Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon has asked the Office of Inspector General (OIG) to investigate claims made by a military whistleblower that many Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) agents purchased and used Netflow data to access the personal online information of many American citizens.
In a letter he wrote to the OIG last week, Wyden mentioned the findings and asserted that several US military branches had purchased access to “petabytes” of individuals’ private information using a program called Augury. Team Cymru, a Florida-based online security company, sold us this device.
The claimed data aggregation, according to the study, includes a person’s email communications, browsing history, and other details about their online activities. All of this information is available whenever needed and without a court order.
Wyden also requested that the OIG look into how the Department Of justice and Department of Homeland Security obtained and used related records.
Press TV elaborated on the seriousness of the circumstance:
The report stated: “Netflow data includes privileged information ordinarily made available exclusively to internet service providers, but is probably being delivered to members of the military without the knowledgeable agreement of those companies — much less the judicial authorization.”
According to Wyden’s research into the allegations made by the whistleblowers, the Army, FBI, Secret Service, and US Cyber Command had also purchased data sets from the firm. The study also mentioned that these government agencies spent $3.5 million to use Augury from Team Cymru. Press TV claims that this gadget can “use a technology that is called packet capture data (PCAP)” to access 93% of internet traffic.
“The usage of net flow information by NCIS doesn’t require a warrant,” according to a Navy Office of Information spokesman quoted in a Motherboard piece, who also claimed that the agency did not use NetFlow to conduct criminal investigations. Only “different counterintelligence purposes” were utilized for Netflow.
When Team Cymru defended its tool, it pointed out that “the platform expressly does not contain customer information sufficient to tie history back to any users” and that “the tool is not designed to target specific users or user behavior.”
It’s becoming more and more obvious that the business community cannot be regarded as a genuine ally of the right. Private businesses frequently voluntarily assist the Deep State in dispossessing Americans and restricting their freedoms.
Both the state and these organizations are the adversary. The Right must be prepared to acknowledge this and, more crucially, identify these groups among the institutions that should ultimately face restrictions whenever the Right regains control of the government.
Those who belittle us and our supporters will be subject to the wrath of the state.
Author: Blake Ambrose
