Hooking Up The Big Brother Machine... And Fighting It: Via EFF.org Updates.

Here's a movie pitch: One lone telecommunications technician, going about his ordinary daily work in San Francisco, begins to realize things aren't quite what they seem. There's a "secret room" downstairs, and ordinary employees aren't allowed to enter it. Coworkers — almost casually! — remark that a government spy agency is involved, that similar facilities are being built across the country, that some of them are stamped with the government's ominous eye-and-pyramid "Total Information Awareness" logo.

Soon, the plot thickens. Mundane technical procedures produce startling revelations. He stumbles on a document that suggests the room contains a supercomputer designed to data-mine phone calls and Internet traffic. And, indeed, he soon realizes that the room is sucking up copies of electronic communications from millions of random Americans.

All this in the early 2000s, when "the political atmosphere in the country after 9/11 had a witchhunt feel to it, and even modest criticism of the administration was getting painted as disloyalty or worse."

What happens to our hero when he finally decides to go public? [ Read more ... ]

Obama threatens to veto greater intelligence oversight: Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald.

(updated below)

One of the principal weapons used by the Bush administration to engage in illegal surveillance activities -- from torture to warrantless eavesdropping -- was its refusal to brief the full Congressional Intelligence Committees about its activities.  Instead, at best, it would confine its briefings to the so-called "Gang of Eight" -- comprised of 8 top-ranking members of the House and Senate -- who were impeded by law and other constraints from taking any action even if they learned of blatantly criminal acts. 

This was a sham process:  it allowed the administration to claim that it "briefed" select Congressional leaders on illegal conduct, but did so in a way that ensured there could be no meaningful action or oversight, because those individuals were barred from taking notes or even consulting their staff and, worse, because the full Intelligence Committees were kept in the dark and thus could do nothing even in the face of clear abuses.  The process even allowed the members who were briefed to claim they were powerless to stop illegal programs.  That extremely restrictive process also ensures irresolvable disputes over what was actually said during those briefings, as illustrated by recent controversies over what Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats were told about Bush's torture and eavesdropping programs.  Here's how Richard Clarke explained it in July, 2009, on The Rachel Maddow Show: [ Read more ... ]

Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative: Via Schneier on Security.

On Tuesday, the White House published an unclassified summary of its Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI). Howard Schmidt made the announcement at the RSA Conference. These are the 12 initiatives in the plan: [ Read more ... ]

U.S. Security Agencies Begging for a Cybersecurity "Cold War": Via Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union.

(Originally posted on Huffington Post.)

So the U.S. security establishment is salivating at the prospect of a new cybersecurity "Cold War." In an over-the-top op-ed in Tuesday's Washington Post, Mike McConnell issues a declaration that we are "fighting a cyber war today" and compares it to the nuclear showdown with the Soviets. McConnell exemplifies the security establishment as much as anyone — former director of the National Security Agency (NSA), former Director of National Intelligence, and currently executive vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton, a private-sector refuge for former U.S. intelligence officials (and a company that stands to make large sums from consulting on cybersecurity). [ Read more ... ]

U.S. Declassifies Part of Secret Cybersecurity Plan: Via Threat Level.

The Obama administration declassified part of the government’s cybersecurity plan Tuesday, publishing parts of it that discuss intrusion detection systems for federal computer networks and the government’s role in securing critical infrastructure.

The declassification announcement was made by Howard A. Schmidt, a former Microsoft security executive who in December was appointed cybersecurity coordinator by President Barack Obama. Schmidt was speaking at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco, an annual industry conference for computer security professionals.

The government’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative was launched in 2008 by President George W. Bush under a shroud of secrecy. The plan has 12 directives that cover the government’s strategy to protect U.S. networks — including military, civilian,  government networks and critical infrastructure systems — as well as the government’s offensive strategy to combat cyber warfare.

Civil libertarians criticized the Bush administration for failing to disclose the contents of the plan or allowing independent oversight of its implementation. Schmidt said that Obama recognized the need for some transparency. [ Read more ... ]

Cyberwar Hype Intended to Destroy the Open Internet: Via Threat Level.

The biggest threat to the open internet is not Chinese government hackers or greedy anti-net neutrality ISPs, it’s Michael McConnell, the former director of national intelligence.

McConnell’s not dangerous because he knows anything about SQL injection hacks, but because he knows about social engineering:  McConnell is the nice-seeming guy who is willing and able to use fear-mongering to manipulate the federal bureaucracy for his own ends, while coming off like a straight shooter to those not in the know.

When he was head of the country’s national intelligence, he scared President Bush with visions of e-doom, prompting the president to sign a comprehensive secret order that unleashed tens of billions of dollars into the military’s black budget so they can start making firewalls and malware into military equipment. And now McConnell, back safely in civilian life as a vice president at the secretive defense contracting giant Booz Allen Hamilton, is out in front of Congress and the media, peddling the same Cybaremaggedon! gloom.

And now he says we need to re-engineer the internet. [ 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 ... ]

Intelligence Official Acknowledges Policy Allowing Targeted Killings Of Americans: Via American Civil Liberties Union.

ACLU Says More Information Needed On Policy That Grants President Power To Target Americans Abroad

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

NEW YORK – Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair acknowledged in a congressional hearing on Wednesday that the U.S. may, with executive approval, deliberately target and kill U.S. citizens who are suspected of being involved in terrorism. The American Civil Liberties Union expressed serious concern about the lack of public information about the policy and the potential for abuse of unchecked executive power.
 
The following can be attributed to Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project: [ Read more ... ]

White House calls for IT boost to fight terrorism: Via Computerworld Data Mining News.

Better technology needed to 'connect the dots' on terror-related data, says Obama report

The White House report on the failed bombing attempt of a U.S airliner on Christmas Day highlights the challenges U.S intelligence agencies face in correlating terrorism-related information gathered from multiple databases and sources.

The review, released yesterday, identified an overall failure by intelligence agencies to "connect the dots," despite having enough information at their disposal to have potentially disrupted the botched attack.

The problem, according to the report, was not a lack of information sharing between government agencies but a failure by the intelligence community to "identity, correlate and fuse into a coherent story all of the discrete pieces of intelligence held by the U.S. government."

In listing the various causes for this failure, the report noted that information technology within the counter-terrorism community "did not sufficiently enable the correlation of data that would have enabled analysts to highlight the relevant threat information." [ Read more ... ]

The backfiring of the surveillance state: Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald.

(updated below - Update II)

Every debate over expanded government surveillance power is invariably framed as one of "security v. privacy and civil liberties" -- as though it's a given that increasing the Government's surveillance authorities will "make us safer."  But it has long been clear that the opposite is true.  As numerous experts (such as Rep. Rush Holt) have attempted, with futility, to explain, expanding the scope of raw intelligence data collected by our national security agencies invariably impedes rather than bolsters efforts to detect terrorist plots.  This is true for two reasons:  (1) eliminating strict content limits on what can be surveilled (along with enforcement safeguards, such as judicial warrants) means that government agents spend substantial time scrutinizing and sorting through communications and other information that have nothing to do with terrorism; and (2) increasing the quantity of what is collected makes it more difficult to find information relevant to actual terrorism plots.  As Rep. Holt put it when arguing against the obliteration of FISA safeguards and massive expansion of warrantless eavesdropping power which a bipartisan Congress effectuated last year: [ Read more ... ]

Lawsuit Challenging Unconstitutional Spying Should Be Reinstated, Says ACLU: Via American Civil Liberties Union.

FISA Amendments Act Must Be Subject To Judicial Review

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union filed a brief late Wednesday arguing that its lawsuit challenging an unconstitutional government spying law should be reinstated. The ACLU and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed the landmark lawsuit in July 2008 to stop the government from conducting surveillance under the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), which gives the executive branch virtually unchecked power to collect Americans' international e-mails and telephone calls by the millions, without a warrant and without suspicion of any kind.

"Allowing this case to move forward is essential to protecting innocent Americans' e-mail and telephone communications from dragnet, suspicionless government monitoring," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project. "Without court oversight, individual privacy rights are left to the mercy of the political branches. The courts have not only the authority but also the obligation to ensure that individual rights are not trampled by overbroad surveillance laws." [ Read more ... ]

Intelligence Agencies Release Docs Describing Misconduct in Response to EFF Lawsuit: Via EFF.org Updates.

Today the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Agency released 162 pages of intelligence oversight reporting in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by EFF in July.

The reports, made to a presidential advisory committee called the Intelligence Oversight Board, detail intelligence activities that the agencies "have reason to believe may be unlawful."

EFF is reviewing the documents now and has posted them on our website. Some of our initial finds include reports that: [ Read more ... ]

Once Again, Government Moves to Delay Release of Telecom Lobbying Documents: Via EFF.org Updates.

This evening, the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice filed yet another emergency motion with the Ninth Circuit, asking for a stay of the deadline to release telecom immunity lobbying documents, less than 24 hours before the documents are due to be released to the public.

Almost simultaneously, a report appeared on Politico.com, claiming that the government will be releasing some documents, while fighting in court to hide the remainder. Despite this report, the government's motion seeks to delay disclosure of all the documents, and no new documents have been released just yet.

For those following this saga, this is deja vu all over again. [ Read more ... ]

Federal Court Denies Government Attempt to Delay Release of Telecom Records. Again.: Via EFF.org Updates.

Today a federal district court denied the government's latest emergency motion asking for a 30-day stay in last Friday's deadline to release records relating to telecom lobbying over last year's debate over immunity for corporate participation in government spying. The new deadline is October 16, at 4 p.m. Pacific time. We sought the records pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act.

On September 24, Judge Jeffrey White had ordered the Director of National Intelligence and Department of Justice to turn over many of the records we requested by Friday, October 9, 2009. Last week, the agencies asked him to postpone his order while the government de [ Read more ... ]

EFF Wins Release of Telecom Lobbying Records: Via EFF.org Updates.

San Francisco - A judge ordered the government Thursday to release more records about the lobbying campaign to provide immunity to the telecommunications giants that participated in the NSA's warrantless surveillance program. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White ordered the records be provided to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) by October 9, 2009.

The decision is part of EFF's long-running battle to gather information about telecommunications lobbying conducted as Congress considered granting immunity to companies that participated in illegal government electronic surveillance. Telecom immunity was eventually passed as part of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) of 2008, but a bill that would repeal the immunity -- called the JUSTICE Act -- was introduced in the Senate last week.

"Today's ruling is a major victory for government transparency," said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. "As the court recognized, it was unlawful for the government to deny Americans access to this information in the midst of the debate over telecom immunity last year. We're pleased these records will now be available to the public as Congress considers the JUSTICE Act." [ Read more ... ]

An Ethical Code for Intelligence Officers: Via Schneier on Security.

August's Communications of the ACM has an interesting article: "An Ethics Code for U.S. Intelligence Officers," by former NSAers Brian Snow and Clint Brooks. The article is behind a paywall, but here's the code: [ Read more ... ]

Oversight FAIL: Via Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Last Friday marked the release of a report on the President’s Surveillance Program (PSP), the report that those of us in the surveillance policy world have been waiting for with bated breath since, well, the FISA Amendments Act passed last summer and mandated its creation.

The report, jointly drafted by the Offices of Inspectors General for the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, the CIA, the National Security Agency, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, was supposed to finally shed some light on President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program that the New York Times exposed in December 2005. Well, the Inspectors General (IGs) basically told us, "Don’t hold your breath." Major oversight FAIL.

First of all, while the report does include some new information gleaned from interviews with officials involved in the program, the report primarily cites already public sources, like congressional testimony, to tell a story we already know.

Moreover, the report fails to address a number of key questions: [ Read more ... ]

Construction Crew Severs Secret ‘Black Line’: Via Threat Level.

A construction crew working on an office building in Virginia in 2000 severed a fiber optic cable that wasn’t on anyone’s map. Apparently it was a ‘black line’ used for carrying secret intelligence data, according to sources who spoke recently with the Washington Post.

Within minutes of cutting the cable, three black SUV’s pulled up carrying men in suits who complained that their line was severed. [ Read more ... ]

The National Security Council: An Organizational Assessment Via Open CRS: Recently Added :

The National Security Council (NSC) was established by statute in 1947 to create an inter-departmental body to offer confidential advice to the President on all aspects of national security policy. Currently, statutory members of the Council are the President, Vice President, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense; but, at the President's request, other senior officials participate in NSC deliberations. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence are statutory advisers. In 2007, the Secretary of Energy was added to the NSC membership. The President clearly holds final decision-making authority in the executive branch. Over the years, however, the NSC staff has emerged as a major factor in the formulation (and at times in the implementation) of national security policy. Similarly, the head of the NSC staff, the National Security Adviser, has played important, and occasionally highly public, roles in policymaking. This report traces the evolution of the NSC from its creation to the present. [ Read more ... ]

DNI report gives a glimpse of gov't data mining projects Via Law & Disorder Section - Ars Technica :

The most interesting thing about the second annual data mining report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—an abbreviated public version of which was released last week—may be what isn't in it. The current report, surveying research underway at ODNI's Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) division, focuses almost exclusively on a video analysis project. Several other programs alluded to in last year's report—including two that appear to be descendants of the defunct Total Information Awareness program—have ended their research phases. But does that mean they're mothballed, or just out of beta?

Click here to read the rest of this article

Read Original Article (Via Law & Disorder Section - Ars Technica.)

NSA Should Oversee Cybersecurity, Intel Chief Says: Via Threat Level

Despite the fact that many Americans distrust the National Security Agency for its role in the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping program, the agency should be entrusted with securing the nation's telecommunications networks and other cyber infrastructures, President Obama's director of national intelligence told Congress on Wednesday.

Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis Blair told the House intelligence committee (.pdf) that the NSA, rather than the Department of Homeland Security which currently oversees cybersecurity, has the smarts and the skills to secure cyberspace.

"The National Security Agency has the greatest repository of cyber talent," Blair said. "[T]here are some wizards out there at Fort Meade who can do stuff."

Blair added that "because of the offensive mission that they have, they’re the ones who know best about what’s coming back at us and it’s defenses against those sorts of things that we need to be able to build into wider and wider circles." [ Read more ... ]

minilinks for 2009-01-28: Via EFF.org Updates

• ACLU Requests Bush-era Memos
  In a test of President Obama's commitment to transparency, the ACLU requested sensitive Bush administration memos on torture and wiretapping that have long been sought by privacy and human rights advocates.
  
• Patriot Act Used to Punish Fliers
  Conflicts with airline staff have led to fliers facing federal terrorism charges. 
  
[ Read more ... ]
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Salon Radio: NPR's Tom Gjelten and ACLU's Harvey Grossman: Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald

Two interviews are featured today on Salon Radio:

(1) NPR correspondent Tom Gjelten, who covers intelligence and national security matters, wrote an article on Wednesday reporting that John Brennan, who purported last week to withdraw his name from consideration for a top intelligence post, was, in fact, "pressured by the Obama transition team to pull his name from consideration."  I discuss that episode with Gjetlan, but the majority of my interview focused on this paragraph Gjetlan wrote:

Brennan's withdrawal, offered in a Nov. 25 letter to Obama, came after liberal bloggers mounted an opposition campaign against his possible appointment. They said he was tainted by his service in the CIA at a time when the agency was employing coercive interrogation methods, including "waterboarding," on detainees.

As I wrote previously -- and as this excellent post from NPR Check detailed -- this claim is false.  The objection to Brennan was not that he just so happened to be at the CIA when these policies were implemented.  The objection was much more substantive than that; it was that Brennan has a history of explicitly supporting and defending policies such as "rendition" and "enhanced interrogation techniques."

[ Read more ... ]

EFF Sues NSA, President Bush, and Vice President Cheney to Stop Illegal Surveillance-UPDATED - Via EFF.org Updates:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies today on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records. The five individual plaintiffs are also suing President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and other individuals who ordered or participated in the warrantless domestic surveillance.

The lawsuit, Jewel v. NSA, is aimed at ending the NSA's dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans and holding accountable the government officials who illegally authorized it. Evidence in the case includes undisputed documents provided by former AT&T telecommunications technician Mark Klein showing AT&T has routed copies of Internet traffic to a secret room in San Francisco controlled by the NSA. [ Read more ... ]

TELECONFERENCE TODAY at 1:30pm ET/10:30am PT: EFF Sues NSA, President Bush, and VP Cheney to Stop Illegal Surveillance - Via EFF.org Updates:

Toll-Free Dial-In for Reporters: 1-800-894-5910; title "EFF Call"

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will file a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies today on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records.

The five individual plaintiffs are also suing President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and other individuals who ordered or participated in the warrantless domestic surveillance. [ Read more ... ]