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How The Government Spies On Your Internet Use
intnsred writes "In explaining the recent PATRIOT act ACLU lawsuit, a D.C. civil rights lawyer writes, "I am sure that many of you reading this (and I, likely) have the government in our computers....Until now, we did not know much about how the government goes about this procedure. Now we do." Fascinating details of the case and how easy it is for the gov't to get warrantless access to you through your ISP. This clarifies and expands a previous /. article."
they cant get into my commodore 64!
:)
Mmmmm Zak McKracken
i guess if you keep repeating "but we are free" enough people will believe it
50% of USA still think Saddam and Al-Queda are connected so it shows psy-ops works
I work at a small ISP, and I've never seen any requests for passwords or email from any law enforcement agency in the 4 years I have worked here. We have around 50,000 customers in the Northeast US. We do, however, get 1 or 2 requests per month from the RIAA or MPAA to warn our customers about distributing copyrighted material.
While in their FAQ's they (/.) state that they've only ever removed one comment... how does that apply/work now? Slashdot is an equal target for the PATRIOT act, as well as their hosts and the people who post here... hell even posting under the 'Post Anonymously' option may have certain 'caveats'.
Food for thought people, food for thought.
What's the point of an 'internet wiretap' when anything important to law enforcement is probably encrypted with a key long enough to take years to crack?
Am I the only person who has 4096-bit RSA?
It you are an American and you don't like this, get out and vote in November.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
If all email was encrypted by default the spies would need a lot of computing power.
Can someone please explain to me how this is indicative of the principles on which the USA was founded ? On where John Hancock and his mates saw a US goverment with the ability to spy on its own citizens, and on how this all makes sure we have a goverment "of the people, by the people and for the people" ?
I might be a bit depressed having just re-read 1984, but with the US and Airstrip 1... I mean Britain, working together on a strategy underpinned by propoganda and the continual spying on its citizens by the US Goverment you have to ask whether Orwell was just out by 20 years.
Jeb's Big Brother is in the Whitehouse folks, trouble is he kind of looks likes everyones Big Brother right now.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Just assume you have no privacy, at least not in the classical sense of the word.
Do you need a website upgrade?
In other words, the Patriot act is being used to stifle dissent against the act itself.
They are (supposedly) elected representatives of the people, its in your power to sack them if you are unhappy with what they are doing. Start explaining vociferously to you CongressPerson/Senator what the issue is and act with your ballot.
That aside, I am surprised at how strongly I feel about the by passing of legal stewardship in these issues. Normally I dont have alot of time for them but they do have their uses in a checks and bounds system. Obviously secrecy is required to carry out these operations but whats so hard about going to a judge if you have a valid case ? I think the recent statements by Ashcroft are indicative though. After Sept 11 all Arabic young men were potential terrorists. Now this has been expanded to include all young/middle aged/fathers/European looking Arabic men. No doubt Europeans and Asians will soon be included based on this logic.
Its becoming a concern that the US its leaders and institutions are becoming more and more isolated from the people they are supposed to represent and serve.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
What the hell are you talking about?
First of all, there should be a -1: Tin-foil hat option. Anyway, in Canada the government can seize your property without any kind of warrant, or even notification. Next. look up the Notwithstanding Clause. Finally, Canada also recently psased "anti-terrorism" laws similar to what you're complaining about.
All in all, neither country is perfect, and neither is heading down a slippery slope toward having "neither liberty or safety" (all right, please stop bashing us over the head with that quote, I know it's not just you but all of Slashdot). You've got plenty of liberties in both countries, and pretty incontestably more in the U.S. Now put down your George Orwell and enjoy the good life.
Fuck it
Numerous words, sentences and entire sections of the documents related to the suit, which are posted on the group's website, remain blacked out.
8 21 4&mode=thread&tid=126&tid=172&tid= 93
Sounds like a job for Claire Whelan, a dictionary and text analysis software.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/16/144
The company I work for owns an ISP.
We too, have had several "requests" from the RIAA for users info, etc. We told them to fuck off and get a warrant.
Haven't seen nor heard from them again.
Ditto the US feds.
Some ISPs have a backbone you know.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Doe and the ACLU are asking the court to deem unconstitutional the government's use of National Security Letters (NSLs), which allow FBI agents to demand, with no judicial oversight, personal information about clients of Internet Service Providers.
One could argue that the government is using unfettered powers to protect the people by finding out who could be potential 'terrorists'.
Now the problem is, who is a 'terrorist'?? Who defines the term 'terrorist'?
For instance take this ridiculous example (only to make a point, and makes silly assumptions that does not reflect their true nature):
Say, in a Democrat controlled (assume that they are all pro-Abortion etc.) government, would I be a terrorist if I advocated avoidance of abortion and extolled the virtues of abstinance?
Say, in a Republican controlled (assume that they are all xenophobic and White only), would a person be a terrorist if he/she were of Middle-Eastern descent.
Say, in a Stallmanist regime, would Bill Gates be a terrorist for advocating non-free software :-)
Another irritating point is the use of fancy words to which you cannot say anything near 'no' or 'I object' without the danger of being attacked, like 'Pro-Choice', 'Pro-Life', 'USA Patriot Act', 'Homeland Security', 'Intellectual Property' without looking like a bigot, one-who-condones-murder, unpatriotic, one who does not care for their patriotic duties to protect their homeland and one who condones thieving, respectively..
I have leaned to view everything with such names with suspicion.
terrorists are not that dumb to send unencrypted emails about their plans
they can use web sites, ssl connections, etc
noone is able to monitor (and decrypt) all ssl connections, but if they can get an access to the site itself (when it is running on ISP's server) they can easily get all the information they need
on the other side, i'm running smtp server and web server on my own pc at home
so i'm lucky that i'm not an US citizen, otherwise i would be probably accused of terrorism because FBI cannot get access to my web site just by asking my ISP
I don't have a problem with the concept of the Patriot Act. There must be a way for the law-enforcement agencies to be able to track criminals. We had the same problems with drug dealers and cellphones.
The obvious (and constitutional solution) is to have judicial oversight. Just like the s.o.b.s at RIAA, you must go to a judge somewhere and say "we suspect this person of doing this. Please give us a search warrant." No problem. The FBI would be limited in what information they can use for procecution. That is the way the Constitution is supposed to work.
"I drank what?" - Socrates
To think that the fed does not tap/read email or any other electronic transmission, this posting included, is simply delusional. All the paranoia in the world will not protect you from this, only 2 things can fix this:
1. Never log on to the net, never use your telephone, never mail anything via USPS. There, now you are safe.2. Make a change in goverment - the election process. Yeah, I know it is a slow, ugly process to get any kind of change done, but it is the only way to effect change in this country.
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
Disgusting, these people are like cockroaches. Watch them scurry when you shine the light on them. This level of secrecy is unwarrented by any part of the government. Any power that can be abused will be abused, our only defence is eternal vigilance, which requires transparency.
At least in the case of phone taps you need a warrent. It's not hard to get, granted, but at least there's a record. With secrecy like this the government can get at your computer and your records and your communication without any evidence and risks nothing should nothing turn up. This kind of situation just breeds fishing expiditions.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Really. You do business with an ISP owner who likes to talks about politics. All of a sudden, he becomes REAL quiet and looks scared all the time. D'oh.
The sad thing is, people will figure out who he is despite his best efforts, and the government WILL blame him.
By the time you get a "National Security Letter", it's too late to complain on Slashdot about it, because you'll be under a gag order.
;-)
So instead, today you should make up a webpage stating basically what you've just said above: "I have never seen any requests for passwords or email from any law enforcement agency in my time working here." and post a link to it for us. That way, if you ever do get a NSL, then you don't have to violate your gag order and tell anyone about it, you just need to take down the webpage telling them the opposite and wait for people to notice.
The description of this case reminds me of two things. The almost farcial nature of many of the rules and regulations in Catch 22. Secondly the way trials were conducted in China when the Communists came to power. As my grandparents tell it, they'd put you on trial but the best thing is they *won't* tell you OR the public what the charge is! The assumption being that if the government puts you trial, obviously you are guilty and the whole point of the trial is to exact your public confession. To make it even better they were allowed to beat and torture you until you confess. The problem being that not knowing what the charge is, even if you wanted to falsely confess to stop them beating you, you couldn't! The only way around this is if you had contacts amongst the Communist officials who would tell you the charge so you could say "Yes, I stole Mr Lee's chickens last Saturday". You'd get punished, but at least you'd skip the whole beating and torture business. And of course the info on which the trial is based on were usually informants, of whom they never tell you who it is or what the details of the evidence were (as I said, they didn't even tell you the details of the charge) so that you have absolutely no chance of defending yourself against the evidence as you are not allowed to see any of the evidence!
Of course the details of what's going on in the US is doing is different from what my grandparent's described about China, but the whole farcial nature, the whole "Sorry we can't even talk about what the charge is." (at least the defendents are allowed to know), the whole beating and torture until you confess (Guantonomo Bay), the whole lack of oversight to prevent abuses, the whole "we can't allow you to see/challenge the evidence/witnesses" (that trial in the US right now with that guy connected to 9/11) seems very very similar. And with the recent torture cases in US prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan etc the US is sliding down a very slippery slope.
How soon we forget these two technologies?
Magic Lantern is the government virus that AV makers are told not to detect and remove. It logs keystrokes, steals passwords, monitors internet activity, etc.
Carnivore, or whatever it is called now, is that box the Feds put on almost every major ISP out there to monitor network traffic and forward the info to the Fed database. It uses packet sniffers, and checks for certain key words.
These technologies are still being used to Spy on US citizens, Green Card Holders, Visa holders, etc.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Wake up and read the following!
The Patriot Act is hideously reminiscent of the "Decree for the Protection of Nation and State" that became law in Nazi Germany in February 1933. Its provisions were described by John Toland, in his masterly "Adolf Hitler", as ostensibly innocuous while in practice destroying every reasonable humanitarian right formerly possessed by the German people. There were "Tribunals set up to try enemies of the state", and Toland observed that Hitler made his legislation (the "Enabling Act") "sound moderate and promised to use its emergency powers "only in so far as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures"." Does that sound horribly familiar? And who would decide whether a measure was "vitally necessary"? " Why, the man wielding total power, of course. ("Trust me!" is ever the cry of the incipient dictator.) So Hitler"s Decree and the Reichstag"s subsequent Enabling Act were never modified or repealed, because they gave the man who was served by a compliant and intensely patriotic legislature the instruments he needed to keep him in total control. This is the reason for Bush"s energetic campaign to prevent the Patriot Act being subject to the existing "sunset clause" whereby most of its more despotic provisions should lapse next year. It was passed by a compliant and intensely patriotic legislature : will it be repealed by one?
Cloughley
Anyway, in Canada the government can seize your property without any kind of warrant, or even notification. Next. look up the Notwithstanding Clause. Finally, Canada also recently psased "anti-terrorism" laws similar to what you're complaining about.
No, the government cannot seize your property without any kind of warrant, or even notification. The Notwithstanding Clause applies to rights of provinces, not individuals; it allows a province to pass laws that violate the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But before an individual suffers from this a province must first pass the legislation, and then enforce it. This involves warrants and notifications.
Canada has indeed passed "anti-terrorism" laws, but they are not very similar to those in the U.S., and in any case Canada is under considerable diplomatic pressure from America, which believes these laws are insufficiently enforced. (Canada is alleged to be the weak spot in America's defences.)
You've got plenty of liberties in both countries, and pretty incontestably more in the U.S.
"Pretty incontestable"? It would be nice to be so right that other people weren't even allowed to dispute with you; the current administration certainly thinks so. But it does you no credit to express this view in your argument.
Actually, before the 9/11 crisis, I would have agreed with you. It always seemed to me that the American character would never put up with the degree of government interfernce that occurs in Canada. Also, on paper, the constitutional safeguards in the U.S. seem stronger than those in Canada. However, a piece of paper is only as good as it's enforcement, and the agencies charged with this enforcement in America seem reluctant to do so. In Canada, by contrast, the government is treading lightly despite its apparently draconian powers. It turns out that there is no substitute for decency and common sense.
"The good reader is a rarer swan than the good writer."
And you can identify those moozlim ayrab terrorists who don't pray to jesus, and their sympathizers by what they read.
How ya like dat?
Right. They're all the same. Always have been, always will be.
* Carter tried to distance the US from dictators, took the Soviets at face value when they claimed to desire co-existence, and was shocked when they invaded Afghanistan.
* Reagan believed in the notion that it's better to have a dictator who is on our side than a totalitarian ruler opposed to us, and he pushed the Soviet Union to collapse by forcing them into an arms race they couldn't win.
* Bush 1 put together a very strong alliance to drive Saddam out of Kuwait, but didn't take over Iraq for fear of breaking the trust he had established with the Coalition partners.
* Clinton believed in working in close concert with America's European allies wherever possible, did not believe in unilateral "regime change," and deliberately limited the scope of operations against Serbia and in the Middle East, believing that effective use of American "soft power" ultimately provided better results than constant use of "hard power."
* Bush 2 eschewed long-standing European alliances and incorporated pre-emptive invasion and regime change as a core element in American foreign policy oriented almost exclusively around hard power. His post-liberation plans were based on faith-based intelligence and wishful thinking.
You're so right. No differences between them. Give up your right to vote, and let the knee-jerk flag-waving "Creationism is science" crowd take over America.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
A few key points:
Who is more dangerous, Saddam, messing only with people from his country or bush , who invades other countries and HAS WMD??? hmmmm. The one with more power decides who are the good guys and who are not.
Check out Website development, maintenance and accesibility cons
Al Gore's speech last week touched on some of the issues here and I think he expressed them poignantly. Everyone should see this speech. video or audio.
"President Bush is claiming the unilateral right to do that to any American citizen he believes is an "enemy combatant." Those are the magic words. If the President alone decides that those two words accurately describe someone, then that person can be immediately locked up and held incommunicado for as long as the President wants, with no court having the right to determine whether the facts actually justify his imprisonment.
Now if the President makes a mistake, or is given faulty information by somebody working for him, and locks up the wrong person, then it's almost impossible for that person to prove his innocence - because he can't talk to a lawyer or his family or anyone else and he doesn't even have the right to know what specific crime he is accused of committing. So a constitutional right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness that we used to think of in an old-fashioned way as "inalienable" can now be instantly stripped from any American by the President with no meaningful review by any other branch of government.
How do we feel about that? Is that OK?
Here's another recent change in our civil liberties: Now, if it wants to, the federal government has the right to monitor every website you go to on the internet, keep a list of everyone you send email to or receive email from and everyone who you call on the telephone or who calls you - and they don't even have to show probable cause that you've done anything wrong. Nor do they ever have to report to any court on what they're doing with the information. Moreover, there are precious few safeguards to keep them from reading the content of all your email.
Everybody fine with that?
If so, what about this next change?
For America's first 212 years, it used to be that if the police wanted to search your house, they had to be able to convince an independent judge to give them a search warrant and then (with rare exceptions) they had to go bang on your door and yell, "Open up!" Then, if you didn't quickly open up, they could knock the door down. Also, if they seized anything, they had to leave a list explaining what they had taken. That way, if it was all a terrible mistake (as it sometimes is) you could go and get your stuff back.
But that's all changed now. Starting two years ago, federal agents were given broad new statutory authority by the Patriot Act to "sneak and peak" in non-terrorism cases. They can secretly enter your home with no warning - whether you are there or not - and they can wait for months before telling you they were there. And it doesn't have to have any relationship to terrorism whatsoever. It applies to any garden-variety crime. And the new law makes it very easy to get around the need for a traditional warrant - simply by saying that searching your house might have some connection (even a remote one) to the investigation of some agent of a foreign power. Then they can go to another court, a secret court, that more or less has to give them a warrant whenever they ask.
Three weeks ago, in a speech at FBI Headquarters, President Bush went even further and formally proposed that the Attorney General be allowed to authorize subpoenas by administrative order, without the need for a warrant from any court.
What about the right to consult a lawyer if you're arrested? Is that important?
Attorney General Ashcroft has issued regulations authorizing the secret monitoring of attorney-client conversations on his say-so alone; bypassing procedures for obtaining prior judicial review for such monitoring in the rare instances when it was permitted in the past. Now, whoever is in custody has to assume that the government is always listening to c
At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in the year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The University of Edinburgh) had this to say about "The Fall of The Athenian Republic" some 2,000 years prior.
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
I'm pretty sure we're right in around the apathy phase...
Now as this is a mainly yankee forum, I'd like express what I see is wrong with your country, though I've never been to USA and base my views on literature, internet, newspapers and TV. So why are you loosing your freedom? Lemme explain it from the beginning:
The problem number one and root of every other problem is the American dream: every individual is economically on it's own and everyone has the possibility to become rich one day, if you just work hard enough. That's why you don't allow too much social security ("get some work, you hippie! don't live on other people's money!"), taxing ("once earned money shouldn't be taken away") nor state controlled monopolies (even on fields like media nor health care) and instead give free hands to coroporations.
The problem is that the American dream is 100% BS. You have the system called capitalism. The #1 law of capitalism is that those who already have money make more money on the expnese of those who have fewer money, who become poorer. See it for yourself: play a few rounds of the Monopoly game with your friends. The natural sense of most people should say, that a system which gives more to those who already have and takes from those who don't, is unfair. But no, remember that we have the American dream: everyone is on his/her own and if you're not receiving enough material goods a) you're not just trying enough b) it's the will of Lord c) other BS. So just let the rich make their money and poors starve!
Now why are the people in USA not realizing that the system sucks and throwing those fat pigs away? Because the second law of libertarian capitalism says money=power. In USA even the medias like TV and the newspapers are free to markets. In most European countries there are state-controlled TV stations who don't go for market profit, but more like objective truth (i'm not saying that neither this system is best possible: the state may lie just like corporations, but this doesn't seem to be as frequent). When I open my local TV and they are airing american TV series or I go to cinema to watch an american movie, I see 90% times mind-controlling shit. Your media seems to want make people stupid sheeps who can be easily persuated to buying more stupid things or believeing the lies that your politicans feed you. Now please mind that the the politicans are also chosen by media: those who have enough money to commercials and close contact to media owners to persuade them to write/air good articles/news about them are chosen, because american people are mostly stupid as sheeps and vote the one who is praised in TV and the election is just a formality. Not every individual in USA is stupid, eg. most people in Slashdot seem much more aware than the avarage John Doe.
Because media is controlled by the rich class there is only one truth in USA: the truth of the rich. A good example of this mind-control: it was no long time ago when Michael Moore's movie critizing the Bush regieme was banned in USA. The supercapitalism is to blame: it has sold the truth and "democracy" for money.
We have an almost perfect system: the rich class has everyone else working to give them more money, media feeding the poor more lies and the power of everyone ("democracy") in the richs' hands. There remains one problem, though: the freedom. If people were really free and knew how bad they are treated, they'd kick the richs' asses. We have to rip people off their rights so that they keep on working for us. An example of which you see right in this article.
I'm sorry, but if you put Osama Bin-Laden and Saddam Hussein in a room together, Osama would rip Saddam's throat out in under two minutes.
These two entities, Al-Qaeda and the B'ath Party, were as far from each other on the spectrum as Timothy Leary and John Ashcroft. Hussein was a secular aristocratic illegitimate leader, while Osama is a fundamentalist populist exile.
In Osama's dreams Saddam gets deposed right after the US stops funding Israel and the House of Saud. We just gave him his wish early.
Are there 'links?' between the B'ath Party and Al-Qaeda? Not NEARLY as credible or numerous as there are 'links' between the current administration and Osama, or the current administration and the B'ath party. Who do you think gave intelligence to Saddam for his 'ruthless murder of innocents with WMDs'? Who do you think trained and armed the first incarnations of Al-Qaeda?
I'll tell you: the USA did, because our leaders' vision is limited to a MAXIMUM of eight years. I and all Americans have to take the full responsibility for the sins of our previous leaders. We could reduce terrorism a whole lot better if we stopped using our economic and millitary power to foist up terrible governments around the world and developed reasonable long-term foreign policy.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
For example, back when talk of "the importance of 128 bit encryption in your browser" would have been met with blank stares by most organizations like the ACLU, the EFF was fighting for the right to real encryption. Privacy, technology and Carnivore? Or DRM and HDTV and the implications for Fair Use?
But like any non-profit, especially small non-profits, the EFF is limited by the amount of funding it has: they more you donate, the more cases they can take. So donate or volunteer now-- its your freedom of technological development insurance policy. It helps to ensure you can call someone who'll understand why your prosecution under the "2006 XYZ DRM Technobabble Here Act" has constitutional implications. The EFF was there for 2600 and Dmitry and many more. How many other organizations would have been ready to care about DeCSS or UCITA... not many. Other organizations get cases that 20 million people really care about. The EFF has taken cases that only a fraction of Slashdot cares about- but are still just as important. (Slashdot has 100's of thousands of readers. The EFF has an order of magnitude less members. Why haven't you joined? Quantity isn't everything, but it helps impress the congresscritters and it makes it more likely they can afford to take your case when you call them up. Take your case to the Supreme Court if needed.)
Parenthetically, 2600 wasn't an easy posterboy for programming rights case: neither the government nor the RIAA / MPAA / Disney conglomerates are ever going to be that nice. The EFF took the case anyways.