Leaked Report Admits That Hadopi First Strike Accusations Won't Be Reviewed For Accuracy

from the accuse-away! dept

As the French "three strikes" Hadopi process begins, with tens of thousands of notices being sent out to accused file sharers (their "first strike"), things may be even more ridiculous than previously assumed. Guillaume Champeau fills us in on the details of a leaked report from the French privacy commissioner (Google translation from the original French). Basically, the privacy commissioner CNIL admits that, due to the number of notices being sent, Hadopi will simply not be able to review the accusations for accuracy, and will need to accept the claims from TMG, the company hired by the entertainment industry to accuse people. Here's Champeau's summary:

"Rights holders have been authorized in June to collect IP addresses on P2P networks, by recruiting the services of the French company TMG. It will monitor P2P networks, store the IP addresses it believes illegally shares copyrighted works, and their rights holder customers will forward the ones they want to the French HADOPI.

Early this week, an internal report by the CNIL was leaked. The CNIL is the Privacy Commissioner in France. It is the Commission which has allowed rights holders to use the TMG services and collect IP addresses.

The report says that "due to the high number of expected cases (25 000 a day at first, then 150 000 a day), it is impossible for the [right holders' agents] to check the [infringement] reports one by one. Nonetheless, the system does not have particular control procedures, for instance by sampling, which would allow an agent to detect anomalies in a collection session".

It says that "the actions of the Hadopi will be limited to accepting or denying the transmitted findings, without the ability to check them. The first steps of the "three strikes" process will therefore lay only upon the collection operated by the TMG system".

Despite these concerns, the CNIL did authorize the right holders to collect the IP addresses, and did not oppose the 3 strikes process by the Hadopi.

Read that bold part carefully. What this is saying is that despite the fact that you can be kicked off the internet based solely on accusations, not convictions, and despite all of the problems with false accusations and the fact that an IP address alone does not accurately identify an individual, and despite the fact that the massive number of notices being sent out mean that there will surely be false positives, the only people reviewing these notices to make sure they're accurate will be employed by the agent hired by the copyright holders themselves. Due process? It's dead.

Filed Under: france, hadopi, oversight, review, three strikes
Companies: tmg

White House Seeks Easier FBI Access To Internet Records, Blocks Oversight Attempt... Just As FBI Caught Cheating On Exam To Stop Abuse

from the feel-safer? dept

We're still at a loss to explain why there's been so little outrage over the fact that the FBI got a total free pass for its massive abuse in getting phone records. As you may recall, reports came out about how the FBI regularly abused the official process for obtaining phone records, avoiding any of the required oversight, but right before that info came out the White House issued a ruling saying that it was okay for the FBI to break the law. That's not how things are supposed to work.

And, it appears that since there was no outrage over all of this, the White House keeps pushing further. Three new articles highlight what a travesty this has become. First, the White House wants to quietly make it easier for the FBI to demand internet log file information without a judge's approval." Just as I finished reading that, I saw Julian Sanchez's new writeup about how the White House blocked and killed a proposal to give the GAO power to review US intelligence agencies. The GAO is the one government operation that seems to actually focus on doing what's right, rather than what's politically expedient. Sanchez notes that, beyond the sterling reputation of the GAO, it's also ready, willing and able to handle this kind of oversight:

The GAO has the capacity Congress lacks: as of last year, the office had 199 staffers cleared at the top-secret level, with 96 holding still more rarefied "sensitive compartmented information" clearances. And those cleared staff have a proven record of working to oversee highly classified Defense Department programs without generating leaks. Gen. Clapper, the prospective DNI, has testified that the GAO "held our feet to the fire" at the Pentagon with thorough analysis and constructive criticism.

Unlike the inspectors general at the various agencies--which also do vital oversight work--the GAO is directly answerable to Congress, not to the executive branch. And while it's in a position to take a broad, pangovernmental view, the GAO also hosts analysts with highly specialized economic and management expertise the IG offices lack. Unleashing GAO would be the first step in discovering what the Post couldn't: whether the billions we're pouring into building a surveillance and national security state are really making us safer.

Oh, and just to make this all more comically depressing, just as I finished reading both of these stories, I saw a story about a new investigation into reports that FBI agents were caught cheating on an exam, which was designed to get them to stop abusing surveillance tools. Yes, you read that right. After all the reports of abuse of surveillance tools, the FBI set up a series of tests to train FBI agents how to properly go about surveillance without breaking the law... and a bunch of FBI agents allegedly cheated on the test that's supposed to stop them from "cheating" on the law. And, not just a few. From the quotes, it sounds like this cheating was "widespread." But, of course, it might not matter, since the requirements for surveillance are being lowered, oversight is being blocked, and apparently the White House is willing to retroactively "legalize" any illegal surveillance anyway.

Filed Under: abuse, fbi, nsls, oversight, surveillance, white house

To Find Needles In Haystacks, US Gov't Has Built Hundreds Of New Haystacks

from the working-harder,-not-smarter dept

Lots of folks are submitting the big interactive investigative report put out by the Washington Post, detailing the massive bureaucratic mess that has become the US's anti-terrorism operations. Basically, since September 11, 2001, when the government (reasonably) agreed to devote more resources to the counter-terrorism, it's been an opportunity for both government employees and the private sector to build up giant, well-funded bureaucratic entities that have little to no oversight, and quite frequently seem to overlap with what others are doing:

In all, at least 263 organizations have been created or reorganized as a response to 9/11. Each has required more people, and those people have required more administrative and logistic support: phone operators, secretaries, librarians, architects, carpenters, construction workers, air-conditioning mechanics and, because of where they work, even janitors with top-secret clearances.

With so many more employees, units and organizations, the lines of responsibility began to blur. To remedy this, at the recommendation of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, the George W. Bush administration and Congress decided to create an agency in 2004 with overarching responsibilities called the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to bring the colossal effort under control.

While that was the idea, Washington has its own ways.

The first problem was that the law passed by Congress did not give the director clear legal or budgetary authority over intelligence matters, which meant he wouldn't have power over the individual agencies he was supposed to control.

The second problem: Even before the first director, Ambassador John D. Negroponte, was on the job, the turf battles began. The Defense Department shifted billions of dollars out of one budget and into another so that the ODNI could not touch it, according to two senior officials who watched the process. The CIA reclassified some of its most sensitive information at a higher level so the National Counterterrorism Center staff, part of the ODNI, would not be allowed to see it, said former intelligence officers involved.

The article then notes that, despite the fact that ODNI is supposed to be coordinating everything "today, many officials who work in the intelligence agencies say they remain unclear about what the ODNI is in charge of."

So, there are turf battles with little oversight and lots of focus on status symbols, rather than actually getting stuff done:

It's not only the number of buildings that suggests the size and cost of this expansion, it's also what is inside: banks of television monitors. "Escort-required" badges. X-ray machines and lockers to store cellphones and pagers. Keypad door locks that open special rooms encased in metal or permanent dry wall, impenetrable to eavesdropping tools and protected by alarms and a security force capable of responding within 15 minutes. Every one of these buildings has at least one of these rooms, known as a SCIF, for sensitive compartmented information facility. Some are as small as a closet; others are four times the size of a football field.

SCIF size has become a measure of status in Top Secret America, or at least in the Washington region of it. "In D.C., everyone talks SCIF, SCIF, SCIF," said Bruce Paquin, who moved to Florida from the Washington region several years ago to start a SCIF construction business. "They've got the penis envy thing going. You can't be a big boy unless you're a three-letter agency and you have a big SCIF."

SCIFs are not the only must-have items people pay attention to. Command centers, internal television networks, video walls, armored SUVs and personal security guards have also become the bling of national security.

"You can't find a four-star general without a security detail," said one three-star general now posted in Washington after years abroad. "Fear has caused everyone to have stuff. Then comes, 'If he has one, then I have to have one.' It's become a status symbol."

But is this working? Well, it doesn't sound like it. Rather than finding the ever important terrorist needles in the haystack, it sounds like they're just creating more and more haystacks:

In Yemen, the commandos set up a joint operations center packed with hard drives, forensic kits and communications gear. They exchanged thousands of intercepts, agent reports, photographic evidence and real-time video surveillance with dozens of top-secret organizations in the United States.

That was the system as it was intended. But when the information reached the National Counterterrorism Center in Washington for analysis, it arrived buried within the 5,000 pieces of general terrorist-related data that are reviewed each day. Analysts had to switch from database to database, from hard drive to hard drive, from screen to screen, just to locate what might be interesting to study further.

As military operations in Yemen intensified and the chatter about a possible terrorist strike increased, the intelligence agencies ramped up their effort. The flood of information into the NCTC became a torrent.

As we noted earlier this year, this is why the government missed the guy who tried to blow up a plane on Christmas day. They had all the data. But there was such a backlog, they couldn't actually piece it all together.

Oh, and beyond the fact that that this "Secret America" has hired hundreds of thousands of people doing overlapping work that just makes everything more confusing, the focus on status symbols and things like SCIFs might make you wonder who's doing the actual work. You probably don't want to know:

Among the most important people inside the SCIFs are the low-paid employees carrying their lunches to work to save money. They are the analysts, the 20- and 30-year-olds making $41,000 to $65,000 a year, whose job is at the core of everything Top Secret America tries to do....

When hired, a typical analyst knows very little about the priority countries - Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan - and is not fluent in their languages. Still, the number of intelligence reports they produce on these key countries is overwhelming, say current and former intelligence officials who try to cull them every day. The ODNI doesn't know exactly how many reports are issued each year, but in the process of trying to find out, the chief of analysis discovered 60 classified analytic Web sites still in operation that were supposed to have been closed down for lack of usefulness. "Like a zombie, it keeps on living" is how one official describes the sites.

So you have four star generals fighting over who has a bigger security detail, while a bunch of recent college grads with little experience produce the "analysis." Fantastic.

And given our recent stories about cyberwar hype, this story provides a bit more background. Cyberwar is, of course, the hot thing, so all of these different groups are all shoving each other aside to pitch themselves as cyberwar experts to get more money to garner more status symbols.

In the meantime, it's not at all clear that this deluge of information is actually making anyone safer. We've already discussed how adding more haystacks doesn't make it any easier to find the terrorist needle, but it doesn't even appear that all this "top secret" security is all that secure. In a separate story, Jim Harper points out the news of a security researcher who created a fictitious, but cute, information security woman, who used social engineering and social networking tricks to build up all sorts of connections within the security world, including top security experts, military personnel and staff at intelligence agencies and defense contractors.

Ms. Sage's connections invited her to speak at a private-sector security conference in Miami, and to review an important technical paper by a NASA researcher. Several invited her to dinner. And there were many invitations to apply for jobs.

"If I can ever be of assistance with job opportunities here at Lockheed Martin, don't hesitate to contact me, as I'm at your service," one executive at the company told her.

One soldier uploaded a picture of himself taken on patrol in Afghanistan containing embedded data revealing his exact location. A contractor with the NRO who connected with her had misconfigured his profile so that it revealed the answers to the security questions on his personal e-mail account.

"This person had a critical role in the intelligence community," Mr. Ryan said. "He was connected to key people in other agencies."

So for all this massive new security infrastructure, totally hidden from public view, it's easy to infiltrate parts of it with some cute photos of a non-existent woman. Fantastic.

Filed Under: bureaucracy, counter terrorism, oversight, washington dc

Journalism Neutrality Now! Why The Government Needs To Oversee The NY Times' Editorial Neutrality

from the bizarro-world dept

We've tried debunking the ridiculous concept of "search neutrality" a few times now. It's an invention by a few telcos who were upset that Google was supporting net neutrality rules (something I don't support). So they came up with this concept of "search neutrality" to get back at Google. But, of course, the situations are entirely different. The reason why people believe in net neutrality is because your ISP controls what you can do online. You don't have a choice. When it comes to search, not only do you have the ability to make an instant choice, but the whole point of a search engine is to "rank" results based on what it thinks is best. You can't be "neutral" because a "neutral" search is just a unranked list of links that may or may not have anything to do with what you're searching for.

But, it appears the editorial folks over at the NY Times have gotten confused by all of this, and are saying that the government should step in and ensure that Google's algorithm is "fair":

Still, the potential impact of Google's algorithm on the Internet economy is such that it is worth exploring ways to ensure that the editorial policy guiding Google's tweaks is solely intended to improve the quality of the results and not to help Google's other businesses.

Some early suggestions for how to accomplish this include having Google explain with some specified level of detail the editorial policy that guides its tweaks. Another would be to give some government commission the power to look at those tweaks.

It's difficult to think of anything more ridiculous than a news publication calling for the government to step in and review the editorial guidelines of another company. So, just as the the telcos did with Google, why not flip this around, and make the same point about the NY Times. Here's my attempt:

The potential impact of the NY Times' coverage on the world/economy/war/etc. is such that it is worth exploring ways to ensure that the editorial policy guiding the NY Times' coverage choices is solely intended to improve the quality of the world, and not to help the NY Times' or other businesses.

Some early suggestions for how to accomplish this include having the NY Times explain with some specified level of detail the editorial policy that guides its front page choices. Another would be to give some government commission the power to look at those guidelines.

How would the NY Times (or pretty much any journalist) react to that? My guess is not too kindly.

Danny Sullivan, it appears, had a similar idea and rewrote the entire NY Times article as if it were talking about the NY Times (rather than just the two paragraphs I did here). He then goes into detail on why the whole thing is bunk.

Search engines are very similar to newspapers. They have unpaid "organic" listings, where usually (though not always), a computer algorithm decides which pages should rank tops. The exact method isn't important. What's important is that those unpaid listed are the search engines' editorial content, content it has solely decided should appear based on its editorial judgment.

Search engine also have paid listings, advertisements, which aren't supposed to influence what happens on the editorial side of the house. We even have FTC guidelines ensuring proper labeling of ads and intended to protect against "advertorials" in search results.

It's a church-and-state divide with good search engines, just as it is with good newspapers.

What the New York Times has suggested is that the government should oversee the editorial judgment of a search engine. Suffice to say, the editorial staff of the New York Times would scream bloody murder if anyone suggested government oversight of its own editorial process. First it would yell that it has no bias, so oversight is unnecessary. Next it would yell even more loudly that the First Amendment of the US Constitution protects it from such US government interference.

He also points out why Google is significantly more transparent than the NY Times about its own editorial policy:

Still, shouldn't Google share more about how it creates its algorithm? Compared to the New York Times, Google's a model of transparency. Consider:

• Google will list EVERY site that applies for "coverage" unlike the New York Times, which regularly ignores potential stories
• If Google blocks a site for violating its guidelines, it alerts many of them. The New York Times alerts no one
• Google provides an entire Google Webmaster Central area with tools and tips to encourage people to show up better in Google; the New York Times offers nothing even remotely similar
• Google constantly speaks at search marketing and other events to answer questions about how they list sites and how to improve coverage; I'm pretty sure the New York Times devotes far less effort in this area
• Google is constantly giving interviews about its algorithm, such as this one in February, along with providing regular videos about its process (here's one from April) or blogging about important changes, such as when site speed was introduced as a factor earlier this year.

There's a lot more in Sullivan's piece that basically debunks pretty much every myth that people (beyond just the NY Times) are making out to be an issue about Google's "neutrality" in search. Hopefully this silly concept goes away, but I fear there are too many lobbying dollars invested in it, that folks like Sullivan are going to have plenty of opportunities to re-debunk this concept in the future.

Filed Under: editorial, journalism neutrality, neutrality, oversight, search neutrality
Companies: google, ny times

Senate Oversight Of IP Czar... Only Involves Entertainment Industry Execs

from the that's-oversight? dept

The ProIP Act added the role of the IP Enforcement Coordinator, a role that was filled by Victoria Espinel. We have been quite concerned that Espinel has viewed her role as protecting jobs in one particular industry (often at the expense of jobs and progress elsewhere) -- a concern that was not alleviated by Espinel's request for input on what she should focus on. That request made all sorts of assumptions about the impact of intellectual property infringement that were not actually supported by fact. Mike Arrington also reported recently on a meeting with Espinel where she made it clear that her role was to help the entertainment industry.

So, it's unfortunate, but hardly a surprise that the Senate's hearing on "oversight" of Espinel's work involves only people on the entertainment industry's side. The panel who will discuss Espinel's performance includes the CEO of Warner Bros., the CEO of the "Global IP Center" of the Chamber of Commerce (whose views on IP are positively neanderthal, complete with some of the most ridiculous studies), the CEO of Carlin America (a music publisher) and the president of the AFL-CIO, who has already done some horse trading to be an official representative of the RIAA's position.

Talk about regulatory capture. It's as if the Senate is admitting that the role of the IP Enforcement Coordinator is to be the entertainment industry's top cop, and her performance will be reviewed by the industry itself. The Constitution says that copyright and patents are for the purpose of "promoting the progress of science and the useful arts." But that's not what Espinel is doing. She's protecting a particular industry, often at the expense of progress. To then have her review be done by such a one-sided panel of folks -- folks who are receiving extreme benefits from her role -- is just ridiculous.

Filed Under: congress, ip enforcement, ipec, oversight, proip, victoria espinel

Once Again, The Justice Department Fails To Tell Congress About Its Wiretapping Activities, As Required By Law

from the who-watches-this-stuff dept

The Justice Department sure doesn't like oversight -- even when it's required by law. Julian Sanchez points us to the disturbing news that, despite being required by law to report to Congress each year on "the number of pen register orders and orders for trap and trace devices applied for by law enforcement agencies of the Department of Justice," it appears that for many years the Attorney General has delivered no such report. This has happened before as well. In 2004, the Justice Department dumped five years worth of reports on Congress, and it appears it did so again in 2009. Meaning that Congress did not get the interim annual reports. That would mean that for five year periods, Congress -- who is supposed to be overseeing such surveillance activity -- has not been doing its job, effectively allowing the Justice Department to do what it wants with such surveillance efforts. And, remember, this is a Justice Department that has already been found to have massively abused surveillance activity beyond what the law allows. Doesn't that make you feel safer?

Filed Under: abuse, oversight, wiretapping
Companies: congress, justice department

Sprint Revealed GPS Data To Authorities 8 Million Times In The Last Year [Updated]

from the yowzers dept

This seems too insane to be true, but the EFF points us to a report, based on a Freedom of Information Act request, that claims Sprint provided law enforcement with GPS location data a staggering 8 million times in the last year. Sprint apparently set up some sort of portal that made such requests easier, and it sounds like law enforcement took advantage of that in a major way. The report also notes that this information should have been disclosed to Congress, under a 1999 law, but the Justice Department has ignored the law for the past five years. The rest of the report also looks at some other concerning factors, such as the fact that the government seems to regularly get all sorts of info from service providers, with little oversight. On top of that, it explains why so many service providers agree to it: they charge the government for such info, and it's quite lucrative. As such, they actually have the incentive to encourage the government to ask for more information and to deliver it to them as quickly and efficiently as possible. However, you have to wonder how so many requests are being made with such little oversight -- and how often this means the process is abused to spy on individuals with no legal basis. Update: Sprint is now trying to explain this by saying that the numbers represent number of "pings" and that can include thousands of pings per a single investigation. In a single investigation, once law enforcement has a court order, it can check someone's location every 3 minutes for up to 60 days -- and that's what made the number so inflated.

Filed Under: accountability, gps data, oversight, wiretaps
Companies: sprint

Obama Administration: New State Secrets Rules = Really, You Can Trust Us

from the uh... dept

So, we keep seeing more of what the promised "transparency" of the Obama administration means in real terms. Despite campaigning against warrantless wiretapping, the administration has come out with new rules for how it will use the "state secrets" privilege that amount to "no, really, we'll only use it when we need to... just trust us" and continued to insist that evidence over warrantless wiretapping should be tossed out for state secrets reasons. And it's left up to a former comedian, now politician to remind the Justice Department of the Fourth Amendment? The "just trust us, we won't abuse the system" justification isn't particularly comforting, especially when that clause is being used to cover up what is almost certainly illegal activity by the federal government.

Filed Under: doj, oversight, state secrets, transparency, warrantless wiretaps

Domestic Wiretapping Programs Should Not Be Secret

from the oversight-needed dept

A whistle-blower reports that an unnamed wireless carrier has provided a government facility in Quantico, VA, with unfiltered access to its core network. The whistle-blower says this gives the government direct access to private information such as text messaging and call records. He doesn't name either the company or the government agency involved. But a 2006 lawsuit featuring similar allegations named Verizon Wireless as the culprit. And Threat Level says that Quantico, VA, just happens to be "the center of the FBI's electronic surveillance operations." When asked about this, a Verizon Wireless spokesman wrote "What you're talking about sounds as if it would be classified and involving national security, so I wouldn't be able to find out the facts."

The idea that ordinary domestic surveillance activities are a matter of national security, and therefore immune from public scrutiny, is both wrong-headed and malicious. I guess the idea is that we don't want to tip off the terrorists about our surveillance programs. And obviously, information about specific targets needs to be kept secret. But the terrorists have to already know that most communications channels can be intercepted. Moreover, it's just not reasonable to expect that the broad details of our government's domestic surveillance activities will remain a secret indefinitely. Despite the secrecy, we're gradually learning about the scope of these programs. If terrorists didn't know their calls were being tapped five years ago, they certainly do now.

The problem is that because details about these programs (and information about abuses) dribble out slowly over several years, Congress never has the opportunity to conduct meaningful oversight of them. For example, this week we also found out that abuse of national security letters, which was previously only reported to have occurred from 2003 to 2005, continued into 2006. Of course, the administration says they've fixed the problem and that no more NSL abuses will occur. But that's what they always say when privacy abuses are uncovered, yet new examples keep popping up. The only way the abuses will stop is if Congress rejects the idea that domestic surveillance is immune from judicial and Congressional surveillance. The Bush administration needs to disclose the exact scope of its domestic surveillance activities so that Congress can have an open, public debate about the proper scope of government spying powers.

Filed Under: federal government, oversight, secrecy, wiretaps

Senate Approves Intelligence Reform And, With It, Telecom Amnesty

from the oversight-is-for-your-phone-calls dept

The Senate has just approved controversial legislation reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, by a vote of 68–29. The bill, sponsored by Sens. Kit Bond (R-MO) and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), empowers the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General to authorize warrantless surveillance of foreign parties whose communications pass through U.S. switches, even when they are communicating with Americans. It also grants retroactive amnesty to telecom firms alleged to have illegally provided the government with access to their customers' data without a court order -- a provision some Democrats tried and failed to have stripped from the legislation earlier today.

Several other amendments that would have provided additional checks on surveillance also failed in the Senate, including language reasserting FISA's status as the "exclusive means" by which intelligence surveillance may be conducted, a provision barring indiscriminate "bulk collection" of telecom traffic, and a compromise measure that would have allowed civil suits against the telecoms to continue, but substituted the federal government as the defendant. The one victory for civil libertarians was the approval of an amendment offered by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) permitting the secret FISA court to review intelligence agencies' compliance with "minimization" rules meant to limit the retention of communications involving innocent Americans. Following a vote to invoke cloture, bringing debate on the bill to a halt and foreclosing any attempt to mount a filibuster, Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) delivered impassioned speeches condemning the legislation as an affront to both privacy and the rule of law.

The Senate bill must now be reconciled in conference with the House version, known as the RESTORE Act, which lacks the controversial immunity provision and provides for greater judicial oversight of surveillance. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is seeking to further extend the stopgap Protect America Act, which this reform bill is meant to supplant, in order to provide time to reach agreement between the two chambers.

Filed Under: fisa, intelligence, oversight, senate, telco immunity