NSA Watch: Climate as 'Terrorism', War on Journalism and Anonymity, Anger in Europe and Angry Birds
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-01-30 12:37:56 UTC
- Modified: 2014-01-30 12:37:56 UTC
Summary: A roundup of yesterday's and today's news about the NSA
New Leaks
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The document, with portions marked "top secret," indicates that the NSA was monitoring the communications of other countries ahead of the conference, and intended to continue doing so throughout the meeting. Posted on an internal NSA website on Dec. 7, 2009, the first day of the Copenhagen summit, it states that "analysts here at NSA, as well as our Second Party partners, will continue to provide policymakers with unique, timely, and valuable insights into key countries' preparations and goals for the conference, as well as the deliberations within countries on climate change policies and negotiation strategies."
Illegal Collection of 'Evidence'
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A man charged with aiding a terrorist organization has asked a U.S. court to throw out information collected by the National Security Agency, saying the NSA's surveillance of his Internet communications violates the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Prosecuting Anonymisers
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In oral arguments heard on Tuesday, Lavabit and federal prosecutors each presented their cases in front of a three-judge panel at the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. The case is an appeal of contempt-of-court charges against Lavabit, a now-defunct e-mail hosting service that once offered secure communication.
In the summer of 2013, Lavabit was ordered to provide real-time e-mail monitoring of one of its users, widely believed to be Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor-turned-leaker. When Lavabit told the feds that the only way it could hand over communications was through an internal process that would deliver results 60 days after any communication was sent, the authorities returned with a search warrant for Lavabit's SSL keys, which could decrypt the traffic of all of Lavabit's users. Ladar Levison, the CEO of Lavabit, handed over the SSL keys but then shut down his 10-year-old business rather than expose all of Lavabit's users.
War on Journalism
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James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, has issued a blistering condemnation of Edward Snowden, calling the surveillance disclosures published by the Guardian and other news outlets a “perfect storm” that would endanger American lives.
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Director of National Intelligence James Clapper urged former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and his “accomplices” to return leaked documents during a hearing on Wednesday.
Europe
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A former Ukrainian president warned on Wednesday that the country is now on “the brink of civil war,” and Russia added to the gloom by announcing the suspension of its financial aid package, which was all that had been keeping Ukraine solvent.
[...]
Protesters for weeks had suspected that the government was using location data from cellphones near the demonstration to pinpoint people for political profiling, and they received alarming confirmation when a court formally ordered a telephone company to hand over such data.
Earlier this month, protesters at a clash with riot police officers received text messages on their phones saying they had been “registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.”
Then, three cellphone companies — Kyivstar, MTS and Life — denied that they had provided the location data to the government or had sent the text messages. Kyivstar suggested that it was instead the work of a “pirate” cellphone tower set up in the area.
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Former employee of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Edward Snowden will be invited to the spring session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), APA’s Europe bureau reports.
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Chancellor says Germany and US still 'far apart' on sweeping surveillance and spying activities revealed by Edward Snowden
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Berlin and Washington are still "far apart" in their views on the US National Security Agency's (NSA) mass surveillance of Germany but they remain close allies, Chancellor Angela Merkel told parliament on Wednesday.
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The German government and the German Federal Intelligence Service are facing legal action because they allegedly aided the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) data collection program.
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THE EUROPEAN UNION JUSTICE COMMISSIONER has spoken out on Data Protection Day about national security agency surveillance.
US Politics
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Ever since leaked NSA documents first started popping up this summer, the battle against NSA surveillance has proceeded on multiple fronts: legislators pushing for new laws, journalists pushing for new stories, and tech companies fighting to regain users’ trust. Yesterday, one of the major fronts closed down. Since July, tech companies had been putting pressure on the Department of Justice, fighting for the right to say more about their interactions with law enforcement. Yesterday they made peace, reaching a settlement and withdrawing a class action suit that had drawn in some of the most powerful companies in America. On this front at least, reformers have likely gotten all they’re going to get.
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Senator Patrick Leahy questioned how the Constitution allows the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of U.S. telephone records and repeated his calls for President Barack Obama’s administration to end the program during a hearing Wednesday.
The Obama administration should heed the recent advice of the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) and end the phone records collection program, said Leahy, a Vermont Democrat.
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The NSA's new data center in Utah has provided the flashpoint for legislation targeted at "nullifying" the agency by cutting off its access to public utilities and/or leveraging the powers granted to states to combat federal government overreach. An activist group known as The Tenth Amendment Center proposed a state law that would cut off the new data center's much needed water supply, along with any other public utility or service, like sanitation and road repair, in hopes of (at minimum) forcing the NSA to reconsider its collection tactics, or failing that, to find a new home.
Angry Birds
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Some users trying to access the www.angrybirds.com website late Tuesday were greeted by an image depicting the Angry Birds game characters accompanied by the text "Spying Birds." The U.S. National Security Agency's logo was also visible in the image.
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Reacting to recent revelations that smartphone apps such as Angry Birds and Google Maps are being used by the National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarter (GCHQ) to spy on their users, the Application Developers Alliance has condemned the NSA for damaging the industry.
BBC
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When the Guardian and Washington Post newspapers published the first of Edward Snowden's NSA-GCHQ leaks in June, it unleashed a stream of abbreviations, acronyms and jargon describing the cyberspies' activities.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Amended Input From Software Freedom Institute for EU Consultation on Free Software
- "On 3 February 2026 Software Freedom Institute lodged a submission with the European Commission's inquiry into Open Digital Ecosystems"
- Nadella's Mindless PR Spam Ahead of the Layoffs 'Snowball' (Adding Up Batches) Turning Into an Avalanche
- Based on recent observations, the more puff pieces we see about Nadella, the closer we get to Microsoft "pulling the trigger" on mass layoffs
- When Happens to Red Hat If (or When) IBM Collapses
- IBM is in flux because its CFO is now implicated in what seems like accounting fraud
- With an IBM Company Down Over 75% After Apparent Accounting Fraud the IBM Insiders Want Answers From James Krabanaugh
- He has no technical qualifications
- A "horrible week (hebdomada horribilis?) for the Solicitors Regulation Authority" (SRA)
- The SRA is part of the SLAPP problem
- EPO's Central Staff Committee (CSC) on EPO Social Dialogue
- They've refrained from mentioning the industrial actions
- The Register MS is Promoting Ponzi Scheme for Financial Fraud/Accounting Fraud Company, The Register MS Gets Paid to Do This
- Published 6 hours ago
- IBM's Kyndryl Managed to Fall to Less Than a Quarter of Its Past Year's High
- Imagine IBM falling to $75
- Links 10/02/2026: Media Freedom Feels Dead in Hong Kong and Grammys, Superbowl Becoming Politics
- Links for the day
- IBM RAs (or PIPs) in London, England?
- They try to keep the lid on it
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- Links 11/02/2026: $700 Billion Slop Bill, Social Control Media Under Political Fire for Deliberate Health Harms
- Links for the day
- Mobbing at the European Patent Office (EPO) - Part VI - Attacks on Staff and Attacks on the Law Merit Another New Series
- new series coming shortly
- IBM's Financial Engineering (Accounting Fraud) Shell, Kyndryl Holdings Inc, is Insolvent
- If this was done by the very same people who still run IBM, can we expect any better from "Sugar Daddy" IBM?
- 2026 a Very Productive Year and We Have Many Big Stories to Tell
- maybe we'll produce 8,000 new articles/pages by year's end
- Clownflare is in Trouble as Its Debt More Than Doubled in Less Than a Year, Expect Further Enshittification
- Clownflare isn't free
- After the Next Wave of Microsoft Layoffs Washington State Could be #1 for US Layoffs
- Microsoft Corp shares were down yesterday
- EPO's Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH): The EPO is Generally “Managed by Excel” (Microsoft)
- The current management has basically defined corruption to be "success"
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, February 10, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, February 10, 2026
- Google Still Helping the Slop Pyramid Scheme, Encouraging Plagiarism Too
- Google is a plagiarism company and it wants public solidarity for plagiarism by LLMs
- Gemini Links 10/02/2026: "The Luminous Dead", Matrix, and Containers
- Links for the day
- Kyndryl CFO Harsh Chugh Comes From IBM (17+ Years)
- Who would want such a position?
- International Buybacks Machines
- Will the current US administration/regime look into IBM's accounting or only its mini me's?
- IBM Could be the Next Kyndryl, a Dinosaur With Accounting Fraud
- Many shareholders (or even pension funds) are taking a big hit today
- Ian Murdock Died in San Francisco 10 Years Ago. Cops Led to His Death.
- 10 years ago Ian Murdock died after cops had messed him up
- US/Europe divergence: health & safety, criminality & Debian harassment culture: Open Digital Ecosystems submission F33370170
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 10/02/2026: Splinternets and "Meta Goes to Trial in a New Mexico Child Safety Case"
- Links for the day
- Russia and China Best Off Without GAFAM
- What if they abandoned GAFAM?
- Will Finns Put Out the Online Cigarettes?
- More people recognise that the child porn site formerly known as "Twitter" and Cheeto/Pooh-tin controlled TikTok are no longer trustworthy
- As the US Economy Sags Microsoft Layoffs Carry on (Now in Larger Waves Like 15,000 Per Season or 30,000+ Per Year)
- They try to avoid "negative" topics
- GNU/Linux at 3.99% in Australia
- now that Australians can no longer keep Vista 10
- Microsoft Windows Falling
- analytics.usa.gov Shows Rapid Erosion of Windows Market Share Since 'End of 10' (Vista 10)
- Microsoft Windows Hits All-Time Low in The Netherlands in 2026
- Europe needs to rid itself or wean itself off GAFAM
- SRA: SLAPPs From Russian War Criminals and American Men Who Strangle Women Are Acceptable
- The SRA, by inaction, is complicit in this
- The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Delusion - Part IV - Machos in Charge of the House (and System), Even If the Faces Are Female (Optics)
- basically a Windows/Microsoft (US) shop
- From Weber Shandwick (Microsoft PR) to Brett Wilson LLP (Hired Gun of the Serial Strangler of Microsoft)
- they basically tried to charge me a lot of money for a PR project of someone who strangled women
- The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is Not a Regulator, It's Part of the Litigation "Industry" in the UK (They Overlap Each Other)
- Does nothing except talk about SLAPPs
- Brett Wilson LLP Seems to Have Done for Roberto Foa What It Did a Year Earlier for the Serial Strangler from Microsoft
- Repeat abusers (of the legal system) will misuse it as long as regulators do nothing
- In Finland, Microsoft Falls Behind Yandex (Russia)
- Bing has had many layoffs in recent years
- Security More Advanced in Geminispace Than on the Web (Bloat)
- For real security, use Geminispace capsules, not Web sites
- Slop at Microsoft is a Miserable Failure, Now Microsoft Takes the "Vista Route" (Paying People to Say Good Things About It)
- This is brainwash, it's meant to delay the implosion of the bubble
- Rumours About February 2026 Microsoft Layoffs: Silent Layoffs or 30,000 Culled Tomorrow
- Sooner or later (and soon) Microsoft will need to say something and file some WARN notifications
- GNU/Linux at 12% in Guam, Based on statCounter (Compared to 2-3% a Year Ago)
- Guam's "uptick" in GNU/Linux usage started weeks after "end of 10"
- Where We Stand With the Winter Series
- We'll need to protect names and sources
- Fighting Slop With the Public Domain (and Why Slopfarms Perish Faster Than New Ones Appear)
- We can combat the nonsense by producing more human-made works until the slop bubble implodes
- After Employee Reviews at IBM Staff Expects Another Large Wave of PIPs and "RAs" (Layoffs)
- From what we can see in the "public Web"
- Gemini Links 10/02/2026: "The Last Messiah", Discord for Adults
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, February 09, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, February 09, 2026
- Is Europe Abandoning Digital Opium?
- GAFAM-controlled social control media
- Mobbing at the European Patent Office (EPO) - Part V - Strongest Strike Under António Campinos
- SUEPO Munich is also reminding people of the threat of PIPs
- Microslop is Slop, Slop is Considered "Quality"
- no wonder Microsoft's stuff breaks down so often
- thelayoff.com Deletes On-Topic Discussions (Layoffs) While Leaving in Tact Pro-Corporate Trolling Made by LLMs (Slop)
- Who at thelayoff.com deems spam made by LLMs (slop) to be on-topic and unworthy of zapping, whereas actually on-topic and authentic threads get routinely deleted?
- Gemini Links 09/02/2026: Great Salt Lake Ecological Observatory and Offpunk 3.0 "A Community is Born" Release
- Links for the day
- Links 09/02/2026: Mass Plagiarism and Pollution/FakeCoin Company Nvidia Contacted Anna’s Archives, Narges Mohammadi Gets Second Prison Sentence
- Links for the day
- GNU/Linux May Have Grown to 7% in Equatorial Guinea
- Has there been some kind of mass migration there or is this just noise in the data?
- Links 09/02/2026: Russia Intentionally Killing Civilians, Jimmy Lai Effectively Sentenced for Life for Publishing News
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Competitions, Addictions, and Popularity Contests Are Not Going to Help Perl, They'll Waste Everybody's Time and Give Microsoft More Control Over Its Competition
- Microsoft does not like Perl
- A Can of WORMS - Part IV - They Would Even Attack RMS for Criticising Autocrats (Saying This is "Politics")
- Conforming to society's perceived expectations isn't how effective activism can ever be done or was ever done in the recent past
- Gemini Links 09/02/2026: The Exploration Myth and Making JavaScript Fun
- Links for the day
- EPO Outrage and Maintaining the Pressure
- A vending machine does not fall over after a first push
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 08, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, February 08, 2026
- "Low Performer" and "Underperformer" as Harmful Misnomers That Damage a Company's Reputation
- Misnomers need to be avoided or called out