US drafting plan to allow government access to any email or Web search

RAW STORY Published: Monday January 14, 2008

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is drawing up plans for cyberspace spying that would make the current debate on warrantless wiretaps look like a "walk in the park," according to an interview published in the New Yorker's print edition today.

Debate on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act “will be a walk in the park compared to this,” McConnell said. “this is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.”

The article, which profiles the 65-year-old former admiral appointed by President George W. Bush in January 2007 to oversee all of America's intelligence agencies, was not published on the New Yorker's Web site. (It can be read here in pdf).

McConnell is developing a Cyber-Security Policy, still in the draft stage, which will closely police Internet activity.

"Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the autority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer or Web search," author Lawrence Wright pens.

“Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation, he said," Wright adds. "Giorgio warned me, 'We have a saying in this business: ‘Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.'"

A zero-sum game is one in which gains by one side come at the expense of the other. In other words -- McConnell's aide believes greater security can only come at privacy's expense.

McConnell has been an advocate for computer-network defense, which has previously not been the province of any intelligence agency.

According to a 2007 conversation in the Oval Office, McConnell told President Bush, “If the 9/11 perpetrators had focused on a single US bank through cyber-attack and it had been successful, it would have an order of magnitude greater impact on the US economy.”

Bush turned to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, asking him if it was true; Paulson said that it was. Bush then asked to McConnell to come up with a network security strategy.

"One proposal of McConnell’s Cyber-Security Policy, which is still in the draft stage, is to reduce the access points between government computers and the Internet from two thousand to fifty," Wright notes. "He claimed that cyber-theft account for as much as a hundred billion dollars in annual losses to the American economy. 'The real problem is the perpetrator who doesn’t care about stealing—he just wants to destroy.'"

The infrastructure to tap into Americans' email and web search history may already be in place.

In November, a former technician at AT&T alleged that the telecom forwarded virtually all of its Internet traffic into a "secret room" to facilitate government spying.

Whistleblower Mark Klein said that a copy of all Internet traffic passing over AT&T lines was copied into a locked room at the company's San Francisco office -- to which only employees with National Security Agency clearance had access -- via a cable splitting device.

"My job was to connect circuits into the splitter device which was hard-wired to the secret room," Klein. said "And effectively, the splitter copied the entire data stream of those Internet cables into the secret room -- and we're talking about phone conversations, email web browsing, everything that goes across the Internet."

"As a technician, I had the engineering wiring documents, which told me how the splitter was wired to the secret room," Klein continued. "And so I know that whatever went across those cables was copied and the entire data stream was copied."

According to Klein, that information included Internet activity about Americans.

"We're talking about domestic traffic as well as international traffic," Klein said. Previous Bush administration claims that only international communications were being intercepted aren't accurate, he added.

"I know the physical equipment, and I know that statement is not true," he added. "It involves millions of communications, a lot of it domestic communications that they're copying wholesale."

Elliot D. Cohen: Why Haven't the Mainstream Corporate Media Covered the AT&T/NSA Domestic Spying Program?

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Mon, 08/13/2007 - 9:07am. Guest Contribution

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D.

The recently passed "Protect America Act of 2007" (S. 1927), which expands presidential powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to spy on our overseas phone and e-mail communications without a court warrant, appears to be just the tip of the iceberg of government eavesdropping on American citizens. Yet, mainstream media (MSM) have given scant coverage to the NSA/AT&T domestic spying program, and a landmark case now pending before the 9th circuit federal appeals court, the outcome of which may mark the final blow to Fourth Amendment privacy rights in America.

On January 31, 2006, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a class action suit against AT&T for allegedly collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in electronically eavesdropping on the phone and e-mail messages of millions of Americans, both domestic and overseas, as these communications passed through the AT&T system. This program, which appears to have been approved by the President, first came to light in 2005 when an AT&T employee at the San Francisco hub blew the whistle on the program. The whistleblower (who produced photographs and other pertinent documents) claimed that AT&T kept a "secret" room requiring NSA clearance. As millions of phone and e-mail messages entered the hub, wires were spliced to reroute them through this room. The messages were then parsed for key language related to whatever the government was searching for -- presumably, terrorists. Other whistleblowers eventually reported similar secret rooms at other AT&T hubs in other U.S. cities, including St. Louis, Seattle, Atlanta, and Los Angeles.

Both AT&T and the Justice Department made motions to dismiss the case. Not denying the existence of the program, the Justice Department argued that the trial would require disclosure of top secret information. AT&T claimed immunity under a provision of the Electronic Communications Protection Act (18 U.S.C. 2511). However, presiding U.S. District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker denied both motions, arguing that "The compromise between liberty and security remains a difficult one. But dismissing this case at the outset would sacrifice liberty for no apparent enhancement of security." The Bush administration then appealed the decision to the 9th circuit, where amidst passage of S. 1927, it is now pending before the 9th circuit. There are also 54 other lawsuits involving NSA spying whose fates, along with the EFF case, await the 9th circuit's ruling.

Prior to the enactment of the "Protect America Act of 2007," FISA limited electronic surveillance without a court order to "the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers" (italics added) where there was "no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party." Otherwise a warrant from a FISA court had to be issued. Now, under the extended powers, no warrant is needed as long as the surveillance is "concerning persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States." In this regard, the revised law "clarifies" the previous FISA definition of "electronic surveillance" stating, "Nothing in the definition of electronic surveillance under section 101(f) shall be construed to encompass surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States" (Section 105A). Thus, for example, it does not matter whether an overseas communication is between two U.S. citizens-one located in the US and the other outside of it -- just as long as the surveillance is "directed at [the] person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States." This means that all overseas communications coming in and out of the United States can be monitored without warrant or probable cause.

The "Protect America Act of 2007" also gives telecom companies such as AT&T and Comcast a central role in the acquisition of foreign intelligence by stipulating that the information acquired must be obtained from, or with the assistance of a communications service provider including any employee, agent, or officer thereof "who has access to communications, either as they are transmitted or while they are stored, or equipment that is being or may be used to transmit or store such communications." Accordingly, the Act legalizes the role of telecom companies as accomplices in eavesdropping on the overseas communications of Americans.

But the plot thickens still. In addition to monitoring all overseas communications, and making the telecoms an accessory, the Bush administration now wants the 9th circuit to permit the AT&T/NSA spying program. Since this program indiscriminately monitors all communications made through a service provider, this would permit government eavesdropping on all communications occurring in the United States, including ones exclusively between American citizens -again, presumably, to "protect" America. The pattern here is by now a familiar one: violate the law, legalize the violation, and then use the legalized violation as precedent for legalization of further previously unlawful actions.

The present slippery slope toward the demise of Fourth Amendment protections also has implications for the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and of the press. If government is authorized to police private communications without court warrants granted on the basis of probable cause, then this can have a chilling effect on what is said in these communications; and it is not difficult to foresee this progressive pattern of oppression leading toward the silencing of opinions deemed by the president "hostile" to "national security." (Legal precedent already exists for this. See, for example, the chilling new definition of "unlawful enemy combatant" in the Military Commissions Act of 2006.)

Unfortunately, there has been scant coverage by MSM of the AT&T/NSA spying program and the pending court cases against it, despite the imminent threat this program and its legalization poses to communication privacy in America, and indeed to democracy itself. So why haven't the MSM given due attention to this serious threat to national security?

The answer probably lies in the ever-increasing trend toward corporate media consolidation in America. First, the MSM corporations including News Corp (FOX), General Electric (NBC), Time Warner (CNN), Viacom (CBS), and Disney (ABC) have all enjoyed joint ventures with AT&T. Since these few giant media corporations that control network news in America are driven largely by their bottom lines, they are not likely to persist in exposing a serious business partner to bad press. Consequently, such stories are played down or not covered at all.

Second, the behemoth media and telecom companies have strong monetary incentives to cooperate with the government -- such as the receipt of lucrative military defense contracts, tax breaks, and relaxed ownership and antitrust rules. For example, the recent merger of Bell South with AT&T was possible only because the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), presently chaired by Kevin Martin, a Bush appointee with close ties to the White House, approved the merger.

It is therefore easy to see how these giant corporations have allowed themselves to become pawns of what may be the most powerful and controlling White House in American history. In the present situation, the Bush administration has exploited their voracious appetites for profit in order to eavesdrop on American citizens. Sadly, it is the American experiment in democracy that has paid the price.

In the end, democracies stand or fall on the collective, unified power of the people. If the American people, in substantial number, refuse to use (or reduce reliance on) the services of giant telecommunication corporations that cooperate with government in undermining our constitutional rights (enlisting when we can the services of other companies that refuse to cooperate), then these giant companies will be likely to listen -- since to do otherwise would mean lost revenues. Similarly, if we are willing to seek alternative, independent media to keep informed (and we must keep informed), then giant media companies such as News Corp, Time Warner, and General Electric will be less likely to censor and play down the stories that independent media are now competently covering. Unfortunately, most Americans get their news from the MSM, not from independent media such as Web-based sites. This would need to change if democracy in America is to survive.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D. is a media ethicist and critic. His most recent book is The Last Days of Democracy: How Big Media and Power-Hungry Government are turning America into a Dictatorship. He is also first prize winner of the 2007 Project Censored Award.

Bush officials say they will keep breaking the law to spy on Americans

Bush officials say they will keep breaking the law to spy on Americans by
Joe Sudbay (DC) · 5/02/2007

No surprise here really. The loyal Bushies were lying earlier this year. We were told the Bush team would follow the law and obtain warrants when spying on Americans. Wrong. Instead, they'll keep breaking the law if they want to. Lying lawbreakers, that's who is running our country:

Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January.Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants.As a result of the January agreement, the administration said that the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program has been brought under the legal structure laid out in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved warrants for the wiretapping of American citizens and others inside the United States.But on Tuesday, the senior officials, including Michael McConnell, the new director of national intelligence, said they believed that the president still had the authority under Article II of the Constitution to once again order the N.S.A. to conduct surveillance inside the country without warrants.George Bush doesn't have the authority to break the law. He just thinks he does.