Lawmakers Punt Patriot Act to Obama: Via Threat Level.

The House and Senate are forwarding to President Barack Obama legislation reauthorizing three expiring provisions of the Patriot Act — despite heated debate among lawmakers the surveillance measure went too far.

The act, hastily adopted six weeks after the 2001 terror attacks, greatly expanded the government’s ability to spy on Americans in the name of national security. Three measures of the act were set to expire at the end of 2009, but lawmakers in December extended the deadline to the end of February in hopes of reaching a compromise.

But no deal was reached by the end of the new Feb. 28 deadline. Instead, both chambers ditched two competing measures and extended the Patriot Act for another year without any changes. The final package was sent to the president Thursday for his expected signature.

Lawmakers had taken the expiration as an opportunity to revisit a number of the act’s surveillance provisions, including elements of the Patriot Act that were not expiring. This included proposals to alter the standard by which so-called National Security Letters are issued. [ Read more ... ]

Pa. schools spy on students using laptop webcams, claims lawsuit: Via Computerworld.

Class-action suit alleges schools remotely activate webcams on school-issued notebooks

Computerworld - A suburban Philadelphia school district remotely activates the cameras in school-provided laptops to spy on students in their homes, a lawsuit filed in federal court Tuesday alleged.

According to the lawsuit filed by a high school student and his parents, the Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, Pa. has spied on students and families by "indiscriminate use of and ability to remotely activate the webcams incorporated into each laptop issued to students by the School District."

Approximately 1,800 students at the district's two high schools have been given laptops as part of a state- and federally-funded "one-to-one" student-to-laptop initiative.

Michael and Holly Robbins of Penn Valley, Pa., said they first found out about the alleged spying last November after their son Blake was accused by a Harriton High School official of "improper behavior in his home" and shown a photograph taken by his laptop.

An assistant principal at Harriton later confirmed that the district could remotely activate the webcam in students' laptops. [ Read more ... ]

New Russian botnet tries to kill rival: Via Computerworld Cybercrime/Hacking News.

An upstart Trojan horse program has decided to take on its much-larger rival by stealing data and then removing the malicious program from infected computers.

Security researchers say that the relatively unknown [Spy Eye toolkit] added this functionality just a few days ago in a bid to displace its larger rival, known as Zeus.

The feature, called "Kill Zeus," apparently removes the Zeus software from the victim's PC, giving Spy Eye exclusive access to usernames and passwords.

Zeus and Spy Eye are both Trojan-making toolkits, designed to give criminals an easy way to set up their own "botnet" networks of password-stealing programs. [ Read more ... ]

Court Keeps White House Spy Docs Secret: Via Threat Level.

A federal appellate panel on Tuesday blocked a court order requiring disclosure of e-mail between the White House, Justice Department, National Security Agency and Office of the Director of National Intelligence — communications that paved the way for new spy legislation.

The 2008 messages were a precursor to legislation that year to kill litigation against the nation’s carriers for funneling Americans’ communications to the National Security Agency without warrants.

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a California judge who ordered disclosure of those e-mails and the names of telco company lobbyists who pushed for the legislation. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil rights group in San Francisco, sought the e-mail and lobbyist information under a Freedom of Information Act claim. [ Read more ... ]

‘Don’t Be Evil,’ Meet ‘Spy on Everyone’: How the NSA Deal Could Kill Google: Via Danger Room.

The company once known for its “don’t be evil” motto is now in bed with the spy agency known for the mass surveillance of American citizens.

The National Security Agency is widely understood to have the government’s biggest and smartest collection of geeks — the guys that are more skilled at network warfare than just about anyone on the planet. So, in a sense, it’s only natural that Google would turn to the NSA after the company was hit by an ultrasophisticated hack attack. After all, the military has basically done the same thing, putting the NSA in charge of its new “Cyber Command.” The Department of Homeland Security is leaning heavily on the NSA to secure .gov networks.

But there’s a problem. The NSA and its predecessors also have a long history of spying on huge numbers of people, both at home and abroad. During the Cold War, the agency worked with companies like Western Union to intercept and read millions of telegrams. During the war on terror years, the NSA teamed up with the telecommunications companies to eavesdrop on customers’ phone calls and internet traffic right from the telcos’ switching stations. And even after the agency pledged to clean up its act — and was given wide new latitude to spy on whom they liked – the NSA was still caught “overcollecting” on U.S. citizens. According to The New York Times, the agency even “tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant.” [ Read more ... ]

CCTV in the sky: police plan to use military-style spy drones: Via UK news | The Guardian.

Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the "routine" monitoring of antisocial motorists, protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance.

The arms manufacturer BAE Systems, which produces a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for war zones, is adapting the military-style planes for a consortium of government agencies led by Kent police.

Documents from the South Coast Partnership, a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE, have been obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

They reveal the partnership intends to begin using the drones in time for the 2012 Olympics. They also indicate that police claims that the technology will be used for maritime surveillance fall well short of their intended use – which could span a range of police activity – and that officers have talked about selling the surveillance data to private companies. A prototype drone equipped with high-powered cameras and sensors is set to take to the skies for test flights later this year. [ Read more ... ]

Judge Tosses NSA Spy Cases: Via Threat Level.

A federal judge is dismissing lawsuits accusing the government of teaming with the nation’s telcos to funnel Americans’ electronic communications to the National Security Agency without warrants.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision was a major blow to the two suits testing warrantless eavesdropping and executive branch powers implemented following the 2001 terror attacks. The San Francisco judge said the courts are not available to the public to mount that challenge.

“A citizen may not gain standing by claiming a right to have the government follow the law,” (.pdf) Walker ruled late Thursday.

He noted that the plaintiffs include most every American connected to the internet or to have used a telephone — meaning the lawsuits boil down to a “general grievance” and are barred. The decision came days after a government audit showed the telecom companies and FBI collaborated for four years, between 2003 and 2007, to violate federal wiretapping laws. [ Read more ... ]

Congress takes a bold stand against surveillance abuses: Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald.

Fixating on and condemning abuses of other countries is one of the greatest weapons the U.S. Government wields for distracting attention away from its own transgressions:  like those gossip-obsessed individuals endlessly mucking around in and passing judgment on the personal lives of others as a means of ignoring their own failings:

The San Francisco Chronicle, yesterday:

Few expect Google Inc.'s stare-down with China to usher in a new era of openness across the Asian nation, but some believe -- or hope -- it could pressure the government to improve relations with foreign technology companies. . . . The Obama administration issued statements of support for Google, and members of Congress are pushing to revive a bill banning U.S. tech companies from working with governments that digitally spy on their citizens.

U.S. Diverts Spy Drone from Afghanistan to Haiti: Via Danger Room.

As part of the Haiti relief effort, the U.S. military is sharing imagery from one of its high-end, high-flying spy drones, the RQ-4 Global Hawk.

This image, shot yesterday by a Global Hawk, shows damage to the National Cathedral in Port-au-Prince. U.S. Southern Command is sharing the images so that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and relief groups can get a better picture of the situation on the ground.

Danger Room pal Paul McCleary has much, much more detail at Ares. Colonel Bradley Butz, with the Air Force’s 480th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing told at McCleary that the Global Hawk was originally supposed to fly over Afghanistan, but was retasked yesterday to Haiti, where it spent 14 hours on station and shot hundreds of images.

“Today we’re going after another 1,000 images, which will all be unclassified,” McCleary quotes Butz as saying. “SOUTHCOM will provide it to whoever needs it.” [ Read more ... ]

Author of Torture, Spy Memos Was Just Doing His Job: Via Threat Level.

The government lawyer who wrote memos authorizing the Bush administration to engage in torture and warrantless surveillance says he was just doing his job, according to a recent interview.

Asked by the New York Times if he regretted writing the torture memos, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo replied, “No, I had to write them. It was my job. As a lawyer, I had a client. The client needed a legal question answered.”

Yoo, whose memos offered the government legal justification for its actions, said his client was former President Bush and the U.S. government as a whole. The Times asked whether it wasn’t the case that the U.S. people was his client, and not the president. Yoo replied, “If there’s a conflict between the president and the Congress, then you have to pick one or the other.” [ Read more ... ]

House Delays Patriot Act Spy Vote: Via Threat Level.

The House on Wednesday tabled for two months legislation reforming U.S. surveillance law, a move that delays a collision with a competing Senate version. [ Read more ... ]

Yahoo, Verizon: Our Spy Capabilities Would ‘Shock’, ‘Confuse’ Consumers: Via Threat Level.

Want to know how much phone companies and internet service providers charge to funnel your private communications or records to U.S. law enforcement and spy agencies?

That’s the question muckraker and Indiana University graduate student Christopher Soghoian asked all agencies within the Department of Justice, under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed a few months ago. But before the agencies could provide the data, Verizon and Yahoo intervened and filed an objection on grounds that, among other things, they would be ridiculed and publicly shamed were their surveillance price sheets made public.

Yahoo writes in its 12-page objection letter (.pdf), that if its pricing information were disclosed to Soghoian, he would use it “to ’shame’ Yahoo! and other companies — and to ’shock’ their customers.” [ Read more ... ]

Telephone Company Is Arm of Government, Feds Admit in Spy Suit: Via Threat Level.

The Department of Justice has finally admitted it in court papers: The  nation’s telecom companies are an arm of the government — at least when it comes to secret spying.

Fortunately, a judge says that relationship isn’t enough to squash a rights group’s open records request for communications between the nation’s telecoms and the feds.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation wanted to see what role telecom lobbying of Justice Department played when the government began its year-long, and ultimately successful, push to win retroactive immunity for AT&T and others being sued for unlawfully spying on American citizens.

The feds argued that the documents showing consultation over the controversial telecom immunity proposal weren’t subject to the Freedom of Information Act since they were protected as “intra-agency” records: [ Read more ... ]

Senators Vote to Renew Patriot Act Spy Powers: Via Threat Level.

A deeply divided Senate committee on Thursday forwarded legislation to the full Senate that reauthorizes three expiring provisions of the Patriot Act hastily adopted in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks.

The measures greatly expanded the government’s ability to spy on Americans in the name of national security.

Thursday’s 11-8 vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee came as lawmakers struggled to beat a looming deadline. The three provisions expire at year’s end.

During more than two hours of sometimes heated debate among the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, some lawmakers accused one another of caving to intelligence officials who wanted to expand their powers while other senators said the renewal was necessary to protect against looming, and classified, terror threats. [ Read more ... ]

Lawmakers Cave to FBI in Patriot Act Debate: Via Threat Level.

Powerful Senate leaders on Thursday bowed to FBI concerns that adding privacy protections to an expiring provision of the Patriot Act could jeopardize “ongoing” terror investigations.

The Patriot Act was adopted six weeks after the 2001 terror attacks, and greatly expanded the government’s power to intrude into the private lives of Americans in the course of anti-terror and criminal investigations. Three provisions are expiring at year’s end.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee chairman,  and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) introduced last-minute changes (.pdf) that would strip away some of the privacy protections Leahy had espoused just the week before. The Vermont Democrat said his own, original proposal of last week could jeopardize ongoing terror investigations.

“All of us are mindful that threats against American safety are real and continuing,” Leahy said at the hearing . “I’m trying to introduce balances on both sides.” [ Read more ... ]

Telco Spy Immunity Up for Grabs: Via Threat Level.

Lawmakers are considering key changes to the Patriot Act and other spy laws – proposals that could give new life to lawsuits accusing the nation’s telecommunications companies of turning over Americans’ electronic communications to the government without warrants.

President Barack Obama supported that telco-immunity legislation as an Illinois senator last year. President George W. Bush signed the bill, and a federal judge this summer dismissed the closely watched telecom lawsuits brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

On Oct. 1, the Senate Judiciary Committee likely will consider revoking that immunity legislation as it works to revise the Patriot Act and other spy laws with radical changes that provide for more government transparency and more privacy protections. [ Read more ... ]

Obama Stands Behind ‘State Secrets’ in Spy Case: Via Threat Level.

SAN FRANCISCO – Hours after the Justice Department announced it would limit its use of the state secrets privilege in new cases, the administration appeared before a federal judge here Wednesday and continued to invoke that defense in a closely watched spy case.

The litigation at issue, now five years old, tests whether a sitting president may bypass Congress and adopt a warrantless surveillance program, as President Bush did in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks.

“We need to protect information concerning the manner and methods by which we seek to detect and prevent a terrorist attack,” Justice Department special counsel Anthony Coppolino said Wednesday while arguing to a federal judge to dismiss the case on the basis of state secrets.

The 5-year-old case, having a tortured procedural history, is the furthest along in challenging the Bush administration’s warrantless Terror Surveillance Program. [ Read more ... ]

Attorneys Can See Classified Info in Coffee Table Spy Suit: Via Threat Level.

A federal judge in Washington has ordered the government to grant security clearances to lawyers on both sides of a lawsuit claiming illegal spying against a DEA agent, in a ruling that challenges the government’s long-held claim that the executive branch alone has the authority to determine who can access classified material.

The attorneys in the case, which was noted by Secrecy News, need the security clearances to obtain classified knowledge held by their clients so they can adequately argue the lawsuit, the judge said, in an August 26 ruling supported by attorneys on both sides of the lawsuit, but bitterly opposed by the government.

On Thursday, a federal appeals court ordered an emergency stay of the order pending an appeal by the Justice Department. [ Read more ... ]

Obama Claims Immunity, As New Spy Case Takes Center Stage: Via Threat Level.

SAN FRANCISCO – The latest legal volley attacking President George W. Bush’s once-secret electronic eavesdropping dragnet gets its first court hearing here Wednesday, nearly four years after the warrantless surveillance program was revealed.

The Jewel v. NSA lawsuit was filed in September by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It responded to 2008 federal legislation that immunized the nation’s telecommunications companies from suits challenging their complicity in the President’s Surveillance Program. The EFF redrafted its earlier case against the telcos to target the government for funneling Americans’ communications to the National Security Agency without warrants.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker will hear arguments from both sides on the Obama administration’s motion for the case to be thrown out.

In court filings, the administration says the suit (.pdf) “would require or risk the disclosure of information that is properly subject to the state secrets privilege and related statutory privileges.” The administration claims it’s shielded by sovereign immunity, in addition to citing the controversial state secrets privilege.

All the while, the EFF maintains the dragnet surveillance (.pdf) continues unabated under Obama. [ Read more ... ]

Judge Urged to Declare Bush Spy Program Illegal: Via Threat Level.

A lawsuit weighing whether a sitting U.S. president may create a spying program to eavesdrop on Americans’ electronic communications without warrants or congressional authorization took another turn Thursday as a federal judge was asked to answer that question with a “no.”

The nearly 5-year-old case, despite its tortured procedural history, is the furthest along in challenging the Bush administration’s warrantless, electronic surveillance program adopted in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks.

The case was brought by two former American lawyers for a now-defunct Saudi charity. They allege some of their 2004 telephone conversations to Saudi Arabia were siphoned to the National Security Agency without warrants. The allegations were based on classified documents the government accidentally mailed to the former Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation lawyers. [ Read more ... ]

Bush's State of The Union: Give Me Spy Powers Now - Via Threat Level:

President Bush's final State of the Union speech touched on but did not dwell on Congress' ongoing debate over how much unilateral spying power to hand over to the nation's spooks and whether to grant the nation's telecoms retroactive immunity for helping the government's warrantless spying on Americans. [ Read more ... ]

Defunct Spy Satellite Falling From Orbit - Via Slashdot:

dnormant, among other readers, sent us word that a US spy satellite has lost power and propulsion and could hit the Earth in late February or March. Government officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret. None of the coverage speculates on how big the satellite is, but Wikipedia claims that US spy satellites in the KH-11 class, launched up to the mid-90s, are about the size of the Hubble — which is 13 meters long and weighs over 11,000 kg. [ Read more ... ]

Spying Showdown Pushed to Hours Before State of Union Address; No Civil Lib Amendments Allowed - Via Threat Level:

The Republican leadership in the Senate made their move early Thursday evening, successfully blocking any votes on amendments to the intelligence bill and forcing the Senate to vote only on the Administration-approved bill worked out by the Senate Intelligence committee.  That vote will come on Monday at 4:30 just hours before the President delivers the State of the Union address from the Senate floor.

The Intel committee bill expands the government's wiretapping authority and gives immunity to the telecoms that helped the government secretly spy on Americans without getting the warrants required by law. [ Read more ... ]

Dems Ask Telcos Spying Questions: Top Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters to AT&T, Verizon and Qwest Tuesday, asking whether they gave the government billions of customer call records or bugged their networks on behalf of the nation's spooks.

The five-page letters, signed by committee chair John Dingell (Michigan), Ed Markey (Massachusetts) and Bart Stupak (Michigan), ask for detailed answers about the telecom companies' relationship with the National Security Agency post 9/11. [ Read more ... ]

Iraqi Spy Warrant Saga Camouflages NSA Grab for Domestic Wiretap Infrastructure: "

The U.S.'intelligence community's attempts to clarify its complaints to Congress that the nation's privacy protections'hindered the'NSA's spying on'Iraqis suspected of kidnapping American soldiers actually not only demonstrates the intelligence community's bureaucratic slowness, but also the breadth of the powers temporarily handed to them by Congress this summer and the misleading rhetorical tricks it will play to get that power permanently.

Prior to the August update to the nation's spy laws, the NSA was barred from wiretapping landline phones and the internet inside the United States, unless they had a warrant from a secret, acquiescent spying court. [ Read more ... ]