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Latest Archive Web Publication from the National Security Archive
Yesterday, the National Security Archive (NSA) released documents that recounted the abuses committed by the Colombian Army. According to the NSA article, these documents describe how the Colombian military officers collaborated with the drug-trafficking paramilitary groups and used death squad tactics to tackle guerrillas. Continue reading
Mixed Signals, Mixed Results
The National Security Archive published Mixed Signals, Mixed Results: How President Bush's Executive Order on FOIA Failed to Deliver. The briefing claims that two years later, the FOI Executive Order still hasn't produced all that is promised. The FOI system did improve customer service at federal agencies, but has failed to make progress on backlogs and improved compliance with electronic FOIA requirements. "Many of the same old scofflaw agencies are still shirking their responsibilities to the public," said Tom Blanton, director of the Archive. "I'm reminded of how many psychiatrists it takes to change a light bulb — only one, but the light bulb has to really want to change." Continue reading
Breaking: Total Information Awareness (TIA) still with us
Today, Siobhan Gorman of The Wall Street Journal reported that the National Security Agency has assembled what some intelligence officials admit is a driftnet for domestic and foreign communications. According to Gorman: into the NSA's massive database goes data collected by the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Treasury. This information includes data about email (recipient and sender address, subject, time sent), internet searches (sites visited and searches conducted), phone calls (incoming and outgoing numbers, length of call, location), financial information (wire transfers, credit-card use, information about bank accounts), and information from the DHS about airline passengers. The only problem is, the Total Information Awareness Program (TIA) was supposed to have been killed by Congress in 2003. The ACLU responded to the report and said it would be filing a FOIA request to get more information.
The American Civil Liberties Union responded today to a stunning new report that the NSA has effectively revived the Orwellian ""Total Information Awareness"" domestic-spying program that was banned by Congress in 2003. In response, the ACLU said that it was filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for more information about the spying. And, the group announced that it was moving its "Surveillance Clock" one minute closer to midnight. "Congress shut down TIA because it represented a massive and unjustified governmental intrusion into the personal lives of Americans,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the Washington Legislative Office of the ACLU. “Now we find out that the security agencies are pushing ahead with the program anyway, despite that clear congressional prohibition. The program described by current and former intelligence officials in Monday's Wall Street Journal could be modeled on Orwell’s Big Brother." The ACLU said the new report confirmed its past warnings that the NSA was engaging in extremely broad-based data mining that was violating the privacy of vast numbers of Americans.Continue reading
RESTORE act and NSA permanent eavesdropping stations
"NSA's Lucky Break: How the U.S. Became Switchboard to the World." by Ryan Singel Singel's article provides an intriguing history lesson on internet architecture and the US role as an international communications hub. Too bad it's not just a history lesson, but an explanation of current legislation making its way through Congress to give the NSA permanent eavesdropping capabilities on both foreign and domestic communication traffic. The RESTORE Act (.pdf) (RESTORE = "Responsible Electronic Surveillance That is Overseen, Reviewed, and Effective") would extend the NSA's power indefinitely but would "include some safeguards against abuse" (IMHO, an audit trail described in Sec 7 and 8 of the bill does little to safeguard against abuse!). Ironically, President Bush has vowed to veto RESTORE because it doesn't extend retroactive legal immunity to telephone companies who cooperated in the NSA's domestic surveillance before it was legalized. Of course the telecoms are lobbying hard for this immunity clause -- AT&T is facing a class-action lawsuit for allegedly wiretapping the internet at the behest of the NSA. Need to protect the industrial hand that feeds you eh?
A lucky coincidence of economics is responsible for routing much of the world's internet and telephone traffic through switching points in the United States, where, under legislation introduced this week, the U.S. National Security Agency will be free to continue tapping it. Leading House Democrats introduced the so-called RESTORE Act Tuesday that allows the nation's spies to maintain permanent eavesdropping stations inside United States switching centers. Telecom and internet experts interviewed by Wired News say the bill will give the NSA legal access to a torrent of foreign phone calls and internet traffic that travels through American soil on its way someplace else. But contrary to recent assertions by Bush administration officials, the amount of international traffic entering the United States is dropping, not increasing, experts say.Continue reading
You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours
Many of you will remember a little over a year ago when it was disclosed that certain phone companies -- specifically ATT, Verizon, and BellSouth -- were providing assistance to the National Security Agency in their illegal domestic spying. In a bizarre example of scratching each others' backs, today the Department of Justice came out against Net neutrality. That's right, since the telcos helped the federal government with their illegal wiretapping, the federal government felt it needed to make a statement again net neutrality. We've been tracking the net neutrality issue for a while, and find this blatent example of political favors very unseemly.
The Justice Department on Thursday said Internet service providers should be allowed to charge a fee for priority Web traffic. The agency told the Federal Communications Commission, which is reviewing high-speed Internet practices, that it is opposed to "Net neutrality," the principle that all Internet sites should be equally accessible to any Web user. Several phone and cable companies, such as AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp., have previously said they want the option to charge some users more money for loading certain content or Web sites faster than others. The Justice Department said imposing a Net neutrality regulation could hamper development of the Internet and prevent service providers from upgrading or expanding their networks. It could also shift the "entire burden of implementing costly network expansions and improvements onto consumers," the agency said in its filing.
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