NSA Program Found Unconstitutional Went On For 3 Years; Started Right After Telcos Got Immunity

from the law-breaking?-what-law-breaking? dept

A further delve into the latest NSA surveillance bombshell from the WSJ highlights the ridiculousness of the claims that there were "no violations" by the NSA over the years. We've been aware for a while that the FISC ruled a certain NSA program unconstitutional, but the details had been kept secret. It only came out that something was found unconstitutional a year ago, through the efforts of Senator Ron Wyden. Since then, people have been digging for more. The DOJ finally has agreed to release a redacted version of the FISC ruling after fighting it for a while, but as we wait, some more details have been coming out. Last week's Washington Post story about abuses claimed that this particular program wasn't reported to the FISC for "many months."

Yet, as we mentioned last night, the WSJ article claims that the program actually went on for three years:

For example, a recent Snowden document showed that the surveillance court ruled that the NSA had set up an unconstitutional collection effort. Officials say it was an unintentional mistake made in 2008 when it set filters on programs like these that monitor Internet traffic; NSA uncovered the inappropriate filtering in 2011 and reported it.

No biggie. The NSA just illegally collected information that clearly violated the 4th Amendment (even the rubberstamp FISC says so!) for three years. But there's no abuse. No sir. No problems at all.

Marcy Wheeler, however, puts two and two together, and notes that the "start" of this admitted unconstitutional spying was in 2008 -- which is exactly when the telcos received immunity from all such cases involving warrantless wiretapping. And, so, she points out the administration and various NSA defenders may actually be using an incredibly twisted level of reasoning to claim that this program that violated the 4th Amendment doesn't count as a "violation" because since the telcos have immunity, there's no one to "prosecute" for breaking the law. Under this twisted interpretation, the government grants telcos retroactive immunity on such surveillance, and can then use that immunity to pretend that everything it does is legal since the telcos can't be prosecuted. If that turns out to be true, it's downright evil.

And, you wonder why the key part of CISPA was to basically extend blanket immunity on privacy violations between not just telcos and the government, but basically all tech companies. The more immunity the government grants, the more "legal" all its actions become. It's sickening.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, fisc, immunity, nsa, nsa surveillance, oversight, surveillance, telcos, violations

Telco Astroturfing Or Elaborate Double-Reverse Sabotage Fakeout? You Decide

from the point-counterpoint dept

You may recall that we recently wrote about the likelihood of telco astroturfing on professor Susan Crawford's book, Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age. If you don't remember, Crawford's book is highly critical of the telco industry and the fact that serious broadband competition is lacking in the US and that we've fallen way behind many other countries.

The book came out in January, and around March, there was suddenly a bunch of one star reviews that started appearing that all had tell-tale signs of being fake. I spent an evening comparing the then 31 one-star reviews to the then 41 5-star reviews, noting some oddities in the one-star reviews. For example, almost none of the one-star reviewers had ever reviewed another product on Amazon, while nearly all of the 5-star reviewers had a bunch of other reviews. Most of the 1-star reviews felt the need to mention their profession and that they lived in a "rural" area for no clear reason at all. Almost none were "verified purchases" or used Amazon's Real Names program. I concluded that there was fairly strong and compelling evidence that these were astroturf reviews -- fake reviews put forth by the telco industry, their friends or lobbyists to try to drag down the star ratings of the book.

I never thought that defenders of the telcos would respond to the claims. After all, there are times when it really is best to shut up. However, it would seem that some cannot resist. Richard Bennett -- a long time apologist for the telcos' position on nearly everything -- has decided to step to the plate with an alternative theory for those obviously fake one-star reviews, and followed it up with a series of mocking tweets directed at me, claiming that I am a "poor journalist" for never even considering his alternate theory and suggesting that I would never "dare" to discuss it.

So, in the interest of "fairness," I thought I'd present the two competing theories side by side, and let the readers decide which one makes more sense. For some background, Bennett has been a long time denier of any problems with US broadband, insisting that it's been highly competitive and super fast and innovative for years and years. He works for ITIF, which was among those who fought hardest against net neutrality rules and was the "think tank" behind the original plan that turned into SOPA. When the MPAA was desperately seeking tech experts who would support SOPA, the only ones they turned up all had connections to ITIF (and weren't particularly experts on technology anyway). That gives you a hint of ITIF's standard operating procedures. More recently, Bennett co-authored a report claiming that US broadband was highly competitive and working wonderfully -- a report that was discredited thoroughly and repeatedly by a variety of experts, making it a bit of a laughing stock.

But... he's sure he knows where those one-star reviews came from. You see, as we mentioned in our original post, Bennett was among the short list of "named" reviewers of the book. As I noted, nearly all of the named reviewers were well known in DC telco policy circles, working for think tanks, like ITIF, that had a long history of repeating AT&T's talking points. I have no problem with that, because he was clearly named there, and didn't try to hide anything, and his one-star review was well written and gave a full explanation of his position. That's fine. So, here's his alternative theory, followed by my theory:

• All of those obviously faked one-star reviews -- which he admits are clearly faked -- weren't actually done by telco lobbyist/astroturfers, but rather they were done by Free Press or their supporters, an organization that has been a big supporter of Crawford's book and the view that the telcos are abusing their power and providing us substandard broadband. But, you ask (and I did!), why would an organization like Free Press who supports Crawford's work litter her Amazon book page with one-star reviews? According to Bennett, the answer is obvious to someone of his great intellect (a rarefied club to which I do not belong): it was to do two things (1) bury his own absolutely brilliant critique of Crawford's work so that potential buyers would not read it and (2) so that six months later, a complete stooge like me would come along, find the fake reviews that were really written by Free Press (again, supporters of the book) and write an article blaming those reviews on telco lobbyists.
  
  Because this is a slightly complex strategy, let me repeat it, just to be clear: Bennett is claiming that Free Press -- an organization that supports Crawford's book -- purposely sabotaged the reviews on the book's page, piling up about 25 obviously bogus one-star reviews solely to demote his own one-star review, and at the same time lead "gullible" people such as myself to pin the blame on telco shills.
  
  His evidence for this is that his own brilliant review has many "unhelpful" votes and just a few "helpful" votes, and that could only have happened because Free Press set up this complex string of dominoes, knowing that one day I would tip them over, getting the story on Reddit and having lots of people on Reddit vote down his unimpeachable critique of Crawford's duplicitous book. Or, he believes, Free Press is so frightened by the intellectual might and persuasive power of his review, that it unleashed an unruly and uninformed mob of its followers armed with blatant misinformation, to click that his review was "unhelpful."



• Or, you know, my theory: most of those one-star reviews were from telco astroturfing groups designed to pull down the star rating on the book.

I will in admit that, as Bennett suggests, I had not considered his alternative scenario, in part because I am simply not as smart as Bennett, but also (perhaps in larger part) because it sounds like the most ridiculous and convoluted strategy I've ever heard of, involving both a massive overvalued view of the important persuasive power of his own review, as well as a truly epic confusion about Amazon reviews and the process under which they work and how potential buyers view them. But, I will concede, his version is not impossible. Just completely nutty.

For what it's worth, since my original post did end up on the front page of Reddit, and got a ton of traffic, a bunch of folks added their own 5-star reviews (and one absolutely hilarious one-star parody review), which have since shifted the numbers so that there are many, many more five-star reviews on the book, many of which admit that they haven't read the book but are trying to counter the astroturf reviews. As I noted in my original story, I don't think this is particularly helpful, and Bennett now uses those reviews to argue that there is some sort of equivalence between the clearly faked astroturf reviews and the "faked" 5-star reviews.

So, there we go. Since Bennett claims that I am too gullible and stupid to see the truth, I will leave it up to the readers here to suss out which of the two theories is more plausible. Theory one, in which supporters of the book purposely sabotaged the ratings, driving down the overall star rating, just to bury Bennett's own brilliant review and get it buried with "unhelpful" votes, or the apparently facile explanation that the bogus one-star reviews came from telco astroturfers. And, of course, for Bennett's theory to be accurate, it would mean that people don't really care so much about the overall star ratings on a product as they do about how many "helpful/unhelpful" votes there are on each review -- and therefore loading up the book page with one-star reviews, just to drive people to vote Bennett's single review as "unhelpful" was the strategy. But, perhaps I'm wrong in my assumption that most people focus mainly on the star ratings, and Bennett in his vast store of knowledge has ferreted out the real plot from those nefarious consumer advocates at Free Press.

I'll leave it open for you to decide.

Filed Under: amazon reviews, astroturfing, broadband, richard bennett, susan crawford, telcos

FBI Pushing Real-Time Metadata-Harvesting 'Port Readers' On Service Providers

from the when-will-it-be-'enough'-data? dept

The FBI seems to be of the same mindset as the NSA -- it's better to have it all and not need it than to show any sense of restraint when it comes to harvesting data. Declan McCullagh at CNET has uncovered yet another surveillance program aimed at collecting vast amounts of data simply because the current legal climate allows it.

The U.S. government is quietly pressuring telecommunications providers to install eavesdropping technology deep inside companies' internal networks to facilitate surveillance efforts.

FBI officials have been sparring with carriers, a process that has on occasion included threats of contempt of court, in a bid to deploy government-provided software capable of intercepting and analyzing entire communications streams. The FBI's legal position during these discussions is that the software's real-time interception of metadata is authorized under the Patriot Act.

Attempts by the FBI to install what it internally refers to as "port reader" software, which have not been previously disclosed, were described to CNET in interviews over the last few weeks. One former government official said the software used to be known internally as the "harvesting program."

Isn't that great? Carriers don't know what effects the FBI's new toy will have on their systems and are perhaps even a little concerned that they're violating their customers' last remnants of privacy by allowing this, but turning down this "opportunity" means facing contempt charges. The situation presents only unappealing choices.

The FBI quickly responded with a statement declaring its actions to be "playing by the rules," as well as expressing its pure desire to help telecoms and service providers become better corporate citizens.

"Pen Register and Trap and Trace orders grant law enforcement the authority to collect dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information associated with a target's communications. This information includes source and destination IP addresses and port numbers. In circumstances where a provider is unable to comply with a court order utilizing its own technical solution(s), law enforcement may offer to provide technical assistance to meet the obligation of the court order."

The FBI statement specifies "pen register" and "trap and trace," but the port readers gather far more information than the limited data available to those processes.

Federal law says law enforcement may acquire only "dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information" without obtaining a wiretap. That clearly covers, for instance, the Internet Protocol address of a Web site that a targeted user is visiting. The industry-created CALEA standard also permits law enforcement to acquire timestamp information and other data.

But the FBI has configured its port reader to intercept all metadata -- including packet size, port label, and IPv6 flow data -- that exceeds what the law permits, according to one industry source.

Knowing that the FBI is harvesting much more than basic metadata calls into question the recent court decision declaring warrantless cell phone location tracking constitutional. According to the majority's argument, metadata created by phone usage is nothing more than a "business record." something that is freely available to law enforcement and intelligence agencies because it carries with it no reasonable expectation of privacy.

At what point is that "expectation" reestablished? If the court's argument holds for location data, it will likely hold for any sort of metadata created, no matter how specific it is. The same warrantless process is being used by the FBI to capture metadata on internet usage, email and phone information -- all without being challenged for privacy violations.

There's every indication that the FBI has had more metadata than pen registers/trap and trace were ever intended to harvest for quite some time now. Late last year, hackers broke into an FBI laptop which contained a .csv file full of iPhone users' data.

[The csv file contained] a list of 12,367,232 Apple iOS devices including Unique Device Identifiers (UDID), user names, name of device, type of device, Apple Push Notification Service tokens, zipcodes, cellphone numbers, addresses, etc.

Why an agent had the data of 12 million iPhone users stored on his laptop is inexplicable. According to the narrative, any "inadvertent" data gets swept into storage where it can only be "asked questions." This file dump shows the FBI isn't necessarily discarding or segregating "irrelevant" information, a problem that is only worsened by each additional form of "metadata" it scoops up.

At a bare minimum, the outdated laws applying to the limits of pen registers and trap and trace need to be updated, as does the general argument that phone users' interaction with their providers (via calls, internet usage, etc.) create nothing more than "business records." Continuing to ignore the fact that these agencies are abusing outdated laws to scoop up massive amounts of metadata on non-targeted users will only ensure this problem will get worse in the future.

Filed Under: fbi, metadata, port readers, privacy, surveillance, telcos

FISA Order To Verizon Expires Today, No One Wants To Say If It's Being Renewed

from the because-it-is dept

The very first of the Ed Snowden leaks was a FISA court order to Verizon, ordering it to hand over information on every single phone call, on an "ongoing, daily basis." That order expired on July 19, 2013. Today. It quickly came out that the FISA court has been approving nearly identical orders every 90 days for about seven years, though the defenders of the program like to use that "it's only for 90 days" excuse to suggest there's "oversight." Still, given that the existence of this effort is now actually public, plenty of people are wondering whether or not the FISA court issued the expected followup. Of course, no one who knows wants to say anything.

The Obama administration is refusing to say whether it will seek to renew a court order that permits the National Security Agency's bulk collection of phone records on millions of Verizon customers when it expires at the end of this week.

Officials declined to discuss what action they intend to take about the order at the center of the current surveillance scandal, which formally expires at 5pm Friday.

That's because it's almost certain that it's already been renewed and rubber stamped by the FISA court. The White House told Guardian reporters to ask the Justice Department. Guess where that went:

The White House referred queries to the Justice Department. "We have no announcement at this time," said Justice Department spokesman Brian Fallon. The NSA and office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to questions.

A spokesman for the Fisa court, Sheldon Snook, said the court "respectfully declines to comment".

In other words: please, please, go away and can we hope this story dies down by the time the next 90-day window rolls around?

Thankfully, some members of Congress have told the White House not to seek a renewal, but it seems unlikely that the White House will do anything, other than keep on sucking up all that data.

Filed Under: business records, fisa court, fisc, metadata, section 215, telcos
Companies: at&t, sprint, verizon

Telcos Refused To Sign On To 'Let Us Be Transparent About Surveillance' Letter

from the well-look-at-that dept

We've discussed before that, while the major tech companies have been pretty vocal about the NSA surveillance situation, the major telcos have been almost universally silent. In fact, it has since come out that AT&T and Verizon were more or less shoving each other aside to "volunteer" to hand your info over to the government. The further revelations (including some past leaks) about how AT&T and Verizon have more or less given the NSA on-premise access to all data going through their pipes suggest a level of cooperation with government that is stunning and dangerous -- especially given the market dominance held by the telcos at the internet backbone level.

We were just talking about how various tech companies have strongly asked the government for permission to be a lot more transparent, but it seems equally notable that, according to a report in the NY Times, the telcos were approached about joining on the letter and declined to participate:

While prominent Internet companies are pushing for fuller disclosure, some of the nation's largest telecommunications firms were not willing to sign on, according to several people involved in the coalition.

Gee, I wonder why? In fact, the only company on the list whose main business is internet access is the small ISP Sonic.net, who has built up its (wonderful) reputation as one of the only ISPs out there that really tries to align its business with its customers' best interests.

Meanwhile, if you're wondering what the big telcos are doing instead of pushing for this kind of necessary transparency? Apparently it's hiring incredibly powerful lobbyists, including the recently-departed FTC chairperson (and former MPAA lobbyist) Jon Leibowitz, along with former Congressional Rep. (another Hollywood favorite) Mary Bono Mack, to "lobby Congress on digital privacy policies." You think they'll be advocating for better privacy protections? Or... better protection for themselves against the privacy concerns of the public. The group isn't saying, but it's not hard to take a guess.

Tim Karr, a policy analyst at the communications watchdog group Free Press, tweeted after the coalition went public that AT&T launching a privacy coalition is like "Ted Nugent" launching "wildlife coalition."

The level of transparency demanded by the tech firms could (and should) go much further than what they're currently asking. But at least they're asking for transparency, and there's at least some evidence that some of the companies -- mainly Twitter, Yahoo! and Google -- have fought back against Government requests. When it comes to the telcos, not only is there little evidence of them pushing back against government overreach, it appears that the telcos actively volunteered to make such overreaches easier. That might explain why they're not so keen on "transparency." Having to reveal numbers like "number of users impacted: all of them" probably won't go over well. Somehow, I doubt their massive new "digital privacy" lobbying effort will seek to improve this situation.

Filed Under: nsa surveillance, privacy, surveillance, telcos, transparency

Telcos 'Volunteered' To Hand Over Data To NSA... And Got Over $100 Million For It

from the the-industrial-intelligence-complex dept

We've written a few times about the questionable nature of the "intelligence-industrial complex" in which various private companies are very tightly intertwined with the government's surveillance efforts, and are profiting handsomely from those efforts, giving everyone the incentive to play up bogus "threats" and to continually expand surveillance without oversight. Julian Sanchez has a great piece exploring some of the details on one of the more recent leaks from the Snowden files, involving the Inspector General's report looking into the original warrantless surveillance program called Stellar Wind (which was revealed years ago) by whistleblowers like Bill Binney, as well as the NY Times.

As Sanchez notes, while Stellar Wind had been talked about extensively, there were still many important details that hadn't been know that were revealed in this report, including that the program was much broader than originally reported, that President Bush almost certainly lied in public about the extent of the program, that the decision to spy on Americans came from Cheney's office (without consulting the NSA) and the actual numbers of people being spied on, both domestic and foreign (37,644 people, 3,018 of whom were Americans -- though that only counts the "targets" and not the many Americans they likely emailed with or called, whose communications were also intercepted).

But perhaps the most interesting is the role of the telcos. As Sanchez notes, it would appear that AT&T and Verizon actively "volunteered" to hand over data to the government... and then proceeded to make over $100 million dollars as the government paid for this "voluntary" dismantling of the privacy of their customers.

After the attacks of September 11, 2001—but before President Bush authorized the program that would become STELLAR WIND on October 4—two major telecommunications companies approached the NSA to volunteer their assistance. Though they’re identified only as “COMPANY A” and “COMPANY B” in the reports, experts agree that they are almost certainly AT&T and Verizon. One of them, COMPANY B, had even done some of its own freelance intelligence work: it told the NSA that it had “noticed odd patterns in domestic calling records surrounding the events of 11 September and offered call records and analysis."

Then again, perhaps “volunteer” isn’t quite the right word. The report tallies the costs of the program, which came to a bit more than $146 million over fiscal years 2002–2006. But only about $44 million of that went to the software and hardware infrastructure needed to sift through all that data. By far the biggest expense category—accounting for the other $102 million in outlays—was the “metadata and content” itself, an apparent reference to payments to the participating telecoms.

It remains telling that AT&T and Verizon have remained almost entirely silent about all of this, as various other companies mentioned in much more limited programs, have been pretty vocal about things.

Filed Under: data, intelligence industrial complex, nsa, nsa surveillance, privacy, telcos, volunteering
Companies: at&t, verizon

Hear That Deafening Silence From AT&T And Verizon About NSA Surveillance?

from the yup,-thought-so dept

As the various details have come out about the NSA leaks, many people are focused on PRISM, but it's pretty clear that the really big revelation so far was in how the telcos -- Verizon and AT&T being the big ones -- have continued to cooperate closely with the government, more or less handing over all their data to the NSA. That had already been alleged years ago, by AT&T technician Mark Klein, but many in the public and the press had ignored that until the leaks last week revealed the FISA Court's order to Verizon, demanding all records. Declan McCullagh, over at News.com, is pointing out a key point: while the tech companies have loudly denied handing over tons of data to the feds, notice that AT&T and Verizon have remained silent.

The Internet companies have asked Attorney General Eric Holder to lift secrecy restrictions on 702 orders so they can clear their name, in part by disclosing how many records they have turned over in response to legal process. Google sent an open letter to Holder yesterday, and Facebook and Microsoft have also asked the Justice Department for permission to divulge summary statistics. Holder has not responded.

By contrast, AT&T never asked for permission to disclose NSA surveillance. Instead, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Carl Nichols said during a 2006 court hearing in San Francisco that a discussion of all the "facts" about NSA surveillance could only happen in a classified setting. The Bush administration asked that the case be tossed out on "state secrets" grounds.

Neither did Verizon, which has secretly turned over daily logs of all customers' phone calls to the NSA, according to a court order that the Guardian published last week. When USA Today disclosed in 2006 that NSA was vacuuming up phone logs, Verizon didn't deny it. Instead, a spokesman told the newspaper only that "we do not comment on national security matters."

Now, perhaps it's reasonable to question whether or not the statements from the internet companies are completely accurate, but they've been increasingly specific in their denials. On the flip side, the telcos haven't issued any denials at all, and, given the evidence that Klein presented seven years ago, you can see why they might not have grounds to issue a denial. The remaining silence, however, speaks volumes.

Filed Under: nsa, nsa surveillance, telcos
Companies: at&t, verizon

Whatever Happened To The Exaflood?

from the gone-baby-gone dept

If you remember, about five years ago, a bunch of astroturfing and front groups for the broadband companies started spreading this myth that the internet was facing a catastrophe known as the the exaflood, in which internet traffic would swamp capacity and the internet would sputter to a crawl. They talked about things like "brown outs" where so much traffic would make the internet difficult to navigate. Of course, it was all FUD and scare tactics to hide the real intent: to allow the telcos to put more tollbooths on the internet, to double charge some popular internet companies, and to generally try to avoid investing in basic infrastructure. Of course, it was easy to debunk those claims, but five years later, Broadband Reports takes a look at some of the latest data to note that the feared exaflood never showed up, and the predictions of clogged pipes never appeared -- and the data on internet growth shows little likelihood of that ever happening.

Cisco's latest numbers are an ever further cry from what telecom sector lobbyists and think tankers were predicting in 2010 and before, when they were using a looming "exaflood" to scare regulators and the press and public into buying into bad telecom policy. Companies like Nemertes Research and The Discovery Institute (the latter a PR firm paid directly by carriers, the former long accused of having a rather cozy relationship with AT&T) insisted we'd be seeing Internet "brown outs" by this point courtesy of unsustainable growth rates of up to 100% or more.

The scary predictions were effective. Said lobbyists, think tankers, astroturfers and "fauxcademics" convinced many people that if the telecom industry wasn't given "X" (X being anything from fewer consumer protections and more subsidies to the right to bill by the byte or avoid network neutrality rules), that the Internet would collapse. That obviously never happened and intelligent engineers and networks adjusted, but few of the people who massaged data for their own financial ends over the last five to eight years were ever really held accountable.

Of course, there's always more fear and FUD to go around, so expect plenty more stories about looming problems if we don't give the big broadband guys whatever anti-competitive thing that they want going forward...

Filed Under: broadband, exaflood, fud, hype, telcos

Facebook Backs Away Quietly From Its CISPA Support

from the good-for-them dept

Many in the internet community were disappointed a year ago when Facebook came out in favor of CISPA. Facebook made its case publicly, agreeing that there were some privacy and civil liberties concerns with the bill, but that on the whole the bill was good. Of course, more cynical people might point out that since the general immunity provisions of CISPA would protect Facebook from liability in sharing info with the government, that of course they'd like it. However, it appears that Facebook is reconsidering that position, perhaps aware of how much public opposition there is to CISPA. Facebook is no longer listed as a CISPA supporter, though it also has not come out directly against the bill. Instead, it issued a statement that says basically nothing:

We are encouraged by the continued attention of Congress to this important issue and we look forward to working with both the House and the Senate to find a legislative balance that promotes government sharing of cyberthreat information with the private sector while also ensuring the privacy of our users.

Still, it's encouraging that a company, like Facebook, which really does rely on the support of their userbase, appears to at least recognize that something like CISPA might not be good for its users. In fact, this seems similar to when Microsoft backed away from its CISPA support last year as well. The article linked above notes that Microsoft still feels the same way, citing the concerns about user privacy with the current draft of CISPA.

So, who is supporting CISPA? The telcos are still there, not surprisingly, as well as mostly infrastructure providers, rather than any company that has a bunch of its own internet users. So, you see IBM, Intel and Juniper Networks. But there is not a single real "internet" company in the bunch any more. Perhaps that should be a loud hint for CISPA's sponsors that the bill is not a good thing for the internet world.

Filed Under: cispa, internet, privacy, telcos
Companies: at&t, comcast, facebook, ibm, intel, juniper networks, microsoft, time warner cable, verizon

Big Telcos Love CISPA; More Immunity For Violating Our Customers Privacy?!? Sign Us Up!

from the of-course-they-like-it dept

It's well known that the big telcos and the federal government have an all-too-cozy relationship when it comes to handing over data on telco customers. This has included ignoring all the rules and going so far as handing over information based on a post-it note given to them by the FBI. The telcos general standpoint has been that they're happy to let the government reach deep into their data -- more or less adding a direct tap on all of us. Congress, however, gift-wrapped them immunity to any lawsuits from all of that kind of stuff. Still, these days, the telcos sure do like not being liable for coughing up their customer's private info to the government, so it should come as little surprise that they're practically shoving each other aside to support CISPA.

Two major trade groups, CTIA and US Telecom, each issued short statements saying that CISPA is a good thing. US Telecom claimed that the bill would make it more efficient to detect, deter and respond to cyberthreats. That would be nice if true, but no one's yet explained how that actually would work in practice. CTIA knows how to play the press, and started its press release by hyping up recent hack attacks. That CISPA likely would have done absolutely nothing to stop those attacks is conveniently ignored.

Meanwhile AT&T and Verizon each offered their own support for the bill, making it clear that protection from liability is the most important thing to them.

The telcos, of course, have nothing to lose and everything to gain from CISPA. It gives them even more freedom from liability in sharing your info, but doesn't present any specific regulatory burdens on them. Of course, shouldn't we be a lot more concerned about the views of the people whose privacy would be violated, than the views of those violating their privacy?

Filed Under: cispa, cybersecurity, immunity, information sharing, privacy, telcos
Companies: at&t, ctia, ustelecom, verizon