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After Words: James Bamford, author of "The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America " interviewed by Jonathan Landay
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Jim Martin: Principle vs. cowardice - Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald:
Jim Martin is the Democratic candidate for Senate in Georgia, challenging GOP incumbent Saxby Chambliss. Though universally considered all year to have little chance of winning in this deep Southern red state, virtually all polls now show the race as extremely close if not tied, and Martin clearly has a very good chance to win. Yesterday, Matt Stoller published an interview he conducted this week with Martin which contained this exchange:
read more »Question: Do you have a position on FISA and government wiretapping?
Jim Martin: The threat of terrorism is real and the government should take all necessary measures to protect us. While I support the overall aims of the recent FISA bill, the inclusion of a provision granting amnesty to telecom providers who permitted the government to listen in on the conversations of Americans without a warrant troubles me. Because I do not believe that the government should craft policy that permits law breaking, I would not have supported the FISA bill that included telecom immunity.
Exclusive: Inside Account of U.S. Eavesdropping on Americans - Tonight on Nightline - Via ABC News: Nightline :
U.S. Officers' "Phone Sex" Intercepted; Senate Demanding Answers
Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia. read more »
I don't see anything on their site yet, but the closing comments on tonights Nightline says that Thursdays show will include interviews with ex-employees who listened to those wiretaps of phone calls that supposedly did not include innocent US citizens.
Supreme Court Review - Via JURIST - Video Monitor:
Professors Chris Schroeder, Curt Bradley, Guy Charles, and Ernie Young reviewed the most significant decisions of the past term of the U.S. Supreme Court., Duke University School of Law, September 17, 2008. RealPlayer, 49 minutes. Watch recorded video.
Ed Felten & David Robinson - Center for Information Technology Policy - Via IT Conversations:
Information technologies weave their way into every aspect of our personal, professional, and civic lives. There's a growing need for informed public discussion of their public policy implications. Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) is one emerging forum for that conversation. Ed Felten and David Robinson speak with host Jon Udell to explore the goals and activities of the CITP.
(Read Original Article - Via IT Conversations.)
Mike German Talks About the Updated Attorney General Guidelines for the FBI - Via The American Civil Liberties Union:
The FBI is overhauling five types of existing guidelines. Under the new guidelines, a persons race or ethnic background could be used as a factor in opening an investigation, a move the ACLU believes will institute racial profiling as a matter of policy. The guidelines would also give the FBI the ability to use intrusive investigative techniques before public demonstrations. The rewritten guidelines have been drafted in a way to give the FBI the ability to begin surveillance without factual evidence, stating that a generalized threat is enough to use certain techniques.Visit www.aclu.org/podcasts for all the latest audio from the ACLU.
(Read Original Article - Via The American Civil Liberties Union.)
Salon Radio: ACLU's Caroline Frederickson - Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald:
My guest today is Caroline Frederickson, the ACLU's National Legislative Director. We discuss the virtually complete invisibility of civil liberties and constitutional issues in the presidential campaign, as well as the ACLU's new campaign to change that (which you can join here). Frederickson also provides the latest updates on the ACLU's lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the recently enacted FISA Amendments Act of 2008.
The discussion is roughly 25 minutes. It can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder below, and a transcript is here.
It is common for people to assert, without citation to any polling data, that Americans don't care about civil liberties protections or that they sanction abridgments of core constitutional liberties if those abridgments can be remotely justified by appeals to greater security. read more »
Chertoff: I'm Listening to the Internet (Not in a Bad Way) - Via Threat Level:
Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff sat down with Threat Level on Monday in Silicon Valley to talk about laptop searches at the border, the government's new-found interest in computer security, and the continuing saga of overeager terrorist watch lists.
Among the revelations: It seems blog comments inspired him to propose a laptop-tracking application for those who had their computers seized at the border. He also explained why watch-list mismatches are the airlines' fault, and why the government is too secret.
Wired.com: There have been quite a few security czars over the years, but sometime last year, cybersecurity became important. What changed? read more »
Interview with ACLU re: constitutional challenge to new FISA law - Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald:
(Updated below - Update II - Update III - Update IV)
This afternoon, I spoke with Jameel Jaffer, the Director of the ACLU's National Security Project, regarding the two legal proceedings commenced today by the ACLU challenging the constitutionality of the new FISA law. The roughly 20-minute discussion can be heard here.
The ACLU filed one action in the FISA court, requesting that -- contrary to how the FISA court normally works -- all proceedings regarding the constitutionality of the FISA law be open to the public and transparent, and that the proceedings be adversarial (i.e., that the ACLU -- rather than just the Government -- can participate). The other action was filed in a federal court in the Southern District of New York, alleging that the provisions which vest vast new warrantless eavesdropping powers in the President are, for multiple reasons, violative of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The ACLU's lawsuits do not challenge the constitutionality of the telecom immunity provisions of the new FISA law because those sections will be challenged by EFF and local/affiliate ACLU groups in separate actions. The legal documents filed today by the ACLU are here.
In the podcast, Jaffer details exactly what warrantless surveillance powers the new FISA bill vests in the President, along with the reasons they are so pernicious. read more »
Avi Rubin Has Some Optimistic Words About E-Voting - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online:
An anonymous reader writes "For more than a decade, Aviel "Avi" Rubin, a professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University in the US and an e-voting activist, has been a vocal critic of e-voting systems. In this interview Rubin talks about the recent US presidential primary election cycle and his thoughts on e-voting going into the November US elections."
Sandvine CEO Says Internet Monitoring a Necessity - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online:
Khalid Baheyeldin writes in with a CBC interview with the CEO of Sandvine, Dave Caputo (bio here). Sandvine is the Waterloo, Ontario-based company that provides the technology that Comcast and other ISPs use to overrule Net neutrality by, for example, injecting RST packets to disrupt Bittorrent traffic. Caputo says, among other things, that Internet monitoring is a necessity. Some of the comments to the interview are more tech-savvy than the interviewee comes across.
Senators Dodd and Feingold Criticize Bond's False FISA "Compromise" - Via EFF.org Updates:
Thanks to Senators Dodd and Feingold for sending a great letter today to House and Senate leadership decrying the telco immunity "compromise" being offered by Republican negotiators:
As we understand it, the [Republican] proposal would authorize secret proceedings in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance to evaluate the companies' immunity claims, but the court's role would be limited to evaluating precisely the same question laid out in the Senate bill: whether a company received "a written request or directive from the Attorney General or the head of an element of the intelligence community... indicating that the activity was authorized by the President and determined to be lawful." Information declassified in the committee report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the FISA Amendments Act, S. 2248, confirms that the companies received exactly these materials....
In other words, under the Bond proposal, the result of the FISA Court's evaluation would be predetermined. Regardless of how much information it is permitted to review, what standard of review is employed, how open the proceedings are, and what role the plaintiffs' lawyers are permitted to play, the FISA Court would be required to grant immunity. To agree to such a proposal would not represent a reasonable compromise.
Senators Dodd and Feingold have been stalwart in their opposition to telco immunity, but they need your help to stop the "compromise" bill, which we've heard may debut on both the House and Senate floors as early next week. So contact Congress now and tell them to stand strong and say no to immunity for lawbreaking telcos!
(Read Original Article - Via EFF.org Updates.)
Gag Lifted, Brewster Speaks! - Via ACLU Blog - Government Spying:
The FBI has withdrawn an unconstitutional national security letter issued to the Internet Archive after a legal challenge from the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. As the result of a settlement agreement, the FBI withdrew the NSL, agreed to the unsealing of the case, and lifted a gag order — finally allowing the Archive’s founder, Brewster Kahle, to speak out for the first time about his battle against the record demand. Check out this video for Kahle's story in his own words. read more »
NewYorkCountryLawyer Debates RIAA VP - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online:
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "At Fordham Law School's annual IP Law Conference this year, Slashdot member NewYorkCountryLawyer had a chance to square off with Kenneth Doroshow, a Senior Vice President of the RIAA, over the subject of copyright statutory damages. Doroshow thought the Jammie Thomas verdict of $222,000 was okay, since he said, Ms. Thomas might have distributed 10 million unauthorized copies. NYCL, on the other hand, who has previously derided the $9250-per-song file verdict as 'one of the most irrational things [he has] ever seen in [his] life in the law', stated at the Fordham conference that the verdict had made the United States 'a laughingstock throughout the world'. read more »
Ashcroft's Bizarre Torture Comments - Via ACLU Blog:
Earlier this week, Think Progress reported on former Attorney General John Ashcroft's comment about torture in a speech he gave Monday at St. John's University. He said, "Going to a high school dance, having to listen to loud music, to me that's torture. I was on the Daily Show once. I was interviewed by Jon Stewart. That was torture."
Ha. Ha. Ha.
Now, we love a good laugh as much as the next person, but ThinkProgress's roundup got us thinking about the many, well, rather insensitive comments politicians have made of late. We think humor on the topic of torture is best left to the comics, not someone who authorized the real thing.
It turns out Ashcroft was on a roll. On Tuesday, he engaged in a rather testy exchange with an audience member at Knox College in Illinois. The audience member wrote a first-hand account of what went down on MyDD. read more »
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