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NSA Spying on Americans in the Green Zone - Via Center for Democracy and Technology:
The National Security Agency is intercepting and retaining communications of innocent Americans in Iraq's so-called "Green Zone"; agency workers even pass around the most titillating conversations, according to explosive allegations made by two NSA whistleblowers in an ABC News segment airing tonight. According to the report, collection of telephone conversations U.S. soldiers and aid workers in Iraq had with their families in the U.S. continued even after NSA analysts knew that the telephone numbers on which they were eavesdropping belonged to Americans who had no ties to terrorism. The report calls into question assurances the NSA and Justice Department repeatedly gave Congress that internally enforced "minimization procedures" are adequate to protect the private conversations of Americans.
(Read Original Article - Via Center for Democracy and Technology.)
NSA Snooped on Innocent Americans' Private Calls from Iraq, Former Operators Charge - Via Threat Level:
The National Security Agency routinely listened in on the intimate and innocent phone calls of Americans in Iraq, including government personnel, journalists and aid workers, as they called back into the United States, according to two former NSA operators who spoke to ABC News.
The accusations that the NSA routinely listened in on Americans' phone calls contradicts the Administration's repeated claims that its secret spying did not listen to any Americans other than suspected terrorists.
The conduct also appears to violate the rules that govern when the NSA can listen in to Americans' making calls overseas-- which then required high-level approval for each target. read more »
Exclusive: Inside Account of U.S. Eavesdropping on Americans - Tonight on Nightline - Via ABC News: Nightline :
U.S. Officers' "Phone Sex" Intercepted; Senate Demanding Answers
Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia. read more »
I don't see anything on their site yet, but the closing comments on tonights Nightline says that Thursdays show will include interviews with ex-employees who listened to those wiretaps of phone calls that supposedly did not include innocent US citizens.
Satellite Piracy, Mod Chips, and the Freedom to Tinker - Via Freedom to Tinker:
Tom Lee makes an interesting point about the satellite case I wrote about on Saturday: the problem facing EchoStar and other satellite manufacturers is strikingly similar to the challenges that have been faced for many years by video game console manufacturers. There's a grey market in "mod chips" for video game consoles. Typically, they're sold in a form that only allows them to be used for legitimate purposes. But many users purchase the mod chips and then immediately download new software that allows them to play illicit copies of copyrighted video games. It's unclear exactly how the DMCA applies in this kind of case. read more »
Supremes Mull Whether Bad Databases Make for Illegal Searches - Via Threat Level:
If a false entry in a database leads to a unconstitutional police search that reveals illegal drugs, does the government get to hold it against you?
That's the question the Supreme Court will tackle on Tuesday in a case civil liberties groups such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center argue will have broad implications in a world where we are constantly being evaluated against databases and watch lists that are riddled with frustratingly persistent errors.
"In these interlinked databases, one error can spread like a disease, infecting every system it touches and condemning the individual to whom this error refers to suffer substantial delay, harassment, and improper arrest," EPIC director Marc Rotenberg argued in a friend of the court brief (.pdf).
Not surprisingly, the government disagrees. read more »
Gov't Database Errors Leading To Unconstitutional Searches? - Via Slashdot:
Wired is running a story about a case the Supreme Court will be hearing on Tuesday that relates to searches based on erroneous information in government databases. In the case of Herring vs. US 07-513, the defendant was followed and pulled over based on a records indicating he had a warrant out for his arrest. Upon further review, the local county clerk found the records were in error, and the warrant notification should have been removed months prior. Unfortunately for Herring, he had already been arrested and his car searched. Police found a small amount of drugs and a firearm, for which Herring was subsequently prosecuted. Several friend-of-the-court briefs have been filed to argue this case, some calling for "an accuracy obligation on law enforcement agents [PDF] who rely on criminal justice information systems," and others defending such searches as good-faith exceptions [PDF].
(Read Original Article - Via Slashdot.)
Liberty, Technology and the Next President - Via CDT - PolicyBeta:
[Ed. Note: this is the first in a series of blog posts addressing a range of technology and civil liberties issues we believe America's next President and Congress will have the chance to take a fresh look at, and the opportunity to set a policy course for the Internet that will keep it open, innovative and free.]
One of the biggest mistakes a new administration might make in its first 100 days would be to ignore the impact technology has had on the privacy of our communications and the striking need to update the law accordingly. If the President fails to act early in his first term he will miss a window of opportunity that won’t soon reopen, and it will be to the detriment of the Internet economy and to privacy rights.
The next President will have to resolve big-ticket items, like an economic meltdown, an unpopular war and an energy crisis. But when it comes to putting in place policies that will protect and promote Internet commerce, investing in timely solutions now will reap significant dividends for years to come.
Hi-Tech Discrimination read more »
Bill Would Rein In Laptop Searches at the Border - Via Center for Democracy and Technology:
Random, intrusive searches of the contents of laptop computers at the border would be outlawed by legislation introduced on September 26 by Senators Feingold, Cantwell, Wyden, and Akaka. The Traveler's Privacy Protection Act (S. 3612) would require U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officials to have a "reasonable suspicion" of a crime before they could search a laptop computer and other data storage devices; a court order based on probable cause would be needed to seize a device. Travelers could be present while electronic devices were searched, discriminatory searches would be barred, and strict time limits for searching would be imposed. The bill, which limits its protection to residents of the US, would displace recently-disclosed Customs policies permitting suspicionless laptop searches at the border that could last for weeks. September 29, 2008
Text of Bill S. 3612 [PDF] September 26, 2008
(Read Original Article - Via Center for Democracy and Technology.)
Salon Radio: ACLU's Mike German on new FBI spying powers - Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald:
Last month, Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced that the FBI -- with four months left in the Bush administration -- was adopting new regulations for itself which would vastly increase its power to investigate and spy on American citizens, on U.S. soil, even in the absence of any suspicion that the targeted citizen is involved in any wrongdoing. My guest today on Salon Radio is former long-time FBI agent and current ACLU Policy Counsel Michael German to discuss those new regulations, why they are both so dangerous and counter-productive, the ways in which FBI Director Robert Mueller is spouting clearly misleading statements to justify them, and what the prospects are for stopping their implementation. Speaking about these new regulations, German said in the interview: read more »
Entertainment Lobby Calls for Internet Filtering - Via Threat Level:
It didn't take long for a consortium of content producers, equipment makers and internet gatekeepers to cling to a Federal Communications Commission decision embracing internet filtering.
Buried in the text of the FCC's stinging rebuke of Comcast for throttling BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer traffic was an open invitation to ISPs to filter for unauthorized copyrighted material. That August 1 invitation was embraced Thursday by a newly formed lobby named Arts + Labs.
Behind the lobby is AT&T, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Viacom and the Songwriters Guild of America. Among other things, the lobby says "network operators must have the flexibility to manage and expand their networks to defend against net pollution and illegal file trafficking which threatens to congest and delay the network for all consumers." read more »
New Border Search Policy Far Broader, New Documents Reveal - Via Threat Level:
Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff likes to point to the recent publication of the Border Patrol's policy on examining laptops and documents at the border as an example of the new openness that his department is striving for.
But the new policy itself -- allowing border agents free rein to read and sift through traveler's papers and laptops -- turns out to be a much further departure from past policies than previously known, according to new documents wrested loose from the government by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Asian Law Caucus via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
The old policy (.pdf) -- largely established in 1986 -- included a heading in bold reading: Customs Officers Should Not Read Personal Correspondence.
The U.S. Customs Service must guard the rights of individuals being inspected to ensure their personal privacy is protected. Therefore, as a general rule, Customs officers should not read personal correspondence […]
The new policy? It doesn't even mention personal letters as a special category. read more »
Internal DHS Documents Detail Expansion of Power to Read and Copy Travelers' Papers - Via EFF.org Updates:
San Francisco - Recently obtained documents show that last year the Department of Homeland Security quietly reversed a two-decades-old policy that restricted customs agents from reading and copying the personal papers carried by travelers, including U.S. citizens. The documents were made public today by the Asian Law Caucus (ALC) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which sued the government under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain policies governing the searches and questioning of travelers at the nation’s borders.
The documents show that in 2007, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) loosened restrictions on the examination of travelers' documents and papers that had existed since 1986. While CBP agents could previously read travelers' documents only if they had "reasonable suspicion" that the documents would reveal violations of agency rules, in 2007 officers were given the power to "review and analyze" papers without any individualized suspicion. read more »
What to Listen for During Hearing on Re-write of FBI Investigation Guidelines - Via CDT - PolicyBeta:
On September 23, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will conduct a hearing on new Attorney General Guidelines governing FBI investigations and the collection of domestic intelligence. The Department of Justice first issued guidelines governing FBI investigations in 1974 and has loosened them virtually every time it has re-visited those guidelines.
Now, Justice is engaged in a substantial re-write. CDT was given a peek at the new guidelines while still in draft form. The real news behind the re-write is that when the dust settles, the FBI will be permitted to engage in intrusive investigative techniques without having a tip that a crime may be committed and without having evidence of a particularized threat to national security. read more »
If NSA Spying Not A 'Dragnet,' What Were They Doing? - Via Threat Level:
This was not a driftnet. This was not dragnet.
The government doesn't and didn't have a massive computer listening into phone calls and emails inside the United States listening for keywords. That technology you've seen in movies like the Bourne Identity -- we don't use that.
That's what the Attorney General Michal Mukasey reiterated to a federal court Saturday, denying the NSA or its telecom partners engaged in"dragnet collection on the contents of millions of communications [...] for the purpose of analyzing those communication through key word searches to obtain information about possible terrorist attacks." (emphasis in original)
And since that did not happen, the dozens of suits filed against companies such as AT&T alleging such a thing should be dismissed, according to Mukasey, who was invoking the telecom immunity provisions passed by Congress in July.
That same bill legalized most of the spying program that was not a dragnet. It also oddly legalized dragnet surveillance of Americans' international communications.
So if there's no Big Brother ear listening for the perfectly wrong word, what was going on?
Well, one might look to the things Mukasey would not deny or perhaps, look closer at the language of the denial (.pdf). read more »
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