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House and Senate Reject E-mail Surveillance
vena writes "The Star Tribune reports the House and Senate today agreed not to allow email surveillance of American citizens proposed by the Total Information Awareness program. Additionally, negotiators agreed to halt all future funding on the program without extensive consultation with Congress."
"Hey, bob, this thing we all swore to uphold, are they serious?"
How much you want to bet this gets tacked on to the next "patriot" style bill?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
On that note... You can get your cool clothes... Any proceeds beyond the basic cost of each product will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Platform independent bug tracking software
From what I read in the article, the house and senate have voiced oposition. But it goes on to say, "The only obstacles to the provision becoming law would be the failure of the conferees to reach agreement on the overall spending bill in which it is included, or a successful veto of the bill by President Bush." Looks as if it could still go through.
Well, whether it can or can not is rather open to interpretation, unlike the IRS, which can freely snoop into people's privacy (!!!)
In most of the world we call different standards for different classifications "different standards".
Not double standards.
The double standard is if Britain watches over the U.S. similarly and then we "exchange" the information about each other's population
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Lt. Cmdr. Donald Sewell, a Pentagon spokesman, defended the program, saying, "The Department of Defense still feels that it's a tool that can be used to alert us to terrorist acts before they occur." He added, "It's not a program that snoops into American citizens' privacy."
*cough* Bull$hit *cough*
Of course it "snoops" into American citizens' privacy, that's the primary mission of DARPA and TIA.
It's like saying the gun I'm pointing at you won't kill you.
I have a middle-eastern last name, does that mean I'm going to be watched?
I would say more, but I'm liable to start on a rant that could start a whole mess of arguments I'm not interested in pursuing.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
i was under the impression that you cannot prosecute people for acts committed before they were made a crime. anyone have any info on that?
but this acticle only says a provision has been made that the surveillance information is not to be used against American Citizens and the bill is likely to pass unless Bush vetoes it or the spending is not approved.
The only obstacles to the provision becoming law would be the failure of the conferees to reach agreement on the overall spending bill in which it is included, or a successful veto of the bill by President Bush.
Is therefore safe to assume the Pentagon feels entitled to surveil the rest of the worlds population on the off chance they may spot a terrorist at some point ? I'm not trying to flame here but the article seemed a little short on fact and I am unclear as to the levels of surveillance the bill supports in its current form. If I understand it the overall plan has not actually been killed, just subjected to more congressional oversight and currently exempts American Citizens
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
According to a slightly more inclusive NYTimes article I read on this earlier today, one of Iowa's senators - Charles Grassley - co-sponsored the bill. I wrote him a letter this morning thanking him for it. It's the first time ever I've felt like I had a reason to do so.
I appreciated his quote from the article,
"Protecting Americans' civil liberties while at the same time winning the war against terrorism has got to be top priority for the United States. Congressional oversight of this program will be a must as we proceed in the war against terror. The acceptance of this amendment sends a signal that Congress won't sit on its hands as the TIA program moves forward."
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Greeeeeeeeeeat. I LUV this country.
http://www.computerbytesman.com/tia/
(Link for creepy logo only! Well, the cached pages are kind of interesting too.)
So, American agencies have some limitations on how they may spy on American citizens. Likewise UK agencies may not spy on UK subjects. Fair enough, until those two agree to swap notes, so US spies on Brits (freely and legally) and the Brits spy on the yankees (freely and legally).
I think we need some international treaty, on the level of the Geneva convention, that limits the sharing of "intelligence" information to the level that would have been legal to obtain if it had been done by local authorities. And strong (death?) penalties to those who break the convention.
Well, I am (still?) allowed to dream...
One thing we've seen, is that terrorists are not stupid. Does Lt. Cmdr. Sewell really think that terrorists will communicate important details through e-mail? I suppose that if the threat of being discovered is there, it's less likely to be used, but there are varied ways of communicating that are not easy to track.
What worries me is that U.S. 'intelligence,' is taking the view that technology (and the invasiveness that comes with it) will offer a panacea to the current terrorist threat. I'm probably not the first to remind anyone that even WITH all the technology currently utilized by the US military, it has still been unable to bring down a man who lives in caves.
I agree with you...it's not a question of if, but when the current data surveillance/collection efforts will be repurposed to suit some other, unrelated interest.
I wouldn't break your pom poms for government out quite yet. Essentially, when laws that hurt the masses get rejected, it's because they hurt the elites as well. The reason this one got killed is because the people who make laws would have been hit hard too. They have as much to lose as we do when it comes to privacy. When laws that benefit politicians start getting turned down (e.g. they kill the DMCA despite risking a loss of RIAA donation money), then perhaps we can celebrate.
I was thinking about this this morning after my mom called up and was worried because bush wanted everyone to have 3 days of supplies. This is probably what it felt like to live in the 50's. The old duck, and cover.
Anyway, What I am saying is that now only is this the new cold war, but the Old Cold War Warriors are back witha vengence. Rumsfield, McNamara.
The only good thing I can see about all of this is that the country will experience another revolution (like the 60's following the 50's) and maybe this action that congress took is a first step.
I would like to hear comment from the rest of you
Sigs are dangerous coy things
HA! I wish.
I thought seriously about that once...all I would need is a single spam filter. If There wasn't a PGP tagline in the message, it would get permanently deleted from my inbox. Since spammers don't use PGP, BAM! Instant spam-free zone.
Unfortunately, those I communicate with don't even know what encryption is, much less use it. Thus, I would also lose mail from friends and family.
Hmmm...perhaps a PGP Awareness Campaign is in order?
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Pointy's resume says it all: "finds innovative solutions to difficult problems". What's to innovative about lying?
=brianThank goodness for the handful of sensible people in Congress. When the Patriot Act sailed through with only one dissenter in the Senate (Feingold/Wis.) I wondered whether I had lost my mind.
... one at a time ... over a period of weeks. When you find yourself wondering whether you're taking a risk by opening the mail or merely standing outside, you have problems. You have terror.
You might point out that we have had no real acts of domestic terrorism since September 2001. True.
You probably don't live in the DC area, but we remember the anthrax attacks following 9/11. Still unsolved, aren't they? Then we had these bastard snipers killing a dozen unsuspecting people
Mentioned rarely, these attacks were likely all the work of Americans. So was Oklahoma City. The closest thing to a 9/11 follow-up was the "shoe bomber" Reid, a British subject. (Apparently they're worried about him in jail.) Hunting for "suspicious foreigners" would have done no good in any of these. Nor would the unpatriotic Patriot Act. I'm not certain what would have helped, but I am sure they're headed in the wrong direction, enacting the longtime wish list of certain interest groups without regard to the present problem.
We don't want to live in a police state, both because it would suck and because the terrorists would love it.
Now we have a code red or orange or tangerine, I forget, isn't that dandy. I understood the defcon system better.
Who needs Congressional funding? Poindexter can just smuggle drugs instead. It worked for the CIA and Las Contras, whom Poindexter was inextricably associated with during the free-flowing cocaine days of the 1980's. But hey, I can see why nobody remembers any of this, what with the more important stories like the President's blow job, the numerous baby-fell-in-the-well stories, O.J., Jon Benet Ramsey, Martha Stewart, etc...
"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq"
-- Paul Wolfowitz, 7/21/2003
I'll quote the first paragraph:
Does that answer your specific questions?
You can see it here. Also, there's lots of encrypted communications programs or file transfer programs out there, if you feel the need for it. Stenograhy works too. Bin Laden was sending people to aviator school. Why wouldn't he be sending someone to do a CS degree in encryption and stenography too?
You may keep strong encryption out of the hands of the general public, because they have no real interest in it. But for a determined group, the cat is out of the bag many years ago. Throwing together some AES + SHA + Diffie-Hellman reference code I could probably make a secure tool before the end of business today. And I'm hardly an expert on the subject...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Here is a quote from Echelon Watch's FAQ:
So, what exactly is this article about? What have we won?
For the still-skeptical people amoung us, here is a warning from the EU government to e-mail users, originally stated in it's original form here. You can also find an EU resolution on the matter here
If you are not of the faint of heart, you can see the highly detailed 200 page report into the system here [pdf doc]. This report was originally reported in the news mid September, 2001. Obviously due to other news items, it wasn't widely reported and the whole affair was convienently swept under the carpet.
I really wonder about the sincerity of legislators passing legislation that specifies how Poindexter shall not abuse the power he's given in the same law. Naivete doesn't explain it as well as plausible deniability.
They should either remove Poindexter, or just admit he has the keys to our bedrooms and can be expected to take photos.
The ECHELON system has been doing this for years so this rejection makes little difference.
Here's some background taken from the ECHELON FAQ at www.cipherwar.com:
The Scientific and Technical Options Assessment program office (STOA) of the European Parliament commissioned two reports which describe ECHELON's activities. These reports unearthed a startling amount of evidence, which suggests that ECHELON's powers may have been underestimated. The first report, entitled "An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control," suggested that ECHELON primarily targeted civilians.
This report found that:
"The ECHELON system forms part of the UKUSA system but unlike many of the electronic spy systems developed during the cold war, ECHELON is designed for primarily non-military targets: governments, organisations and businesses in virtually every country. The ECHELON system works by indiscriminately intercepting very large quantities of communications and then siphoning out what is valuable using artificial intelligence aids like Memex to find key words. Five nations share the results with the US as the senior partner under the UKUSA agreement of 1948, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia are very much acting as subordinate information servicers.