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The NSA Wiretapping Story Nobody Wanted
CWmike writes "They sometimes call national security the third rail of politics. Touch it and, politically, you're dead. The cliché doesn't seem far off the mark after reading Mark Klein's new book, Wiring up the Big Brother Machine ... and Fighting It. It's an account of his experiences as the whistleblower who exposed a secret room at a Folsom Street facility in San Francisco that was apparently used to monitor the Internet communications of ordinary Americans. Amazingly, however, nobody wanted to hear his story. In his book he talks about meetings with reporters and privacy groups that went nowhere until a fateful January 20, 2006 meeting with Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Bankston was preparing a lawsuit that he hoped would put a stop to the wiretap program, and Klein was just the kind of witness the EFF was looking for. He spoke with Robert McMillan for an interview."
Actually, that's social security, according to the old Washington, DC saying.
Ok, perhaps the reporter of that story got a few of the facts wrong. (George W. Bush != John McCain)
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Poor CWmike. He took an effort to write such a nice summary and now no one is going to read it. Hey, did I just see a see a new article? Must be my eyes playing tricks on me...
Ezekiel 23:20
It was called "The Spy Factory".
Here's a transcript (search for "Folsom" 4/5ths down the page):
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3602_spyfactory.html
TFA:
"Secretly authorized in 2002, the program lets the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) monitor telephone conversations and e-mail messages of people inside the U.S. to identify suspected terrorists."
Hmm. I don't think this is accurate, in the sense that it implies that *intra-U.S.* calls were subject to monitoring. If I understand correctly, it was calls *coming in* to the United States, from individuals or organizations believed to have ties with terrorism.
I'm not certain about this though. If I'm wrong, feel free to set me straight.
- AJ
Addendum: As I read further, I see this guy is the kind who is going to have a lot of fans on /., but I wonder. This, for example: "I was very worried. The Bush administration was capable of very crazy things and illegal things. I knew they were doing torture. And I knew they had taken into custody and jailed people who were citizens of the United States ... and just thrown them away in a brig with no trial and no charges. "
The Bush administration was not, to my knowledge, grabbing Americans off the street and "disappearing" them. Was this in fact the case, outside this guy's fevered dreams?
This isn't the only place or type of issue where nobody wants to hear about it.
In my experience it goes both ways, sometimes government agencies don't want to hear about illegal activity going on in the private sector either.
Look at the Madoff scandal, SEC didn't want to hear about it.
Think about it this way. The news is public, now. Do you see any frothing outrage, outside of a few fringe activist groups? Outside of Slashdot? No?
There doesn't seem to be any real interest now, so there definitely wouldn't be any then, in the with-us-or-against-us environment in the years immediately after 9/11. So how would a newspaper or media outlet gain by breaking the story? It'll just instantly lose all its government contacts, but not gain any new readership. Why would anyone publish it?
That much for the sad state of "the Fourth Estate, more important than them all" (Edmund Burke) ...
Wilbur F. Storey, 1861
... there is no way to detect common phrases and other seemingly normal communications that only the sender and receiver know the true meaning of.
This common phrases and normal communications has long been used in such a manner of hiding the true meaning of communication. Even during slavery days there was teh underground rail road that used sing song in the cotton fields to pass messages along...
The wiretapping went further than email and phone conversations but into tracking credit card purchases and other financial transactions.
Given the ease of codifying communication so to be undetectable by the NSA (not to mention we don't have the computing power for analysis of the mass amount of such ongoing), there is one thing that could most certainly be done, instead.
To determine what the public attitude was regarding such things as the war on Iraq and other bullshit and public reaction to the real pounding terrorizing acts by the Bush administration against and on the American public and Media (anthrax threats to whip the media into submission and "Clear Channel" network used)..
If you know what the public is really thinking and you have control over the media to influence the public, you can pretty much control the public and even gain their support for the wrongs you intend to do and this is clearly evidenced with the Exposure of much of the crap the Bush Administration was up to.
From EFF.org
The undisputed documents show that AT&T installed a fiberoptic splitter at its facility at 611 Folsom Street in San Francisco that makes copies of all emails, web browsing, and other Internet traffic to and from AT&T customers, and provides those copies to the NSA. This copying includes both domestic and international Internet activities of AT&T customers. As one expert observed, "this isn't a wiretap, it's a country-tap."
Of course, we may never know all the details thanks to Bush, Obama and all the other assholes that voted for FISA2008:
Holy shit coverage. I've been wondering what happened to this story.
It seems like every time we get into position to do something about government abuse of the people all coverage suddenly stops.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
How would it deserve keeping its present government contacts (while putting them to no use, let alone snitching whistleblowers to them!) and readers by holding back The News?!
(Assuming a residual journalistic ethos defines the latter as more than "just the stuff to fill the space between the ads", as allegedly a Fleet Street media baron once put it...)
Even with an anti-terror spin (and possibly actual arrests), e.g. of eavesdropping only on the bad guys (and "inevitably" listening in on everyone else in the process as well), the founders considered this issue important enough to merit a Fourth Amendment, which doesn't leave much leeway (or should we say: "weasel way"?) for a paper (especially with the profession's self-image of a Fourth Estate as part of democracy's "checks and balances") to decide on making it "non-news".
Henry Louis Mencken
Bash Bush.
We will contact you again tomorrow for your next assignment but you should assume that
tomorrow you will do the same as today, Bash Bush.
Signed,
MoveOn.org
So anyone have details of the system they used? What analysis they did? Anyone know where I can buy this book in the UK?
Perde:thanks for informatin.
or the amount of comments about this story it scarily low?? this is seriously disturbing ppl... you are being wiretrapped all the way warrantless like sheeps.. and you dont move a finger? that's really twisted imho. Remeber what good old Ben Franklin said about security and freedom.... We must be one of the most stupid type of 'thinking' alien specie tho... the one that lives in the same mudball and can't communicate because we don't even speak the same language (think of the embarrassment at the galaxy council)... and we fight our own specie's immaginary enemies....and even more we witch-hunt within the same faction... This is just plain dumb. Human beings should start to behave....
"While campaigning against President George W. Bush, Barack Obama had pledged that there would be "no more wiretapping of American citizens," but Obama's administration has continued to use many of his predecessor's arguments when it comes to warrantless wiretapping."
The psychological need of a minority of people who seek power over other people, is independent of which group they join to work together to gain power over people. Therefore it is no surprise people who seek power over others will back the moves made by other previous people in power as they made their moves to gain ever more ways to control a population. Its not about parties its about power.
Ironically political power tends to differentiate into two power bases opposed to each other as joining other smaller groups is less likely to lead to power. Therefore the people who seek power over others tend to follow the two most powerful, yet opposed groups, as each person wants power for themselves. As a result, countries tend over time to oscillate between these two main power groups, after their population get tired of the relentless grabs for power each side makes and all the personal gain that grab for power brings them and their loyal friends.
This same pattern, driven by the relentless need for power exists throughout history and in so many countries. (Sometimes one of the sides gains such power they can suppress (and even kill off) opposing groups so the oscillation stalls for a while, but history shows eventually new groups emerge in opposition to the group in power).
The rest of us who don't seek power, unfortunately get caught up in this endless struggle for who wants to be in power and we even get dragged into wars and can even die in our millions all to decide which of the groups gains power, with both sides trying to move the population behind them with ideas of fear to convince the population to fear the opposing power group side while also selling concepts of a desire for a better life if you follow their side. Yet ultimately power is for the benefit of the people in power. After all, the very act of seeking power over someone else is to decide how they must live their life and ultimately that power gives personal gain for the people in power over others.
Ironically the only winning move is not to join a side but keep both power groups in balance able to distill out the most extreme moves. Democracy tenses to give this more than other political systems as its stochastically sampling their extremes over time. But one thing it cannot stop is the relentless grab for ever more power and its here we have a growing problem.
Ever improving information technology presents a growing danger we are just starting to see. The ever better information gathering technology gives ever greater power to ever more micro manage everyone else's lives (and that gives ever more ways to earn money from exploiting that power over everyones lives) and people who seek power are not going to stop technology that gives them what they want the most. Ever more power.
Unfortunately most people don't comprehend just how driven the people who do seek power are in their goal for ever more power simply because most people are not so driven to seek power themselves, but its even worse that this. The fight for power over others is completely relentless because if anyone in the power hierarchy fails to take a move for more power, others will take that move gaining extra power for themselves and will then be able to use that extra power to climb higher having move influence. Therefore the most driven seek to the top in any power hierarchy. Its therefore no surprise they then seek to exploit ever more technology that gives them what the way, which is power. Ironically the one thing they all fear is the loss of power so they are determined to hold onto power themselves.
"If it bleeds it leads."
And why, raising hell doesn't get done.
Om, nomnomnom...
Be very careful: In the UK, you can be arrested for knowing where to buy the book
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
While I do think there are benefits to this type of surveillance the risks for abuse are far too great. It's all too easy to take this sort of thing way too far, and unfortunately I think it's going to happen whether we like it or not. The government will simply be far more secretive about it. I think Obama is the sort of guy who will engage in these kinds of activities just as intensively as Bush, the difference is he'll be a lot more careful about keeping it quiet.
The real concern I have is how people have grown extremely tolerant of what the government is doing now that we have a democrat as president. People who were rabidly anti-Bush for engaging in these activities, among other things, now blindly adore Obama and everything he does. That's the real danger, to blindly follow any leader and embrace everything he does because you believe he's on your side. When there are so-called journalists out there comparing Obama to god I think there's cause for concern.
"The bill also allows any warrantless wiretapping program to be reviewed by a secret federal intelligence court; requires a spy agency to purge any intelligence involving an American unless it gets a court warrant; and, for the first time, requires intelligence officials to get a court warrant if they wish to target an American living abroad. Read what's in the FISA bill"
"Obama did vote for an amendment offered before the final vote by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut, that would have stripped the immunity provisions from the bill, but the amendment failed."
When pressed to explain his change in position by an angry questioner Thursday, Obama defended his vote, saying he opposed the immunity for the companies but ultimately voted for the bill because he felt that the revisions to the intelligence law were necessary to protect the nation's security.
REF: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/11/obama.netroots/index.html
Ok, Slashdotters, put your money where your mouth is and start lobbying Slashdot to use https globally. I'll remain highly skeptical of all the talk talk talk around here until we actually do something about it.
The government can't save you.
Actually he voted against immunity for telecoms but the amendment failed (see the post below).
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/11/obama.netroots/index.html
What's even more frightening is that they modded you informative when it's public record that he voted to strip the immunity provisions out although the amendment failed.
Yes, he did vote for the larger bill with the amendments that basically put the warrant requirements back in for any American they may have eavesdropped on whether on US soil or abroad.
Objection! Citation needed, and suspiciously close to empty right wing rhetoric. I think that it is much more likely that exposure of the illegal program would give operational details of legal, necessary programs. This would explain the actions of an obviously thoughtful man. Whatever the reason, he's still WRONG. The 4th amendment is non-negotiable and is VERY clear. I accept FISA as a necessary evil in cases of extreme national security (as defined in the Constitution; threat of invasion or rebellion).
One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
Either that or the FBI could have bothered to check the phone book for the names and addresses of wanted terrorists that they knew to be living in the US.
This is Slashdot. Don't you know that everything Obama does is bad, no matter whether he in fact did it?
Of course not. If someone contacts you ("you" being a member of the press) with information that just might be covered by secrecy/espionage laws, you'd be insane to look at it. The government could come down on you harder than the person who actually, stole, copied, or otherwise originally obtained the documents. Even if you have no idea what the status of that info is, the feds take the position that "you should have known better".
In fact, the person who originally made off with said information may be in a better negotiating position to defend himself. The gov't is scared sh*tless that such people might have other information that might be released to the public or, worse yet, make it into the public record through a trial. So he can negotiate a "get out of jail free" card. You, the press, cannot.
There's only one solution: Wikileaks. Eventually, the gov't is going to realize that, giving the press some ability to publish such documentation would be better for all. At least, they'd have some ability to negotiate a few redactions of stuff that ws actually sensitive. Rather than just sitting on an entire story because its embarrassing. Until then, if you've got your hands on some interesting stuff, just post it and let the NSA wish that, in a better world, they could have negotiated.
Meanwhile, you kids keep your damned black helicopters off my lawn!
Have gnu, will travel.
This is why spy agencies co-operate with each other. If the CIA/FBI/NSA/??? want some information and they cannot get it legally, they can always get it from a foreign agency.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
GodJesusBuddhaAllah help me, but I have to give the snakes over at Qwerst some credit. They are the only arm of the FCC's oligopoly who refused to set-up the monitoring services on their equipment/property.
Strange things happen by random chance, I guess. Or maybe they thought it was a blatant trap/sting... they were new foreign owners taking over after a major scandal.
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
Absolutely correct. And the origin of all this is DISTURBING.
Because it is journalism's job to tell us important things and keep telling us important things, regardless of popular interest. These stories aren't important because of commercial market response. Placing commerce ahead of stories like these is what gets us to where we are now.
The contacts mainstream media covets aren't worth much to begin with. Being a stenographer to power isn't doing journalism and as more media cover-ups, lies, and dismissals are exposed the public has no reason to trust the reports they receive from these organizations. The New York Times both helped push the invasion of Iraq based on cover story lies co-written by Judith Miller and Michael Gordon, and the NYT carried David Barstow's Pulitzer-prize winning expose on how the Pentagon propaganda campaign recruited over 75 retired military officers to appear on TV as "analysts" before and during the Iraq war.
Barstow couldn't get the mainstream media interested in his prize-winning story either for being a scathing expose or because he won a prestigious prize for his investigative journalism. Democracy Now! invited him on the air for what became an exclusive interview:
To date there has been no serious expose of NYT's lies during the run-up to the Iraq invasion. We know they're capable of such an act: they did it for Jayson Blair's stories which were far less important lies that could be framed so as to appear largely the work of one person. Back then there was a full color spread about Blair, his stories, and a follow-up discussion in an auditorium with an audience (CSPAN carried it). But back in 2004, Goodman put the NYT's Iraq run-up lies in perspective as well.
Digital Citizen
Read "The Puzzle Palace", the first book by James Bamford (and then you can read the rest of them). He's made a career of exposing the NSA. This first book was written at a time when congress critters would not even admit publicly that the NSA existed. Bamford provides a history of eavesdropping and spying by the USA and shows that illegal listening has been going on ever since there has been anything at all to listen to.
For example, I recall that the first Western Union offices, those that were the terminations of the Transatlantic cables, and others in NYC, had secret government offices right next door where the cables were spliced and terminated for us to spy on transmissions as soon as they arrived.
Do you recall an item in the news about 15 or so years ago regarding a backdoor in Windows NT? Some security expert in, I think from memory, one of the major gov research campuses (Los Alamos or Livermore) was quoted as saying in a security overview seminar, rather casually, that there was a backdoor to the mil-spec security in NT, and that the government had the keys. Having read that book, this made complete sense to me.
The fact that this is "same as it ever was" does not mean that we should not be aware of it. It matters a great deal. My opinion is that some of this access is necessary "for a free and functioning democracy" in this world of ours. We want to know if some extremist asshole (no matter what the persuasion) is planning to set off a nuke anywhere. But much of the rest of it can be exploiting us, it can be used by people against their political enemies or for their individual profits, for purposes that has nothing to do with the well-being of the world. And we can keep an eye on which is which only if we know it's going on in the first place.
I have freinds and family in the nsa. your phones have always been tapped and they always will be tapped. All of your bank records have always been available. Get over it. nothing new has occurred int the past 20 years. spend your time pressuring your congressman for responsible use of the information by legislation specifying allowable use of procured data.
Odd word choice there. One would think the President of the United States of America would be the most obvious person who doesn't want to hear complaints about warrantless wiretaps.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this just further proof of the systemic opinion that most Americans have that "it doesn't matter what you believe, only what lies you are willing to subscribe to"? From just casually spending the last 25 years of my life trying to impartially observe why it is that the vast majority of people in America are willing to tolerate a government that abuses it's authority and having heard over and over and over again replies to the effect of "eh - whatcanya' do?", the only conclusion I can draw is that people in America are willing to tolerate outrageous, often unlawful behavior on the part of their so-called "leaders" so long as they continue to enjoy the benefits and comforts those leaders seem to be providing them - even to the point of abdicating their so-called "constitutional rights".
If you are a student of history, you might have at some time noticed a disquieting trend from the earliest civilizations to what we have today: technological advances don't create a more "civilized" society. In fact, it empowers those who have the means to use it to cause people to become less civil towards each other. Should you doubt this you could take a little tour through the sewer that is 4chan. Does anyone with even an iota of civil behavior in them believe for an instant that 4chan is a reflection of the proper use of one's first amendment right of freedom of speech? If you do I would submit that you, in fact, are part of the problem and if that is what you are, your opinions and views are made moot by association and are therefore not part of any solution. The unrealistic paradigm that simply because you CAN say (or do), a thing you SHOULD is the hallmark of uncivilized thinking. ("Do As Thou Wilt" is not "the law", it is the anti-thesis of law - and civil behavior - sorry to disillusion those of you out there with a Crowley Hardon and completely misunderstand this).
Fact of the matter is: so long as you are willing to tolerate a government that will listen, record, observe, make note of, and in far too many instances eliminate those who would oppose it, you're part of the problem and you have no right to bitch, no ground to stand on and object, no reason to do so in the first place and should go back to masturbating with your shiny little WIRETAPPED iPhone because THAT, My Fellow American, is the lie that you're willing to subscribe to.
Kudos and Good Luck to Mr. Klein and the EFF for stepping up to the plate.
~Just as a thing fails if it lacks a kernel, so too it fails if it lacks a skin. ~ Rumi, Discourses
for testing of genetic modification medicines?
The ultimate crazed control freak govt?
Customized pain and torment for each citizen?
why yes, 1984 of course!
It's no surprise that he supports warrantless wiretaps. He did by his actions while he was running for office, no matter what he SAID.
I suppose that he's better than his opposition would have been. But there's no way to prove this, and that's definitely faint praise.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Why do you believe their purpose is what they claim it to be?
Has the government been so honest with you in the past that you find it incomprehensible that they might be lying, and have different motives than those they claim?
Does the representatives of government when dealing with other display such scrupulous honesty that you believe them when they say something you can't possibly check?
They might just be being incompetent. I'm not at all certain that that's the way to bet.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
In general, I find that government employees - not politicians, or any kind of elected official, mind you - tend to be lazy, rule-bound, and HONEST. This is in the US where low-level corruption and bribery is not very common. And certainly in comparison to people who have the opportunity to get a buck out of me. Business transactions of all kinds - Circuit City warranties, car mechanics, mortgage loans, the price of a donut at a local deli - all these things are subject to manipulation due to simple greed. When I go to register my car, the clerk may be surly and unhelpful, but they have no opportunity or reason to screw me.
Qui bono, follow the money, etc, etc. Don't be so gullible about de gubmint and all that.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
I'm way beyond the tinfoil skullcaps stage. It really doesn't matter to me if the feds want to park a block away in black vans deciphering my screen's radio haze. Good luck to them, and best wishes at the world's dullest job, but if they need to plant bugs the least they could do is debug their @#$%ing software. You expect that kind of crap from Microsoft — Bill Gates' entire fortune isn't worth the cost of a single nuclear aircraft carrier, after all, so he can't really afford QA. From the feds, though, you kinda expect a higher standard. A black ops budget can afford a few world-class, genius-level systems debuggers, wooden cha think?
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
Looks like it's the slashdot story nobody wanted.
Government employees, yes. Government spokesmen, no.
Actually, most government employees that I've known have also not been lazy. Overworked is closer...though also not totally accurate. Overworked in certain particular areas would be more accurate. As is common in bureaucracies, the goals of the supervisors don't always fall in line with the job requirements. Somebody that you find lazy may just have written a 50 page memo on the paperclip supply. (OK, I chose that example to be humorous. It's also true. I've known many government employees who have worked illegal overtime in an effort to get their job done. It's true, these people eventually stop caring whether they get their job done or not. It doesn't help them, and it's impossible anyway.)
Spokesmen, however, are chosen for their ability and willingness to say whatever they are told to say. And appear honest. I'd sooner trust a used car salesman. (Actually, LOTS sooner. I know a company that I've bought used cars from several times, and they've got a VERY good reputation. I can't say "Buy a used Toyota off the local dealer's lot", because I've got no reason to believe that all Toyota dealers follow the same practice. But that's where I'll start looking next time.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.