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The NSA's Upstream surveillance program was exposed by Edward Snowden back in 2013. In 2015, Wikimedia, the parent company of Wikipedia and other non-profit knowledge projects, challenged this program in a lawsuit against the NSA, the DoJ, the ODNI and the heads of those agencies.

While the Upstream surveillance program is similar to PRISM in that it allows the NSA to monitor and collect emails, search terms and other online activity of Americans, it is different in that, instead of relying on the cooperation of ISPs, Upstream bypasses them and instead relies on the cooperation of telecommunications infrastructure. Wikimedia argued that this program violates the first and fourth amendment rights of American citizens, and far exceeds the scope intended by Congress.

According to Data Center Dynamics, the case was dismissed later that year for a lack of evidence supporting the claim that the NSA was using it for bulk collection, rather than the targeted collection of a specific individual's data which meant that the NSA was acting legally.

In 2017, the case was appealed and the decision reversed, based on the understanding that Wikimedia generates so much traffic that it's impossible to be used for monitoring a specific individual meaning that the collection is indeed done in bulk, which is indeed in violation of the first and fourth amendment rights of American citizens.

Two days ago, the case was dismissed again after reaching the conclusion that without specific understanding of the upstream program, Wikimedias case has no leg to stand on. Of course, this is impossible due to the classified nature of the program.

Judge Ellis said:

For Wikimedia to litigate the standing issue further, and for defendants to defend adequately in any further litigation, would require the disclosure of protected state secrets, namely details about the Upstream surveillance program's operations.

For the reasons that follow, therefore, the standing issue cannot be tried, or otherwise further litigated, without risking or requiring harmful disclosures of privileged state secrets, an outcome prohibited under binding Supreme Court and Fourth Circuit precedent. Thus, the case must be dismissed, and judgment must be entered in favor of defendants.

Originally posted here:
Judge dismisses Wikimedia case against the NSA - Reclaim The Net

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the normally-secretive federal court based in Washington, D.C. that oversees much of the nations foreign intelligence surveillance programs, took an unusual step yesterday: it issued a public order chastising the FBI for its handling of the applications submitted to conduct surveillance of Carter Page, a former adviser to the Trump Campaign.

The FISC gave the FBI less than a month to report what it has done, and plans to do, to ensure that future surveillance applications accurately and completely reflect[] the facts the FISC needs to evaluate whether surveillance should be authorized. The FISCs unusual public filing comes on the heels of the Department of Justices Inspector General report, released earlier this month, which reported a number of significant problems with the Page surveillance applications. The IG found that there were omissions and misstatements in the FBI's applications to conduct surveillanceinaccuracies that went uncorrected, despite three subsequent renewals of the FBIs surveillance order. In light of the problems with the Page application, the IG indicated it would conduct a more comprehensive review of FBI applications to the FISC.

Of course, the fact that a federal agency provided the FISC with incomplete, incorrect, or affirmatively misleading information about federal surveillance practices should come as no surpriseto the FISC, or to anyone else. Over the past twenty years, federal agencies have repeatedly misled the FISC about the nature and scope of FISA surveillance. For example, in one opinion from 2009, a FISC judge recounted how the NSA had repeatedly submitt[ed] inaccurate descriptions of the way the NSA was conducting surveillance. In another opinion from 2011, another FISC judge wrote that he was troubled by the governments substantial misrepresentations regarding the scope of a major collection program the third instance in less than three years of the government misleading the FISC about a significant aspect of the governments surveillance programs.

We've long complained about one-sided and secretive FISA surveillance. For too long, the process trafficked in secrecy and the misguided belief that the government would be forthcoming with the federal judges that sit on the surveillance court. Weve been successful in enacting some incremental reform to make the process more transparent and to counterbalance the government's monopoly on the views presented to the FISC. But, no matter your view of the current politically charged debate about the propriety of the surveillance of Carter Page, its clear from the IG report that the FISA process remains broken and in need of serious reform.

Another point about the Page-FISA application is worth emphasizing: no FISA application has ever received the amount of public scrutiny this application has received. In fact, in the statutes forty-year history and the tens of thousands of applications the FISC has approved, only a handful have ever previously been released (and those applications typically related to the authorization of some type of bulk surveillance). Yet, over the past forty years, countless numbers of people have been deprived of their libertyand sentenced to lengthy prison sentenceswithout the benefit of reviewing the FBI's application to the FISC to conduct the surveillance that ultimately led them to prison. As weve argued in court before, that type of secrecy turns the rights of a criminal defendant and fundamental notions of due process upside down.

Its time to fix FISA. The Carter Page surveillance has brought new attention to an old problem. But it's up to Congress now to fix it. We join our friends at the ACLU in calling on Congress to enact serious meaningful reform to the statutereforms that will benefit the entire public, not just those politically fortunate to capture Congress's attention.

See the article here:
Surveillance Court to the FBI: You Have Some Explaining to Do - EFF

Shannon Kent(Photo: Courtesy of the NSA)

A Dutchess County native who died in service to the country will be honored at a post office in Pine Plains.

U.S. Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Shannon M. Kent was one of four Americans killed in Syria in a January suicide bombing.

The 35-year-old graduate of Stissing Mountain High School was in her fifth tour of duty.

A post office at 7722 South Main St. will be named in her honor after a bill introducing the measure was signed into law by President Donald Trump, according to a release from Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-Rhinebeck, who introduced the bill in April.

The bipartisan bill passed the Senate in November after being passed in the House of Representatives in October.

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"The courage and devotion to our nation shown by Senior Chief Petty Officer Kent should continue to serve as an inspiration to us all, and I am elated Dutchess County will be home to this permanent fixture honoring her life, service, and legacy," Delgado said in a statement.

Kent, who grew up in Pine Plains,enlisted in the Navy on Dec. 11, 2003 and then graduated from boot camp and Recruit Training Command in Illinois in February, 2004, according to the Navy.

Achief cryptologic technician in the Navy, Kent's name was added to the National Security Agency's National Cryptological Memorial,located inside the NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.

Kent, a wife and mother of twochildren, was a recipient of several honors, including the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, twojoint service commendation medals, the Navy and Marine Corps commendation medal, the Army commendation medal and the Joint Service Achievement medal. She also survived thyroid cancer in 2016 and returned to active duty.

Geoffrey Wilson: gwilson@poughkeepsiejournal.com; 845-437-4882; Twitter:@GeoffWilson_

Read or Share this story: https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/news/local/2019/12/20/bill-name-pine-plains-post-office-after-shannon-kent-signed-into-law/2715215001/

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Pine Plains Post Office to be named after Shannon Kent - Poughkeepsie Journal

from the good-for-him dept

There are very few things in life that former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden and I agree on. For years, he was a leading government champion for trashing the 4th Amendment and conducting widespread surveillance on Americans. He supported the CIA's torture program and (ridiculously) complained that having the US government publicly reckon with that torture program would help terrorists.

But, there is one thing that he and I agree on: putting backdoors into encryption is a horrible, dreadful, terrible idea. He surprised many people by first saying this five years ago, and he's repeated it a bunch since then -- including in a recent Bloomberg piece, entitled: Encryption Backdoors Won't Stop Crime But Will Hurt U.S. Tech. In it, he makes two great points. First, backdooring encryption will make Americans much less safe:

We must also consider how foreign governments could master and exploit built-in encryption vulnerabilities. What would Chinese, Russian and Saudi authorities do with the encrypted-data access that U.S. authorities would compel technology companies to create? How might this affect activists and journalists in those countries? Would U.S. technology companies suffer the fate of some of their Australian counterparts, which saw foreign customers abandon them after Australia passed its own encryption-busting law?

Separately, he points out that backdooring encryption won't even help law enforcement do what it thinks it wants to do with backdoors:

Proposals that law-enforcement agencies be given backdoor access to encrypted data are unlikely to achieve their goals, because even if Congress compels tech firms to comply, it will have no impact on encryption technologies offered by foreign companies or the open-source community. Users will simply migrate to privacy offerings from providers who are not following U.S. mandates.

Indeed, this is the pattern we have seen in Hong Kong over the last six months, where pro-democracy protesters have moved from domestic services to encrypted messaging platforms such as Telegram and Bridgefy, beyond the reach of Chinese authorities. Unless Washington is willing to embrace authoritarian tactics, it is difficult to see how extraordinary-access policies will prevent motivated criminals (and security-minded citizens) from simply adopting uncompromised services from abroad.

None of this is new, but it's at least good to see the former head of various intelligence agencies highlighting these points. At this point, we've seen intelligence agencies highlight the value of encryption, Homeland Security highlight the importance of encryption, the Defense Department highlight the importance of encryption. The only ones still pushing for breaking encryption are a few law enforcement groups and their fans in Congress.

Filed Under: backdoors, encryption, michael hayden

Read more:
Michael Hayden Ran The NSA And CIA: Now Warns That Encryption Backdoors Will Harm American Security & Tech Leadership - Techdirt

Out of thousands of stocks that are currently traded on the market, itisdifficult to identify those that will really generate strong returns. Hedge funds and institutional investors spend millions of dollars on analysts with MBAs and PhDs,who areindustry experts and well connected to other industry and mediainsiders on top of that. Individual investors can piggyback the hedge funds employing these talents andcanbenefit from their vast resources and knowledge in that way. We analyze quarterly 13F filings of nearly 750 hedge funds and, by looking at the smart money sentiment that surrounds a stock, we can determine whether it has the potential to beat the market over the long-term. Therefore, lets take a closer look at what smart money thinks aboutNational Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA).

National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) investors should pay attention to a decrease in hedge fund interest recently. NSA was in 15 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of September. There were 18 hedge funds in our database with NSA holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that NSA isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings). Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

5 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds

Hedge funds' reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn't keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research has shown that hedge funds' large-cap stock picks indeed failed to beat the market between 1999 and 2016. However, we were able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the Russell 2000 ETFs by 40 percentage points since May 2014 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that'll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 27.8% through November 21, 2019. That's why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies

RENAISSANCE TECHNOLOGIES

We leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example Europe is set to become the world's largest cannabis market, so we check out this European marijuana stock pitch. One of the most bullish analysts in America just put his money where his mouth is. He says, "I'm investing more today than I did back in early 2009." So we check out his pitch. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. We also rely on the best performing hedge funds' buy/sell signals. Let's analyze the key hedge fund action surrounding National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA).

Story continues

At Q3's end, a total of 15 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -17% from the second quarter of 2019. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in NSA over the last 17 quarters. With hedgies' sentiment swirling, there exists an "upper tier" of key hedge fund managers who were adding to their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

Is NSA A Good Stock To Buy?

The largest stake in National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) was held by Renaissance Technologies, which reported holding $62 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Millennium Management with a $31.9 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Winton Capital Management, Citadel Investment Group, and D E Shaw. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Navellier & Associates allocated the biggest weight to National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA), around 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. Winton Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.19 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to NSA.

Due to the fact that National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) has faced a decline in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there is a sect of fund managers who sold off their positions entirely last quarter. At the top of the heap, Jonathan Barrett and Paul Segal's Luminus Management cut the biggest position of the 750 funds monitored by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $9.7 million in stock. Dmitry Balyasny's fund, Balyasny Asset Management, also dumped its stock, about $4.8 million worth. These moves are important to note, as total hedge fund interest fell by 3 funds last quarter.

Let's also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks - not necessarily in the same industry as National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) but similarly valued. We will take a look at NovaGold Resources Inc. (NYSEAMEX:NG), Euronav NV (NYSE:EURN), Cannae Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CNNE), and Federal Signal Corporation (NYSE:FSS). This group of stocks' market values resemble NSA's market value.

[table] Ticker, No of HFs with positions, Total Value of HF Positions (x1000), Change in HF Position NG,16,211750,6 EURN,18,138289,2 CNNE,19,241748,0 FSS,19,77508,-1 Average,18,167324,1.75 [/table]

View table hereif you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 18 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $167 million. That figure was $138 million in NSA's case. Cannae Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CNNE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand NovaGold Resources Inc. (NYSEAMEX:NG) is the least popular one with only 16 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) is even less popular than NG. Hedge funds dodged a bullet by taking a bearish stance towards NSA. Our calculations showed that the top 20 most popular hedge fund stocks returned 37.4% in 2019 through the end of November and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 9.9 percentage points. Unfortunately NSA wasn't nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was very bearish); NSA investors were disappointed as the stock returned 0.4% during the fourth quarter (through the end of November) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as 70 percent of these stocks already outperformed the market so far in Q4.

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.

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Originally posted here:
Here is What Hedge Funds Think About National Storage Affiliates Trust (NSA) - Yahoo Finance