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The AT&T Whistleblower's Evidence
hdtv writes "Wired News has published the details of NSA wiretap and revealed former AT&T technician Mark Klein as the main whistleblower, specifically covering the evidence he presented when he came forward." From the article: "In this recently surfaced statement, Klein details his discovery of an alleged surveillance operation in an AT&T office in San Francisco, and offers his interpretation of company documents that he believes support his case. For its part, AT&T is asking a federal judge to keep those documents out of court, and to order the EFF to return them to the company."
Forbes has an article on how the EFF has won the first round by getting the judge to agree that the documents should be released. Of course, AT&T will get a chance to scrub them clean of "trade secrets", a loophole they will no doubt abuse. However, at least the judge is showing a willingness to get down into the nitty-gritty.
Electric Monkey Pants
Documents remain sealed, but remain in evidence.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
The question is, when will the dam finally burst?
I think it's about to. We'll see in November. Although I'm personally not voting Democrat, I'm splitting my vote among various losers, which is closest to "none of the above". I'm damned sick of both parties (although the Repubs have more of my ire at present).
When will we see headlines talking about impeachment?
As I'm old enough to have voted for Nixon, I'd say as soon as the Democrats control both Senate and Congress.
When will people finally wake the fuck up and say enough is enough?
Never. Cows don't revolt.
Will there ever be an end to the war on terra?
Will there ever be an end to the war on drugs? That started with Nixon (analgies analogies!)
Will we ever see a terror level below yellow?
Not so long as the President is yellow. In fact, the whole Federal Government seems to be full of cowards, wimpily cowering before the big bad Muslims.
Does anyone believe the bushit?
Unfortunately, yes. You only have to read Slashdot to see that... and these are supposedly nerds, supposedly intelligent. I wonder what they're talking about over at the People Magazine forums? Probably this, this or this.
It's pathetic. I should move to Amsterdam.
...the public is the ultimate authority, so there is no difference between revealing information to the public and revealing it to the authorities.
The idea that there is a difference is a relic of the idea of government by a king whose authority came from some combination of divine grant, parentage, etc., and had nothing to do with the will of the people.
Nonsense. You're forgetting that part of the people's will is that their government act to do things dealing with security, especially needed against organizations and individuals who have said that they'll seek to kill US citizens and harm the economy, have actually done so more than once, and are saying, right now, that they are actively seeking to do more of the same. So, given that there is at least some appropriate, tangible activity for the counter-terrorism types to work on, and for the defense agencies to be working on... is it your contention that nothing they do should be kept out of general public info-circulation?
Personally, I don't think that, say, some North Korean agent working in South Korea should have ready access to the surveilance that we're using to track ships full of North Korean drugs, missiles, and counterfeit currency. And I don't think that someone who suddenly decides that Kim Jong Il is a Really Swell Guy should be considered a "whistleblower" when the programs aimed at monitoring that or a similarly troublesome organization are blabbed to the NYT to score political points.
Who cares if the "the public" is the ultimate arbitor of what's right/wrong? We elect people and have long-standing policies that happen to require a certain amount of secrecy in the interests of critical jobs. If you don't like the fact that secrecy is part of the mission, elect someone who promises to have no secrets. You'll have a lot of work to do, convincing a majority of voters that their Coast Guard, or their counter-intel agencies should operate in complete transparency for your comfort, with Iran or China thus having total access to the same information. Just like Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the NSA activity years ago, senior members of both parties in the house and senate are, and always have been well aware of the programs that they fund. Is it that you think people like Pelosi are just too dumb to understand what they're being briefed on? Then elect smarter representatives.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The bush presidency is like a dam with a crack in it. At present, the crack is fairly small, but water is leaking out and the crack is widening. The question is, when will the dam finally burst? When will we see headlines talking about impeachment? When will people finally wake the fuck up and say enough is enough? Will there ever be an end to the war on terra? Will we ever see a terror level below yellow? Does anyone believe the bushit?
Do you actually believe that the government would be any less power hungry if someone else was in power. They have gradually been taking more and more freedoms exponentially. Do you seriously think that the next president regardless if they are Republican or Democrat will give any of these freedoms back? Well, maybe superficially, but in whole, no.
Note the inferences from internal documents that such rooms were built not just in San Francisco, but in Seattle and other cities.
Also note that this is literally vacuuming up all the message traffic which bounces thru all these locations, even if it's US to US.
Theoretically, they could then disregard traffic that is US to US, but the tendency among intel agencies is to always build it so that you can inspect the raw flow when you want to.
Another easy thing they could do is just "backup" the call logs from any of the switches, which record the keypress, routing, connect, and status of phone calls for any landline or cell phone - it's just a log file, easy to make a copy with a fairly inexpensive device patch. Or just run a cron job to do it.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Call it a hunch but I believe that if not now, then definatly in a few years, words like torrent, mp3, and avi will work just as well as bomb or Jihad. Our government has been bought and paid for and today's terror monitoring is tomorrow's corporate sponsored public monitoring.
HOLY HELL DO YOU MEAN THAT ALL MY INTERNET TRAFFIC IS UNENCRYPTED AND CAN BE SEEN BY ANYONE ON THE INTERNET?
Folks, the Big Thing everyone is missing here is that any clown with a packet sniffer can see just about anything.
Chances of this turning into some giant impeachment proceeding? Nil. Why? Because similar to the pen registers (which are also warrantless), there is no assumption of privacy on the internet. Everything sent in plaintext is plain to see. Now, should the NSA be required to get a warrant to break the encryption on encrypted data? Yes, there is an assumption of privacy. Can they log it without breaking it? Absolutely. Having your encrypted data in still encrypted format does not violate your privacy.
Dear lord, stop bitching and actually start thinking it through. You're telling me none of you have ever fired up ettercap or whatever at the office?
Does anyone know if cell phone records are lumped in? I was considering a switch to Cingular. I may just wait and see how this plays out.
There's a story called "Addressee Unkown" by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor that might portray a more realistic outcome rather a DDOS. You've gotta remember the NSA has a lot of hardware -- they are government.
In the story, two friends correspond: one who left nazi germany for the states and one who stayed. The one who stayed started justifying the nazis, which pissed off his buddy who was a Jew. For retaliation, he started writing back dropping Jewish references. The guy in Germany started freaking out asking him to stop because it was causing him to be investigated.
Instead, a letter eventually came back to the American undelivered and marked "Addressee Unknown".
I had a similar effect emailing my annoying brother in law who robbed me of my inheiritance. I used to pepper my messages to him in a similar manner. He's on the Do Not Fly Under Any Circumstances List. Coincidence?
Because they weren't legally required to do it. They were merely pressured to do it.
From http://www.house.gov/house/Constitution/Constituti on.html
Article 1, Section 2:
Clause 5: The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
Article 1, Section 3:
Clause 6: The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.
Clause 7: Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.
From the American Bar Association website http://www.abanet.org/publiced/impeach2.html
Q. What procedures does the House of Representatives follow in the impeachment process?
A. While the Constitution outlines the basic process for impeachment, the specific procedures are determined by the internal rules of the House of Representatives and the Senate. To begin, the House of Representatives refers the investigation to its Judiciary Committee, which reviews the evidence and may conduct hearings. It determines whether an official impeachment inquiry is warranted and, if so, asks the House for permission to proceed. An official investigation follows, with the Committee deciding whether to offer articles of impeachment to the full House. The House then votes separately on each of the articles, with a simple majority needed to impeach the official. Articles of impeachment approved by the House are then presented to the Secretary of the U.S. Senate for trial.
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
>Whistleblowers go to the authorities (police, management, congress, etc).
>Leakers go to the media.
In which category would you place the action of filing evidence in a court of law?
The EFF sued ATT over eavesdropping in January. Mark Klein came forward with his evidence in April and as near as I can tell (press acounts *are* unclear) offered it to the EFF to be entered into evidence before the court.
>the authorities (police, management, congress, etc)
I, and many others through US history, would argue that the voters belong on that list. The voters are tasked with evaluating the performance of elected officials and are authorized to fire them for poor performance, endangerment, or simple disagreement. The media convey information to voters. Going to the media means going to the voters.
This is a large leap in logic in the article. Having a NSA security clearance does not mean that someone works for the NSA. He stated: "The telltale sign of an illicit government spy operation is the fact that only people with security clearance from the National Security Agency can enter this room." He assumed that this meant the people worked for the NSA. Having an NSA security clearance does not mean that someone works for the NSA (did I already say that). Having a security clearance means that the person was checked out by the NSA and found not to be security a risk. These background checks general consists of not being heavily in debt, not having been convicted of a felony, not working for a foreign government, etc. Running a though background check on people who who have access to this room and software may be good idea.