http://www.apartheidexists.com/why-is-the-u-s-government-giving-private-info-about-americans-to-israel/
This is just one more big story from the Guardian courtesy of NSA whistleblower Ed Snowden. Despite obfuscations and blatant lies from members of Congress, our President and high ranking administration officials - the American public has finally come to its senses to effectively call bull**bleep** on the steady stream of lies that have been fed to us for years and years. At this point – it is painfully clear that the NSA has broken the Constitutional protected right of privacy of millions of Americans; this is the most unambiguous truth that I can articulate. -
But now – we’re finding out that not only is the NSA continuing to violate American privacy by collecting nearly everything we say or do electronically …. now – we’re finding out that the NSA is giving the Israeli government access to that data with no limit to how much they can share. I want to be unequivocal about this; the NSA is spying on Americans in violation of American law and then distributing information that millions of Americans would otherwise consider private information to a foreign government. -
Nevermind for the moment that the CIA considers Israel our “#1 counterintelligence threat in the middle east” (source) and never mind that the Israeli government is responsible for horrible human rights abuses like ethnic cleansing, war crimes and using chemical weapons on Palestinians (source). We’ll just set that aside for the moment. I do not know anyone who would consider it appropriate to be spied on and then having the private information of law-abiding citizens shared with a foreign government. -
Israel has a long history of cracking down on political dissidents including foreign journalists and political activists (source). Or this time HERE and HERE. A couple of important points on this agreement:
#1 – No binding limits on what Israel can do with data they receive
#2 – No legally enforceable mechanism if American privacy rights are violated
As the Guardian explains HERE:
Details of the intelligence-sharing agreement are laid out in a memorandum of understanding between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart that shows the US government handed over intercepted communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of American citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis.
The disclosure that the NSA agreed to provide raw intelligence data to a foreign country contrasts with assurances from the Obama administrationthat there are rigorous safeguards to protect the privacy of US citizens caught in the dragnet. The intelligence community calls this process “minimization”, but the memorandum makes clear that the information shared with the Israelis would be in its pre-minimized state.
Remember – the NSA put Operation Stellar Wind into motion when it started building the world’s largest spying facility in Bluffdale, Utah. You can read more about Operation Stellar Wind and the whisteblower who shared this info with the world HERE. Once you understand how incredible the NSA’s capabilities are – you will understand that the reports that the American government is collecting info on “nearly everything a user does on the Internet”. That’s what Israel has access to and can do whatever they want with it without any punishment.
ProPublica explains just how much is being stored on you HERE:
Email, Facebook posts and instant messages for an unknown number of people, via PRISM, which involves the cooperation of at least nine different technology companies. Google, Facebook, Yahoo and others have denied that the NSA has “direct access” to their servers, saying they only release user information in response to a court order. Facebook has revealed that, in the last six months of 2012, they handed over the private data of between 18,000 and 19,000 users to law enforcement of all types — including local police and federal agencies, such as the FBI, Federal Marshals and the NSA.
Massive amounts of raw Internet traffic The NSA intercepts huge amounts of raw data, and stores billions of communication records per day in its databases. Using the NSA’s XKEYSCORE software, analysts can see “nearly everything a user does on the Internet” including emails, social media posts, web sites you visit, addresses typed into Google Maps, files sent, and more. Currently the NSA is only authorized to intercept Internet communications with at least one end outside the U.S., though the domestic collection program used to be broader. But because there is no fully reliable automatic way to separate domestic from international communications, this program also captures some amount of U.S. citizens’ purely domestic Internet activity, such as emails, social media posts, instant messages, the sites you visit and online purchases you make.
The contents of an unknown number of phone calls There have been severalreports that the NSA records the audio contents of some phone calls and a leaked document confirms this. This reportedly happens “on a much smaller scale” than the programs above, after analysts select specific people as “targets.” Calls to or from U.S. phone numbers can be recorded, as long as the other end is outside the U.S. or one of the callers is involved in “international terrorism“. There does not seem to be any public information about the collection of text messages, which would be much more practical to collect in bulk because of their smaller size.