The journalism world has been rightly outraged by the Justice Department dragging the Associated Press (and now a Fox News reporter) into one of its sprawling leak investigations. … Read More
Texas votes on its own CISPA-like cyber bill
Lawmakers in the State Senate are expected to vote Monday on a bill that, if passed, would compel Internet Service Providers (ISPs) anywhere in the world to fork over private Web records if that information could aid in a criminal investigation.Federal legislation already in place would likely trump any attempts from Texas prosecutors to pry personal ISP records or other online communications from the likes of social networking sites, but the efforts on behalf of Lone Star lawmakers to get the ball rolling on a new cyber-spy bill are indeed very real. Last week, its companion bill in the State House of Representatives passed unanimously, and similar outcome in the Senate is all now expected any moment. Now should SB 1052 proves victorious in the Senate, an Internet surveillance bill written in Texas but with international implications could be added to the law books later this year.Ben Sherman of the Burnt Orange Report cautioned in a blog post last week that the bill could be very dangerous to all Americans if passed because it would let local authorities seize electronic records held on servers outside of Texas.“The bill requires any Internet provider to people in Texas (that is – just about the entire Internet) to respond to search warrants for online communications in 4-30 days. That is an extremely narrow window which makes it difficult for Internet providers to keep users’ other information private,” he wrote.Following the failed attempts to pass cybersecurity bills on a national level, as seen most recently in the stalled Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), a number of state and local governments have considered bills that would bring the tools asked for in aborted federal acts into the hands of prosecutors in Texas.Whereas CISPA sought to find a way to ease the sharing of potentially dangerous information between third-party businesses and the federal government, the efforts coming out of Texas would ensure that ISPs and any other businesses that operate over the Web would have to relinquish user data if a police officer argues there is probable cause it is pursuant to an investigation.“Internet communications companies often hold information and data vital to prosecute an offense under state law, particularly relating to Internet crimes. Although the certain electronic communications may take place within a state, law enforcement officers must apply for a local search warrant in an Internet company’s jurisdiction, often found out of state,” wrote the bill’s author, Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas). “This limitation hampers law enforcement’s efforts to obtain evidence on Internet criminals, who are able to remove or change identifying data much faster than law enforcement can obtain warrants.”Sherman, however, thinks the law could be used broadly to bring any sort of online evidence under the magnifying glass of prosecutors, causing a widespread fishing exhibition that will allow law enforcement to essentially request any sort of electronic communication of any business that operates online.“The electronic communications at risk include all online communication – emails, Facebook messages, tweets and messages on private list servers,” wrote Sherman. “Additionally, the bar is set extremely low for police officers to prove that they may find something important in a person’s online communications.”Indeed, SB 1052 only asks that probable cause “must be supported by the oath or affirmation of the authorized peace officer.”“That is almost not a standard at all,” insisted Sherman. “With a bar so low and a reach so broad, such legislation will lead to widespread abuse and exposure of private information, and enable politically motivated ‘investigations.’ This is government overreach and Texans of all political ideologies should oppose it. If this bill becomes law, any investigation that can be brought into the Texas jurisdiction would have all the tools of CISPA, in which any private online activity can be easily seized by the government, at its disposal. That is terrible news not only for Texans but for all Americans.”“The bill,” acknowledged Sen. Carona, “reciprocates the electronic data search warrant process with other states already implementing similar statutes, which would allow Texas to serve data search warrants directly to out of state companies as well.”Later in the text, the bill is described as extending “the jurisdiction of district judges by granting them privileges to issue data search warrants beyond the physical boundaries of the state for computer data searches only.”The House version of the bill — nearly identical to Sen. Carona’s version — passed on May 7 with no opposition. Rep. John Frullo (R-Lubbock) co-authored that bill and told lawmakers in the capital that passing the bill would be instrumental in stopping predators who stalk children online.”Under current law,” Frullo said, “Texas judges’ ability to order a search ends at the state line. In our technology-driven society, this limitation hampers law enforcement’s efforts to go after the evidence needed to prosecute those who commit these horrible crimes and exploit our children.”“Predators are hurting, exploiting and assaulting our children through the use of the internet. That needs to stop,” he said in a press release earlier this year. After this week’s vote, his colleagues in the Senate will decide if they are willing to join his side — and at what cost to privacy. … Read More
‘US seeks to curtail civil liberties’
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Infowars Nightly News: Tuesday (5-14-13) George Barnes
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White House claims no knowledge of AP investigation
Just hours after the AP reported on Monday that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors employed by the news agency, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, “Other than press reports, we have no knowledge of any attempt by the Justice Department to seek phone records of the AP.””We are not involved in decisions made in connection with criminal investigations, as those matters are handled independently by the Justice Department,” said Carney. “Any questions about an ongoing criminal investigation should be directed to the Department of Justice.”But by the time the White House responded to the news on Monday, the AP had already authored a letter to Eric Holder, the US attorney general appointed by Pres. Obama and ergo the top official within the Department of Justice. According to the AP’s initial report on the investigation, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt wrote Holder to condemn the probe as a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations operate.”There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters,” Pruitt wrote.The Justice Department has yet to weigh in on the scandal and will likely defer questions for the time being since official policy prohibits the agency from formally discussing criminal investigations that are ongoing. Members of Congress, on the other hand, can’t say they’ve remained silent. Within hours of the AP story going live, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle were up in arms over the news.Even if the administration attests that the White House and Justice Department weren’t in cahoots, politicians that are peeved by the matter are making it known that the Obama administration isn’t off the hook. Regardless of whether the probe were approved by Attorney General Holder — or, for that matter, if it was even necessary — many are saying the blame ultimately falls on the president, who campaigned on a promise of transparency yet oversees an administration that investigates journalists.Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), a staunch constitutionalist, told Fox News on Monday, “This sounds like a president somewhat drunk on power, not cautious about how he uses power.”Obama, Paul told Fox host Sean Hannity, is “using the power of his government to investigate his enemies, he’s tapping the phones of the press, and it turns out last year he signed legislation that allows him to detain an American without a trial and send them to Guantanamo Bay.”The White House is indeed currently fighting a lawsuit filed by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges and others that challenges that law, the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. Under Section 1021 of the NDAA, the president can authorize the indefinite detention of US citizens based off of vaguely defined associations with terrorists. Hedges said the NDAA puts him at risk of being sent to a facility like Guantanamo because his line of work regularly requires him to correspond with persons considered terrorists by the US government.“I met regularly with leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. I used to visit Palestine Liberation Organization leaders, including Yasser Arafat and Abu Jihad, in Tunis when they were branded international terrorists. I have spent time with the Revolutionary Guard in Iran and was in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey with fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. All these entities were or are labeled as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government,” Hedges wrote in protest last year. “I have had dinner more times than I can count with people whom this country brands as terrorists. But that does not make me one.”The Obama administration’s attorneys have fought relentlessly to keep the NDAA on the books, even filing appeals to petition a federal judge after Section 1021 was deemed unconstitutional. Now with the AP’s latest revelation, though, members of the same Congress that approved of that bill only a year-and-a-half ago are attacking the White House.“This is obviously disturbing,” House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-California) told reporters. “Coming within a week of revelations that the White House lied to the American people about the Benghazi attacks and the IRS targeted conservative Americans for their political beliefs, Americans should take notice that top Obama administration officials increasingly see themselves as above the law and emboldened by the belief that they don’t have to answer to anyone.”In a tweet, Issa added that he found the revelation “disturbing.” News about @thejusticedept monitoring @ap phone lines is disturbing. — Darrell Issa (@DarrellIssa) May 13, 2013 Whether it is secretly targeting patriotic Americans participating in the electoral progress or reporters exercising their First Amendment rights, these new revelations suggest a pattern of intimidation by the Obama Administration,” weighed in Douglas Heye, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia).Michael Steel, a representative for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), said, “The First Amendment is first for a reason. If the Obama Administration is going after reporters’ phone records, they better have a damned good explanation.”Even members of Obama’s own Democratic Party were disturbed by the AP’s report.“The burden is always on the government when they go after private information – especially information regarding the press or its confidential sources,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) told reporters. “I want to know more about this case, but on the face of it, I am concerned that the government may not have met that burden. I am very troubled by these allegations and want to hear the government’s explanation.”Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) told the AP the Justice Department “must be forthcoming with the facts as soon as possible.”Holder’s office has not said why the investigation was ordered, but the AP suggested it’s likely in regards to a May 2012 exclusive the agency published in which a covert CIA operation was exposed. Earlier this year, CIA Director John Brennan told Congress that the FBI asked him if he was the source for the AP article. Brennan denied the allegation and said the release of information pertaining to a terror plot was an “unauthorized and dangerous disclosure of classified information.”The AP wrote Monday that the letter notifying the agency of the investigation arrived last Friday, and acknowledged that subpoenas were used to obtain phone records from reporters and editors.Matthew Miller, a former top spokesman for Holder, defended the department’s actions to reporters for the Huffington Post.”This is how leaks get investigated,” Miller said. “Leaking classified information is a crime, and there are usually only two parties who know who committed the crime, the leaker and the reporter. Getting access to phone records allows investigators to see who the possible source might have been and confront them with evidence of a crime.” … Read More
US government secretly obtained AP phone records
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$140mn down the drain: MI5 reportedly scraps failed IT project
The new digital records management (RM) system was supposed to allow for search queries and returns of various MI5 data and records, from intelligence reports to older paper archives. The RM was intended to replace the existing system, which the agency has deemed outdated and unfit in light of the threats the country currently faces.The new RM was supposed to go online by time the Summer Olympics began in London last year, in order to help the UK’s intelligence agencies identify possible terrorist threats to the games. But in July 2012, only weeks before the event, MI5 fired the IT consulting firm responsible for the system’s development, as it had failed to meet deadlines.Then-director of MI5 Sir Jonathan Evans said the system would be implemented at a later date, and the agency hired new IT consultants to finish the job.But according to the Independent, the project failed to play out, and earlier this year Evans decided to scrap it altogether and restart from scratch with a new generation of IT specialists. The newspaper reported that the abandonment of years of progress means the loss of about £90 million pounds (about $140 million). The UK’s Home Office would not comment on either the fate of the project or the reported loss figure.In 2012, when the RM’s troubles were first revealed, some British media estimated the cost of the project to be considerably lower; the Daily Mail believed the program’s cost to be about £1 million (over $1.5 million). … Read More
