitution.

April 6, 2015

AP - Suddenly, in the middle of the New York night, Edward Snowden's face appeared — deep in a public park.

A 4-foot-high, 100-pound sculpted bust of the whistleblower now exiled in Russia was sneaked into Brooklyn's Fort Greene Park on Monday before dawn.

Animal New York, a city news website that first reported the incident, said the mysterious perpetrators were a small group of artists — admirers of the former contractor who had leaked classified information from the National Security Agency to the media.

The activists hoisted the bust to the top of a Revolutionary War memorial, adding his name to a column, according to Animal New York.

The website says the group allowed it to document installation of the statue on the condition that it not reveal the identities of the artists.

Snowden's artistic appearance was short-lived.

Snowden Explains That the NSA's PRISM Program Collects Data from Tech Companies like Google, Facebook and Apple

Thanks to Edward Snowden, Americans now know that the CIA and NSA have spied on Americans citizens through Facebook since June 6, 2009 using a dubious FISA court judicial opinion. The CIA, through its private venture capital business In-Q-Tel, invests in “big data” projects with all of Facebook’s principal underwriters, investors and partners. NSA Prism program taps into user data of Apple, Google, Facebook and others. [Source]

Edward Snowden Explains How The Government Can Get Your 'D**k Pic' During Interview With John Oliver

April 6, 2015 

The Huffington Post - Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden sat down for an interview with comedian John Oliver nearly two years after he leaked classified documents about U.S. government surveillance programs and fled to Russia to escape prosecution.

"I do miss my country. I do miss my home. I do miss my family," Snowden said.

Oliver, the host of HBO's "Last Week Tonight," encouraged Snowden to explain bulk surveillance in colloquial terms so the general public could better understand it. He showed Snowden a video of Americans who were concerned that the government improperly intercepted nude photos, or "dick pics," as part of its mass surveillance programs.

"The good news is that there's no program named the 'dick pic' program. The bad news... they are still collecting everybody's information, including your dick pics," Snowden said while stifling a chuckle.

"If you have your email somewhere like Gmail hosted on a server overseas or transferred overseas or anytime it crosses outside the borders of the United States, your junk ends up in the database," Snowden added.

Snowden then went on to explain the "PRISM" program, which collects data from tech companies like Google, Facebook, Apple and others.

National Security Agency Using Unreliable Tactic to Locate Targets for Lethal Drone Strikes

Creepy-Cool Video: Tiny UAVs Flying in Formation

The NSA’s Secret Role in the U.S. Assassination Program

February 10, 2014

  

The Intercept - The National Security Agency is using complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes – an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people.

New Snowden Documents Show NSA Creating Sophisticated Digital Weapons

New Snowden documents show that the NSA and its allies are laughing at the rest of the world

January 17, 2015

The Verge - A team of nine journalists including Jacob Appelbaum and Laura Poitras have just published another massive collection of classified records obtained by Edward Snowden.

The trove of documents, published on Der Spiegel, show that the National Security Agency and its allies are methodically preparing for future wars carried out over the internet. Der Spiegel reports that the intelligence agencies are working towards the ability to infiltrate and disable computer networks — potentially giving them the ability to disrupt critical utilities and other infrastructure. And the NSA and GCHQ think they're so far ahead of everyone else, they're laughing about it.

We already know that the US is already capable of launching complex digital attacks that can cause physical damage to its enemies. A computer virus known as Stuxnet, discovered in 2010, was deployed as part of a joint operation between the US and Israel that ravaged Iran's Natanz nuclear facility, destroying many of the country's nuclear centrifuges. Since then, the NSA's top brass has boasted of newer and more powerful digital weapons.

The NSA Can Remotely Turn On Mobile Phones

Full Interview of Ed Snowden by NBC's Brian Williams

Federal regulations require cellphone makers to install GPS chips or other location technology in nearly all phones. The Federal Communications Commission required U.S. cellular providers to make at least 95% of the phones in their networks traceable by satellite (GPS chips send signals to satellites to track your location) or other technologies by the end of 2005. Federal law allows carriers to turn over data to law enforcement in 'emergencies' without subpoenas. Police often claim they need data immediately for an emergency and, therefore, don't have time to obtain a warrant. Law-enforcement's easy access to such data makes the systems easy to abuse. Carriers would like to have a system in place requiring agents to get warrants. Without such a requirement, there is little carriers can do to resist warrantless requests. Federal law says carriers may comply with such requests, and law-enforcement agencies have pressured them to maintain the tracking systems. [Source]

Can the NSA Remotely Turn On Mobile Phones?

May 30, 2014

Tom's Guide - Is it possible for the National Security Agency (NSA) to remotely power up a mobile phone and use it as a listening device? 

In an interview that aired last night (May 28), American NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden told NBC's Brian Williams that the agency can.

"Can anyone turn it on remotely if it's off?" Williams asked Snowden, referring to the "burner" smartphone Williams used for travel to Russia. "Can they turn on apps? Did anyone know or care that I Googled the final score of the Rangers-Canadiens game last night because I was traveling here?"

"I would say yes to all of those," Snowden replied. "They can absolutely turn them on with the power turned off to the device."

Cellphone security experts are divided over whether that's true — and whether Snowden knew what he was talking about.

Snowden's revelation technically isn't new. In July 2013, a month after the first Snowden leaks appeared, a Washington Post article on the NSA's use of cellphone surveillance reported that the NSA had implemented such a program years earlier to aid American forces hunting insurgents in Iraq.

"By September 2004," the Post reported, "a new NSA technique enabled the agency to find cellphones even when they were turned off. JSOC [Joint Special Operations Command] troops called this 'The Find.'"

Those few lines set off a firestorm of controversy in the cellphone-security community as experts tried to figure out how it might be possible to turn on a powered-off smartphone. Snowden's comments in the NBC interview last night restarted the conversation.

As with most things, the issue is a bit more complicated than it sounds. Turning on a cellphone remotely would involve something called a baseband hack, and it's not simple to pull off.

"Snowden saw programs that were widely successful at getting intelligence from phones, but he doesn't understand the details," wrote Robert David Graham, founder of Atlanta security company Errata Security, in a blog response to the NBC interview.

"Yes, there may be a model of phone out there where the NSA was able to 'remotely turn it on' (probably because a baseband processor was never truly off)," Graham wrote. "But that doesn't mean that when you turn off your iPhone, the NSA can do anything with it."

Smartphones actually have two computers in them: a baseband processor (the "phone" part that deals with radio waves) and the operating-system processor, which runs iOS, Android or Windows Phone and controls apps and the rest of what you see on the phone's screen. When you use your phone, you're interacting with the operating system, not the baseband.

When you power your phone off, you're shutting down the operating system. But are you turning the baseband processor off as well?

Back in 2004, when the NSA allegedly first gained the ability to remotely turn on cellphones, the answer may have been yes. When some so-called "feature phones" were powered off, their baseband chips still communicated with cell towers operated by carriers such as AT&T or Verizon Wireless. Only when the batteries were removed from such phones did the baseband truly turn off.

So do today's smartphones — many of which, such as iPhones, have no removable batteries — also keep their basebands on when the handsets are powered down (not just in resting mode in a pocket)?

It's very unclear. Jonathan Zdziarski, a Boston-area independent security expert who specializes in retrieving information from iPhones, says that today's baseband chips may very well remain active even when a phone is powered down.

"The baseband has to be programmed to remain in a ready state while the device is powered off," Zdziarski told Tom's Guide. "I can't tell you with any certainty if that's how the iPhone baseband is programmed."

"The baseband could be programmed so, while the power source is connected, it stays in a ready mode," he said. "That seems to be at least a plausible assumption based on, and only based on, a number of other articles citing FBI and CIA and the agencies that have been able to locate these devices while they're turned off."

It's difficult to be certain whether a modern smartphone's baseband chip remains on in some capacity when the phone is switched off. Baseband chips are made by a handful of companies and run closed, proprietary code that few outsiders have access to.

It's also possible that even if baseband chips don't always stay on by default, the NSA may have found ways to push out tailored firmware updates to targeted cellphones to make sure the baseband chips do stay on for those particular handsets.

Rounding the basebands 

That brings us to the next question: If the baseband chip somehow stays on, could you contact it and command it to turn on the rest of the phone, including the smartphone operating system, so that the phone can be used as a listening device? Does the baseband chip have that capability?

Connecting to the baseband in the first place is not difficult. There are plenty of ways to trick a phone into connecting with a malicious tower instead of with a carrier's tower. The FBI has a tool for this called the Stingray; it's been common knowledge for years, and similar methods have been demonstrated at hacker conferences.

But once you're connected to the targeted phone, how do you gain control of the baseband processor?

"The code in baseband processors is crap," wrote Graham. "It's relatively easy to find vulnerabilities that can be used to take control of the baseband processor ... The code is so fragile it's hard not to find a bug in it."

Finding a bug in a baseband processor may only be a matter of time, but the NSA would need to find bugs in every single type of processor, and sometimes find new bugs when old ones get patched.

But even if you have control of the baseband, you still aren't into the operating system, which you would need to do in order to get really important information such as emails, contact lists, documents and more. Do the baseband processors have enough control over the operating-system processor to turn the phone on?

Dial 0 for Operating System 

Accessing a phone's operating system from its baseband "requires a whole new set of exploits, which sometimes won't work," wrote Graham.

He argued that it's safe to assume that most phones are safe from remote activation. The NSA may be looking for such vulnerabilities, but that doesn't mean it always has them.

Zdziarski takes a different stance.

"Based on what we know NSA's abilities are," he said, "they are probably putting their best people on trying to find exploits for [mobile phones] and I think it's entirely possible they could have exploited certain phones to this degree."

Zdziarski pointed out that all smartphones have a number of strong links between the baseband and the operating system, such as the federally mandated ability to make emergency calls. Even if a phone's access screen is locked by a PIN or password, it can still call 911.

"If the baseband is the master of that main processor, I'd think one way or another, it would have some type of control over being able to power up that processor," Zdziarksi told Tom's Guide.

It's possible that a means of accessing the operating system from the baseband is built right into the phone. The NSA has put "backdoors" — hidden exploits — into other products, so it's not unreasonable to assume something similar happens in a mobile phone. Zdziarski has come across many undocumented features buried in iPhones that seem to be designed to yield the phone's data.

The NSA also has an enormous budget, and it's been known to pay top dollar for zero-day (previously unknown) exploits on the black market.

"I'm not saying this is easy. Even if [NSA] had zero cooperation [from phone companies], I can see a process like this costing tens of millions of dollars," said Zdziarski. "But the NSA has tens of millions of dollars to spend."

Ultimately, all of this is speculation. Snowden might have read a document about baseband hacks that has not yet been released to the public. Several independent hackers and researchers have published research on hacking a baseband, but so far no one has issued a proof-of-concept hack for remotely turning a phone on by going through the baseband.

Malware, that's where
 

There is another possible explanation for the NSA's alleged ability to turn on depowered smartphones, but it is far less broad, and requires compromising a smartphone before you're able to remotely activate it.

A phone infected with malware, ideally during a brief period when spies have physical possession of the device — sometimes called an implant — could be made to turn on via remote command, or do a number of other things.
 

But as Graham points out, it doesn't seem that Snowden and Williams were talking about implants.

"The question was Brian Williams holding a phone asking what the NSA could do to it — in the future (power it on)," Graham wrote. "He wasn't asking what they'd done to it in the past (install an implant)."

Baby turn me on 

So how worried should you be that the NSA is turning your phone on? The answer is, unless you're a foreign spy or a very high-value target, probably not very much.

While the NSA does do some broad surveillance on all Americans, Snowden told Williams that most high-level smartphone hacks, including turning it on remotely, hacking the microphone or camera, or stealing data stored on it, are aimed at specific individuals.
 
"It's important to understand that these things are typically done on a targeted basis," Snowden told Williams. "It's only done when people go, 'This phone is suspicious. I think it's being held by a drug dealer. I think it's being used by a terrorist.'"