There Are Many Reasons Not To Give The NSA The Power To Spy On Your Info

from the here-are-just-a-few dept

We were just noting that the Senate is undergoing a fight concerning whether or not the Cybersecurity Act is going to go anywhere, with much of the fight being a tug of war over your privacy. Senators Franken, Paul and Schumer are supporting an amendment to add in more privacy protections. Senators McCain and Hutchison are looking to take away privacy protections and give the NSA much more power to violate your privacy and access your private info, with less oversight and without it having anything to do with cybersecurity.

The folks over at EFF have put together a nice list of reasons why the NSA cannot be trusted with your data. There are a bunch of reasons, but here are a few:

• NSA has a dark history of violating Americans’ constitutional rights

  In the 1960’s, a Congressional investigation, led by four-term Senator Frank Church, found that the NSA had engaged in widespread and warrantless spying on Americans citizens. Church was so stunned at what he found, he remarked that the National Security Agency’s "capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything." (emphasis added) The investigation led to the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which provided stronger privacy protections for Americans’ communications—that is, until it was weakened by the USA-PATRIOT Act and other reactions to 9/11.

• NSA has continued its warrantless wiretapping scandal

  In 2005, the New York Times revealed that the NSA set up a massive warrantless wiretapping program shortly after 9/11, in violation of the Fourth Amendment and several federal laws. This was later confirmed by virtually every major media organization in the country. It led to Congressional investigations and several ongoing lawsuits, including EFF’s. Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act to grant telecom companies retroactive immunity for participating in illegal spying and severely weaken privacy safeguards for Americans communicating overseas.Since the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) passed, the NSA has continued collecting emails of Americans. A 2009 New York Times investigation described how a “significant and systemic” practice of "overcollection" of communications resulted in the NSA’s intercepting millions of purely domestic emails and phone calls between Americans. In addition, documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU, although heavily redacted, revealed "that violations [of the FAA and the Constitution] continued to occur on a regular basis through at least March 2010"— the last month anyone has public data for.

• NSA recently admitted to violating the Constitution.

  Just last week, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—which oversees the NSA—begrudgingly acknowledged that "on at least one occasion" the secret FISA court "held that some collection… used by the government was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment." Wired called it a "federal sidestep of a major section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act," and it confirmed the many reports over the last few years: the NSA has violated the Constitution.

There are more where that came from. All of these, however, raise serious concerns about why Senators McCain and Huchison seem so eager to allow the NSA to abuse your privacy even more with their amendments. What are they thinking? The EFF has put together an action page asking you to contact your Senators (which you can do via a handy site set up by the American Library Association). The EFF site is also asking people to tweet to their Senators, using the hashtag #defendprivacy and has set up a nice tool to make that easier as well (at the "action page" link above).

In the meantime, we're still waiting for someone (anyone?) to tell us exactly why this bill is needed without resorting to hyperbole about planes falling out of the sky. If there's an existing problem with infosharing, what is it? What law, today, is blocking this kind of infosharing? Until the government can explain that, it seems weird that they're pushing for much greater spying power by the NSA and fewer privacy rights. How can they defend this when they can't even point to what the roadblocks are?

Filed Under: al franken, charles schumer, cybersecurity, john mccain, kay bailey hutchison, privacy, rand paul

Are There Any Politicians Who Know What PROTECT IP Is About? Senator Hutchison Thinks It's About Net Neutrality

from the worse-and-worse-and-worse dept

Okay, this is just getting ridiculous. Last week, we wrote about Mark Lemley sending a letter to Rep. Anna Eshoo about the problems of PROTECT IP, and rather responding about that, Eshoo wrote him back about immigration. Then, we had another story about Senator Kristen Gillibrand receiving a similar letter complaining about PROTECT IP... and she sent back a letter talking about the unrelated "internet kill switch" legislation. And, in the comments to that post, Paul told us about his own letter protesting PROTECT IP, which was sent to Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison... and she wrote back about net neutrality:

Dear Friend:
Thank you for contacting me regarding the Federal Communications Commission's actions relating to the openness of the Internet. I welcome your thoughts and comments.

The Internet is a valuable tool that facilitates business, education, and recreation for millions of Americans. In 2009, an estimated 198 million Americans had access to the Internet. I am committed to ensuring that consumers continue to benefit from the Internet as an open platform for innovation and commerce.

Instrumental to the success of the Internet is the long-standing policy of keeping the Internet as free as possible from burdensome government regulations. Increased investment in upgrading and expanding America’s communications infrastructure, and, in particular, new broadband networks, will ensure that all Americans have access to affordable high-speed Internet. However, in my judgment, intensified regulation of the Internet, such as government-mandated treatment of data, would stifle competition and would decrease the incentive for network operators to invest in critical infrastructure.

The case for additional broadband regulatory authority, or “net neutrality,” has not effectively been made. Broadband investment began to truly flourish when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) made a decision in 2002 to remove advanced communications technologies from the antiquated common carrier regulatory framework. However, advocates of a larger regulatory footprint have continued to call for net neutrality since 2006.

Unfortunately, the FCC chose to respond by beginning a new proceeding that would reverse the 2002 decision to treat advanced communications services with a "light touch" regulatory approach. On December 21, 2010, by a 3-2 vote, the FCC adopted new rules meant to impose a net neutrality regime on broadband services. I believe these new regulations represent an unprecedented power grab by the Commission to claim regulatory jurisdiction without Congressional authority. This FCC action threatens investment and innovation in broadband systems, places valuable American jobs at risk, and may subject communications companies to new legal liability in the management of their networks.

In response to the FCC's heavy-handed order, I intend to explore every option available to me to keep the Internet free from such burdensome regulations, including introducing a resolution of disapproval in an effort to repeal the new rules. As the Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, which has jurisdiction over the FCC, I will continue to work to prohibit further net neutrality-based regulations.

I appreciate hearing from you, and I hope that you will not hesitate to contact me on any issue that is important to you.

Sincerely,
Kay Bailey Hutchison
United States Senator

Is it really that hard to expect that, when we write our elected officials, they at least take the time to hear what we're saying? It seems like the staffers in these officials offices briefly skim the letters to see if there's a keyword they can hit on (or do they have software for that?), and then send back a form letter related to what they think the letter is about, rather than taking the time to figure out what it's actually about.

Can we actually expect any sort of informed debate and discussion on the serious problems of PROTECT IP when so many of our elected officials don't even seem to know what it is, and most certainly don't seem to want to hear from their own constituents about it?

Filed Under: anna eshoo, copyright, kay bailey hutchison, kristin gillibrand, net neutrality, protect ip