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

from the feel-safer? dept

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

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

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

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

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

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

Justice Dept. Boosts Number Of FBI Agents, Attorneys Focusing On Copyright Infringement

from the priorities,-people dept

As noted, yesterday was officially "World Intellectual Property Day," and it looks like the US Justice Department decided to contribute. It announced the appointment of 15 new assistant US attorneys and 20 FBI special agents, who will focus on intellectual property issues. Funny timing on this one. We had just noted that the Justice Department had moved the very real problem of identify fraud off the priority list of things to work on -- and, just weeks later, the GAO put out its report noting that the supposed "harm" done by intellectual property infringement appears to be based on nothing. So why is the Justice Department beefing up efforts to fight intellectual property issues? It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that some of the top folks at the Justice Department previously worked for the RIAA, MPAA, and the BSA -- three of the groups who were most responsible for pushing out those bogus claims about the "impact" of piracy. Nah... that couldn't possibly be related, could it?

Filed Under: copyright, fbi, infringement, justice dept

Copyright A Priority For The DOJ; But Identity Fraud Has Fallen Off The List

from the great... dept

Well, isn't this just great. Just a little while back, the Justice Department announced that fighting "intellectual property crime" was a major priority. At the time, we wondered if there weren't more important things for the DOJ to be working on. The answer is yes, of course, but the Justice Department has apparently decided to push them off the priority list. A new report on identity fraud notes that it has "faded" as a priority for the DOJ and the FBI. Ah, right, the stuff that actually harms individuals directly and isn't a civil or business model issue? Why focus on that when you can prop up your friends in Hollywood?

Filed Under: copyright, doj, fbi, identity fraud

Obama Quietly Issues Ruling Saying It's Legal For The FBI To Break The Law On Accessing Phone Records

from the and-it-gets-worse dept

Following the report earlier this week that the FBI regularly broke the ECPA law, in obtaining information from telcos without going through the proper process (and, in some cases using just a post it note!), some interesting details from the full report have come to light. The two key ones? First, "the Obama administration issued a secret rule almost two weeks ago saying it was legal for the FBI to have skirted federal privacy protections." And, second, the original idea to use these bogus "exigent letters" didn't come from the FBI, but from an AT&T employee. We noted in the original report that no one seemed to be placing any blame on the telcos for allowing this, and why they're clearly abusing the law, in giving out such info without the proper rules being followed, seems like a big question:

The telecom employees were supposed to be responding to National Security Letters, which are essentially FBI-issued subpoenas. But those Patriot Act powers say the target must be part of an open investigation and that a supervisor has to approve it. While they require some paperwork, FBI agents have been issuing about 40,000 such NSLs a year.

But an AT&T employee provided the unit with a way around some of those requirements. The employee introduced them to so-called 'exigent letters.' Those letters, first used immediately following 9/11, asked for information by saying that the request was an emergency and that prosecutors were preparing a grand jury subpoena. The letter falsely promised that the subpoena, which gives the telecoms legal immunity, would be delivered later, the report said.

What's more, the report noted that the cozy relationship between the bureau and the telecoms made it hard to differentiate between the FBI and the nation's phone companies.

"The FBI's use of exigent letters became so casual, routine and unsupervised that employees of all three communication service providers told us that they -- the company employees-- sometimes generated the exigent letters for CAU personnel to sign and return," the inspector general reported.

In fact, one AT&T employee even created a short cut on his desktop to a form letter that he could print out for a requesting FBI agent to sign.

Even that became too much. Agents would request "sneak peeks," where they'd ask if it was worth their time to file a request on a given phone number, the inspector general noted. The telecom agents complied. Soon it graduated to numbers on Post-it notes, in e-mails or just oral requests.

No wonder the telcos were so adamant about getting immunity on the warrantless wiretapping. It appears that the issue of telcos ignoring the rules when it came to your privacy goes pretty deep.

As for Obama issuing a rule saying that breaking the law is legal... how does that work? The president doesn't get to just declare something legal, especially when it clearly violates both the letter and intent of the law.

Filed Under: fbi, national security letters, obama administration, phone records, spying
Companies: at&t

Once Again, FBI Caught Breaking The Law In Gathering Phone Call Info; But Real Issue Is Why Telcos Let Them

from the surprise-surprise dept

A few years back, we found out that the FBI regularly violated the Patriot Act, issuing "National Security Letters" to access information that they had no right to access. So it should come as no surprise that during that same period, the FBI was also regularly violating the law to get phone call records without following the proper procedures, even beyond the problem with the NSLs. In fact, it appears the FBI may have violated the law in about half of all of these cases. Basically, it sounds like the FBI just went to phone companies, said the magic word ("terrorism!!") and the phone companies just handed over records -- even without using NSLs, but instead using an "exigent circumstances letter," which could be used even more easily than an NSL, but which required an NSL to follow it up eventually. The FBI is now basically admitting to screwing up and that using these "ECLs" without followup NSLs almost certainly violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The FBI's excuse? They're claiming that the process was "good-hearted but not well-thought-out." Doesn't that make you feel better?

The story heads into Keystone Kops territory, as some in the FBI pushed for actually following up the ECLs with real NSLs, but the FBI was pretty slow. Eventually, someone signed a "blanket NSL" supposedly to cover all of the previous ECLs that never had a followup NSL -- except the guy who signed the blanket NSL later claimed that he couldn't recall ever signing anything, and insisted that NSLs should be for specific cases only. Oops.

Of course, lost in all of the attention over the FBI's process is the rather serious unanswered question of why the telcos didn't seem to push back when handed a bogus demand to hand over records that did not match the official process and violated the law. Shouldn't the telcos have some responsibility for actually making sure that a random FBI agent yelling "terrorism" has some sort of official basis to get information out of the them?

Filed Under: ecpa, exigent circumstances letters, fbi, national security letters, phone records, privacy, surveillance, telcos
Companies: fbi

FBI Investigation Into Programmer For Freeing The Public Domain

from the an-exploit? dept

A bunch of folks have sent over the incredible story of how the FBI investigated well-known programmer Aaron Swartz, after discovering that he had installed a perl script on a computer at the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals library in Chicago, to cycle through PACER documents and upload them to an Amazon S3 account. Basically (as we've discussed in the past), court documents -- which are in the public domain -- are mostly locked up in the gov't's PACER system, which costs $0.08/page. However, since the documents are public domain, once you get them, you're free to do what you want with them. The Government Printing Office started an experiment last year, offering free access to PACER in certain libraries. Swartz just went to one and then installed his script to cycle through and upload those documents. The library's IT staff eventually noticed the issue (it took a few weeks) and alerted the FBI who began an investigation of Aaron, after Amazon handed over his info. While you can sorta understand why the FBI might look into why someone had installed a program on a court library computer, once it became clear that it was only accessing public domain documents, it seems pretty silly to have continued onward -- including driving by his home and considering a stakeout.

Filed Under: aaron swartz, fbi, investigation, pacer, public domain

No, The FBI Isn't Gunning For The Business of Mailboxes Etc.

from the stupidity-reigns dept

A note to all the stupid criminals out there: when making a purchase with a forged check, you're probably better off not using your local FBI office as the delivery point for the goods you're trying to scam. That's what a mastermind in Monroe, La., did recently, giving the feds' address for a shipment of cell phones he wanted to receive. The firm he "bought" the phones from noticed something fishy when the guy paid with a "cahier's check" (as opposed to a cashier's check), and they called the authorities, who later found the guy trying to flag down a delivery driver outside the FBI office. Sometimes, you have to wonder, do these people just want to get caught?

Filed Under: fbi, scams, stupid criminals

2009 Budget Includes $9.4 Million For FBI IP Enforcement Agents

from the wanna-bet-who-snuck-those-provisions-in-there? dept

As you probably recall, the Obama Department of Justice includes many of the content industry's favorite lawyers. Now, thanks to the $410 billion omnibus spending bill approved by Congress and Obama, the FBI has nearly $10 million more dollars to spend on intellectual property enforcement. The money will fund 2 field officers at each existing Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property unit as well as the creation of a new unit at FBI headquarters to work specifically on multi-district IP cases. This news comes soon after Obama spoke warmly about innovation and start-ups -- two things which hardly need more IP headaches -- so it will be important to watch carefully who he appoints as the newly created IP Czar (though things hardly look good thus far).

Filed Under: budget, fbi, ip

Feds Ask For Jailtime For GNR File Sharer

from the with-fans-like-these... dept

I have to admit that I'm still confused why the FBI was spending time going around arresting the guy who put up Guns 'N Roses' latest album, rather than focusing on issues that really matter these days. The arrest alone actually led to much more downloading than if they had just let it go. Yet, now, following a guilty plea, the feds are demanding a six-month prison term for the guy. For promoting the band. Considering how much downloads picked up after the news of the arrest broke, why isn't anyone demanding that we put the FBI agents who spent taxpayer money on this behind bars for even longer? Sure, unauthorized sharing of files breaks copyright law, but it's difficult to come up with any reasonable explanation for (a) spending taxpayer money on having the FBI track down and arrest the guy and then (b) sending him to jail. Every album that's released gets leaked online -- and plenty of musicians have learned how to use it to their benefit. That should make it clear that getting your music leaked online isn't about any economic loss. It's all about what sort of business model you choose. So, because Axl Rose chooses a bad business model, some guy who was sharing GNR music needs to go to jail and the FBI and the Feds need to be involved? Doesn't something seem wrong with this picture?

Filed Under: copyright, fbi, file sharing, guns n' roses, jailtime, music, promotion

Court Limits, But Doesn't Eliminate, Secrecy Of National Security Letters

from the partial-win dept

The Patriot Act, among other things, allows law enforcement to issue "National Security Letters" to ISPs and telcos to obtain certain information about individuals. The letters are, as the name implies, designed for situations where national security is at stake, and a more thorough process of going through legal channels to gain approval would be a serious threat to national security. Except, of course, that's not how things have worked in practice. The FBI was found to have engaged in "serious misuse" of NSLs on a regular basis, issuing tens of thousands of them. Even worse, part of the rules surrounding NSLs are that they must be kept entirely secret. This raises very serious First Amendment questions. While a lower court agreed that the secrecy on NSLs violated the Constitution, an Appeals Court, that had initially seemed skeptical has allowed the secrecy to continue, though with some limitations.

Rather than saying secrecy was okay, if revealing the NSL would create "interference with diplomatic relations, or danger to the life or physical safety of any person" (the old rule), the court has said the rule should be that secrecy is allowed if revealing the NSL "may result in an enumerated harm that is related to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." It is certainly more of a limitation, though some may note that it may not make much of a difference in actual application. NSLs are still likely to be abused, and it's unlikely that most ISPs or telcos on the receiving end of such NSLs will feel concerned enough to challenge them.

Filed Under: fbi, first amendment, gag orders, national security letters, nsls