Gilmore Commission Recommends Secret 'Cyber Court'

hillct writes: "Yesterday the House Committee on Science received newly released cyber security recommendations from Virginia Governor James S. Gilmore, III of the Gilmore Commission. Most disturbing among these recommendations was a call for "Establishment of a special 'Cyber Court' patterned after the court established in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act"." See also the Wired story. Do we really need another secret, unaccountable court?

Comments

Yes, it is secret

[Green Aardvark House]

It's patterned after the Foreigen Intelligence Suveillance Act (FISA) Court, enacted in 1978.

From the Wired article:

Congress created the FISA court in 1978 to oversee foreign intelligence investigations that were too sensitive to take through the normal process. The FISA judges review the Justice Department's requests and, with the exception of one or two cases, have always approved them.

Because the FISA court meets in secret, and its orders are sealed, subjects are often unaware they're under surveillance.

Unlike more standard courts, FISA court documents are unaccessible to the general public.

So, even though the existence of the court is not secret, its actions are.

Beautiful.

[dave-fu]

Forget the right to a fair trial, hackers are threatening our country's very lifeblood! Or something equally dramatic.
The good news is that they won't be high-profile cases where there's some sort of onus on the government to come through in a big, excessively punitive way (are shoplifters forbidden to walk in stores after they've served their time? are murderers forbidden to be around people after they've served their time? embezzlers forbidden to be around company books after they've done theirs? then why exactly are mitnick et. al forbidden to be around computers/electronic equipment after they've served theirs?). The bad news is that we'll have a new branch of the government with a minimum of public overview running wild on an increasingly marginalized subset of society.

Not another FISA

[ardran]

I reserve a certain amount of cynicism towards "The Government is Out to Get Me" and related mindsets, but FISA is one thing that scares the living fuck out of me.

The idea that a similar court (proceedings so secret that the accused doesn't get to know the charges; has denied only *one* wiretap request in its history) is needed to deal with computer crime is nuts.

A couple of links:
http://www.ainfos.ca/98/aug/ainfos00031.html
http://mediafilter.org/caq/Caq53.court.html

what is Star Chamber

[onepoint]

For those that don't know what Star Chamber is please go to
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~altmann/star-chamber.ht ml

it's a quick summary.

-onepoint

Re:what is Star Chamber

[onepoint]

sorry I forgot about the slashdot effect. here is the cut and paste from that above mentioned site

Start

An English court of law active in the Tudor and early Stuart periods, abolished by the Long Parliament in 1641. An outgrowth of the royal council, it was made up of privy councilors as well as judges and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters. Initially well regarded because of its speed and flexibility, Star Chamber became unpopular as the Stuart kings used it with increasing arbitrariness to enforce the royal prerogative. Its name thus became synonymous with secret, irresponsible court proceedings. (Academic American Encyclopedia)

End

Re:We need a secret court....

[ichimunki]

Although I've always been too chicken to ask for my FBI file under FOIA, it's clear from the FBI FAQ on it, that they review the file before release and will block out anything that could endanger an ongoing investigation. So no, you cannot ask for your file in an attempt to determine if you are currently being tapped. However, if you get your file and the whole thing is blocked out, you might want to implement some security measures. :)

Obediance to authority

[bigdavex]

Stanley Milgram ran an experiment that explored this topic. The basic idea was that he took volunteers for a "teaching experiment". The volunters who were the "teachers" would agree to shock the crap out of people, simply because an authority figure told them to.

Quoted from the link:

When Milgram conducted the study, he found that with a little bit of coaxing, the majority (60%) of subjects would administer shocks right through to 450 volts. The people administering the shocks were not "pathological sadists" as the psychologists had described them, but normal everyday people. At this point I think I should point out that nobody actually received electric shocks... the learner was a confederate of the experimenter and was pretending to be in pain. The only real subject in the experiment was the "teacher".

(I think I first saw this on Slashdot or Kuro5hin. Thanks to whoever posted it first.)

Secret hearing != Secret trial; NO Star Chamber

[Paul Bain]

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp The poster (hillct) and Slashdot employee Michael state that

"Most disturbing among these recommendations was a call for "Establishment of a special 'Cyber Court' patterned after the court established in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [FISA]." . . . . Do we really need another secret, unaccountable court?

I am a lawyer-shyster. I think that hillct and Michael (in addition to everyone mentioning the term "Star Chamber," a synonym for a secret trial) may have overreacted or misinterpreted this news. First, secret trials contravene the U.S. Constitution. Any statute (federal or state) purporting to empower a court to hear and decide crimial liability in secret would be unconstitutional. A judicial hearing is not a trial, however, and the hearings contemplated under FISA are only those relating to whether law enforcement agents may surveil a particular communication or party/parties.

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp And secrecy in the judicial branch is not always undesirable. Nearly ALL grand juries meet, hear evidence (while a judge presides), and deliberate in secret. But they make no determination as to criminal liability. They simply indict (or fail to indict), a step necessary to having a person tried. Secrecy in certain judicial proceedings is absolutely necessary -- secrecy is not always undesirable.

Gilmore is my Governor

[ca1v1n]

He won the election because he promised eliminating the personal property (car) tax. This is a local tax, which he was going to reimburse the localities for out of state funds coming from the temporary budget surplus. This means that localities with a high personal property tax, generally the rich ones, get more money, while the poorer localities get the shaft, as they always have. Now we have a budget crisis in Virginia.

Whatever Gilmore claims about being tech-savvy is a load of BS. He's politically savvy, and he tried to get through a bunch of laws that would give Virginia jurisdiction over the whole internet because of the traffic that gets routed through Northern Virginia. The man wants power and knows how to get it while convincing a lot of people they'll be better off for it.

Curious why Gilmore would be interested in more police powers? Because he's being groomed to be the next Attorney General of the US. I'd personally prefer him over Ashcroft because he doesn't seem to harbor any ethnic biases, but that's about it. Watch out for this man. You'll probably hear from him again.