The God's Eye View (34 page)

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/12/over_700_millio.html

US Postal Service logs all mail for law enforcement

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?_r=0

CHAPTER 14

Over 1.5 million people with top-secret clearances (more than the population of Norway)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/03/24/5-1-million-americans-have-security-clearances-thats-more-than-the-entire-population-of-norway/

CHAPTER 16

“New Hi-Tech Police Surveillance: The ‘StingRay’ Cell Phone Spying Device”

http://www.globalresearch.ca/new-hi-tech-police-surveillance-the-stingray-cell-phone-spying-device/5331165

CHAPTER 17

In case you’re wondering how the director can come up with spare grenade launchers to trade like playing cards

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-loses-sight-of-500-million-in-counterterrorism-aid-given-to-yemen/2015/03/17/f4ca25ce-cbf9-11e4-8a46-b1dc9be5a8ff_story.html

NSA’s AURORAGOLD cell phone eavesdropping and encryption subversion program

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/04/nsa-auroragold-hack-cellphones/

CHAPTER 18

NASA’s SHARAD technology

http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/technology/si_remote_instrumentation.html

And other existing and coming means of peering through brick and concrete

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1505138-00-wallsensorreport-508.html#document/p20/a198024

CHAPTER 20

Mobile IMSI-catcher cell phone trackers

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/meet-the-machines-that-steal-your-phones-data/

CHAPTER 22

Pakistani government forces cell phone users to turn over fingerprints or lose their service

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/pakistanis-face-a-deadline-surrender-fingerprints-or-give-up-cellphone/2015/02/23/de995a88-b932-11e4-bc30-a4e75503948a_story.html

“We don’t know if it was terrorism” means “We don’t know if it was Muslims,” and other aspects of the “terrorism expert” industry

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/1/13/glenn_greenwald_on_how_to_be

If you think Barbara Stirr’s exchange with the director was deferential to the point of parody, you probably haven’t seen Wolf Blitzer’s version, with FBI director James Comey

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/624612963064807428/photo/1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=204&v=7RyVXLKO0DM

CHAPTER 23

No one uses words like “homeland” accidentally

http://intercepts.defensenews.com/2013/08/auvsi-dont-say-drone-no-really-dont-say-drone/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barry-eisler/its-just-a-leak_b_635570.html

“US Military Drone Network in the Middle East and Africa”

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/us-military-drone-network-in-the-middle-east-and-africa/325/

US automatically counts all military-age males killed as terrorists

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?_r=0

ISIS claims US hostage killed in coalition air strike in Syria

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/06/us-hostage-isis-coalition-air-strike-killed-syria

On the CIA choosing its own pet reporters, by two great journalists for whom I’ve named characters in other books—Dan Froomkin and Scott Horton

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/09/democracy-people-dont-know-government/

Wolf Blitzer is a particularly compliant tool

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/23/nbc-news-releases-long-awaited-trailer-summer-horror-film-isis/

The
New York Times
helpfully publishes the government’s side of the story: Sure, American hostages were killed, but counterterrorism officials and analysts say the drone program overall is effective . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/world/asia/cia-qaeda-drone-strikes-warren-weinstein-giovanni-lo-porto-deaths.html

Establishment “journalists” detest whistleblowers

http://antiwar.com/blog/2015/03/24/whistleblowers-and-the-press-heavyweights/

The surveillance state never stops looking for excuses to increase its powers

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/world/europe/britains-domestic-intelligence-chief-calls-for-greater-authority-for-spies.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

“Former FBI Assistant Director: To Keep Budgets High, We Must ‘Keep Fear Alive
’
”

https://www.privacysos.org/node/1660

CHAPTER 24

The FBI’s tendency to create, then take credit for dismantling, terror plots that could never have existed without the FBI’s assistance

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/16/latest-fbi-boast-disrupting-terror-u-s-plot-deserves-scrutiny-skepticism/

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/29/feds_make_fed_up_friends_how_the_fbi_encourages_people_to_act_their_worst/

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/26/fbi-manufacture-plots-terrorism-isis-grave-threats/

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrorist/

TED talk by Trevor Aaronson on how the FBI’s tactics create domestic terrorists

http://www.ted.com/talks/trevor_aaronson_how_this_fbi_strategy_is_actually_creating_us_based_terrorists

To get what you want it’s good to “scare hell” out of the American people

http://www.whale.to/b/mullins6.html

New eavesdropping equipment sucks all the data off your cell phone

http://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/04/your-phone-just-got-sucked-255790.html

CHAPTER 25

“A Decade After 9/11, Police Departments Are Increasingly Militarized”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/12/police-militarization-9-11-september-11_n_955508.html

Domestic drones

https://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/domestic-drones

FBI behind mysterious surveillance aircraft over US cities

http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap.org:4b3f220e33b64123a3909c60845da045

More on domestic surveillance aircraft

https://medium.com/@MinneapoliSam/fleet-of-government-aircraft-flying-secret-missions-over-u-s-cities-84cbdf57dfbb

This ACLU domestic drone “nightmare scenario” from 2012 doesn’t sound so far-fetched now, does it?

https://www.aclu.org/blog/drones-nightmare-scenario?redirect=blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/drones-nightmare-scenario

Spy organizations routinely monitor email accounts of journalists, assessing investigative journalists as a threat comparable to terrorists and hackers

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/19/gchq-intercepted-emails-journalists-ny-times-bbc-guardian-le-monde-reuters-nbc-washington-post

More on the NSA spying on journalists

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-nsa-and-american-spies-targeted-spiegel-a-1042023.html

FBI’s instructions to police: “Do not advise this individual that they [
sic
] may be on a terrorist watchlist”

http://www.dailydot.com/politics/jeremy-hammond-terrorist-watchlist-fbi/

White House: “It is with tremendous sorrow that we recently concluded that a US Government counterterrorism operation in January killed two innocent hostages held by al-Qaeda”

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/04/23/statement-press-secretary

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/world/asia/2-qaeda-hostages-were-accidentally-killed-in-us-raid-white-house-says.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

One day after the news that US drones killed American hostages, the PR counteroffensive kicks into gear: “Counterterrorism officials and analysts say . . .”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/world/asia/cia-qaeda-drone-strikes-warren-weinstein-giovanni-lo-porto-deaths.html

CHAPTER 26

“5 NSA Whistleblowers Who Came Before Snowden”

http://capitalismisfreedom.com/top-nsa-whistleblowers-came-snowden/

More on what happened to every NSA whistleblower who tried to work through the system can be found in chapter 9 of James Risen’s excellent book,
Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War
(New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014)

http://www.amazon.com/Pay-Any-Price-Greed-Endless-ebook/dp/B00J76JPYK/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1427299672&sr=8-1&keywords=james+risen

More on Jesselyn Radack, whistleblower and lawyer to whistleblowers

http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/24/5818594/edward-snowdens-lawyer-jesselyn-radack-will-keep-your-secrets

And Diane Roark and Thomas Tamm, who also tried to go through the system

http://cryptome.org/2014/10/roark-risen.htm

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/united-states-of-secrets/the-frontline-interview-diane-roark/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/united-states-of-secrets/the-frontline-interview-thomas-tamm/

CHAPTER 27

Peyton Quinn’s Five Rules for Managing Impending Violence

http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/get_attacked.htm

CHAPTER 28

HUMINT, SIGINT . . . and now, LOVEINT

http://crookedtimber.org/2013/08/24/loveint/

CHAPTER 31

The National License Plate Reader (LPR) Initiative—the DEA’s massive license plate tracking system, open to other federal agencies

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2015/01/27/deas-massive-license-plate-tracking-program-spies-on-millions-of-americans-helps-agents-seize-property

Using license plate trackers to monitor gun shows . . . and what else?

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/29/us-plan-track-car-drivers-documents

License plate readers are being paired with facial recognition technology, just like Evie’s camera network

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/05/aclu-dea-documents-spy-program-millions-drivers-passengers

The NSA targets the privacy-conscious

http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/aktuell/nsa230_page-1.html

XKeyscore: NSA’s Google for the World’s Private Communications

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/01/nsas-google-worlds-private-communications/

How XKeyscore works

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/02/look-under-hood-xkeyscore/

How the FBI caught Petraeus: cross-referencing metadata, all without a warrant

http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/surveillance-and-security-lessons-petraeus-scandal

MIT researchers report they don’t need an individual’s name, address, or credit card number to identify people

http://www.zdnet.com/article/credit-card-metadata-study-easily-identifies-individuals/

Don’t worry; it’s just metadata!

http://www.wired.com/2013/06/phew-it-was-just-metadata-not-think-again/

The CIA intercepts whistleblower communications

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/07/25/234484/after-cia-gets-secret-whistleblower.html

How a surveillance system ostensibly targeted at terrorists in fact sucks in massive amounts of unrelated people and data: Canada’s download dragnet

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/28/canada-cse-levitation-mass-surveillance/

CHAPTER 32

How to leak securely using SecureDrop

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/28/how-to-leak-to-the-intercept/

CHAPTER 41

CIA director’s attempt to conceal emails by saving them as drafts, not sending

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/11/12/heres-the-e-mail-trick-petraeus-and-broadwell-used-to-communicate/

If you’re using encryption, the NSA is watching extra closely

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130620/15390323549/nsa-has-convinced-fisa-court-that-if-your-data-is-encrypted-you-might-be-terrorist-so-itll-hang-onto-your-data.shtml

Lawyer-client privileged communications are of particular interest

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/feb/18/uk-admits-unlawfully-monitoring-legally-privileged-communications

Governments monitor WikiLeaks website, collect IP addresses of visitors

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/18/snowden-docs-reveal-covert-surveillance-and-pressure-tactics-aimed-at-wikileaks-and-its-supporters/

Thinking about searching for privacy-enhancing tools? The NSA is watching for that

http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/aktuell/nsa230_page-1.html

UK Parliamentary Committee: “GCHQ’s bulk interception capability is used primarily to find patterns in, or characteristics of, online communications which indicate involvement in threats to national security”—aka God’s Eye

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/12/uk-parliament-finally-offers-evidence-mass-surveillance-stops-terror-attacks/

NSA spies on journalists

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-nsa-and-american-spies-targeted-spiegel-a-1042023.html

“Surveillance Forces Journalists to Think and Act Like Spies”

https://cpj.org/2015/04/attacks-on-the-press-surveillance-forces-journalists-to-think-act-like-spies.php

This is by design: “When journalists must compete with spies and surveillance, even if they win, society loses.”

http://inthesetimes.com/article/18035/a-spys-guide-to-protecting-whistleblowers

Another example of God’s Eye-type pattern recognition: the NSA’s SKYNET program

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/08/u-s-government-designated-prominent-al-jazeera-journalist-al-qaeda-member-put-watch-list/

Israel’s Unit 8200 uses compromising information gathered from captured emails to coerce key Palestinians. Unthinkable NSA does anything similar?

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/05/11/if-youre-not-outraged-about-the-nsa-surveillance-heres-why-you-should-be/