Mediaboss Marketing

General Keith Alexander, former director of the National Security Agency, was found to have invested in a technology company tied to AT&T and iPhone sales.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) During his time as director of the National Security Agency, General Keith Alexander made investments in a technology company closely tied to AT&T.

According to a story by the Daily Beast, Alexander bought and sold tens of thousands of dollars of stock in a New Jersey-based company called Synchronoss Technologies Inc., which helps synchronize personal information across multiple devices.

The company also provided AT&T T, -0.14% with technology that helped it lock iPhones onto their network when they were the sole distributor, which the report said would have helped Alexander profit.

While Alexander was running the NSA, the agency was pouring AT&T subscribers phone records into a database and had also installed surveillance equipment in some AT&T offices.

Alexanders financial forms show he bought shares in Synchronoss worth between $1,001 and $15,000 after Synchronoss shares plummeted by 43% after it announced materially lower growth expectations in May 2008. Alexanders financial forms show he made less than $201 in 2008, essentially breaking even on his investing portfolio. This means he potentially lost money on the Synchronoss trades.

The news comes after it was revealed Alexander traded shares in commodities firms, including the Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan and the Aluminum Company of China, during his time as NSA chief. However, an ethics officer at the agency said no conflicts of interests appear to exist.

Representatives for Alexanders consulting firm, Ironnet Cybersecurity Inc., could not be reached for comment but in October, the NSA released a statement on ethics saying that it aids employees in identifying conflicts of interest and agency ethics counselors perform an independent review and when conflicts are found, the agency finds a suitable remedy.

Read the original here:
Former NSA chief invested in company tied to AT&T

Brazil Builds Internet Cable to Portugal to Avoid NSA Surveillance!
http://www.undergroundworldnews.com Brazil is building a cable across the Atlantic to escape the reach of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The move is one of many ways the Brazilian...

By: DAHBOO77

Read more from the original source:
Brazil Builds Internet Cable to Portugal to Avoid NSA Surveillance! - Video

zdzislaw nsa facebook anon (e-8x) | low voices

By: Trelotrick IceNine

See the article here:
zdzislaw nsa facebook anon (e-8x) | low voices - Video

U.S. intelligence depends on Silicon Valley innovation for technologies that strengthen the Internet and staff to provide national cybersecurity, National Security Agency director Mike Rogers told Stanford University professors and students Monday.

While the federal government is never going to match Silicon Valley salaries, "we are going to give you the opportunity to do some neat stuff, things you probably aren't going to be able to do anywhere else," Rogers said.

Rogers, who also heads up U.S. Cyber Command, said he visits the region at least every six months to tap into local talent and stay attuned to the latest innovations.

During a question and answer session, Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, asked Rogers how he can explain disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that the agency secretly broke into communications on Yahoo and Google overseas.

Rogers said his agency does not violate U.S. privacy laws here or abroad working with partner intelligence agencies.

"I'm comfortable with what we do, with our partners," he said.

Mark Jaycox, an Electronic Frontier Foundation legislative analyst who watched the speech versus a webstream, said Rogers, who was sworn in in April, has not addressed most privacy concerns raised in recent years.

"Unfortunately, Admiral Rogers hasn't yet engaged on many of the NSA's more egregious activities like disrupting national standards for encryption or the NSA's hacking of American companies' internal databases."

See the original post:
NSA Director: US Needs Silicon Valley's Expertise

A federal appeals court will hear arguments Tuesday in a case challenging the NSA's vast phone data collection program the next act in the legal battle pitting the agency's antiterrorism efforts against the privacy rights of Americans.

Privacy advocates head into the arguments with a lower court victory in hand: A judge in Washington ruled in their favor in December, calling the technology to gather and analyze the phone records "almost Orwellian."

The lawsuit brought by conservative activist Larry Klayman is one of several filed after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the data collection program a leak that has opened the way for judges to scrutinize the agency's surveillance activities, and could propel the issue to the Supreme Court.

"Whatever one thinks of Snowden, we're only here because of him," said Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at American University.

The National Security Agency, which is headquartered at Fort Meade, says it mines "telephony metadata" the times of calls, numbers dialed and the duration of conversations in search of links between people making calls in the United States and suspected terrorists.

The government says the technique respects Americans' constitutional right to privacy because the records already have been handed over to phone companies, and they do not include the contents of the conversations.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have filed briefs in support of Klayman. Klayman said the NSA's "unconstitional acts affect all segments of society."

"This case is unique in that both conservatives and liberals alike have joined to represent the American people," Klayman said in a statement.

The NSA referred questions about the case to the Justice Department. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.

U.S. law enforcement, police and spies alike have raced to find ways to use information shed by criminals and terrorists as they move through the digital world.

Read the original here:
Appeals court to weigh NSA phone data program