NSA denies hackers involved in website outage

Deutsche Welle, 26 October 2013

The US National Security Agency has denied that its website was disabled by hackers, saying the outage was due to a technical mistake. A worldwide furor surrounds the NSA over its vast surveillance operations.

The US agency accused of monitoring phone calls of 35 international leaders said Saturday that an outage of its own website was caused by an erroneous update. The National Security Agency (NSA) site reappeared 8 hours later.

Earlier, a NSA spokesman rejected speculation on social networks that hackers might have staged a so-called "denial of service" attack.

"NSA.gov was not accessible for several hours tonight [Friday, local time] because of an internal error that occurred during a scheduled update," he said.

The loosely organized international hacker collective Anonymous played down any role, saying ironically: "Don't panic. They have a backup copy of the internet."

Draft resolution to boost privacy

Disclosures from fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden and published by media outlets internationally prompted Brazil and Germany on Friday to begin drafting a UN General Assembly resolution.

Its demand that excessive spying and invasions of privacy be ended follows complaints from Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and most recently German Chancellor Angela Merkel over tapping of their communications, allegedly by the NSA.

Latin American and European diplomats quoted by the news agency Associated Press said Brazil and Germany were leading efforts to draft the resolution.

It would seek to expend privacy rights stated in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

In the 193-nation General Assembly it would be nonbinding but carry moral weight.

Build trust 'anew'

Last month, Rousseff called off a high-profile state visit to Washington. On Thursday, Merkel said trust had to be "built anew" after claims that her Berlin-based mobile phone was tapped by the US.

Germany on Friday said it would send a senior-level delegation to Washington next week to seek responses to a catalogue of questions it submitted months ago.

Washington contends that data interception is necessary to deter terrorism.

On Thursday, just ahead of a EU summit, Britain's Guardian newspaper said a confidential memo indicated that the NSA had monitored phone calls of 35 international leaders in 2006.

Accountability unchecked

Gordon Adams, a professor at American University who served in the administration of former US president Bill Clinton, said the Patriot Act and other laws adopted after the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington by al-Qaeda aircraft hijackers "basically unleashed what we see today."

"In a climate of fear, we basically took the reins off of accountability for the intelligence community," Adams said.

Post-2001, Congress had "opened up a floodgate" and gave the NSA "immense running room," first under ex-president George W. Bush and then incumbent President Barack Obama, Adams told the news agency AFP.

In a commentary in Thursday's edition of USA Today, Lisa Monaco, one of Obama's homeland security advisors, however said US spy services had "more restrictions and oversight that any other country in history."

ipj/tj (AFP, Reuters, AP)

Related Articles:

NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders after US official handed over contacts

Obama defends surveillance programs

Archangel Michael: Expect Miracles - Part 3 The Reval, NESARA, President Obama and Containment (An Hour with an Angel with Archangel Michael)

goldenageofgaia.com, Steve Beckow,  August 7, 2013

“… SB:  Okay. Thank you for that.

Now, we have about four minutes before we run out of time, and this is a bit of a complex topic. But Matthew Ward told us in I think his June message that Obama is working with the galactics; that there are galactics in the National Security Agency; that the National Security Agency was gathering evidence on the Illuminati, and that explains why Obama was supporting the… well, if not supporting, then not doing something about the spying of the NSA. It’s really directed at the Illuminati.

Can you talk a little bit more generally about Obama’s working with the galactics? And if you can — I mean, you may not be able to, but if you can — on the galactics in the other agencies and what they’re doing to bring forward a cleansing of those agencies, please?

AAM:  Let me say that your star brothers and sisters, the galactics and the inter-galactics are everywhere. And yes, they are certainly very deep within the administration not only of the United States but might we say most powerful nations, and those that you would not even deign as powerful.

So yes, of course Obama is working with the galactics, and he has been for some time. And that partnership has been important. Now, there have been some very rough patches, and we would be remiss if we did not mention them. But it is not yet time to discuss the fullness of those rough patches. They will come to light.

The purpose of what you think of as spying has been, yes, targeted to Illuminati or those who are not acting in the best interests of the collective, whether it is the United States, Israel, Botswana, Switzerland, Germany, Russia — it does not matter.

There are more of your star beings, your brothers and sisters on the ground than you can fathom. And one of the reasons why this approach… not only has the approach been taken to assist in this shift, it has also been taken to anchor that energy fully and completely on Gaia.

So, the vision of a fleet of starships arising, or coming across the horizon and causing fear has been circumvented. Look to the person standing next to you and look in their eyes. There is a very good chance that you are looking at one of your star brothers or sisters.

SB:  Wonderful. Thank you very much, Lord. …”