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Government Privacy United States

NSA Shares Intel On Americans With Israel 328

An anonymous reader writes "The U.K.'s Guardian newspaper is reporting that the NSA shares the raw intel collected on Americans with Israel. From the article: 'Details of the intelligence-sharing agreement are laid out in a memorandum of understanding between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart that shows the U.S. 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 deal was reached in principle in March 2009, according to the undated memorandum, which lays out the ground rules for the intelligence sharing. The five-page memorandum, termed an agreement between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies "pertaining to the protection of U.S. persons," repeatedly stresses the constitutional rights of Americans to privacy and the need for Israeli intelligence staff to respect these rights. But this is undermined by the disclosure that Israel is allowed to receive "raw Sigint" – signal intelligence. The memorandum says: "Raw Sigint includes, but is not limited to, unevaluated and unminimized transcripts, gists, facsimiles, telex, voice and Digital Network Intelligence metadata and content."'
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NSA Shares Intel On Americans With Israel

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  • Legal and NSA (Score:5, Informative)

    by fustakrakich ( 1673220 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @01:49PM (#44821735) Journal

    are mutually exclusive

    • Re:Legal and NSA (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kthreadd ( 1558445 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @01:56PM (#44821849)

      The solution will unfortunately be to fix the legal.

      • Re:Legal and NSA (Score:5, Insightful)

        by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @02:06PM (#44821973) Homepage Journal
        I think it is time to 'clean house' in Washington.

        PLEASE....vote out whoevers currently in office, and vote in anyone that will at least make lip service that this type of thing will end.

        Personally, I'm less worried about a terrorist attack ending my life, than I am of my govt running roughshod over my privacy and my rights.

        The giving it willingly to foreign countries' intelligence agencies is just painful icing on the cake.

        Why is there not more of an uproar over this? Are US citizens that scared? Or do they just not give a fuck anymore for the rights that so many have died for over the years to protect for us....?

        • by losfromla ( 1294594 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @02:10PM (#44822011)

          I don't know but did you see the last episode of "Breaking Bad"?

        • Re:Legal and NSA (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Gilmoure ( 18428 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @02:14PM (#44822057) Journal

          You can't vote out bureaucrats. They stay in place from administration to administration and really run things.

          • Re:Legal and NSA (Score:5, Interesting)

            by ron_ivi ( 607351 ) <sdotno.cheapcomplexdevices@com> on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @02:50PM (#44822445)

            You can't vote out bureaucrats. They stay in place from administration to administration and really run things.

            You can't vote them out because they and their partners have acccess to all this sigint on their competitors. I imagine any politician who did vote to defund such agencies would be quickly be labeled as a threat to national security and re-educated.

            • Re:Legal and NSA (Score:5, Informative)

              by Gilmoure ( 18428 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @03:00PM (#44822635) Journal

              Or bad things might happen. Suddenly a shared gmail account is made public, tax records come to light, etc. Everyone has something to hide.

              • Except Wiener, at this point he pretty much has nothing to hide. May as well vote him in, he'll surely flip off at least one person who deserves it...

                • US America? EPIC FAIL!

                  Systemic - therefore non-recoverable. It's all downhill from here, and has been since about '72-'78. Now, it's "all over, 'cept the shouting".

                • Re:Legal and NSA (Score:4, Insightful)

                  by flyneye ( 84093 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @07:49PM (#44825417) Homepage

                  I love it, a completely frank leader.
                  Weiner for president. (as long as he runs independent of the Repubmocrats)
                  Put on a campaign shirt and show them your Weiner.
                  Fly high the finger of foreign policy. Put Weiner in to relieve the stress.
                  Hell, he's gonna be single now, so he won't be distracted from his stiff agenda.
                  No one bats an eye at a single Weiner doing his job. A stable Weiner is ABOVE the nuts,with a powerful head.
                  Women voters agree he ejaculates potent politics and they swell with pride for accepting Weiner.
                  So please, open up and let Weiner in.

            • You can vote for whichever EMPLOYEE of Raytheon, Goldman or Monsanto, for which you care.

              The US President an Executive? HA! Call him "Employee of the Year" for multi-national concerns - who currently migrating their primary interests from the US, while simultaneously using their Employees to police their global aspiration.

              No shit. Obama has no "Syria Plan". The Board of Directors hands him the script, and he dances. Same for the bitches in the rows on the Hill. I don't care if they are R or D or Marti

          • You can't vote out bureaucrats. They stay in place from administration to administration and really run things.

            ... Things including, but not limited to, the elected government.

          • You can't vote out bureaucrats. They stay in place from administration to administration and really run things.

            But they can be fired by our elected officials, or have their agencies disbanded or de-funded, no?

        • Re:Legal and NSA (Score:4, Insightful)

          by CanHasDIY ( 1672858 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @02:22PM (#44822137) Homepage Journal

          Nah, we're just mostly trapped in a vicious cycle of debt that forces us to spend most of our time at jobs that treat us like serfs as well as instilling a fear that if we were to speak out and stand up for ourselves, our lives would be ruined by outside forces.

          Oh, then there's that whole extraordinary rendition/Gitmo stuff.

          • Re:Legal and NSA (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Jeremiah Cornelius ( 137 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @03:38PM (#44823141) Homepage Journal

            Fake debt, false concern.

            To WHOM is this debt owed? By whom?

            It is a macroeconomic fiction, perpetrated to manage large-scale social control, and to impose hierarchies of Elite governance, through feudal taxation models.

            You don't possess US Citizenship. You rent it, through various Federal taxes, and lose it through non-compliance with the collectors. Your supposed "citizenship" entitles you to no actual meaningful role in policy or governance, and is a dubious merit. Think of it as being a "Trustee" in the pen.

        • It's time to clean house, but there are a handful of clear allies to the American people in Washington. The real solution isn't to vote everyone out, the solution is to hold those in office accountable for their actions in office. Voting out Pelosi, Boehner, Reid, and whatever that guy serving as Senate Minority Leader's name is would be good. Voting out the guys who tried to defund the NSA's surveilance program would be counterproductive.

          • It's time to clean house, but there are a handful of clear allies to the American people in Washington. The real solution isn't to vote everyone out, the solution is to hold those in office accountable for their actions in office. Voting out Pelosi, Boehner, Reid, and whatever that guy serving as Senate Minority Leader's name is would be good. Voting out the guys who tried to defund the NSA's surveilance program would be counterproductive.

            I don't think that would work, it likely has to be all or nothing.

            I

            • The proposals I have seem for extreme term limits seem good at a glance, but none of them address the fact that it would in practice hand massive power to lobbyists. When everybody in the legislature is brand new, they can't be an expert on every issue that comes up. Thus when some nice guy who contributed to the campaign says, "Oh hey, I know all about water rights in the west," or flood insurance, or whatever it is, he's the one teaching the Congress however he wants about whatever he wants. You need s

        • by Valdrax ( 32670 )

          PLEASE....vote out whoevers currently in office, and vote in anyone that will at least make lip service that this type of thing will end.

          We did in 2008 over excesses of the financial sector and of the war on terror, and lip service is pretty much all we got on both counts.

          • We did in 2008 over excesses of the financial sector and of the war on terror, and lip service is pretty much all we got on both counts.

            That only clears out some of them...this needs to be done next 2-3 voting cycles to clear out ALL the old crony-ism crew.

        • Both parties are the same, they are just their to give the appearance you have a choice. At least in china they are honest about it.

          There might be independents, but they are massively out advertised by the major parties. The rich don't want to have to buy out 3 parties, it is cheaper just to have 2.

          What are the chances of neither a democrat or a republican becoming the next president. Clearly there is only 2 main ways (Ok 1 way with minor differences) of running a country of 311 million could come up with.

  • I feel very betrayed.
    • by ackthpt ( 218170 )

      I feel very betrayed.

      This message alone means they will not likely be rolling out the red carpet for you in Tel Aviv.

      spend your next vacation in scenic lebanon!

    • Not good at all.

    • by TWiTfan ( 2887093 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @02:06PM (#44821975)

      If it makes you feel any better, the Israeli government pinky-promised that they wouldn't use it for anything bad. And that's a PINKY promise, mister!

      • by CanHasDIY ( 1672858 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @02:24PM (#44822163) Homepage Journal

        If it makes you feel any better, the Israeli government pinky-promised that they wouldn't use it for anything bad. And that's a PINKY promise, mister!

        Right; I mean, it's not like Mossad has a reputation for being disreputable or anything...

        • by Savage-Rabbit ( 308260 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @04:20PM (#44823645)

          If it makes you feel any better, the Israeli government pinky-promised that they wouldn't use it for anything bad. And that's a PINKY promise, mister!

          Right; I mean, it's not like Mossad has a reputation for being disreputable or anything...

          And, one should keep in mind that Israel is basically the 51st state so It's not as if the NSA is sharing this data with foreigners.

          • If it makes you feel any better, the Israeli government pinky-promised that they wouldn't use it for anything bad. And that's a PINKY promise, mister!

            Right; I mean, it's not like Mossad has a reputation for being disreputable or anything...

            And, one should keep in mind that Israel is basically the 51st state so It's not as if the NSA is sharing this data with foreigners.

            As I stated elsewhere in the thread, Israel is treated more like a 4th branch of government than another state.

  • In other words... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by shaitand ( 626655 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @01:53PM (#44821793) Journal
    This is no different than our methods for torturing suspected terrorists by routing them to nations which are willing to do the dirty work for us. The NSA has determined they can tap all the calls and gather all the data but not search it without a warrant from the secret rubber stamp court. But all the data can (is?) passed to the Isreali's who can query it without even that oversight. Naturally, the NSA can ask them to do it a favor and query said data on their behalf without any warrant.
    • It kinda figures... but why pick Israel of all allies? Israel should have plenty of work to do themselves before bothering with NSA lists, and if the story breaks out like it just did, those theorizing that the USA is Israel's pet would have a field day. I'd have asked some Commonwealth country instead.

      • by Mitreya ( 579078 ) <mitreya@gmai l . c om> on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @02:25PM (#44822181)

        It kinda figures... but why pick Israel of all allies?

        I am guessing it is because there is no evidence (or it has not yet been released) of NSA handing over data to other allies. It is quite likely that everyone who asks nicely will get our data.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

          The UK gets it, and GCHQ reciprocates. Presumably Israel has access to data collected by GCHQ and given to the NSA as well, so can access data on UK citizens.

      • by shaitand ( 626655 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @03:23PM (#44822945) Journal
        We provide most of the Israeli arms. Their jets, missiles, guns, etc are largely supplied by the US. The United States gave Israel nuclear arms technology, an unprecedented move on the part of the US indicating they have the highest level of trust with the United States.

        You don't need to draw on any racist conspiracy theory to be aware that there is a huge Christian/Jewish political base in the United States. Additionally, there are a large number of wealthy Jewish families entrenched in the top tiers of US privatized banking system including most of the Federal Reserve board. That is a massive hammer of political and financial power that pretty much guarantees the US will never be in bed with any nation as tightly as Israel.

        None of this is a secret, it is a big part of why the US is now such a big target for Muslim terrorist groups. The US hasn't been fighting these groups directly but has been supplying arms, funds, technology, to prop up Israel against Muslim nations and in more recent times the "war on terror" has given the excuse for more direct involvement.

        This part is speculation, the above is well known, on the record, and not denied. If there is a magical wave of dissent suddenly springing out of nowhere in the past few years in the Muslim nations where the US has been taking interest and action I would be completely shocked. Recent events and unrest in Saudi Aradia, Egypt, Syria, etc definitely have the smell of the CIA with it's hands untied playing a lot of the same games it's already admitted to playing using other nations against the USSR in the cold war.

        Also, there is data sharing with common wealth nations exposed in other memos already leaked just not on this level. There could be similar sharing programs with them that aren't part of this particular set of leaked information.
      • I wouldn't say that USA is Israel's government's pet, more like Israel's government's bitch or beaten wife; but, like in families, this sick relationship is bad and damaging for the couple.

      • Re:In other words... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Valdrax ( 32670 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @03:48PM (#44823257)

        It kinda figures... but why pick Israel of all allies? Israel should have plenty of work to do themselves before bothering with NSA lists, and if the story breaks out like it just did, those theorizing that the USA is Israel's pet would have a field day. I'd have asked some Commonwealth country instead.

        We're already working with all the other major English-speaking countries in the Five Eyes program. Also Germany.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by rsborg ( 111459 )

      This is no different than our methods for torturing suspected terrorists by routing them to nations which are willing to do the dirty work for us. The NSA has determined they can tap all the calls and gather all the data but not search it without a warrant from the secret rubber stamp court. But all the data can (is?) passed to the Isreali's who can query it without even that oversight. Naturally, the NSA can ask them to do it a favor and query said data on their behalf without any warrant.

      I thought we only did this information sharing (ie, cross-spying) with the UK. Israel makes a lot of sense given the close ties (most of US congress is under the thumb of one of the various lobbying groups and think-tanks that are influential in the Israeli security state as well - e.g.; AEI, AIPAC, Brookings institute, etc) [1].

      [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]

  • Another submission. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @01:55PM (#44821821)

    Here is my submission:

    NSA is sharing personal data of americans and corporations with Israel [theguardian.com]. The secret deal places no legal limits on the use of data [theguardian.com] and only official US government communications are protected by the expectation of israeli agents removing such data as soon as it's identified. NSA insists that it complies with the rules governing privacy. There is now maybe less wonder that UNIT 8200 is driving the tech boom [theguardian.com] in Israel as they get to handle all the raw intelligence and insider information.

    • by ZahrGnosis ( 66741 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @02:23PM (#44822159) Homepage

      My reading of this MOA is very different... The MOA is repeatedly clarifying that U.S. Person information is not to be SENT by the NSA (The NSA's Responsibility to ensure it is not in the data is clearly spelled out in the MOA, if it wasn't already explicit elsewhere). It ALSO indicates that IF Israel's ISNU find's U.S. Person data they must report the finding to the NSA and destroy the information.

      The MOA does not give any indication when or why raw SIGINT data would be sent to ISNU, and while it is clear that the NSA does share raw intel, it is also clear that there are cases where the raw data is "Minimized" by the NSA to remove U.S. Person information. The MOA does not guarantee ISNU any access to NSA data -- which data we share is obviously going to be controlled by other agreements and laws.

      So a) we share intel with Israel ... I'm pretty sure everyone should have assumed this, and b) we have documented safeguards to restrict that data to intel on NON-U.S. Persons. Really, read the memorandum, that's all it does... every page is devoted to protecting data on U.S. Citizens.

      How is this a bad thing? This document is obviously showing intent to avoid domestic spying. Good! If you want to argue that the NSA is not following its own guidelines, or failing to protect U.S. data, this is not good evidence of that.

      • b) we have documented safeguards to restrict that data to intel on NON-U.S. Persons.

        Funny thing, we have another set of documented safeguards, I think the fourth would the salient safeguard. Time and time again we've seen documentation showing the NSA has violated that safeguard, so why would I take it on trust that they would follow some internal memorandum. That they share intel with Israel would be understood. What is not acceptable is when there are indications they share more then they are allowed by our own laws which are in place to "protect data on U.S. Citizens".

      • Your non-hysterical interpretation will not be the one that people take away from this.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

        Right, I'm sure we can trust the NSA to work diligently to make sure no data on US citizens is accidentally sent over, and I'm sure ISNU will report that immediately. That's obviously their primary concern here, and we can trust them to stick to the law.

  • General Petraeus (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @01:56PM (#44821841)

    Made comments critical of Israel, next thing you know his Gmail documenting a fling with what's-her-name is brought out. Coincidence? I think not!

  • by AtariEric ( 571910 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @01:56PM (#44821847)
    The NSA is *spying* on us, and aiding a foreign country with the data. Seriously, what separates this from treason? The fact that they're not betraying the government, just the people?
    • by stox ( 131684 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @02:02PM (#44821921) Homepage

      It is only treason when someone who is not in power does it.

    • by LMariachi ( 86077 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @02:03PM (#44821933) Journal

      Jonathan Pollard got life in prison for passing classified data to Israel.

      • by Animats ( 122034 )

        That's a good point. While the US and the UK have had a formal agreement on intelligence sharing since WWII (the UKUSA agreement [wikipedia.org]), they're allies of the US, with a mutual defense treaty (under NATO) with the US.

        Israel is not formally an ally of the US. While the US provides "security assistance" to Israel, there's no mutual defense treaty. There was an "exchange of diplomatic notes on mutual defense assistance" [state.gov] in 1952, and there's the Camp David agreement (US, Egypt, Israel) from 1979 which ended the wa

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      Seriously, what separates this from treason?

      We are not at war against Isreal.

      Unethical, yes. Unconstitutional, probably. Heinous, certainly. Treason, no.

    • It is treason (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Phoenix666 ( 184391 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @02:09PM (#44821999)

      What the NSA, White House, Congress, and Judiciary (ie. FISA courts) are doing is un-Constitutional, meaning you can't get more illegal and deserving of maximum penalty than that. Murder is terrible and wrong, but it does not rise to the level of undermining the basis for our very society and the social contract that binds people to government and vice versa. With murder, one person dies; with undermining our system of government you get chaos, civil war, deprivation, demise of the rule of law, and masses of men, women, and children dying. Which is worse?

      So what we're looking at right now, folks, and I mean all of us on the political Right and Left, is an entire government that has colluded to violate the Constitution, that is, the social contract that separates our country and society from Malthusian consequences. There can be no penalty harsh enough to punish them for what they have done. If we do not, as a People, levy that punishment on them now, immediately, then we deserve the misery of the slavery that meek acquiescence consigns us to.

      • So, what is your plan? Maybe use the internet to organize an effective resistance against the government? That might work except for the problem that the government is aware of everything you do on the internet and has the power to stop your plan before it gets going. You can organize protests - and those will be allowed to continue as long as the don't pose a threat to the power structure.

        You can personally try to use violence to stop the government, but you will lose. If enough people did this or took

    • The NSA is *spying* on us, and aiding a foreign country with the data. Seriously, what separates this from treason?

      Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution is what separates this from treason.

      Learn it, love it, live it.

  • by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @02:05PM (#44821959)

    "Right" . . . ? It's more like a "notion" now.

  • Karma (Score:4, Funny)

    by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @02:21PM (#44822131) Homepage Journal
    Somewhat everyone in US tought that the wrong thing was the NSA could be watching their private phone calls and mails, while it was ok that fully spied in everyone else in the world. Now it should be ok that Israel can access all information from US people and companies, if they don't spy on their own citizens they wouldn't be breaking theirr laws.
  • Meanwhile ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @02:34PM (#44822257)

    ... Jonathan Pollard is sitting in his cell saying, "Guys? WTF?!"

  • by boorack ( 1345877 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @02:45PM (#44822383)

    As globalization is (mostly) perceived in business and financial spheres (big corporations becoming supranational), lots of other aspects are moving along with this process, including bad ones: spying and security apparatus becoming global, tax enforcement becoming global, propaganda apparatus is becoming global (eg. news media in Poland producing basically the same crap and lies as US media about latest Syria debacle). Opression apparatus is also becoming global. Nation states are becoming obsolete, surpassed by moneyed interests. Politicians all around the world are propably blackmailed by NSA/GCHQ/8200 aparatchics who in turn are taking orders from big business bozos. This is why we see such fiascos as latest Obama &Kerry blunder. Not Obama nor Kerry are so stupid to make such suicidal mistakes - someone is firmly holding them by the balls. Exceptions to this rule (that is, not taking orders from NSA boys) are mercilessly pounded in our "objective" media (Putin being prime example) and their countries attacked from various angles and often outright invaded (see Libya, now Syria).

    Dark times ahead, folks. With democratic processes basically defunct - at least as defined in traditional terms of national states, truly global backlash and exposing those fucks like Snowden or Greenwald are the our only hope of reversing our quick slide to (new) dark ages. This is serious, folks. It's not about principles (as our media whores try to convince us), it's about survival. It's about ordinary people NOT being crushed by multinationals and NOT becoming serfs in neo-feudal age. We need a thousand Greenwalds and two thousands Snowdens.

  • by X.25 ( 255792 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @02:53PM (#44822485)

    US said they consider cyber-attacks to be an act of war, so I am wondering when will US Government clarify who gave them authorization to declare war on so many countries, including 'allies'.

    Because what NSA has been doing for years were acts of war, according to US Government.

    • by iroll ( 717924 )

      An act of war is not a declaration of war, nor does it imply or require a declaration of war.

  • by gestalt_n_pepper ( 991155 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @03:09PM (#44822785)

    Israel has nukes. While their development was internal to Isreael, it was allowed by Europe and the USA.

    If Israel has to nuke an Arab country to keep them from distrupting your precious oil supply, nobody will nuke the USA. Retaliation, nuclear, chemical or otherwise, will fall on Israel. In exchange for the USA's continued support, Israel takes that risk.

    So they get perks. Unofficial, unknown, unspoken perks for keeping the uneasy peace in the Middle East and the oil flowing. One of these is information - and yes, some in the tech field are getting screwed by this arrangment.

    As an entertaining aside, you can bet that when Arab oil is no longer a significant factor in the world energy picture, Israel will be left to twist in the wind while the region tears itself apart. When that happens, expect a flood of Israeli immigrants.

    Cheers!

    • by JustNiz ( 692889 )

      >> As an entertaining aside, you can bet that when Arab oil is no longer a significant factor in the world energy picture, Israel will be left to twist in the wind

      I don't believe that. There are A LOT of very rich Jews in the US, especially places with a loud voice like Hollywood. Say it with me... "Special Interest Group"

  • I want some fucking heads to roll damnit!!

  • by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @03:31PM (#44823043) Homepage

    I for one welcome our Zionist overlords.

  • by tekrat ( 242117 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @04:11PM (#44823529) Homepage Journal

    Isreal shares with Russia, Germany, Romania and China.

    And anyone else with money.
    In fact *everyone* has your information EXCEPT YOU.

    Land of the free (snicker)
    I think it's time for torches and pitchforks, we the people are being royally screwed by our amoral treasonous government.

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