Salon.com > Surveillance

Feinstein defends domestic surveillance program

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 21:05:00 +0000

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wanted the answer to a basic question on Thursday: How many Americans does the United States government currently spy on?

The question arose ahead of a vote over reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a 1978 law permitting the government to spy on correspondence between Americans and foreign individuals. Wyden, leading the charge to challenge the reauthorization, argues that the "Senate cannot say that we passed the smell test with respect to vigorous oversight if we don't have some sense of how many Americans … are being swept up under the legislation."

A number of FISA provisions passed in recent years are set to expire at the end of this year, and as Politico reported, "[Wyden] has placed a hold on the bill as he seeks information from the federal authorities, who have told Wyden in the past that they can’t deliver that data [on how many Americans are caught up in the surveillance dragnet]. And Wyden said this week that he’ll maintain that hold unless the Senate allows a vote on his amendments to introduce new legal checks and transparency rules to the law."

Celebrating Anonymous: The hackers’ big year

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 17:00:00 +0000

"I love Anon."

The comment, written by a teenage boy at Berkeley High School a few days after the Sandy Hook shootings, came in response to a Facebook post made by my own 15-year-old son.

My son was passing along the word that the hacker collective Anonymous had declared war against the Westboro Baptist Church, that clan of deranged religious fanatics who routinely seek to turn the misery of others into their own grandstanding opportunity.

Outraged at WBC's plans to protest at the funeral of Sandy Hook Elementary's principal, Dawn Hochsprung, on Dec. 19, in order "to sing praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment," Anonymous proceeded to expose the personal information of WBC members -- home and email addresses, phone numbers, etc. -- and started acting as a coordinating center for anti-WBC counter-protests. For teenage boys at Berkeley High, Anonymous' direct action was the epitome of cool.

Anonymous 2012: a year in review

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 07:39:00 +0000

In 2012, the loose association of tech-based activists protested bullying, LGBT discrimination, corporate media, Israel, Muslim genocide, police brutality, election-rigging, douchebaggery/bullying, surveillance, nationalist education, and of course Internet censorship—expanding both the range of its “causes” and the tools it deployed to defend them.

Of course, it’s impossible to say with certainty which actions "Anonymous" actually pulled off, since its membership is ill-defined and anyone can claim association, not to mention that sometimes Anonymous hacktivists act alone or as part of a subgroup. Even when Anonymous has put out one of its quintessential videos claiming responsibility for a hack or DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service—shutting down a website by flooding it with requests) attack, it hasn’t always turned out to be true.

Given that, below are Anonymous’ “Top 20” for 2012. With its widening arsenal and focus, one can only imagine what these Internet denizens have in store for 2013.

[slide_show id=13151256]

5 creepiest surveillance tactics

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:12:00 +0000

Since the erosion of Americans' civil liberties depends on high levels of public apathy, some of the most dangerous privacy breaches take place incrementally and under the radar; if it invites comparisons to Blade Runner or Orwell, then someone in the PR department didn't do their job. Meanwhile, some of the biggest threats to privacy, like insecure online data or iPhone GPS tracking, are physically unobtrusive and therefore easily ignored. And it'll be at least a year or two until the sky is overrun by spy drones.

So when a method of surveillance literally resembles a prop or plot point in a sci-fi movie, it helps to reveal just how widespread and sophisticated commercial and government monitoring has become. Here are five recent developments that seem almost unreal in their dystopian creepiness.

1. Buses and street cars that can hear what you say.

The “drone caucus” sped up domestic drone use

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 21:49:00 +0000

The proliferation of drones in domestic law enforcement and beyond has been boosted on Capitol Hill by a 60-representative strong, bipartisan "drone caucus," according to an investigative report by the Center for Responsive Politics and Hearst newspapers.

Pushing an agenda to hurry surveillance drones into the domestic market, even though many questions about the ethics and safety of their deployment remain unanswered, has earned members of the House Unmanned Systems Caucus $8 million in drone-related campaign contributions, the investigation revealed.

The report detailed how legislative efforts have ensured a speedy timeline for putting drones in the hands of local police departments as well as private corporations:

Domestic use of drones began with limited aerial patrols of the nation's borders by Customs and Border Patrol authorities. But the industry and its allies pushed for more, leading to provisions in the FAA Modernization and Reform Act, signed into law on Feb. 14 of this year.

The law requires the FAA to fully integrate the unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, into national airspace by September 2015. And it contains a series of interim deadlines leading up to that one: This month, the agency was supposed to produce a comprehensive plan for the integration, and in August it was required to have a plan for testing at six different sites in the U.S. Neither plan has been issued.

The surveillance state high school

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 22:10:00 +0000

Liberals and conservatives alike are up in arms about the story of Andrea Hernandez, a Texas high school sophomore who is refusing to wear a student ID card embedded with an RFID (radio frequency identification) chip. And, well, they should be; there is much cause for outrage. But most people seem to be missing the real story: Our pathetic national unwillingness to properly fund our public schools is the real root of this latest manifestation of surveillance state evil.

But first, some background. Officials in San Antonio's Northside school district are claiming that the ability to locate the exact whereabouts of students via RFID chips will boost attendance and enhance safety. A number of different schools have attempted similar schemes in recent years, provoking strong condemnation from groups across the political spectrum who argue that forcing human beings to carry electronic tracking devices constitutes a profound invasion of privacy.

Paula Broadwell’s big mistake

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 12:45:00 +0000

The funny thing is, Paula Broadwell and David Petraeus thought they knew what they were doing. They were careful, more careful than the average American fooling around outside the bounds of marriage tends to be. When Broadwell wanted to warn off the other woman she suspected of messing with her man, she set up an anonymous email account and only used it away from home, usually on the Wi-Fi networks of hotels she was staying in. Broadwell and Petraeus also thought they could avoid having their emails intercepted in transit by technically avoiding "sending" them at all. Instead, they saved their messages to each other as "drafts" in a Gmail account to which they both enjoyed access.

But if they thought they were being smart, they were wrong. Broadwell and Petraeus were undone, says ACLU privacy and technology expert Christopher Soghoian, by their "lack of knowledge of operational security" and "poor tradecraft." "Draft" messages are stored in Gmail's server cloud just like all other sent and received messages. And the FBI turned out to be more than capable of correlating the Internet Protocol addresses that identified the origin of Broadwell's supposedly "anonymous" emails with hotel records that showed Broadwell as a guest at the same time the messages were sent.

The Petraeus story: Not a tawdry distraction from important news

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 21:56:00 +0000

Some do-gooding liberal types are very upset that the dumb media keeps talking about this very tawdry David Pretraeus scandal instead of covering "the real news." I hate to break it to them, but the Petraeus affair is actually very much Real News, and not just because there is nothing wrong or contemptible about the American public's appetite for information about scandal in high places.

The dismissive attitude is best exemplified by The Petraeus Affair tumblr, a site that attempts to mock our tabloid media's misplaced priorities by posting Petraeus headlines beneath photos documenting the devastating wrought by Hurricane Sandy. This is cheap, unhelpful trolling. (And, you know, New York got it pretty rough, Tumblr person, but Haiti got it much worse. Plus there's a war on in Gaza! WHY ARE YOU CARING ABOUT NEW YORK WHEN THERE'S A WAR ON?)

Google reveals government surveillance on the rise

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 20:52:00 +0000

Since 2010, Google has periodically published statistics on the number of government requests the tech giant receives. Its most recent Transparency Report -- the sixth in two years -- was released Tuesday and, according to Google's official blog, "one trend has become clear: Government surveillance is on the rise."

"In the first half of 2012, there were 20,938 inquiries from government entities around the world. Those requests were for information about 34,614 accounts," wrote Google senior policy analyst Dorothy Chou. In the first half of 2011, by comparison, there were fewer than 16,000 such requests.

Liberals let Obama get away with unconstitutional actions

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Let us stipulate, as lawyers like to say, that President Obama has a deplorable record on civil liberties, one that threatens long-term damage to the country’s constitutional culture.

Why, then, has his base of support not been eroded decisively? Why have so many on the left fallen silent, after railing against George W. Bush’s rights violations, as Obama has prolonged and codified most of the same practices? And why have so few on the right, riding a groundswell of resentment toward big government, failed to resent the biggest governmental intrusions into personal privacy since the FBI’s domestic spying during the Cold War?

The facts are not in dispute. While Obama has ordered an end to CIA kidnapping and torture, he has personally approved kill lists containing the names of American citizens to be targeted by drones. While he has tried to move the accused masterminds of 9/11 and others from Guantanamo to civilian courts (only to be blocked by congressional Republicans), he has also embraced military commissions and indefinite detention. He voiced misgivings about a bill subjecting suspected terrorists to military arrest — whether foreigners or Americans, whether in Afghanistan or Alabama — and then signed it into law.

Federal court OKs warrantless use of hidden cameras

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 14:07:00 +0000

A federal court ruling Tuesday served yet another blow to U.S. citizens' dwindling expectations of privacy from government surveillance. A U.S. district judge sided with the Justice Department to rule that it was reasonable for DEA agents to enter a property without permission or a warrant to install multiple "covert digital surveillance cameras." (The case in question involved finding evidence in a rural property of mass marijuana plant growing.)

The Wisconsin-based case saw video evidence from hidden cameras placed around the property of Manuel Mendoza and Marco Magana, where 1,000 marijuana plants were found growing. The two men face possible life imprisonment after Judge William Griesbach ruled that "the DEA's warrantless surveillance did not violate the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and requires that warrants describe the place that's being searched," CNET reported.

ACLU challenges Bay Area police drone plans

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:00:00 +0000

The sheriff of California's Alameda County announced this week that he is considering the use of unmanned drones for domestic policing. Sheriff Greg Ahern, whose policing purview includes Oakland and Berkeley on the east side of San Francisco Bay, will test unmanned drones -- first used in combat -- in an upcoming policing exercise, SF Gate reported.

The ACLU of Northern California, alongside other civil rights organizations, announced on Thursday that they will question and challenge the sheriff's plans. According to the Occupied Oakland Tribune, "The ACLU of Northern California has sent County Sheriff Ahern a public records request, asking for basic information about why drones are needed, how much they would cost to acquire, operate and maintain, and how the drones would be used."

Documents show spike in warrantless surveillance

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:19:00 +0000

According to government documents obtained by the ACLU, the Justice Department's use of warrantless phone and internet tapping has increased 600 percent in the past decade.

Using methods that don't require a probable-cause warrant, the DoJ has been able -- with little effort -- to track phone and internet communication information, including numbers dialed and email senders and recipients. Under the Obama administration, between 2009 and 2011, there was a 60 percent rise in orders from the DoJ for warrantless tapping, with 37,616 original orders sent to judges in 2011 compared to less than 6,000 in 2001.

In order to surveil communications using "pen register" or "trap and trace" methods, federal agents need only send an order to a federal judge to ceritfy that the information being gathered (phone numbers, email addresses) is relevant to an ongoing investigation. To read the content of emails or listen in to calls, a warrant is needed.

The ACLU's Noami Gilen's posted on the organization's blog: