Archangel
2009-03-08 04:37:27 UTC
Government Surveillance Now Deemed Necessary - Under Obama
By Jack Coleman
Created 2009-03-06 19:56
I'm tempted to notify Ripley's Believe It Or Not! about this, but they
might reject it as too far-fetched.
By now you've probably heard the news of blueprints for Marine One, the
helicopters used by the president, mysteriously downloaded onto a
computer in Iran.
The alarming story was first reported by Rick Earle, an investigative
reporter with NBC Pittsburgh affiliate WPXI. Earle described what he
uncovered on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show Monday night --
MADDOW: How did these blueprints for Marine One, this other sensitive
information about the president's helicopter, end up on a computer abroad?
EARLE: Well, that's the big question everybody here wants to know and
it appears that this company that's based just outside of Pittsburgh
here, a company by the name of Tiversa, they monitor these file-sharing
networks, these file-sharing programs, and they were able to track this,
these blueprints from Marine One, they found them out there on the World
Wide Web. They apparently had been downloaded on a computer that was
using this file-sharing network. Now those are file-sharing networks
like LimeWire, BearShare, those networks that people use routinely to
exchange music or videos.
Apparently someone with this defense contracting company was using that
program on their computer and those sensitive Marine One documents were
somehow downloaded out onto the World Wide Web through this file-sharing
network and they wound up traced to this computer in Iran, and that's
where this company, Tiversa, found those documents just last week. So
it's just an incredible story here.
MADDOW: Do we know that this is something that foreign governments,
foreign intelligence agencies, do? That they troll the Internet looking
for computers that might have peer-to-peer sharing software on them and
therefore might offer access to the files on their hard drives?
EARLE: You know, that's a very good question and that's one we asked
general, retired general Wesley Clark. He's also a board member on this,
with this company Tiversa and he says, yeah, that's what they do. He
says they're out there, perusing these file-sharing programs, looking
for sensitive documents such as this, about Marine One. You can find a
host of other things out there as well. I mean, we're talking everything
from tax returns to any confidential information that you may have on
your computer. If you have one of these file-sharing programs on there,
it opens everything up on your hard drive to the World Wide Web and
people have access to that. So anything can be compromised.
MADDOW: It's one thing to imagine your own personal information, your
own personal financial information, even a company's financial
information. But this is the blueprints, all the avionics information
for Marine One. What did this Internet security company do after they
discovered these Marine One files and has the White House had any
reaction to this?
EARLE: Well, this Internet security company immediately contacted the
federal government and alerted them about what they perceived to be a
real big breach of security here. They said they are working with the
federal government to get to the bottom of all of this right now. They
say they've also been in contact with the Secret Service working on
this. Now we called the White House over the weekend when this story
broke. We couldn't get a response from them over the weekend but we did
talk to them today and they referred us to the Department of the Navy.
The Department of the Navy, meanwhile, says they are aware of this and
they are looking into this, but again it's a very serious issue here.
And General Clark told us the other day that this is something the
government really needs to look at and really needs to clamp down on,
whether you monitor this in real time, have someone actually sitting
there monitoring these file-sharing programs so you can see what's going
out, so you can put a stop to it, or whether you go to the extent of
encrypting some of these documents. So there are some ways you can
actually prevent this, but (Clark) says the government has to be more
diligent when it comes to monitoring this stuff.
MADDOW: Rick Earle, investigative reporter with WPXI in Pittsburgh,
congratulations on this scoop, incredible and scary story. Thanks. Have
a good night.
Never thought I'd see the day when a prominent Democrat says "the
government has to be more diligent when it comes to monitoring this
stuff" -- as in, telecommunications.
Same story when George W. Bush was president, this isn't reported as
"monitoring." MSNBC would have condemned it as "spying."
Earle's revelation about Clark wanting the government to do more, uh,
monitoring, came at the end of the segment, with Maddow not having time
to do more than thank him. But before then, Maddow missed her chance to
ask obvious questions.
For example, is Tiversa a private contractor working for the government
to spy on -- sorry, "monitor" -- file-sharing networks? Is this why
Tiversa notified federal authorities when it discovered the security
breach, because it is contractually obligated to do so? According to
Tiversa's Web site [1], it provides "intelligence services to
corporations, government agencies and individuals."
If Tiversa is a defense contractor (working for the Navy, perhaps?), did
its spying/monitoring begin under Bush -- or Obama? Regardless of
whether Tiversa is a defense contractor, is the ACLU aware of its
shadowy activities? And has anyone considered the potential here for
trampling on terrorists' rights?
I'm not surprised by the lapse in Maddow's aversion to surveillance when
I remember Marine One's most frequent passenger -- President Obama.
CHANGE YOU CAN COUNT ON!!
ARCHANGEL
By Jack Coleman
Created 2009-03-06 19:56
I'm tempted to notify Ripley's Believe It Or Not! about this, but they
might reject it as too far-fetched.
By now you've probably heard the news of blueprints for Marine One, the
helicopters used by the president, mysteriously downloaded onto a
computer in Iran.
The alarming story was first reported by Rick Earle, an investigative
reporter with NBC Pittsburgh affiliate WPXI. Earle described what he
uncovered on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show Monday night --
MADDOW: How did these blueprints for Marine One, this other sensitive
information about the president's helicopter, end up on a computer abroad?
EARLE: Well, that's the big question everybody here wants to know and
it appears that this company that's based just outside of Pittsburgh
here, a company by the name of Tiversa, they monitor these file-sharing
networks, these file-sharing programs, and they were able to track this,
these blueprints from Marine One, they found them out there on the World
Wide Web. They apparently had been downloaded on a computer that was
using this file-sharing network. Now those are file-sharing networks
like LimeWire, BearShare, those networks that people use routinely to
exchange music or videos.
Apparently someone with this defense contracting company was using that
program on their computer and those sensitive Marine One documents were
somehow downloaded out onto the World Wide Web through this file-sharing
network and they wound up traced to this computer in Iran, and that's
where this company, Tiversa, found those documents just last week. So
it's just an incredible story here.
MADDOW: Do we know that this is something that foreign governments,
foreign intelligence agencies, do? That they troll the Internet looking
for computers that might have peer-to-peer sharing software on them and
therefore might offer access to the files on their hard drives?
EARLE: You know, that's a very good question and that's one we asked
general, retired general Wesley Clark. He's also a board member on this,
with this company Tiversa and he says, yeah, that's what they do. He
says they're out there, perusing these file-sharing programs, looking
for sensitive documents such as this, about Marine One. You can find a
host of other things out there as well. I mean, we're talking everything
from tax returns to any confidential information that you may have on
your computer. If you have one of these file-sharing programs on there,
it opens everything up on your hard drive to the World Wide Web and
people have access to that. So anything can be compromised.
MADDOW: It's one thing to imagine your own personal information, your
own personal financial information, even a company's financial
information. But this is the blueprints, all the avionics information
for Marine One. What did this Internet security company do after they
discovered these Marine One files and has the White House had any
reaction to this?
EARLE: Well, this Internet security company immediately contacted the
federal government and alerted them about what they perceived to be a
real big breach of security here. They said they are working with the
federal government to get to the bottom of all of this right now. They
say they've also been in contact with the Secret Service working on
this. Now we called the White House over the weekend when this story
broke. We couldn't get a response from them over the weekend but we did
talk to them today and they referred us to the Department of the Navy.
The Department of the Navy, meanwhile, says they are aware of this and
they are looking into this, but again it's a very serious issue here.
And General Clark told us the other day that this is something the
government really needs to look at and really needs to clamp down on,
whether you monitor this in real time, have someone actually sitting
there monitoring these file-sharing programs so you can see what's going
out, so you can put a stop to it, or whether you go to the extent of
encrypting some of these documents. So there are some ways you can
actually prevent this, but (Clark) says the government has to be more
diligent when it comes to monitoring this stuff.
MADDOW: Rick Earle, investigative reporter with WPXI in Pittsburgh,
congratulations on this scoop, incredible and scary story. Thanks. Have
a good night.
Never thought I'd see the day when a prominent Democrat says "the
government has to be more diligent when it comes to monitoring this
stuff" -- as in, telecommunications.
Same story when George W. Bush was president, this isn't reported as
"monitoring." MSNBC would have condemned it as "spying."
Earle's revelation about Clark wanting the government to do more, uh,
monitoring, came at the end of the segment, with Maddow not having time
to do more than thank him. But before then, Maddow missed her chance to
ask obvious questions.
For example, is Tiversa a private contractor working for the government
to spy on -- sorry, "monitor" -- file-sharing networks? Is this why
Tiversa notified federal authorities when it discovered the security
breach, because it is contractually obligated to do so? According to
Tiversa's Web site [1], it provides "intelligence services to
corporations, government agencies and individuals."
If Tiversa is a defense contractor (working for the Navy, perhaps?), did
its spying/monitoring begin under Bush -- or Obama? Regardless of
whether Tiversa is a defense contractor, is the ACLU aware of its
shadowy activities? And has anyone considered the potential here for
trampling on terrorists' rights?
I'm not surprised by the lapse in Maddow's aversion to surveillance when
I remember Marine One's most frequent passenger -- President Obama.
CHANGE YOU CAN COUNT ON!!
ARCHANGEL