Partisanship Over Spying On Journalists Is Stupid: Spying On Journalists Is Bad, Period

from the stupid-partisans dept

I've said many times before that I'm not a member of any political party, nor a fan of partisanship in general, and that means most political parties are a ridiculous concept to me, because they're more focused on "beating the other guy" than doing what's right. This often becomes quite clear when power shifts from one party to the other, and people who used to complain about too much power in the executive suddenly want more power for "their guy" or vice versa. The latest example of this on display can be seen in the partisan response to the DOJ spying on AP reporters.

On the Republican side, politicians are reasonably up in arms about this, but they seem to ignore that when "their guy" was in the Oval Office, they were very much in favor of having the DOJ sift through reporters' emails. On the Democratic side, you have groups like Media Matters, ridiculously destroying its own credibility by coming out with talking points about how the DOJ did the right thing in spying on reporters. Basically, it's all about "defend your guy / attack the other guy" no matter what the situation is. This obviously isn't true across the board -- there certainly have been some party members "crossing lines" to express horror at this kind of surveillance.

Frankly, this kind of partisanship is part of why so few people trust Congress. It seems like a pretty clear case of what's good and right, and spying on journalists' communications is generally considered not right. A principled stance would be to oppose that, no matter which party is in power. When positions are staked out clearly based on partisanship, the public loses whatever little trust it has that the government has its best interests in mind.

Filed Under: journalism, partisanship, politics, spying, surveillance, wiretaps

Want To Destroy Any Hope Of Serious Cybersecurity? Give The DOJ Its Desired Backdoor Wiretaps On All Communications

from the stupid-ideas dept

The Obama administration has supposedly been "considering" the latest version of the DOJ's plan to require backdoor wiretapping abilities in any form of digital communication. If you don't recall, the FBI asks for this basically every year. The latest version would lead to fines for any company that doesn't build in a backdoor wiretapping ability. We've been pointing out for quite some time that putting in such backdoors only makes us all less safe, because those with malicious intent will find and use those backdoors.

A new report has been released, put together by some of the best known technologists and security experts out there, saying that the plan, as being considered would effectively undermine any cybersecurity regime. At a time when the administration and Congress keep insisting that we need better cybersecurity, to undermine it all with wiretapping backdoors would be ridiculous. And let's not even begin discussing how this would play out if it passed and number one CISPA backer Mike Rogers then became head of the FBI.

Among the report's authors are names you might recognize, like Ed Felten, Peter Neumann, Bruce Schneier and Phil Zimmerman. You can read the full report (pdf) to see all the details. As Ed Felten told the NY Times:

“It’s a single point in the system through which all of the content can be collected if they can manage to activate it,” said Edward W. Felten, a computer science professor at Princeton and one of the authors of the report... “That’s a security vulnerability waiting to happen, as if we needed more,” he said.

Once again, all of this suggests that the efforts around "cybersecurity" have always been more of a cover story to try to make it easier for law enforcement to access data, rather than any legitimate effort at improving security.

Filed Under: backdoors, bruce schneier, cybersecurity, doj, ed felten, fbi, mike rogers, peter neumann, phil zimmerman, wiretaps

How The FBI's Desire To Wiretap Every New Technology Makes Us Less Safe

from the can-you-hear-me-now? dept

Here they go again. Every year or so we end up writing about the FBI's desire for better wiretapping capabilities for new technologies, such as Skype. Basically, the FBI argues that because "bad guys" might use those tools to communicate in secret, they need backdoors to make sure that they can keep tabs on the bad guys.

But they're forgetting something: the FBI isn't necessarily the only one who will get access to those backdoors. In fact, by requiring backdoors to enable surveillance on all sorts of systems, the FBI is almost guaranteeing that the bad guys will use those backdoors for their own nefarious purposes. It's not security, it's anti-security.

This is why claims by the feds that we need cybersecurity legislation, like CISPA or the Cybersecurity Act, ring hollow. If they really wanted more protected networks, they wouldn't keep asking for specific security holes to be explicitly added to those networks.

Two decades ago, the FBI complained it was having trouble tapping the then-latest cellphones and digital telephone switches. After extensive FBI lobbying, Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) in 1994, mandating that all telephone switches include FBI-approved wiretapping capabilities.

CALEA was justifiably controversial, not least because its requirement for “backdoors” across our communications infrastructure seemed like a security nightmare: How could we keep criminals and foreign spies from exploiting weaknesses in the new wiretapping features? Would we even be able to detect them when they did?

Those fears were soon borne out. In 2004, a mysterious someone — the case was never solved — hacked the wiretap backdoors of a Greek cellular switch to listen in on senior government officials … including the prime minister.

Think this could only happen abroad? Some years ago, the U.S. National Security Agency discovered that every telephone switch for sale to the Department of Defense had security vulnerabilities in their mandated wiretap implementations. Every. Single. One.

Somehow, the FBI always thinks that if there are backdoors, only it will use them. That is extreme wishful thinking.

Filed Under: backdoors, fbi, hacking, privacy, wiretaps

NYTimes Sues The Federal Government For Refusing To Reveal Its Secret Interpretation Of The PATRIOT Act

from the secret-laws-and-secret-interpretations dept

We've been covering for a while now how Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have been very concerned over the secret interpretation the feds have of one piece of the PATRIOT Act. They've been trying to pressure the government into publicly explaining how they interpret the law, because they believe that it directly contrasts how most of the public (and many elected officials) believe the feds are interpreting the law. While the two Senators continue to put pressure on the feds and to hint at the feds' interpretation, just the fact that the government won't even explain its own interpretation of the law seems ridiculous.

Given all of this, reporter Charlie Savage of the NY Times filed a Freedom of Information Act request to find out the federal government's interpretation of its own law... and had it refused. According to the federal government, its own interpretation of the law is classified. What sort of democracy are we living in when the government can refuse to even say how it's interpreting its own law? That's not democracy at all.

Julian Sanchez points us to the news that Savage and the NY Times have now sued the federal government for not revealing its interpretation of the PATRIOT Act, pointing out that if parts of the interpretation contain classified material, the Justice Department should black that out and reveal the rest, but simply refusing to reveal the interpretation entirely is a violation of the Freedom of Information Act. You can bet that the feds will do everything they can to get out of this lawsuit, just as they did with the various lawsuits concerning warrantless wiretapping. Here's hoping the court systems don't let them. No matter what you think of this administration (or the last one) and how it's handling the threat of terrorism, I'm curious how anyone can make the argument that the US government should not reveal how it interprets the very laws under which it's required to operate.

Filed Under: charlie savage, doj, extension, freedom of information, mark udall, oversight, patriot act, ron wyden, secret interpretation, wiretaps

Senators Reveal That Feds Have Secretly Reinterpreted The PATRIOT Act

from the this-is-a-problem dept

We had mentioned, briefly, the amendment that Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall had tried to push for with relation to the renewal of controversial provisions of the PATRIOT Act, however didn't spend much time discussing it. The details are important -- even if we can't know what most of them are. Basically, what becomes clear is that both Senators -- who are on the Senate Intelligence Committee -- are aware of the fact that the feds have interpreted the PATRIOT Act provisions much more broadly than the wording suggests, but they've kept this interpretation secret. In other words, though the law says one thing, the federal government has announced internally that it's "interpreting it" an entirely different way, but it's kept that interpretation secret. The speculation is that these provisions are being massively abused for widespread warrantless wiretapping.

In an interview with Wired, Wyden makes the point clear:

“We’re getting to a gap between what the public thinks the law says and what the American government secretly thinks the law says."

He notes that he has no problem with keeping the techniques the feds use secret, but the interpretation should be public, and that's what their amendment is about.

And it's not just the public that's having the wool pulled over their eyes. Wyden and Udall are pointing out that the very members of Congress, who are voting to extend these provisions, do not know how the feds are interpreting them:

As members of the Senate Intelligence Committee we have been provided with the executive branch's classified interpretation of those provisions and can tell you that we believe there is a significant discrepancy between what most people - including many Members of Congress - think the Patriot Act allows the government to do and what government officials secretly believe the Patriot Act allows them to do.

Legal scholars, law professors, advocacy groups, and the Congressional Research Service have all written interpretations of the Patriot Act and Americans can read any of these interpretations and decide whether they support or agree with them. But by far the most important interpretation of what the law means is the official interpretation used by the U.S. government and this interpretation is - stunningly -classified.

What does this mean? It means that Congress and the public are prevented from having an informed, open debate on the Patriot Act because the official meaning of the law itself is secret. Most members of Congress have not even seen the secret legal interpretations that the executive branch is currently relying on and do not have any staff who are cleared to read them. Even if these members come down to the Intelligence Committee and read these interpretations themselves, they cannot openly debate them on the floor without violating classification rules.

In the understatement of the year, Wyden and Udall state "this is not acceptable." I think it goes beyond unacceptable. It's downright scary. That Congress is about to rubberstamp the extension of the law when they think it says one thing, while the feds pretend it says something entirely different, is a travesty.

Filed Under: extension, mark udall, oversight, patriot act, ron wyden, wiretaps

Congress Just Sold You Out: Leadership Plans To Extend Patriot Act For Four Years With NO Concessions

from the oh-come-on dept

As we've discussed, there were some very questionable provisions in the Patriot Act which were set to expire last year, but got extended, officially to allow time for debate. There was none, and when the extension was set to expire, Congress extended the clauses again for 90 days, supposedly to debate them. There were some superficial discussions, but the end result is what many people knew would happen anyway: the provisions are going to be extended for four years, with no concessions or greater oversight. Not only that, but the leadership from both major parties, who have agreed to this "deal," want to pass it with little or no debate:

The deal between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner calls for a vote before May 27, when parts of the current act expire, according to officials in both parties who spoke on condition of anonymity. The idea is to pass the extension with as little debate as possible to avoid a protracted and familiar argument over the expanded power the law gives to the government.

So, let's see. The government grants itself the power to abuse the 4th Amendment and spy on people with little oversight, and it would prefer that there not be any debate over this, because pesky people might raise the fact that this is wide open for abuse, and the senators don't want to have to talk about that.

Filed Under: extension, oversight, patriot act, wiretaps

FBI: Customers Might Sue If They Knew Companies Were Helping With Wiretaps

from the uh...-isn't-that-the-point? dept

It's really quite stunning to see how the government justifies its overreaching efforts into citizens' privacy. The latest example comes from the ACLU, which found a gem in the heavily redacted documents it retrieved via the Freedom of Information Act in seeking info about the warrantless wiretapping program. One bit of information they found has the FBI saying it thinks the public should not know about companies that are helping the feds with warrantless wiretapping because (*gasp*) people might sue about their rights being violated:

"Specifically, these businesses would be substantially harmed if their customers knew that they were furnishing information to the FBI. The stigma of working with the FBI would cause customers to cancel the companies' services and file civil actions to prevent further disclosure of subscriber info."

Yes, that's the FBI saying that it shouldn't be forced to say who's violating their rights, because people might get upset that their rights are being violated and sue. And that's bad for business. This is a justification for secretly spying on people without a warrant? That people would get upset and sue? Once again, the feds seem to be arguing that the law should be whatever is most convenient for them, rather than about what most protects the rights of citizens against over-intrusive behavior by the government.

Filed Under: fbi, privacy, wiretaps

It's Back: FBI Announcing Desire To Wiretap The Internet

from the but-do-they-really-need-it? dept

Last fall it came out that the feds were going to push for a law that would require wiretap backdoors in all forms of internet communications. As many people pointed out at the time, there are all sorts of reasons why this is a very bad idea, starting with the fact that putting such backdoors into all forms of communication will certainly lead to them being abused. And, when we say "abused," we don't just mean by the feds -- who have a long history of illegally abusing surveillance powers -- but by others as well. If the feds really think that only they will have true access to these backdoors, they're a lot more naive than we thought. This is a catastrophe in waiting.

Either way, it appears that the geniuses over at the Justice Department and the FBI don't seem to care. Despite plenty of people raising these concerns, it's still going forward with a push for such laws. The plan that will be pushed would require any technology provider to offer up a way for law enforcement to spy on "Web-based e-mail, social networking sites, and peer-to-peer communications technology." Of course, the feds already have subpoena powers to get email and social networking info, when appropriate. And, as Kevin Bankston points out in the article linked above, the FBI demanded and received wiretapping abilities over such things a few years ago -- but hasn't explained why that wasn't sufficient. Either way, it's the P2P part that's really questionable, because basically they're asking for a way to wiretap encrypted voice systems like Skype.

What's stunning to me is that the feds don't even seem to consider the inevitable unintended consequences of forcing such wiretapping backdoors into these forms of communications. Such backdoors will almost certainly be hacked by those with malicious intent. If the feds thought Wikileaks and groups like Anonymous were troubling now, just wait until they can also record and listen to a growing number of voice calls.

And, for those who support these kinds of wiretaps, claiming that without them the FBI will "have no way to know" what these people are talking about, that's a bogus complaint. There are all sorts of other ways to figure out what people are doing. It's called basic detective work, and it's what our law enforcement folks are supposed to be doing. Just because it sometimes takes work is no reason to throw our basic privacy rights out the window.

Filed Under: backdoors, fbi, privacy, surveillance, wiretaps

Once Again, Feds Found To Be Abusing Surveillance Procedures With Little Oversight

from the feeling-safer? dept

Every few months it seems that yet another report comes out saying that the various intelligence agencies have abused their powers to spy on people with little (or no) oversight. The latest such report, released thanks to a court battle by the ACLU explains (in heavily redacted terms) that there are still widespread abuses of the process of wiretapping people under the FISA law (though, it may not be quite as bad as in the past). Of course, the specific details are all redacted.

Separately, a Freedom of Information request by Chris Soghoian has turned up how the feds now regularly are tracking real-time info such as credit card transactions (as you make them) without first getting a court order. Apparently, the Justice Department is allowing agents to write their own subpoenas, and the only role a judge plays is in ordering that the surveillance not be disclosed. Once that happens, credit card companies, mobile operators, rental car companies and even retail stores with loyalty cards end up giving the government a direct, real-time feed. So, yes, the government may know about that giant bag of nacho chips you bought at Costco before you even make it home. Obviously, there may be good reasons for the government to want real-time info on certain people that they're watching but doesn't it seem a bit strange to avoid having to go to a judge and proving probable cause before being allowed to get that kind of info?

Filed Under: oversight, privacy, real time, surveillance, warrants, wiretaps

Why Do We Need Warrantless Wiretapping If Not A Single Wiretap Warrant Request Gets Rejected?

from the oversight? dept

While the government continues to defend its warrantless wiretapping program -- despite it being found illegal and prone to serious privacy violations -- the latest report on official wiretaps that did receive a warrant shows not only that they were way up in 2009, but that not a single request for a warrant to wiretap was turned down. Not a single one. Now, admittedly, these are different types of wiretaps: by the police, mostly for drug cases, rather than the feds for terrorism cases. But it does suggest that the judicial system is pretty open to approving wiretap requests, and still makes us wonder why the government keeps insisting that actually getting a warrant -- as is required by the law -- is too much to ask in many cases.

Filed Under: warrantless wiretapping, wiretaps