Congress, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, International, Politics, Society

Who’s Your Buddy? NSA Gathering Hundreds of Millions of Contact Lists and “Buddy Lists” From Americans

President_Barack_Obama200px-national_security_agencysvgThe Obama Administration — with the clear support of Democratic and Republic leadership — has continued to eviscerate privacy in the United States despite recent controversies over NSA spying on Americans. The most recent report details how the National Security Agency is collecting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts, including those of Americans. The reported collection program is a new operation that intercepts e-mail address books and “buddy lists” from instant messaging services. It is the latest effort by the Obama Administration to turn this into a fishbowl society where citizens and their associations are entirely transparent to the government. Once again, the most amazing aspect of this story is the complete lack of response or outcry. President Obama has succeeded, it seems, in changing the expectations of privacy in our society — a change that is unlikely to be reversed to the great detriment of civil liberties in America. It is the latest example of why it is increasingly curious for Americans to refer to this country as “the land of the free” as we construct a massive internal security state and unchecked executive powers.


The report states that the NSA is gathering contact lists in large numbers that amount to a sizable fraction of the world’s e-mail and instant messaging accounts. In single day last year, the NSA’s Special Source Operations branch has reportedly collected 444,743 e-mail address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from unspecified other providers. This includes a daily collection of an estimated 500,000 buddy lists on live-chat services as well as from the “in-box” displays of Web-based e-mail accounts. That would translate to a staggering collection rate of more than 250 million per year.

These programs are creating a government databank system that allows the government to observe and track virtually every contract and association of a person’s life. It is the total awareness system that we thought we had killed under Bush. Of course, it is now Barack Obama creating this security state so Democrats are not just silent but supportive of the effort. He will of course leave office at some point and leave this security system as his legacy. He will be able to claim (if he was willing to admit it) that he left this country less free than he found it. And Democrats will have secured a place of unrivaled hypocrisy if they try to later oppose the same powers in a Republican president.

Source: Washington Post

106 thoughts on “Who’s Your Buddy? NSA Gathering Hundreds of Millions of Contact Lists and “Buddy Lists” From Americans”

  1. Randy,

    I’m sure glad you choose to trust a government run by people with no respect for the rule of law.

    That’s a choice.

    A poor one too based on the evidence of what happens when any government has power without oversight or accountability in, oh what do they call that, the entire history of civilization.

    George Santanyana said to tell you “Howdy!”

    Just because you think they don’t have such a list doesn’t mean that they don’t. Our own history before this radical expansion of powers belies that assertion that just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Doubt that? J. Edgar Hoover.

    As Lord Acton said, ” Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.”

    Like a President claiming the “divine” power of a king to have absolute power of life and death over citizens.

    I’d say you can’t seriously be that naive, but you’ve been singing that same old apologist song for some time now, Randy.

    I don’t care if it’s Charles Manson crossed with Reinhardt Heydrich, a citizen is due a trial and death by Imperial fiat is simply unacceptable and unquestionably unconstitutional by the plain language of the document.

  2. Blouise, Come on! Only the Chinese government engages in economic espionage. And, the checks in the mail…yada yada.

  3. The most scary part of this is Democratic acquiescence. Torture, murder, austerity, starvation, global climate disaster, wealth concentration, environmental destruction–it’s happening while people cheer Obama. Republicans are small in number and some of them aren’t on board with these policies. It has taken the cheering or silence of Democrats to achieve the acceptance of these horrors by large numbers of people.

    We need people to find their conscience, to resist injustice. We have people who are easy prey to propaganda. We have got to do much better as a people or we will lose (if we haven’t already) everything that makes a good life for the earth and its creatures.

  4. Relax – with Exlax. The candy with fluid drive.

    So many tinfoil hats. Some of you people see a conspiracy in everything your government does to make you feel safer.

  5. Blouise,

    “Who in the world does Obama think he’s kidding?!

    Randyjet for one, as it seems he has access to the kill list, and, “. . . the fact is that most of those on the wanted list are NOT shy at all about who they are . . .”

    1. gbk I am not the only one since the father of one of those has filed suit against the government because his son is on it. Try keeping up with the news!

  7. Aaron Swartz’s last gift to journalism and online privacy finds a new home

    By Andrea Peterson
    October 15 at 12:21 pm

    (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/15/aaron-swartzs-last-gift-to-journalism-and-online-privacy-finds-a-new-home/)

    The New Yorker was the first news organization to implement a version of the program, launching their StrongBox system in May. Since then, the application has gone through an extensive security audit led by a team at the University of Washington, which also included input from noted information security experts Bruce Schneier and Jacob Appelbaum.

    The Freedom of the Press Association has hired computer specialist James Dolan to help with technical support and installations. Dolan worked with the New Yorker on their installation of StrongBox and reviewed the security architecture before its initial launch.

    “A truly free press hinges on the ability of investigative journalists to build trust with their sources,” argued Trevor Timm, the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation said in a statement Tuesday. Timm also said that the anonymity made possible by the project is all the more important in light of recent NSA revelations and prosecutions against whistleblowers, which he believes “have shown the grave challenges to this relationship and the lengths governments will go to undermine it.”

  8. Aaron Swartz’s last gift to journalism and online privacy finds a new home

    By Andrea Peterson
    October 15 at 12:21 pm

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/15/aaron-swartzs-last-gift-to-journalism-and-online-privacy-finds-a-new-home/

    Before Aaron Swartz’s suicide in January, he had nearly completed work with Wired’s Kevin Poulsen on a secure system to accept messages and documents from anonymous sources over the Internet. The result of that effort was DeadDrop, an open- source python platform. The system assigns each source a unique code name so a relationship can be established without news organizations ever knowing the source’s identity.

    Poulsen managed the program for the first six months since going public six months ago. On Tuesday, the Freedom of the Press Foundation announced it will be taking over the project, renaming it SecureDrop and providing on-site installation for news organizations along with ongoing technical support.

    The New Yorker was the first news organization to implement a version of the program, launching their StrongBox system in May. Since then, the application has gone through an extensive security audit led by a team at the University of Washington, which also included input from noted information security experts Bruce Schneier and Jacob Appelbaum.

    The Freedom of the Press Association has hired computer specialist James Dolan to help with technical support and installations. Dolan worked with the New Yorker on their installation of StrongBox and reviewed the security architecture before its initial launch.

    “A truly free press hinges on the ability of investigative journalists to build trust with their sources,” argued Trevor Timm, the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation said in a statement Tuesday. Timm also said that the anonymity made possible by the project is all the more important in light of recent NSA revelations and prosecutions against whistleblowers, which he believes “have shown the grave challenges to this relationship and the lengths governments will go to undermine it.”

  9. From ap’s link at 10:43a:

    ‘While the Obama Administration denies it engages in “economic espionage,” it maintains that its spying activities are in the interests of American national security.’

    Oh, cooome on … the U. S. government denies engaging in “economic espionage” on the Brazilian state oil company Petrobras?! The U.S. government is run by corporations, of course it engages in economic espionage. Who in the world does Obama think he’s kidding?!

  10. Edward Snowden’s Brave Integrity

    Tuesday, 15 October 2013 12:34

    By Ray McGovern, Consortium News | Op-Ed

    http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/19443-edward-snowdens-brave-integrity

    Excerpt:

    The James Clappers and Keith Alexanders of this world simply CANNOT do what they see as their job of snooping on the lot of us on this planet without this incredibly talented and dedicated generation. They CANNOT; and so they are in deep kimchi. If only a small percentage of this young generation have the integrity and courage of an Ed Snowden, the prospect is dim that repressive measures in violation of citizens’ rights previously taken for granted can succeed for very long without full disclosure.

    That is the good news. And with each new Snowden-enabled disclosure of infringements on our liberties, it becomes more likely that an awakened public will create sustained pressure for restoration of our Constitutional rights, and for holding accountable those senior government officials who have crassly violated those rights, and continue to violate Ed Snowden’s rights simply because he made it possible for us to know the truth.

  11. “We are Americans first, last, and always. We treasure the U.S. Constitution and understand that a spirited debate is often a necessary precursor to acceptance.” -NSA

    http://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/ (“code-named Bumblehive”)

    “Work at the Utah Data Center

    Are you interested in a career in Domestic Surveillance? Check out our Utah Data Center jobs page for exciting employment opportunities.

    …

    What’s Being Said About the Utah Data Center on Twitter

    We are Americans first, last, and always. We treasure the U.S. Constitution and understand that a spirited debate is often a necessary precursor to acceptance.” (selected tweets follow)

  17. Amazon dot com is my buddy Ut oh, I just said I had a commie friend on the Amazon. I do know some Muslim Bros. They have American names of Robert and Tim. So be careful all of you Roberts and Tims out there, you are now Muslim Bros.
    [music]
    Obama is not responsible for what he’s doing, his mother made him what he is. Oh, its up against the wall Redneck mothers, Motherss who have raised a son so well, He’s 34 … etc
    –jerry Jeff Walker, Redneck Mothers, Good Ol Boys album

  20. Big Bother is watching, listening, plundering, lying, and sassy about privatizing it:

    So many theories, revisions, and counterrevisions have been proposed to explain the term feudalism that it has become like Potter Stewart’s definition of pornography: we may not know what it is, but we know it when we see it … Feudalism … was essentially the extreme privatization of the government functions of defense, administration, and justice. The mechanism for putting these functions into private hands and paying for them was the fief, usually an estate with dependent peasants to work it, granted to the holder, or vassal, by a lord, or seigneur, in return for military service.(American Feudalism, quoting from “Feudalism”, Reader’s Companion to Military History, Houghton Mifflin, 11/12/04, from the Wayback Machine). We get what we slay for.

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