Wikileaks and Anonymous Join Forces Against US Intelligence Community

pigrabbitbear writes "The most recent bombshell of confidential documents dropped by infamous watchdog organization Wikileaks is already looking to have an enormous impact on our understanding of government security practices. Specifically, intimate details on the long-suspected fact that the U.S. has been paying a whole lot of money to have private corporations spy on citizens, activists and other groups and individuals on their ever-expanding, McCarthy-style naughty list. But perhaps more importantly, the docs demonstrate something very interesting about the nature of U.S. government intelligence: They haven't really got much of it."

Comments

Re:McCarthy

[CanHasDIY]

Summary writer probably meant "McCarthyism," Which is (and has been for quite some time) the accepted term for "the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence."

Also, you're dead wrong in your statement that

McCarthy never did anything involving citizens

Unless, of course, you believe taking a position in the U.S. State Department involves surrendering citizenship (Hint: it doesn't).

Re:Is this article some kind of a joke?

[Rimbo]

Uhm... maybe that's because Stratfor is not an "intelligence" agency in the same way that the FBI or CIA are. They're just a private company trying to make a buck by selling their opinions.

They're basically Rivals.com, but focused on politics rather than sports. And about as much a part of the US intelligence structure as Rivals.com is.

That's why folks like AC above and myself are shaking our collective heads, wondering when Allen Funt is going to jump out from behind Julian Assange and shout, "Surprise!"

Re:logic from an anoymous coward? Heh.

[daveschroeder]

"Collusion". LOL. Now then:

Traffic metadata (things like email "envelope" information, source and destination IPs, etc.) has long been fair game without a warrant as the digital analogue of a "pen register" under Smith v. Maryland 442 US 735 (1979), and is part of the provision that supports lawful NSA data collection under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 and other law, in conjunction with telecommunication operators like AT&T. The content of traffic of US Persons is NOT fair game, without a properly adjudicated warrant.

The FISA Amendments Act of 2008, passed by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress, allows for foreign intelligence collection on non-US Persons without a warrant, no matter where the collection occurs. The longstanding Smith v. Maryland allows for the collection and examination of communications metadata without a warrant. The FISC ruling explicitly finds legal such collection under the now-sunset Protect America Act and the current FISA Amendments Act of 2008.

In order to determine which traffic content may be collected for foreign intelligence purposes, the traffic metadata must be examined. Even when a target in question is a specific non-US Person of foreign intelligence interest, traffic metadata must first be examined in order to target that person! Because examining traffic metadata was found explicitly legal and Constitutional three decades ago by the United States Supreme Court, doing so in order to target legitimate foreign intelligence collection is a legal application in the digital world.

The major issues for foreign SIGINT were twofold:

- A lot of traffic is now digital versus analog, and cannot be targeted by aiming a directional antenna at a particular geographic locale. It is now traveling largely via things like fiber optic cables, intermixed with all manner of other communications. In order to target the collection, it is no longer a case of tapping a single landline telephone, or sitting on a Navy vessel offshore from some area of interest between individuals talking on two-way radios; it's finding that traffic in a sea of global digital communications.

- Foreign communications of non-US Persons physically outside of the US was increasingly traveling through the US. Previously fair game for foreign intelligence collection throughout the history of such collection in the United States, it suddenly became off-limits without a warrant because it was incidentally routed through locations in the United States. Foreign intelligence collection on non-US Persons outside of the US does not require a warrant, and fundamentally still shouldn't simply because their traffic happens to enter the US.

This was a case of changing technology necessitating an update to a law. A supermajority of both houses of Congress agreed. Some comments:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein:

"This bill, in some respects, improves even on the base bill, the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It provides clear protections for U.S. persons both at home and abroad. It ensures that the Government cannot conduct electronic surveillance on an American anywhere in the world without a warrant. No legislation has done that up to this point."

Then-DNI Mike McConnell:

"Now here's the other thing that most Americans don't appreciate, haven't been exposed to. When we redid that law, the law now says any U.S. person, any U.S. person, that's targeted for foreign intelligence must be protected by a warrant anywhere on the globe. So we actually have a much more stringent law today protecting Americans and civil liberties."

"The debate and the dilemma for us is how do you modernize that law for the modern age? And we debated. For two years we debated and we finally came to closure. The good news is when it was finally voted, two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate voted for it and here's what it says today: if it's a U.S. person anywhere in the globe, you must have a warrant."

Unfortunately, this discussion is so mired in politics, pe