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Yahoo Admits It Secretly Hacked All User Accounts For US Intelligence
– Yahoo Admits It Secretly Hacked All User Accounts For US Intelligence:
Just days after admitting that some 500 millions of its email accounts were hacked (allegedly Russians, of course), the Yahoo confessional continues as Reuters reports, somewhat stunningly that, Yahoo secretly built software to search all of its customers’ incoming emails for US intel officials. Yahoo’s reaction to this: we are “a law abiding company.”
Following claims of state-sponsored attacks of its customers’ email accounts, Reuters reports, Yahoo also hacked its own customers’ accounts…
Yahoo Inc last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers’ incoming emails for specific information provided by U.S. intelligence officials, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company complied with a classified U.S. government directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI, said two former employees and a third person apprised of the events.
Read moreYahoo Admits It Secretly Hacked All User Accounts For US Intelligence
IRS Deleted Backups Of 24,000 Lois Lerner Emails Months After Subpoena
– IRS Deleted Backups Of 24,000 Lois Lerner Emails Months After Subpoena (ZeroHedge, June 25, 2015):
According to the IG’s deputy Timothy Camus, two “lower-graded” employees at the IRS center in Martinsburg, West Virginia, erased 422 computer backup tapes that contained as many as 24,000 emails to and from former IRS official Lois Lerner. It gets better: the tapes were erased in March 2014, months after congressional investigators requested all of Lerner’s emails, and months after Zero Hedge, among many others, said to simply track down the server back ups. And the punchline: according to George, the workers might be incompetent, a lead investigator said Thursday, but there is no evidence they were part of a criminal conspiracy to destroy evidence.
…
First Hillary, Now Chuck Hagel: Former Secretary Of Defense Also Used Private Email
– First Hillary, Now Chuck Hagel: Former Secretary Of Defense Also Used Private Email (ZeroHedge, March 10, 2015):
For all the administration’s scaremongering about hackers hacking into every possible electronic source that is connected to the internet (and in the case of StuxNet, those that aren’t as Iran found out the hard way), it appears that the biggest culprit when it comes to lax communication security was the administration itself. And not just Hillary: moments ago NBC revealed that none other than former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, who as a reminder resigned in November following intense scapegoating by Obama who needed to a sacrificial calf following the disastrous midterm elections, also used a personal, non-supervised email address.
According to an NBC investigation, the White House emailed former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel at a private email address during his time in charge of the Pentagon, according to an investigation by the News-4 I-Team.
Read moreFirst Hillary, Now Chuck Hagel: Former Secretary Of Defense Also Used Private Email
AND NOW: Amid Probe, NY Governor Cuomo Orders Mass Deletion Of Government Emails
– Amid Probe, NY Governor Cuomo Orders Mass Deletion Of Government Emails (ZeroHedge, Feb 26, 2015):
In an Onion-esque story almosty too unbelievable to be real, IB Times reports, in a memo obtained by Capital New York, Cuomo officials announced that mass purging of email records is beginning across several state government agencies. The timing of the announcement, which followed through on a 2013 proposal, is worth noting: The large-scale destruction of state documents will be happening in the middle of a sprawling federal investigation of public corruption in Albany.
Many probably felt relief in thinking that such records are now often digitized and therefore not at risk of being accidentally incinerated. Yet as Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration is showing this week, many records are vulnerable to another form of destruction: deliberate deletion.
Read moreAND NOW: Amid Probe, NY Governor Cuomo Orders Mass Deletion Of Government Emails
U.S. State Department Hacked, Shuts Down Worldwide Email System
– State Department Hacked, Shuts Down Worldwide Email System (ZeroHedge, Nov 16, 2014):
As the G-20 meeting comes to a ‘successful’ end with back-patting congratulations having agreed to create $2 trillion more GDP out of thin air (or maybe hookers and blow), it appears that someone – or more than one – among these nations was less than diplomatic towards every nations’ best friend – America. As AP reports, The State Department has taken the unprecedented step of shutting down its entire unclassified email system as technicians repair possible damage from a suspected hacker attack. Earlier attacks have been blamed on Russian or Chinese attackers, although their origin has never been publicly confirmed.
Read moreU.S. State Department Hacked, Shuts Down Worldwide Email System
US judge rules Microsoft must handover personal data stored abroad
– US judge rules Microsoft must handover personal data stored abroad (RT, Aug 31, 2014):
Microsoft has been told it must handover emails stored abroad to US prosecutors by a New York court. However, the software giant says it will fight the ruling, saying that an email deserves the same privacy protection as a paper letter sent by mail.
The company says they will not release any emails to US authorities, while it appeals the ruling, made by Chief Judge Loretta Preska of the US District Court in Manhattan. She said that Microsoft must hand over information, regardless of where it was stored.
Read moreUS judge rules Microsoft must handover personal data stored abroad
‘Snooper’s Charter’: UK Goverment Pushes For Access To Social Media
– ‘Snooper’s charter’: UK govt pushes for access to social media (RT, June 26, 2014):
Britain’s Home Secretary is pushing for new spying powers to access social media and email accounts. Theresa May argues that it’s a “matter of life and death,” and has dismissed claims the government wants to spy on citizens.
The British Home Office is pushing for changes to the law that would radically expand powers to monitor citizens. The communications data bill, which has been branded ‘the snooper’s charter’ by opponents, would allow authorities access to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
In addition, services like Facetime and Skype would also be accessible to the UK authorities.
Read more‘Snooper’s Charter’: UK Goverment Pushes For Access To Social Media
White House Calls IRS Investigation A ‘Conspiracy Theory’ (Video) – Lois Lerner Emails: Nothing Digital Ever Dies
Just ask the NSA:
– Congressman Asks NSA To Restore Two Years Of ‘Lost’ Lois Lerner IRS Emails
June 20, 2014
Related info:
– Lois Lerner Emails: Nothing Digital Ever Dies (Digital Journal, June 19, 2014):
In 2007, while co-writing a magazine piece with Silicon Valley author and entrepreneur Michael S. Malone on best Information Age practices for politicians, I coined a phrase Malone instantly dubbed “the Cannon Codicil.”
Postulating that electronic messages, like diamonds, last for forever, Cannon’s codicil simply holds that “Nothing digital ever dies.”
Although inspired by the water torture Democrats were then inflicting on Karl Rove over his missing Republican National Committee emails, mostly I was being metaphysical. But now, with the Internal Revenue Service claiming it has lost tens of thousands of emails from Lois Lerner and six of her IRS subordinates, the question in Washington is whether such a thing is technologically possible.