Microchips Everywhere: Big Brother on Steroids (TODD LEWAN, The Associated Press,January 26, 2008) Here's a vision of the not-so-distant future: Microchips with antennas will be embedded in virtually everything you buy, wear, drive and read, allowing retailers and law enforcement to track consumer items _ and, by extension, consumers _ wherever they go, from a distance. . . . A seamless, global network of electronic "sniffers" will scan radio tags in myriad public settings, identifying people and their tastes instantly so that customized ads, "live spam," may be beamed at them. . . . In "Smart Homes," sensors built into walls, floors and appliances will inventory possessions, record eating habits, monitor medicine cabinets _ all the while, silently reporting data to marketers eager for a peek into the occupants' private lives. . . . Science fiction? . . . In truth, much of the radio frequency identification technology that enables objects and people to be tagged and tracked wirelessly already exists _ and new and potentially intrusive uses of it are being patented, perfected and deployed. . . . Some of the world's largest corporations are vested in the success of RFID technology, which couples highly miniaturized computers with radio antennas to broadcast information about sales and buyers to company databases. . . . Already, microchips are turning up in some computer printers, car keys and tires, on shampoo bottles and department store clothing tags. They're also in library books and "contactless" payment cards (such as American Express' "Blue" and ExxonMobil's "Speedpass.") . . . The problem, critics say, is that microchipped products might very well do a whole lot more. . . . With tags in so many objects, relaying information to databases that can be linked to credit and bank cards, almost no aspect of life may soon be safe from the prying eyes of corporations and governments, says Mark Rasch, former head of the computer-crime unit of the U.S. Justice Department. . . . By placing sniffers in strategic areas, companies can invisibly "rifle through people's pockets, purses, suitcases, briefcases, luggage _ and possibly their kitchens and bedrooms _ anytime of the day or night," says Rasch, now managing director of technology at FTI Consulting Inc., a Baltimore-based company. . . . In an RFID world, "You've got the possibility of unauthorized people learning stuff about who you are, what you've bought, how and where you've bought it ... It's like saying, 'Well, who wants to look through my medicine cabinet?'" . . . He imagines a time when anyone from police to identity thieves to stalkers might scan locked car trunks, garages or home offices from a distance. "Think of it as a high-tech form of Dumpster diving," says Rasch, who's also concerned about data gathered by "spy" appliances in the home. . . . "It's going to be used in unintended ways by third parties _ not just the government, but private investigators, marketers, lawyers building a case against you ..." . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 9:37 AM
Click the link above to see a very well-detailed (complete with links) timeline of how the Clinton-Cheney-Bush Crime Family has taken away your civil liberties.
. . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 12:54 PM
Bush Uses Private Companies to Spy on You (Tim Shorrock, CorpWatch, 27 November 2007) The Bush administration is launching a new government agency that will rely heavily on private security contractors to conduct surveillance in the US.
A new intelligence institution to be inaugurated soon by the Bush administration will allow government spying agencies to conduct broad surveillance and reconnaissance inside the United States for the first time. Under a proposal being reviewed by Congress, a National Applications Office (NAO) will be established to coordinate how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and domestic law enforcement and rescue agencies use imagery and communications intelligence picked up by U.S. spy satellites. If the plan goes forward, the NAO will create the legal mechanism for an unprecedented degree of domestic intelligence gathering that would make the United States one of the world's most closely monitored nations. Until now, domestic use of electronic intelligence from spy satellites was limited to scientific agencies with no responsibility for national security or law enforcement. . . . The intelligence-sharing system to be managed by the NAO will rely heavily on private contractors, including Boeing, BAE Systems, L-3 Communications and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). These companies already provide technology and personnel to U.S. agencies involved in foreign intelligence, and the NAO greatly expands their markets. Indeed, at an intelligence conference in San Antonio, Texas, last month, the titans of the industry were actively lobbying intelligence officials to buy products specifically designed for domestic surveillance. . . . The NAO was created under a plan tentatively approved in May 2007 by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell. Specifically, the NAO will oversee how classified information collected by the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and other key agencies is used within the United States during natural disasters, terrorist attacks and other events affecting national security. The most critical intelligence will be supplied by the NSA and the NGA, which are often referred to by U.S. officials as the "eyes" and "ears" of the intelligence community. . . . The NSA, through a global network of listening posts, surveillance planes, and satellites, captures signals from phone calls, email and internet traffic, and translates and analyzes them for U.S. military and national intelligence officials. . . . . . . The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which was formally inaugurated in 2003, provides overhead imagery and mapping tools that allow intelligence and military analysts to monitor events from the skies and space. The NSA and the NGA have a close relationship with the supersecret National Reconnaissance Agency (NRO), which builds and maintains the U.S. fleet of spy satellites and operates the ground stations where the NSA's signals and the NGA's imagery are processed and analyzed. By law, their collection efforts are supposed to be confined to foreign countries and battlefields. . . . The National Applications Office was conceived in 2005 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which Congress created in 2004 to oversee the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community. The ODNI, concerned that the legal framework for U.S. intelligence operations had not been updated for the global "war on terror," turned to Booz Allen Hamilton of McLean, Va., one of the largest contractors in the spy business. The company was tasked with studying how intelligence from spy satellites and photoreconnaissance planes could be better used domestically to track potential threats to security within the United States. The Booz Allen study was completed in May of that year and has since become the basis for the NAO oversight plan. In May 2007, McConnell, the former executive vice president of Booz Allen, signed off on the creation of the NAO as the principal body to oversee the merging of foreign and domestic intelligence collection operations. . . . The NAO is "an idea whose time has arrived," Charles Allen, a top U.S. intelligence official, told the Wall Street Journal in August 2007 after it broke the news of the NAO's creation.
What Will the NAO Do?
[CLICK THE LINK ABOVE FOR THE COMPLETE STORY . . . It will be well-worth your time to read it if you want to have a better understanding of where the surveillance state is heading.] . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 4:33 PM
Bush Outlaws All War Protest In United States (Sorcha Faal, July 19, 2007) In one of his most chilling moves to date against his own citizens, the American War Leader has issued a sweeping order this week outlawing all forms of protest against the Iraq war. . . . President Bush enacted into US law an 'Executive Order' on July 17th titled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq", and which says: "By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, . . . I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United States to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004." . . . According to Russian legal experts, the greatest concern to the American people are the underlying provisions of this new law, and which, they state, are written ‘so broadly’ as to outlaw all forms of protest against the war. These provisions state: "(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or (b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to, (i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order, and (ii) the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person. . . . (c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States. . . . All agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order and, where appropriate, to advise the Secretary of the Treasury in a timely manner of the measures taken." . . . To the subsection of this new US law, according to these legal experts, that says "...the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit...", the insertion of the word 'services' has broad, and catastrophic, consequences for the American people in that any act deemed by their government to be against the Iraqi war is, in fact, supporting the 'enemy' and therefore threatens the 'stabilization of Iraq'. . . . In an even greater affront to the American people are the provisions of a law called The Patriot Act, and that should they run afoul of this new law they are forbidden to allow anyone to know about it, and as we can read as reported by the Seattle Times News Service: . . . [CLICK THE LINK ABOVE FOR THE FULL STORY] . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 9:35 PM
U.S. Set to Begin a Vast Racist Expansion of DNA Sampling (Julia Preston, The New York Times, February 5, 2007) The Justice Department is completing rules to allow the collection of DNA from most people arrested or detained by federal authorities, a vast expansion of DNA gathering that will include hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, by far the largest group affected. . . . The new forensic DNA sampling was authorized by Congress in a little-noticed amendment to a January 2006 renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, which provides protections and assistance for victims of sexual crimes. The amendment permits DNA collecting from anyone under criminal arrest by federal authorities, and also from illegal immigrants detained by federal agents. . . . Over the last year, the Justice Department has been conducting an internal review and consulting with other agencies to prepare regulations to carry out the law. . . . The goal, justice officials said, is to make the practice of DNA sampling as routine as fingerprinting for anyone detained by federal agents, including illegal immigrants. Until now, federal authorities have taken DNA samples only from convicted felons. . . . Peter Neufeld, a lawyer who is a co-director of the Innocence Project, which has exonerated dozens of prison inmates using DNA evidence, said the government was overreaching by seeking to apply DNA sampling as universally as fingerprinting. . . . "Whereas fingerprints merely identify the person who left them," Mr. Neufeld said, "DNA profiles have the potential to reveal our physical diseases and mental disorders. It becomes intrusive when the government begins to mine our most intimate matters." . . . "This has taken us by storm," said Deborah Notkin, a lawyer who was president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association last year. "It's so broad, it's scary. It is a terrible thing to do because people are sometimes detained erroneously in the immigration system." . . . immigration lawyers noted that most immigration violations, including those committed when people enter the country illegally, are civil, not criminal, offenses. They warned that the new law would make it difficult for immigrants to remove their DNA profiles from the federal database, even if they were never found to have committed any serious violation or crime. . . . Under the new law, DNA samples would be taken from any illegal immigrants who are detained and would normally be fingerprinted, justice officials said. Last year federal customs, Border Patrol and immigration agents detained more than 1.2 million immigrants, the majority of them at the border with Mexico. About 238,000 of those immigrants were detained in immigration enforcement investigations. A great majority of all immigration detainees were fingerprinted, immigration officials said. About 102,000 people were arrested on federal charges not related to immigration in 2005. . . . Immigration lawyers said the DNA sampling could tar illegal immigrants with a criminal stigma, even though most of them have never committed any criminal offense. . . . "To equate somebody with a possible immigration violation in the same category as a suspected sex offender is an outrage," said David Leopold, an immigration lawyer who practices in Cleveland. . . . "The pervasive problems of profiling in the United States will only be exacerbated by such a system," Ms. Jacobs said, because Latino and other immigrants will be greatly over-represented in the database. She noted that the law required a court order to remove a profile from the system. . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 1:18 PM
The FBI is watching YOU! (Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com, January 30, 2007) The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than previously has been disclosed. . . . Instead of recording only what a particular suspect is doing, agents conducting investigations appear to be assembling the activities of thousands of Internet users at a time into massive databases, according to current and former officials. That database can subsequently be queried for names, e-mail addresses or keywords. . . . Such a technique is broader and potentially more intrusive than the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system, later renamed DCS1000. . . . Call it the vacuum-cleaner approach. It's employed when police have obtained a court order and an Internet service provider can't "isolate the particular person or IP address" because of technical constraints, . . . That kind of full-pipe surveillance can record all Internet traffic, including Web browsing--or, optionally, only certain subsets such as all e-mail messages flowing through the network. Interception typically takes place inside an Internet provider's network at the junction point of a router or network switch. . . . Ohm said that full-pipe recording has become federal agents' default method for Internet surveillance. "You collect wherever you can on the (network) segment," he said. "If it happens to be the segment that has a lot of IP addresses, you don't throw away the other IP addresses. . . . "What they're doing is even worse than Carnivore," said Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who attended the Stanford event. "What they're doing is intercepting everyone and then choosing their targets." . . . When the FBI announced two years ago it had abandoned Carnivore, news reports said that the bureau would increasingly rely on Internet providers to conduct the surveillance and reimburse them for costs. While Carnivore was the subject of congressional scrutiny and outside audits, the FBI's current Internet eavesdropping techniques have received little attention. . . . Carnivore apparently did not perform full-pipe recording.. . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 6:26 AM
Fine Print in Defense Bill Opens Door to Martial Law (Jeff Stein, CQ National Security Editor, December 1, 2006) It’s amazing what you can find if you turn over a few rocks in the anti-terrorism legislation Congress approved during the election season. . . . Take, for example, the John W. Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2006, named for the longtime Armed Services Committee chairman from Virginia. . . . Signed by President Bush on Oct. 17, the law (PL 109-364) has a provocative provision called "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies." . . . The thrust of it seems to be about giving the federal government a far stronger hand in coordinating responses to Katrina-like disasters. . . . But on closer inspection, its language also alters the two-centuries-old Insurrection Act, which Congress passed in 1807 to limit the president's power to deploy troops within the United States. . . . That law has long allowed the president to mobilize troops only "to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy." . . . But the amended law takes the cuffs off. . . . Specifically, the new language adds "natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident" to the list of conditions permitting the President to take over local authority - particularly "if domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order." . . . Since the administration broadened what constitutes "conspiracy" in its definition of enemy combatants — anyone who "has purposely and materially supported hostilities against the United States," in the language of the Military Commissions Act (PL 109-366) — critics say it's a formula for executive branch mischief. . . . One of the few to complain, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., warned that the measure virtually invites the White House to declare federal martial law. . . . It "subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military's involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law," he said in remarks submitted to the Congressional Record on Sept. 29. . . . "The changes to the Insurrection Act will allow the President to use the military, including the National Guard, to carry out law enforcement activities without the consent of a governor," he said. . . . Moreover, he said, it breaks a long, fundamental tradition of federal restraint. . . . "Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy.s" . . . And he criticized the way it was rammed through Congress. . . . It "was just slipped in the defense bill as a rider with little study," he fumed. "Other congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals." . . . No matter: Safely tucked into the $526 billion defense bill, it easily crossed the goal line on the last day of September. . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 6:05 PM
U.S. privacy rights as bad as China, Russia and Malaysia (The Red Tape Chronicles, November 1, 2006) U.S. privacy protections rank among the worst in the democratic world, a London-based privacy organization said Wednesday. . . . Privacy International ranked 36 nations around the globe, including all European Union nations and other major democracies, and determined that in categories such as enforcement of privacy laws, the U.S. is on par with countries like China, Russia and Malaysia. . . . Overall, the U.S. was determined to be an "extensive surveillance society," the second-lowest rating in the study, which is available at Privacy International's Web site. . . . The survey identified Malaysia, China and Russia as the world's lowest-ranked countries in terms of privacy. It ranked Germany and Canada as those that best protect the privacy of their citizens. . . . "The rankings establish for the first time that most of the world's most economically advanced countries have failed to protect the privacy rights of their citizens, while some of the newest and poorest democracies have become best protectors," wrote Privacy International director Simon Davies in announcing the report. . . . "This is damning evidence that privacy is being destroyed by the very nations that proclaim to respect our rights," he said. "It is clear that there is a systemic failure of legal mechanisms to protect us against the emerging surveillance society. Those responsible for protecting our rights have failed to do so ... Australia, Britain and the United States have not only performed abysmally but they are embracing surveillance at an alarming speed." . . . The U.S. fared poorly in multiple categories, including communications interceptions, workplace monitoring and transmission of data across international borders. . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 10:40 AM
Are You In the FBI's Secret Database? (Michelle Chen, The New Standard, 23 October 2006) The FBI is gathering hundreds of millions of pieces of personal information in the name of fighting terrorism and storing them in a vast, secretive data "warehouse." . . . The privacy-rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice on Tuesday, demanding the government disclose information on the handling of personal data in the FBI’s "Investigative Data Warehouse." The lawsuit seeks details on the nature of the information collected and what privacy protections the agency has applied. . . . The FBI has not yet formally responded to the EFF's complaint. In a speech at a public-safety conference in March 2005, John Lewis, deputy assistant director of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division, said the database included "photographs, biographical information, physical location information, and financial data for thousands of known and suspected terrorists [like anti-war demonstrators]." . . . FBI Director Robert Mueller testified at a May congressional hearing that the Data Warehouse was accessible to about 12,000 users from various local, state and federal agencies working on national-security issues. . . . EFF staff attorney Marcia Hofmann said in a press statement, "The public needs as much information as possible to evaluate tools that put our privacy at risk. The Department of Justice must abide by the law and publicly release information about these surveillance programs." . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 7:28 AM
The Day King George Was Crowned - Dictatorial Powers Assumed
Molly Ivans warns: U.S. looks like Nazis (Molly Ivans, Truthout, 27 September 2006) With a smug stroke of his pen, President Bush is set to wipe out a safeguard against illegal imprisonment that has endured as a cornerstone of legal justice since the Magna Carta. . . . The bill also expands the definition of an unlawful enemy combatant to cover anyone who has "has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States." Quick, define "purposefully and materially." One person has already been charged with aiding terrorists because he sold a satellite TV package that includes the Hezbollah network. . . . The bill simply removes a suspect's right to challenge his detention in court. This is a rule of law that goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215. That pretty much leaves the barn door open. . . . As Vladimir Bukovsky, the Soviet dissident, wrote, an intelligence service free to torture soon "degenerates into a playground for sadists." But not unbridled sadism-you will be relieved that the compromise took out the words permitting interrogation involving "severe pain" and substituted "serious pain," which is defined as "bodily injury that involves extreme physical pain." . . . In July 2003, George Bush said in a speech: "The United States is committed to worldwide elimination of torture, and we are leading this fight by example. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes, whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit." . . . Fellow citizens, this bill throws out legal and moral restraints as the president deems it necessary-these are fundamental principles of basic decency, as well as law. . . . I'd like those supporting this evil bill to spare me one affliction: Do not, please, pretend to be shocked by the consequences of this legislation. And do not pretend to be shocked when the world begins comparing us to the Nazis.
Bush Has Become a Dictator Warns American Bar Association (GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press, July 24, 2006) President Bush's penchant for writing exceptions to laws he has just signed violates the Constitution, an American Bar Association task force says in a report highly critical of the practice. . . . The ABA group, which includes a one-time FBI director and former federal appeals court judge, said the president has overstepped his authority in attaching challenges to hundreds of new laws. . . . The attachments, known as bill-signing statements, say Bush reserves a right to revise, interpret or disregard measures on national security and constitutional grounds. . . . "This report raises serious concerns crucial to the survival of our democracy," said the ABA's president, Michael Greco. "If left unchecked, the president's practice does grave harm to the separation of powers doctrine, and the system of checks and balances that have sustained our democracy for more than two centuries." . . . The task force's recommendations, being released Monday in Washington, will be presented to the 410,000-member group next month at its annual meeting in Hawaii. . . . ABA policymakers will decide whether to denounce the statements and encourage a legal fight over them. . . . The task force said the statements suggest the president will decline to enforce some laws. Bush has had more than 800 signing statement challenges, compared with about 600 signing statements combined for all other presidents, the group said. . . . The ABA report said President Reagan was the first to use the statements as a strategic weapon, and that it was encouraged by then-administration lawyer Samuel Alito - now the newest Supreme Court justice. . . . The task force included former prosecutor Neal Sonnett of Miami; former FBI Director William Sessions; Patricia Wald, former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; former Republican Rep. Mickey Edwards; and former Reagan administration lawyer Bruce Fein; and law school professors and other lawyers. . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 4:40 AM
Homeland Security Fascists Gave Pentagon Information on Anti-War Student Groups (ACLU, July 17, 2006) The Department of Homeland Security provided the Pentagon with information on anti-war protests at University of California campuses last year, according to the most recent government documents released to the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. . . . "Homeland Security was created to protect the American people from terrorist activities - not monitor political dissent on college campuses," said Mark Schlosberg, Police Practices Policy Director of the ACLU of Northern California. "These documents raise significant questions about the extent to which the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring anti-war activities." . . . Students at the University of California Berkeley and Santa Cruz campuses first learned that their activities were being monitored when NBC News reported last December that a secret Pentagon database contained information on several anti-war protests across the country. . . . The most recent documents obtained by the ACLU include two previously redacted reports on the Berkeley and Santa Cruz student groups. Both documents indicate that "a special agent of the federal protective service, U.S. Department of Homeland Security" provided the Pentagon with information on the students. . . . The two Defense Department Threat and Local Observation Notice (TALON) bulletins, dated April 4, 2005 and April 20, 2005, state that the information was provided "to alert commanders and staff to potential terrorist activity or apprise them of other force protection issues." The bulletins also indicate that the Defense Department briefed and coordinated with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Francisco about the campus demonstrations. . . . The documents were released by the Pentagon following a May 26 order by U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup to expedite the ACLU's FOIA request. In his decision, Judge Alsup wrote that the information requested was "of significant importance to public policy and public protest." . . . To date, the ACLU has received more than 150 pages of documents. Most of the documents relate to procedures surrounding the creation of TALON reports. Based on the documents, it appears that regulations governing the TALON reports are still insufficient, said the ACLU. . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 4:30 PM
FBI plans new Net-tapping push (Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com, July 13, 2006) The FBI has drafted sweeping legislation that would require Internet service providers to create wiretapping hubs for police surveillance and force makers of networking gear to build in backdoors for eavesdropping, CNET News.com has learned. . . . FBI Agent Barry Smith distributed the proposal at a private meeting last Friday with industry representatives and indicated it would be introduced by Sen. Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican, according to two sources familiar with the meeting. . . . The draft bill would place the FBI's Net-surveillance push on solid legal footing. At the moment, it's ensnared in a legal challenge from universities and some technology companies that claim the Federal Communications Commission's broadband surveillance directives exceed what Congress has authorized. . . . . . . Breaking the legislation down The 27-page proposed CALEA amendments seen by CNET News.com would: -- Require any manufacturer of "routing" and "addressing" hardware to offer upgrades or other "modifications" that are needed to support Internet wiretapping. . . . -- Authorize the expansion of wiretapping requirements to "commercial" Internet services including instant messaging if the FCC deems it to be in the "public interest." That would likely sweep in services such as in-game chats offered by Microsoft's Xbox 360 gaming system as well. . . . -- Force Internet service providers to sift through their customers' communications to identify, for instance, only VoIP calls. . . . -- Eliminate the current legal requirement saying the Justice Department must publish a public "notice of the actual number of communications interceptions" every year. . . . Jim Harper, a policy analyst at the free-market Cato Institute and member of a Homeland Security advisory board, said the proposal would "have a negative impact on Internet users' privacy." . . . "People expect their information to be private unless the government meets certain legal standards," Harper said. "Right now the Department of Justice is pushing the wrong way on all this." . . . A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., decided 2-1 last month to uphold the FCC's extension of CALEA to broadband providers, and it's not clear what will happen next with the lawsuit. Judge Harry Edwards wrote in his dissent that the majority's logic gave the FCC "unlimited authority to regulate every telecommunications service that might conceivably be used to assist law enforcement." . . . The organizations behind the lawsuit say Congress never intended CALEA to force broadband providers--and networks at corporations and universities--to build in central surveillance hubs for the police. The list of organizations includes Sun Microsystems, Pulver.com, the American Association of Community Colleges, the Association of American Universities and the American Library Association. . . . If the FBI's legislation becomes law, it would derail the lawsuit because there would no longer be any question that Congress intended CALEA to apply to the Internet. . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 2:45 PM
Supreme Court Nullifies Fourth Amendment - home searches without warrant OKed (David G. Savage, L.A. Times, May 22, 2006) Police officers may go into a home uninvited and without a search warrant in order to break up a fight they have seen through a kitchen window, the Supreme Court ruled today. . . . Usually, homes are off limits to the police and government searches, except when officers have obtained a warrant from a judge. In the past, however, the court has said there is an exception for emergencies, such as a fire at a residence. . . . he unanimous decision overturned rulings by the Utah state courts, which held that a loud party and a drunken fight did not give the police reason enough to burst into a home without a warrant. Its judges said the officers appeared more interested in breaking up the loud party than in aiding a seriously injured person. . . . But Roberts said the officers' true motives did not matter. . . . When the Utah courts suppressed the evidence against the adults, state prosecutors urged the court to hear the case to clarify what is an emergency exception to the 4th Amendment. . . . In Brigham City vs. Stuart, Roberts said the officers did not need a warrant because they were breaking up a fight, not searching the premises. . . . Moreover, they did not need to knock on the door before entering because they would not have been heard. "It would serve no purpose to require them to stand dumbly at the door awaiting a response while those within brawled on, oblivious to their presence," he wrote. . . . Read more!
posted by Lorenzo 3:08 PM
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