(Spencer S. Hsu and Carrie Johnson, Washington Post, August 16, 2008) The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years. . . . The proposed changes would revise the federal government's rules for police intelligence-gathering for the first time since 1993 and would apply to any of the nation's 18,000 state and local police agencies that receive roughly $1.6 billion each year in federal grants. . . . Quietly unveiled late last month, the proposal is part of a flurry of domestic intelligence changes issued and planned by the Bush administration in its waning months. They include a recent executive order that guides the reorganization of federal spy agencies and a pending Justice Department overhaul of FBI procedures for gathering intelligence and investigating terrorism cases within U.S. borders. . . . Taken together, critics in Congress and elsewhere say, the moves are intended to lock in policies for Bush's successor and to enshrine controversial post-Sept. 11 approaches that some say have fed the greatest expansion of executive authority since the Watergate era. . . . Under the Justice Department proposal for state and local police, published for public comment July 31, law enforcement agencies would be allowed to target groups as well as individuals, and to launch a criminal intelligence investigation based on the suspicion that a target is engaged in terrorism or providing material support to terrorists. They also could share results with a constellation of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and others in many cases. . . . The recent moves continue a steady expansion of the intelligence role of U.S. law enforcement, breaking down a wall erected after congressional hearings in 1976 to rein in such activity. . . . The push to transform FBI and local police intelligence operations has triggered wider debate over who will be targeted, what will be done with the information collected and who will oversee such activities. . . . Critics say preemptive law enforcement in the absence of a crime can violate the Constitution and due process. They cite the administration's long-running warrantless-surveillance program, which was set up outside the courts, and the FBI's acknowledgment that it abused its intelligence-gathering privileges in hundreds of cases by using inadequately documented administrative orders to obtain telephone, e-mail, financial and other personal records of U.S. citizens without warrants. . . . Former Justice Department official Jamie S. Gorelick said the new FBI guidelines on their own do not raise alarms. But she cited the recent disclosure that undercover Maryland State Police agents spied on death penalty opponents and antiwar groups in 2005 and 2006 to emphasize that the policies would require close oversight. . . . German, an FBI agent for 16 years, said easing established limits on intelligence-gathering would lead to abuses against peaceful political dissenters. In addition to the Maryland case, he pointed to reports in the past six years that undercover New York police officers infiltrated protest groups before the 2004 Republican National Convention; that California state agents eavesdropped on peace, animal rights and labor activists; and that Denver police spied on Amnesty International and others before being discovered. . . . "If police officers no longer see themselves as engaged in protecting their communities from criminals and instead as domestic intelligence agents working on behalf of the CIA, they will be encouraged to collect more information," German said. "It turns police officers into spies on behalf of the federal government." . . . Civil liberties groups also have warned that forthcoming Justice Department rules for the FBI may permit the use of terrorist profiles that could single out religious or ethnic groups such as Muslims or Arabs for investigation.
First they came for the Communists,
- but I was not a communist so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists,
- but I was neither, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Jews,
- but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out.
And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.
Lawrence Lessig, a respected Law Professor from Stanford University told an audience at this years Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference in Half Moon Bay, California, that "There's going to be an i-9/11 event" which will act as a catalyst for a radical reworking of the law pertaining to the Internet.
Lessig also revealed that he had learned, during a dinner with former government Counter Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke, that there is already in existence a cyber equivalent of the Patriot Act, an "i-Patriot Act" if you will, and that the Justice Department is waiting for a cyber terrorism event in order to implement its provisions.
YOU can now be held forever without any charges ever filed against you! The Bush administration has been a waging a fierce battle for the power to lock people up indefinitely simply on the president's say-so. It scored a disturbing victory last week when a federal appeals court ruled that it could continue to detain Ali al-Marri, who has been held for more than five years as an enemy combatant. The decision gives the president sweeping power to deprive anyone - citizens as well as noncitizens - of their freedom. . . . The implications are breathtaking. The designation "enemy combatant," which should apply only to people captured on a battlefield, can now be applied to people detained inside the United States. Even though al-Marri is not a U.S. citizen, the court's reasoning appears to apply equally to citizens. . . . Equally troubling, the ruling supports President George W. Bush's ludicrous argument that when Congress authorized the use of force against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, it gave the president essentially unlimited powers. If a president ever wants to round up Americans on vague charges and detain them indefinitely, this ruling gives him a dangerous green light. . . . Al-Marri's lawyers say they will ask the Supreme Court to review the ruling. Without doubt, it should. The case raises critically important issues for a free society, and the 4th Circuit's convoluted set of opinions is too confusing to give proper guidance to other courts, the executive branch, or the people. . . . The jumble reflects how badly the administration has butchered the law in this area. People accused of bad deeds should be tried in court - not in sham proceedings. They should be put in jail - not in secret detention. If they are not proved guilty, they should be set free. It is up to the Supreme Court to restore these principles of American justice. . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 7:09 PM
Obama's coverup of surveillance crimes (Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com, July 9, 2008) For the Government to invade our communications with no probable cause showing to a court is exactly what the Founders prohibited as clearly as the English language permitted. . . . But today, the Democratic-led Congress -- with the support of both John McCain and Barack Obama -- will cover-up those crimes. . . .
Republicans are gleefully admitting, even boasting, that this bill gives them everything Bush and Cheney wanted and more, and includes only minor changes from the Rockefeller/Cheney Senate bill passed last February (which Obama, seeking the Democratic Party nomination, made a point of opposing). . . . Rather, the insultingly false claims about this bill -- it brings the FISA court back into eavesdropping! it actually improves civil liberties! Obama will now go after the telecoms criminally! Government spying and lawbreaking isn't really that important anyway! -- are being disseminated by the Democratic Congressional leadership and, most of all, by those desperate to glorify Barack Obama and justify anything and everything he does. Many of these are the same people who spent the last five years screaming that Bush was shredding the Constitution, that spying on Americans was profoundly dangerous, that the political establishment did nothing about Bush's lawbreaking. . . . Yesterday, [Lawrence] Lessig wrote a scathing criticism of what the Obama campaign has been doing over the past several weeks: "All signs point to an Obama victory this fall. If the signs are wrong, it will be because of events last month." This is what Lessig said about the Obama campaign's attitude towards the FISA bill: Yet policy wonks inside the campaign sputter policy that Obama listens to and follows, again, apparently oblivious to how following that advice, when inconsistent with the positions taken in the past, just reinforces the other side's campaign claim that Obama is just another calculating, unprincipled politician. . . . The best evidence that they don't get this is Telco Immunity. Obama said he would filibuster a FISA bill with Telco Immunity in it. He has now signaled he won't. When you talk to people close to the campaign about this, they say stuff like: "Come on, who really cares about that issue? Does anyone think the left is going to vote for McCain rather than Obama? [COMMENT by Lorenzo: No, this won't cause me to vote for McCain. I'm just not going to vote because I'm tired of voting for the lesser evil.] This was a hard question. We tried to get it right. And anyway, the FISA compromise in the bill was a good one." . . . So the highest levels of the Obama campaign believe this bill is "a good one." Lessig adds that the perception of Obama's craven, nakedly calculating behavior as illustrated by his support for the FISA bill is by far the largest threat to his candidacy as it "completely undermine Obama's signal virtue -- that he's different" . . . Ultimately, it's the sheer glibness of the support for this corrupt and Bush-enabling bill among Obama and his supporters that is most striking.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Democratic traitors voting in favor of final passage of the FISA bill: Bayh - Carper - Casey - Conrad - Dorgan - Feinstein - Innuoye - Kohl - Landrieu - Lincoln - McCaskill - Mukulski - Nelson (Neb.) - Nelson (Fla.) - Obama - Pryor - Rockefeller - Salazar - Webb - Whitehouse. . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 12:30 PM
Daniel Ellsberg on FISA...Only Fascists Will Vote For It (Tim Ferriss, July 7, 2008) Tomorrow, July 8th, could mark the beginning of official condoning of warrantless surveillance of law-abiding citizens in the US, not to mention foreign nationals. I am not an alarmist and believe in qualified surveillance with process — this is different. I’ve done the homework. . . . The above [CLICK LINK] is an 18-minute interview that I just finished with Daniel Ellsberg, famous for releasing the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971. His actions are often credited with helping end not only the Nixon presidency but also the Vietnam War. . . . In the video above, I interview Ellsberg to learn what every American needs to know — and do in the next 24 hours — about the new FISA (Foreign Information and Surveillance Act) amendments. The interview, and below partial transcription, answers questions like ... I don’t have anything to hide. How does this affect me? ... What if this type of surveillance is what has prevented another 9/11 from happening? ...What are common inaccuracies about FISA reported in the media? . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 7:09 PM
FISA Is Only the Prelude to Nightmare The selective focus on FISA misses the crucial larger picture in a way that ensures that the ruling class's hold on increasingly tyrannical power will never be consistently or seriously challenged -- which is, of course, precisely what the ruling class wants. . . . why in the world would Obama oppose the current FISA compromise bill? If it's done on Bush's watch, he doesn't have to worry about wasting political capital on it in the next year. Perhaps it gives a bit too much power to the executive. But he plans to be the executive, and he can institute internal checks within the Executive Branch that can keep it from violating civil liberties as he understands them. And not to put too fine a point on it, once he becomes president, he will likely see civil liberties issues from a different perspective anyway. . . . So, in short, from Obama's perspective, what's not to like? . . . Most Americans don't realize that the FISA compromise comes in two parts. The first part greatly alters FISA by expanding the executive's ability to wiretap and engage in much broader searches of communications than were permissible under the law before. It essentially gives congressional blessing to some but not all of what the executive was doing under President Bush. President Obama will like having Congress authorize these new powers. He'll like it just fine. People aren't paying as much attention to this part of the bill. But they should, because it will define the law of surveillance going forward. It is where your civil liberties will be defined for the next decade. . . . Part II, by contrast, is the part that everyone has gotten up in arms about. It creates effective immunity for telecom companies. It makes perfect sense for Obama to criticize this part of the bill. That's because he doesn't need it as much as he needs the first part, and his base really really dislikes it. . . .So, let's sum up: Congress gives the President new powers that Obama can use. Great. (This is change we can believe in). Obama doesn't have to expend any political capital to get these new powers. Also great. Finally, Obama can score points with his base by criticizing the retroactive immunity provisions, which is less important to him going forward than the new powers. Just dandy. . . . Moreover, understand the nature of the old FISA regime, which appears to be just fine with almost everyone, Republicans, Democrats, progressives, everyone. Steny Hoyer has helpfully spelled out the near-omnipotent powers of FISA under the old scheme. Understand how comprehensive it is, and how comprehensively it destroys civil liberties. Quite inexplicably, though, Hoyer declined to summarize the government's powers under the old FISA scheme in easily understandable, everyday language. So I helped him out: We can already spy on everyone. Everyone! Got that, you schmucks? And we don't even need a warrant a lot of the time! Every once in a while, we kinda think we should get a warrant. No reason for that actually. But it looks better, you know? Keeps the stupidly annoying civil liberties crowd happy. But those idiots at the FISA court will give us one nearly every time! [See here again.] And since FISA is a secret court, none of those peons (otherwise known as "citizens") will ever know a damned thing about what's actually going on anyway. It's good to be an Empire! . . . I repeat: that's the old scheme, which most people think is the bee's knees, a gentle zephyr cooling a moist brow, a benevolent moon keeping watch over a peaceful world below. . . . Beyond these points, there is another problem, one that is very difficult to convey, so terrible is it in its obliteration of liberty, privacy and all the values that our politicians claim to uphold. . . . Take a look at all the topics listed on EPIC's Privacy page. A huge number of links to investigate, such as the one on Counter-Terrorism Proposals. Still more links there. All of this goes on and on and on and on. In terms of surveillance and unending, relentlessly intrusive information-gathering on all Americans, I consider it impossible that the power does not already exist somewhere for the government to do basically whatever the hell it wants, whenever the hell it wants, to each and every one of us. . . . Note that I have not yet mentioned the government's vast capabilities for oversight, surveillance, control and punishment gained by means of its general, "everyday" massive taxing and regulatory powers, or by such liberty-destroying measures as a national ID card. If you conducted even a cursory search, I'm certain you would quickly come up with tens, hundreds and even thousands of further examples of government intrusion into areas of your life that you had erroneously believed were "private." . . . I do not find the least bit of enjoyment in breaking the news to you, but I suppose someone must. In terms of liberty and freedom, the right to be left alone is the most precious value of all. Regardless of what happens with FISA, and even if FISA were abolished altogether, you lost that right decades ago. . . . And if it is up to the ruling class, you are not getting it back. . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 8:14 PM
Microchips Everywhere: Big Brother on Steroids (TODD LEWAN, The Associated Press,January 26, 2008) Here's a vision of the not-so-distant future: Microchips with antennas will be embedded in virtually everything you buy, wear, drive and read, allowing retailers and law enforcement to track consumer items _ and, by extension, consumers _ wherever they go, from a distance. . . . A seamless, global network of electronic "sniffers" will scan radio tags in myriad public settings, identifying people and their tastes instantly so that customized ads, "live spam," may be beamed at them. . . . In "Smart Homes," sensors built into walls, floors and appliances will inventory possessions, record eating habits, monitor medicine cabinets _ all the while, silently reporting data to marketers eager for a peek into the occupants' private lives. . . . Science fiction? . . . In truth, much of the radio frequency identification technology that enables objects and people to be tagged and tracked wirelessly already exists _ and new and potentially intrusive uses of it are being patented, perfected and deployed. . . . Some of the world's largest corporations are vested in the success of RFID technology, which couples highly miniaturized computers with radio antennas to broadcast information about sales and buyers to company databases. . . . Already, microchips are turning up in some computer printers, car keys and tires, on shampoo bottles and department store clothing tags. They're also in library books and "contactless" payment cards (such as American Express' "Blue" and ExxonMobil's "Speedpass.") . . . The problem, critics say, is that microchipped products might very well do a whole lot more. . . . With tags in so many objects, relaying information to databases that can be linked to credit and bank cards, almost no aspect of life may soon be safe from the prying eyes of corporations and governments, says Mark Rasch, former head of the computer-crime unit of the U.S. Justice Department. . . . By placing sniffers in strategic areas, companies can invisibly "rifle through people's pockets, purses, suitcases, briefcases, luggage _ and possibly their kitchens and bedrooms _ anytime of the day or night," says Rasch, now managing director of technology at FTI Consulting Inc., a Baltimore-based company. . . . In an RFID world, "You've got the possibility of unauthorized people learning stuff about who you are, what you've bought, how and where you've bought it ... It's like saying, 'Well, who wants to look through my medicine cabinet?'" . . . He imagines a time when anyone from police to identity thieves to stalkers might scan locked car trunks, garages or home offices from a distance. "Think of it as a high-tech form of Dumpster diving," says Rasch, who's also concerned about data gathered by "spy" appliances in the home. . . . "It's going to be used in unintended ways by third parties _ not just the government, but private investigators, marketers, lawyers building a case against you ..." . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 9:37 AM
Click the link above to see a very well-detailed (complete with links) timeline of how the Clinton-Cheney-Bush Crime Family has taken away your civil liberties.
. . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 12:54 PM
Bush Uses Private Companies to Spy on You (Tim Shorrock, CorpWatch, 27 November 2007) The Bush administration is launching a new government agency that will rely heavily on private security contractors to conduct surveillance in the US.
A new intelligence institution to be inaugurated soon by the Bush administration will allow government spying agencies to conduct broad surveillance and reconnaissance inside the United States for the first time. Under a proposal being reviewed by Congress, a National Applications Office (NAO) will be established to coordinate how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and domestic law enforcement and rescue agencies use imagery and communications intelligence picked up by U.S. spy satellites. If the plan goes forward, the NAO will create the legal mechanism for an unprecedented degree of domestic intelligence gathering that would make the United States one of the world's most closely monitored nations. Until now, domestic use of electronic intelligence from spy satellites was limited to scientific agencies with no responsibility for national security or law enforcement. . . . The intelligence-sharing system to be managed by the NAO will rely heavily on private contractors, including Boeing, BAE Systems, L-3 Communications and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). These companies already provide technology and personnel to U.S. agencies involved in foreign intelligence, and the NAO greatly expands their markets. Indeed, at an intelligence conference in San Antonio, Texas, last month, the titans of the industry were actively lobbying intelligence officials to buy products specifically designed for domestic surveillance. . . . The NAO was created under a plan tentatively approved in May 2007 by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell. Specifically, the NAO will oversee how classified information collected by the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and other key agencies is used within the United States during natural disasters, terrorist attacks and other events affecting national security. The most critical intelligence will be supplied by the NSA and the NGA, which are often referred to by U.S. officials as the "eyes" and "ears" of the intelligence community. . . . The NSA, through a global network of listening posts, surveillance planes, and satellites, captures signals from phone calls, email and internet traffic, and translates and analyzes them for U.S. military and national intelligence officials. . . . . . . The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which was formally inaugurated in 2003, provides overhead imagery and mapping tools that allow intelligence and military analysts to monitor events from the skies and space. The NSA and the NGA have a close relationship with the supersecret National Reconnaissance Agency (NRO), which builds and maintains the U.S. fleet of spy satellites and operates the ground stations where the NSA's signals and the NGA's imagery are processed and analyzed. By law, their collection efforts are supposed to be confined to foreign countries and battlefields. . . . The National Applications Office was conceived in 2005 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which Congress created in 2004 to oversee the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community. The ODNI, concerned that the legal framework for U.S. intelligence operations had not been updated for the global "war on terror," turned to Booz Allen Hamilton of McLean, Va., one of the largest contractors in the spy business. The company was tasked with studying how intelligence from spy satellites and photoreconnaissance planes could be better used domestically to track potential threats to security within the United States. The Booz Allen study was completed in May of that year and has since become the basis for the NAO oversight plan. In May 2007, McConnell, the former executive vice president of Booz Allen, signed off on the creation of the NAO as the principal body to oversee the merging of foreign and domestic intelligence collection operations. . . . The NAO is "an idea whose time has arrived," Charles Allen, a top U.S. intelligence official, told the Wall Street Journal in August 2007 after it broke the news of the NAO's creation.
What Will the NAO Do?
[CLICK THE LINK ABOVE FOR THE COMPLETE STORY . . . It will be well-worth your time to read it if you want to have a better understanding of where the surveillance state is heading.] . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 4:33 PM
Bush Outlaws All War Protest In United States (Sorcha Faal, July 19, 2007) In one of his most chilling moves to date against his own citizens, the American War Leader has issued a sweeping order this week outlawing all forms of protest against the Iraq war. . . . President Bush enacted into US law an 'Executive Order' on July 17th titled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq", and which says: "By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, . . . I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United States to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004." . . . According to Russian legal experts, the greatest concern to the American people are the underlying provisions of this new law, and which, they state, are written ‘so broadly’ as to outlaw all forms of protest against the war. These provisions state: "(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or (b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to, (i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order, and (ii) the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person. . . . (c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States. . . . All agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order and, where appropriate, to advise the Secretary of the Treasury in a timely manner of the measures taken." . . . To the subsection of this new US law, according to these legal experts, that says "...the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit...", the insertion of the word 'services' has broad, and catastrophic, consequences for the American people in that any act deemed by their government to be against the Iraqi war is, in fact, supporting the 'enemy' and therefore threatens the 'stabilization of Iraq'. . . . In an even greater affront to the American people are the provisions of a law called The Patriot Act, and that should they run afoul of this new law they are forbidden to allow anyone to know about it, and as we can read as reported by the Seattle Times News Service: . . . [CLICK THE LINK ABOVE FOR THE FULL STORY] . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 9:35 PM
U.S. Set to Begin a Vast Racist Expansion of DNA Sampling (Julia Preston, The New York Times, February 5, 2007) The Justice Department is completing rules to allow the collection of DNA from most people arrested or detained by federal authorities, a vast expansion of DNA gathering that will include hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, by far the largest group affected. . . . The new forensic DNA sampling was authorized by Congress in a little-noticed amendment to a January 2006 renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, which provides protections and assistance for victims of sexual crimes. The amendment permits DNA collecting from anyone under criminal arrest by federal authorities, and also from illegal immigrants detained by federal agents. . . . Over the last year, the Justice Department has been conducting an internal review and consulting with other agencies to prepare regulations to carry out the law. . . . The goal, justice officials said, is to make the practice of DNA sampling as routine as fingerprinting for anyone detained by federal agents, including illegal immigrants. Until now, federal authorities have taken DNA samples only from convicted felons. . . . Peter Neufeld, a lawyer who is a co-director of the Innocence Project, which has exonerated dozens of prison inmates using DNA evidence, said the government was overreaching by seeking to apply DNA sampling as universally as fingerprinting. . . . "Whereas fingerprints merely identify the person who left them," Mr. Neufeld said, "DNA profiles have the potential to reveal our physical diseases and mental disorders. It becomes intrusive when the government begins to mine our most intimate matters." . . . "This has taken us by storm," said Deborah Notkin, a lawyer who was president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association last year. "It's so broad, it's scary. It is a terrible thing to do because people are sometimes detained erroneously in the immigration system." . . . immigration lawyers noted that most immigration violations, including those committed when people enter the country illegally, are civil, not criminal, offenses. They warned that the new law would make it difficult for immigrants to remove their DNA profiles from the federal database, even if they were never found to have committed any serious violation or crime. . . . Under the new law, DNA samples would be taken from any illegal immigrants who are detained and would normally be fingerprinted, justice officials said. Last year federal customs, Border Patrol and immigration agents detained more than 1.2 million immigrants, the majority of them at the border with Mexico. About 238,000 of those immigrants were detained in immigration enforcement investigations. A great majority of all immigration detainees were fingerprinted, immigration officials said. About 102,000 people were arrested on federal charges not related to immigration in 2005. . . . Immigration lawyers said the DNA sampling could tar illegal immigrants with a criminal stigma, even though most of them have never committed any criminal offense. . . . "To equate somebody with a possible immigration violation in the same category as a suspected sex offender is an outrage," said David Leopold, an immigration lawyer who practices in Cleveland. . . . "The pervasive problems of profiling in the United States will only be exacerbated by such a system," Ms. Jacobs said, because Latino and other immigrants will be greatly over-represented in the database. She noted that the law required a court order to remove a profile from the system. . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 1:18 PM
The FBI is watching YOU! (Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com, January 30, 2007) The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than previously has been disclosed. . . . Instead of recording only what a particular suspect is doing, agents conducting investigations appear to be assembling the activities of thousands of Internet users at a time into massive databases, according to current and former officials. That database can subsequently be queried for names, e-mail addresses or keywords. . . . Such a technique is broader and potentially more intrusive than the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system, later renamed DCS1000. . . . Call it the vacuum-cleaner approach. It's employed when police have obtained a court order and an Internet service provider can't "isolate the particular person or IP address" because of technical constraints, . . . That kind of full-pipe surveillance can record all Internet traffic, including Web browsing--or, optionally, only certain subsets such as all e-mail messages flowing through the network. Interception typically takes place inside an Internet provider's network at the junction point of a router or network switch. . . . Ohm said that full-pipe recording has become federal agents' default method for Internet surveillance. "You collect wherever you can on the (network) segment," he said. "If it happens to be the segment that has a lot of IP addresses, you don't throw away the other IP addresses. . . . "What they're doing is even worse than Carnivore," said Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who attended the Stanford event. "What they're doing is intercepting everyone and then choosing their targets." . . . When the FBI announced two years ago it had abandoned Carnivore, news reports said that the bureau would increasingly rely on Internet providers to conduct the surveillance and reimburse them for costs. While Carnivore was the subject of congressional scrutiny and outside audits, the FBI's current Internet eavesdropping techniques have received little attention. . . . Carnivore apparently did not perform full-pipe recording.. . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 6:26 AM
Fine Print in Defense Bill Opens Door to Martial Law (Jeff Stein, CQ National Security Editor, December 1, 2006) It’s amazing what you can find if you turn over a few rocks in the anti-terrorism legislation Congress approved during the election season. . . . Take, for example, the John W. Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2006, named for the longtime Armed Services Committee chairman from Virginia. . . . Signed by President Bush on Oct. 17, the law (PL 109-364) has a provocative provision called "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies." . . . The thrust of it seems to be about giving the federal government a far stronger hand in coordinating responses to Katrina-like disasters. . . . But on closer inspection, its language also alters the two-centuries-old Insurrection Act, which Congress passed in 1807 to limit the president's power to deploy troops within the United States. . . . That law has long allowed the president to mobilize troops only "to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy." . . . But the amended law takes the cuffs off. . . . Specifically, the new language adds "natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident" to the list of conditions permitting the President to take over local authority - particularly "if domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order." . . . Since the administration broadened what constitutes "conspiracy" in its definition of enemy combatants — anyone who "has purposely and materially supported hostilities against the United States," in the language of the Military Commissions Act (PL 109-366) — critics say it's a formula for executive branch mischief. . . . One of the few to complain, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., warned that the measure virtually invites the White House to declare federal martial law. . . . It "subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military's involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law," he said in remarks submitted to the Congressional Record on Sept. 29. . . . "The changes to the Insurrection Act will allow the President to use the military, including the National Guard, to carry out law enforcement activities without the consent of a governor," he said. . . . Moreover, he said, it breaks a long, fundamental tradition of federal restraint. . . . "Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy.s" . . . And he criticized the way it was rammed through Congress. . . . It "was just slipped in the defense bill as a rider with little study," he fumed. "Other congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals." . . . No matter: Safely tucked into the $526 billion defense bill, it easily crossed the goal line on the last day of September. . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 6:05 PM
U.S. privacy rights as bad as China, Russia and Malaysia (The Red Tape Chronicles, November 1, 2006) U.S. privacy protections rank among the worst in the democratic world, a London-based privacy organization said Wednesday. . . . Privacy International ranked 36 nations around the globe, including all European Union nations and other major democracies, and determined that in categories such as enforcement of privacy laws, the U.S. is on par with countries like China, Russia and Malaysia. . . . Overall, the U.S. was determined to be an "extensive surveillance society," the second-lowest rating in the study, which is available at Privacy International's Web site. . . . The survey identified Malaysia, China and Russia as the world's lowest-ranked countries in terms of privacy. It ranked Germany and Canada as those that best protect the privacy of their citizens. . . . "The rankings establish for the first time that most of the world's most economically advanced countries have failed to protect the privacy rights of their citizens, while some of the newest and poorest democracies have become best protectors," wrote Privacy International director Simon Davies in announcing the report. . . . "This is damning evidence that privacy is being destroyed by the very nations that proclaim to respect our rights," he said. "It is clear that there is a systemic failure of legal mechanisms to protect us against the emerging surveillance society. Those responsible for protecting our rights have failed to do so ... Australia, Britain and the United States have not only performed abysmally but they are embracing surveillance at an alarming speed." . . . The U.S. fared poorly in multiple categories, including communications interceptions, workplace monitoring and transmission of data across international borders. . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 10:40 AM
Are You In the FBI's Secret Database? (Michelle Chen, The New Standard, 23 October 2006) The FBI is gathering hundreds of millions of pieces of personal information in the name of fighting terrorism and storing them in a vast, secretive data "warehouse." . . . The privacy-rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice on Tuesday, demanding the government disclose information on the handling of personal data in the FBI’s "Investigative Data Warehouse." The lawsuit seeks details on the nature of the information collected and what privacy protections the agency has applied. . . . The FBI has not yet formally responded to the EFF's complaint. In a speech at a public-safety conference in March 2005, John Lewis, deputy assistant director of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division, said the database included "photographs, biographical information, physical location information, and financial data for thousands of known and suspected terrorists [like anti-war demonstrators]." . . . FBI Director Robert Mueller testified at a May congressional hearing that the Data Warehouse was accessible to about 12,000 users from various local, state and federal agencies working on national-security issues. . . . EFF staff attorney Marcia Hofmann said in a press statement, "The public needs as much information as possible to evaluate tools that put our privacy at risk. The Department of Justice must abide by the law and publicly release information about these surveillance programs." . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 7:28 AM
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