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EFF Sues the Dept. of Defense Over Surveillance
An anonymous reader writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation has launched a lawsuit against the US government, demanding the publication of information about FBI cyber surveillance operations. The EFF launched its action after the authorities failed to disclose information requested under the Freedom of Information act. The EFF wants to find out more about two electronic surveillance systems used by the government agency to monitor electronic communications." From the article: "A Justice Department Inspector General report in March said the FBI had spent about $10 million on DCS-3000 to intercept communications over emerging digital technologies used by wireless carriers before next year's federal deadline for them to deploy their own wiretap capabilities. The same report said the FBI spent more than $1.5 million to develop Red Hook, 'a system to collect voice and data calls and then process and display the intercepted information' before those wiretap capabilities are in place."
If a tree falls in a forest, but nobody's there, does it make a sound?
If your voice calls are transcribed by a machine, but nobody submits a query to the database that retrieves your transcript, were you wiretapped?
Everyone make a donation to the EFF, they have done a lot......
Website
The GPL, for those that truely understand.
Since when is the FBI a DOD component? The article referred to DOJ.
Are you guys so eager to discredit the US government that you cannot read?
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
The FBI is part of the Department of Justice, not the Department of Defense. The linked article gets this right. As far as I can tell, there's no connection with the DOD to this story at all, other than both being executive branch departments.
The summary even refers to the DOJ (a "Justice Department Inspector General") - Zonk apparently read the article, so why the incorrect headline?
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
IANAL, but how effective can any sort of lawsuit against the government be these days? Isn't it the same government that runs the courts? If the FBI feels national security is at stake by releasing the information the EFF is looking for, wouldn't they just say to the courts "oh, it's national security.. terrorists and the like, it's best if you leave us be." And the court answer would be "oh well, if it's in the name of national security, you guys are all set. Case dismissed."
Or is there any integrity left in the government at this point.
The tree comment is not about the falling but whether "sound" exists without someone to hear it. The disturbance of the air exists, that is easy. But is that disturbance "sound" if no one can hear it?
So, if someone taps your phone, your phone has been tapped.
The question you are asking should be "if no one requests that tap be used, have your Rights been violated".
Once that tap has been used, and data collected, whether any person sees that data is irrelevant. The tap has been used, the information has been collected. The tree has fallen, the sound has been heard.
....tip of the iceberg?
This is like trying to dig up a small tree or a bush [pun intended] -- you think there isn't much to dig up, but as you excavate you keep finding more and more roots entwined under the ground.
So to recap: we have the telco industry handing over *all* our phone call logs to the NSA, and the FBI is involved in a wireless LAN snooping program. You have to wonder what the hell we're going to find out next about the US government intelligence / law enforcement community.
"Come on, man -- I mean, *look* at this shit! It isn't a question of whether or not you're paranoid; it's a question of whether or not you're paranoid ENOUGH." -- from the movie _Strange_Days_
"All hands, BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
That we are unlikely to catch the one important call out of the millions per minute.
The nature of people in power states : they will gather all the dirty laundry of opponents (and "friends") they want to and use it to increase their power.
Yes to both questions.
Everybody who quotes the "if a tree falls" chestnut (at least those who quote it without making a joke) totally misunderstands what Bishop B was trying to say. He wasn't arguing that there is no noise in the forest — that's a silly idea. He was arguing that since events don't occur without an observer, there must be somebody observing all the events that demonstrably occur, but don't have a human observer. In other words, he's arguing that there must be a God.
So the trees do fall, and the FBI does indeed know about your dial-a-porn addiction. Unless you're going to argue that trees don't fall until somebody finds the rotten log, or the FBI doesn't know what it knows until they access their database. And if you're going to make that kind of convoluted rationalization, you need to get out more.
I am an independent.
Now, I will be branded a liberal, since I admitted watching "The Daily Show" last night, but in one of the clips at the end, in the moment of zen segment, Bush described his job, among a million other things, as confronting the problems of the country head on and not leaving them to future administrations/generations to deal with.
Can anyone say he has left office leaving the future with less problems than, about equal, or more? I am not talking about pre-existing problems like the budget or healthcare, or even 9/11 terrorism. But with Iraq, with no real terrorist connections, with our spending billions each years, probably trillions over the lifetime of that campaign, will we be safer? Will the Middle East be more stable? Will our deficit be better off? Is our standing to face other threats secured?
Now, I agree with the decision to invade Afghanistan. But, still today, we have never been shown a clear connection to terrorism against the US and Iraq, nor any good motivations besides perhaps revenge in that Saddam was his father's enemy, (and once a "friend" of the US, under Reagan or earlier I think).
I only hope that in the 2008 elections, we have a return to moderates and realistic people like John McCain or Joe Biden or perhaps, gasp, some votes for Independent around the country in different positions.
The liars pretend that our Military is looking for people smoking bong hits in their basement.
Or that the FBI is part of the military.
KFG
Granted, the EFF is trying to protect our rights as citizens, and in my opinion they are doing a decent job as such; however, people please.. it is your responsibility to protect your own privacy, and if you are doing something that you do not want others to know about, please please use a Good Encryption system, a Good Anonymizing Proxy for browsing the web, and definately get a Good Web Browser. If people would follow these three little tips, it would make eavesdropping on your communications about 100 times more difficult.
YahmaLiberated Iraq.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Why we support the EFF. The EFF helps citizens keep the government in check. This is just one of the many scandals the EFF has brought to the public's attention.
Instead of whining about the erosion of our civil liberties, do something about it - support the EFF.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
"Liberated Iraq."
HAHAHA.. you do understand that only right wing evangelical neoconservatives think that "liberty" means the same thing as "bombed into the stone age with no sustainable government/security/industry or future (except a civil war) or merger into a some mega theocratic union with our friends in Iran".
The rest of us see your use of the word "Liberated" for what it is: stupid and empty repetition of Republican talking points.
The mission is already "Accomplished". The mission to create instability in the middle east in an attempt to slow down Europe from becoming the dominant superpower on earth. A mission to create world animosity against the US so that dumb neocon (even a camel can get through the eye of a needle if he's a born again camel) authoritarian followers have even more reasons to go to sleep each night wondering if perhaps the rapture will finally save them from this hell on earth we've created, and in the meantime to support every single right wing neofascist measure to transfer yet more funds from the public coffers into the bank accounts of our loving and benign "business leaders".
Bush and friends didn't give a rats ass about the iraqi people in 1991 through to 2003 and certainly don't give a flying fuck now. And if you think that they give a rats ass about the American people either, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.
America has been royally screwed by the neocon movement and she is still taking it like a 2 cent whore. WAKE THE FUCK UP!
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
iraq was more than just a friend; they were our proxy against iran. the taliban were our proxy against the russians. the kurds, who we told we would assist, are currently our very skeptical friends; they've seen firsthand how we treat our friends.
on the subject of how the country will be left, there's nothing very surprising. bush should be charged with treason for lying to the public to take the country to war. cheney should be charged with fraud, and whoever in cheney's office 'outed' a cia agent should also be tried for treason; clinton should get a box of cigars.
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
How do you know that blastproxy.com isn't actually being run by the FBI as a honeypot to entrap people who need anonymous access to acheive their nefarious ends on the web? Come on now, instead of sifting through ALL the traffic on the web, isn't it a lot easier to just create a service that criminals will naturally gravitate towards, while at the same time floating rumours that you are actually sifting through all the traffic, thus driving those who don't want to be traced to the service you created?
Vote for the little guy in the next election. I intend to, anyway. And if enough people are upset enough to vote for the little guy instead of the Dem/Rep candidate, then yes, there is something that can be done.
Or at least, I hope so....
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
And who kills the innocent Americans, exactly? I'd really like to know.
You ask.
My guess it primarly one of two groups.
"The last thing I want to do is deal with a bunch of people who want something."
Major Major
I only hope that in the 2008 elections, we have a return to moderates and realistic people like John McCain or Joe Biden or perhaps, gasp, some votes for Independent around the country in different positions.
I'll be happy if my vote even gets counted and added to the tally of the candidate I intended.
At this point I consider that unlikely.
"The last thing I want to do is deal with a bunch of people who want something."
Major Major
What you describe in number 1 is conservatism, not necessarily the true ideals of the Repblican Party (besides election time propraganda) even though they might have genuinely held those values at one time.
If you look at the history of political parties, you will see that the values of longstanding parties change over time. This might be simply because of a changing of the guard, change in key individuals themselves as they grow older, but more often than not, they change to cater to and attract a new potential group of voters to join their ranks, which, once it happens, in turn reinforces the change.
President Kennedy, afterall, once espoused tax cuts as a way to stimulate the economy among a larger program that sounded remarkably like "trickle down" economics. This later term was made famous by President Reagan once a democrat. President Reagan mentioned of his switch that it wasn't his priorities that changed, but that of the party that he previously belonged to.
I humbly suggest you abstain looking at parties and start looking toward candidates that espouse similiar values as yourself, independent of their party membership, and have the voting/public record to prove it their words.