Trump needs to release what evidence he had to back up his wiretapping claim...

[calfoxwc]

Telephones

Main articles: Phone surveillance and Lawful interception

The official and unofficial tapping of telephone lines is widespread. In the United States for instance, the Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) requires that all telephone and VoIP communications be available for real-time wiretapping by Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.^[10][11][12] Two major telecommunications companies in the U.S.—AT&T Inc. and Verizon—have contracts with the FBI, requiring them to keep their phone call records easily searchable and accessible for Federal agencies, in return for $1.8 million per year.^[22] Between 2003 and 2005, the FBI sent out more than 140,000 "National Security Letters" ordering phone companies to hand over information about their customers' calling and Internet histories. About half of these letters requested information on U.S. citizens.^[23]

Human agents are not required to monitor most calls. Speech-to-text software creates machine-readable text from intercepted audio, which is then processed by automated call-analysis programs, such as those developed by agencies such as the Information Awareness Office, or companies such as Verint, and Narus, which search for certain words or phrases, to decide whether to dedicate a human agent to the call.^[24]

Law enforcement and intelligence services in the United Kingdom and the United States possess technology to activate the microphones in cell phones remotely, by accessing phones' diagnostic or maintenance features in order to listen to conversations that take place near the person who holds the phone.^{[25][26][27][28][29][30]}

The StingRay tracker is an example of one of these tools used to monitor cell phone usage in the United States and the United Kingdom. Originally developed for counterterrorism purposes by the military, they work by broadcasting powerful signals that cause nearby cell phones to transmit their IMSI number, just as they would to normal cell phone towers. Once the phone is connected to the device, there is no way for the user to know that they are being tracked. The operator of the stingray is able to extract information such as location, phone calls, and text messages, but it is widely believed that the capabilities of the StingRay extend much further. A lot of controversy surrounds the StingRay because of its powerful capabilities and the secrecy that surrounds it.^[31]

Mobile phones are also commonly used to collect location data. The geographical location of a mobile phone (and thus the person carrying it) can be determined easily even when the phone is not being used, using a technique known as multilateration to calculate the differences in time for a signal to travel from the cell phone to each of several cell towers near the owner of the phone.^[32][33] The legality of such techniques has been questioned in the United States, in particular whether a court warrant is required.^[34] Records for one carrier alone (Sprint), showed that in a given year federal law enforcement agencies requested customer location data 8 million times.^[35]

In response to customers’ privacy concerns in the post Edward Snowden era, Apple’s iPhone 6 has been designed to disrupt investigative wiretapping efforts. The phone encrypts e-mails, contacts, and photos with a code generated by a complex mathematical algorithm that is unique to an individual phone, and is inaccessible to Apple.^[36] The encryption feature on the iPhone 6 has drawn criticism from FBI director James B. Comey and other law enforcement officials since even lawful requests to access user content on the iPhone 6 will result in Apple supplying "gibberish" data that requires law enforcement personnel to either break the code themselves or to get the code from the phone’s owner.^[36] Because the Snowden leaks demonstrated that American agencies can access phones anywhere in the world, privacy concerns in countries with growing markets for smart phones have intensified, providing a strong incentive for companies like Apple to address those concerns in order to secure their position in the global market.^[36]

Although the CALEA requires telecommunication companies to build into their systems the ability to carry out a lawful wiretap, the law has not been updated to address the issue of smart phones and requests for access to e-mails and metadata.^[37] The Snowden leaks show that the NSA has been taking advantage of this ambiguity in the law by collecting metadata on "at least hundreds of millions" of "incidental" targets from around the world.^[37] The NSA uses an analytic tool known as CO-TRAVELLER in order to track people whose movements intersect and to find any hidden connections with persons of interest.^[37]

The Snowden leaks have also revealed that the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) can access information collected by the NSA on American citizens. Once the data has been collected, the GCHQ can hold on to it for up to two years. The deadline can be extended with the permission of a "senior UK official".^[38]

[calfoxwc]

Computer

Official seal of the Information Awareness Office -- a U.S. agency which developed technologies for mass surveillance

Main article: Computer surveillance

The vast majority of computer surveillance involves the monitoring of data and traffic on the Internet.^[9] In the United States for example, under the Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act, all phone calls and broadband Internet traffic (emails, web traffic, instant messaging, etc.) are required to be available for unimpeded real-time monitoring by Federal law enforcement agencies.^[10][11][12]

There is far too much data on the Internet for human investigators to manually search through all of it. So automated Internet surveillance computers sift through the vast amount of intercepted Internet traffic and identify and report to human investigators traffic considered interesting by using certain "trigger" words or phrases, visiting certain types of web sites, or communicating via email or chat with suspicious individuals or groups.^[13] Billions of dollars per year are spent, by agencies such as the NSA, the FBI and the now-defunct Information Awareness Office to develop, purchase, implement, and operate systems such as Carnivore, NarusInsight, and ECHELON to intercept and analyze all of this data, and extract only the information which is useful to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.^[14]

Computers can be a surveillance target because of the personal data stored on them. If someone is able to install software, such as the FBI's Magic Lantern and CIPAV, on a computer system, they can easily gain unauthorized access to this data. Such software could be installed physically or remotely.^[15] Another form of computer surveillance, known as van Eck phreaking, involves reading electromagnetic emanations from computing devices in order to extract data from them at distances of hundreds of meters.^[16][17] The NSA runs a database known as "Pinwale", which stores and indexes large numbers of emails of both American citizens and foreigners.^[18][19] Additionally, the NSA runs a program known as PRISM, which is a data mining system that gives the United States government direct access to information from technology companies. Through accessing this information, the government is able to obtain search history, emails, stored information, live chats, file transfers, and more. This program generated huge controversies in regards to surveillance and privacy, especially from U.S. citizens.^[20][21]

[calfoxwc]

Social network analysis
A graph of the relationships between users on the social networking site Facebook. Social network analysis enables governments to gather detailed information about peoples' friends, family, and other contacts. Since much of this information is voluntarily made public by the users themselves, it is often consider to be a form of open-source intelligence

One common form of surveillance is to create maps of social networks based on data from social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter as well as from traffic analysis information from phone call records such as those in the NSA call database,[55] and others. These social network "maps" are then data mined to extract useful information such as personal interests, friendships & affiliations, wants, beliefs, thoughts, and activities.[56][57][58]

Many U.S. government agencies such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are investing heavily in research involving social network analysis.[59][60] The intelligence community believes that the biggest threat to U.S. power comes from decentralized, leaderless, geographically dispersed groups of terrorists, subversives, extremists, and dissidents. These types of threats are most easily countered by finding important nodes in the network, and removing them. To do this requires a detailed map of the network.[61][62][63]

Jason Ethier of Northeastern University, in his study of modern social network analysis, said the following of the Scalable Social Network Analysis Program developed by the Information Awareness Office:

The purpose of the SSNA algorithms program is to extend techniques of social network analysis to assist with distinguishing potential terrorist cells from legitimate groups of people.... In order to be successful SSNA will require information on the social interactions of the majority of people around the globe. Since the Defense Department cannot easily distinguish between peaceful citizens and terrorists, it will be necessary for them to gather data on innocent civilians as well as on potential terrorists.
— Jason Ethier[61]

AT&T developed a programming language called "Hancock", which is able to sift through enormous databases of phone call and Internet traffic records, such as the NSA call database, and extract "communities of interest"—groups of people who call each other regularly, or groups that regularly visit certain sites on the Internet. AT&T originally built the system to develop "marketing leads",[64] but the FBI has regularly requested such information from phone companies such as AT&T without a warrant,[64] and after using the data stores all information received in its own databases, regardless of whether or not the information was ever useful in an investigation.[65]

Some people believe that the use of social networking sites is a form of "participatory surveillance", where users of these sites are essentially performing surveillance on themselves, putting detailed personal information on public websites where it can be viewed by corporations and governments.[56] In 2008, about 20% of employers reported using social networking sites to collect personal data on prospective or current employees.[66]
Biometric
Fingerprints being scanned as part of the US-VISIT program
Main article: Biometrics

Biometric surveillance is a technology that measures and analyzes human physical and/or behavioral characteristics for authentication, identification, or screening purposes.[67] Examples of physical characteristics include fingerprints, DNA, and facial patterns. Examples of mostly behavioral characteristics include gait (a person's manner of walking) or voice.

Facial recognition is the use of the unique configuration of a person's facial features to accurately identify them, usually from surveillance video. Both the Department of Homeland Security and DARPA are heavily funding research into facial recognition systems.[68] The Information Processing Technology Office, ran a program known as Human Identification at a Distance which developed technologies that are capable of identifying a person at up to 500 ft by their facial features.

Another form of behavioral biometrics, based on affective computing, involves computers recognizing a person's emotional state based on an analysis of their facial expressions, how fast they are talking, the tone and pitch of their voice, their posture, and other behavioral traits. This might be used for instance to see if a person's behavior is suspect (looking around furtively, "tense" or "angry" facial expressions, waving arms, etc.).[69]

A more recent development is DNA profiling, which looks at some of the major markers in the body's DNA to produce a match. The FBI is spending $1 billion to build a new biometric database, which will store DNA, facial recognition data, iris/retina (eye) data, fingerprints, palm prints, and other biometric data of people living in the United States. The computers running the database are contained in an underground facility about the size of two American football fields.[70][71][72]

The Los Angeles Police Department is installing automated facial recognition and license plate recognition devices in its squad cars, and providing handheld face scanners, which officers will use to identify people while on patrol.[73][74][75]

Facial thermographs are in development, which allow machines to identify certain emotions in people such as fear or stress, by measuring the temperature generated by blood flow to different parts of their face.[76] Law enforcement officers believe that this has potential for them to identify when a suspect is nervous, which might indicate that they are hiding something, lying, or worried about something.[76]

[calfoxwc]

Opposition

An elaborate graffito in Columbus, Ohio, depicting state surveillance of telecommunications

With the advent of programs such as the Total Information Awareness program and ADVISE, technologies such as high speed surveillance computers and biometrics software, and laws such as the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, governments now possess an unprecedented ability to monitor the activities of their subjects.^[135] Many civil rights and privacy groups, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union, have expressed concern that by allowing continual increases in government surveillance of citizens we will end up in a mass surveillance society, with extremely limited, or non-existent political and/or personal freedoms. Fears such as this have led to numerous lawsuits such as Hepting v. AT&T.^[135][136]

Some critics state that the claim made by supporters should be modified to read: "As long as we do what we're told, we have nothing to fear.". For instance, a person who is part of a political group which opposes the policies of the national government, might not want the government to know their names and what they have been reading, so that the government cannot easily subvert their organization, arrest, or kill them. Other critics state that while a person might not have anything to hide right now, the government might later implement policies that they do wish to oppose, and that opposition might then be impossible due to mass surveillance enabling the government to identify and remove political threats. Further, other critics point to the fact that most people do have things to hide. For example, if a person is looking for a new job, they might not want their current employer to know this. Also if an employer wishes total privacy to watch over their own employee and secure their financial information it may become impossible, and they may not wish to hire those under surveillance. The most concern of detriment is securing the lives of those who live under total surveillance willingly, educating the public to those under peaceful watch while identifying terrorist and those who use the same surveillance systems and mechanisms in opposition to peace, against civilians, and to disclose lives removed from the laws of the land.

In addition, a significant risk of private data collection stems from the fact that this risk is too much unknown to be readily assessed today. Storage is cheap enough to have data stored forever, and the models using which it will be analyzed in a decade from now cannot reasonably be foreseen.^[137]

Totalitarianism

A traffic camera atop a high pole oversees a road in the Canadian city of Toronto.

Programs such as the Total Information Awareness program, and laws such as the Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act have led many groups to fear that society is moving towards a state of mass surveillance with severely limited personal, social, political freedoms, where dissenting individuals or groups will be strategically removed in COINTELPRO-like purges.^[135][136]

Kate Martin, of the Center For National Security Studies said of the use of military spy satellites being used to monitor the activities of U.S. citizens: "They are laying the bricks one at a time for a police state."^[111]

Some point to the blurring of lines between public and private places, and the privatization of places traditionally seen as public (such as shopping malls and industrial parks) as illustrating the increasing legality of collecting personal information.^[138] Traveling through many public places such as government offices is hardly optional for most people, yet consumers have little choice but to submit to companies' surveillance practices.^[139] Surveillance techniques are not created equal; among the many biometric identification technologies, for instance, face recognition requires the least cooperation. Unlike automatic fingerprint reading, which requires an individual to press a finger against a machine, this technique is subtle and requires little to no consent.^[139]

Psychological/social effects

See also: Hawthorne effect

Some critics, such as Michel Foucault, believe that in addition to its obvious function of identifying and capturing individuals who are committing undesirable acts, surveillance also functions to create in everyone a feeling of always being watched, so that they become self-policing. This allows the State to control the populace without having to resort to physical force, which is expensive and otherwise problematic.^[140]

The concept of panopticism is a means of indirect control over a large populous through the uncertainty of surveillance. Michel Foucault analyzed the architecture of the prison panopticon, and realized that its success was not just in its ability to monitor but also its ability to not monitor without anyone knowing.^[141] Critics such as Derrick Jensen and George Draffan, argue that panopticism in the United States began in World War I when the issuing of passports became important for the tracking of citizens and possibly enemies of the state. Such surveillance continues today through government agencies in the form of tracking internet usage and library usage.^[142]

Psychologists have shown that merely giving people the "illusion" of being observed can produce significant voluntary changes in a range of pro-social behaviors.^[143] For example, studies have shown that people donate more, litter less, and are more likely to come out to vote in local elections when they think that they are being watched.^[144]

Privacy

Numerous civil rights groups and privacy groups oppose surveillance as a violation of people's right to privacy. Such groups include: Electronic Privacy Information Center, Electronic Frontier Foundation, American Civil Liberties Union

There have been several lawsuits such as Hepting v. AT&T and EPIC v. Department of Justice by groups or individuals, opposing certain surveillance activities.

Legislative proceedings such as those that took place during the Church Committee, which investigated domestic intelligence programs such as COINTELPRO, have also weighed the pros and cons of surveillance.

Court Cases

People vs. Diaz (2011) was a court case in the realm of cell phone privacy, even though the decision was later overturned. In this case, Gregory Diaz was arrested during a sting operation for attempting to sell ecstasy. During his arrest, police searched Diaz’s phone and found more incriminating evidence including SMS text messages and photographs depicting illicit activities. During his trial, Diaz attempted to have the information from his cell phone removed from evidence, but the courts deemed it as lawful and Diaz’s appeal was denied on the California State Court level and, later, the Supreme Court level. Just three short years after, this decision was overturned in the case Riley vs. California (2014).^[145]

Riley vs. California (2014) was an extremely vital Supreme Court case in which a man was arrested for his involvement in a drive-by shooting. A few days after the shooting the police made an arrest of the suspect (Riley), and, during the arrest, the police searched him. However, this search was not only of Riley’s person, but also the police opened and searched his cell phone, finding pictures of other weapons, drugs, and of Riley showing gang signs. In court, the question arose whether searching the phone was lawful or if the search was protected by the 4th amendment of the constitution. The decision held that the search of Riley’s cell phone during the arrest was illegal, and that it was protected by the 4th Amendment.^[146]

[calfoxwc]

now, I would use "tap" or "wiretap" in a short tweet, instead of all the words in the last several posts. Wouldn't anybody?

Don't be a fool, jblul

[sadbrownsfan]

@calfoxwc said:

msispoke... there doesn't have to be evidence that it happened, when the

British and whoever in the American intel kept asking for FISA warrants...

and were finally given one.....

and surveillance would have been discontinued and any traces would be swept away.

Don't you watch any of the spy movies ? Come ON, Sad.

about those british spying on us

White House apologizes to British government over spying claims http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/17/politics/gchq-trump-wiretap-denial/index.html

[jbluhm86]

@calfoxwc said:

I would say the same thing. All of a sudden, liberals engage in worse nitpiddly bickering over

words than "it depends on what the meaning of 'IS' is"

Surveillance

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about observing people's actions and communications. For the article about monitoring the spread of diseases, see disease surveillance. For other uses, see Surveillance (disambiguation).

"Electronic surveillance" redirects here. For surveillance of electronic computer systems, see Computer surveillance.

A 'nest' of surveillance cameras

Surveillance (/sərˈveɪ.əns/ or /sərˈveɪləns/)[1] is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people for the purpose of influencing, managing, directing, or protecting them.[2] This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment (such as closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras),[3] or interception of electronically transmitted information (such as Internet traffic or phone calls); and it can include simple, no- or relatively low-technology methods such as human intelligence agents and postal interception. The word surveillance comes from a French phrase for "watching over" (sur means "from above" and veiller means "to watch"), and is in contrast to more recent developments such as sousveillance.[4][5][6]

Surveillance is used by governments for intelligence gathering, the prevention of crime, the protection of a process, person, group or object, or the investigation of crime. It is also used by criminal organizations to plan and commit crimes such as robbery and kidnapping, by businesses to gather intelligence, and by private investigators.

Surveillance is often a violation of privacy, and is opposed by various civil liberties groups and activists.[7][8] Liberal democracies have laws which restrict domestic government and private use of surveillance, usually limiting it to circumstances where public safety is at risk. Authoritarian government seldom have any domestic restrictions, and international espionage is common among all types of countries.

“Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016," - Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va, March 16, 2017.

[calfoxwc]

x-British spy Christopher Steele

arlier, it was reported that the FBI had been considering paying Mr Steele to continue his research once the election was over and the Democrats withdrew funding. In the end, Mr Steele was so worried by what he had found that he ended up working on the dossier for free, as The Independent reported in January.

******************************************

https://nationonenews.com/2017/03/08/cia-spyware-hack-hillary-frame-russia-blame-trump.html
********************************************

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/07/wikileaks-claims-mi5-cia-developed-spyware-turn-samsung-tvs/

Have a nice landing, jbloop

[calfoxwc]

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2013-11/enhanced/webdr03/21/12/anigif_enhanced-buzz-27154-1385053822-35.gif?output-format=mp4

[calfoxwc]

probably wasn't the British intel agency...

but WAS faked, to make it look like they did.

or, British ex-spy arranged it, while being paid by the dems

and Obamao's FBI........

to make it look like that.

Something IS going on.

[Clevfan4life]

Still no proof of wiretap?

[sadbrownsfan]

@calfoxwc said:

probably wasn't the British intel agency...

but WAS faked, to make it look like they did.

or, British ex-spy arranged it, while being paid by the dems

and Obamao's FBI........

to make it look like that.

Something IS going on.

If the evidence doesn't fit your false narrative, it goes into the waste basket.

[Westside Steve]

Of course no evidence is necessary for the Phantom claims of collusion with the Russians that the Democrats have filled the echo chamber with.

WSS

[Clevfan4life]

@westside-steve said:

Of course no evidence is necessary for the Phantom claims of collusion with the Russians that the Democrats have filled the echo chamber with.

WSS

no evidence is necessary, no one ever said it wasn't....they just want an investigation, reasonable enough as Republicans feel the same. So i expect the same from Trump. His statement was "definitive", not "i think obama tapped me" or theres evidence to possibly suggest it.....no he said "i just learned". Ok, give us what you learned. What's so fucking hard about this? If Obama was listening to ur employees at the microwave making hotpockets, tell us. Show me the evidence. And if there actually is something to this, Trump royally fucked up by shooting his mouth on twitter. He should have kept his twitter mouth shut while he had this investigated on the sly so that when he did come to the american people he actually had something to tell us. What have we been told since his tweet? Nothing except twatway and spicey parsing the word "wiretap".

[sadbrownsfan]

@westside-steve said:

Of course no evidence is necessary for the Phantom claims of collusion with the Russians that the Democrats have filled the echo chamber with.

WSS

When there is evidence of Russian involvement of the DNC hack, and there are claims of possible collusion plus key people who are or were a part of his campaign keep lying about meetings with Russians during the campaign, there is enough evidence to at least warrant a more in depth investigation(it doesn't mean collusion happened only that it warrants an investigation).

[Westside Steve]

@sadbrownsfan said:

When there is evidence of Russian involvement of the DNC hack, and there are claims of possible collusion plus key people who are or were a part of his campaign keep lying about meetings with Russians during the campaign, there is enough evidence to at least warrant a more in depth investigation(it doesn't mean collusion happened only that it warrants an investigation).

Well let's see who did it benefit? Oh yes the Democrats. Had who took more money from the Russians than the Hillary Clinton team? Nobody. So I would say there's as much or more chance at the DNC colluded in this affair. Right?

WSS

[sadbrownsfan]

@westside-steve said:

Well let's see who did it benefit? Oh yes the Democrats. Had who took more money from the Russians than the Hillary Clinton team? Nobody. So I would say there's as much or more chance at the DNC colluded in this affair. Right?

WSS

How did it benefit the Democrats, if anything it hurt them going into the election, I would guess out of everyone involved Rex Tillerson and his former company Exxon had the most to gain or lose. As it was estimated Exxon lost hundreds of billions when US sanctioned Russia over Ukraine

[BaconHound]

Breaking news, he lied. Fox News admits they had no fucking proof. But wait for the rationalization.

[calfoxwc]

stupid words. If he really believes they did/somebody did...then it isn't a lie.

If somebody did wiretap, and then swept their taps back out after the election....

it didn't happen to dems because the wiretaps were taken back out. How convenient.

We don't know. Sour grapes rot into fake news.

[jbluhm86]

@calfoxwc said:

stupid words. If he really believes they did/somebody did...then it isn't a lie.

If somebody did wiretap, and then swept their taps back out after the election....

it didn't happen to dems because the wiretaps were taken back out. How convenient.

We don't know. Sour grapes rot into fake news.

Just when I thought "gays can't get get married because science" couldn't be topped...