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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."
Does this mean I can stop using PGP?
Trolling is a art,
Yay! The good guys finally win one.
Suck on that, herr Ashcroft...
Then, on the other hand they're spying on international communication lines as much as possible (Echelon, Echelon II, etc...). Of course that's perfectly legitimate for them because it hardly affects privacy of the American people.
--- Eat my sig.
"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
I guess even they couldn't stomach the idea of reading other people's spam.
Too bad, they could have compared prices on herbal viagra.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
They won't let the Pentagon spy on Americans? That's OK, I'm sure we can find somebody else to do it for us, and return the favor to them, since we are allowed to spy on foreigners.
You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Just don't lie to me, pal. Not that I'd know if you were.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
personal emails may be a little to spicy.
Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. -FB
From the article: 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."
How can it not be a program that snoops into American citizens privacy? From past experience, I've found that the other issue is that once databases are available, they will be tapped for a variety of purposes not originally envisioned or intended.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Still, this can easily be sidestepped by the old intelligence trick of you watch our citizens, we'll watch yours, then trading details with a friendly country.
all your mail are not belong to us
Finally! The black car in front of my house is going to leave!
Posting as directed.
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.
I was worried about people seeing my love letters to CowboyNeal. That he NEVER RESPONDS TO
Even if they don't look at it right now, they can always change the laws later and go back and read your e-mail then.
Storage is cheap, and tape is cheap. The one protection you might have is that they only have backups on tapes and that the tapes go bad after a few years. But if they back up onto optical media, they basically have a record of all your e-mails for all eternity.
Heck, I run a mail server and a backup server for my company. It's really handy when an IMAP user accidentally deletes an e-mail. I can just go back and restore that mailbox for them. Even for something a year old.
The point is, just because the law says you are safe this instant doesn't mean squat. All that you do is recorded. If you don't like that, then use something like nonymouse.com and/or PGP.
Has anyone actually accomplished anything through e-mail? (Other than enlarging appendages, of course)
;-)
I think this amounts to more of "ignoring the massive amounts of nothingness" than a privacy win
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
is that i can't spell AT ALL and the editors fixed all my mistakes :)
But there are still many, many other ways in which personal information is aggregated and analyzed, without the benefit of an oversight committee, or even significant regulation. So I'm still worried.
And I have another creeping worry: what if convicted felon Poindexter might have actually done some good with his (admittedly grotesque, and probably wildly impractical) database?
I mean, I'm always the first to howl about how those who give up freedom to gain a little security deserve neither, but does anybody else wonder about this? I mean, things are getting a little tense in the world these days.
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by mere idiocy.
that corporations already monitor emails and internet activity of their employees where most people log on to the internet. This may not mean much except for those with AOL accounts.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. --Edmund Burke
This can still be over-ridden by an executive order of the president... which sounds likely in the "name of national security" and our orange alert level.
[text removed by line eater v9.3 - thanks for shopping with the NSA!]
The action was praised by Democrats and Republicans and by outside groups on both the political right and left.
Nice to see some soundness of mind (for a change)
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
They care about themselves. The executive branch is increasingly refusing to even CONSULT with Congress regarding these admittedly outrageous plans. But you'd be wrong to think that they're blocking this because they give a shit about your rights. They just want to be included... to make sure they have a hand in everything. In this case they're just exercising their right to refuse to fund ANY project in an attempt to get the WH to play ball with them. Otherwise they're going to take their ball and bat and go home, I guess.
'agreed not to allow email surveillance of American citizens'
Maybe they did it not in the interests of the public but simply because they don't want the FBI reading their email. It just seems more likely to me that, as a group, they are motivated more by self-interest than anything else.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
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'
Who? Didn't Hussein blow up the Maine, shoot Archduke Ferdinand, stage the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, invade Poland, sneak attack Pearl Harbor, drop nukes on Japan, invade South Korea, cause the Gulf of Tonkin incident, run drugs into the US via Columbia, blow up the Marine barracks in Beirut, and shoot down TWA 800?
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Most of us are snoozing while Big Brother is hatching all sorts of nefarious plots to own us.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
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?
This is a good step!
I just got done writing 4 letters to my Congressmen about the Pariot Act 2 and war with Iraq. I know it is easier to post online about how something should be done, but it only took about an hour to go out, get stamps and envelopes, and write.
Perhaps take this as a chance to thank your Senator/Representative for voting against this (if they did!), and maybe even let them know your views on the Patriot Act 2, etc.
Find your Senator
Find your Representative
,
faeryman
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.
In most of the world we call different standards for different classifications "different standards".
Not double standards.
Uh... not in my "most of the world". Not in Webster's Dictionary's "most of the world" either:
One group would be americans, another group would be foreigners. Double means you have two specific standards and the contradiction is when you purport them to be general.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
All of my friends have been asking me why I keep randomly throwing spy USCOI Mena bluebird virus Sears Tower electronic surveillance Vince Foster White Water ASPIC industrial espionage Semtex CBNRC Mossad Juiliett Class Submarine all these strange words into my emails. It's from spook, a military asset class struggle AUTODIN Mafia MDA genetic cryptographic South Africa Crypto AG keyhole Rubin Medco eavesdropping Chobetsu little emacs script that adds high-risk words to my emails. The theory is, the extra traffic of false-positives will overwhelm any Steve Case North Korea Cohiba computer terrorism PGP SCUD missile AIMSX ARPA CISU arrangements class struggle chameleon man ISEC security espionage effort by the government to gamma Uzi FIPS140 bemd assassinate CDMA ANDVT Elvis USCODE 22nd SAS threat Bletchley Park colonel industrial espionage csystems monitor email traffic.
Does that mean I can stop doing this now? My coworkers think I chameleon man SWAT PGP JFK ANZUS top secret Cohiba USCODE Delta Force ASDIC virus assassination Noriega World Trade Center cryptanalysis have Tourettes.
No I'm not trolling.
What scares me about all this is that in the future they can start this activity by just repealing the legislation that prohibits this surveillance in the first place. Someone needs to step up and get a consensus that this is flat-out unconstitutional and declare it as such, and make it clear that this kind of surveillance will never be allowed. Furthermore, anyone who proposes such a program should be expelled from the House or the Senate for violating their oath.
I was hoping to send some nice emails in arabic like:
Jihad to Microsoft! Linux has risen in an explosive blaze of fury! I like VX works. Food tastes good with ricin it. Death to BUSH using new hedge trimmers. 90% off swedish made penis enlargers! (Which is what they're really looking for)
I'm not a real doctor, but I recommend beer.
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...
So now they are not even going to admit they read our e-mail?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
If he really wants to read my email, I'm going to sign up for all the pr0n spam I can get. Let that puritanical a$$hole freak show and his Christian Soldiers(TM) sort through all the live cams, teen fetishes, fisting sessions, and goatse.cx pics they can get :)
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
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.
Apparenlty few read the article (including the poster) before replying.
If all take a moment to read any of the 3 articles published today reporting the conferees agreement, it should be clear that the agreement does not prohibit surveillance of electronic communication between US citizens.
The agreement addresses the use of the data collected in prosecuting citizens and includes congressional oversight of further funding and reasearch but does not prohibit the evesdropping.
qANQR1DBwU4DFRm5nWRHfUAQCACvS5Q/HAkmsluEsbKSFhwvo
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----
No.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
While this may seem like a victory for personal privacy, lets wait until the war starts to be sure it sticks.
Congress has been known to often go back on their decisions, when the american peoples rights are concerned... and rarely the correct direction.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I really don't get it when it comes to the big fuss over this Total Information Awareness. The structure to do it is already in place and it comes in two forms, AOL and AIM. All the government has to do is set up an account, add everyone to their buddy list and hire some goons to check away messages, you always know where people are by their away messages. How easy is this, and it's free too!
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
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Off-topic, but I hadn't seen that episode of The Twilight Zone, so here's a synopsis for others who haven't:
TVGuide: "March 4, 1960: The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street: Total power failure in a neighborhood sparks suspicions that it was caused by an alien invasion -- and that one walks among them."
Here is a reasonably good synopsis.
And now, on-topic: Terrorists target governments, not citizens. However, the best way to attack a government is to let other people do it for you, and the best people to do that are the citizens of that country. The IRA was after the British government. The 9/11 terrorists were after the US government. The civilians are a means, not an end. (I should, however, note that there may be some exception with respect to Israel and Palestine, but don't regard this topic too highly, as it's only here so at least some of my post is on-topic.)
Sigs are like bumper stickers.
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
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.