Good News: Court allows NSA and Google to keep their ties secret

Court allows NSA and Google to keep their ties secret ( http://rt.com/usa/news/court-nsa-google-agency-053/ ) A federal appeals court has refused to force the US National Security Agency to explain any involvement it has had with Web giant Google, citing that a revelation could threaten the entire United States government. Friday?s decision out of US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reinforced a lower court?s earlier ruling that the NSA does not have to submit to Freedom of Information Act requests for materials involving any relationship that the federal agency has with the Google search engine and its related entities, such as Gmail. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, took the matters to the appeals court after their February 2010 FOIA requests were ignored by the federal agency. Last July, EPIC brought the NSA to US District Court to demand for evidence, to which Judge Richard Leon opted to side with the government?s security team. On their part, EPIC had insisted that the NSA?s refusal to acknowledge if any ties even existed between the agency and Google was insufficient, and that the NSA should be forced to at least acknowledge any relationship between the two before fighting off the FOIA requests. In legal fields, the NSA?s claim that they could not confirm nor deny any existence of ties is called a Glomar response. EPIC argued that that would not suffice as far as even remotely fulfilling their requests. *?The Glomar response is appropriate where ?to confirm or deny the existence of records ? would cause harm cognizable under a FOIA exception,?* EPIC argued earlier this year. On the contrary, however, EPIC claims, *?The NSA has failed to meet this standard and has failed to perform the segregability analysis required by statute to determine whether non-exempt records may be released.?* *?Without first conducting the search, not even the agency can know whether there is a factual basis for its legal position. The decision of the District Court should be reversed and the case remanded with an order requiring the agency to conduct the search for responsive records,?* EPIC?s attorney said in a statement earlier this year. Now this week in Washington, an appeals judge has upheld the last courtroom ruling and the NSA will continue to be spared from responding to any FOIA requests. Explaining the 3-0 ruling, Judge Janice Rogers Brown writes that even acknowledging that a relationship exists between the government and Google *?might reveal whether the NSA investigated the threat,?* or ?*deemed the threat a concern to the security of the U.S. government.?* EPIC originally became interested in any connection between the two after the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists were hacked in January 2010. At the time, Google responded and it was later reported in both the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post that Google contacted the NSA. In this week?s decision, the justices quote a past Post article in which NSA Director Mike McConnell said a collaboration between his agency and private companies like Google was *?inevitable.?* Even still, the NSA will not go on the record to say what role, if any, they have had with Google. The appeals court agrees, however, that saying anything about *any *involvement would be bad for the US. *?[A]ny information pertaining to the relationship between Google and NSA would reveal protected information about NSA?s implementation of its Information Assurance mission,?* explains the appeals ruling*. ?The existence of a relationship or communications between the NSA and any private company certainly constitutes an ?activity? of the agency subject to protection under Section 6. Whether the relationship ? or any communications pertaining to the relationship ? were initiated by Google or NSA is irrelevant to our analysis. Even if EPIC is correct that NSA possesses records revealing information only about Google, those records, if maintained by the agency, are evidence of some type of interaction between the two entities, and thus still constitute an NSA ?activity? undertaken as part of its Information Assurance mission, a primary ?function? of the NSA.?* * * It's all good people.  If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about, right? J - Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. - Henry Kissinger Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy

You sound like someone with something to hide.  Do you have something to hide? This whole song and dance is asinine and a waste of time.  By defending themselves for maybe or maybe not doing anything, the NSA might as well be standing in a public forum with a bullhorn screaming "Don't look at us.  We may or may not be doing anything.  Who knows? *wink* *nudge* There is nothing to see here.  Stop paying attention to us." I am sure anyone they are spying on will totally let their guard down now. I wonder what would happen if a court ruled in favor of EPIC.  I bet there would be a sudden discovery that important papers were accidentally shredded around the same time that various file and email servers all crashed at once.  Then Bob in records down in the basement gets shafted when the backups go missing as well.  Damn that Bob. Or, they could just man up and say "No.  You can't have anything.  What are you going to do about it?" After a bunch of people pretend constructive things happen, the ultimate answer will be "Nothing." The NSA could save a lot of time and money if they would just tell everyone to piss off from the beginning. On 5/11/2012 9:45 PM, Jerry Barnes wrote: > It's all good people.  If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing > to worry about, right? > > J

"You sound like someone with something to hide.  Do you have something to hide?" If I did, I sure wouldn't use it with anything related to google. "I am sure anyone they are spying on will totally let their guard down now." Or stop using google. "The NSA could save a lot of time and money if they would just tell everyone to piss off from the beginning." In my opinion, that has been the NSA attitude since its inception.  What is more interesting is the google relationship with them.  Is google just giving them information without warrants?  Are they giving it proactively without request?  Are they receiving favors in return? J - Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. - Henry Kissinger Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel. - John Quinton

The NSA is probably the most abusive of our various intelligence agencies. It is primarily an army of the military and isn't supposed to operate domestically, but it was central to the wireless wiretapping program, and it's leaders like to lie to congress, what makes anyone think they won't lie to a judge? http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/nsa-denies-wired/ ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

CISPA. Utah datacenter. Nuff said. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Word. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

"... , what makes anyone think they won't lie to a judge?" Or just intimidate, blackmail, bribe, or set up (child porn seems to be the easiest way to take someone down). I'm sure all of the footage of incidental drone flights over the US will be given to the NSA to "destroy". J - Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. - Henry Kissinger Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel. - John Quinton

NSA was the ones behind Iran-Contra in the 80's and has been used as America's secret branch of the Armed forces ever since.  Read Rachel Maddow's Drift...she has some pretty interesting info on the NSA... secret The NSA is probably the most abusive of our various intelligence agencies. It is primarily an army of the military and isn't supposed to operate domestically, but it was central to the wireless wiretapping program, and it's leaders like to lie to congress, what makes anyone think they won't lie to a judge? http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/nsa-denies-wired/ ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Talk about more fascist... Court allows NSA and Google to keep their ties secret ( http://rt.com/usa/news/court-nsa-google-agency-053/ ) A federal appeals court has refused to force the US National Security Agency to explain any involvement it has had with Web giant Google, citing that a revelation could threaten the entire United States government. Friday's decision out of US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reinforced a lower court's earlier ruling that the NSA does not have to submit to Freedom of Information Act requests for materials involving any relationship that the federal agency has with the Google search engine and its related entities, such as Gmail. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, took the matters to the appeals court after their February 2010 FOIA requests were ignored by the federal agency. Last July, EPIC brought the NSA to US District Court to demand for evidence, to which Judge Richard Leon opted to side with the government's security team. On their part, EPIC had insisted that the NSA's refusal to acknowledge if any ties even existed between the agency and Google was insufficient, and that the NSA should be forced to at least acknowledge any relationship between the two before fighting off the FOIA requests. In legal fields, the NSA's claim that they could not confirm nor deny any existence of ties is called a Glomar response. EPIC argued that that would not suffice as far as even remotely fulfilling their requests. *"The Glomar response is appropriate where 'to confirm or deny the existence of records . would cause harm cognizable under a FOIA exception,"* EPIC argued earlier this year. On the contrary, however, EPIC claims, *"The NSA has failed to meet this standard and has failed to perform the segregability analysis required by statute to determine whether non-exempt records may be released."* *"Without first conducting the search, not even the agency can know whether there is a factual basis for its legal position. The decision of the District Court should be reversed and the case remanded with an order requiring the agency to conduct the search for responsive records,"* EPIC's attorney said in a statement earlier this year. Now this week in Washington, an appeals judge has upheld the last courtroom ruling and the NSA will continue to be spared from responding to any FOIA requests. Explaining the 3-0 ruling, Judge Janice Rogers Brown writes that even acknowledging that a relationship exists between the government and Google *"might reveal whether the NSA investigated the threat,"* or "*deemed the threat a concern to the security of the U.S. government."* EPIC originally became interested in any connection between the two after the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists were hacked in January 2010. At the time, Google responded and it was later reported in both the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post that Google contacted the NSA. In this week's decision, the justices quote a past Post article in which NSA Director Mike McConnell said a collaboration between his agency and private companies like Google was *"inevitable."* Even still, the NSA will not go on the record to say what role, if any, they have had with Google. The appeals court agrees, however, that saying anything about *any *involvement would be bad for the US. *"[A]ny information pertaining to the relationship between Google and NSA would reveal protected information about NSA's implementation of its Information Assurance mission,"* explains the appeals ruling*. "The existence of a relationship or communications between the NSA and any private company certainly constitutes an 'activity' of the agency subject to protection under Section 6. Whether the relationship - or any communications pertaining to the relationship - were initiated by Google or NSA is irrelevant to our analysis. Even if EPIC is correct that NSA possesses records revealing information only about Google, those records, if maintained by the agency, are evidence of some type of interaction between the two entities, and thus still constitute an NSA 'activity' undertaken as part of its Information Assurance mission, a primary 'function' of the NSA."* * * It's all good people.  If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about, right? J - Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. - Henry Kissinger Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy

well gee. You have to applaud the security of the secrecy, hmm? Seriously though... this does look like bad mojo On Sat, May 12, 2012 at 8:40 AM, Eric Roberts < owner@threeravensconsulting.com> wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

> It's all good people.  If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing > to worry about, right? I say we start a stopwatch, buy a domain with a pre-paid credit card, setup google hosted, a few email addresses like Mr Black, Mr White... A couple group addresses like New York, Chicago, LA? Start sharing docs on public transit and blueprints. Add in a few Ace hardware locations and shopping lists, place some cryptic calls over google chat while connecting though http://hidemyass.com/. How long do you think it would take for the NSA to raid your house?

Throw in some TOR IRC chats just to prove it's not secure. This is a great idea. On Sat, May 12, 2012 at 1:04 PM, Casey Dougall - Uber Website Solutions < casey@uberwebsitesolutions.com> wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

I'm pretty sure that's been proven. If you're really interested I can probably find you a reference on that. It would be on the DEFCON site if you want to look yourself. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

by the way: http://www.johnpilger.com/articles/you-are-all-suspects-now-what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it that's the view from Australia. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Looking. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

lotsa good stuff there, communication networks in Arab Spring situations and the like ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

by the way, to clarify, as I understand it the problem is not so much tor itself as the endpoints. I found this with the quick google that I had time for: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/bittorrent-over-tor-isnt-good-idea but I think it goes beyond bittorrent. I am fairly certain that appelbaum said something at defcon about endpoints in general. I heard this in the press room, but it was probably the gist of his presentation that year (umm 2010?) if he was in the press room talking about it. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Yeah I read something similar on an anonops wiki. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

yeah that would be something they'd think about all right. They only question in my mind is "proven" vs "generally assumed". ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

well, this is 17, which I did not attend, but looks pretty relevant: http://www.securitytube.net/video/3425 ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

> well, this is 17, which I did not attend, but looks pretty relevant: > > http://www.securitytube.net/video/3425 > Good thing I'm going camping tonight as I'd loose some sleep over this if I was surfing the night away... Reminder for Monday, look beyond the jquery's of javascript? Dam I hate looking at javascript, it's so fugly!