Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Boundless Informant: the NSA's secret tool to track global surveillance data
TheGuardian | Glenn Greenwald | 06/09/13

The National Security Agency has developed a powerful tool for recording and analysing where its intelligence comes from, raising questions about its repeated assurances to Congress that it cannot keep track of all the surveillance it performs on American communications.

The Guardian has acquired top-secret documents about the NSA datamining tool, called Boundless Informant, that details and even maps by country the voluminous amount of information it collects from computer and telephone networks. ... Read more

Boundless Informant NSA data-mining tool -- four key slides
TheGuardian | author | 06/08/13

The top-secret Boundless Informant tool details and maps by country the voluminous amount of information it collects from computer and telephone networks
Read more

Prior NSA Whistleblower Warns Edward Snowden: Government Will Seek "Revenge and Retaliation"
MotherJones | David Corn | 06/09/13

Thomas Drake, a National Security Agency whistleblower who several years ago provided information to the press about fraud, waste, and privacy abuses at the super-secret spy agency and who was prosecuted for doing so, has a warning for Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old whistleblower who on Sunday outed himself as the source of the blockbuster leaks revealing two sweeping NSA surveillance programs.

Drake says Snowden can expect to be targeted by the full force of the United States government. And Drake should know. The Justice Department pursued Drake fiercely, charging him with violating the Espionage Act--as if he had been a spy for a foreign power. Drake maintained that he had only conveyed unclassified information to a reporter. The government's case eventually fell apart, and it dropped the most serious charges. ... Read more

"Digital Blackwater": Meet the Contractors Who Analyze Your Personal Data
AlterNet | Tim Shorrock | 06/10/13

Amid the torrent of stories about the shocking new revelations about the National Security Agency, few have bothered to ask a central question. Who's actually doing the work of analyzing all the data, meta-data and personal information pouring into the agency from Verizon and nine key Internet Service Providers for its ever-expanding surveillance of American citizens?
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Well, on Sunday we got part of the answer: Booz Allen Hamilton. In a stunning development in the NSA saga, Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald revealed that the source for his blockbuster stories on the NSA is Edward Snowden, "a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton." Snowden, it turns out, has been working at NSA for the last four years as a contract employee, including stints for Booz and the computer-services firm Dell. ... Read more

500,000 contractors can access NSA data hoards
Salon | Natasha Lennard | 06/11/13

As Tim Shorrock pointed out as long ago as 2007 (and reminded us in light of the NSA leaks) "about 70 percent of our national intelligence budgets being spent on the private sector." The AP reported Tuesday that nearly 500,000 contractors -- employees like whistleblower Edward Snowden -- have access to the government's top secret programs.

Of the 4.9 million people with clearance to access "confidential and secret" government information, 1.1 million, or 21 percent, work for outside contractors, according to a report from Clapper's office. Of the 1.4 million who have the higher "top secret" access, 483,000, or 34 percent, work for contractors. ... Read more

The Program
NYTimes | Laura Poitras | 08/22/12

It took me a few days to work up the nerve to phone William Binney. As someone already a "target" of the United States government, I found it difficult not to worry about the chain of unintended consequences I might unleash by calling Mr. Binney, a 32-year veteran of the National Security Agency turned whistle-blower. He picked up. I nervously explained I was a documentary filmmaker and wanted to speak to him. To my surprise he replied: "I'm tired of my government harassing me and violating the Constitution. Yes, I'll talk to you." ... Read more

Amid Data Controversy, NSA Builds Its Biggest Data Farm
NPR | Howard Berkes | 06/10/13

As privacy advocates and security experts debate the validity of the National Security Agency's massive data gathering operations, the agency is putting the finishing touches on its biggest data farm yet.   The gargantuan $1.2 billion complex at a National Guard base 26 miles south of Salt Lake City features 1.5 million square feet of top secret space. High-performance NSA computers alone will fill up 100,000 square feet.

... Last summer, during a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a reporter asked NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander, whether the Utah center "will hold the data of American citizens."   "No," Alexander responded. "While I can't go into all the details of the Utah Data Center, we don't hold data on U.S. citizens." ...

... The estimated power of those computing resources in Utah is so massive it requires use of a little-known unit of storage space: the zettabyte. Cisco quantifies a zettabyte as the amount of data that would fill 250 billion DVDs ... Read more

TRNN | Bill Black: Bank Profits Soar, Wages Suffer Sharpest Decline in 60 Years. (06/10/13) [10:28]