Terrorists prefer Gmail as their email provider of choice, according to the former director of the NSA and CIA.
From the Washington Post:
Former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden stood on the pulpit of a church across from the White House on Sunday and declared Gmail the preferred online service of terrorists. As part of an adult education forum at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Hayden gave a wide ranging speech on “the tension between security and liberty.”
During the speech, he specifically defended Section 702 of the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act (FISA), which provides the legal basis for the PRISM program. In doing so, Hayden claimed “Gmail is the preferred Internet service provider of terrorists worldwide,” presumably meaning online service rather than the actual provider of Internet service. He added: “I don’t think you’re going to see that in a Google commercial, but it’s free, it’s ubiquitous, so of course it is.”
The remarks come at a time when Google is struggling with public perception in the wake of revelations about its cooperation with the NSA after leaks by Edward Snowden.
Recently, Google joined other technology companies in pressuring the government to allow them to distinctly identify the number of national security related requests for user data separately from other law enforcement requests.
An appeals court also recently ruled that a lawsuit could proceed in challenging Google Street View’s interception of data on open Wi-Fi routers. Google has said the practice was not intentional.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Quite frankly, I have little reason to believe the former NSA and CIA director. For all I know, this could be a retaliatory PR Smear by the agency, for work that Google has done in preventing government intrusions.
This is, of course, speculation, but given the egregious trampling of our privacy rights given in the 4th amendment, I wouldn’t put it past the government.
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Hate ta tell ya, not one terrorist ever got caught in the Net.
We’ve just entered Orwell’s world. Where names like “patriot act” have no patriots in them. And, we’ve lost our freedoms because the government can cook up any case it wants.
Take Shellie Zimmerman’s “jail house chat.” We were told the calls were monitored. (While George was probably told his phone calls were private. He had no reason to suspect he was being watched and monitored 24 hours a day. Since he was found Not Guilty, it makes no sense that he was even jailed before trial. But that bogus “trick” was a blind judge saying he was a “flight risk.”
And, what if N.S.A. provided the “details” about the PayPal account? Nothing illegal about strangers donating money to people they feel are in need.
But one thing N.S.A. did was learn how to “reverse engineer” all the information they could “look up” in their mega files. So, they probably told the Florida cops … just say it comes from jail house phone records.
Believe what you want.
Dianne Feinstink is a prime example of Orwellian speech. Now she’s looking to “extend” protections to journalists. Only problem is she’s tampering with the First Amendment … to claim only certain people can be journalists. And, they have to spout propaganda.
You don’t have to be a fan of the right wing, to see what’s up.
More people will probably come together in recognizing just how corrupt ALL politicians are!
It’s going to take a long time to fix this mess.
While professors in academia know it’s in their best interests to shut up. Or their perches can be sawed off the tree “of knowledge.”
How can a decent person these days even claim they teach First Amendment classes? How did we go to hell in such a hand basket.
Snowden’s material keeps on giving. Today’s article, by Laura Poitras appears in Der Shpeigel, a german newspaper that in English.
Even more interesting Poitras chose to live in East Berlin, because she says the United States is no longer safe. And, the F.B.I. could come in and raid a place where she lived. They’d cart off her hard drives, to boot.
She says, however, that the East Berlin Germans have a visceral feel for liberty, having lived under the Soviet’s control. And, their Stasi.
Our freedoms are valuable. We shouldn’t give them up without a fight.
And, the F.B.I. could come in and raid a place where she lived. They’d cart off her hard drives, to boot.
What makes you think the FBI, or any other federal agency, wouldn’t go anywhere in the world to grab what they want? Hubris knows no bounds.
Wow! So you know that the terrorists don’t use the Internet? How did you arrive at this conclusion? What information do you have available that apparently nobody else has?
Are you disclosing classified information? How could you possibly know that “not one terrorist ever got caught in the Net?” That sounds like insider knowledge. Are you a whistleblower?
I saw an interesting Glenn Greenwald interview, right after his lover was released from British detention, and made his way home to Brazil.
First of all, Greenwald said ALL the material Miranda had on him was duplicated over and over; and lots of copies exist. Laura Poitras is no fool when it comes to securing her works in progress.
Greenwald also said Miranda was carrying well encrypted files.
You do know it took 3 hours, with his cell phone, for the Brit’s to be able to place a call to Greenwald. Which was designed to intimidate Greenwald, and make him fear he’d never see Miranda again.
The “Streisand Effect” is what followed. In other words the best laid plans, finding a viral outlet, can come out and bite the perps where it hurts.
FIVE EYES involves: New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the USA, and the Brits.
Will N.S.A. survive the scrutiny ahead.
The bullies are working their propaganda to fool you.
But like Abraham Lincoln said: You can’t fool all of the People all of the time.
It just seems we’re watching this tragedy, in slow motion, playing out.
If we’re lucky the good guys win. And, the politicians LOSE “big time.”
Former NSA and CIA Director says Gmail preferred by terrorists
..in other words, terrorists like to associate with people and organizations that are as despicable as they.
In a world where *everybody* seems to prefer Gmail, finding that terrorists and troglodites alike like it is far from newsworthy.
If you want to covertly communicate then use steganography where the (encrypted) message is hidden within a larger container. For example, the container could be an image file, or an audio file. In this way you won’t draw attention to yourself by sending obviously encrypted messages. If done right, it’s would be extremely difficult (but not impossible) to detect steganography. You could also carry hidden data on your laptop or thumb drive. People have lots of photos and audio files these days so there is nothing suspicious. In short with the proper technology we can make life difficult for NSA.
This is highly deceptive. I have run websites and from looking at the emails provided at sign up time, I can say categorically that gmail is preferred by EVERYONE.
Considering Google’s aiding and abetting the lunacy of a traitor calling himself ‘Barack Obama,’ why wouldn’t America-hating terrorists be attracted to Google?
If terrorists love Gmail, then NSA loves Gmail. That means they’re watching Gmail. They read not just all the emails, but all the attachments too. That’s the real mother lode of information. To keep your data out of NSA files, stop sending attachments. Instead, if keep your files in a CloudLocker (cloudlocker.it), you can just send links to the file, so there’s no copy on Gmail and no copy for NSA. And if you later break the link, there’s no way they can get to the file.
Terrorists also communicate not with normal e-mail but inside innocuous web pages with no apparent connection to their cause.