Archive for January 2014
HSBC imposes restrictions on large cash withdrawals
HSBC admitted it has not informed customers of the change in policy, which was implemented in November.
Stephen Cotton went to his local HSBC branch this month to withdraw £7,000 from his instant access savings account to pay back a loan from his mother.
A year before, he had withdrawn a larger sum in cash from HSBC without a problem.
But this time it was different, as he told Money Box: "When we presented them with the withdrawal slip, they declined to give us the money because we could not provide them with a satisfactory explanation for what the money was for. They wanted a letter from the person involved."
Mr Cotton says the staff refused to tell him how much he could have: "So I wrote out a few slips. I said, ‘Can I have £5,000?’ They said no. I said, ‘Can I have £4,000?’ They said no. And then I wrote one out for £3,000 and they said, ‘OK, we’ll give you that.’ "
He asked if he could return later that day to withdraw another £3,000, but he was told he could not do the same thing twice in one day.
BBC News – HSBC imposes restrictions on large cash withdrawals
Mr Cotton cannot understand HSBC’s attitude: "I’ve been banking in that bank for 28 years. They all know me in there. You shouldn’t have to explain to your bank why you want that money. It’s not theirs, it’s yours."
Sen. Leahy: Stop government from controlling American people
Sen. Patrick Leahy says the American people are at risk of being controlled by their government due to the expansive surveillance powers of the National Security Agency.
Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” the Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee told host Chris Wallace that the nation’s lawmakers must act to return control of the government to the people.
“I think that we are going to maintain our ability to protect the United States,” Leahy began. “That’s extremely important.”
“The concern everybody has is allowing our government to have such a reach into your private life, my private life, and everybody else’s, that we are, we have the government controlling us instead of us controlling the government.”
“And that’s what both Republicans and Democrats are joined together on the Hill to try to change,” Leahy concluded.
Earlier in the program, Leahy suggested that viewers consider history when deciding whether the government should have so much access to the private communications of American citizens.
“I just think that there should be oversight,” Leahy said. “Think back in the history of this county, in J. Edgar Hoover’s day and all — if he had had the power when he was spying on protesters and those against the Vietnam War and Martin Luther King — if he had had the power that’s in here, think what might have happened. We Americans believe in our safety. We also believe in our ability to be private.”
“You still have to have some checks and balances before you have a government that can run amok,” Leahy said
Sen. Leahy: Stop government from controlling American people | The Daily Caller
A List of What We Know (so far) of the NSA’s 4th Amendment Violations:
The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution:
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.
A list of what the NSA can actually do:
[BN: Full list edited to only those used against Americans]
- It can track the numbers of both parties on a phone call, as well location, time and duration. (More)
- It can set up fake internet cafes. (More)
- It can tap underwater fiber-optic cables. (More)
- It can track bank transactions. (More)
- It can monitor text messages. (More)
- It can access your email, chat, and web browsing history. (More)
- It can map your social networks. (More)
- It can access your smartphone app data. (More)
- It is trying to get into secret networks like Tor, diverting users to less secure channels. (More)
- It can set up listening posts on the roofs of buildings to monitor communications in a city. (More)
- It can set up a fake LinkedIn. (More)
- It can track the reservations at upscale hotels. (More)
- It can crack cellphone encryption codes. (More)
- It can hack computers that aren’t connected to the internet using radio waves. (Update: Clarification — the NSA can access computers through radio waves on which it has already installed hidden devices.) (More)
- It can intercept phone calls by setting up fake base stations. (More)
- It can remotely access a computer by setting up a fake wireless connection. (More)
- It can install fake SIM cards to then control a cell phone. (More)
- It can fake a USB thumb drive that’s actually a monitoring device. (More)
- It can crack all types of sophisticated computer encryption. (Update: It is trying to build this capability.) (More)
- It can go into online games and monitor communication. (More)
- It can intercept communications between aircraft and airports. (More)
- It can physically intercept deliveries, open packages, and make changes to devices. (More) (h/t)
The NSA and their contractors are using our tax dollars to violate our freedoms while our elected representatives repeatedly fail to actually represent us.
America, as The New Atlantis? One question. Is The New New Atlantis taking applications?
See the Full Original List here: Obama Speech on NSA Reforms a Sad Joke, 4th Amendment Destruction Now Sealed With Presidential Approval | The Daily Sheeple
NSA uses secret radio tech to spy on offline computers
Computer Weekly
Wednesday 15 January 2014
…This technology uses a “covert channel of radio waves” that can be transmitted from circuit boards and USB cards planted in computers, the report said, citing leaked NSA documents and US officials.
Filling in some more details of the NSA surveillance programmes revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden in June 2013, the report said the transceivers must be physically inserted by a spy, a manufacturer or an unwitting user.
Once in place, the transceivers communicate with a briefcase-sized NSA field station, or hidden relay station, up to eight miles away.
The field station in turn communicates back to the NSA, and can also transmit malware to the target computer, including the kind used in attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“What’s new here is the scale and the sophistication of the intelligence agency’s ability to get into computers and networks to which no one has ever had access before,” James Andrew Lewis, a cyber security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told the NYT.
“Some of these capabilities have been around for a while, but the combination of learning how to penetrate systems to insert software and learning how to do that using radio frequencies has given the US a window it’s never had before.”
The paper lists Chinese and Russian military, Mexican drug cartels, and trade institutions in the European Union, Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan as targets of the surveillance programme code-named Quantum.
From Computer Weekly: NSA uses secret radio tech to spy on offline computers
More on NSA surveillance from Computer Weekly:
- US tech firms call for NSA reforms
- Skype under investigation over link to NSA
- NSA tracks 5 billion phone records daily, Snowden docs show
- RSA vetoes NSA-linked encryption algorithm
- NSA planned to discredit Islamist radicals with porn web history
- NSA analysed UK data in secret deal, says Snowden
- NSA and GCHQ unlock online privacy encryption
- NSA and GCHQ mass surveillance violates EU law, study finds
- US publishes revealing review on NSA surveillance
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