US to introduce permant spying architecture on internet and phone lines

[abdulhakeem]

Analysis: New Law Gives Government Six Months to Turn Internet and Phone Systems into Permanent Spying Architecture

By Ryan Singel
August 06, 2007

A new law expanding the government's spying powers gives the Bush Administration a six-month window to install possibly permanent back doors in the nation's communication networks. The legislation was passed hurriedly by Congress over the weekend and signed into law (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/08/05/national/a141537D08.DTL) Sunday by President Bush.

The bill, known as the Protect America Act (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:s1927es.txt), removes the prohibition on warrantless spying on Americans abroad and gives the government wide powers to order communication service providers such as cell phone companies and ISPs to make their networks available to government eavesdroppers (http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70910).

The Administration pushed for passage of the changes to close what it called a "surveillance gap (http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/more-known-unkn.html)," referring to a long-standing feature of the nation's surveillance laws that required the government to get court approval to capture communications inside the United States.

While the nation's spy laws have been continually loosened since 9/11, the Administration never pushed for the right to tap the nation's domestic communication networks until a secret court recently struck down (http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/more-known-unkn.html) a key pillar of the government's secret spying program.

The Administration argues that the world's communication networks now route many foreign to foreign calls and emails through switches in the United States.

Prior to the law's passage, the nation's spy agencies, such as the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, didn't need any court approval to spy on foreigners so long as the wiretaps were outside the United States.

Now, those agencies are free to order services like Skype, cell phone companies and arguably even search engines to comply with secret spy orders to create back doors in domestic communication networks for the nation's spooks. While it's unclear whether the wiretapping can be used for domestic purposes, the law only requires that the programs that give rise to such orders have a "significant purpose" of foreign intelligence gathering.

The law:


Defines the act of reading and listening into American's phone calls and internet communications when they are "reasonably believed" to be outside the country as not surveillance.

Gives the government 6 months of extended powers to issue orders to "communication service providers," to help with spying that "concerns persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States." The language doesn't require the surveillance to only target people outside the United States, only that some of it does.

Forces Communication Service providers to comply secretly, though they can challenge the orders to the secret Foreign Intelligence Court. Individuals or companies given such orders will be paid for their cooperation and can not be sued for complying.

Makes any program or orders launched in the next six months perpetually renewable after the six month "sunset" of the new powers last for a year after being authorized (note: the words in bold are cancelled in original txt - see update)

Grandfathers in the the current secret surveillance program -- sometimes referred to as the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- and any others that have been blessed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Requires the Attorney General to submit to the secret surveillance court its reasons why these programs aren't considered domestic spying programs, but the court can only throw out those reasons if it finds that they are "clearly erroneous."

Requires the Attorney General to tell Congress twice a year about any incidents of surveillance abuse and give statistics about how many surveillance programs were started and how many directives were issued.

Makes no mention of the Inspector General, who uncovered abuses of the Patriot Act by the FBI after being ordered by Congress to audit the use of powerful self-issued subpoenas, is not mentioned in the bill.


In short, the law gives the Administration the power to order the nation's communication service providers -- which range from Gmail, AOL IM, Twitter, Skype, traditional phone companies, ISPs, internet backbone providers, Federal Express, and social networks -- to create possibly permanent spying outposts (http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70910) for the federal government.

These outposts need only to have a "significant" purpose of spying on foreigners, would be nearly immune to challenge by lawsuit, and have no court supervision over their extent or implementation.

Abuses of the outposts will be monitored only by the Justice Department, which has already been found to have underreported abuses of other surveillance powers to Congress.

In related international news, Zimbabwe's repressive dictator Robert Mugabe also won passage of a law allowing the government to turn (http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/05/zimbabwe_mugabe_enac.html) that nation's communication infrastructure into a gigantic, secret microphone.

UPDATE: This analysis originally said that the orders entered under the new rules could be renewed indefinitely. That is not accurate. I conflated the ability of the government to continue indefinitely the programs under way under FISA before the law was signed, with the section that says that the programs under the new law go for a full year, despite the 6 month sunset.

That said, if a future bill includes the same grandfather clause that this bill has, the spying outposts could easily permanent.

Those interested in seeing how I made this mistake, look at Section 6 of the bill (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:s1927es.txt). I regret the error.

UPDATE 2: James Risen, the New York Times reporter who broke the story of the warrantless wiretapping program, has an analysis piece here (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/08/06/MNI6RDFMQ1.DTL&tsp=1).

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/analysis-new-la.html

[Wolfn]

So wait, they can listen to our phones and stuff?

In other news, Elvis Presley died of an apparent drug overdose.

[elji]

Analysis: New Law Gives Government Six Months to Turn Internet and Phone Systems into Permanent Spying Architecture

By Ryan Singel
August 06, 2007

A new law expanding the government's spying powers gives the Bush Administration a six-month window to install possibly permanent back doors in the nation's communication networks. The legislation was passed hurriedly by Congress over the weekend and signed into law (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/08/05/national/a141537D08.DTL) Sunday by President Bush.

The bill, known as the Protect America Act (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:s1927es.txt), removes the prohibition on warrantless spying on Americans abroad and gives the government wide powers to order communication service providers such as cell phone companies and ISPs to make their networks available to government eavesdroppers (http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70910).

The Administration pushed for passage of the changes to close what it called a "surveillance gap (http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/more-known-unkn.html)," referring to a long-standing feature of the nation's surveillance laws that required the government to get court approval to capture communications inside the United States.

While the nation's spy laws have been continually loosened since 9/11, the Administration never pushed for the right to tap the nation's domestic communication networks until a secret court recently struck down (http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/more-known-unkn.html) a key pillar of the government's secret spying program.

The Administration argues that the world's communication networks now route many foreign to foreign calls and emails through switches in the United States.

Prior to the law's passage, the nation's spy agencies, such as the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, didn't need any court approval to spy on foreigners so long as the wiretaps were outside the United States.

Now, those agencies are free to order services like Skype, cell phone companies and arguably even search engines to comply with secret spy orders to create back doors in domestic communication networks for the nation's spooks. While it's unclear whether the wiretapping can be used for domestic purposes, the law only requires that the programs that give rise to such orders have a "significant purpose" of foreign intelligence gathering.

The law:


Defines the act of reading and listening into American's phone calls and internet communications when they are "reasonably believed" to be outside the country as not surveillance.

Gives the government 6 months of extended powers to issue orders to "communication service providers," to help with spying that "concerns persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States." The language doesn't require the surveillance to only target people outside the United States, only that some of it does.

Forces Communication Service providers to comply secretly, though they can challenge the orders to the secret Foreign Intelligence Court. Individuals or companies given such orders will be paid for their cooperation and can not be sued for complying.

Makes any program or orders launched in the next six months perpetually renewable after the six month "sunset" of the new powers last for a year after being authorized (note: the words in bold are cancelled in original txt - see update)

Grandfathers in the the current secret surveillance program -- sometimes referred to as the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- and any others that have been blessed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Requires the Attorney General to submit to the secret surveillance court its reasons why these programs aren't considered domestic spying programs, but the court can only throw out those reasons if it finds that they are "clearly erroneous."

Requires the Attorney General to tell Congress twice a year about any incidents of surveillance abuse and give statistics about how many surveillance programs were started and how many directives were issued.

Makes no mention of the Inspector General, who uncovered abuses of the Patriot Act by the FBI after being ordered by Congress to audit the use of powerful self-issued subpoenas, is not mentioned in the bill.


In short, the law gives the Administration the power to order the nation's communication service providers -- which range from Gmail, AOL IM, Twitter, Skype, traditional phone companies, ISPs, internet backbone providers, Federal Express, and social networks -- to create possibly permanent spying outposts (http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70910) for the federal government.

These outposts need only to have a "significant" purpose of spying on foreigners, would be nearly immune to challenge by lawsuit, and have no court supervision over their extent or implementation.

Abuses of the outposts will be monitored only by the Justice Department, which has already been found to have underreported abuses of other surveillance powers to Congress.

In related international news, Zimbabwe's repressive dictator Robert Mugabe also won passage of a law allowing the government to turn (http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/05/zimbabwe_mugabe_enac.html) that nation's communication infrastructure into a gigantic, secret microphone.

UPDATE: This analysis originally said that the orders entered under the new rules could be renewed indefinitely. That is not accurate. I conflated the ability of the government to continue indefinitely the programs under way under FISA before the law was signed, with the section that says that the programs under the new law go for a full year, despite the 6 month sunset.

That said, if a future bill includes the same grandfather clause that this bill has, the spying outposts could easily permanent.

Those interested in seeing how I made this mistake, look at Section 6 of the bill (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:s1927es.txt). I regret the error.

UPDATE 2: James Risen, the New York Times reporter who broke the story of the warrantless wiretapping program, has an analysis piece here (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/08/06/MNI6RDFMQ1.DTL&tsp=1).

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/analysis-new-la.html


This is very old news. There are already recording devices in our phones as we speak

[abdulhakeem]

A Gateway for Hackers

The Security Threat in the New Wiretapping Law

By Susan Landau
Thursday, August 9, 2007

Current administration policy is replete with examples of quickly enacted efforts whose consequences led to the opposite effect. (Beware of what you wish for . . . .) With Congress caving last week, the National Security Agency no longer needs a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to wiretap if one party is believed to be outside the United States. This change looks reasonable at first, but it could create huge long-term security risks for the United States.

The immediate problem is fiber optics. Until recently, telecommunication signals came through the air. The NSA used satellites and antennas to pick up conversations of foreigners talking to other foreigners. Modern communications, however, use fiber; since conversations don't go through the air, the NSA wants to access communications at land-based switches.

Because communications from around the world often go through the United States, the government can still get access to much of the information it seeks. But wiretapping within the United States has required a FISA search warrant, and the NSA apparently found using FISA too time-consuming, even though emergency access was permitted as long as a warrant was applied for and granted within 72 hours of surveillance.

Avoiding warrants for these cases sounds simple, though potentially invasive of Americans' civil liberties. Most calls outside the country involve foreigners talking to foreigners. Most communications within the country are constitutionally protected -- U.S. "persons" talking to U.S. "persons." To avoid wiretapping every communication, NSA will need to build massive automatic surveillance capabilities into telephone switches. Here things get tricky: Once such infrastructure is in place, others could use it to intercept communications.

Grant the NSA what it wants, and within 10 years the United States will be vulnerable to attacks from hackers across the globe, as well as the militaries of China, Russia and other nations.

Such threats are not theoretical. For almost a year beginning in April 2004, more than 100 phones belonging to members of the Greek government, including the prime minister and ministers of defense, foreign affairs, justice and public order, were spied on with wiretapping software that was misused. Exactly who placed the software and who did the listening remain unknown. But they were able to use software that was supposed to be used only with legal permission.

The United States itself has been attacked. In six hours in August 2006, remote attackers entered computers at the Army Information Systems Engineering Command at Fort Huachuca, Ariz.; the Defense Information Systems Agency in Arlington; the Naval Ocean Systems Center in San Diego; and the Army Space and Strategic Defense Command in Huntsville, Ala. The hackers transported more than 10 terabytes of data to South Korea, Hong Kong or Taiwan, and from there to the People's Republic of China. Each intrusion was only 10 to 30 minutes. The downloaded information included Army helicopter mission-planning-systems specifications and flight-planning software used by the Army and Air Force.

U.S. communications technology is fragile and easily penetrated. While advanced, it is not decades ahead of that of our friends or our rivals. Compounding the issue is a key facet of modern systems design: Intercept capabilities are likely to be managed remotely, and vulnerabilities are as likely to be global as local. In simplifying wiretapping for U.S. intelligence, we provide a target for foreign intelligence agencies and possibly rogue hackers. Break into one service, and you get broad access to U.S. communications.

The Greek wiretapping and Chinese thefts from U.S. military sites are warnings that entities other than the NSA could exploit the vulnerabilities of U.S. communications networks. Were the proposed wiretapping technology penetrated by foreign intelligence services, U.S. security and privacy could be quickly and severely compromised.

In its effort to provide policymakers with immediate intelligence, the NSA forgot the critical information security aspect of its mission: protecting U.S. communications against foreign interception. So did Congress. Lawmakers granted the warrantless wiretapping only for six months -- and they need to look carefully before it endangers U.S. national security for the long term.

Susan Landau, co-author of "Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption," is distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems Laboratories.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/08/AR2007080801961.html

[abdulhakeem]

Even if calls not tapped, our fear is

By Diane Carman
08/09/2007

Edith Williams is certain that her phone is being tapped, and nobody can convince her otherwise.

I wouldn't dare try.

Still, it makes no sense that the government is interested in the 80-year- old woman's conversations about the weather, her health and, of course, politics with her sister in Wiesbaden, Germany.

Then again, a lot of things don't make sense.

"This has been going on since 2005," said Williams, a retired insurance agent who moved to Denver from Germany in 1951. "It's a constant drag on my nerves."

Williams has noticed a peculiar clicking or an echo on the phone whenever she talks to her sister, an economist.

She's called her long-distance provider, which said there were no technical problems. Her brother-in-law, a retired police chief, checked the phone on their end and found nothing.

But every time she hears the sounds, she feels a rush of anxiety. "All of a sudden, I get afraid," she said.

Williams worries that she's being surveilled because she has e-mailed President Bush.
She began writing to him before the war began, she said.

"My e-mails were always respectful, but they also pointed out the history of trouble in Mesopotamia and that it didn't make any sense to attack the people there. I begged him to wait for the U.N."

Williams has vivid memories of the bombings in World War II-era Germany. "Some of my e-mails recalled the horrors of a child going outside after the bombings and seeing body parts in the street."

Her other memories from the war are of the suspicion that was fostered by the Nazis so that the fears of the German people could be exploited.

"I know the distrust and the loss of personal freedom that breeds," she said. "Once neighbors start watching neighbors, looking at them differently, it's a horrible thing."

Williams said she has contacted U.S. Sens. Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar about the noises on her phone. They responded with letters that said the warrantless surveillance was a national security matter over which they had no control.

"I also had conversations with people in Salazar's office, and they didn't pay any attention to me. It was like: 'Here's a little old lady. Let's pat her on the head. She's crazy,"' she said.

"And, by the way, Salazar voted for the bill."

Williams is furious with the Democratic Congress for voting to authorize the Bush administration's wiretapping of the international phone calls and e-mails of Americans.

"Sometimes when I blow off steam to a friend or a neighbor, they'll say, 'Well, if it prevents another 9/11 repeat, why not?'

"I just lose it," she said. "I admit I've never been the most patient person, and that hasn't improved with age."

On Wednesday, she called U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, who listened to her story about the noises on the phone and commiserated with her about the Protect America Act of 2007 - which he didn't support.

"I was venting to him about that, and he said, 'Edith, you're preaching to the choir,"' she said.

I asked her why we should believe her when she says she's not a terrorist who needs watching.

"My life is an open book," she said. A citizen with a grown daughter and four grandchildren, she worked until she was 70 and now lives a quiet life with her elderly dog. Chances are good that if people are listening to the conversations with her sister, the juiciest information they'll get is a sauerbraten recipe or two.

"It's a waste of time," she said.

Still, that doesn't make it right because she is "still afraid."

And that may be the real impact of the Orwellian Protect America Act of 2007.
After all, it doesn't matter whether the government actually is eavesdropping on Williams' phone calls - or yours or mine. Just knowing that some government goon can listen for any reason - or no reason at all - can make a person think twice about expressing dissent.

Williams has seen that before and knows how insidiously it happens. "Little by little, you lose your individual freedoms and you don't even notice it."

Then, she said, you wake up one morning, and all that's left is the fear.

Diane Carman's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Reach her at 303-954-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.

http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_6577492