DEA spied and collected data on those who bought money-counting machines

 

 

By now, most of us probably are aware of the massive amounts of data collected on each and every one of us and is maintained out at the “Utah Data Center” aka NSA Spy Center. Add this gem to the collection pile. I for one want to know more about these “blanket administrative subpoenas” that are being used that I keep hearing about. Easy to pass this off as a “who cares.” Money counting machines you say?  But it is the arrogance of our government that should be chilling.The government is collecting anything and everything. How much more that we don’t know about?

The Drug Enforcement Administration maintained a database of people who purchased money-counting machines as part of a “legally questionable” effort to identify suspected drug dealers for further surveillance and enforcement efforts, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

….

Beginning in 2008, the DEA began issuing “blanket administrative subpoenas to vendors to learn who was buying money counters,” all of which had “no court oversight and were not pegged to any particular investigation.” They then assembled a database of “tens of thousands” of individuals who had purchased the devices, using the information as leads in investigations.

Before we get to the meat of this abuse, let’s take a refresher as to why we should care and why this must be stopped.

 

NSA Utah spy center revealed – 100 years of total data stored

March 21, 2013 — bunkerville

Filmed from Redwood Road, you can see the progress of the NSA’s Utah Data Center as it was being built also called the NSA Spy Center. There are quotes from various individuals who are knowledgeable or have worked for the NSA.

 

 

 

Back to the story:

The public version of the report, which noted that the program might not be legal, was heavily redacted as part of a DEA-inspector general joint process. But the Times wrote that due to a mistake, the inspector general failed to redact a section where it was mentioned that the DEA was not mentioning where their leads were coming from in case files:

…

Human Rights Watch researcher Sarah St. Vincent, who first flagged the redaction mistake, noted a 2008 email in which a DEA official wrote, “Unless a federal court tells us we can’t do this, I think we can continue this project.” Vincent told the Times that was curious, as the secrecy of the program precluded any judicial review. She also noted that it appeared to be an example of parallel construction, in which investigators attempt to conceal how a particular investigation began to avoid scrutiny in court.

…

According to the Times report, the DEA program was one of those shut down after Snowden leaked a massive archive of U.S. government secrets, including the existence of an NSA program to collect bulk metadata on Americans’ domestic phone calls; that program was later declared illegal by courts and replaced by Congress with a scaled-down program. (That successor program itself may be on the way out.) The controversy surrounding bulk records collection programs appears to have spooked the DEA.

Another DEA program “that used administrative subpoenas to collect bulk logs of outgoing international phone calls from the United States to countries linked to drug trafficking” was shut down in 2013, the same year as FBI agents raised their suspicions about the money-counter sales records program and it was discontinued, the Times wrote. According to the Washington Post, the inspector general report “came as close as it could to” declare the phone-data operation illegal.

The collection of the outbound international calls was “not connected to specific investigations or specific individuals under investigation” as would be necessary to justify it under law, Deputy Inspector General Bill Blier said in a statement. “This use of the subpoena authority conflicts with court decisions stating that a federal agency’s issuance of administrative subpoenas must be for records relevant or material to a specific investigation.”

More at  Gizmodo

Below, William Binney describes in detail how the whole system works.

NSA Utah Spy Center Holds Ribbon Cutting ceremony -Videos

May 30, 2013

The filmmaker Laura Poitras profiles William Binney, a 32-year veteran of the National Security Agency who helped design a top-secret program he says is broadly collecting Americans’ personal data. Chilling video  “The Program”

 

 

Bonus;

NSA collecting phone records of millions – sent to secret Utah Spy Center?

June 6, 2013 

Thanks to WhatFingerNews for the coverage

 

Anti-Israel NSA Susan Rice now running our country while Obama plays?

Whitehouse Dossier lets us know what our absentee leader was doing on Saturday while the “Terrorist” threat was going down. No real surprise, but the kernel of info that we should pay attention to was that it was Susan Rice who is now running the show. Yep, the same gal who with her pals Samantha Power and Hillary Clinton brought us all of the mess we now have in the Middle East. The same one with her infamous Sunday talking points.

First, what was our leader doing? The same thing as when Benghazi was going down. Letting others take the heat for whatever missteps occur. Here we go: “Obama Partying While Advisors Meet on Terror Threat.”

As his top national security advisors gathered for an urgent Saturday meeting to discuss the terrorist threat that has forced the United States to close embassies overseas, President Obama was at Camp David celebrating his birthday with friends.

Sixteen senior officials participated in the unusual gathering, according to the White House. Among them were National Security Advisor Susan Rice, who chaired the session, Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, and Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Lisa Monaco, and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

Obama was briefed after the session by Rice and Monaco, according to the White House.

Obama, whose birthday is today, was already celebrating at least a day early, playing golf in the morning with 11 longtime buddies and then traveling with them to Camp David, where the party continued. The president is scheduled to return to the White House today.

The White House didn’t say where the meeting took place, though such a session would presumably be held at the White House in the Situation Room. The White House labeled the gathering a “principals meeting,” which may be an attempt to excuse the president’s absence by suggesting that only the top officials of various agencies were meant to be present. But it’s unclear why Obama wouldn’t have wanted to directly participate in such a vital discussion.

Just a refresher:

from: Three women who brought us the new long war in Libya March 2011. and Anti-Semite Susan Rice to NSA, Samantha Power to UN

[]Susan Rice, U.N. Ambassador

This shameful United Nations ambassador,with her most recent anti-Israel tirade, gashed open an already-raw-wound in Obama administration U.S. Israeli relations.

“But then Rice opened her mouth, and as I write, is delivering a truly foul speech in which she flatly declares that “we reject in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity,” and declares that such activity is, essentially, the cause for “corroded hopes” in the Middle East. She condemned “the folly and legitimacy” of continued settlement activity”.

Rice, who now purports to be so concerned about the “human rights violations” committed by Muammar Gaddafi in putting down a revolution, is behind the horrific appointment of Iran to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.This despite such facts as Iran is a country whose prison guards rape female inmates before executing them because it is illegal under shariah law to kill a virgin.

Previously:

“And now she is a senior foreign policy adviser to Presidential candidate Barack Obama, as well as occupying the Anna Lindh Professorship of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy How appropriate: Anna Lindh, the late Swedish Foreign Minister, was a dedicated opponent of Israel.”

….In joining Ms. Rice and Ms. Power, Mrs. Clinton made an unusual break with Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, who, along with the national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, and the counterterrorism chief, John O. Brennan, had urged caution. Libya was not vital to American national security interests, the men argued, and Mr. Brennan worried that the Libyan rebels remained largely unknown to American officials, and could have ties to Al Qaeda.”

NSA Utah Spy Center Holds Ribbon Cutting ceremony -Videos

UPDATE:  Snowden: I could have wiretapped anyone’s e-mails, including the president’s personal account.

Is it insane to think that a 29-year-old NSA/Booz IT guy could be reading Barack Obama’s private e-mails if he wanted to?

And just what did the Senators and Congressmen think where all of this spying info was going to be stored? In a two Billion dollar storage facility in Utah. Never approved by congress. Is it just the bloggers who are recording events?Whistle blower Binney has been out there for years telling us exactly what Snowden told us.

Buried deep in an unrelated story over at the Salt Lake Tribune, we find this gem. Earlier post of mine:  NSA Utah Spy Center Revealed: 100 years of data stored on Americans.

Ribbon-cutting schedule

Invitations have been sent to a select group of Utah politicians and dignitaries inviting them to the Utah Data Center ribbon cutting on May 30. The invitation says the event is unclassified and reporters will be there, but an NSA spokeswoman this week declined to discuss the festivities or say whether the event means the facility will be starting operations. The NSA has previously said the Utah Data Center would be online this fall.

The EFF wants the information because of its current lawsuit against the NSA (i.e. Jewel vs. NSA) that alleges the U.S. government operates an illegal mass domestic surveillance program. Three NSA whistleblowers—including William Binney—agreed to provide evidence that the NSA has been running a domestic spying program since 2001.

 The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is suing the Justice Department for details of last month’s ruling by a secretive U.S. court that National Security Agency’s domestic spying program violated the U.S. Constitution, Jon Brodkin of arstechnica reports.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) found that “on at least one occasion” the NSA had violated the Fourth Amendment’s restriction against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Filmed from Redwood Road, you can see the progress of the NSA’s Utah Data Center also called the NSA Spy Center. There are some quotes from various individuals who are knowledgeable or have worked for the NSA. Apparently they are far enough to hold a ribbon cutting ceremony.

The filmmaker Laura Poitras profiles William Binney, a 32-year veteran of the National Security Agency who helped design a top-secret program he says is broadly collecting Americans’ personal data. Chilling video and story link here: “The Program”

NSA Gov Site with their spin.

Other Sources: NY Times NSA Domestic Spying Center tells the tale of the mass surveillance of Americans.

Other posts I have done that may be of interest:

Barack Obama’s Surveillance Society.

Obama fights injunction against unlawful detention of U.S. citizens

Obama” ‘Prolonged Detention”, otherwise known as FEMA Camps.

 Follow Bunkerville

NSA Utah spy center revealed – 100 years of total data stored

This concludes the last part of my three-part post. Written for those who would dismiss true patriots with derision. These posts are well documented with reliable sources. You owe it to anyone who still disbelieves the unthinkable. Acquaint your self with what is out there. This final post should be the coup de grace. Video at end of post.

I first started out with Obama: ‘Prolonged Detention’ otherwise known as FEMA Camps

Obama talks about the FEMA camps and explains their purposes in the video. “Prolonged Detention” is the term being used. This is not your father’s Gitmo. Before the speech, one not to be missed, let us look at the new position that just might be the perfect fit. Rachael Maddow of all people does a surperb job of dissecting his speech at the post. For those who still doubt about detention without trial, this is for you.

Yesterday I posted Barack Obama’s Surveillance Society. Check out the excellent videos. Included in the post is Obama fights injunction against unlawful detention of U.S. citizens

Obama mouthpiece suggested to Judge Forrest that concerns about the president’s detention powers were excessive as American citizens would,after all,have the ability to file a writ of habeas corpus should they be illegally or improperly jailed! “How long does [such a] petition take,” asked Forrest? When Torrance refused to answer,the Judge continued,“Several years,right”? (In Yesterday’s post, Obama seemed to think that ten years might be about right) -prolonged detention. Keep that phrase in mind.

So now, the final conclusion. Read it, and pass it on to anyone who still doubts what the future holds.

Filmed from Redwood Road, you can see the progress of the NSA’s Utah Data Center also called the NSA Spy Center. There are some quotes from various individuals who are knowledgeable or have worked for the NSA.

These are quotes and information about the Utah Data Center that has received serious scrutiny by many people. Let me know what you think.