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
- GNU/Linux at 4% "Market Share" (Even According to Steam Survey)
- Another milestone
- Ahead of Mass Layoffs Microsoft Tries to Rebrand or Redefine XBox (Because the XBox is Tentatively Dead)
- 2026 will be the last year of XBox in all likelihood
- Richard Stallman (RMS) Announces His Georgia Talk 2.5 Weeks in Advance
- A lot earlier than usual
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- Gemini Links 06/01/2026: Collective Responsibility, Pico2DVI, and TV Detox
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Loves Freedom, Democracy... and Linux? No, Microsoft Laying Off Because "Microsoft Loves Linux" Was Failed Posturing, Its Former Staff Moves to GNU/Linux
- "What are the running totals for IBM and Microsoft layoffs?"
- Mozilla's Assisted Suicide, Assisted by GNOME
- Firefox is meant to get better all the time, but instead it gets worse
- Links 06/01/2026: Neglect of the Elderly, Abandonment of International Laws
- Links for the day
- Links 06/01/2026: More Reports Point to Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Later This Month), Greenland/Denmark Cautions the Dictator Who Illegally Invaded Venezuela
- Links for the day
- Internet Policy/Net Reality: You Must Never Ever Rely on Google (no "S.E.O." Either)
- Stack Overflow is dying
- Dr. Andy Farnell on Technology That Harms People (and Lack of Regulation Which is Needed to Address This Problem)
- Dr. Farnell's article is long but well worth reading
- GNU/Linux Rising to 5% in Cameroon and It's Hardly the Exception
- "AI" is just a smokescreen as losses pile up
- Rumours: Microsoft to Lay Off 12,500-25,000 Workers Soon (Tentatively Wednesday, 15 Days From Now)
- "Layoffs are coming third full week of Jan. Likely 21st but these things can move around a bit based on last minute developments."
- EPO People Power - Part XXVI - European Media Has Become Part of the Problem
- it is as clear as daylight that Cocainegate is real
- IBM 2026 "Organizational Change/s" Means Layoffs Resume Soon, Some Claim "Forever Layoffs."
- It's about "narrative control"
- Microsoft Layoffs in January 2026
- Get ready
- Google Still Boosting Slopfarms
- Slopfarms will probably all perish as soon as Google News quits sending them visitors
- Links 06/01/2026: Cryptocurrency Scam Emails and Greenland's Fear of Getting 'Venezuelad'
- Links for the day
- Links 06/01/2026: DIY Projects and Inertial Music
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, January 05, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, January 05, 2026
- To The Register MS, ARM Means Microsoft Windows (Follow the Money)
- the Free software community can campaign and run sites (like the one below), but it cannot afford to bribe so-called 'news' sites like Microsoft and its OEMs do
- IBM's CEO Makes No Sense
- "IBM CEO Aravind Krishna on what’s really driving tech layoffs"
- Links 05/01/2026: Tensions in Korea, Ukrainians See "Double Standard" in a US Russia-Style Invasion
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 05/01/2026: Farewell to CBS Reality, Being On-Call, Digital Ad Spendings
- Links for the day
- Remember That Nobel Prizes Are All Named After the Inventor of Explosives (Even a "Nobel Prize for Peace")
- These rewards are only as valuable as the reputation they earn for themselves
- Baidu and Yandex Have Overtaken Microsoft in Asia
- how about all the Bing layoffs?
- Googlebombing for Bill Epsteingate
- Maybe the slopfarms too can help him cover up
- Of Course GNU/Linux Has Reached All-Time High in Africa in 2026
- Africa will, on average, gravitate towards Free software or whatever costs less
- From GNU/Linux Boosting to Slop-Boosting Career
- It is sad to see someone who devoted many years of his life producing GNU/Linux stories stooping down to this "AI" boot-licking
- IBM Buys, Then Disposes/Sacks, the Staff (That It Paid For)
- Any money gained is spent buying some more companies to add/join up their revenue, even if the debt surges and there's little integration going on (misfits absorbed)
- Time for Microsoft to Rebrand to Fit the Vapourware (Ponzi Scheme)
- something between Meta and Alphabet
- Links 05/01/2026: Slop Ruining Children's Minds, "Complicity of the Press in US Violence"
- Links for the day
- Microsoft's Windows Falls Below 20% in the UK
- After a lot of years of advocacy and hard work
- The Real GNU Anniversary (Not Manifesto or Announcement) is Today
- the development, not the manifesto
- GNU/Linux Usage Said to Have Doubled in Oceania
- it's hard to discount or dismiss Oceania as a bunch of "coconut islands"
- There's No Such Thing as "AI Godfather", Stop Repeating This Pure Nonsense!
- Infantile or corruptible media that plays along with slop or uses slop will perish
- Gemini Links 05/01/2026: "Poverty and Hunger", "Entrepreneurial Family", "Abandoning Obsidian for Logseq"
- Links for the day
- Links 05/01/2026: A Shrinking Canadian Economy, Brigitte Bardot's Environmentalism Recalled, Unredacted Epstein Files
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Allegedly Uses Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) to Hide the Massive Scale of Company-Wide Layoffs
- Just like IBM; they meanwhile talk a bunch of nonsense about "AI" to distract from their commercial calamity
- Battles Are Won in the Court of Public Opinion
- Many "systems" rely on the mere perception or appearance of legitimacy
- No, Writing Isn't in Decline, Some of the Large and Centralised Platforms Are
- Slop isn't really competition, just a passing fad and pure noise
- GNU/Linux Share in Mongolia More Than Doubles
- they probably lack any genuine excitement for "hey hi PCs"
- Whistleblowing is About Understanding Boundaries and Risks
- The bottom line is, people typically find out the truth at the end
- EPO People Power - Part XXV - While EPO Managers Snort Cocaine the Staff Compiles 'Insurance Files' to Expose EPO Corruption
- In this increasingly authoritarian world we need more whistleblowers
- "The European Patent Reform" That Represents a Gross Violation of Laws, Constitutions, and Conventions (in Order to Make the Rich Even Richer, Mostly Outside Europe)
- How far and how long will EPO corruption go?
- The Reputation Issue Is Not Our Fault
- Trying to squash words (and people) merely diverts more attention to them
- GNU/Linux Distribution "Ultimate Edition" Fixes Its Web Site (Apparently Compromised Months Ago)
- they dealt with the issue before media shame and a catastrophe of trust
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, January 04, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, January 04, 2026
- Gemini Links 04/01/2026: 64-bit Addressing and 39th Chaos Communication Congress
- Links for the day
- Windows Was Always the Punchline
- What did we count to calculate taxes?
- GNU/Linux Surges to About 4% in Peru This Year
- one of the poorest counties in America
- This Year Our Adoption of IRC Turns 18
- We have used IRC for this site since 2008
- The Doors Are Closing, Windows Closing Too
- Microsoft wants more vendor lock-in, but at risk that this desire will simply alienate and drive away many users
- The FSF's Program Manager, Dr. Miriam Sabrina Bastian, Left in October to Lead Climate School
- We are not sure why Miriam Bastian decided to leave the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
- Outline of Slop, LLMs, IBM, and Things to Come
- This coming week and weekend will be very productive irrespective of how much "news" gets published by other sites
- Links 04/01/2026: War Without Borders, "Large Hadron Collider Being Shut Down"
- Links for the day
- Links 04/01/2026: US Imperialism in Greenland and Venezuela, "Climate Protesters Face Greater Risk of Crackdown Amid Rising Authoritarianism"
- Links for the day
- 2026 Should be the Year We All Stop Saying "AI" and Call Things What They Really Are
- Don't give anyone the satisfaction of this misguided belief there's any intelligence there
- Ponzi Schemes Are Useful (to Corrupt CEOs)
- Pathetic, corruptible so-called 'media' is bagging bribes to perpetuate the lies about "AI" (slop)
- GNU/Linux at All-Time High in Algeria
- In 2026 it hit a new all-time high
- Online Mobbing (and Worse) Disguised as 'Free Speech'
- People who say they believe in "free speech" have been trying hard to silence RMS and squash the FSF
- A 'Cancer That Attaches Itself' to Bulgaria?
- "Cancer" is what Microsoft called GNU/Linux
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, January 03, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, January 03, 2026
- Body-Shaming Using Fakes
- a lot of the people who casually claim "defamation" are themselves defaming loads of people every day
- GNU/Linux "Market Share" in Switzerland More Than Doubled Last Year, Based on statCounter
- GNU/Linux continues its considerable growth
- EPO People Power - Part XXIV - Today or Tomorrow You Should Write to National Representatives (Delegates) at the EPO in Your Country
- Keep up the pressure!
- Red Hat and IBM Layoffs, Staff Kept Quiet About it, WARN Act Skirted/WARN Notices Avoided
- What a terrible company to be in
- XBox Layoffs Imminent, More Appalling Sales Figures Published
- Expect many layoffs in the gaming division