Intelligence Director Says Gov't Can Demand Encryption Backdoors Without Having To Run It By The FISA Court

from the keeping-secrets-from-the-secret-court dept

A set of questions from Senator Ron Wyden -- directed at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence -- have finally received answers. The answers [PDF] were actually given to the Senate oversight committee in July but have just now been made public.

Zack Whittaker of ZDNet has taken a look at the answers the ODNI provided and found something that indicates the government can not only compel the creation of backdoors, but can do so without explicit approval from the FISA court.

The government made its remarks in July in response to questions posed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), but they were only made public this weekend.

The implication is that the government can use its legal authority to secretly ask a US-based company for technical assistance, such as building an encryption backdoor into a product, but can petition the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to compel the company if it refuses.

In its answers, the government said it has "not to date" needed to ask the FISC to issue an order to compel a company to backdoor or weaken its encryption.

The government would not say, however, if it's ever asked a company to add an encryption backdoor.

The way this process works is the agency requesting the backdoor or other compelled assistance runs the request by the FISA court. This process does not ask the FISA court to approve the method used, nor does it provide the court with details on the assistance sought. All the FISC determines is whether or not compelled assistance is necessary.

The ODNI maintains it has never asked for compelled decryption or the installation of backdoors… at least not under this authority. If it has, there'd be little in the way of a paper trail to prove it. The FBI, as part of the Intelligence Community, appears to be more interested in securing the help of US courts -- something that would prove far more useful in the long run, considering its domestic focus.

This information comes at a critical time. The surveillance wing of the government wants Section 702 (and related authorities) renewed at the end of this year -- unaltered and with at least a half-decade before the next chance of reform. So far, its two Congressional oversight bodies have been compliant with the IC's wishes. Serious reform efforts have been dumped by both House and Senate judiciary committees, leaving only those authored by longtime surveillance state cheerleaders in the running. With limited oversight and an easy way to route around FISA roadblocks, Section 702 reform is badly needed if we have any hope of the next decade being less filled with Fourth Amendment violations than the last one.

Filed Under: backdoors, compelled assistance, encryption, fisa court, fisc, odni, ron wyden

Senator Wyden Asks DHS To Look Into Cell Tower Spoofer Use By Foreign Entities In Washington DC

from the why-hasn't-the-homeland-security-agency-looked-into-this-already? dept

A few years back, news broke about the apparent existence of stationary cell tower spoofers in the Washington DC area. While some could conceivably have been operated by local law enforcement, the location of the fake cell towers suggested they might be the work of foreign actors.

Continuing a sort of cross-country tour to detect phony cell towers, also known as interceptors or IMSI catchers, researchers associated with the security firm ESD America have detected 15 of the covert devices in Washington D.C., plus three more in nearby Virginia.

The company used their ultrasecure CryptoPhone 500 to search for the interceptors, which can compromise phones through baseband hardware and are believed to have a range of roughly 1 mile. ESD America's phones allegedly detected telltale signs of call interception in the vicinity of the White House, the Russian Embassy, the Supreme Court, the Department of Commerce, and the Russell Senate Office Building, among other landmark buildings.

Since then, not much has changed. Or if it has, no updates have been issued. Apparently, the fake cell towers are still there and in use, unmolested by local law enforcement or federal agencies. Ron Wyden would like someone to do something about it and has sent a letter [PDF] to DHS Under Secretary Christopher Krebs, asking the agency to look into it.

In 2014, security researchers reported that they detected a number of IMSI catchers in the National Capital Region, which they suggested may have been operated by foreign governments. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) subsequently established a task force to investigate the threat posed by foreign governments and criminals using IMSI catcher technology. Unfortunately, the FCC has yet to issue any public findings or guidance since then.

Whether foreign intelligence services and criminals are using IMSI catchers to spy on senior members of the US. government is undoubtedly a question worth answering. Foreign government surveillance of senior American political and business leaders would obviously pose a significant threat to our country's national and economic security.

Wyden would like to know if the DHS has seen any firsthand evidence of these tower spoofers and if it has provided any of this info to Congressional committees. He also wants to know if the DHS has the technology to detect and locate these IMSI catchers and, if not, wants to know what it needs to begin the hunt for foreign surveillance devices.

Certainly the DHS has the tech to do its own cell tower spoofing. A recent FOIA request by Buzzfeed found the DHS has been deploying Stingray devices about once a day for the last three years. A cell tower spoofer isn't the best tool for detecting other cell tower spoofers, but it could turn into a DC-based Spy vs. Spy operation, with the DHS running its equipment to locate competitors' foreign-owned equipment, with the inherent escalation that scenario implies.

The thing about cell tower spoofers is they can be used to intercept communications. That functionality is available, although we have yet to see (acknowledged) use of Stingray devices to eavesdrop here in the US. The tacit agreement to limit Stingray use to locating cell phones is not without its own issues, but there's no agreement, unspoken or otherwise, limiting foreign entities from intercepting phones calls and text messages with their devices. (Undoubtedly, any cell tower "listening posts" deployed by the US in other countries would be similarly unaffected by voluntary limitations on domestic deployment.)

If answers are given to Wyden, it's highly doubtful we'll see them. US agencies are still completely uncomfortable discussing their own tower spoofers. Evidence of communications interception by foreign agencies will likely be buried under black ink and discussed behind closed doors.

Filed Under: dhs, imsi catcher, ron wyden, spoofing, stingray, surveillance, washington dc

Most Senate Intelligence Committee Members Are Fine With Domestic Surveillance By The NSA

from the 13-of-15-Senators-agree-to-ignore-the-Fourth-Amendment dept

The Senate Intelligence Committee has released its report [PDF] on its Section 702 reauthorization plan. Rather than adopt any serious reforms -- like those proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden -- the SIC plans to move ahead with its non-reform bill, one that's actually weaker than the watered-down offering from the House.

The bill remains pretty much as bad as it was when it was first introduced. It still allows the NSA to start up its "about" collection again, although it does require approval from the FISA court first and contains a safety valve for introduction of legislation forbidding this collection. (I guess Wyden's reform bill doesn't count.)

Other than that, it's still just bad news, especially on the Fourth Amendment front, as it allows both the collection of wholly domestic communications and backdoor searches of NSA data stores. The upshot of the report is this: eleven senators are perfectly fine with domestic surveillance.

As the bill report lays out, Senators Burr, Risch, Rubio, Collins, Blunt, Lankford, Cotton, Cornyn, Warner, King, and Manchin are all cool using a foreign surveillance program to spy on their constituents, especially given that Burr has hidden precisely the impact of that spying in this report.

Any bets on whether they might have voted differently if we all got to know what kind of spying on us this bill authorized.

That, of course, is only eleven senators who are cool with treating their constituents (or at least those using location obscuring techniques) like foreigners.

There are two more you can add to this list: Sens. Feinstein and Harris. Although they voted against allowing the NSA to collect wholly domestic communications, they did vote against Wyden's amendment, which would have limited the use of domestic communications by US government agencies to only a few national security-related crimes.

Their vote against this means Feinstein and Harris are no better than the other eleven when it comes to domestic use of supposedly foreign-facing dragnets if there's any evidence of domestic criminal activity caught in the net. That includes a longer list of crimes which really aren't the sort of thing we should be using dragnets to investigate: "serious bodily injury," CFAA violations and human trafficking -- the latter of which could be nothing more than US citizens helping stranded foreigners.

On top of that, there's no judicial review involved when the government makes a determination that something "affects, involves or is related to" national security. As Marcy Wheeler has pointed out, this allows the DOJ to decide what it can or can't collect on US persons using NSA surveillance programs.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions could decide tomorrow that it can collect the Tor traffic of BLM or BDS activists, and no judge can rule that’s an inappropriate use of a foreign intelligence program.

So, the Senate version is way worse than the House version, which wasn't all that great to begin with. The fact that it's now mid-November and these bills are now just taking the next step towards a floor vote pretty much guarantees these non-reform efforts will be stapled to the backend of a must pass appropriations bill, where they're less likely to rejected on their own merits.

Filed Under: 702 reform, domestic surveillance, ron wyden, senate intelligence committee, surveillance

Ron Wyden Puts A Hold On SESTA And Warns About Its Dangers

from the good-for-him dept

Following the Senate Commerce Committee voting SESTA out of Committee this morning, Senator Ron Wyden quickly announced that he is placing a public hold on the bill while at the same time issuing a warning about just how damaging the bill could be:

“Today I am announcing my public hold and a public warning about SESTA. Having written several laws to combat the scourge of sex trafficking, I take a backseat to no one on the urgency of fighting this horrendous crime. However, I continue to be deeply troubled that this bill’s approach will make it harder to catch dangerous criminals, that it will favor big tech companies at the expense of startups and that it will stifle innovation.

“After 25 years of fighting these battles, I've learned that just because a big technology company says something is good, doesn't mean it's good for the internet or innovation. Most innovation in the digital economy comes from the startups and small firms, the same innovators who will be harmed or locked out of the market by this bill. That said, I appreciate that Senators Thune and Nelson worked to improve SESTA, including by narrowing its scope. While it still makes inadvisable changes to bedrock internet law, those changes are narrower than originally proposed.

Those are fighting words -- and it's good to see him come out and directly say that just because big tech companies are for SESTA it doesn't mean it's a good thing (now will some people finally stop falsely claiming that Wyden just represents the big tech companies?). Last week's decision by the Internet Association (which represents the largest internet companies) along with Facebook's direct support for SESTA remain very troubling. These organizations have experience with intermediary liability laws and know how important they are, and how weakening them gets abused. Wyden knows that too.

In some ways, this reminds me of a similar situation, almost exactly seven years ago, when Wyden blocked COICA, an alarmist censorship bill pushed by Hollywood, which eventually morphed into SOPA and PIPA. As with SESTA, COICA was seen as an "easy" win for Congress and passed out of Committee with a unanimous vote. Wyden put a public hold on it and forced Senators to go back to the drawing board -- and eventually the entire bill was killed.

Filed Under: cda 230, intermediary liability, ron wyden, sesta, startups
Companies: facebook, internet association

Wyden's Reform Bill Would Also Deter Misuse Of NSA Powers To Compel Tech Company Assistance

from the not-just-backdoors dept

Sen. Ron Wyden is again raising concerns about NSA tactics, this time through his recently-submitted Section 702 reform bill. The USA RIGHTS Act contains a number of improvements, including addressing backdoor searches of NSA data by federal agencies and increasing the reporting requirements for access of US persons communications and data. It also permabans the NSA's "about" collection -- one it shut down voluntarily after years of misuse but recently expressed an interest in restarting.

There's another form of surveillance being eyed by Wyden's bill: technical assistance. Marcy Wheeler points out some of the limitations imposed by the bill, which appear to target compelled assistance by tech companies.

(B) LIMITATIONS.—The Attorney General or the Director of National Intelligence may not request assistance from an electronic communication service provider under subparagraph (A) without demonstrating, to the satisfaction of the Court, that the assistance sought—

(i) is necessary;

(ii) is narrowly tailored to the surveillance at issue; and

(iii) would not pose an undue burden on the electronic communication service provider or its customers who are not an intended target of the surveillance.

This could refer to FISA-enabled pressure to backdoor encryption or allow the NSA to otherwise compromise hardware and software. And it may be Wyden's way of sending out a heads up to the general public.

This suggests that Wyden is concerned the government might use — or has used — FISA to make sweeping onerous technical demands of companies without explicitly explaining what those demands are to the Court.

No one should be surprised the government is -- or intends to -- use the FISA court to compel compliance. This is another tool it has at its disposal, going hand-in-hand with All Writs orders to cover government requests not explicitly allowed by existing law. As we saw in the government's most famous All Writs case -- its legal battle with Apple over the contents of the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone -- these expansive orders predicated on a 1789 law still have their limits. As more companies fight back against government overreach, the NSA will need to keep its options open if it hopes to compel compliance.

But if it's going to do this, it needs to be on the record. This is what Wyden's bill would do: force the NSA (and other IC agencies) to detail their plans for compelled assistance and seek explicit approval for these actions from the court.

Filed Under: all writs act, compelled assistance, nsa, ron wyden, surveillance, usa rights act

Senator Wyden's 702 Reform Bill Would Limit Backdoor Searches, Permanently Kill 'About' Collection

from the incidental-permadeath dept

As promised, Ron Wyden (along with Rand Paul) has delivered an antidote to the Senate Intelligence Committee's completely terrible Section 702 "reform" bill. That bill, authored by Sen. Burr, would extend the NSA's 702 powers until 2025 while allowing US law enforcement to use collected intelligence for normal law enforcement purposes. It also would have turned the NSA's "about" collection back on, provided no one opposed it with directly-targeted legislation. This program's ability to "inadvertently" sweep up US persons' communications was so concerning the NSA voluntarily shut it off. (It asked to have it turned back on less than two months later, however.)

Charlie Savage of the New York Times has published the latest draft of the Wyden reform bill, titled the USA RIGHTS Act of 2017. (His annotated version of the bill can be found here.) Wyden's bill [PDF] makes several significant changes, including codification of the NSA's voluntary "about" collection shut down.

Beyond preventing the NSA from resuming a collection it has abused since inception, the bill also shortens the extension period to 2021, ensuring the next debate over Section 702 collections isn't put off for nearly a decade. (The Burr bill extended the sunset to 2025. The House Subcommittee's lukewarm reform bill set it at 2023.)

It also would attempt to close the "backdoor search" loophole that allows US government agencies to obtain domestic communications without a warrant. Wyden's bill adds a warrant requirement for these searches -- including those with a national security purpose. This serves two purposes. First, it brings the collection of domestic communications via NSA surveillance back in line with the Fourth Amendment. Additionally, it provides for better accountability by ensuring any database searches leave a paper trail. It also bans the acquisition of content "known to be entirely domestic."

The bill also provides for better notification of prosecutors' use of Section 702-derived evidence. It limits the use of Section 702 surveillance to national security cases, with one exception: direct approval from the Attorney General. The new notification requirements will attempt to circumvent parallel construction by preventing the government from withholding notification if there is any other conceivable way it could have obtained the same evidence (inevitable discovery, normal law enforcement surveillance methods, etc.).

It also adds further reporting requirements, including mandatory production of numbers Wyden has been seeking for years: incidentally-collected US persons' communications. It would also require the FBI to turn over the number of US persons queries it performs using NSA-collected intel.

There are other good aspects to the bill -- stuff normally not discussed during surveillance authority sunsetting. The bill would divest the power currently held by Chief Justice John Roberts. Chief justices have controlled FISA court judge selection for most of the last 30 years, resulting in a long stream of conservative picks, many of them former government prosecutors. This bill would allow all 13 circuits to nominate judges for FISC posts, which should help prevent future FISA judge picks from being so closely aligned with the Chief Justice's views.

Finally, the bill also provides for additional Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board input. The PCLOB is all but dead, but if it's revived, it would have access to Intelligence Community whistleblower complaints.

This is the best reform bill we've seen offered yet. But the clock continues to tick down to 702's renewal. Chances are, Sen. Burr's control of the Senate Intelligence Committee isn't going to do much to ensure this bill moves forward intact, if it moves forward at all. Between Burr and Sen. Feinstein, the oversight committee has been internally limited in terms of actual oversight. Wyden's presence on the committee is the wild card, but entrenched powers continue to limit his effectiveness. Hopefully, some of this bill will replace the worthless, toothless "reforms" proposed by Sen. Burr and continue to nudge the Intelligence Community towards compliance with a number of Constitutional amendments.

Filed Under: about collection, backdoor searches, nsa, rand paul, reform, ron wyden, section 702, surveillance

Three Energy Bills Look To Increase Fourth Amendment Protections For Americans

from the walking-back-the-third-party-doctrine dept

Senator Ron Wyden has introduced a trio of energy bills for the Senate's consideration. The three bills each have their own area of focus.

One bill [PDF] would direct the Department of Energy -- along with state entities -- to upgrade the flexibility and reliability of energy grids, thus limiting disruption during natural disasters. The second bill [PDF] creates grant programs for consumer-level renewable energy, providing incentives for purchase and deployment of solar panels, electric vehicles, and energy-efficient appliances. The third [PDF] tasks the DOE with leading the way for renewable energy storage R&D in hopes of driving costs down and providing more affordable alternatives to non-renewable energy sources.

Beyond their renewable energy focus, these three bills all have one thing in common: law enforcement agencies aren't going to like them. Each bill contains language erecting warrant requirements for law enforcement access of consumer energy usage data.

In each bill, under the "Privacy, Security, and Resilience" heading, Wyden has inserted a clause limiting warrantless access to energy customer data to identifying info only

CONSUMER INFORMATION.—

A governmental entity may obtain from an electric utility, third party aggregator, or other nongovernmental entity under an administrative subpoena authorized by a Federal or State statute or a Federal or State grand jury or trial subpoena the—

(A) name of an electric consumer;

(B) address of an electric consumer;

(C) length of service (including start date) of, and types of service used by, an electric con sumer; and

(D) means and source of payment for such service (including any credit card or bank account number) of an electric consumer.

Everything else would require a warrant.

ELECTRIC USAGE INFORMATION.—A governmental entity may only require the disclosure by an electric utility, third party aggregator, or other nongovernmental entity of information regarding the use of electricity by an electric consumer (including monthly usage data, data at a greater level of detail or specificity, and information about electric use by specific appliances) pursuant to a warrant issued based on probable cause, using the procedures described in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (or, in the case of a State court, issued using State warrant procedures) by a court of competent jurisdiction.

No more pulling citizens' electric bills without some articulable reason for doing so. The bill would also limit notification delays on these warrants to 180 days (although that period could be extended by a judge) and provides for suppression of evidence derived from warrantless access to energy usage information.

This will be a tough sell, considering law enforcement is very used to gathering up everything it can possibly construe as a third party record. Energy customers definitely know the energy they use is being tracked by their service provider. Even so, that knowledge is not the same as making the assumption that anything known by your electric company can also be accessed by law enforcement with almost zero paperwork.

A warrant requirement isn't much of a hurdle for law enforcement. What this would do is prevent fishing expeditions utilizing electric bills in hopes of stumbling over someone maintaining a home grow operation. This could mean people who shop for gardening supplies won't be having their electric bills constantly accessed by officers who assume the only hobby gardeners left are those in the marijuana business.

Still, it's a good move by Wyden. The bills may not go forward with these clauses intact, but they'll at least get legislators talking about the wealth of personal information law enforcement has warrantless access to.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, energy, ron wyden

Trump Administration Says It's Classified If They Can Let The NSA Spy On Americans

from the that's-not-how-this-is-supposed-to-work dept

Senator Ron Wyden, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, spent half a decade trying to get President Obama's Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, to answer some fairly straightforward questions about NSA surveillance on Americans. As you may recall, this got so bad that Clapper flat out lied to Wyden in an open Senate hearing, which inspired Ed Snowden to leak documents to Glenn Greenwald. With the Trump administration, Dan Coats took over Clapper's job... and Clapper's role of obfuscating in response to important questions from Wyden concerning NSA surveillance. Despite promises to the contrary, Coats (like Clapper before him) has refused to share just how many Americans have their information sucked up under Section 702. Since that program is up for renewal later this year, that kind of information seems quite relevant to the debate.

However, as we noted back in June, Wyden has also been asking a different, and much more specific question of Coats. At a hearing in June, Wyden asked:

Can the government use FISA Act Section 702 to collect communications it knows are entirely domestic?

This seems like a kind of important question. 702 on its face, says that it can't be used to target domestic communications. Literally, the law says this: "An acquisition authorized under [this statute]... may not intentionally acquire any communication as to which the sender and all intended recipients are known at the time of the acquisition to be located in the United States."

But, as we've learned, when Senator Wyden asks an "is this happening?" question -- the answer is always "yes." And, once again, it appears that Coats is playing games. Coats responded to that question at the time saying: "Not to my knowledge. It would be against the law." That seems like a pretty clear and definitive answer: "no." Which is as it should be.

But then... something weird happened. The very next day, Coats' office put out a "clarifying" statement (ruh roh...), saying that Coats had "interpreted" Wyden's question to be referring specifically to Section 702(b)(4) (the part that says you can't spy on domestic communications). But, that's not what Wyden had asked. He had asked about the entirety of 702. So this "clarification" certainly seemed to suggest that Coats' original answer was incorrect in regards to the actual question, and instead, his staff was rewriting Wyden's question to make sure he had answered it accurately.

In other words, it appears that Coats put himself in a Clapper-position, of mistakenly claiming that the NSA isn't spying on Americans under a specific authority when it absolutely is -- and the reinterpretation of the question was his retroactive attempt to make his answer "truthy."

Not surprisingly, this didn't please Wyden, who quickly asked Coats to officially answer the original question with a yes or no, and not the reinterpreted question his office claimed he had answered.

Coats has now sent "an answer" but not a good one. He's now claiming that it's classified, and also takes some weird shots at Wyden for asking such a question in the first place:

Dear Senator Wyden:

In response to your letter of July 31, 2017, I would note that I responded to your question publicly both at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's open hearing on June 7, as well as in an unclassified letter to you on June 8. However, in further conversations with you and your staff, including at a closed budget hearing on June 15, it became clear that you already had the specific information that you were seeking, but this information was classified. In an effort to be responsive to you, I committed to assessing whether the sources and methods information you were asking for could be publicly released.

After consulting with the relevant intelligence agencies, I concluded that releasing the information you are asking to be made public would cause serious damage to national security. To that end, I provided you a comprehensive classified response to your question on July 24. This response also discussed, at length, why the information is properly classified and cannot be publicly released.

I want to stress that the Intelligence Community takes seriously its obligation to faithfully execute collection under Section 702 consistent with the Constitution and statutory requirements. We also take seriously our obligation to ensure Congress has all the information - both publicly available and classified it needs to conduct oversight of this program. While I recognize your goal of an unclassified response, given the need to include classified information to fully address your question, the classified response provided on July 24 stands as our response on this matter.

Sincerely,

Daniel R. Coats

Now, for those of you thinking "okay, it makes sense that we can't reveal classified information that might harm national security," let me remind you of the question that Wyden asked:

Can the government use FISA Act Section 702 to collect communications it knows are entirely domestic?

Okay. So please explain how a simple yes or no answer to that can be classified -- especially given the plain language of the law itself? And, of course, this answer -- or, more specifically, the refusal to say "no" -- more or less confirms that the answer is a resounding "YES!" the government believes that it can use Section 702 to collect purely domestic communications, in clear contradiction to the plain language of the law.

Furthermore, if this question is so scary and so dangerous, why didn't anyone -- including Coats himself -- have any problem answering it when it was initially posed back in June? It didn't seem like such a risk to national security then. It's only a risk to national security after Coats' staff realized he misspoke? How, exactly, does that work?

As you might imagine, Senator Wyden is not pleased with this turn of events:

It is hard to view Director Coats' behavior as anything other than an effort to keep Americans in the dark about government surveillance. I asked him a simple, yes-or-no question: Can the government use FISA Act Section 702 to collect communications it knows are entirely domestic?

What happened was almost Orwellian. I asked a question in an open hearing. No one objected to the question at the time. Director Coats answered the question. His answer was not classified. Then, after the fact, his press office told reporters, in effect, Director Coats was answering a different question.

I have asked Director Coats repeatedly to answer the question I actually asked. But now he claims answering the question would be classified, and do serious damage to national security.

The refusal of the DNI to answer this simple yes-no question should set off alarms. How can Congress reauthorize this surveillance when the administration is playing games with basic questions about this program?

This is on top of the administration's recent refusal even to estimate how many Americans’ communications are swept up under this program.

The Trump administration appears to have calculated that hiding from Americans basic information relevant to their privacy is the easiest way to renew this expansive surveillance authority. The executive branch is rejecting a fundamental principle of oversight by refusing to answer a direct question, and saying that Americans don't deserve to know when and how the government watches them.

So, uh, who in the NSA is going to play the role of Snowden this time? Once again, it appears we have a Director of National Intelligence claiming no surveillance on Americans under a specific authority, when everything that Wyden is saying indicates that he damn well knows that's not true. Sooner or later someone's going to leak the fact that the intelligence community is lying to the American public in order to spy on the American public.

Filed Under: dan coats, domestic surveillance, privacy, ron wyden, section 702

Intelligence Committee Pins A 'Surveil Me' Sign On Wikileaks' Back In Latest Authorization Bill

from the mood-affiliation-legislation dept

President Trump seemed to think Wikileaks was a fine establishment while on the campaign trail. As long as Wikileaks kept serving up DNC documents, it could do nothing wrong. Since his election, however, things have changed. The administration is plagued by leaks. Even though Wikileaks hasn't played a part in those leaks, it has continued to dump CIA documents -- something the White House isn't thrilled with.

Back in April, the new DOJ -- under the leadership of 80s throwback AG Sessions -- announced it had prepared charges to arrest Julian Assange. This was something Obama's administration talked about, but never actually got around to doing. Pursuing Assange and Wikileaks for publishing leaked documents would set a dangerous precedent, paving the way for domestic prosecutions of news agencies.

Fortunately, nothing has moved forward on that front yet. But it appears at least a few Senators would like to further distance Wikileaks from any definition of journalism. As Spencer Ackerman reports for The Daily Beast, the Senate Intelligence Community wants to redefine Wikileaks as a hostile entity.

The committee… wants Congress to declare WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service,” which would open Julian Assange and the pro-transparency organization – which most of the U.S. government considers a handmaiden of Russian intelligence – to new levels of surveillance.

On Friday, the committee quietly published its annual intelligence authorization, a bill that blesses the next year’s worth of intelligence operations. The bill passed the committee late last month on a 14-1 vote, with Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon as the lone dissenter, owing to what he calls the “legal, constitutional and policy implications” that the WikiLeaks provision may entail.

The latest intelligence authorization bill runs nearly 60 pages. Perhaps the committee members adding this toxic little pill thought no one would read it all the way to the end. The very last section of the bill (Section 623 to be precise) is titled "Sense of Congress on Wikileaks." It asks for legislators to take an official stance on the group.

It is the sense of Congress that WikiLeaks and the senior leadership of WikiLeaks resemble a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors and should be treated as such a service by the United States.

As Ackerman points out, the language in the bill channels CIA head Mike Pompeo, who is understandably (and continually) incensed by Wikileaks' publication of documents pertaining to CIA surveillance tools. Pompeo himself is a fair-weather friend of transparency, having tweeted his praise for Wikileaks while it was still dumping DNC documents.

This could put Wikileaks under (even more) surveillance and would likely allow site visitors, donors, and correspondents to become surveillance targets themselves.

“It would allow the intelligence community to collect against them the same way they collect against al-Qaeda,” [former House Intelligence Committee staffer Mieke] Eoyang said. “If you think you’re helping WikiLeaks to aid a transparency organization, the US government fundamentally disagrees with you and you could find yourself on other end of NSA scrutiny.”

As is usually the case when the Senate Intelligence Committee offers up questionable or terrible proposals, Senator Ron Wyden was the sole committee member to vote against the authorization bill.

Filed Under: hostile intelligence service, intelligence authorization, julian assange, mike pompeo, ron wyden, senate intelligence committee, surveillance
Companies: wikileaks

Senator Doesn't Buy FCC Justification For Killing Popular Net Neutrality Protections

from the repetition-forges-reality dept

So we've noted for years now how incumbent ISPs love to breathlessly insist that net neutrality protections "stifled broadband industry investment," despite the fact that publicly-available SEC filings, earnings reports, and the ISPs' own public statements on this subject have repeatedly proven this claim false. Traditionally, large ISPs like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Charter have employed industry-friendly economists to massage and cherry pick the data until it looks like a slowdown occurred. But every few months or so a journalist will painstakingly document how this slowdown claim is complete and total bullshit.

But this being the broadband industry, and lobbyists being lobbyists, the repeated debunking of their claims never seems to matter. In large part because they know that if they repeat this claim often enough, repetition will forge reality in the minds of people who don't know any better. That's why, several times a week for years, you'll see either editorials like this one by Montana State Senator Doug Kary or claims from organizations that pretend not to take money from the telecom industry, insisting that net neutrality rained all over their investment parade.

Ajit Pai once again trotted out this bogus claim during a hearing last week before the Senate Commerce Committee, a move that appeared to annoy Senator Ed Markey:

"Markey asked Pai what problem he is trying to fix by repealing net neutrality rules. Pai responded, "One of the concerns we have raised is these regulations might be dampening infrastructure investment."

"They might be, but there's no evidence of it," Markey fired back.

Pai continued, saying, "There has been evidence raised, and that is part of the reason why we are testing this proposition... we wanted to test this proposition in an open and public process."

Pai continues to pretend that he has an open mind and is "just testing stuff out," and not grotesquely dismantling popular consumer protections to the sole benefit of a handful of telecom and media conglomerates. And again, we appear to be stuck in a game of existential patty cake, where people pushing an agenda friendly to these duopolists hope repetition forges reality. Even though major ISP executives have made numerous public statements acknowledging this is all a bluff. Wyden was also quick to highlight these ISPs have never once informed investors of this apparent problem, as required by law:

"Publicly traded companies are required by law to provide investors accurate financial information, including reporting any risks or financial burdens. However, I have found no publicly traded ISP that has reported to its investors by law that Title II has negatively impacted investment in their networks. Many, in fact, have increased deployment and investment."

Wyden also was quickly to highlight that absent this bogus claim about sagging investment, there's really no sensible justification for killing net neutrality rules:

"I feel that the evidence [to repeal the rules] right now is not there and if it was, the broadband companies themselves would have in fact been providing that evidence to their investors in their filings, and they have not done so. Anecdotal evidence is not evidence. There is no factual basis for that change [proposed by the FCC]."

We all know (or should know by now) that Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and Charter want the rules dead simply so they can make more money. They know that with neither organic market competition nor functional regulatory oversight they'll have a green light to abuse this lack of competition in a rotating array of obnoxious and creative new ways. Of course they can't just admit this or they'd be laughed out of town, so we get to instead engage in this endless, idiotic game of "is not, is too," while they pretend removing oversight of some of the most anti-competitive companies in America is somehow economically essential.

Filed Under: ajit pai, ed markey, fcc, investment, net neutrality, ron wyden, title ii