(The identity of the reporter has been withheld for security reasons)

HOMS, Syria (Reuters) - In one district in the battered city of Homs, one school educates children while the other three shelter families who fled fighting in neighboring areas more than a year ago.

Most of the 1,200 people camped out in the classrooms only expected to stay for a few days in the mistaken belief that the violence would soon end.

But as the weeks turned to months, a new order has taken hold - one where only the women can safely venture out, where the men live in fear of arrest, where a barter economy thrives and inventiveness has flourished.

"In a way, it's like a large prison," said a female resident of one of the schools, who, like many of the displaced people, declined to give her name for fear of reprisals. Most in the schools, which are in a government controlled area of Homs, are opposed to President Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent says up to four million people have been internally displaced within Syria by the rebellion against Assad, which broke out more than two years ago and shows no sign of abating.

With the humanitarian crisis worsening, the United Nations warned on Friday that half of all Syrians -- or more than 10 million people -- will need aid by the end of this year and called for $5 billion in emergency funds, which it said was the biggest such appeal ever made.

Homs, 140 km (90 miles) north of Damascus, is Syria's third largest city and an epicenter of the revolt, with fierce battles leaving 17 of its 21 neighborhoods in rubble.

Shelling and gunfire continue in and around the city in restive areas. Further to the south, Assad's forces launched a successful counteroffensive to capture the town of Qusair this week, but whether they will push north to Homs or bypass it remains unclear.

REVENGE KILLINGS

Snipers, kidnappings and revenge killings make travel in most of Homs particularly perilous. Exactly who is behind such mayhem is hard to determine in the chaos of war, with pro-government residents blaming the rebels and vice versa.

Occasionally one of the men might sneak out of the school and try to cross the devastated city to see whether it is safe to return to their abandoned homes. It clearly isn't.

"We don't hear of them again. They disappear," said Fatma, a mother of four who used to live in the nearby suburb of Bayada.

The lurking danger leaves the school's unwilling residents stuck in limbo, surviving day-to-day as best they can.

Fresh food is hard to find, with young children starting to show the signs of vitamin deficiencies and mothers facing a dire shortage of baby milk, volunteer doctors say.

Disease poses a further threat.

Hepatitis A is on the rise as government-subsidized vaccines are no longer available, and an outbreak of Leishmania, a parasitic disease transferred through the bites of sand flies, needed some inventive thinking to bring under control.

To combat the illness, which can cause fever, breathing problems, ulcers and skin sores, a few residents, most of them unemployed engineers, managed to build an insecticide machine.

"Then we went to the municipality and begged for pesticide, and luckily they had some in stock. It was one month away from its expiry date," said one of the organizers.

Such resourcefulness is typical of school life. Recruiting carpenters and metalworkers from among the displaced men, they have built outhouses in the playground, and refurbished half-finished apartments to allow displaced families to squat there.

BARTER SYSTEM

Since cash is hard to come by, workers get paid through a barter system. "You do my window frame. I'll do your door," explained one of the organizers.

Most of the men stick close to the school for fear of running into a government checkpoint, where they have to show their ID card. These documents clearly mark the origin of their holders, so men who come from restive areas known for harboring armed rebels face immediate detention and questioning.

Death is perhaps one of the most complicated acts that can unfold at the school, as it creates "a nightmare of red tape and interrogations," said one of the residents.

"State security used to allow two family members to bury the body," said a young mother who recently lost a female relative, adding that the authorities were now suspicious of every death, probing for possible involvement in the rebel cause.

"They ask so many questions about how the death occurred, and they don't allow anyone to go with the body ... Inshallah they prayed over her when they buried her, but I don't know."

When families fleeing the nearby fighting started to arrive in previously affluent neighborhoods, some locals realized it was for the long-term. One such resident, an art teacher named Ezza, decided not to give them any charity but instead tried to help them earn some money.

"Don't buy them fish, but show them how to fish," she said. "So I've been teaching some of the women how to do embroidery and art craft, and we've put together three exhibits so far, and sold their work."

Fatma, one of her best students, lives with her family and dozens of relatives. Asked how the men view her work, which brings in the only income, she laughed: "Sometimes my husband helps out by holding the ball of yarn as I knit."

Each classroom is shared by two families, with a makeshift wooden wall in the middle providing some semblance of privacy. A strict schedule dividing time and precious hot water among the resident families hangs at the bathroom entrance. Meals are eaten communally. Home life is a distant memory.

"We used to talk a lot about returning home. We don't any more. But the kids always have dreams," said Fatma.

"My daughter tells me: ‘Mama, I saw myself walking down our street, and our home was still there.' And the other one says: ‘Mama, I saw our home, but it was missing a wall.'"

(Editing by Crispian Balmer and Giles Elgood)

Data Mining Expose: Facebook, Google, Apple Accessed by NSA

Stephen: This story is the data mining equivalent of the recent expose on the tax havens of the super-rich. The NSA is not likely to be the only national security organisation locked into secret deals with these companies. This has to be a global initiative, involving governments and agencies across the world. Watch this one grow…

Yesterday it was the revelation that the Verizon phone records of millions of Americans (and others) were being accessed by the NSA. Today it’s the ‘news’ that Facebook, Google (including Google+ and, no doubt, the invasive Google Street View) and Apple data is also ‘mined for personal, private details. Oh, and Skype! (They must have a field day with some of the conversations the blog editors and InLight Radio team have!).

The really good thing is that now this secret program, named PRISM, is out in the open – and making headlines around the world – it’s not a secret anymore. Interestingly, as i went to post this I noticed that 1111 people had left a comment about this story on The Guardian’s website. Synchronicity in action?

NSA Taps in to Internet Giants’ Systems to Mine User Data, Secret Files Reveal

• Top secret PRISM program claims direct access to servers of firms including Google, Facebook and Apple

• Companies deny any knowledge of program in operation since 2007

By Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian – June 6, 2012

The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.

The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.

The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims “collection directly from the servers” of major US service providers.

Although the presentation claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies, all those who responded to a Guardian request for comment on Thursday denied knowledge of any such program.

In a statement, Google said: “Google cares deeply about the security of our users’ data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government ‘back door’ into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data.”

Several senior tech executives insisted that they had no knowledge of PRISM or of any similar scheme. They said they would never have been involved in such a program. “If they are doing this, they are doing it without our knowledge,” one said.

An Apple spokesman said it had “never heard” of PRISM.

The NSA access was enabled by changes to US surveillance law introduced under President Bush and renewed under Obama in December 2012.

The program facilitates extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. The law allows for the targeting of any customers of participating firms who live outside the US, or those Americans whose communications include people outside the US.

It also opens the possibility of communications made entirely within the US being collected without warrants.

Disclosure of the PRISM program follows a leak to the Guardian on Wednesday of a top-secret court order compelling telecoms provider Verizon to turn over the telephone records of millions of US customers.

The participation of the internet companies in PRISM will add to the debate, ignited by the Verizon revelation, about the scale of surveillance by the intelligence services. Unlike the collection of those call records, this surveillance can include the content of communications and not just the metadata.

Some of the world’s largest internet brands are claimed to be part of the information-sharing program since its introduction in 2007. Microsoft – which is currently running an advertising campaign with the slogan “Your privacy is our priority” – was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007.

It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012. The program is continuing to expand, with other providers due to come online.

Collectively, the companies cover the vast majority of online email, search, video and communications networks.

The extent and nature of the data collected from each company varies.

Companies are legally obliged to comply with requests for users’ communications under US law, but the PRISM program allows the intelligence services direct access to the companies’ servers. The NSA document notes the operations have “assistance of communications providers in the US”.

The revelation also supports concerns raised by several US senators during the renewal of the Fisa Amendments Act in December 2012, who warned about the scale of surveillance the law might enable, and shortcomings in the safeguards it introduces.

When the FAA was first enacted, defenders of the statute argued that a significant check on abuse would be the NSA’s inability to obtain electronic communications without the consent of the telecom and internet companies that control the data. But the PRISM program renders that consent unnecessary, as it allows the agency to directly and unilaterally seize the communications off the companies’ servers.

A chart prepared by the NSA, contained within the top-secret document obtained by the Guardian, underscores the breadth of the data it is able to obtain: email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP (Skype, for example) chats, file transfers, social networking details, and more.

The document is recent, dating to April 2013. Such a leak is extremely rare in the history of the NSA, which prides itself on maintaining a high level of secrecy.

The PRISM program allows the NSA, the world’s largest surveillance organisation, to obtain targeted communications without having to request them from the service providers and without having to obtain individual court orders.

With this program, the NSA is able to reach directly into the servers of the participating companies and obtain both stored communications as well as perform real-time collection on targeted users.

The presentation claims PRISM was introduced to overcome what the NSA regarded as shortcomings of Fisa warrants in tracking suspected foreign terrorists. It noted that the US has a “home-field advantage” due to housing much of the internet’s architecture. But the presentation claimed “Fisa constraints restricted our home-field advantage” because Fisa required individual warrants and confirmations that both the sender and receiver of a communication were outside the US.

“Fisa was broken because it provided privacy protections to people who were not entitled to them,” the presentation claimed. “It took a Fisa court order to collect on foreigners overseas who were communicating with other foreigners overseas simply because the government was collecting off a wire in the United States. There were too many email accounts to be practical to seek Fisas for all.”

The new measures introduced in the FAA redefines “electronic surveillance” to exclude anyone “reasonably believed” to be outside the USA – a technical change which reduces the bar to initiating surveillance.

The act also gives the director of national intelligence and the attorney general power to permit obtaining intelligence information, and indemnifies internet companies against any actions arising as a result of co-operating with authorities’ requests.

In short, where previously the NSA needed individual authorisations, and confirmation that all parties were outside the USA, they now need only reasonable suspicion that one of the parties was outside the country at the time of the records were collected by the NSA.

The document also shows the FBI acts as an intermediary between other agencies and the tech companies, and stresses its reliance on the participation of US internet firms, claiming “access is 100% dependent on ISP provisioning”.

In the document, the NSA hails the PRISM program as “one of the most valuable, unique and productive accesses for NSA”.

It boasts of what it calls “strong growth” in its use of the PRISM program to obtain communications. The document highlights the number of obtained communications increased in 2012 by 248% for Skype – leading the notes to remark there was “exponential growth in Skype reporting; looks like the word is getting out about our capability against Skype”. There was also a 131% increase in requests for Facebook data, and 63% for Google.

The NSA document indicates that it is planning to add Dropbox as a PRISM provider. The agency also seeks, in its words, to “expand collection services from existing providers”.

The revelations echo fears raised on the Senate floor last year during the expedited debate on the renewal of the FAA powers which underpin the PRISM program, which occurred just days before the act expired.

Senator Christopher Coons of Delaware specifically warned that the secrecy surrounding the various surveillance programs meant there was no way to know if safeguards within the act were working.

“The problem is: we here in the Senate and the citizens we represent don’t know how well any of these safeguards actually work,” he said.

“The law doesn’t forbid purely domestic information from being collected. We know that at least one Fisa court has ruled that the surveillance program violated the law. Why? Those who know can’t say and average Americans can’t know.”

Other senators also raised concerns. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon attempted, without success, to find out any information on how many phone calls or emails had been intercepted under the program.

When the law was enacted, defenders of the FAA argued that a significant check on abuse would be the NSA’s inability to obtain electronic communications without the consent of the telecom and internet companies that control the data. But the PRISM program renders that consent unnecessary, as it allows the agency to directly and unilaterally seize the communications off the companies’ servers.

When the NSA reviews a communication it believes merits further investigation, it issues what it calls a “report”. According to the NSA, “over 2,000 PRISM-based reports” are now issued every month. There were 24,005 in 2012, a 27% increase on the previous year.

In total, more than 77,000 intelligence reports have cited the PRISM program.

Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU’s Center for Democracy, that it was astonishing the NSA would even ask technology companies to grant direct access to user data.

“It’s shocking enough just that the NSA is asking companies to do this,” he said. “The NSA is part of the military. The military has been granted unprecedented access to civilian communications.

“This is unprecedented militarisation of domestic communications infrastructure. That’s profoundly troubling to anyone who is concerned about that separation.”

A senior administration official said in a statement: “The Guardian and Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This law does not allow the targeting of any US citizen or of any person located within the United States.

“The program is subject to oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Executive Branch, and Congress. It involves extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court, to ensure that only non-US persons outside the US are targeted, and that minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about US persons.

“This program was recently reauthorized by Congress after extensive hearings and debate.

“Information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats.

“The Government may only use Section 702 to acquire foreign intelligence information, which is specifically, and narrowly, defined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This requirement applies across the board, regardless of the nationality of the target.”

Bilderberg 2013: Who’s Inside?

Bilderberg 2013: Day 1 – From the Outside