It extends wiretapping further than I would like, but it requires at least some court review, and has no Telco immunity.
It looks like it will pass, the rule for the bill just passed, largely on party lines 224-192.
Category: Intelligence
Attorney General Calls for Veto if no Telco Immunity
Pat Leahy has an ammendment stripping out the telco immunity from the FISA update. Michael Mukasey and DNI Michael McConnell, who believes that any discussion of intelligence will kill us all, have authored a letter to the Juciciary committee opposing the change:
“We strongly oppose the proposed substitute amendment. If the substitute is part of a bill that is presented to the president, we and the president’s other senior advisers will recommend that he veto the bill.
Who the hell cares if Bush vetos this bill?
If nothing gets passed, we go back to the old law, and the old restrictions, in a few months.
Mukasey Restarts Warrantless Wiretap Inquiry at DoJ
I’m pleasantly surprised. Bush is screwed. He wanted this guy, he threw a tantrum over it, and now he has him, and it appears that he will actually do his job with this.
Hopefully he fries the lizards, including the pukes at AT&T, who did this, but I’m fearing that this is just an attempt to forestall a congressional investigation by creating an ongoing DoJ one.
Here is hoping that the pleasant surprise continues.
Another Specter Weasel
Of course, the Very Serious People™ are claiming that it’s a compromise, but it’s a weasel.
You see, his “compromise” would make the Federal Government, as opposed to the telcos, the defendants. This allows for wholesale classification, foot dragging, sovereign immunity, and all the other tricks which would guarantee that nothing would come out.
Seriously, this sort of crap is why our government is so f*^%ed up.
AT&T/NSA Hoovered the Entire Bloody Internet
Mark Klein is an American hero.
For those of you who don’t know, Mark Klein is a retired technician at AT&T, and he was responsible for running wires to a splitter for the benefit of Room 641A of 611 Folsom Street, the secret room set up by the NSA at AT&T’s offices in San Francisco. He is Now lobbying congress not to grant retroactive immunity to the Telcos over the illegal NSA spying.
“That was my ‘aha!’ moment,” Klein said. “They’re sending the entire Internet to the secret room.”
The diagram showed splitters, glass prisms that split signals from each network into two identical copies. One fed into the secret room, the other proceeded to its destination, he said.
“This splitter was sweeping up everything, vacuum-cleaner-style,” he said. “The NSA is getting everything. These are major pipes that carry not just AT&T’s customers but everybody’s.”
The illegal wiretapping that most telcos did on behalf of the NSA was far more extensive than previously revealed.
This was not targeted at foreign calls routed through the US. Nor was it calls where one party was overseas. The NSA is actively collecting ALL THE DATA going through AT&T internet exchange point. Everything. Every email, every google query, every music download, every IP telephone call (and BTW, pretty much all long distance telephone calls at some point use TCP/IP these days.)
They took everything.
The telcos are claiming that they need immunity, because they were just being good citizens, and that they were not clear on the law.
There is one problem with argument, as Mr. Klein noted on Olbermann, THESE ENTITIES WROTE THE LAWS INVOLVED. They were heavily involved in drafting the laws at every step of the way.
They knowingly broke the laws, and they did because they saw the example of Qwest, where the government retaliated by denying and pulling contracts, and they chose to break the law because it was profitable.
AT&T Created a Language to Do Mass Surveillance
Seriously, if there is a group of people with their tongues more firmly up the rectum of the state security apparatus than AT&T, I would surprised.
They have gone so far as inventing a purpose built language for mass-surveillance. I’ve said it a number of times, don’t use AT&T, they suck wet farts from dead pigeons.
According the article, this was originally developed to find sales leads, and it was developed well before 911. They want to hoover all of our data, and sell it to the highest bidder.
Here is a sort of a schematic of its function:
Here is some sample code:
#include “ipRec.hh”
#include “ihash.h”hash_table *ofInterest;
int inSet (ipPacket_t * p)
{
if (hash_get (ofInterest, p->source.hash_value) == 1)
return 1;
if (hash_get (ofInterest, p->dest.hash_value) == 1)
return 1;
return 0;
}
void sig_main (ipAddr_s addrs < l:>,
ipPacket_s packets < p:>)
{
/* code to set up hash table */
ofInterest = hash_empty ();
iterate
(over addrs) {
event (ipAddr_t * addr) {
if (hash_insert (ofInterest, addr->hash_value, 1) < 0)
}
}
/* code to select packets */
iterate
(over packets
filteredby inSet)
{
event (ipPacket_t * p)
{
printPacketInfo (p);
}
};
}
Well Knock Me Over With a Halibut, Steny Hoyer Stands Up Against Telco Immunity
I’m pleasantly surprised, as he tends to be one of the guys who goes along, though his district is quite safe, butyesterday, he gave a very strong speech against Bush’s Telco immunity.
“Finally, this legislation is silent on the issue of retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that possibly violated privacy laws in turning over consumer information – because Congress does not have full access to information about what the companies did.
“Simply stated, it would be grossly irresponsible for Congress to grant blanket immunity for companies without even knowing whether their conduct was legal or not. And, importantly, this view is shared by the Chairman and Ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“Until we understand what legal authorities were used to justify the terrorist surveillance program, there does not appear to be any practicable way to include retroactive immunity in this bill.”
As always, with all Democrats, I hope that he sticks to his guns.
Obama Clarifies, He is Against ANY Telco Immunity
After Senator Chris Dodd announced his intention to filibuster any bill with Telco immunity, Senators Clinton and Obama announced that they support a filibuster of THE BILL that came from the Senate intelligence committee.
These are, of course, weasel words. It has to go through some more committees, Judiciary comes to mind, and it is inconceivable that it would do so without so much as a comma changed, so they were free to support the final product.
While Clinton has not clarified, Obama has now made it clear that
he will support a filibuster of ANY bill with telco immunity.
The by Bill Burton, the Obama Campaign’s spokesman:
“To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”
Biden is on board too, but Hillary is still using weasel words?
Bush Admin Only Releases Wiretap Docs to Amnesty Supporters
It appears now that Bush and His Evil Minions™ are demanding that anyone who gets to see the domestic sypying documents approve Telco immunity. They only gave docs to the Senate Intelligence committee after arranging a quid pro quo.
The Judiciary committee, particularly Leahy and Spector, are rightly calling bullsh%$ on this.
Someone needs to stand up to Bush and to tell him to pound sand.
While you are at it, go to my Act Blue page (upper right hand corner), and give Chris Dodd some love. Maybe that will convince the Senate Dems that being a fighting liberal is a political win.
Dodd to Filibuster
Well, it looks like Reid will ignore Dodd’s hold, so the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut is promising an honest to God filibuster if Reid ignores the hold.
Go to the Act Blue box on the right hand side of the blog, and show him some love.
Note that the Act Blue Box is not an endorsement, just a note that I’m inclined towards them, hence multiple candidates for the same office are listes.
BTW, here is the Doddster on video talking about the filibuster:
Senate Fisa Bill Worse Than You Thought
You will never know why your lawsuit was dismissed at the sayso of the Attorney General.
No court, not even the FISA court, involved at all.
Chris Dodd Is Now Number 2 On My Dem Candidates List
As you are no doubt aware, the Senate caved to Bush and His Evil Minions™ on indemnifying the telcos.
The Honorable Christopher Dodd (D-CT) has put a hold on the bill.
As I have said before, this amnesty is about covering up the fact that Bush used the telcos to spy on his political opponents.
Any Senator in the race who does not do all they can to strike this provision (yes, that means signing on to a filibuster) will not get my vote for President, that means you, Clinton, Biden, and Obama.
For Senator Obama it means showing up for the votes and taking a stand. I know that you are running for president, but it seems that you are dodging these votes.
As to why Dodd is #2 on my list, behind Edwards, while is he is great on non-economic interests, I think that he is not as good on non-economic issues, particularly those dealing with Wall Street, though considering that 1/3 of Wall Street lives in Southern Connecticut, I’m not surprised.
White House to Give Senate Intel Committee SOME Surveillance Program Documents
Well, it appears that the White House willgive the Senate Intelligence Committee SOME documents from their surveillance program. It appears that the Democrats saying that there would be no retroactive surveillance got Bush and His Evil Minions™ to back down.
The question is why such a paranoid and secrecy obsessed group of people would cave over the possibility of some telephone companies being in legal jeopardy.
The only conclusion is that Bush and his people are concerned that the telcos will cut a deal, with disclosure of what they did, and who they targeted, and that this would do profound damage to Bush.
Let’s connect the dots:
- Former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio said that he was asked to participate in this surveillance program on February 27, 2001, almost 7 months before 911.
- The Bush Administration was largely unconcerned about terrorism prior to 911, Condi Rice going as far as saying that the real area of concern would be a resurgent Russia asserting itself on the world stage*.
- We have the 911 commission report confirming that the political appointees in the Bush Admin were unconcerned with terrorism.
- We have a large number of former Bush administration officials, starting with John Dilulio, who have said that there was no policy apparatus in the whitehouse, just a political one, and that all decisions were made on the basis of political expediency.
So there is no reason for such a program except for a surveillance fetish, and spying on political enemies.
Misusing the state security apparatus for this purpose is an impeachable offence, period, full stop.
*Nice to know that your work as head of the NSC and as Secretary of State has prevented that. Heck of a job there Condi.
An SS and a Wehrmach Side of the CIA?
That’s one of the quotes in Ken Silverstein’s Harper’s article.
Well over a year ago I reported on a brewing revolt within the CIA over the Bush Administration’s use of renditions, “enhanced interrogation” techniques (otherwise known as torture) and other tough tactics employed in the “war on terrorism.” One former official with whom I spoke at the time told me, “There are people who fear that indictments and subpoenas could be coming down, and they don’t want to get caught up in it.” This person went on to describe a split at the CIA, saying, “There’s an SS group within the agency that’s willing to do anything and there’s a Wehrmacht group that is saying, ‘I’m not gonna touch this stuff’.”
Since then, it’s become clear that dissent within the agency on these matters has become even more intense….
He then goes on to explain Michael Hayden’s retaliatory investigation of the CIA’s inspector general, and relating the resignation of a senior CIA Lawyer over Bush’s pro torture policies.
Not only is Bush breaking the military, he’s breaking the intelligence agencies too.
Illegal NSA Wiretapping Began Before September 11
I missed the bigger story on my last post on this, because I did not pay enough attention to the time line, but this is BIG. The NSA illegal wiretapping was not a part of “post 911 thinking”, because it was not post 911!!!!
Simply put, this program was being put in place in February of 2001, this was about a month after Bush entered office, and when by all available evidence, Bush and His Evil Minions™
had no concern with, nor even an inkling about the nature of the terrorist threat.
They were looking at Saddam, or at a resurgent Russia (Cheney-Rumsfeld the former, Condi the latter). As such, they had no reason for expanded wiretap powers.
[former Qwest CEO Joe] Nacchio’s account, which places the NSA proposal at a meeting on Feb. 27, 2001, suggests that the Bush administration was seeking to enlist telecommunications firms in programs without court oversight before the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The Sept. 11 attacks have been cited by the government as the main impetus for its warrantless surveillance efforts.
There are only two possible reasons for this:
- A mindless pro-surveillance mindset in the administration combined with an opportunistic bureaucracy in the state security apparatus.
- A desire to engage in surveillance on political opponents.
My guess would be that it was a little bit of both. These are seriously bad people.
CIA Director Hayden on Jihad Against CIA Inspector General
General Haden has ordered an inquiry into the work of the CIA’s Inspector General, John L. Helgerson.
Any move by the agency’s director to examine the work of the inspector general would be unusual, if not unprecedented, and would threaten to undermine the independence of the office, some current and former officials say.
Frederick P. Hitz, who served as C.I.A. inspector general from 1990 to 1998, said he had no first-hand information about current conflicts inside the agency. But Mr. Hitz said any move by the agency’s director to examine the work of the inspector general would “not be proper.”
“I think it’s a terrible idea,” said Mr. Hitz, who now teaches at the University of Virginia. “Under the statute, the inspector general has the right to investigate the director. How can you do that and have the director turn around and investigate the I.G.?”
This is clearly an attempt to intimidate or remove the inspector general. It’s pretty much unprecedented, and it is profoundly antithetical to the most basic sort of principals of bureaucratic accountability, so it’s pretty certain that Bush and His Evil Minions™ have knowledge of and approved this.
The White House is Trying Stampede Congress Again
They just issued a warning that Al Qaeda is trying to boost efforts in U.S.
Let’s be clear there is no policy apparatus with Bush and His Evil Minions™, there is only a political one, so the only question is not whether this is true or not, that is irrelevant, but what they are trying to frighten people into supporting this time.
Democrats to Cave to Bush on Illegal Wiretaps
It looks like Bush will be getting what he wants on the wiretap bill. All reports are that the Democrats are caving.
It looks like telco indemnification is in, as is broad warrants that allow the state security apparatus to listen in to American conversations as long as the Americans are not specifically targeted.
The biggest knock that Republicans have on Democrats is that they have no guts, and now, the reports that “Many members continue to fear that if they don’t support whatever the president asks for, they’ll be perceived as soft on terrorism,” from a national security expert won’t help that.
The Democrats were elected to stop Bush, and they should realize that, particularly in this case, it’s the right thing to stop Bush, and it is to their political advantage.
The can do the right thing, and benefit politically. All they need is some guts.
Cowards.
Bush Admin Compormised Intelligence Asset for Cheap PR
SITE Intelligence Group, a small private security firm, got an advanced copy of an Osama bin Laden tape. They tipped the Bush Administration at 10:00am , on the condition that the information not be released in order to protect their sources and mentods.
By mid afternoon of September 7, the tape had been leaked to Fox News.
The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group’s communications network.
“Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless,” said Rita Katz, the firm’s 44-year-old founder, who has garnered wide attention by publicizing statements and videos from extremist chat rooms and Web sites, while attracting controversy over the secrecy of SITE’s methodology. Her firm provides intelligence about terrorist groups to a wide range of paying clients, including private firms and military and intelligence agencies from the United States and several other countries.
The precise source of the leak remains unknown. Government officials declined to be interviewed about the circumstances on the record, but they did not challenge Katz’s version of events. They also said the incident had no effect on U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts and did not diminish the government’s ability to anticipate attacks.
Except for the fact that private entities who come across this won’t share the information again, and that SITE’s operation has been more compromised than Brewster Jennings.
They burnt this company, and their intelligence methods, because the Bush administration wanted to get the lead on the news, or frighten Congress into doing what they wanted.
Evil.
This is Our Future Dystopia
Larry Magid, of Siliconvalley.com, had a dystopian vision a couple of weeks ago, September 26 to be specific.
Two things happened that day:
- Verizon refused to allow the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) to send out alerts to people who had requested them, because the content was deemed to be, “controversial or unsavory”. (They later reversed themselves)
- Pudding Media demonstrated an ad supported VOIP system, where voice recognition is used to provide ads that are appropriate to the conversation’s context.
His vision, and one that I also fear, is one where the wireless carriers, using voice recognition, choose to allow only those communications that they choose over their networks.
When it comes to the two events of Sept. 26, I worry about the misuse of technology similar to what Pudding Media is using. Not only would it be easy to provide transcripts of our calls to authorities, but all calls could be parsed in real time. Say the wrong thing and your call could be interrupted or you could get an immediate visit from some guys with guns in a big sport-utility vehicle.
Such a scenario would not be in the interest of phone companies, and it certainly wouldn’t be tolerated by civil-liberties minded Americans. But based on what I’ve seen since 9/11, I have no doubt some in government and the private sector would love to see this happen.
The mere thought of it is creepy.
It’s more than creepy. It is very, very likely. It’s like some vision of George Orwell or William Gibson, and it’s closer than most of us would like to think.
Even more than its use to arrest dissenters, is its use by folks like Bush and His Evil Minions&trade to blackmail political opponents. It’s Karl Rove’s wet dream, and it’s Verizon’s wet dream too, because they can use the tech to become the advertising conduit for everything.
If property rights for private operators trump civil rights for people, we are already 90% of the way there.
I’d scream, but I have laryngitis (really…chest cold).