Who Needs CISPA? FBI Has a Non-Profit Workaround

nonprofiteer writes "What has been left out of the CISPA debate thus far is the FBI's long time workaround for information sharing with private industry: 'In 1997, long-time FBI agent Dan Larkin helped set up a non-profit based in Pittsburgh that "functions as a conduit between private industry and law enforcement." Its industry members, which include banks, ISPs, telcos, credit card companies, pharmaceutical companies, and others can hand over cyberthreat information to the non-profit, called the National Cyber Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA), which has a legal agreement with the government that allows it to then hand over info to the FBI. Conveniently, the FBI has a unit, the Cyber Initiative and Resource Fusion Unit, stationed in the NCFTA's office. Companies can share information with the 501(c)6 non-profit that they would be wary of (or prohibited from) sharing directly with the FBI.'"

Comments

In other words,

[fredrated]

who needs laws in a country ruled by money?

Re:In other words,

[causality]

who needs laws in a country ruled by money?

The film Network summed it up nicely. The protagonist, Howard Beale, meets with a tycoon named Jesson. Among other things, Jesson says to him:

"YOU HAVE MEDDLED WITH THE PRIMAL FORCES OF NATURE, MR. BEALE, AND I WON'T HAVE IT! Is that clear?! You think you merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance!

"You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians, there are no Arabs, there are no Third Worlds, there is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?

"You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

"What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state? Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime.

"And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel."


That's how they think. They don't see the dehumanization.

Re:In other words,

[girlintraining]

That's how they think. They don't see the dehumanization.

No, they see it, they just rationalize it;
They're just lazy! If they really wanted a job, they'd have one.
Poor people want to be poor.
They're oppressing themselves.
I am successful because of my ________, not because of luck.
Some are born to lead, the rest follow.
...

The rich overwhelmingly rationalize their behavior with the belief in a natural moral order. Survival of the fittest, predators verus prey, white versus black, strong versus weak. They view their every achievement through the lens of that belief, and inevitably conclude they have the fortune they do because they deserve it because of intrinsic qualities which have them at the top of the natural moral order. This thinking has strong parallels with monarchies and the concept of divine rule. It is also why the rich are overwhelmingly conservative in nature; If the difference between liberalism and conservativism was boiled down to a single ideological statement, it would be that "conservatives believe in a natural moral order, with some humans being inherently superior to others, and liberals believe in a peer to peer relational model, where individual achievement is the result of good teamwork."

If you have something others want, it's only natural as a defense mechanism to loudly proclaim you deserve it and shouldn't have to share; Whereas if you are one of the people that wants something you don't have, it's just as natural to proclaim others have to share. That's the curveball; This isn't liberal or conservative thinking, but whenever one is confronted by the other, the argument usually is an exchange of these two statements. So be careful when you hear statements similar to this, or pronunciations of "fairness" or "equality" -- they could be based on self-interest, not ideology.

In the end, neither group's ideology leads to its stated objective; Too much of either leads to societal collapse; With a strict social hierarchy, capitalism fails because workers cannot move into positions where their skills and abilities are most optimal; People who do not possess natural leadership ability would be leading, and people who did wouldn't; The net result is gross inefficiency. The reverse is also true; Large-scale democracy has never been possible in any context... it begins to break down with as little as a few thousand people, and consensus (majority vote) can take so long that the window of opportunity passes before action can be taken.

I would like to think that anyone who takes the time to critically consider these two ideologies, as well as the problem of wealth inequity, would come to realize that our system, as corrupt and inefficient as it is, is mostly the correct one. I say mostly because it has become too top-heavy; There will (and must) be a stratification of wealth -- there will always be poor people, and will always be rich people, however the majority of the wealth in the system should be concentrated in the middle. For as many millionares as are generated in a year, the number of people who are economically destitute should be the same; It should ideally resemble a bell curve, and with the GDP in this country, the median income is about $42,000 right now -- that's what most people should be making as well.

The system has become unbalanced; And it actually has nothing to do with ideologies, but instead is the result of investment. Compound interest is what has caused the problem -- and the solution is to prevent cash from becoming stagnant. There should be a limit to the amount of unsed assets a person (or organization) can possess; Companies and individuals shouldn't have billions in cash reserves sitting there, doing nothing. For an economy to grow -- and for wealth inequity to cease, money needs to change hands. There needs to be an increase in trade. It's macroeconomics 101, but sadly, it's been "overlooked" by certain social elements to the detriment of us all. That is the real culprit in our economy.

Not news

[girlintraining]

Private organizations and citizens can collect evidence that the police cannot due to legal restrictions. This is not news. However, sharing with a non-profit can still violate contractual agreements; This is what CISPA aims to kill, along with the notion that companies can refuse until a warrant is served. By removing all risk, law enforcement can just look at a company and say "Gee, that's a really nice data center you have there. A shame it would be if we had to search it for drugs..." And viola, instant and total compliance -- company lawyers can no longer say there's a liability, so even the slightest coerceion makes surrendering the data the right business move.

Can't use in criminal case?

[ShiftyOne]

Interesting to think about whether the Fourth Amendment applies here. The Fourth Amendment only protects us from government action. This non-profit would be considered a private person, whom are only covered when they are acting in their capacity as an agent of the government. This is determined by the level of government involvement in the situation and the totality of the circumstances. I'm not a lawyer, but based on the facts here it seems like this non-profit would be considered an agent of the government, and therefore you may not be able to sue them for money damages, but the material they collect probably cannot be used as evidence in a crime.

They've been sourcing out everything else, why not

[crazyjj]

There has been a crazy boom in contracting out U.S. intelligence work in the last ten years. And hey, they even contract out their torturing to other countries. So why not contract out their rape of the 4th Amendment too?

Civil cases either

[PPH]

and therefore you may not be able to sue them for money damages,

And since they are a non-profit, there's probably nothing you can sue them for in a civil case either. They'll just declare bankruptcy and open under a different name.

And you can't sue the private entities behind NCFTA, because that communication is protected as free speech.

Re:Complain or act?

[PPH]

This is Slashdot. So the obvious choice is: complain.

Re:Complain or act?

[TheLink]

So why aren't more people working on getting rid of the politicians

They need to vote to do that[1].

However given that >90% of those who actually vote, vote for one of the Two Parties, go figure. The people are voting for what they want. If the people actually want something different they should vote accordingly. Just because you think what the people want is stupid doesn't mean your vote should be worth more than theirs. You should educate and convince them to vote differently.

[1] And if you think people should use bullets instead, you'd just end up with a Dictatorship. When violence is the method of choosing leaders, you usually end up with a leader that has proven himself willing and capable of exerting the most violence. And not surprisingly no one else in the country can stop him from doing whatever he wants. And that is why most Communist Revolutions end up as Dictatorships.

Wow ...

[gstoddart]

So they're going to exploit a legal loophole to violate the intent of the law.

This is truly a sad thing to hear. Hopefully a court will rule that this is expressly illegal and revokes the charitable status -- this is just doing an end-run around the law.

Brilliant, we'll set up a charity which can be used to facilitate giving data to the FBI they'd otherwise be legally prevented from having.

Very sad. How do those freedom fries taste, guys?

Re:Wow ...

[hellkyng]

This is an absurd characterization of the NCFTA and the work they do. As someone who's worked with the NCFTA and actively opposed CISPA, SOPA etc I can say for certain they do very different work. NCFTA facilitates a common sense exchange of "personal" data in order to better combat fraud across the board. The NCFTA is a great organization and does very good work preventing internet based crime.

For a good example do a little reading on Dark Market and the take down the occurred there. Throwing the NCFTA and CISPA/SOPA into the same container is completely ignorant end poor journalism imo.

Re:Wow ...

[gstoddart]

This is an absurd characterization of the NCFTA and the work they do.

Well, then, by all means, if you have any actual facts, go ahead and share.

So far, you're a random person on the internet claiming something with nothing to back it up.

Conveniently, the FBI has a unit, the Cyber Initiative and Resource Fusion Unit, stationed in the NCFTAâ(TM)s office. Companies can share information with the 501(c)6 non-profit that they would be wary of (or prohibited from) sharing directly with the FBI.

So if someone would be legally prohibited from sharing this information directly with the FBI, tell us how, exactly, a non-profit set up to circumvent this is a good thing for anybody? They get the data via some mechanism which magically makes the legal requirements go away?

âoeWeâ(TM)re not in DC. Weâ(TM)re in Pittsburgh. Weâ(TM)re off the Beltway radar,â says Plesko. âoeSince weâ(TM)re a non-profit, we donâ(TM)t get called in to do briefings on the Hill. We donâ(TM)t have marketing and PR though we do occasionally get thanked in FBI press releases.â

Oh, I see, since they're off the radar, they're not subject to oversight. That makes me feel a lot better. It's always good to have organizations with no oversight gathering information about people.

To me this sounds like a bunch of shady dealing, and since you've given nothing to back up any of what you say, I'll continue to believe that.

Re:Cue the downmod

[causality]

So basically the protesting is all for naught because the same sharing is already happening and has been for years.

That's the usual pattern. During Bush years we saw the same thing with warrantless wiretapping. You do something illegal for a good long time, which is okay as long as it benefits government. Then when it looks like people are becoming aware of it, you go back and make it legal to pretend like it was legitimate all along.

Naturally no one who did it back when it was illegal ever gets prosecuted. That would send the wrong message. That would send the message that you will be anything but rewarded for being compliant and giving the government whatever it wants.

The inverse is when they have all these phony media "debates" concerning something they're going to do anyway, like the Patriot Act or ever-restrictive copyright law. That way it looks less authoritarian. That way it looks more like the decision came from a careful review of opposing positions. But the decision is always in favor of more power and money for the government, more coziness with industry, and less privacy for us.

Re:Complain or act?

[hoggoth]

> get their children out of the public schools
Done.
What's step 2?

CISPA legalizes FBI/NSA warrantless wiretapping

[mounthood]

This FBI/Private Non-Profit is no more legal then what the NSA has been doing, and its why they want to pass CISPA: it legalizes warrantless wiretapping.

Now that it's undeniable the government hasn't been obeying it's own laws for a decade, they have to either make it legal or face political consequences. Political consequences because, while people don't really care, they can no longer deny it, and they can't ignore it forever. A decade of massively illegal activity (unconstitutional!) must eventually be acknowledged and condemned by the average person.

It's like the US Internment camps for Japanese citizens during WWII -- the government gets a decade long 'free pass' to do whatever, then we either make it legal or fix it.

Re:Complain or act?

[AngryDeuce]

However given that >90% of those who actually vote, vote for one of the Two Parties, go figure.

I get what you're saying, and you're absolutely right, but I'll tell you something, I voted my conscience twice, in both 2000 and 2004, and we ended up with that fucking asshole Bush both times. You'll have to forgive the proles if they're reticent to keep bashing their heads against the wall and "voting their conscience". I've argued and debated and circulated petitions and fact-checked and provided evidence until I've been blue in the face and it doesn't fucking make a difference, not because people are unintelligent necessarily, but because the fact that they're working their fucking asses off and trying to keep their heads above water precludes the majority being informed on the issues even cursorily. All they get is the couple hours between dinner and bedtime to get their information and then it's back to work. If they've got young kids, forget it.

This entire country is caught up in a giant Prisoner's Dilemma, and unfortunately, I don't see that changing anytime soon, and certainly not peacefully. Nobody wants it to get to that point (nobody sane, anyway) but I really honestly believe we're in a positive feedback loop now. Civil disobedience begets the curtailing of our rights in the name of 'security' which begets civil disobedience and on and on we go. Hell, Thomas Jefferson thought revolution was a sign of a healthy society.