NSA secretly taps Yahoo, Google

[questionmark]

The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials.

By tapping those links, the agency has positioned itself to collect at will from among hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans. The NSA does not keep everything it collects, but it keeps a lot.

According to a top secret accounting dated Jan. 9, 2013, NSA’s acquisitions directorate sends millions of records every day from Yahoo and Google internal networks to data warehouses at the agency’s Fort Meade headquarters. In the preceding 30 days, the report said, field collectors had processed and sent back 181,280,466 new records — ranging from “metadata,” which would indicate who sent or received e-mails and when, to content such as text, audio and video.

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[green_dude777]

This just seems like it's never going to stop.

[aztek]

no it wont. regardless who is in power. it will always be done.

[Babe Ruth]

Oh this must be some conspiracy theory! Our beneficent and law-abiding government would not do such a thing.

[regeneratia]

I think this is important. First of all, their spying is illegal, as they are practicing felonies.

But let's just talk about the money. We The People are literally PAYING for our own repressions.

The NSA’s Rent Is Too Damn High

By Steve H. Hanke

October 30, 2013 "Information Clearing House - For months, the American public has received a steady stream of new information detailing the massive scale and scope of the United States’ spying activities. Of course, maintaining a surveillance state powerful enough to reach into the inboxes of world leaders, friend and foe, is not cheap. Indeed, as the Washington Post revealed when it released portions of the so-called Black Budget, this year’s price tag on America’s spook infrastructure comes out to a whopping $52.6 billion.

This is, of course, a tremendous sum – more than double the size of the Department of Agriculture, more than triple the size of NASA;

the list goes on… But, what really puts this number into perspective is its average cost to each American taxpayer, or what I would call the NSA and associated agencies’ “rent.”

Yes, the NSA’s rent, charged to

every taxpayer living under its web of surveillance, comes out to an exorbitant $574 per year. If this is the price the federal government is charging American taxpayers to have their own privacy invaded, then I say the NSA’s rent is too damn high.

Normally, at the end of one of these blogs, I would ask a rhetorical question like: “Washington, are you listening?” But, in this case,

we know Washington is listening, and now we know how much we’re being charged for it.

This article was originally published at

Cato Institute

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36694.htm

[regeneratia]

no it wont. regardless who is in power. it will always be done.

I disagree. We can stop them.

[Drayno]

They hold all of us in contempt.

This isn't for the sake of 'security' - it's for the sake of power.

Do not be fooled.

[Almagest]

Actually I think this might be a good thing. Now that their corporate buddies are starting to suffer from it the politicians might start taking notice!