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More Details Emerge On Domestic Spying Programs
The feed brings us this NYTimes story giving new details on the telecom carriers' cooperation with secret NSA (and other) domestic spying programs. One revelation is that the Drug Enforcement Agency has been running a program since the 1990s to collect the phone records of calls from US citizens to Latin America in order to catch narcotics traffickers. Another revelation is what exactly the NSA asked for in 2001 that Qwest balked at supplying. According to the article, it was access to the company's most localized communications switches, which primarily carry domestic calls.
There, I saved some apologist troll from the trouble of posting a disingenuous, dismissive post treating more damning evidence of this administration's march toward a police state.
One revelation is that the Drug Enforcement Agency has been running a program since the 1990s to collect the phone records of calls from US citizens to Latin America in order to catch narcotics traffickers.
...thereby winning the war on drugs once and for all. ONCE AND FOR ALL!
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Of course they balked at being asked for access to the home records,
Criminal gangs, cartels and organisations are not individual customers and must have a business account with the phone company.
liqbase
frost ? post?
Of course if this were a story about Government abuse of civil liberties in China, as applied to privacy, people would be decrying it as immaculate example of that failed, corruptible political system we call Communism. In America it just defers to "Well what have you got to hide, bad guy?"
Describing America in the context of Democracy becomes increasingly difficult.
So, my point: before posting a rant about the fascist big brother state that rules from beyond the centre of the Ultraworld, for heaven's sake take some actions to register your protest, and to work against it. This is the real freedom for which more abstract things like the right to not have your comms intercepted by the government. No-one's going to kick your door in at 5am and drag you off to Cuba for it, not yet anyway -(sadly I have to now include the disclaimer "unless you're very unlucky" :( ) There are 300,000-something EFF members and many more supporters, and we haven't ALL been arrested, not yet anyway ;)
Please, stick your hand in your pocket and send 'em $30 or whatever you can. Join, if you can afford it.
We now return you to the Soviet Russia jokes, tinfoil hat conspiracy theories and hair-splitting arguing the toss about the precise spec of the optical splitters being used in San Francisco.
The Govt has ALWAYS maintained the ability to do this for international calls. Old FDR did it, probably every administration since the beginning of telecommunications has done this.
Dicks? Yes.
Surprising/News? No.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
And he's not just wanted by any government. He's wanted by the so called "most powerful country on earth."
Come on, now. The seriously bad dudes out there running major operations aren't (usually) dumb enough to pick up the phone and chat away about their to-do lists. I'd think the use of commodity encryption software and computers has probably replaced a lot of insecure communications channels for these people, leaving the feds to pick up the low-hanging fruit. Sure, you might nab man number 137 on the totem pole o' dealers through a wiretap, but you're not going to be troubling the guy at the top of the food chain.
I'd imagine this applies to all sorts of bad guys, whether they're slinging coke by the truckload or plotting terrorist acts. That begs the question: what's the real value of these surveillance programs?
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
What? I thought this was all Bush and his neocon evil-doers! Sorry, had to get that out of the way. Now let's drop he partisanship and all work together to get back our liberties.
The cynic in me wonders why this story was published at 9pm EST on a Saturday night. Not just any Saturday night, the weekend before Christmas where most people have office Christmas parties or are otherwise occupied.
Nah, must be a coincidence.
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I was about to post this as is, but the CAPTCHA for posting as Anonymous Coward is "congress"
Gee, where's your faux outrage now?
My first inclination is to exclaim that I cant believ that they have been doign this for years.... but on the other side, if this has been happening with the drug war for years, and I havent felt a difference in my life at all, to some extent I have to aknowledge that this does not effect me personally in a negative way, and could very well have benefitted me to some extent.
That said, I think the constitution is non-negotiable, so when i say "hasnt effected me" i am referring to the day to day reality of my life, not the theorhetical erosion of rights, which do need to be defended.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Yes, I remember the Clipper Chip. Essentially, a government-supplied encryption scheme with a backdoor that a law enforcement agency could get a court order to take advantage of.
I find it difficult to compare that egregious bit of stupidity -- which was proposed and thoroughly shot to pieces in full public view -- with this secretive, shadowy, unaccountable program.
These spying operations are both unconstitutional, and a complete waste of taxpayer time and money.
Black marketters (i.e., criminals) have wisened up to the fact that the telephone, and the Internet, is not a safe way to communicate. Many of them are even weary of the keyboard, since tapping into a keyboard with a stroke logger has been used to put some people away.
The drug war amazes me. Powerful interests involved in the profiteering over private medicinal use co-opt the security organizations to battle their competition. And yet few people call for the end to the drug war. The masterminds have long walked away from using technology that is easily spied on. The software, and hardware, that the masterminds use is far and away more powerful than most of the pro-privacy stuff I use. While I'm sure that the security organizations are continuously working to hack into the newer systems, they'll constantly lose ground to that battle.
Even the lesser members of the underground are moving away from open communications. Technology isn't cheap, but it's cheaper than jail. It's a wonder that people have faith in our security forces, who will always be one-step behind. As far as I'm aware, many of the ex-government security technologists are likely working for the other side (it's much more profitable). If I was truly profit-motivated, I'd likely do it myself, considering the amount of money that is available for someone tech savvy who is willing to provide the latest and greatest hardware and software to stay ahead of the security forces. Of course, morally I'm opposed to such work, but not because it is illegal. It just doesn't interest me to be part of the organizations of that sort. I'd rather do things morally, the law be damned.
So what is the end purpose of all this technology? It isn't safety for the citizens. I can only think of one reason, mostly conspiratorial, for the money and time spent: the learn how to use it for the powers that control the security forces. They all have their fingers in the pie, and by using taxpayer money for their research, they get the best of both worlds. Yes, it sounds like NWO-Alex-Jones mumbo-jumbo, but it's the only answer I can think of as to why we continue on with these programs.
FTFA:
Not without a wiretap warrent, I hope. It's amazing what kind of cooperation a warrent will still get. So, this is a nice excuse if you don't think about it very long.
Secure communications are not just a Constitutionally protected right, they are a prerequisite for business.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
your emotions make you stupid.
I joined the EFF as soon as memberships were offered. (One of the key events that spurred the founding of the organization was the Secret Service raid on my publisher, Steve Jackson Games.) My original membership card is #127.
Through the years I've let the membership lapse now and then. For a while, the EFF's fights included marginal things like pushing ISDN connections. Hard to get excited about.
But now . . . they have a real fight. I just rejoined at the $100.00 level.
How many Bothan spies had to die to get us this information? God knows that the Democratically controlled Congress didn't do shit to get this information.
Okay, so Google is the all-seeing eye, grabbing up bits and pieces of data from the people who use it - yes, I know. That said, they did sponsor one talk that I found very interesting, and now seems like an appropriate time to share it. Policy@Google - Digital Search & Seizure
How much is it going to take for people to stand up against this? Lots of people may be upset and complaining about it, but as Thoreau said: "The are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."
"Early" 2001, February 2001, like before the Clintons had left the grounds, as Nacchio has said all along- PRIOR to 9/11! If you read the text of the latest FISA bill that includes retroactive immunity, it says they would drop civil suits only for spying AFTER 9/11. Plus, the amendment says it would have to be shown they didn't think it was illegal because the Bush administration said it wasn't, and last time I checked, the executive branch doesn't make the law...unless you count signing statements.
Actually "neo" does not mean that. Neo means new or modern ie "neoconservative" means new conservative. Neo is good for neologisms or new words.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Why does this post assume that domestic spying happens? Does domestic spying assume spying on US persons (including US citizens, green card holders, etc)? The government isn't allowed to spy on US persons in the US or abroad - see 4th amendment or EO 12333. Even if a US citizen lives in Iraq, NSA cannot monitor their calls. Conspiracy theorists point out that spying centers are in the US, but that doesn't mean they spy on US citizens, and especially not "surveillance" (as the article claims), which is a systematic monitoring. The NY Times article is written with a lot of assumptions and the article also notes that the details are not really known about any of the cases. What does this mean? It means, that the article is based largely on speculation.
Personally, I think more of them should just be "cons", as in convicts. Probably, when Bush is out of office and all the dust settles, a few of them will be. A few, just enough to make us think that some kind of justice was done. Still, I don't know how many life sentences one should receive for throwing away some thousands of lives, some few civil liberties, and a few trillion dollars of public funds, but whatever.
It's not just "cons", conservatives, who costs many lives and civil liberties. Bush's direct predecessor, Clinton, bombed Serbia back to the middle ages based on false and fack intel. Some mass graves had been shown to be staged for the west. Meanwhile the KLA, Kosovo Liberation Army was raising funds by dealing with opium, much like the Taliban is today.
The fact is is the US had supported coups against democratically elected governments and supported dictators throughout the 1900s.
FalconShould there be a Law?
This isn't to mention Bush's greatest threat to the constitution. The Bush administration has been using Satellites (in Space) to spy on other countries -- even our enemies -- without first getting warrants. And I won't even get into the rampant (warrantless) newspaper reading that goes on in the CIA and NSA and up the ladder straight to the white house.
It's impeachment time. The sheeple of the US need to stand up and do what's right.
That's NOT domestic, unless I missed the news about annexing all of Latin America.
Yes, I see what you say! When I replace the 's' with a dollar sign on all these company names, boundless hilarity ensues!!! HAHAHAHA!
Wal-Mart $tore$
General Motor$
ConocoPhillip$
J.P. Morgan Cha$e & Co.
Berk$hire Hathaway
Verizon Communication$
Intl. Bu$ine$$ Machine$
McKe$$on
Morgan $tanley
Goldman $ach$ Group
Ameri$ourceBergen
$tate Farm In$urance Co$
Co$tco Whole$ale
John$on & John$on
$ear$ Holding$
Well$ Fargo
United Technologie$
United Parcel $ervice
Lowe'$
Lehman Brother$ Holding$
CV$/Caremark
$print Nextel
Medco Health $olution$
$afeway
Archer Daniel$ Midland
$unoco
All$tate
Pep$iCo
Walt Di$ney
$y$co
John$on Control$
Be$t Buy
He$$
Federated Dept. $tore$
Ci$co $y$tem$
New York Life In$urance
American Expre$$
Wa$hington Mutual
Hartford Financial $ervice$
Comca$t
Ty$on Food$
New$ Corp.
Traveler$ Co$.
Ma$$achu$ett$ Mutual Life In$urance
General Dynamic$
Liberty Mutual In$. Group
The drug war amazes me. Powerful interests involved in the profiteering over private medicinal use co-opt the security organizations to battle their competition.
The so called drug war was started purely by business interests. The war started in the 1930s with businesses pushing to make hemp illegal, which the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 did. Prior to it's passage hemp was found to be one of if the most industrial useful plants there is. MIT published a study showing an acre of hemp could make more paper than an acre of forest, this threatened newpaperman William Randolph Hearst who owned thousands of miles of land in California. Hemp was a good source for making plastics as well, however DuPont had received a patent on using petroleum to make plastic, specifically nylon. The oil from hemp seeds was useful for making diesel fuel, Rudolph Diesel designed his engine to run on most any vegetable oil. And Henry Ford designed and built a vehicle on his Iron Mountain Estate that not only used hemp in it's construction but was power by fuel made from hemp he grew on the estate. This threatened Rockefeller's Standard Oil and Rothschild's Royal Dutch Shell. Eventually Andrew Mellon, who's Mellon Bank was a major financier of DuPont, as the USA's Secretary of Treasury appointed his future nephew-in-law Harry J Anslinger as the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, the reformed Federal Bureau of Narcotics where he started the war.
Quite simply legal hemp threatened some wealthy and powerful industrialists, so they pushed to have it made illegal.
FalconShould there be a Law?
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m39190&hd=&size=1&l=e
wake up, 'merkins.
If it weren't for the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no songs.
Eh, now I know we kind of claim to run EVERYTHING, and of course the Mexicans are taking over the USA right this very minute, but I don't believe there has really been a merger yet. Latin America was "international" last I checked.
Why bother tapping Americans' phones to search for narcotraffickers when they could just bust the CIA, which alternates torture flights with cocaine flights? Iran/Contra forever!
Or maybe they need to tap phonecalls from Cheney to his Saud buddies. Iran/Contra forever!
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make install -not war
...after the senate votes and possibly grants them retroactive immunity. Might be a good idea to contact your representatives and remind them that it's not in the best interests of remaining a functional country to encourage people or corporations to break the law. :)
The EFF has this nifty form to submit e-mails to your senators, but I think phoning or faxing might be more effective at the last minute.
It just common sense that if you need immunity its because you have done something wrong and dont want to deal with the concequences. And why is it that the system of checks and balances only allow the telcom companies to be punished for wrongdoing. The NSA cant be forced to make reparations.
Its funny how THIS:
NSA guy: Well we realize its against the law and all but we would like you to do it anyways.
Telephone company CEO: I am pretty sure that what you want me to do is illegal.
NSA guy: Im with the government. I wouldnt ask you to do it if it were illegal.
Sounds alot like THIS:
Child molester: Listen kid I know your parents told you not to let people touch you there but I think you should let me do it anyways.
Small inocent child: I am pretty sure that you shouldnt do that.
Child molester: Listen kid I am an adult. I wouldnt ask you to do something if it were wrong.
I agree that the telcom companies need feel some heat for allowing the NSA to violate peoples rights but its a bit like punishing the child instead of the child molester.
Plenty of evil lessors working this neighborhood.
In our digital PBX and VoIP world, the reason the telco is able to provide wiretaps is because the telecoms manaufacturers (e.g., AT&T, Cisco, Nortel, Siemens, etc.) have configured their equipment to allow these wire taps to be put in place.
This is especially frustrating in a VoIP universe because the implementation of these features degrades the function of the service: a VoIP call should talk to a central "switch" program to make a connection (since it's the easiest way to circumvent firewalls) and thereafter all traffic between the VoIP clients should be point to point; however, commercial VoIP implementations offered by the telecoms manufacturers route all packets through a central "switch".
The press, in castigating the telcom operators have neglected to highlight the fact that the manufacturers are already in bed with the government; which is what enables the carriers to cooperate.
Since the telecom manufacturers have implemented the feature set(s) necessary to enable wiretapping---even in VoIP switched environments---secure communications are neither possible nor are they anyone's right.
As a citizen of the USA, I expect AND DEMAND privacy of my telecommunications. It is the law with an exception when a court order is signed by a judge with jurisdiction. PERIOD. There's no other option.
Sadly, the current world circumstances has caused leaders in all branches of the US Government to forget those laws. They keep looking for "loop holes" that don't apply to all conversations. Starting first with international calls. People have a common belief that criminals don't talk over unencrypted channels. That really isn't true. They talk, but over someone else's phone or using throw away cell phones. They don't call from their own office or home or cell phone and discuss illegal activities. That's why the old wiretap on 1 line doesn't work anymore. That's why they want to tap **ALL** lines now.
Don't forget internet traffic. There is no law that says internet traffic has the same level of protection.
In fact, the European Union has a law that went into effect, October I think, that requires email headers to be available to any law enforcement organization in the EU. I looked for a reference, but couldn't find it. I **know** AT&T implemented this from a data center in the middle of the USA. Yes, some email from Europe goes thru systems inside the USA. Since it was easier to send all headers than try to filter them, they send them all, including email **not** going to addresses in Europe. That includes your email, my email, and a larger percentage of other email since AT&T is a Tier 1 internet provider - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tier_1_network#List_of_Tier_1_IPv4_ISPs
Just because you and I have nothing to hide, doesn't mean that any government should be provided with the data without cause AND without a judge being convinced there is enough cause to support both internet AND voice tapping.
...wah wah wah. Clinton and the Republican Congress had their spy attempts shot down (Clipper Chip?!) in plain view. The shit that's going on, especially Bush's decision to skip getting court orders for the spying...cannot be compared to Clinton's asshole moves. They're not even in the same sport.
Blar.
The local switches primarily carry domestic calls. They also carry the international calls which were monitored.
You can be sure the asshole(s) [the hardcopy I read was by two] who wrote the story knew the difference and included the irrelevancy about "primarily carry[ing] domestic calls" to rake the muck.
Which is what this whole issue is about. The government monitors international calls, and every story is written as if the government was monitoring domestic calls.
It is damned unfortunate that anybody would fall for such yellow journalism.
Imagine if every story about Sen. Barack Hussein Obama included irrelevencies as,
"Senator Barack Hussein Obama, who shares a name with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein...."
"Senator Barack Hussein Obama, whose minister is a racist whackjob...."
"Senator Barack Hussein Obama, who represents the corrupt districts of the Daley dynasty...."
"Senator Barack Hussein Obama, whose last name is almost identical to 'Osama,'...."
So no shit, local switches carry local traffic. They also carry the local legs of international traffic.
BTW, I do know the telephone systems, "inside and out."
According to the Hemp Timeline Mellon was Anslinger's wife's uncle. Wiki cites William Randolph Hearst as a creator of the "highly sensational anti-marijuana campaign". What I find incongruence is that in the February, 1938 issue of "Popular Mechanics" the magazine called hemp the "New Billion-Dollar Crop" and PM was owned and published by Hearst.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Since the telecom manufacturers have implemented the feature set(s) necessary to enable wiretapping---even in VoIP switched environments---secure communications are neither possible nor are they anyone's right.
Violating rights is always wasteful. Great expenses wasted on easily circumvented measures are a good sign rights are violated. When the victim must pay for the waste, the violation is double. There is no longer a need for central telcom companies and everything done to preserve them is wasteful. When those companies are used to violate people's privacy for political and business ends, constitutionally protected rights are violated.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
democracy is incompatible with capitalism, because under capitalism wealth = power and is available at any time, unlike the democratic vote
the ONLY way a capitalist society can ever become democratic is for one's vote to be inversely equal to their wealth - in other words, the richer you are, the less your vote should be worth
My carrier is Sprint. Does anyone here know if Sprint was in contact or cooperation with the government? I keep seeing AT&T and Verizon being mentioned.
No doubt the NSA is quite pleased to see people yammering on about encryption as if that mattered. On a practical level, the most important data stream is traffic analysis: who is talking to whom. Traffic analysis forms a graph. What's a graph worth? Tough question. Perhaps ask Google.
... traffic analysis ... unless the node is almost completely private. A private steganographic Tor node is your best cover, but it will severely compromise your bandwidth and latency. We've all got one of those in our back pockets. Neither would I wish to be apprehended in possession of that particular coke spoon: it has Gitmo express written all over it.
On this graph, what does the NSA know about the various nodes and links? They know who uses crypto, and when. They know who you talk to and in what order, the duration, and the interval between communications. They also know if you are talking to a Tor node, or any other node suspected of laundering one or more end-points.
Think you have a secret Tor node. Well, these nodes are fairly easy to detect by
For any node or link where the probers that be have the slightest suspicion, they can also determine in the majority of all cases what protocols you are running. Even if you tunnel your anonymity through SSL, packet timing profiles is likely to leak significant information about the protocols employed. Even if you leak no timing information, you distinguish your SSL segment from every other protocol which does.
With commercial software, it is almost impossible to know if the NSA hasn't found some clever way to leak key bits through the "random" number generator. What to do? Obtain hard core anon steg crypto from an open source project? Don't be seen doing it. That will flag your packets upward for years to come. Maybe through your functioning personal anon steg Tor server? That poses two problems: first of all, you don't have one yet. And second, even if your recently purchased four-digit Slashdot ID from the Dread Pirate Roberts included a secret anon steg Tor treasure map, your anon steg Tor server is severely bandwidth constrained (supposing you wish to continue flying under the radar much longer).
Even supposing, how well do you actually choose your password? It's a virtual certainty the NSA maintains a list of the billion most popular passwords in every language of the world, plus the one million most popular mnemonic devices (including all forms of keyboard mambo), and all the most popular transformations of the former against the later. Think your mnemonic device is unique? Guess again. Not unless it is almost as hard to remember as the password it replaces. Have you ever used any portion of that password in a context less strongly encrypted (such as any Microsoft or Apple program ever written?) The elephant never forgets. Remembering is cheap, cracking costs money.
Should you actually prevail and manage to conduct your electronic communications immune to any form of analysis yet mentioned, congratulations, you have now achieved exclusive membership among the hardened targets of the world, where brute force and white vans finally make good economic sense.
Those little chocolate mints that showed up on your pillowcase the other day are the sign of a job well done.
>That's not a democracy you're describing.. it's a constitutional republic.
I think you meant to say "conditional republic".
As in: "It's a republic unless the king says it isn't", or
"It's only a republic if the people will fight to keep it"
CALEA (1994) - mandated access to the telco switches (even local ones)
http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/woissues/techinttele/calea/calea.cfm
Patriot Act (2001) - removed barriers between domestic law enforcement and "national security"
So, what did you expect?
No, not really. Serbia was actually conducting an ethnic cleansing program.
So were Croats and Albanians. That doesn't mean all of those mass graves were real. All sides in the former Yugoslavia participated in ethnic cleansing, Albanian and Bosnian Muslims, Croatian Catholics, and Serbian Orthodox Christians. That doesn't mean Serbia was guilt of all that was bad, no matter what you or anyone else thinks. The only tyme people of all 3 faiths got along was under Josip Broz Tito's rule, though those who supported the NAZIs did face prosecution. He worked at uniting all of the people otherwise.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Your observation is underappreciated in too many circles. Though the EC also recognizes the need and called upon member states to get their act together, very little has actually happened on either side of the pond despite widely available, easy to use encryption technologies.
(Links and bold are added for emphasis)
Further, what's kind of funny is that though businesses make all kinds of noise and bluster about security, many go ahead and put business plans and meeting minutes on servers which (not counting holes and back doors) explicitly sign over access to their competitor(s). However, see if M$ makes it easy for businesses to see what their so-called tech support is agreeing to.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.