The US justice department has filed criminal charges against a fugitive ex-intelligence analyst who leaked details of a secret surveillance operation.

The charges against ex-National Security Agency (NSA) analyst Edward Snowden include espionage and theft of government property.

In May, Mr Snowden fled to Hong Kong after leaking details of a programme to monitor phone and internet data.

The US is also reported to be preparing an extradition request.

His leaks revealed that US agencies had systematically gathered vast amounts of phone and web data.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23012317

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I believe that the "theft" is actually in reverse... The US government is stealing our life — our property — and what we do with it... The US should be charged with robbery, theft and larceny — as well as being a peeping tom...

Laura K. Donohue is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and director of Georgetown’s Center on National Security and the Law.

The National Security Agency’s recently revealed surveillance programs undermine the purpose of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was established to prevent this kind of overreach. They violate the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. And they underscore the dangers of growing executive power.

The intelligence community has a history of overreaching in the name of national security. In the mid-1970s, it came to light that, since the 1940s, the NSA had been collecting international telegraphic traffic from companies, in the process obtaining millions of Americans’ telegrams that were unrelated to foreign targets. From 1940 to 1973, the CIA and the FBI engaged in covert mail-opening programs that violated laws prohibiting the interception or opening of mail. The agencies also conducted warrantless “surreptitious entries,” breaking into targets’ offices and homes to photocopy or steal business records and personal documents. The Army Security Agency intercepted domestic radio communications. And the Army’s CONUS program placed more than 100,000 people under surveillance, including lawmakers and civil rights leaders.

After an extensive investigation of the agencies’ actions, Congress passed the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to limit sweeping collection of intelligence and create rigorous oversight. But 35 years later, the NSA is using this law and its subsequent amendments as legal grounds to run even more invasive programs than those that gave rise to the statute.

read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/nsa-surveillance-may-be-legal--but-its-unconstitutional/2013/06/21/b9ddec20-d44d-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_print.html

China has attacked America as an espionage "villain" after former spy Edward Snowden raised new allegations about the far-reaching extent of US cyber-snooping against Chinese targets.

The US is seeking to extradite the 30-year-old technician from Hong Kong, where he is holed up after leaking details of secret US intelligence programs to international media outlets.

Snowden's leaks revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) has access to vast amounts of internet data such as emails, chat rooms and video under a government program known as PRISM.

The South China Morning Post says documents and statements by Snowden show PRISM also hacked major Chinese telecom companies to access text messages and targeted China's top Tsinghua University.

The official Xinhua news agency says the US government owes the world an explanation.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-23/china-says-us-is-biggest-spying-villain/4774458

Mind you, the Chinese are not far behind, nor are the Europeans... and every one should tell us why they spy on us without us being really worth the effort...

The UK is tapping fibre-optic cables that carry global communications and gathering vast amounts of data, the Guardian has reported.

The newspaper said its report was based on leaked documents from GCHQ, the UK's electronic eavesdropping agency.

The information from internet and phone use was stored for up to 30 days to be sifted and analysed, the paper said.

GCHQ declined to comment on the claims but said its compliance with the law was "scrupulous".

The documents were reportedly released by Edward Snowden, the former IT contractor at GCHQ's US counterpart, the National Security Agency, who is believed to be in hiding in Hong Kong.

Mr Snowden is behind a string of other disclosures about US intelligence operations. It is reported that US authorities have charged him with espionage and theft.

According to the Guardian, the GCHQ operation codenamed Tempora has been running for 18 months.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23004080

The US government is hacking Chinese mobile phone companies to steal millions of text messages, Edward Snowden has told the South China Morning Post. And the former National Security Agency contractor claims he has the evidence to prove it.

The former CIA technician and NSA contractor, hiding in Hong Kong after the US sought his arrest, made the claims after revealing to the Post that the NSA had snooped on targets in Hong Kong and on the mainland.

“There’s far more than this,” Snowden said in an interview on June 12. “The NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cell phone companies to steal all of your SMS data.”

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1266821/us-hacks-chinese-mobile-phone-companies-steals-sms-data-edward-snowden

The power of big data goes far beyond figuring out what we might want to know. Big data helps pharmaceutical companies identify the attributes of their best sales people, so they can hire, and train, more effectively. Big data can help predict what songs are likely to be hits, which wine vintages will taste better and whether chubby baseball pitchers have the right stuff.

But big data should not be confused with big ideas. It is in those ideas — the ones that make us conjure up the image of Albert Einstein — that lead to breakthroughs.

The benefits of big data are so, well, big, that there’s no going back. Yet I don’t need to re-read George Orwell, or scan the latest headlines about the massive snooping of personal communications orchestrated by theNational Security Agency in the United States to feel at least some discomfort with big data’s side effects. One that seldom gets notice: in a world where massive datasets can be analysed to identify patterns not easily identified using simpler analogue methods, what happens to genius of the Einstein variety? 

Genius is about big ideas, not big data. Analysing the attributes and characteristics of anything is guaranteed to find some patterns. It is inherently a theoretical exercise, one that requires minimal thought once you’ve figured out what you want to measure. If you’re not sure, just measure everything you can get your hands on. Since the number of observations — the size of the sample — is by definition huge, the laws of statistics kick in quickly to ensure that significant relationships will be identified. And who could argue with the data?

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20130612-will-big-data-drown-out-genius

It has been one of my beef with "performance" measurement... in which everything is standardised and quantified with stiff analysis — with very little leeway for "invention" and "flexibility of futuramic thoughts"...