The Most Generous Soul

Bowing to the Police State
by Ray McGovern

Is Congress aiding and abetting the creation of a police state? Recentlythe chairman of the House Intelligence CommitteePete HoekstraR-Mich.helped to give the CIA and NSA unprecedented police powers. By inserting a provision in the FY07 Intelligence Authorization ActHoekstra has undermined the existing statutory limits on involvement in domestic law enforcement. This comes after revelations in January of direct NSA involvement with the Baltimore police in order to “protect” the NSA Headquarters from Quaker protesters.

Add to this the disquieting news that the White House has been barraging the CIA with totally improper questions about the political affiliation of some of its senior intelligence officersthe ever widening use of polygraph examinationsand the FBI’s admission that it acquires phone records of broadcast and print media to investigate leaks at the CIA. Ifor oneam reminded of my service in the police state of the USSRwhere there were no First or Fourth Amendments.

Like the proverbial frog in slowly boiling waterwe have become inured to what goes on in the name of national security. Recent disclosures about increased government surveillance and illegal activities would be shockingwere it not for the prevailing outrage-fatigue brought on by a long train of abuses. But the heads of the civiliandemocratically elected institutions that are supposed to be our bulwark against an encroaching police statethe ones who stand to lose their own power as well as their rights and the rights of all citizensaren’t interested in reining in the power of the intelligence establishment. To the contraryRep. Hoekstra and his counterpart in the SenatePat RobertsR-Kan.are running the risk of whiplash as they pivot to look the other way.

James Bamfordone of the best observers of the inner workings of U.S. intelligencewarned recently that Congress has lost control of the intelligence community. “You can’t get any oversight or checks and balances,” he said. “Congress is protecting the White Houseand the White House can do whatever it wants.”

Consider the following nuggets drawn from Sunday’s Washington Post article by R. Jeffrey Smith about the firing of senior CIA analyst Mary McCarthy. Apparently McCarthy learned that at least one “senior agency official” lied to Congress about agency policy and practice with regard to torturing detainees during interrogations.

According to Smith’s articleone internal CIA study completed in 2004 concluded that CIA interrogation policies and techniques violated international law. This is said to have come as something of a shock to agency interrogators who had been led by the Justice Department to believe that international conventions against torture did not apply to interrogations of foreigners outside of the United States. McCarthy reportedly was also chagrined to learn that the CIA’s general counsel had secured a secret Justice Department opinion in 2004 authorizing the creation of a category of “ghost detainees,” prisoners transported abroadmostly from Iraqfor secret interrogation – without notification of the Red Crossas required by the Geneva Convention.

No problemsaid senior CIA officials. We’ll just lie to the committee leaders about the torture; they will wink and be grateful we did. The lying came during discussion of draft legislation aimed at preventing torture. As deputy inspector generalMcCarthy became aware that CIA officials had misled the chairmen and ranking members of the congressional “oversight” committees on multiple occasions. Neither of the committees seemed interested in taking a serious look at the torture issue.

It will be highly interesting to see what the intrepid chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees doif anythingto follow up on Smith’s report that “a senior CIA official” meeting with Senate staff last June lied about the agency’s interrogation practices. Or that a “senior agency official” failed to provide a full account of CIA’s policy for treating detainees at a closed hearing of the House intelligence committee in Feb. 2005 under questioning by Rep. Jane Harmanthe ranking Democrat. Will Roberts and Hoekstra hold those agency officials accountableor will they let the matter die – like some of the detainees subjected to “enhanced” interrogation techniques to which the chairmen have so far turned a blind eye?

Hoekstra is a master at Catch-22. On the one hand Hoekstra insists that those in intelligence who have information on illegal or improper behavior report it to his intelligence committee; then he refuses to let them in the door. Russell Ticea former NSA employeehas been trying since last December to give Hoekstra a firsthand account of illegal activities at the NSA. He has rebuffed Ticewith the lame explanation that the NSA will not clear Hoekstra or any of his committee members for the highly classified programs about which Tice wants to report. With the door locked to the intelligence committeesTice has turned to the Senate Armed Services Committee and said that he will meet soon with committee staff in closed session to tell of “probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts” at the NSA while Gen. Michael Hayden was in charge.

Amid the recent revelations of secret CIA-run prisons abroadtortureand illegal eavesdroppingHoekstra has chosen to express outrage – but not at the prisonstortureor eavesdropping. Ratherthe House Intelligence Committee chairman is outraged that information on these abuses has found its way onto the public square. Hoekstra has turned his full attention to pursuing those who leak such information – never mind that the activities disclosednot the leaksare the real outrage.

The executive branch is “walking all over the Congress at the moment,” complained Sen. Arlen SpecterR-Pa.last week to the Senate Judiciary Committeewhich he chairs. Unlike Roberts and HoekstraSpecter seems genuinely troubled at the president’s disdain for the separation of powers and particularly his end-run around the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978which prohibits eavesdropping on American citizens without a court warrant.

But when Specter meets a stonewallhe caves. He may ask telephone company CEOs why they surrendered records to the governmentbut – illegal eavesdropping or no – Specter will likely remain a spectatoras Pat Roberts greases the skids for Big Brother Gen. Michael Haydenarchitect and implementer of eavesdropping on Americans in violation of FISAto become the next director of the CIA. Hayden’s disingenuousness in his testimony before the intelligence committees has been clearbut the committee chairmen are as much to blame for winking at it.

Meanwhilethe Justice Department has told Rep. Maurice HincheyD-N.Y.that it is stopping its months-long investigation into who approved the NSA’s eavesdropping-on-American-citizens initiative (now euphemistically dubbed “the terrorist surveillance program”). Justice explained to Hinchey that the NSA would not grant Justice department investigators the appropriate security clearances to investigate the NSA program. Kafka would smirk.

Rep. Hoekstra’s speaks of “vigorous oversight” of the NSAbut the evidence of that is lacking. Late last yearthe current head of the NSAArmy Lt. Gen. Keith Alexanderdeliberately misled House intelligence committee member Rush HoltD-N.J.on the eavesdropping program. On Dec. 6Holta former State Department intelligence specialistcalled on Alexander and NSA lawyers to discuss protecting Americans’ privacy. They all assured Holt that the agency singled out Americans for eavesdropping only after warrants had been obtained from the FISA court. Later that monthwhen disclosures in The New York Times made it clear that Alexander had lied to a member of his committeeHoekstra merely suggested that Holt write a letter to Alexander to complain. The inescapable message to Alexander? Fear not: Hoekstra the fox is watching the hen house.

When the writers of the Constitution envisioned a separation of powers to ensure checks and balances in our governmentthey were relying on the leaders of those branches to fight to maintain their own power within the system. Fresh from the struggle against King Georgethey could not have predicted that some of our leaders would voluntarily sign away their own rights to another George who would be king.

The National Security Agency’s surveillance program is news again. News reports based on anonymous sources – always a good cover for the media – fed stories this past week that the NSA demanded and got tens of millions of domestic phone call logs from VerizonBellSouthand AT&T in the wake of September 112001.

The major mediabeginning with USA Todayran with the leaked informationapparently deeming anything that sounds negative for the Bush Administration or for major corporations as sufficiently credible on its face. AlreadyVerizonBellSouthand AT&T have denied the reports. The firms categorically deny having provided the phone logs that the news media said the companies gave NSA. Indeedthe phone companies said as well that NSA never asked for the information. Other phone companies reportedly said the same thing – meaning that this story should be filed under the headline “didn’t askdidn’t tell.”

There areof coursecolumnists who have the same story line ready to go each day: the headline is “Bush Administration Responsible for Disaster,” though the details change day-to-day. Ifas now seems likelythe mass release of phone records is one of those really good news stories that has the minor defect of being a total fabricationthat may change some of the details in future stories about the NSA program. But it won’t keep a swarm of anti-Bush columnists from slamming the administration for having (supposedly) conducted this large-scale surveillance operation. Just as it didn’t keep self-appointed privacy watchdogs from filing suit almost immediately asking for $200 billion in damages from the companies named in the news stories.

The NSA stories have generated great interest and the usual hyperbolic commentary. As with the Texas National Guard story that brought an all-too-eager Dan Rather’s career to a closesome members of the publishing and pundit classes have staked out territory well ahead of the support that is at hand. This has occasioned the predictable calls for congressional hearingsprosecutorial investigationsand even impeachment. The familiar voices are once again claiming that in authorizing the NSA programPresident Bush has committed a crime.

He hasn’t. Not even close.

The legal issues aren’t simpleand the practical issues aren’t simple. But one issue is: those who want to portray the NSA surveillance program as the far-fetched creation of a megalomaniacal president abusing his power and flouting the American constitution have to develop some new material.

The starting point for any perspective on this has to be 9/11. More Americans were killed in a single day from one event than at any time since the Civil War battle of Antietam. We were shocked by the attack’s occurrenceby its callous brutalityand by the sudden expectation that something very much like this could happen again and again. We demanded that our government find out who was to blamediscover how the signals had eluded usand identify future threats before thousands more were killed. Talk-radio stationspolitical commentariesand public personalities of every stripe demanded that we improve our ability to “connect the dots” more swiftly and accurately.

Our officials quickly determined that the al Qaeda organization was to blame and almost as quickly sought – and got – congressional approval for sweeping changes to our laws that would make it easier for government to findmonitorchallengecaptureand detain al Qaeda and other terror suspects. Few people were in a mood to ask questions. Government officials weren’t precise in framing what they were asking for and congressmen and -women weren’t precise in deciding what they were authorizing.

Congress expressly authorized the President to use “all necessary and appropriate military force against those nationsorganizationsor persons he determines” were involved in 9/11. All force necessary and proper to make us secure. Not all force consistent with prior legislation. Not all force consistent with scruples about individuals’ privacy concerns. Military force historically has included intelligence-gathering as well as front-line combat. What did our representatives intend with respect to that? It’s doubtful that anyone could have said at the time. They knew we’d been attacked and might be attacked again and didn’t want to answer to the American people if they failed to authorize whatever it took to prevent that. That’s what President Bush promised Americans he would do: whatever it takes.

When The New York Times revealed NSA’s electronic surveillance of international communications (including communications into or out of the US) aimed at suspected al Qaeda operations last December – four yearstwo military campaignsand a few Administration problems later – the civil libertarians in and out of Congress suddenly remembered what this use of force resolution meant. They said it meant only that the President could pursue al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistannot that he could authorize information gathering that would include surveillance of their conversationsespecially not if one conversant were in America. They recalled specifically that the extensive restrictions on electronic surveillance put in place in the 1970sunder the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Actwere to be maintained fully in the new regime. The sudden recollections went hand in hand with assertions that there was no other legal support for the NSA’s actionnot in statutein the Commander-in-Chief clause of the Constitutionor in Article II’s clause vesting the Executive Authority in the President.

While not all the President’s men sprang to his defensesome advocates of the NSA program pointed out that more recent legislation trumps earlier legislationthat the Commander-in-Chief clause long has been thought to authorize pursuit of intelligence against enemies who threaten to use force against usand that the vesting clause of Article II traditionally has been interpreted as giving broad latitude for presidential authority over foreign and military affairseven in the face of contrary congressional command. They marshaled quotations from Presidentspresidential advisersand judges – stretching back from the Clinton administration to the time of the Framing – to support that construction of the law.

Neither side has a hands down case. Presidential detractors probably have at least as good a caseand possibly a better oneon the issue of statutory authority. The far more general instruction in the authorization for use of military force can plausibly be read as supplanting FISAand it may make practical sense to use a very different approach than FISA demands. But there is very little clear evidence of a design to replace FISA in the authorization for use of force. The President’s defenderson the other handhave the better constitutional argument. The argument based on the vesting clause is especially strong. That clauselike the parallel judicial vesting clauseconveys some measure of executive powerand executive power long has been understood to include some independent element of foreign affairs power.

Mostlyhoweverthe President’s supporters have right the essential insight thatfar from using the law to advance personal ends or pursue political vendettasthis President is engaged in a struggle that is critical to the future of our nation. He is fighting a threat that is realan enemy who has struck Americans repeatedly and whose attacks can have devastating consequences if allowed to proceed undetected and undeterred.

The proper weight to be given to privacy concerns is a matter of debatejust as it should have been when President John Kennedy and his Attorney GeneralRobert Kennedyauthorized warrantless wiretaps directed at Dr. Martin Luther KingJr. The weight to be given to personal liberty relative to national security can be arguedas it should have been when President Franklin Roosevelt and Governor Earl Warren backed internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. But while critics can question President Bush’s weighing of policy concerns and the legal grounds for his positionshis commitment to our security – and its central role in shaping the NSA surveillance program – should be beyond question.

If liberty is a too-frequent casualty in wartruth is a too-frequent casualty of political reportingespecially in the Blame-It-on-Bush era. Calls to round up the usual suspects should be seen for what they are – better suited for keeping our interest than for keeping us secure.

Source: realclearpolitics.com

“The Internet offers intelligence agencies an amazing potential source for information collection and for monitoring the activities of their targets. They not only can plug into communications through the names of senders and receivers of e-mailbut also through keyword monitoring of messages as they have done for many years. If you add e-mail to their monitoring of telephone and other credit card transactionsthey can get a very complete picture of a given person’s activities.”

former CIA officer Philip Agee

Last summera Pentagon analyst for “Special Operations and Low-Intensity Warfare” named Charles Swett wrote a 30-page report for his bosses in the Department of Defense (DoD). It laid out how to use the Internet for military intelligence and counterintelligence. The Federation of American Scientists exposed this report–posting a copy on their Internet Web page for everyone to read.

Swett’s Pentagon report warns that the Internet can be used to spread news about U.S. wars and atrocities in a way the U.S. government and the official media can’t control. And Swett warns that information can create difficult political conditions for conducting some operations. But at the same timeSwett describes ways for U.S. military intelligence to exploit the Internet for its purposes:

<195><|>Swett discusses spying on progressive and left-wing discussion to “assess the nature and extent of its members’ actual real-world activities.” Swett gives the Institute for Global Communications (with its PeaceNet and EcoNet discussion groups) as an example of the “breadth of DoD-relevant information available on the Internet.” Swett warns that the information gotten from spying might become less reliable if “it became known that DoD were monitoring Internet traffic for intelligence or counter-intelligence purposes.”

<195><|>Swett says military intelligence will conduct “routine monitoring of messages originating in other countries” (meaning e-mail and other computer traffic) to search for information on “developing security threats” and catch “early warning of impending significant developments.”

<195><|>Swett describes using the Internet for “psychological warfare”–secretly spreading deliberate lies designed to divide and weaken forces that U.S. imperialism considers its enemies. Swett writes that the “Internet could be used offensively as an additional medium in psychological operations campaign and to help achieve unconventional warfare objectives”–including by manipulating journalists.

<195><|>Swett describes the value of building up “networks of human sources with access to the Internet…in areas of security concern to the U.S.” He specifically mentions forces involved in “unconventional warfare” that the U.S. may not want to be openly associated with–which means various death squadsfascist groups and contra-style armies.

The operations Swett discusses are in addition to the Pentagon’s use of the Internet for conventional war. During the Gulf WarGeneral Colin Powell told Byte magazine (July 1992) that the modern “battlespace” now has an “infosphere.” Defense officials say that 25 percent of the Pentagon’s logistics communications during the Gulf War were sent back and forth over the Internet uncoded.

There is evidence that political police are already applying techniques Swett discusses. And the Pentagon’s military intelligence is far from the only police agency involved.

According to Wired writer Brock N. Meeksan FBI spokesperson named Settle admitted thatin 1992the FBI started actively recruiting “net literate” agents with computer science degrees and experience in network administration. Two years laterSettle reportedthe FBI had a team of 25 such agents.

There are also “unofficial” pigs openly announcing their intention to help the political police spy on the Internet. Journalist Daniel Brandt (in an article made available on various Internet sites through NameBase NewsLine) reports that the Anti-Defamation League’s Tom Halpern announced that the ADL is “undertaking efforts to monitor the activities of Muslim extremists and others on the Internet.” The Anti-Defamation League has a long history of carrying out spying that police cannot legally do. Halpern made it clear what the ADL would do with its spy information: “When evidence arises that a posting constitutes or encourages illegal activitiesnaturally we’d bring it to the attention of law enforcement.”

An Internet posting by InterPress Service (May 41995) revealed that the United Nations had sponsored an international police conference in Cairo in May 1995 where more than 140 national delegations discussed police use of computersthe Internet and other “new media” to surveil and capture people.

The Visible Hoofprints
There have already been some publicized cases of aggressive police spying and entrapmentboth on the Internet and over private computer networks like Compuserve and America Online (AOL). The cases reported in the press usually involve pornography rings and young hackers breaking into government computers–so government agents can use “national security” and “decency” as justifications for more spying. These stories give an idea of the kinds of techniques the political police are likely to be using in unpublicized political surveillance.

In one operationthe FBI used a technique called “the honeypot”: With the cooperation of the America Online corporationthe police created a computer site that provided illegal pornographic materials. For two years they made lists of people interested in such materialsand entrapped them in illegal acts. More than 120 homes were raided and searched. (Associated PressSeptember 141995).

With the passage in Congress of the so-called “Communications Decency Act,” the FBI got long-sought legal powers to pressure the companies who maintain bulletin board sites. This Februarysoon after this law was passeda special three-judge panel was set up to hear legal challenges to this censorship law. The FBI publicly agreed to wait until the legal issues were settled before starting any online investigations. Howeverin secretthey started investigations anyway. The New York Times reported (May 11) that the FBI opened a secret spy operation investigating Compuservethe huge corporate online network. When confrontedthe FBI said they were investigating “indecent materials”–after complaints about Compuserve were sent to them by the Christian-fascist “American Family Association.”

The magazine Internet Today (May 1996) describes a murder case in which the police confiscated the home computers of the murder victim and the suspected murderer–and had America Online turn over records of the e-mail the two had exchanged. This reveals legal powers police investigators are using to seize e-mail. In this casesome of the e-mail records had supposedly been deletedhowever AOL recovered the records for the police.

Nineteen-year-old Christopher Schanot was arrested in Philadelphia and accused of belonging to an “Internet Liberation Front” that allegedly breaks into military computers and carries out other “anti-commercial” hacking. Schanot faces a possible 30 years in prison.

Some cases reveal international police cooperation in patrolling and controlling computer links:

In one important caseInterpol (an international police organization) had the Finnish police raid an Internet site that had been providing a valuable service for people who don’t want their e-mail addresses listed on their Internet messages. Some anti-government forces have used this famous site known as anon.penet.fi to protect their identity while on line. It strips the revealing addresses off e-mailand sends the now-anonymous e-mail on to its final destination. Howeveron February 1995a posting appeared signed by Julfthe administrator of anon.penet.fi. It said “Based on a request from Interpolthe Finnish police have gotten a search-and-seizure warrant on my home and the anon.penet.fi serverand gotten the real mail address of a user that has allegedly posted material stolen from the Church of Scientology. Fortunately I managed to prevent them from getting more than this onesingle address.” International police forces want everyone participating on the Internet to be traceable.

In another caseU.S. authorities had Argentinian police arrest a young computer user whothey saidhad broken into U.S. military computers.

Sometimes the political police use “covert operations” to suppress Internet sites. One tactic has been so-called “e-mail bombing”–the political police and allied reactionary forces send a massive wave of e-mail messages to a site they want to suppress (often one that is operating outside their country’s borders). The deluge of messages are intended to overload the phone lines of the business that provides the site’s Internet connection.

Last yearsuch an “e-mail bombing” hit a Basque separatist electronic magazine “Euskadi Information,” which was sharply criticizing the Spanish government from a Web site based in Switzerland. The harassing e-mails caused the Swiss Internet provider to temporarily close down the Euskadi site.

Signs of Cyber-COINTELPRO
Recent U.S. government moves to expand its surveillance of telecommunications (see the accompanying article”The Push To Wiretap”) make it clear that anyone using the Internet should assume that their communications could be intercepted and studied by the political police. All discussions and disputes that take place over the Internet can be read by the police agents.

Unfortunatelysome political forces encourage Internet practices that make valuable information available to the police. For exampleon PNEWSa discussion list for left-leaning activiststhe list administrator encourages new subscribers to publicly “introduce” themselves–often listing their real namespolitical historiesinclinations and activities. The Communist Party USA (an outfit with pro-system politics behind a phony communist facade) even asks its supporters to sign up for party membership over the Internet–in full view of the political police.

Many activist groups and networks now conduct large parts of their internal life through e-mail exchanges on the Internet–discussing recruitmentgossipleadershipmeetings and even conducting major political disputes. Such practices produce networks and movements that are extremely vulnerable to police observationinfiltration and manipulation.

The well-documented FBI COINTELPRO operations of the 1960s and ’70s used information gathered through spies to undermine anti-government movements–especially revolutionary organizations like the Black Panthers. In addition to notorious cases of FBI assassinationCOINTELPRO operatives spread liesfalse documents and rumors. After they identified political disagreementsthey worked to fan them into hostile (and even violent) splits. COINTELPRO agents spread wild accusations–”bad-jacketing” revolutionaries with the label “police agent.” They worked to create a viciousugly atmosphere–to turn honest people away from the revolutionary struggle. And the COINTELPRO’s favorite tactic was to do these things from behind the scenes–using anonymous letters and rumors spread by hidden infiltrators.

Many things happening on the Internet suggest that COINTELPRO has spread into cyberspace. Whenever radical politics is discussed in open forums on the Internet–disruptive elements flock in like fliesoften ranting and insulting until everyone is driven away. There are many cases of people posting ridiculous lies about progressive and revolutionary forcesoften in ways that seem designed to create confusion and divisions among honest people.

There have also been incidents of people demanding inside information about progressive and revolutionary groups or demanding the “real names” of activists who participate in Internet discussions.

It is always hard to say for sure if a suspicious activity is the work of a fool or of a conscious police agent. But this much can be said: Any serious person watching the political discussions and disputes on the Internet will see many activities that resemble the classic disinformation and wrecking activities of the COINTELPRO. Anyone using the Internetdownloading its posted information or thinking about participating in discussion groups should be vigilant about the enemy’s tricks.

*****

Many people using the Internet dream of using modern computer technology to bring humanity closer togetherto make all kinds of information broadly availableto “empower” people and to weaken the hold of centralized government and corporate centers. Howeverunder capitalismsuch dreams are brushed aside by the needs of the system. The Internet is being privatized and commercialized. All kinds of “credit card gates” and “ID systems” are being installed to identify who goes whereand to control what they see there. Plans are being made to create an approved “Internet mainstream”–and to shut down the corners of cyberspace that resist central control.

The ruepresentatives of intelligence agencies have come together to make sure that government spies can wiretap all the emerging forms of tele-communications.

At the highest levelsMeeks reportsrepresentatives of the FBI and the National Security Agency are involved in plans to make sure that a so-called “backdoor” is built into the “National Information Infrastructure.” (NII is the structuresregulations and technologies that decide how telephonestelevision cable and computer networks will work).

Source: revcom.us

Last weeka fire ignited at the Akron Airdock that once housed a fleet of Goodyear blimps. Firemen rushed to the 211-foot-tall structure and quickly doused the flames. Reporters and photographers descended on the landmark. Many were surprised to learn the blimps were no longer being stored there.

Turns out Lockheed Martin — the company that gave us the Trident intercontinental ballistic missile — was renovating the site for an upcoming project when the fire started. It’s being turned into a hangar for a prototype airship. If you’re frightened of this administration’s habit of spying on American citizensyou may want to stop reading.

The prototype is called the High Altitude Airshipor HAA. Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors in Akron won the $40 million contract from the Missile Defense Agency to build HAA in 2003. It is essentially another blimp. A giant one. Seventeen times the size of the Goodyear dirigible. It’s designed to float 12 miles above the earthfar above planes and weather systems. It will be powered by solar energyand will stay in a geocentric orbit for up to a yearundetectable by ground-based radar. You can’t see it from the ground. But it can see you.

“The possibilities are endless for homeland security,” says Kate Dunlapa Lockheed Martin spokesperson. “It could house camerasand other surveillance equipment. It would be an eye in the sky.”

According to a summary released by the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Commandthe HAA can watch over a circle of countryside 600 miles in diameter. That’s everything between Toledo and New York City. And they want to build 11. With high-res camerasthat could mean constant surveillance of every square inch of American soil. “If you had a fleet of themthis could be used for border surveillance,” suggests Dunlap.

Launch date: 2009.

Of coursemimicking its defense of warrantless wiretapping and phone-log data miningthe government maintains it only wants to protect its citizens from external threats. But as any geek can tell youblimps were ubiquitous in The Watchmenthe seminal ’80s graphic novel in which heroes have been driven underground and Nixon is still president.

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not watching you.

Source: athensnews.com

The Brain Machine Interfaces Program represents a major DSO thrust area that will comprise a multidisciplinarymultipronged approach with far reaching impact. The program will create new technologies for augmenting human performance through the ability to noninvasively access codes in the brain in real time and integrate them into peripheral device or system operations. Focus will be on the following areas:

1. Extraction of neural and force dynamic codes related to patterns of motor or sensory activity required for executing simple to complex motor or sensory activity (e.g.reachinggraspingmanipulatingrunningwalkingkickingdigginghearingseeingtactile). Accessing sensory activity directly could result in the ability to monitor or transmit communications by the brain (visualauditoryor other). This will require the exploitation of new interfaces and algorithms for providing useful nonlinear transformationpattern extraction techniquesand the ability to test these in appropriate models or systems.

2. Determination of necessary force and sensory feedback (positionalposturalvisualacousticor other) from a peripheral device or interface that will provide critical inputs required for closed loop control of a working device (robotic appendage or other peripheral control device or system). Such feedback could be received from peripheral systems or sent directly into appropriate brain regions.

3. New methodsprocessesand instrumentation for accessing neural codes noninvasively at appropriate spatiotemporal resolution to provide closed loop control of a peripheral device. This could include both fundamental interactions of neural cellstissueand brain with energy profiles that could provide noninvasive access to codes (magneticslightor other).

4. New materials and device design and fabrication methods that embody compliance and elastic principlesand that capture force dynamics that integrate with neural control commands. These include the use of dynamic materials and designs into working prototypes.

5. Demonstrations of plasticity from the neural system and from an integrated working device or system that result in real time control under relevant conditions of force perturbation and cluttered sensory environments from which tasks must be performed (e.g.recognizing and picking up a target and manipulating it).

6. Biomimetic implementation of controllers (with robotics or other devices and systems) that integrate neural sensory or motor control integrated with force dynamic and sensory feedback from a working device or system. The first phase of the program may include dynamic control of simple and complex motor or sensory activity directly using neural codes integrated into a machinedeviceor system. Simple actions considered include using a robotic arm or leg to sense a targetreach for it and manipulate itthrow or kick an object at a targetor recognize a sensory input and responding to it (visualacoustic) directly through input/output brain integration. More complex activity may include issues related to force or sensory perturbation in more complex environments.

Solicitation Information:
Defense Sciences Research and Technology
Special Focus Area: Brain Machine Interfaces
Announcement #: BAA01-42Addendum 1
CBD Reference: September 172001

http://www.arpa.mil/dso/thrust/biosci/brainmi.htm

Source: www.totse.com

Is your computer watching you? The spectre of Big Brother just got a giant step closer thanks to a controversial piece of software called DIRT.

Sold only to policemilitary and intelligence agenciesDIRT is causing a small furor in civil liberties circles. It offers government operatives a powerful tool to break into your home through the Internet and read everything on your computerwithout ever leaving their offices.

The brainchild of former NYPD cop Frank JonesDIRT stands for Data Interception by Remote Transmission. Depending on the modelit reportedly costs anywhere from a few thousand dollars to over $200,000.

Even a well-secured computer is vulnerable. The software is said to be powerful enough to penetrate many common security toolsincluding firewalls. No anti-virus program on the market can detect it.

Reached at his companyNew York-based Codex Data SystemsJones was tight-lipped about the software’s capabilities and which governments he’s sold it tocalling that “proprietary information.”

An ad for DIRT says even the technically challenged can use it to break into a computer halfway around the globe. “Imagine being able to remotely monitor any PC in the world any time you want,” says the adposted earlier this month on the intelligence Web site cryptome.org. “Suppose you could read every keystroke… access and retrieve any file from the hard drive… No more secrets…”

No police or intelligence agency in Canada or the U.S. has acknowledged that it hacks. In factcomputer hacking by governments is one of the most sensitive and highly classified government secrets anywhere in the world.

It goes by innocent-sounding terms like “computer network exploitation” and “information operations.”

But even military and intelligence officials acknowledge hacking is highly dubious in the eyes of both domestic and international law.

“If you get caught mapping out the critical infrastructure of a power gridpeople might view it as an act of war,” said one U.S. intelligence expert who advises the Pentagon on information operations.

A renowned U.S. computer scientist who has testified before Congress and advised the U.S. government on computer security tells NOW that hacking by western military and intelligence services is an explosive issue.

“There are a lot of folks here who don’t want to admit this is going on,” he saysadding a warning: “You’re on the tip of the iceberg here. You want to be a little bit careful.”

Canadian and U.S. policefor their partare also interested in hacking to get evidence for criminal cases. But here toothe legalities are extremely questionable.

“There is no case law on it at all,” says RCMP Inspector Peter McAughleyhead of the force’s high-tech crime forensics unit. Yet he says that with a little “tweaking,” existing legislation in Canada does allow cops to hack for evidence. “If it’s an investigative avenue and it can be done legallyit’s something else we can throw in the tool box.”

AlreadyAustralia and New Zealand have adopted legislation to allow security agencies to hack into citizens’ computers and alter data to hide traces of intrusions.

All this has civil libertarians aghast. “These are the worst kinds of searches,” says Barry Steinhardtassociate director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “We do not think intelligence agencies or law enforcement should be engaging in these black bag operationsespecially without close supervision from courts.”

Canadian interest in hacking technology was revealed during a New York trial in which DIRT vendor Frank Jones was charged with possession and distribution of illegal wiretap equipment. Jones was convicted of a single count of possessing illegal bugsand sentenced in 1999 to 300 hours of community service and five years of probation.

The court file includes letters from Jones’s attorneyseeking permission for Jones to travel to Canada three times during the trial to meet RCMPlocal and regional policeInterpolCanadian government and military officials to discuss software he had developed.

Michael Richardsona former Canadian intelligence officer who was the Canadian distributor for DIRT at the timetells NOW the meetings were arranged to discuss DIRT.

Richardson says he quit Codex after he learned of Jones’s criminal conviction and that Jones had secretly been selling DIRT to governments like Peru and South Africa that have lax laws covering the use of evidence in court.

“It’s a very dangerous product. It can take control of a machine and download what’s on it,” says Richardson.

Eric Schneiderthe computer programmer who wrote DIRTalso doesn’t have much nice to say about Jones. A business partner in CodexSchneider left in 1999 for what he calls “ethical reasons.” He tells NOW he designed DIRT to help police investigate pedophilesbut that Codex has since sold it to foreign governments.

Schneider also says DIRT isn’t as powerful as Codex claims. The latest versions aren’t much more powerful than free hacker tools called Trojanslike Back Orifice or SubSevenhe said. “It’s pretty unimpressiveI think.”

Jones vehemently disagreessaying DIRT “bears little resemblance to Back Orifice. The underground community likes to knock the programbut they’ve never seen the true power of this device.”

Jones refuses to talk about the court casesaying he’s about to file a $20-million defamation suit against people who disparaged him and DIRT on the Web. He then hangs up the phone.

——————————————————————————–

7 July 2001. Thanks to Anonymous:

As you know Frank Jones (AKA Spyking”Francis Edward Jones”) is on federal criminal probation in New York after being convicted of a serious federal felony.
The Probation office main number is (212) 805-0040.

According to the last contact with them callers were directed towards the following person as Frank’s current probation officer: John Meredith128 Dolson AvenueMiddletownNY 10940(914) 344-2789.

John Meredith’s direct supervisor is Hal Grant (845) 344-6142and complaints concerning Jones violating his probation (and Meredith not controlling Jones) should be directed to him.

The following is used to ID Frank in their databases and his records are indexed off of the following data:

Subject of Probation: Frank Jones (AKA: Francis Edward Jones)
Defendant’s Soc. Sec. No.: xxx-xx-xxxx [omitted by Cryptome]
Defendant’s Date of Birth: 09/26/1949

7 July 2001: See complaint filed by Frank Jones in 1999:

http://www.eskimo.com/~joelm/CodexOSC_conformed.htm
And a related Forbes article from August 102000which features Frank Jones and critics:

http://www.forbes.com/2000/08/10/mu9.html

Wellthere is lots of concern about the NSA amassing information about call records. There is lots of concern about privacy surrounding this practicebut seems to be little discussion of why the NSA is doing it.

Now I don’t know the exact reason for thisbut I am going to put forward an educated guess. To show why the NSA might be doing thisI’ll use an analogy: junk e-maila.k.a. spam.

Most of us who have e-mail also have some sort of junk mail filter in place. Many of these filters use mathematical algorithm for determining the probability that an e-mail is “spam” or “ham”. How does this work? Wellit relies on Bayes’ Theorem (for more click),

Basicallywhat Bayes’ Theorem allows us to do is determine the probability of event A given B given that we know the likelihood of A given B–that isL(A|B)–and the (prior) probability of A–that isP(A). Notice that the likelihood of A given B is also the conditional probability of B given A.

For our Spam/Ham problem we want to know what is the probability of a given e-mail is Spam (A) given some information (B). In the case of the Bayesian e-mail filter B is examples of previous spam e-mailshow frequent the are and so forth.

These filters workand they work very well. This is why now you’ll see spam e-mails with subject lines that read“Yore % Cityb an ck CArD Con % tact Infor^^Ation NeEds Updat!ng”. Because of the effectiveness of the Bayesian spam filter a subject line like“Your Citibank Card Information Needs Updating” would be flagged and dumped. So all the mis-spellings and special characters are the spammers’ attempt to get around these filters and get to the person who might be gullible enough to think that such an e-mail is legitimate.

Howeverfor Bayesian filters to work wellthey can require quite a bit of data–that is lots of both Ham and Spam in the case of our Bayesian e-mail filter. This isn’t a problem in that spammers send out hundreds of thousands of spam e-mails every hour. And most people who use e-mail frequently (and also the likely targets of spammers–I have an account at home I rarely use and it almost never gets spam) also get lots of “Ham” as well.

Nowhow does this apply to the NSA? Wellit seems reasonable that the NSA would like to know who is the likely terrorist so that they can start listening in on that guy’s phone calls to see if there is some intelligence that they can pick up. But how to do that? Wellone way would to be to build a data base of phone calls in the U.S. and use that like the Bayesian e-mail filters would. The big difference would be that instead of looking for telemarketing phone callsthe NSA would be looking for people with really unpleasant intentions. Without that kind of data it becomes much harder to determine who is and who is not the likely terrorist.

Does this justify building a database of the calls that people make? I don’t know (the point of this post is to offer a reasonable guess as to why the NSA has compiled such a database). James has argued that while it is a violation of our civil libertiesit is a small one (like the violation at airports). Using such a database to try to catch terrorists and foil their plots does sound reasonable. Howeverthere is the issue of “mission creep.” Will this data be used in the war on drugs and other criminal activities? This does seem to be a legitimate concern and it sure would be nice to know how the NSA plans on preventing such a thing. Based on news reports it looks like there is nothing to prevent mission creep.

The NSA told Qwest that other government agenciesincluding the FBICIA and DEAalso might have access to the databasethe sources said. As a matter of practicethe NSA regularly shares its information — known as “product” in intelligence circles — with other intelligence groups. Even soQwest’s lawyers were troubled by the expansiveness of the NSA requestthe sources said.

I think there is definitely reason for concern here.

Update: Via Instapundit–Apparently this is old news.

And for all of the hypethere may not even be much “news” here. Last December 24a few days after they spilled the beans about the NSA terrorist surveillance programNew York Times reporters Eric Lichtblau and James Risen disclosed how U.S. phone companies were helping the NSA by giving them “access to streams of domestic and international communications.”

While I agree that there is a sensationalistic tone to this story I think there are indeed legitimate concerns about privacy and the growth of government power.

The conservative line of defense seems to be: this is defending Americaso leave it alone. Besides being somewhat of a non-sequitur it is also a bit of a strawman. I think one can want to defend Americabut at the same time be concerned about expanding the power of government to intrude on our lives.

John Hinderaker is also probably wrong when he writes,

Twoit’s obvious that what the NSA does with this vast amount of data is to run it through computerslooking for suspicious patternsespecially involving known or suspected terrorist phone numbers. I did a quick calculation: assuming that there are 200 million adult Americanseach of whom places or receives ten phone calls a day (a conservative estimateI think)it would require a small army of 35,000 full-time NSA employees to pay a total of one second of attention to each call. In other wordslighten up: the NSA obviously isn’t tracking your phone calls with your friends and relatives.

As noted abovewhen “looking for suspicious patterns” you need both the “ham” and the “spam”. So they will be tracking the phone calls to your friends and relatives…chances are thoughthey will be deemed spam (i.e. something the NSA doesn’t want). And his calculation is just another example of bad math. They don’t need to monitor each second of a phone call and the first part of the above paragraph points this out.

Source: outsidethebeltway.com

Why is ECHELON a threat?The UKUSA Agreement makes each of the member nations COMINT agencies surrogates for each of the others when it comes to monitoring their own citizens. Sharing information sounds good at firstuntil you realize that they are monitoring much of what you say. Let’s look at what can happen.Consider this scenario. An Echelon monitoring station in the UK picks up your private conversation with your accountant. You mention that”"My son threw a long bomb and won the game on Saturday.”" The equipment detects the trigger word “”bomb”" in your conversation and automatically forwards the recorded conversation to a live person for analysis. Now obviouslythe “”bomb”" in this case was a football pass and the analyst will understand that. Butin the process of listening to the conversationhe learn that you were discussing some gray areas in the tax code. In the spirit of cooperation with the UKUSA Agreementthat information is forwarded to the IRS. Even if you called your accountant back five minutes later and told him that you did not want to take that chanceit won’t matter. You have been fingered. The IRS now has your number and you know they won’t stop until they get something on you.A friend might have made a satirical comment to you about how to deal with solicitors saying”"Invite them in while you set there cleaning your Uzi.”" You and your friend both know that you don’t have an Uzi. But nothing in your conversation would tell a third party that your friend was being satirical. Sothe monitoring equipment detects the trigger word “”Uzi”" and the next thing you knowthe BATF is breaking down your door. After learning about ECHELONI have to wonder how many of those news items about the BATFFBI or others breaking in on innocent people was really the result of an ECHELON case gone bad. Think about how many times you might say a trigger word in a phone callfaxemail or chat room. Just a few of the trigger words are:bombgun(s)drug(s)explosive(s)policeFBINSABATFRenoRuby RidgeammoshootWacoOklahoma CityRandy WeaverKoreshLibertyConstitution and Bill of Rights.And that is just a start. Those last three really got methough. The list of trigger words that was expropriated from the Menwith Hill ECHELON station in North Yorkshire England a few years ago was hundreds of words long.According to Vice Admiral William Studemanformer Director of the NSAin 1992 the NSA collected some 2 MILLION private messages/conversations each hour. All but about 13,000 an hour were discarded. Of the remainderabout 2,000 met forwarding criteriaof which some 20 are selected by analysts. Do the math. That means that analysts go over roughly 17.5 MILLION private communications each year. And that was in 1992. It is a safe bet that their capabilities have doubled or even quadrupled since then.The Constitutionin the 4th Amendmentguarantees us protection “”against unreasonable searches and seizures”" and further requires that “”no warrants shall issuebut upon probable cause.”" The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that your electronic communicationswhether voicefax or email are protected under the 4th Amendment. What this means is that if any government agency wants to monitor your electronic communicationsthey must first show “”probable cause”" to a judge that you are breaking a specific law. The 4th Amendment is there for your protection. If either of the above scenarios had happened in the United Statesit would have been a clear violation of the 4th Amendment to both intercept that conversation and then to pass on the information to the appropriate agency. In factindiscriminaterandom monitoring of domestic civilian communications is a blatant violation of the 4th Amendment and would get those responsible in a ton of hot water.Howeverby using foreign governments to do their dirty workour governmentthrough the NSA and the UKUSA Agreement is randomly and indiscriminately monitoring our electronic communications and subverting the 4th Amendment.It is imperative that you contact your congressman and senators and let them know of your concern about this breach of trust by the NSA.Source: gurusinc.com

Source: patriotdaily.com

MI5 is building a new £25m e-mail surveillance centre that will have the power to monitor all e-mails and internet messages sent and received in Britain. The government is to require internet service providerssuch as Freeserve and AOLto have “hardwire” links to the new computer facility so that messages can be traced across the internet. The security service and the police will still need Home Office permission to search for e-mails and internet trafficbut they can apply for general warrants that would enable them to intercept communications for a company or an organisation. The new computer centrecodenamed GTAC — government technical assistance centre — which will be up and running by the end of the year inside MI5’s London headquartershas provoked concern among civil liberties groups. “With this facilitythe government can track every website that a person visitswithout a warrantgiving rise to a culture of suspicion by association,” said Caspar Bowdendirector of the Foundation for Information Policy Research. The government already has powers to tap phone lines linking computersbut the growth of the internet has made it impossible to read all material. By requiring service providers to install cables that will download material to MI5the government will have the technical capability to read everything that passes over the internet. Home Office officials say the centre is needed to tackle the use of the internet and mobile phone networks by terrorists and international crime gangs.Charles Clarkthe minister in charge of the spy centre projectsaid it would allow police to keep pace with technology. “Hardly anyone was using the internet or mobile phones 15 years ago,” a Home Office source said. “Now criminals can communicate with each other by a huge array of devices and channels and can encrypt their messagesputting them beyond the reach of conventional eavesdropping.” There has been an explosion in the use of the internet for crime in Britain and across the worldleading to fears in western intelligence agencies that they will soon be left behind as criminals abandon the telephone and resort to encrypted e-mails to run drug rings and illegal prostitution and immigration rackets. The new spy centre will decode messages that have been encrypted. Under new powers due to come into force this summerpolice will be able to require individuals and companies to hand over computer “keys”special codes that unlock scrambled messages. There is controversy over how the costs of intercepting internet traffic should be shared between government and industry. Experts estimate that the cost to Britain’s 400 service providers will be £30m in the first year. Internet companies say that this is too expensiveespecially as many are making losses. About 15m people in Britain have internet access. Legal experts have warned that many are unguarded in the messages they send or the material they downloadbelieving that they are safe from prying eyes. “The arrival of this spy centre means that Big Brother is finally here,” said Norman BakerLiberal Democrat MP for Lewes. “The balance between the state and individual privacy has swung too far in favour of the state.” Source: agitprop.org.au