RT NewsNo legal means exist to challenge mass surveillance, said NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, testifying to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
A former NSA contractor, Snowden was speaking to the PACE session in Strasbourg via a video link-up from Moscow.
Wanted in the US on treason charges, he sparked a huge international scandal last year he leaked to the media classified evidence of American government spying programs.
“I would like to clarify that I have no intention of harming the US government or straining bilateral ties between any nations. My motivation is to improve the government, not to bring it down,” Snowden said.
The NSA gathered “explicit sexual material regarding religious conservatives whose political views it disfavored and considered radical for the purpose of exposing it to damage their reputations and discredit them within their communities,” Snowden told PACE.
“This is an unprecedented form of political interference that I don’t believe can be seen elsewhere in western governments,” he went on. “But no legal means currently exist to challenge such activities or to see penalties for such abuses,” he said.
Mass surveillance is also used by the NSA, as well as by its partners and adversaries, for the purposes of economic espionage, Snowden said.
“The NSA had unlawfully compromised the world’s major transaction facilities to include SWIFT and Visa. And in their reports they explicitly noted that such information provided “rich personal information” including data that “is not about our targets,” Snowden told the parliamentarians gathered in Strasbourg.
Testifying to the PACE parliamentary hearing, Snowden was asked if the NSA, Britain’s GCHQ or other spy services engage in sophisticated analysis of the data captured by surveillance programs such as PRISM. According to the whistleblower, such analysis does take place. Spy agencies also use algorithms of the kind widely used in commercial data-mining to seek out further people of interest.
He explained, in particular, how NSA analyzes the so-called “digital fingerprints.”The “fingerprint” technology is used to construct a unique signature for any individual or group’s communications, which are often comprised of “selectors, such as e-mail addresses, phone numbers or user names,” Snowden said. This allows state security agencies “to instantly identify the movements and activities of you, your computers or other devices, your personal internet accounts or even key words of other uncommon strings that indicate an individual, or group, out of all the communications they intercept in the world are associated with that particular communication.”
And that is just a small part of the NSA’s fingerprinting capability, the whistleblower said, adding that any kind of internet traffic caught by mass surveillance technologies can be analyzed and searched with little effort.
The technique allows security agencies to identify a person with a certain social or religious group, or by business interactions. In fact, “there are very few practical limitations to the kind of analysis that can be technically formed in this manner.”
Snowden also spoke about the NSA surveillance tool called XKeyscore, which gives spy agency a technical ability to track entire populations of individuals through unencrypted communications.
“It is a trivial task, for example, to generate lists of home addresses for people matching the targeted criteria… or even to analyze the nature and proximity of their social connections,” he said.
Snowden added, however, that there are no “nightmare scenarios” where the US government would, for instance, compile lists of gay people. But that still implicates human rights, Snowden said, underlining that it is necessary to develop international standards to protect people against such abuses. The former NSA contractor underlined that this is a “global problem,” not just a problem for the US or the European Union.
So who’s interested in “legal means” anyway? Everyone I talk to just wants them all dead.
If Snowden were an authentic “whistle blower”, would he be releasing information little by little to drag out the soap opera, or would he just post everything he knows on the internet for all to see? If he were genuine, he’d be endangering his own life by NOT releasing everything he knows at once, because by withholding information he creates a motive to silence him.
He only exists because he’s another character in their on-going psychological operations, and his purpose is to help convince you that you’re helpless against this all-powerful, and all-knowing federal government that can hear every conversation.
If you take a look at all the criminals they’re incapable of catching, and all the dissidents they’re incapable of silencing, it starts to become obvious that they don’t know all that much, and the sheer volume of electronic communications made by 320 million people make Snowden’s claims impossible, and unrealistic.
Or, what that might show is, all the dissidents or criminals they cant catch are of their own agency, and have no intent on catching them as they are agent provocateurs
there is a problem here, Jolly Roger…and that is …your argument assumes that the gov’t is in , can, not make mistakes…i.e. when, most likely,,,they the gov…have a difficult time of NOT Making Mistakes..as James says below, if this guy is gov….then good……cause it back fired…and likely I believe, that he is not…then…allow the story to get itself told..however long it takes
Anyone notice snowden’s mossad handler glenn greenwald.
Interesting that never comes up.
Snowjob if you ask me…because that’s what it is.
-flek
Why is it that every time they show Snowden, he’s displayed on a TV screen? Are they trying to make him the Goldstein character (the character on the telescreen in the book, I think that’s his name) of George Orwell’s “1984”?
Also, why are people still worshipping this dumbass? Everything he tells us, we already know.
He’s a fraud!
Controlled opposition!
Phonier than a 3 dollar bill!
Need I say more?
I disagree that Snowden is a govt. prop,think he is a true patriot.That said,even as a prop has back fired as folks paying more attention then ever to govt. actions at all levels and getting angrier about it,so,if a prop,glad it was done and it back fired.The slow release makes sense,they kill him probably a dump so large even the govt. would lose control at that point,would like to see that happen but not at expense of Snowdens life.
absolutely…James……..
I am whole heartedly on board your comment
He’s a FRAUD!! WAKE UP!!! If he is telling everyone in Hong Kong that he is next to the U.S. embassy and the CIA doesn’t come in and take the hit on him, then you know he is a fraud and controlled opposition!
And the fact the government has all the intelligence in the world and drones and cannot find one stupid four eyed idiot, you ought to hit yourself over the head for believing that.
I’m sick of people saying he is a patriot. HE’S A FRAUD!!! Plain and simple!
My assumption that Snowden is disinfo, working with the PTB is based on the following:
1) They (tptb) don’t give air / press-time to the so called “enemy”. Never, from a tactical standpoint it doesn’t fly. You cannot have access to the outlets if they don’t want you to, as simple as that. If Snowden was legit, he would be in limbo (most probably dead), and nobody would know or hear from him.
2) Disinfo agents do not tell you 100% lies. They feed you 80% of the truth, something already known, probably easy to find out, relativly benign or not “important” to the big picture. What you want to be wary of, is the other 20%. That is designed to have you chase “strawmen”, mis-lead and send you looking in the wrong direction.
3) Most awake people know for a certainty, who is behind most, if not all, of the events happening today. Suprisignly, Snowden never mentions those people (“race”) as if they didn’t exist or didn’t have a hand in it. You can’t ignore the obvious and still be credible. That is part and parcel of 20% info. to distract and lead away from them.
That being said, I can agree, with you (and rbeason) that a positive side (if you will) to what Snowden did, probably served to “wake up” a fair amount of new people. But those awoken by Snowden will probably continue to look to him for more information, and thats when they will be unknowingly mis-lead on the finer, more important facts. Awake and mis-informed is worth what it’s worth. That’s why it is called “Controlled Opposition.” The “race” has openly stated that their modus operandi is “by deception we shall…”.
They have offed a lot of people for a lot less. He wouldn’t have stood a chance.
I guess we’ll have to agree to dis-agree on this one.
Exactly! Thank you, Les! Excellent points. Finally someone gets it. Snowden is disinfo and calling him a patriot is like calling Alex Jones a patriot or Rand Paul a patriot.
Snowden IS A TRAITOR!!! 😡 A double agent. Calling him a savior is a disgrace and is the same thing as calling Putin a savior. They both work for the enemy!!
😡 When will people learn? It’s called controlled opposition. How many times must people be duped before they start to see through all the crap?
Like that voting thing. If we can just vote and have them fall for the scam ONE MORE TIME. Just once more. I think we can fool them again. Wake up, people!
You’re welcome NC. Once awake it gets easier to see through all the BS we are being fed. Snowden is one of the more obvious. Look at all the attention given to him, and by the MSM no less! We all know who controls them! Thanks for responding to my comment. 😉
I disagree,but even if controlled op say it backfired,good enuff for me!
“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Right again, Les! Nothing happens by chance.
Remember:
“All warfare is based on deception”
Sun Tzu’s Art of War
Snowden, as fake as Pam Anderson’s t……. you get my drift.
Tit,the word is tits,teats,breasts,ect.,it is in the dictionary,should be able to say tits.
No problem at all saying tits, teats or others 🙂
Was so obvious what I was saying, I tried a bit of humor 🙂 Obviously I failed 🙂
Oh,thought you were just embarrassed saying tits/breasts ect.
I’m not THAT easily embarrassed 😉
I am already old,single,a bit pissed off(though enjoy life),that said,nothing to lose,am ready,Snowden a patriot or pawn,in the end,it really doesn’t matter!Time to chew on concrete foundations and stick our tongues in electrical outlets,time to roll,mother fu$%kers!