DOJ Helped AT&T, Others Avoid Wiretap Act, Promised Not To Charge Them If They Helped Spy On People
from the uh.... dept
Want to know one reason why the feds are so interested in giving blanket immunity to anyone who helps them spy on people? Perhaps because they're already telling companies that they have immunity if they help them spy on people. Specifically, they've issued special letters of immunity, more or less helping companies like AT&T ignore the Wiretap Act.Senior Obama administration officials have secretly authorized the interception of communications carried on portions of networks operated by AT&T and other Internet service providers, a practice that might otherwise be illegal under federal wiretapping laws.Basically, the Justice Department, at the urging of the NSA, went to various telcos and ISPs and issued secret letters which told them that if they violated the Wiretap Act, the DOJ promised them it would not prosecute. Not surprisingly, this kind of thing is not what you would generally consider legal. However, after CISPA... it would likely be more protected:
The secret legal authorization from the Justice Department originally applied to a cybersecurity pilot project in which the military monitored defense contractors' Internet links. Since then, however, the program has been expanded by President Obama to cover all critical infrastructure sectors including energy, healthcare, and finance starting June 12.
A report (PDF) published last month by the Congressional Research Service, a non-partisan arm of Congress, says the executive branch likely does not have the legal authority to authorize more widespread monitoring of communications unless Congress rewrites the law. "Such an executive action would contravene current federal laws protecting electronic communications," the report says.Apparently, the DOJ knew how problematic this was, and the CEOs of the various ISPs had indicated how worried they were about this program, but it still went forward. In secret, of course. Until now.
Because it overrides all federal and state privacy laws, including the Wiretap Act, legislation called CISPA would formally authorize the program without the government resorting to 2511 letters. In other words, if CISPA, which the U.S. House of Representatives approved last week, becomes law, any data-sharing program would be placed on a solid legal footing. AT&T, Verizon, and wireless and cable providers have all written letters endorsing CISPA.
Suddenly the emphasis on getting CISPA approved, and the attempts to frighten everyone with scare stories of what will happen without it, make a bit more sense...
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Reader Comments
The First Word
“A nation of men, not laws
“When the President does it, that means it is not illegal.”——(Former) President Richard Milhous Nixon, interview, May 20, 1977.
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Well, there goes the veto threat
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Re: Well, there goes the veto threat
it is what he has done since day one, and what he has done on nearly every issue of importance that has come along...
no divination of entrails, no clairvoyance, no complex deconstruction is necessary: ignore his pretty/petty words (like all pols) and look at what he HAS DONE...
excepting a very few social issues, he has gone king george IV one better in nearly every category...
...and yet, stupid libtard sheeple worship his every move when he is implementing a more extremist bush agenda...
you know, it *is* a good thing we elected a brother; but that is the ONLY good thing about him... the only other thing saint obomber proves, is that a black man can be just as morally bankrupt as an old, rich, white man...
from bootblack to bootlick...
i *guess* that is progress...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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Do you really think
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Re: Do you really think
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Re: Re: Do you really think
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Re: Re: Re: Do you really think
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Re: Do you really think
On the subject of Animal Farm, I think I know what this horse's name is - Boxer. With a spot of luck, maybe you'll be turned into glue and dog food.
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Re: Do you really think
1. Yes, absolutely what they're doing.
2. No, I did not shoot Kennedy.
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Care that the laws be faithfully executed.
The president shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Faithfully executed. Faithfully executed. F a i t h f u l l y executed.
What the fuck does that clause really mean, anyhow? To Obama? To any of them? To anyone?
What the fuck does that clause really mean?
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Re: Care that the laws be faithfully executed.
It means absolutely nothing.
Just like their word.
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Re: Care that the laws be faithfully executed.
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Re: Care that the laws be faithfully executed.
See they have been faithfully (full of belief) executed (eliminated).... Oh, that's not what was intended?
OOPS, Did I do that?
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Re: Care that the laws be faithfully executed.
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Do the next big thing, encrypt all your data whenever possible so they can't read it.
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Re:
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A nation of men, not laws
——(Former) President Richard Milhous Nixon, interview, May 20, 1977.
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Re: A nation of men, not laws
I think we can now see the truth behind that statement when had he been serious he would soon be down the DoJ firing those responsible and threatening to shut down the entire department if law abuse continued. Or even to go as far as suing the DoJ and these ISPs in Court.
The US Administration is a very worrying sight these days and what I most fear is a madman at the helm unleashing the full power of the USA on to their own citizens before turning to the rest of the World. Hopefully we never see that day but the US Administration is primed for some major abuse.
I have been saying for a decade that the US Government has been spying on businesses where this is only one of many examples. A good reason for organizations to flee the country or at minimum to aim for full encryption.
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Re: Re: A nation of men, not laws
Wikipedia: Saturday Night Massacre
Down at DoJ, firing those responsible. Someone got a LOLcats poster for that?
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Re: Re: Re: A nation of men, not laws
Should Obama not act then we can only conclude that he is fully happy with the DoJ pressuring ISPs to break the law.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: A nation of men, not laws
Oh, I expect Obama to act alright—I expect Obama's going to fire the people who leaked this program.
Probably prosecute the leakers under the espionage act, too.
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Injustice Department of Imperium Outrage and Tyranny and Sellouts
better known as
IDIOTS
Tell me it isn't true.
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Faithfully Execute the Law
If laws passed by the elected representatives of the people can be simply over-ruled unilaterally by whoever is in the White House, then we are no longer a free people, choosing what laws we want to live under.
When a President can ignore the plain language of duly passed laws, and substitute his own executive orders, then we no longer have "a government of laws, and not of men" but a President ruling by decree, like the dictator in some banana republic.
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Re: Faithfully Execute the Law
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Re: Faithfully Execute the Law
*BUT* (and it is a big butt), can anyone tell me exactly WHERE the so-called 'executive signing statements' fit in this 'how a bill becomes law' process ? ? ?
i've been scouring my copy of the constitution for 'executive signing statements', and i'll be gosh-durned if i can find it... (nevermind *SECRET* executive signing statements)
so -in effect- the pres actually signs a bill into law (or a veto is overidden), and the pres simply busts out a secret executive signing statement that says 'NOT!', which negates the whole law...
gee, don't tell me: some president made a secret executive signing statement which authorized secret executive signing statements having the force of law...
*snicker*
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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Telcos to DOJ: We'll be happy to assist you in violating our customers' privacy.
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"It's that pesky Wiretap Act. It makes a lot of our surveillance illegal! (which of course has not stopped us)"
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Decency, security and liberty alike demand....
——Mr Justice Brandeis, dissenting in Olmstead v United States (1928; decision overturned by Katz (1967))
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If they can
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Re: If they can
For both it's still simply a matter of not getting caught. It's the "what happens when you're caught" bit that seems disproportionally skewed.
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No surprise of course.
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Data sharing
The data gathering companies are already eavesdropping (with user's consent through the service agreement). If government got out of the security business and just handed it over to private enterprise, we'd end up with as much or more monitoring than we have now, but that would skirt some of the politics of government being involved.
I keep point out that companies want to monitor people and are already doing it. They will get their way, given the way things work in DC.
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Re: Data sharing
What's being worked out now is what happens with the data and who is protected. The companies want to continue to monitor people, save the data, and act on the data, but they want to cover themselves so that they don't get in trouble for all of this monitoring.
You will likely see laws drafted or regulations dropped to protect the companies. It's not about citizen privacy because that would kill what these data gathering and data selling companies are doing.
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Re: Data sharing
New Technology Inspires a Rethinking of Light - NYTimes.com: "Recognizing this, other companies, like the newly renamed Sensity Systems (formerly Xeralux) are reimagining lampposts as nodes in a smart network that illuminate spaces, visually monitor them, sense heat and communicate with other nodes and human monitors."
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If our World War 2 veterans knew their descendents were going to be like the enemies they risked their lives and countries to eradicate, the pro-life movement would've never existed.
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Re:
This isn't limited to phone companies. Lots of companies are compiling data. If anything, the phone companies have far less of it than other companies.
CISPA suffers setback in Senate citing privacy concerns | Politics and Law - CNET News: "The Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act, commonly known as CISPA, permits private sector companies -- including technology firms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft, among others -- to pass 'cyber threat' data, including personal user data, to the U.S. government.
"This means a company like Facebook, Twitter, Google, or any other technology or telecoms company, including your cell service provider, would be legally able to hand over vast amounts of data to the U.S. government and its law enforcement -- for whatever purpose it deems necessary -- and face no legal reprisals."
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"We the people" = "We the money"
has been a big fat LIE to the American people. They have been orchestrating this bill from the very beginning.
Your rights have just been bought by special interest groups.
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Re: "We the people" = "We the money"
Thinking that private enterprise is your friend and that government is your enemy can distract you from some of the issues. I think it might be better to make government better rather than to eliminate it and give all control over to private enterprise, which often would prefer to operate without any supervision or regulation at all.
It’s privacy versus cybersecurity as CISPA bill arrives in Senate | PCWorld: "CISPA would let private companies share data with law enforcement officials and government agencies if the data qualifies as what the bill calls 'cyber threat information' that could help solve a crime. That term’s vagueness is a big part of the privacy problem, says Jeramie Scott, national security fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. 'It uses terms like "vulnerability to a network" and "threat to the integrity of a network" in its definition that are left to the private sector to interpret,' Scott says.
Definitions covering data are vague enough to invite oversharing
"CISPA’s vagueness gives private companies a lot of wiggle room to overshare information."
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Re: Re: "We the people" = "We the money"
The goal of many Internet companies days isn't to protect you. It's to protect themselves.
They want to know as much about you as possible and to use that to their advantage. They are monitoring you as fast as the technology allows them to do so and looking for ways to profit from that. There will be monitoring devices in every home, every street corner, and on every device you carry. Not because government wants it or has the manpower to do anything with that flood of data, but because companies can make money from all of that surveillance.
These companies are interested in security ... to protect their own operations. Sometimes that means working pro-actively with government.
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Re: Re: "We the people" = "We the money"
I think it might be better to make government better rather than to eliminate it and give all control over to private enterprise, which often would prefer to operate without any supervision or regulation at all.
What I should have written:
I think it might be better to improve government rather than to eliminate it. I'm wary of a system that allows private enterprise to operate without any supervision or regulation.
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