"If a dictator ever took over" the NSA could impose total tyranny

[G_j]

if you missed this from today's NYT:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122505Y.shtml

NSA, the Agency That Could Be Big Brother

By James Bamford
The New York Times

Sunday 25 December 2005

Washington - Deep in a remote, fog-layered hollow near Sugar Grove, W.Va., hidden by fortress-like mountains, sits the country's largest eavesdropping bug. Located in a "radio quiet" zone, the station's large parabolic dishes secretly and silently sweep in millions of private telephone calls and e-mail messages an hour.

Run by the ultrasecret National Security Agency, the listening post intercepts all international communications entering the eastern United States. Another NSA listening post, in Yakima,Wash., eavesdrops on the western half of the country.

<snip>

"That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people," he said in 1975, "and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide."

He added that if a dictator ever took over, the NSA "could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back."

..more..

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Question:

I know the NSA can monitor phone calls, telegrams, email, etc, but can it also monitor what programs you listen to on radio and TV? I have libertarian/survivalist friends who listen to short wave a lot, but they are too paranoid to communicate via the medium.

[LiberalArkie]

2. Snooping

Yes it is possible at a very close range. A little bit of radio theory is involved here. Whenever you are listening to a radio, the radio converts the desired frequency of let's say 94.1 mHz to 10.7 mHz. This can be detected at a very close range. Television can be also detected with a similar intermediate frequency. NOTE you would be able to spot the radio detection vehicle outside. Also simply have another radio or tv turned on within a close vicinity scrambles the IF detection scheme.

Possible - yes, practical - NO

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

7. Thanks

knowing where they live, it would be hard to get a radio detection vehicle there without them knowing it. Maybe that's why they choose to live where they live.

[alfredo]

3. Yes

No, maybe, for certain, not a chance.

No telling what technology they have.

Read James Bamford's book "Body of Secrets." He will fill you in as best he can. His telling of the USS Liberty murders was right on the money.

[jmowreader]

6. I can tell what you're tuned to

There is a machine called a Tanner Scanner. It searches for the local oscillators in radio receivers.

Right now you're going "huh," so it's time for Radio Receiver Theory!

All radios made today are called "superheterodyne" receivers. If you take two frequencies (we'll call them F1 and F2) and mix them together, you will receive two new frequencies: F3 = (F1 + F2) and F4 = (F1 - F2).

In your radios, you have several blocks: an antenna, a radio-frequency amplifier, a variable-frequency oscillator, a mixer, a selector, a demodulator and an audio-frequency amplifier.

If the radio is an FM radio, the oscillator puts out a signal that's 10.7MHz lower (some engineers go 10.7MHz higher, it gets you to the same place) than the signal you're trying to tune in, and if you're a dittohead your oscillator puts out a signal 455kHz away from the signal you want to listen to.

Turn on your radio, and all these different radio stations come in. Let's say the station you want to listen to sends on 100.1MHz. You tune your oscillator to 110.8MHz. (Yes, I know the dial says you're tuned to "100.1." It's lying to you.) F1 comes out of the antenna/RF amp blocks, and F2 comes out of the local oscillator. When they get to the mixer, I'm going to ground out F3 because I really don't give a shit about something sitting at 210.9MHz and feed F4 into the selector. F4 contains a lot of frequencies, and one of them centers on 10.7MHz. I take everything from 10.6MHz to 10.8MHz (FM stations in the US use 200kHz bandwidth) and ground out all the rest of it. I then pass the recovered "intermediate frequency" (IF) to the demodulator, which strips the audio frequencies away from the 10.7MHz IF and passes the audio frequencies to the audio amp, to the loudspeaker and finally into your ears.

Now let's say I've got one of these Tanner Scanners. I pick up you listening to 100.1MHz by analyzing your local oscillator. Then I reach up to my own radio, set it to 100.1MHz...oh my god, he's listening to Ozzy, send this man a whole bag of Chick tracts!

[lvx35]

11. Got a link?

I'm interested in what you're talking about, but I can't find any information on it:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=%22Tanner+scanner%22+radio&btnG=Search

[jmowreader]

22. I did the same search with the same results you got

My feeble recollection is that Nielsen was going to buy some of these and use them to REALLY find out what Americans like to watch on TV, but the civil libertarians went apeshit.

[guruoo]

14. Sounds like what the Brits use to enforce the TV set tax n/t

[jmowreader]

21. It's fairly close, yeah

I think all the Brits really care about is seeing the local oscillator come up. If there's one there and it shouldn't be, someone's gonna have a word with you.

[lvx35]

9. Unlikely.

Barring oddities like what the gentleman above is talking about, the nature of radio and TV is that they are one way, unlike the TCP-IP protocol that the Internet runs on, which is innatly a two way conversaion. My understanding is that Cable is also one way, all channels come down the pipe. My understanding is that satelite is also one way, though in my opinion it is the most likely to be surveilled.
However, if they really wanted to surveill somebody, a lot could be done. Bugs could pick up radio, and TEMPEST systems (see below) can detect TV from a distance. However, this is incredibly unlikely, because both these systems require human resources, and deployment of human resources is expensive, unlike emails, which are surveilled by computer systems looking for patterns.

sources:
http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/index.php/TEMPEST
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cable-tv.htm
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cable-tv.htm

[guruoo]

15. With Tempest, they can see what's on your monitor....

But it doesn't work with LCD, Plasma, or milspec grade monitors.

[jmowreader]

20. TEMPEST is a shielding program

The thing you're talking about is Technical Surveillance.

To fight it, the US uses Technical Surveillance Countermeasures.

And the principal weapon of TSCM is TEMPEST--transient emanation protection through electromagnetic screening and testing.

The reason Technical Surveillance works with a regular CRT monitor is that the images are formed on a monitor with really big magnets sweeping the beams.

I've seen films of Technical Surveillance reading letters typed on IBM Selectrics. Works well. Lots of fun.

Oh yeah: I figure I better tell y'all that there's a way to use a windowpane to modulate a laser beam. You use this momentous discovery by shooting a laser beam at the window then demodulating the returned beam. I haven't seen anything to indicate whether argon windows suppress this form of surveillance.

I don't think the US really ever got into technical surveillance because the communists had ways to defeat it--manual typewriters, pens, pencils, rooms without windows, that sort of thing. The communists, from all I've heard, just loved this shit. We made it easy for them.

[guruoo]

23. I've always heard the device commonly refered to as the 'Tempest Receiver'

or 'Van Eck' receiver, or device.

First I recall hearing of it was in 1972 from my
high school electronics teacher, who happened to
be retired FBI. I can't remember what he called it.
Of course at that time it sounded like such a fantastic
story that we were just sure he was making it all up!
Rooskis are driving down the street spying on your TVs -yeah sure!

http://www.eskimo.com/~joelm/tempestintro.html

[lvx35]

24. Soviets were so wierd.

My prof was giving an introduction to cryptography uses in computer apps, and he told us that the Soviet spies used to use 1-time pads for coding messages, which makes sense, but apparently they started reusing the pads for huge important intelligence stuff, so the NSA cracked it. It just seems comic how they seem so advanced and so behind and the same time.

[teryang]

4. If? n/t

[yardwork]

5. I know someone who works for NSA. He's a Democrat.

If a dictator took over (IF?!) the NSA might not go along with it. Then again....

[EVDebs]

8. TIA was offshored/privatized in Bahamas

TIA Goes Offshore in Bahamas
http://www.zmetro.com/archives/000901.php

but the safety of your information overseas/offshored isn't too swell

California Leads Way on ID Theft
http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2002/0,4814,76721,00.html

""...Alan Paller, director of research at the Bethesda, Md.-based SANS Institute, said the California law is probably necessary because of the kinds of crime that are occurring. A group in Russia and Ukraine has been acquiring customer data, extorting money to prevent its release and then selling it anyway. Paller believes some companies are paying off the extortionists in an attempt to contain the damage.""

So it looks like our gooses are all pre-cooked. If you want to be an activist, it's better to have an alias already arranged by someone for you in Bangalore ! They've inadvertently done the boys at the Deobandi Koranic School a favor it seems.

If they want to flatter themselves and call themselves 'intelligence' agencies, well, go ahead.

Oh, BTW, "The CIA and FBI... have instituted Mormon recruitment plans" according to Time Magazine's August 4, 1997 article by Dale Van Biema page 52. With this kind of preference for conservative political views on display, it's no wonder that Bamford's discussion of the NSA being taken over by religious/conservative rightwingnuts isn't dismissed out of hand.

It is an entirely feasible possibility, due to the CIA's early leadership being made up of almost entirely of a cadre of Knights of Malta (Allan Dulles, Wm Donovan, Wm Casey, John McCone, James Jesus Angleton, Wm Colby, ...) And now that the FBI's latest spy Robert Hanssen is Opus Dei, there may be more of them doing the will of (?), well, maybe not the US taxpayer, let's put it that way.

[guruoo]

10. "there would be no way to fight back."

That's what the rightwingnuts, corporate fascists,
and their Republican enablers are counting on.
They've literally bet the farm on this 'transformation'
and don't plan on giving up power under any circumstances.

[guruoo]

12. See this thread..

Bush will never leave office peacefully
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2333266

[EVDebs]

13. And if the dictator was a corporation, how do you fight back ?

Greatest Corporate Invader of Privacy ?
http://www.epic.org/privacy/choicepoint/

""ChoicePoint sells a wide array of information to the government, including:

Credit headers, a list of identifying information that appears at the top of a credit report. This information includes name, spouse's name, address, previous address, phone number, Social Security number, and employer.
"Workplace Solutions Pre-Employment Screening," which includes financial reports, education verification, reference verification, felony check, motor vehicle record, SSN verification, and professional credential verification.
Asset Location Services.
The ability to engage in "wildcard searches," which allows law enforcement to "obtain a comprehensive personal profile in a matter of minutes" with only a first name or partial address.
The use of "Soundex" queries, which allow searches on personal information based on how names sound, rather than how they are spelled.
Information on neighbors and family members of a suspect.""

And ChoicePoint's involvement in voter roll 'scrubbing' in FL
""A ChoicePoint DBT spokesman said, and the Florida Department of Elections confirms, that Harris's office approved the selection of states from which to obtain records for the felon scrub. As to why the department included states that restore voting rights, Janet Modrow, Florida's liaison to ChoicePoint DBT, bounced the question to Harris's legal staff. That office has not returned repeated calls.""

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=27&row=2

And ChoicePoint is 'Big Brother's Little Helper'
http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/2003-12-04/cover_news.html

so...do we sue the 'government' or ChoicePoint and other data-miners when they screw up the data ?

[guruoo]

16. Would require a radical change of lifestyle...

to say the least.

[guruoo]

19. We would need to make sure

their lives, and that of their famililies
are made just as miserable as that
of their victims.

[Kagemusha]

17. Just to mention though...

The NSA takes in a hell of a lot more information than it can meaningfully analyze.

[Clara T]

18. Hmmm?

Who is the only man smiling in this picture and why?
This picture was taken at the Sept 11 memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral
reported on by Time Magazine 24 September 2001

http://www.brusselstribunal.org/index.htm

[depakid]

25. I would agree except that

There would be no way that they could filter through all that information. There's just WAY to much "noise."

I'm sure they have trouble even dealing with the amount of information they already have with any degree of accuracy.