Category: Civil Rights

Another Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Moment from the NSA

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In this case, it is reports that the, “NSA diverted computers and laptops from shipping facilities to install spyware.”

Seriously, how does this not constitute an unreasonable search and seizure?

Der Spiegel reported on Sunday that the NSA’s “Tailored Access Operations” (TAO) has been diverting desktops and laptops shipped to U.S. consumers and installing spyware on them.

 According to the report, the process, which TAO calls “interdiction,” involves intercepting packages on their way from manufacturers like Dell, Cisco, and Seagate, and installing bugs or spyware on them at a “secret workshop.”

 The packages are then reintroduced into the delivery pipeline and arrive at their destination without the consumer ever realizing their machine has been compromised.

Our state security apparatus is completely out of control.

Where Useless Fascists Go to Die

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The Council on Foreign Relations.

Case in point racist stop and frisk former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly:

Outgoing New York City Police Department commissioner Ray Kelly will join the Council on Foreign Relations in January as a distinguished visiting fellow, the organization announced Monday.

“Ray Kelly spearheaded the modernization of the New York Police Department. The result is that crime is down and the NYPD’s counterterrorism capabilities are second to none,” CFR President Richard N. Haass said in a statement. “We are excited and proud to have his experience, expertise, and judgment at the Council.”

Not a surprise, from the gang that made the incomparably awful Amity Shlaes a “senior fellow in economic history”.

Why Government Internet Filters are a Really Bad Idea, Part XXXIX

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In the UK David Cameron’s “child protection” internet filters do more than filter porn. They also filter political and advocacy:

Through secretive negotiations with ISPs, the coalition has divided the internet into ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ categories and cut people off from huge swathes of it at the stroke of a key.

 There is no porn filter, and blocking Childline [a confidential service for children and teens] is not an accident

 The idea of an internet porn filter has always been a political fiction, a conveniently inaccurate sound bite used to conjure images of hardcore fisting and anal rape in the feverishly overactive imaginations of middle Britain. What activists actually called for – and ISPs were forced to provide – is an ‘objectionable content’ filter, and there is a vast, damp and aching chasm between the two.

 The language of the mythical ‘porn filter’ is so insidious, so pervasive, that even those of us opposed to it have been sucked into its slippery embrace. And so even when it turns out that O2 are blocking the Childline and Refuge websites, or that BT are blocking gay and lesbian content, we tend to regard them as collateral damage – accidental victims of a well-meaning (if misguided) attempt to protect out children from the evils of cock.

 But this was never the case. As Wired reported back in July, Cameron’s ambitions extended far beyond porn. Working through secretive negotiations with ISPs, the coalition has put in place a set of filters and restrictions as ambitious as anything this side of China, dividing the internet into ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ categories, and cutting people off from huge swathes of it at the stroke of a key.

 “As well as pornography, users may automatically be opted in to blocks on “violent material”, “extremist related content”, “anorexia and eating disorder websites” and “suicide related websites”, “alcohol” and “smoking”. But the list doesn’t stop there. It even extends to blocking “web forums” and “esoteric material”, whatever that is. “Web blocking circumvention tools” is also included, of course.”

 And the restrictions go further still. Over the weekend, people were appalled to discover that BT filters supported homophobia, with a category blocking, “sites where the main purpose is to provide information on subjects such as respect for a partner, abortion, gay and lesbian lifestyle, contraceptive, sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.”

 ………

 O2, the Slough-based BT spin-off, do allow people to check which websites are blocked [5], and although their filter has been around for a few years now, the results are terrifying. Their ‘parental control’ settings can be blocked from accessing Childline, Refuge, Stonewall or the Samaritans – which is even more frightening when you realise that they could just as easily be switched on by an abusive partner. The most vulnerable people in society are the most likely to be cut off from the help they need. As Adrian Short argues, some websites simply shouldn’t be blocked.

FWIW, Peter Hansteen, a self admitted tech geek checked some web sites, and found the following blocked:

This is why we really want to avoid having moralists prats filter our internet.

This Week’s Spylapalooza

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It’s been a busy week for developments in spying by the US state security apparatus.

First, we have the report from the President’s hand picked panel, “Liberty and Security in a Changing World.” (PDF)

From people who know the issues, the reviews have been this weak tea.

The EFF’s conclusion was that, “The reportleft open the door for future mass surveillance and failed to address the constitutionality of the NSA’s mass spying, recently questioned by the D.C. federal court and raised by EFF in its multiple lawsuits.”

Marcy Wheeler, who is has perhaps the most knowledgeable on these sorts of issues, observes that the panel refused to address whether the NSA spying program was illegal.  There is simply nothing in the report about this.

When she looks what is in the report, she sees signs that the NSA is probably functioning as a domestic security agency:

Which is why I’m curious what’s behind the following language, offered in support of the recommendation to clearly designate NSA as a foreign intelligence organization and presented with two other things we know NSA does.

It should not be a domestic security service, a military command, or an information assurance organization.

 […] Like other agencies, there are situations in which NSA does and should provide support to the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and other law enforcement entities. But it should not assume the lead for programs that are primarily domestic in nature.

That seems to suggest that, in addition to supporting DHS, DOJ, and other law enforcement entities (cough, DEA, as well as probably Secret Service in its cyber-role), NSA takes the lead on certain issues that are primarily domestic.I do hope we’ll learn what this refers to. Because if NSA is operating domestically (maybe to police IP?), it will be scandalous news.

Pro Publica notes that one of the more direct recommendations of the panel is that the NSA needs to stop undermining publicly available encryption algorithms:

The National Security Agency should not undermine encryption standards that are designed to protect the privacy of communications, the panel of experts appointed by President Obama to review NSA surveillance recommended in a report released today.

 The recommendation, among the strongest of the many suggested changes laid out by the panel, comes several months after ProPublica, the Guardian, and the New York Times reported that the NSA has successfully worked to undercut encryption. The story was based on a set of documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Outside of the intelligence review board, we have learned that the NSA paid RSA Security LLC to incorporate insecure encryption in its products:

As a key part of a campaign to embed encryption software that it could crack into widely used computer products, the U.S. National Security Agency arranged a secret $10 million contract with RSA, one of the most influential firms in the computer security industry, Reuters has learned.

Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show that the NSA created and promulgated a flawed formula for generating random numbers to create a “back door” in encryption products, the New York Times reported in September. Reuters later reported that RSA became the most important distributor of that formula by rolling it into a software tool called Bsafe that is used to enhance security in personal computers and many other products.

Undisclosed until now was that RSA received $10 million in a deal that set the NSA formula as the preferred, or default, method for number generation in the BSafe software, according to two sources familiar with the contract. Although that sum might seem paltry, it represented more than a third of the revenue that the relevant division at RSA had taken in during the entire previous year, securities filings show.

In total, this explains the flight from services like Google to non-US algernatives.

In a perfect world,  all of this might lead the White House, and the intelligence agencies to back off regarding their expansion of power, but you would be wrong.

They are at this time attempting to quash a court ruling on the constitutionality ofits domestic spying program by invoking the state-secrets privilege.

And for your amusement, we have Mark Fiore’s comments on the difference between the data collection by the government and commercial interest.
 

The Rotational Velocity of Kafka and Orwell Has Slowed a Bit

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The military commission in Guantanamo has decided that the defendants recollection of their own torture is not classified, so they can testify about their own experiences:

MILITARY COMMISSION RETREATS ON CLASSIFICATION OF TORTURE MEMORIES FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media contact: James Connell 011(5399) 5168

Alternate: Erin Daste 011(5399) 5321

GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA Today, the military commission in the 9/11 case issued several orders (AE200II, AE 013CCC, and AE013DDD) which lift the provision classifying the “observations and experiences” of defendants formerly held by the CIA.  Defense attorneys are still required to treat CIA information as classified, but the military commission acknowledged that it had limited authority to control defendants’ thoughts and memories.

“This ruling is an important step forward in accountability for torture,” said James Connell, attorney for Ammar al Baluchi.  “The real question is whether the prison will allow the prisoners to communicate with foreign government officials, medical care providers, human rights authorities, and media.”
This ruling is the latest vindication of a series of defense challenges to the United States’ authority to classify the thoughts, memories, and statements of the former CIA prisoners.  In September 2012, the government abandoned its long-held policy of “presumptive classification,” in which every statement of former CIA prisoners was considered classified, but substituted a provision defining all prisoner observations and experiences on CIA detention as classified.  Defense attorneys challenged that provision as violating the Convention Against Torture.  Today’s ruling, which the prosecution strenuously opposed, lifts that restriction.

“People who have been abused by officials have a right to tell human rights organizations, medical care providers, and others about their torture,” said Lt Col Sterling Thomas, United States Air Force, military attorney for Mr. al Baluchi.  “If governments are allowed to keep allegations of torture secret, the protection against torture is worthless.”

 Now to prosecute, or at least pull the security clearances, of everyone who had anything to do with conducting, managing, or approving torture.

Thank Edward Snowden for this Court Ruling

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Yesterday, Federal Judge Richard Leon ruled that the NSA’s bulk gathering of phone records was probably unconstitutional.

There are a fair number of points that were made.

The first was that the data release by Edward Snowden, and its publication by Glenn Greenwald made the fact that the NSA was collecting everyone’s phone records a matter of public record, and hence that the litigants had standing because they knew that their data was being collected.

Basically, he is saying that the ruling in Clapper v. Amnesty international, that people could not challenge secret surveillance, because it was secret, so they had no standing.

As Charlie Pierce notes, this makes for a game changer:

Let us be clear. No matter what you think of Snowden, or Glenn Greenwald, and no matter what you think of what they did, this ruling does not happen if the NSA doesn’t let a contractor walk out of the joint with the family jewels on a flash drive. This ruling does not happen if we do not know what we now know, and we don’t know any of that unless Snowden gathers the data and leaks it to the Guardian.

His next point illustrates just how 6 degrees of separation works:

“Suppose, for instance, that there is a person living in New York City who has a phone number that meets the RAS standard and is approved as a ‘seed,’ ” Judge Richard Leon writes in a broad opinion finding that the National Security Agency’s “telephony metadata” program is likely unconstitutional. An R.A.S. is a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” that someone might have something to do with terrorism; a seed is a search term, perhaps a telephone number, that the N.S.A. plugs into a database of hundreds of millions of phone records it has collected indiscriminately. “And suppose this person, who may or may not actually be associated with any terrorist organization, calls or receives calls from 100 unique numbers, as in my example. But now suppose that one of the numbers he calls is his neighborhood Domino’s Pizza shop,” Judge Leon continues:

The Court won’t hazard a guess as to how many different phone numbers might dial a given Domino’s Pizza outlet in New York City in a five-year period, but to take a page from the Government’s book of understatement, it’s “substantially larger” than the 100 in the second hop of my example, and would therefore most likely result in exponential growth in the scope of the query and lead to millions of records being captured by the third hop.

It is also interesting to note that  Judge Leon specifically noted that the intelligence drift net did not get any meaningful results:

A warrantless, suspicionless search that abridges a legitimate expectation of privacy might be “reasonable” if it was justified by a compelling security interest that cannot be addressed any other way. In perhaps the strongest passages of Justice Leon’s opinion, he persuasively argues that there is no such interest in this case. The government has simply not shown that these intrusive searches are justified as counterterrorism measures. While the government argues that these warrantless searches are necessary for reasons of efficiency, they simply haven’t made the case:

…the Government does not cite a single instance in which analysis of the NSA’s bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent attack, or otherwise aided the Government in achieving any objective that was time-sensitive in nature. In fact, none of the three “recent episodes” cited by the Government that supposedly “illustrate the role that telephony metadata analysis can play in preventing and protecting against terrorist attack” involved any apparent urgency.

I hope that his ruling will stand, but I fear that it won’t.

Your Moment of Kafka, No-Fly List Edition

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There is now a distinct possibility in the lawsuit filed by Rahinah Ibrahim about her being on the no-fly list, the verdict might be kept secret. (My prior post on the trial is here.)

That’s right, win or lose, Rahinah Ibrahim, and the general public, may never know if she was on the list, if she is on the list, or whether her name has been removed from the list:

Is former Stanford University scholar Rahinah Ibrahim connected to Malaysian jihadists, as the FBI once suggested, or is she the victim of misguided U.S. bureaucrats who erroneously placed her on a U.S. terror watchlist? Is she even on a watchlist at all?

 Those are the lingering unanswered questions in the first-of-its kind federal trial challenging a traveler’s alleged placement on America’s notorious no-fly list. The 48-year-old Malaysian woman’s case against the U.S. government — in which she seeks solely to clear her name — is awaiting a judge’s verdict after a week of testimony, the bulk of it classified and given behind closed doors here in a San Francisco federal courtroom.

 But underscoring the Kafkaesque flavor of the trial, there’s a real possibility the verdict itself will be kept a secret, even from Ibrahim.

 “It is conceivable? If the government continues to keep this information secret from her and the public, and the judge sustains that objection, it is possible we can have a ruling in this case and she would not know the result,” Elizabeth Marie Pipkin, Ibrahim’s pro-bono attorney, said in a telephone interview.

You can call it Kafkaesque, or you can call it Orwellian, or you can call it police state tactics, but in any case, this really, really, wrong.

The Department of Homeland Security Outdoes Orwell And Kafka

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In the first case to make it to court over the no-fly list, DHS has taken abuse of power to a whole new level.

The case, Rahinah Ibrahim v. Department of Homeland Security.

The claim of DHS is that the list is a state secret, so they won’t even acknowledge that there is a list, much less if someone is on the list, until of course the airlines refuse you a boarding pass, but even then they cannot tell you why they are:

Airlines aren’t told why they have been forbidden to transport any particular person, and are forbidden from telling anyone that they are on the “no-fly” list — although of course that eventually becomes obvious when the airline refuses to issue a boarding pass to an otherwise qualified fare-paying would-be passenger.  The U.S. government’s policy is never to confirm or deny the existence of a no-fly order. That is considered a “state secret”.

 Needless to say, all this makes a mockery of due process and has, until now, frustrated judicial review of no-fly decisions and orders.  Despite numerous attempts to challenge the system of “no-fly” lists and orders, Rahinah Ibrahim v. Department of Homeland Security, et al. (docket and more recent documents) is the first such case to make it to trial.

 Dr. Ibrahim, a Malaysian citizen, was a doctoral candidate at Stanford University, in the U.S. on a valid student visa, when she tried to fly home to Malaysia with her daughter in 2005.  She was refused passage on a United Airlines flight from San Francisco International Airport, detained, and interrogated by SFO airport police.  Although she was ultimately bound for Malaysia, she had planned to stop over in Hawaii to present a research paper at a conference there. She was denied boarding on a domestic flight from San Francisco to Kona. She was allowed to fly to Kona the next day, and on to Malaysia after the conference a few days late, but her U.S. visa was then revoked (although she wasn’t notified, and didn’t learn this until she was at the airport in K.L. trying to check in for a flight back to SFO a couple of months later). She hasn’t been able to return to the U.S. since, even though she had lived legally in the U.S. for many years, had met and married her husband in the U.S., and one of children was born in the U.S. and is a U.S. citizen.  She completed her dissertation remotely, received her Stanford Ph.D. in absentia, and is now a professor at a major Malaysian public university, with an extensive list of academic publications.

 Several other “no-fly” lawsuits have been dismissed without getting far enough to have a judge, much less a jury, review the challenged “no-fly” orders on their merits. Others that haven’t yet made it to trial, but haven’t yet been dismissed, include that of Gulet Mohamed in Northern Virgina and Latif et al. v. Holder in Portland, OR.  Both of these cases involve U.S. citizens who were effectively banished from the U.S. by having their names being placed on the “no-fly” list while they were abroad, preventing them from coming home.

 The city and county of San Francisco paid Dr. Ibrahim $225,000 to settle her claims against the airport police, but the Federal government agencies and employees have opposed Dr. Ibrahim’s right to even have the court review the legality of their actions.

But wait there’s more.

You see, after the lawyers for Dr. Ibrahim put her daughter on the witness list, DHS put that daughter on their no fly list:

The Federal civil rights trial in Ibrahim v. DHS — the first lawsuit seeking judicial review of a government “no-fly” order to make it to trial — began this morning in San Francisco with a surprise:

 When the case was called at 7:30 a.m., Elizabeth Pipkin and Christine Peek, pro bono lawyers for the plaintiff Dr. Rahinah Ibrahim, began by informing U.S. District Judge William Alsup that Dr. Ibrahim’s oldest daughter Raihan Mustafa Kamal was denied boarding in Kuala Lumpur yesterday when she tried to board a flight to San Francisco to observe and testify at the trial in her mother’s lawsuit.

 Ms. Mustafa Kamal, an attorney licensed to practice law in Malaysia, was born in the U.S. and is a U.S. citizen. Ms. Mustafa Kamal was with her mother when Dr. Ibrahim was denied boarding on a flight from K.L. to San Francisco in 2005 (after having been told that her name had been removed from the “no-fly” list) under what now seem eerily similar circumstances. The DHS had been given notice that Ms. Mustafa Kamal would testify at the trial as an eyewitness to those events she witnessed in 2005.

 ………

 “We may have to have a separate evidentiary hearing about this,” Judge Alsup said, and ordered the defendants to provide further information tomorrow (Tuesday). “I want to know whether the government did something to obstruct a witness, a U.S. citizen.”

(emphasis original)

So, they put a witness, and an American citizen at that, on the no fly list in order to prevent them from testifying, and then, they lied to the judge about it:

Ms. Pipkin reminded the court of what government counsel Paul Freeborne of the Department of Justice told the court before the trial recessed on Monday:

Freeborne: Your Honor, we’ve confirmed that the defendants did nothing to deny plaintiff’s daughter boarding. It’s our understanding that she just simply missed her flight. She has been re-booked on a flight tomorrow. She should arrive tomorrow.

“None of that was true,” Ms. Pipkin told the court this morning. “She didn’t miss the flight. She was there in time to check in. She has not been rebooked on another flight.” And most importantly, it was because of actions by the DHS — one of the defendants in Dr. Ibrahim’s lawsuit — that Ms. Mustafa Kamal was not allowed to board her flight to SFO to attend and testify at her mother’s trial.

 Ms. Pipkin said that Ms. Mustafa Kamal had sent her a copy of the “no-board” instructions which the DHS gave to Malaysia Airlines, and which the airline gave to Ms. Mustafa Kamal to explain as much as it knew about why it was not being allowed to transport her. Ms. Pipkin handed Judge William Alsup a copy of the DHS “no-board” instructions to Malaysia Airlines regarding Ms. Mustafa Kamal.

At least now, we may have a reason as to why she is on the no fly list:

The FBI agents also asked about whether Dr. Ibrahim was familiar with Jemaah Islamiyyah in Malaysia. She said she had heard of it only from reading online newspapers, but that from what she had read, it was an un-Muslim terrorist organization.

 Later in her deposition, Dr. Ibrahim noted that since returning to Malaysia in 2005, she has become active in Jamaah Islah Malaysia, a non-profit professional networking group for Muslims who have returned to Malaysia after post-secondary schooling in the U.S. and Europe. The two groups have names that could easily be confused by non-Malays, and are sometimes referred to by the same acronym, “JIM”. But both are well-known and readily distinguishable to Malaysians. And the FBI agents who visited her in 2004 didn’t ask about “Jamaah Isla Malaysia”, the entirely innocent organization with which Dr. Ibrahim is now involved. This potential confusion is the only hint in the public record to date about any possible explanation, legitimate or not, for FBI “Special Agent” Kelly’s nomination of Dr. Ibrahim for inclusion on the “no-fly” list.

I fully expect the US Attorney to f%$#ing turn into a f%$#ing cockroach at this point.

The full sordid story, over the past few years is here.

There are a whole bunch of people at DHS, the FBI, and the DoJ who really need to have their security clearances pulled as arbitrarily as Dr. Ibrahim’s right to travel was.

Here is a suggestion for Barack “Worst Constitutional Law Professor ever™” Obama.  Realize that your state security apparatus has as much interest in fairness, or civil rights, or basic American values as much as Richard Bruce Cheney is interested in discussing who authorized the leaking Valerie Plame’s CIA covert operative status.

Big Brother in Oakland, California

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Following protests at the Port of Oakland, the Port set up a surveillance network on their facilities, law enforcement proceeded to expand the network to cover most of the city:

With this city repeatedly roiled by civil protests and the public’s attention sharply focused on government surveillance, local officials are pushing forward with a federally funded project to link surveillance cameras, license-plate readers, gunshot detectors, Twitter feeds, alarm notifications and other data into a unified “situational awareness” tool for law enforcement.

The Domain Awareness Center, a joint project between the Port of Oakland and city, started as a nationwide initiative to secure ports by networking sensors and cameras in and around the facilities. The busy port is one of seven U.S. maritime facilities that the Department of Homeland Security considers at highest risk of a terrorist attack.

Since its inception in 2009, the project has ballooned into a surveillance program for the entire city. Some officials already have proposed linking the center to a regional Department of Homeland Security intelligence-gathering operation or adding feeds from surveillance cameras around the Oakland stadium and arena complex.

As Digby pithily observes, “We just can’t have enough surveillance centers what with all the protests … er terrorists.”

If you build it, law enforcement will use in ways that it was not originally intended for.

Somewhere in Hell, J. Edgar Hoover is Laughing

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Because Glenn Greenwald’s latest scoop is that the NSA has been running the equivalent of Hoover’s COINTELPRO program of spying and blackmail:

The National Security Agency has been gathering records of online sexual activity and evidence of visits to pornographic websites as part of a proposed plan to harm the reputations of those whom the agency believes are radicalizing others through incendiary speeches, according to a top-secret NSA document. The document, provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, identifies six targets, all Muslims, as “exemplars” of how “personal vulnerabilities” can be learned through electronic surveillance, and then exploited to undermine a target’s credibility, reputation and authority.

 The NSA document, dated Oct. 3, 2012, repeatedly refers to the power of charges of hypocrisy to undermine such a messenger. “A previous SIGINT” — or signals intelligence, the interception of communications — “assessment report on radicalization indicated that radicalizers appear to be particularly vulnerable in the area of authority when their private and public behaviors are not consistent,” the document argues.

 Among the vulnerabilities listed by the NSA that can be effectively exploited are “viewing sexually explicit material online” and “using sexually explicit persuasive language when communicating with inexperienced young girls.”

Note that notwithstanding the claims from an NSA spokes bot that, “Without discussing specific individuals, it should not be surprising that the US Government uses all of the lawful tools at our disposal to impede the efforts of valid terrorist targets who seek to harm the nation and radicalize others to violence,” these people are not accused of being terrorists, planning terrorism, or offering material support of terrorism.

They are simply called, “Radicalizers,” people who say things that they don’t like. People who hold up a mirror to the actions of the United States, and show that we as a society do not comport to our stated ordeals.

In other words, people like Martin Luther King, who was a major target of COINTELPRO.

They went through his sex life, and, after he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, attempted to convince him to commit suicide.

Note also, that at least one of the targets was a, “US Person”.

So, we are now targeting citizens or legal residents for blackmail from the state security apparatus with No Finding of Wrongdoing or Support for Terrorism.

Our state security apparatus is completely out of control.

Once Again, Eric Arthur Blair* is Spinning in His Grave

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Guess what, the US Government is now saying that prisoners own memories of their torture are secret, and so cannot be revealed:

I’d missed this story when it came out a few weeks ago, but thanks to Rob Hyndman for calling it to my attention. There was plenty of press around the fact that one of the guys being held by US forces in Guantanamo, and who faces trial as one of the co-conspirators for 9/11, supposedly sustained head injuries while being held by the CIA. But, that’s just the tip of the iceberg of the story. Apparently Ammar al Baluchi, and some of the other prisoners are trying to argue that the US violated the UN Convention Against Torture with how they treated prisoners at the infamous black sites. But here’s the crazy part: the US is arguing that the prisoners’ own recollections of what was done to them cannot be used in court, because it would reveal classified information. Talk about adding insult to injury.

Worst Constitutional Law Professor ever.™

* George Orwell.

Your Police State in Action

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Yes, the FBI is trying to suppress the activities of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) wielding activist because he might actually learn what is going on:

Ryan Shapiro has just wrapped up a talk at Boston’s Suffolk University Law School, and as usual he’s surrounded by a gaggle of admirers. The crowd­, consisting of law students, academics, and activist types, is here for a panel discussion on the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a 2006 law targeting activists whose protest actions lead to a “loss of profits” for industry. Shapiro, a 37-year-old Ph.D. student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, contributed a slideshow of newspaper headlines, posters, and government documents from as far back as the 1800s depicting animal advocates as a threat to national security. Now audience members want to know more about his dissertation and the archives he’s using. But many have a personal request: Would Shapiro help them discover what’s in their FBI files?

 He is happy to oblige. According to the Justice Department, this tattooed activist-turned-academic is the FBI’s “most prolific” Freedom of Information Act requester—filing, during one period in 2011, upward of two documents requests a day. In the course of his doctoral work, which examines how the FBI monitors and investigates protesters, Shapiro has developed a novel, legal, and highly effective approach to mining the agency’s records. Which is why the government is petitioning the United States District Court in Washington, DC, to prevent the release of 350,000 pages of documents he’s after.

 Invoking a legal strategy that had its heyday during the Bush administration, the FBI claims that Shapiro’s multitudinous requests, taken together, constitute a “mosaic” of information whose release could “significantly and irreparably damage national security” and would have “significant deleterious effects” on the bureau’s “ongoing efforts to investigate and combat domestic terrorism.”

 ………

 When he started using privacy waivers, Shapiro realized he was on to something. Suppose you and I volunteered for the animal rights group PETA. If Shapiro requested all PETA-related FBI documents, he might get something back, but any references to us would be blacked out. If he requested documents related to us, he’d probably get nothing at all. But if he filed his PETA request along with privacy waivers signed by us, the FBI would be compelled to return all PETA documents that mention us—with the relevant details uncensored.

 ……….

 Armed with signed privacy waivers, he sent out a few experimental requests—he calls them “submarine pings”—and when the FBI returned more than 100 pages on a close friend, he knew he’d struck gold. The response included pages of information that Shapiro had requested previously, but that the FBI had claimed didn’t exist. Using case details from those documents and a handful of additional waivers, he filed a new set of requests.

The FBI wants a Seven Year Stay on his requests.

Remember also, we are not talking about al Quaeda, we are talking about animal rights activists, folks who have not only killed fewer fewer people than Osama’s bully boys, but they have also killed fewer people than the militia movement and the anti-abortion movement.

I’d really like to see him at the helm of a well funded non-profit to continue his work once that he is done with dissertation.

We desperately need to enshrine the Swedish concept of Offentlighetsprincipen (openness) in our constitution.

Here is a video of one of his talks.

What he shows, it appears that there are no real security issues, but any close examination of their techniques and focus is pathetic and embarrassing.

This is the most common Real reason for the state security apparatus for invoking secrecy.  It’s not about protecting us, it is about covering their own asses.

Well, they Did Get Capone for Tax Evasion

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So I am amused that AT&T might be liable for violation of telemarketing rules over its data sharing with the CIA:

It’s like getting Al Capone for tax evasion. The CIA and AT&T figured out how to get around legal restrictions on giving the CIA access to domestic phone call information, but in doing so they violated a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule that protects you against telemarketing.

According to this story in the New York Times, the CIA paid AT&T to provide them with information on calls passing through its international telephone system. Because federal law prevents the CIA from spying inside the United States, the CIA could not legally get info on calls terminating in the U.S. But, of course, calls from suspected foreign terrorists (aka “anyone outside the United States”) that terminate in the United States are the most interesting to the CIA.

So what’cha gonna do if you’re a poor spy agency or a patriotic mega-corp who understand that sometimes you have to break few privacy eggs to make a freedom omelet? According to the article, when a call originated or terminated in the United States, AT&T would “mask” the person’s identity by revealing only some of the digits of their phone number. The CIA could then refer this information to the FBI, which can get a court order and require AT&T to provide the rest of the phone number and all other relevant identifying information. Then the FBI can kick that information back to the CIA.

Unfortunately for the CIA and AT&T, while this might work to get around the limits Congress imposed on the CIA, it looks like it violates the law requiring phone companies like AT&T to protect your privacy. Section 222 of the Communications Act, also known as the rule on “customer proprietary network information” (CPNI), prohibits AT&T from selling anyone information on who you call or who calls you without your consent. Nor does this contract with the CIA fit into any of the law’s exemptions for information sharing. This is a private contract, just the same as if AT&T had contracted with Blue Cross to let them know if anyone Blue Cross insured sent out too many times for pizza and other unhealthy food.

The fact that AT&T did not fully disclose the full phone number or the name of the subscriber associated with the call does not make it any less of a violation. Under the law, AT&T violates the CPNI rules just by looking at any records associated with the phone number for any purpose other than actually providing service, billing, 9-1-1, or other exemptions found in the statute. The phone company doesn’t even have to disclose the information to anyone else (which, of course, it did, and which, of course, is also illegal) to violate the law.

If you have AT&T, you might want to call them and opt out of this program, which is your right under federal regulations.

Better yet, get a lawyer, and get a class action on.