Tax Payer Funded NSA Surveillance?

The OffNow.org Campaign features one approach that many people may glance over.

Let’s face it; the heavy hitter of the OffNow.org campaign is turning off the utilities at the data centers used for storing mass surveillance on each and everyone of us. But another critical aspect of the spy-state the OffNow.org campaign targets is university research. Simply put, the NSA uses colleges and universities to develop technologies that are being used to exploit our private lives.

Over the years, the NSA has partnered with over 160 of our colleges and universities. Millions and millions of dollars are being handed out for “cyber security” research.

As you read through the information below, consider how denying public university cooperation can thwart the NSA’s unconstitutional activities. That is the goal of the OffNow Coalition. if the NSA wants the help, it had better follow the Constitution.

Research is a natural process to improve our current tools and advance them to the next level. As electronic and cyber technologies develop, the efficiencies become part of our lives. Usually, research tends to point that technology in the direction for good. It generally leads to cheaper, faster, and more efficient machines.

But we must question the effect of research funded by a federal agency that uses turns on our cameras and microphones in our computers remotely, accesses our mobile devices to track our every move, and collects our emails and phone calls.

Many universities believe wholeheartedly that this research will be used to protect infrastructures, privacy, and national security.

But what has this research actually generated? Has it lead to the interception of all the communications and metadata of US citizens without a warrant?

A Wikileaks article, “On the Take and Loving It”, it shows how to search for some of this published research. By entering the grant code MDA-904 into Google Scholar, patents and research papers will pop up, all funded by the NSA. Grant money from the NSA isn’t a new things. It’s been happening for decades.

The NSA isn’t the only federal agency funding research.  “MDA908” is the identifier for grants from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

Now, more and more grants are being funneled through by the National Science Foundation (NSF) supported by NSA.

Some of the projects in the Wikileaks article highlights includes technology for targeting individuals from stationary cameras in crowded areas, black ops, applied mathematics in cyber security and indentifying security holes in programs.

Millions and millions of dollars are being funneled to schools. Purdue, University of Tulsa and Idaho State University received 2.7 million dollars in 2004 from the NSA.

Purde University has many types of cyber security research.

“As we increase the number of qualified students entering the field of IA [Information Assurance], we will be better prepared to meet DoD, Federal and national increasing dependence on information technology for defending America’s increasingly vulnerable information infrastructure.”

The long term goal of the research projects are to meet the needs of military within industry, academic, and infrastructures not meant to have a military role.

Syracuse University received $760,000 dollars from the NSA.

“The interdisciplinary faculty team and administrative support staff put a lot of effort into making this grant award a reality. Through the SFS program, we will prepare a new generation of cybersecurity professionals, for which there is a high demand within federal government agencies. These professionals will help shape and protect the cyber infrastructure that is so important for the economic prosperity of the United States.”

Syracuse University also acknowledges a very centralized role of the federal government integrated with the Internet.

Dakota State University and its partners received over $15 million from the NSA since 2005. Click here and scroll to the bottom where it says grants.

In 2007, Wake University was another tschool hat received funds from the NSA.

“Greg Warrington, Wake Forest University assistant professor of mathematics, has been awarded a Young Investigators Grant from the National Security Administration. Warrington will use the two-year, $30,000 grant to fund research on algebraic combinatorics, which involves evaluating and predicting relationships between different sets of mathematical objects. The National Security Agency Mathematical Sciences Program funds high quality mathematical research in the areas of algebra, number theory, discrete mathematics, probability and statistics.”

University of Texas San Antonio got $1.25 million dollars in 2011.

“UTSA is recognized by the National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security as a Center for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education (CAE). The CAE program reduces vulnerability in the U.S. information infrastructure by promoting higher education and research in information assurance and by supporting a growing number of professionals with information assurance expertise. UTSA also is one of the few schools to hold the prestigious CAE-R designation. The CAE-R program in information assurance aims to increase the understanding of robust technologies, policies and practices through research to enable the United States to effectively prevent or respond to a catastrophic cyber event.”

In 2010, NSA came to UTSA to prepare students to learn the skills necessary to operate a data center like the one found in San Antonio.

“In 2010, the National Security Agency (NSA) approached UTSA to help it build an academic program that would prepare students to have the exact skill sets to work at any of the NSA’s data centers across the country, including the one in Northwest San Antonio. The curriculum was put in place and first offered as a minor last fall…The NSA has a similar relationship with the University of Utah, LA Tech and Texas A&M-College Station. UTSA was one of the first universities approached by the NSA, and is one of the pioneers in offering the data center management degree program as a minor.“We sought a partnership with UTSA because of the school’s desire and ongoing efforts to build stellar, high-quality programs in this field,” said Harvey Davis, director of installations and logistics at NSA. “From an intern-recruiting perspective, we look to these schools as a potential pipeline for resources.”

In 2011, University of Tulsa received another $2.4 million dollars. The University of Tulsa has received a $2.48 million grant from the National Science Foundation for its flagship Cyber Corps Program that trains “cyber warriors” for the U.S. government and military. The grant, which will help field at least 50 additional students through 2017, brings the total NSF support for TU’s Cyber Corps Program to nearly $15 million since 2001.”

Three universities received massive grants from the NSA.

“North Carolina State University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Carnegie Mellon University are each receiving an initial $2.5 million in grant funds from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) to stimulate the creation of a more scientific basis for the design and analysis of trusted systems.”

Lewis University was given $355,000 from the NSA in 2012.

“The grant will allow us to significantly upgrade our Information technology curriculum by offering new courses and improved learning via the virtual lab. Our students and our partners in the community will benefit from this grant,” according to Dr. Faisal Abdullah, chair and associate professor of the Management Information Systems at Lewis University.

Norwich University was also a receiver of NSA grants to the tune of $975,000.

“Norwich University was named a Center of Excellence ininformation assurance education by the US National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security in 2001, and in 2011 it was designated by the US Department of Defense Cybercrime Center (DC3) as a pilot university of the Center of Digital Forensic Academic Excellence (CDFAE) program.”

Again, the military wishes to once again combine commercial Internet with the military with Norwich University.

“Last year’s NSA announcement noted that graduates of the programs often develop into cyber experts who help to protect national security information systems, commercial networks, and critical information infrastructure in both the private and public sectors – meeting the increasingly urgent needs of the US government, industry and academia. – See more HERE.

Do I believe individual researchers, or even schools, are promoting research that is being used to exploit the privacy of US citizens? Not intentionally. What is the role of the military? Is it meant to be integrated in every aspect of our commerce and academics? What about the morality of tools being used for unconsitutional means? Where were these tools made? Was it research from schools like these? Much of what we are finding out is that electronic tools we didn’t imagine are being used to exploit our privacy under the guise of national defense.

There is no proof there is any reason these tools are an effective defense against terrorists, but there is proof that NSA has every intention of militarizing realms of our lives where they have no authority. Millions and millions of dollars from the NSA is being handed out year after year.

Cybersecurity programs in NSA-partnered universities use this funding to expand the NSA’s reach into markets financial, pharmaceutical, healthcare, and other industries. In fact, the Research Triangle in North Carolina is one of the biggest entities on the take.

“We have chosen the Research Triangle area for its vibrant academic and industry interest in large data analytics, and NC State for having the nation’s first, and preeminent, advanced degree program in data analytics,” Wertheimer’s statement said. “By immersing intelligence analysts with NC State’s diverse group of scientists, we hope to discover new and powerful ways to meet our foreign signals intelligence and information assurance missions – giving us an edge to better protect the nation.”

Some of the universities and colleges partnered with the NSA, do promote privacy, encryption, and even anonymity. But I think something we really need answered is how will this research benefit us if the purpose is to mix military and industrial technologies in American lives?

There is no relevant oversight to the NSA or even to how any of the research is being used. The federal government is out of control. Black budgets and secret “oversight” are not checks on the NSA. And now even our institutions of learning are being used to combine our once civilian sectors with the military. After all this, we are shocked that technologies used by the government can collect all our communications data.

Can we rerouted around the conventional acceptance of the surveillance state to a path of liberty? The Tenth Amendment Center’s plan is to use the state to protect the Fourth Amendment against NSA:

Stop data centers by turning off the utilities

Use the states to protect against information sharing.

Provide refuge for companies from handing information to the NSA. Punish those companies that do.

Stop funding research leading to unethical technologies from our colleges and universities.

We can no longer be ignorant of the technology and its effects. Turn off the research that leading to the technologies being used against us. The military has no role in our academic institutions, financial institutions, infrastructure, nor the Internet. If it wants research, it can do it itself.

It is not ethical, moral or even just to help continue research that will destroy our freedoms of speech and privacy. The First Amendment and Fourth Amendment will no longer be protected against the federal government without state, local, and individual action.