From FreedomWorks:
End the NSA's Lawless Spying
468 calls reported
The NSA’s unconstitutional, warrantless spying needs to end!
Obama is using a short-term provision in the Patriot Act to spy on all of your electronic records. Obama’s snoops are exploiting Section 215 to make sure they can collect all of your phone, email, and electronic data without a warrant!
There will soon be a vote to reauthorize Section 215 of the Patriot Act. When the Patriot Act is reauthorized, the temporary section (Section 215) must be reformed to protect your 4th Amendment constitutional rights. The government must get a specific warrant before searching your personal phone data.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to give Obama exactly what he wants: a clean reauthorization of Section 215 of the Patriot Act.
8 Republican senators can stand up to him and protect our privacy. Our right to privacy shouldn’t be violated by the NSA.
Call these 8 Republicans today. Urge them to stand against any reauthorization of Section 215 of the Patriot Act that doesn’t end bulk collection of phone data!
Talking points:
- Mitch McConnell wants to pass a clean reauthorization of Section 215 of the Patriot Act – and give President Obama everything he wants.
- Right now, Obama's NSA is unconstitutionally collecting the phone data of innocent Americans without specific warrants.
- If Section 215 of the Patriot Act is going to be reauthorized, then it needs to be reformed so that a specific warrant is required to collect the phone data of innocent Americans.
- Stand up for the 4th Amendment and stop any reauthorization of Section 215 that doesn’t end bulk collection of data without a warrant.
These are the U.S.Senators to contact:
Senator John Boozman
Office Phone: (202) 224-4843
Email
Senator Mike Enzi
Office Phone: (202) 224-3424
Email
Senator Joni Ernst
Office Phone: (202) 224-3254
Email
Senator Deb Fischer
Office Phone: (202) 224-6551
Email
Senator Pat Roberts
Office Phone: (202) 224-4774
Email
Senator Mike Rounds
Office Phone: (202) 224-5842
Email
Senator Dan Sullivan
Office Phone: (202) 224-3004
Email
Senator Thom Tillis
Office Phone: (202) 224-6342
Email
Showing posts with label unconstitutional laws. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unconstitutional laws. Show all posts
Monday, April 27, 2015
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
CISA would give the NSA more information about you,sign the petition if you oppose this.
From Fight For The Future:
Over the weekend a detailed report in the Washington Post caught the U.S. government in more lies about the scope of its dragnet surveillance programs. The Post showed that the NSA intercepted communications from ordinary people 9 times more often than from “targets” suspected of any wrongdoing.
People are outraged. And we should be. Any politician that plans to keep their job should be doing everything they can to put an end to these illegal and unethical surveillance practices.
Infuriatingly, *today* the Senate Intelligence Committee is rushing to advance “CISA,” a bill that would give the NSA more access to our data than ever before, and give companies like Facebook and Google legal immunity for violating our privacy.
Your signature is needed to stop CISA, the new CISPA. Will you click here to take action right now? Every second counts, the markup is this afternoon.
Does “CISA” sound kind of familiar? That’s because it’s another zombified version of CISPA, a bill that Internet users have beaten back twice before.
It’s despicable that the Senate Intelligence Committee, who are supposed to oversee the government’s spying programs and protect our rights, is choosing this moment to resurrect CISPA, and sneaking it through in a closed door markup.
Thanks to the huge rise in privacy activism and reporting over the past year, it should be easier than ever to defeat legislation like this. But we have to remain vigilant. Congress is trying to do this quietly; we can’t let them. Take action right now.
-Evan at Fight for the Future
1) Barton Gellman, Julie Tate, and Ashkan Soltani. The Washington Post. In NSA-intercepted data those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are. click here
2) Senate Select Comittee on Intelligence schedule: click here
3) Office of Senator Dianne Feinsten. CISA bill text:click here
Over the weekend a detailed report in the Washington Post caught the U.S. government in more lies about the scope of its dragnet surveillance programs. The Post showed that the NSA intercepted communications from ordinary people 9 times more often than from “targets” suspected of any wrongdoing.
People are outraged. And we should be. Any politician that plans to keep their job should be doing everything they can to put an end to these illegal and unethical surveillance practices.
Infuriatingly, *today* the Senate Intelligence Committee is rushing to advance “CISA,” a bill that would give the NSA more access to our data than ever before, and give companies like Facebook and Google legal immunity for violating our privacy.
Your signature is needed to stop CISA, the new CISPA. Will you click here to take action right now? Every second counts, the markup is this afternoon.
Does “CISA” sound kind of familiar? That’s because it’s another zombified version of CISPA, a bill that Internet users have beaten back twice before.
It’s despicable that the Senate Intelligence Committee, who are supposed to oversee the government’s spying programs and protect our rights, is choosing this moment to resurrect CISPA, and sneaking it through in a closed door markup.
Thanks to the huge rise in privacy activism and reporting over the past year, it should be easier than ever to defeat legislation like this. But we have to remain vigilant. Congress is trying to do this quietly; we can’t let them. Take action right now.
-Evan at Fight for the Future
1) Barton Gellman, Julie Tate, and Ashkan Soltani. The Washington Post. In NSA-intercepted data those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are. click here
2) Senate Select Comittee on Intelligence schedule: click here
3) Office of Senator Dianne Feinsten. CISA bill text:click here
Monday, February 17, 2014
Stop the IRS from prohibiting free speech
From The National League of Taxpayers:
We don't have much time, so I need you to act quickly.
The Obama administration is gearing up to leverage the power of the IRS to introduce a new regulation which will SHUT DOWN free speech.
IRS [Regulation IR-2013-92] will subject your National League of Taxpayers to IRS audits and harassment if we publish:
Communications that are made within 60 days of a general election (or within 30 days of a primary election)and clearly identify a candidate or political party.
[IRS Regulation IR-2013-92]
In other words: No public scrutiny by organized citizen groups before an election -- which would prevent me from communicating with you during election season.
And in less than two weeks, your chance to comment on these new regulations will end.
That's why it's critical you make your voice heard and sign your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition right away.
We will flood the IRS office with you and your fellow NLT supporters petitions, letting them know you oppose this unconstitutional attempt to silence free speech.
As you know, the National League of Taxpayers will expose the voting record of tax-hiking politicians who try and keep you in the dark.
If this new IRS regulation goes into effect,I could go to jail simply for communicating to you the voting record of tax-and-spend politicians.
That's why it's critical you make your voice heard before the comment period ends on February 27.
Our national debt is already over $17 trillion with no sign of slowing down.
In fact, just last week Congress voted to raise the debt ceiling - again.
Now more than ever we must continue to make politicians feel the heat and remind them come election time they WILL pay a price if they vote to raise our taxes.
I'm not going to back down from this fight, but I need to know you are with me.
Please sign your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition right away.
And after you sign, please make an emergency contribution of $10, $25, $50, or whatever you can afford to help us collect more petitions and fight back against Obama's IRS.
Sincerely,
Gary Paumen, President
National League of Taxpayers
P.S. The grass-roots pressure you generate is the key to teaching waffling politicians that there are political consequences to piling tax dollars onto the national debt.
We can't let Obama use the IRS to shelter himself and his tax-and-spend allies from criticism during the election season.
Please return your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition, and chip in $100, $50, $25 or whatever you can afford.
We don't have much time, so I need you to act quickly.
The Obama administration is gearing up to leverage the power of the IRS to introduce a new regulation which will SHUT DOWN free speech.
IRS [Regulation IR-2013-92] will subject your National League of Taxpayers to IRS audits and harassment if we publish:
Communications that are made within 60 days of a general election (or within 30 days of a primary election)and clearly identify a candidate or political party.
[IRS Regulation IR-2013-92]
In other words: No public scrutiny by organized citizen groups before an election -- which would prevent me from communicating with you during election season.
And in less than two weeks, your chance to comment on these new regulations will end.
That's why it's critical you make your voice heard and sign your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition right away.
We will flood the IRS office with you and your fellow NLT supporters petitions, letting them know you oppose this unconstitutional attempt to silence free speech.
As you know, the National League of Taxpayers will expose the voting record of tax-hiking politicians who try and keep you in the dark.
If this new IRS regulation goes into effect,I could go to jail simply for communicating to you the voting record of tax-and-spend politicians.
That's why it's critical you make your voice heard before the comment period ends on February 27.
Our national debt is already over $17 trillion with no sign of slowing down.
In fact, just last week Congress voted to raise the debt ceiling - again.
Now more than ever we must continue to make politicians feel the heat and remind them come election time they WILL pay a price if they vote to raise our taxes.
I'm not going to back down from this fight, but I need to know you are with me.
Please sign your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition right away.
And after you sign, please make an emergency contribution of $10, $25, $50, or whatever you can afford to help us collect more petitions and fight back against Obama's IRS.
Sincerely,
Gary Paumen, President
National League of Taxpayers
P.S. The grass-roots pressure you generate is the key to teaching waffling politicians that there are political consequences to piling tax dollars onto the national debt.
We can't let Obama use the IRS to shelter himself and his tax-and-spend allies from criticism during the election season.
Please return your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition, and chip in $100, $50, $25 or whatever you can afford.
Monday, February 10, 2014
IRS wants to muzzle citizen's groups
From The National League of Taxpayers:
The Obama administration hasn't been able to shut us up.
So now they are trying to shut us down . . . and hide Obama's fellow tax-and-spend politicians from grass-roots activists.
As you know, prior to every election, the National League of Taxpayers and its members pour on the heat to expose politicians who try to hide their votes for higher taxes and spending.
Now, President Obama's IRS has invented regulations that ignore the Constitution, ignore the freedom of speech, and threaten to shut us down.
Obama's proposal threatens criticism of any sort and would subject your National League of Taxpayers to IRS audits and harassment if we publish:
Communications that are made within 60 days of a general election (or within 30 days of a primary election) and clearly identify a candidate or political party.
IRS Regulation IR-2013-92]
In other words: No public scrutiny by organized citizen groups before an election.
This is the dream of every politician who believes we should do nothing to rein in our massive $17 trillion national debt.
The Obama Administration’s plan is to muzzle your National League of Taxpayers and other Tea Party groups right at our most effective time -- when the politicians are looking for votes.
This is a flat out assault on the Constitution's guarantee of our freedom of speech.
But because they’re using the tax code, they just might get away with it under the government’s right to tax, just like they have so far with ObamaCare.
After all, only under tax law are you presumed guilty until proven innocent.
And if you and I don't have the right to organize grass-roots opposition to the position of our candidates for office, then the freedom of speech means nothing.
Here is what I urgently need you to do:
Please sign your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition against IRS Regulation IR-2013-92, which I'll link to in a moment.
Your signature authorizes me to file your opposition to IRS Regulation number "IR-2013-92" with the Federal Register.
You see, before Obama's regulatory proposal can go into effect, there is one prerequisite: By law he must publish the regulation in the Federal Register and give the public a chance to comment on it.
My goal is to both collect a minimum of 175,000 Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petitions that you can link to below BEFORE the February 27 Federal Register comment deadline and move forward to prepare a legal case against the rule.
And after you sign your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition, please consider a generous contribution of $15, $25, $50, $100, or whatever you can afford to your National League of Taxpayers.
Now I must be honest about the purpose of your IRS Freedom of Speech Petition.
The real importance of your IRS petition is to help me lay the groundwork to ultimately win a Supreme Court lawsuit against Obama's unconstitutional infringement of our freedom of speech.
Showing that Obama’s bureaucrats completely ignored more than a hundred thousand petitions in opposition from NLT members and other concerned taxpayers will be an important part of our legal challenge.
Once the final regulation is published, I don't plan to waste any time in filing a lawsuit against President Obama's power grab.
I need to know that you're with me, so please sign your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition right now.
If the new regulations go into effect, I could face IRS audits, harassment, and even jail time, every time I write you right before a primary or general election to tell you who how they vote.
Of course it is no wonder the tax-and-spend politicians like this new regulation. They don't want their constituents to know that:
***The deficit for 2013 was $680 billion with more than $8 trillion added to our debt since 2008;
***The real unemployment rate today is more than 14 percent with millions more workers relegated to part-time work;
***Social Security has already begun to run in the red;
***Medicare is ultimately destined to totally run out of money while private insurance rates are skyrocketing;
***And that they voted for the tax-and-spend boondoggles that got us here.
The National League of Taxpayers exposes all this and more, and with the help of members like you, floods the politicians with grass-roots pressure to cut spending precisely when they are out looking for votes.
Believe me, your grass-roots pressure can make a difference.
That's why it's crucial you sign your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition right away.
It would be dangerous to the future of this country to leave Obama's IRS looming over the heads of every group who would criticize Obama but don't have the resources to take a case all the way to the Supreme Court.
Believe me, all these legal expenses infuriate me.
If I have to divert funds which are budgeted for exposing tax-and-spend politicians and instead spend them fighting the IRS in court, it could cost us dearly in critical battles against the debt.
That's why it's vital you sign your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition.
After you sign, please chip in $15, $25, $50, $100, or even more if you can to your National League of Taxpayers.
Nothing will intimidate your NLT from implementing our full-blown election year, survey results program.
But now in addition to our election year program I must prepare for the additional expense of hiring the attorneys and beginning the legal research to fight President Obama in federal court.
And during the election season, while our lawsuit is working its way through the Courts, IRS harassment of your National League of Taxpayers could prove to be very costly.
Which is why your contribution -- whether $2500 or $25 -- is vital.
With your help, we WILL ultimately win, no matter how much time and money these legal assaults take.
Let me emphasize that although your contribution is vitally important, the most important thing I need you to do is to sign your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition.
If you can't give at the moment, I understand.
But whatever you do, I urge you to return your petitions before the February 27 Federal Register deadline and I'll see if someone else can help with the additional cost of attorneys and petition gathering.
And if you can, a sacrificial gift of $35 or even $100 or $500 now could protect our freedom of speech and will help us fight whatever fiscal battles lie ahead in the years to come.
So please respond right away with your signed Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition.
And please help with a contribution of at least $25 or $35. Some people will be able to send as much as $500 or more. Others have sent $50 and $100.
But no matter how much you send, whether it's $15 or $150, I guarantee your contribution is urgently needed and will be deeply appreciated.
That's why I urge you to act immediately and send your contribution of $1000, $500, $100, $50, or at least $25 if you can prior to the February 27 IRS deadline.
Your contribution to the National League of Taxpayers and your signed petition will lay the groundwork for a clear legal precedent prohibiting President Obama from using the IRS to trample on the free speech rights of his critics.
Sincerely,
Gary Paumen, President
National League of Taxpayers
P.S. The grass-roots pressure you generate is the key to teaching waffling politicians that there are political consequences to piling tax dollars onto the national debt.
We can't let Obama use the IRS to shelter himself and his tax-and-spend allies from criticism during the election season.
Please return your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition, along with your contribution of $100, $50, $25 or whatever you can afford.
Sign the petition
The Obama administration hasn't been able to shut us up.
So now they are trying to shut us down . . . and hide Obama's fellow tax-and-spend politicians from grass-roots activists.
As you know, prior to every election, the National League of Taxpayers and its members pour on the heat to expose politicians who try to hide their votes for higher taxes and spending.
Now, President Obama's IRS has invented regulations that ignore the Constitution, ignore the freedom of speech, and threaten to shut us down.
Obama's proposal threatens criticism of any sort and would subject your National League of Taxpayers to IRS audits and harassment if we publish:
Communications that are made within 60 days of a general election (or within 30 days of a primary election) and clearly identify a candidate or political party.
IRS Regulation IR-2013-92]
In other words: No public scrutiny by organized citizen groups before an election.
This is the dream of every politician who believes we should do nothing to rein in our massive $17 trillion national debt.
The Obama Administration’s plan is to muzzle your National League of Taxpayers and other Tea Party groups right at our most effective time -- when the politicians are looking for votes.
This is a flat out assault on the Constitution's guarantee of our freedom of speech.
But because they’re using the tax code, they just might get away with it under the government’s right to tax, just like they have so far with ObamaCare.
After all, only under tax law are you presumed guilty until proven innocent.
And if you and I don't have the right to organize grass-roots opposition to the position of our candidates for office, then the freedom of speech means nothing.
Here is what I urgently need you to do:
Please sign your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition against IRS Regulation IR-2013-92, which I'll link to in a moment.
Your signature authorizes me to file your opposition to IRS Regulation number "IR-2013-92" with the Federal Register.
You see, before Obama's regulatory proposal can go into effect, there is one prerequisite: By law he must publish the regulation in the Federal Register and give the public a chance to comment on it.
My goal is to both collect a minimum of 175,000 Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petitions that you can link to below BEFORE the February 27 Federal Register comment deadline and move forward to prepare a legal case against the rule.
And after you sign your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition, please consider a generous contribution of $15, $25, $50, $100, or whatever you can afford to your National League of Taxpayers.
Now I must be honest about the purpose of your IRS Freedom of Speech Petition.
The real importance of your IRS petition is to help me lay the groundwork to ultimately win a Supreme Court lawsuit against Obama's unconstitutional infringement of our freedom of speech.
Showing that Obama’s bureaucrats completely ignored more than a hundred thousand petitions in opposition from NLT members and other concerned taxpayers will be an important part of our legal challenge.
Once the final regulation is published, I don't plan to waste any time in filing a lawsuit against President Obama's power grab.
I need to know that you're with me, so please sign your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition right now.
If the new regulations go into effect, I could face IRS audits, harassment, and even jail time, every time I write you right before a primary or general election to tell you who how they vote.
Of course it is no wonder the tax-and-spend politicians like this new regulation. They don't want their constituents to know that:
***The deficit for 2013 was $680 billion with more than $8 trillion added to our debt since 2008;
***The real unemployment rate today is more than 14 percent with millions more workers relegated to part-time work;
***Social Security has already begun to run in the red;
***Medicare is ultimately destined to totally run out of money while private insurance rates are skyrocketing;
***And that they voted for the tax-and-spend boondoggles that got us here.
The National League of Taxpayers exposes all this and more, and with the help of members like you, floods the politicians with grass-roots pressure to cut spending precisely when they are out looking for votes.
Believe me, your grass-roots pressure can make a difference.
That's why it's crucial you sign your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition right away.
It would be dangerous to the future of this country to leave Obama's IRS looming over the heads of every group who would criticize Obama but don't have the resources to take a case all the way to the Supreme Court.
Believe me, all these legal expenses infuriate me.
If I have to divert funds which are budgeted for exposing tax-and-spend politicians and instead spend them fighting the IRS in court, it could cost us dearly in critical battles against the debt.
That's why it's vital you sign your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition.
After you sign, please chip in $15, $25, $50, $100, or even more if you can to your National League of Taxpayers.
Nothing will intimidate your NLT from implementing our full-blown election year, survey results program.
But now in addition to our election year program I must prepare for the additional expense of hiring the attorneys and beginning the legal research to fight President Obama in federal court.
And during the election season, while our lawsuit is working its way through the Courts, IRS harassment of your National League of Taxpayers could prove to be very costly.
Which is why your contribution -- whether $2500 or $25 -- is vital.
With your help, we WILL ultimately win, no matter how much time and money these legal assaults take.
Let me emphasize that although your contribution is vitally important, the most important thing I need you to do is to sign your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition.
If you can't give at the moment, I understand.
But whatever you do, I urge you to return your petitions before the February 27 Federal Register deadline and I'll see if someone else can help with the additional cost of attorneys and petition gathering.
And if you can, a sacrificial gift of $35 or even $100 or $500 now could protect our freedom of speech and will help us fight whatever fiscal battles lie ahead in the years to come.
So please respond right away with your signed Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition.
And please help with a contribution of at least $25 or $35. Some people will be able to send as much as $500 or more. Others have sent $50 and $100.
But no matter how much you send, whether it's $15 or $150, I guarantee your contribution is urgently needed and will be deeply appreciated.
That's why I urge you to act immediately and send your contribution of $1000, $500, $100, $50, or at least $25 if you can prior to the February 27 IRS deadline.
Your contribution to the National League of Taxpayers and your signed petition will lay the groundwork for a clear legal precedent prohibiting President Obama from using the IRS to trample on the free speech rights of his critics.
Sincerely,
Gary Paumen, President
National League of Taxpayers
P.S. The grass-roots pressure you generate is the key to teaching waffling politicians that there are political consequences to piling tax dollars onto the national debt.
We can't let Obama use the IRS to shelter himself and his tax-and-spend allies from criticism during the election season.
Please return your Taxpayer Freedom of Speech Petition, along with your contribution of $100, $50, $25 or whatever you can afford.
Sign the petition
Friday, April 26, 2013
CNET gets ahold of CISPA documents
U.S. gives big, secret push to Internet surveillance
Justice Department agreed to issue "2511 letters" immunizing AT&T and other companies participating in a cybersecurity program from criminal prosecution under the Wiretap Act, according to new documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
by Declan McCullagh | April 24, 2013 8:59 AM PDT
NSA director Keith Alexander, shown here in a file photo, who's also the commander of the U.S. Cyber Command.
Senior Obama administration officials have secretly authorized the interception of communications carried on portions of networks operated by AT&T and other Internet service providers, a practice that might otherwise be illegal under federal wiretapping laws.
The secret legal authorization from the Justice Department originally applied to a cybersecurity pilot project in which the military monitored defense contractors' Internet links. Since then, however, the program has been expanded by President Obama to cover all critical infrastructure sectors including energy, healthcare, and finance starting June 12.
"The Justice Department is helping private companies evade federal wiretap laws," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which obtained over 1,000 pages of internal government documents and provided them to CNET this week. "Alarm bells should be going off."
Those documents show the National Security Agency and the Defense Department were deeply involved in pressing for the secret legal authorization, with NSA director Keith Alexander participating in some of the discussions personally. Despite initial reservations, including from industry participants, Justice Department attorneys eventually signed off on the project.
The Justice Department agreed to grant legal immunity to the participating network providers in the form of what participants in the confidential discussions refer to as "2511 letters," a reference to the Wiretap Act codified at 18 USC 2511 in the federal statute books.
The Wiretap Act limits the ability of Internet providers to eavesdrop on network traffic except when monitoring is a "necessary incident" to providing the service or it takes place with a user's "lawful consent." An industry representative told CNET the 2511 letters provided legal immunity to the providers by agreeing not to prosecute for criminal violations of the Wiretap Act. It's not clear how many 2511 letters were issued by the Justice Department.
In 2011, Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn publicly disclosed the existence of the original project, called the DIB Cyber Pilot, which used login banners to inform network users that monitoring was taking place. In May 2012, the pilot was turned into an ongoing program -- broader but still voluntary -- by the name of Joint Cybersecurity Services Pilot, with the Department of Homeland Security becoming involved for the first time. It was renamed again to Enhanced Cybersecurity Services program in January, and is currently being expanded to all types of companies operating critical infrastructure.
The NSA and DOJ declined to comment. Homeland Security spokesman Sy Lee sent CNET a statement saying:
DHS is committed to supporting the public's privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. Accordingly, the department has implemented strong privacy and civil rights and civil liberties standards into all its cybersecurity programs and initiatives from the outset, including the Enhanced Cybersecurity Services program. In order to protect privacy while safeguarding and securing cyberspace, DHS institutes layered privacy responsibilities throughout the department, embeds fair practice principles into cybersecurity programs and privacy compliance efforts, and fosters collaboration with cybersecurity partners.
Paul Rosenzweig, a former Homeland Security official and founder of Red Branch Consulting, compared the NSA and DOD asking the Justice Department for 2511 letters to the CIA asking the Justice Department for the so-called torture memos a decade ago. (They were written by Justice Department official John Yoo, who reached the controversial conclusion that waterboarding was not torture.)
"If you think of it poorly, it's a CYA function," Rosenzweig says. "If you think well of it, it's an effort to secure advance authorization for an action that may not be clearly legal."
A report (PDF) published last month by the Congressional Research Service, a non-partisan arm of Congress, says the executive branch likely does not have the legal authority to authorize more widespread monitoring of communications unless Congress rewrites the law. "Such an executive action would contravene current federal laws protecting electronic communications," the report says.
Because it overrides all federal and state privacy laws, including the Wiretap Act, legislation called CISPA would formally authorize the program without the government resorting to 2511 letters. In other words, if CISPA, which the U.S. House of Representatives approved last week, becomes law, any data-sharing program would be placed on a solid legal footing. AT&T, Verizon, and wireless and cable providers have all written letters endorsing CISPA.
Around the time that CISPA was originally introduced in late 2011, NSA, DOD, and DHS officials were actively meeting with the aides on the House Intelligence committee who drafted the legislation, the internal documents show. The purpose of the meeting, one e-mail shows, was to brief committee aides on "cyber defense efforts." In addition, Ryan Gillis, a director in DHS's Office of Legislative Affairs, sent an e-mail to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee, discussing the pilot program around the same time.
AT&T and CenturyLink are currently the only two providers that have been publicly announced as participating in the program. Other companies have signed a memorandum of agreement with DHS to join, and are currently in the process of obtaining security certification, said a government official, who declined to name those companies or be identified by name.
Approval of the 2511 letters came after concerns from within the Justice Department and from industry. An internal e-mail thread among senior Defense Department, Homeland Security, and Justice Department officials in 2011, including associate deputy attorney general James Baker, outlines some of the obstacles:
[The program] has two key barriers to a start. First, the ISPs will likely request 2511 letters, so DoJ's provision of 3 2511 letters (and the review of DIB company banners as part of that) is one time requirement. DoJ will provide a timeline for that. Second, all participating DIB companies would be required to change their banners to reference government monitoring. All have expressed serious reservations with doing so, including the three CEOs [the deputy secretary of defense] discussed this with. The companies have informally told us that changing the banners in this manner could take months.
Another e-mail message from a Justice Department attorney wondered: "Will the program cover all parts of the company network -- including say day care centers (as mentioned as a question in a [deputies committee meeting]) and what are the policy implications of this?" The deputies committee includes the deputy secretary of defense, the deputy director of national intelligence, the deputy attorney general, and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"These agencies are clearly seeking authority to receive a large amount of information, including personal information, from private Internet networks," says EPIC staff attorney Amie Stepanovich, who filed a lawsuit against Homeland Security in March 2012 seeking documents relating to the program under the Freedom of Information Act. "If this program was broadly deployed, it would raise serious questions about government cybersecurity practices."
In January, the Department of Homeland Security's privacy office published a privacy analysis (PDF) of the program saying that users of the networks of companies participating in the program will see "an electronic login banner [saying] information and data on the network may be monitored or disclosed to third parties, and/or that the network users' communications on the network are not private."
An internal Defense Department presentation cites as possible legal authority a classified presidential directive called NSPD 54 that President Bush signed in January 2008. Obama's own executive order, signed in February 2013, says Homeland Security must establish procedures to expand the data-sharing program "to all critical infrastructure sectors" by mid-June. Those are defined as any companies providing services that, if disrupted, would harm national economic security or "national public health or safety."
Those could be very broad categories, says Rosenzweig, author of a new book called "Cyber War," which discusses the legality of more widespread monitoring of Internet communications.
"I think there's a great deal of discretion," Rosenzweig says. "I could make a case for the criticality of several meat packing plants in Kansas. The disruption of the meat rendering facilities in Kansas would be very disruptive to the meat-eating habits of Americans."
Source:click here
I didn't think Obama was against CISPA and I was right. I figured he approved of all the other assaults upon our civil liberties why would he be opposed to CISPA? Now we know truth.
Justice Department agreed to issue "2511 letters" immunizing AT&T and other companies participating in a cybersecurity program from criminal prosecution under the Wiretap Act, according to new documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
by Declan McCullagh | April 24, 2013 8:59 AM PDT
NSA director Keith Alexander, shown here in a file photo, who's also the commander of the U.S. Cyber Command.
Senior Obama administration officials have secretly authorized the interception of communications carried on portions of networks operated by AT&T and other Internet service providers, a practice that might otherwise be illegal under federal wiretapping laws.
The secret legal authorization from the Justice Department originally applied to a cybersecurity pilot project in which the military monitored defense contractors' Internet links. Since then, however, the program has been expanded by President Obama to cover all critical infrastructure sectors including energy, healthcare, and finance starting June 12.
"The Justice Department is helping private companies evade federal wiretap laws," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which obtained over 1,000 pages of internal government documents and provided them to CNET this week. "Alarm bells should be going off."
Those documents show the National Security Agency and the Defense Department were deeply involved in pressing for the secret legal authorization, with NSA director Keith Alexander participating in some of the discussions personally. Despite initial reservations, including from industry participants, Justice Department attorneys eventually signed off on the project.
The Justice Department agreed to grant legal immunity to the participating network providers in the form of what participants in the confidential discussions refer to as "2511 letters," a reference to the Wiretap Act codified at 18 USC 2511 in the federal statute books.
The Wiretap Act limits the ability of Internet providers to eavesdrop on network traffic except when monitoring is a "necessary incident" to providing the service or it takes place with a user's "lawful consent." An industry representative told CNET the 2511 letters provided legal immunity to the providers by agreeing not to prosecute for criminal violations of the Wiretap Act. It's not clear how many 2511 letters were issued by the Justice Department.
In 2011, Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn publicly disclosed the existence of the original project, called the DIB Cyber Pilot, which used login banners to inform network users that monitoring was taking place. In May 2012, the pilot was turned into an ongoing program -- broader but still voluntary -- by the name of Joint Cybersecurity Services Pilot, with the Department of Homeland Security becoming involved for the first time. It was renamed again to Enhanced Cybersecurity Services program in January, and is currently being expanded to all types of companies operating critical infrastructure.
The NSA and DOJ declined to comment. Homeland Security spokesman Sy Lee sent CNET a statement saying:
DHS is committed to supporting the public's privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. Accordingly, the department has implemented strong privacy and civil rights and civil liberties standards into all its cybersecurity programs and initiatives from the outset, including the Enhanced Cybersecurity Services program. In order to protect privacy while safeguarding and securing cyberspace, DHS institutes layered privacy responsibilities throughout the department, embeds fair practice principles into cybersecurity programs and privacy compliance efforts, and fosters collaboration with cybersecurity partners.
Paul Rosenzweig, a former Homeland Security official and founder of Red Branch Consulting, compared the NSA and DOD asking the Justice Department for 2511 letters to the CIA asking the Justice Department for the so-called torture memos a decade ago. (They were written by Justice Department official John Yoo, who reached the controversial conclusion that waterboarding was not torture.)
"If you think of it poorly, it's a CYA function," Rosenzweig says. "If you think well of it, it's an effort to secure advance authorization for an action that may not be clearly legal."
A report (PDF) published last month by the Congressional Research Service, a non-partisan arm of Congress, says the executive branch likely does not have the legal authority to authorize more widespread monitoring of communications unless Congress rewrites the law. "Such an executive action would contravene current federal laws protecting electronic communications," the report says.
Because it overrides all federal and state privacy laws, including the Wiretap Act, legislation called CISPA would formally authorize the program without the government resorting to 2511 letters. In other words, if CISPA, which the U.S. House of Representatives approved last week, becomes law, any data-sharing program would be placed on a solid legal footing. AT&T, Verizon, and wireless and cable providers have all written letters endorsing CISPA.
Around the time that CISPA was originally introduced in late 2011, NSA, DOD, and DHS officials were actively meeting with the aides on the House Intelligence committee who drafted the legislation, the internal documents show. The purpose of the meeting, one e-mail shows, was to brief committee aides on "cyber defense efforts." In addition, Ryan Gillis, a director in DHS's Office of Legislative Affairs, sent an e-mail to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee, discussing the pilot program around the same time.
AT&T and CenturyLink are currently the only two providers that have been publicly announced as participating in the program. Other companies have signed a memorandum of agreement with DHS to join, and are currently in the process of obtaining security certification, said a government official, who declined to name those companies or be identified by name.
Approval of the 2511 letters came after concerns from within the Justice Department and from industry. An internal e-mail thread among senior Defense Department, Homeland Security, and Justice Department officials in 2011, including associate deputy attorney general James Baker, outlines some of the obstacles:
[The program] has two key barriers to a start. First, the ISPs will likely request 2511 letters, so DoJ's provision of 3 2511 letters (and the review of DIB company banners as part of that) is one time requirement. DoJ will provide a timeline for that. Second, all participating DIB companies would be required to change their banners to reference government monitoring. All have expressed serious reservations with doing so, including the three CEOs [the deputy secretary of defense] discussed this with. The companies have informally told us that changing the banners in this manner could take months.
Another e-mail message from a Justice Department attorney wondered: "Will the program cover all parts of the company network -- including say day care centers (as mentioned as a question in a [deputies committee meeting]) and what are the policy implications of this?" The deputies committee includes the deputy secretary of defense, the deputy director of national intelligence, the deputy attorney general, and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"These agencies are clearly seeking authority to receive a large amount of information, including personal information, from private Internet networks," says EPIC staff attorney Amie Stepanovich, who filed a lawsuit against Homeland Security in March 2012 seeking documents relating to the program under the Freedom of Information Act. "If this program was broadly deployed, it would raise serious questions about government cybersecurity practices."
In January, the Department of Homeland Security's privacy office published a privacy analysis (PDF) of the program saying that users of the networks of companies participating in the program will see "an electronic login banner [saying] information and data on the network may be monitored or disclosed to third parties, and/or that the network users' communications on the network are not private."
An internal Defense Department presentation cites as possible legal authority a classified presidential directive called NSPD 54 that President Bush signed in January 2008. Obama's own executive order, signed in February 2013, says Homeland Security must establish procedures to expand the data-sharing program "to all critical infrastructure sectors" by mid-June. Those are defined as any companies providing services that, if disrupted, would harm national economic security or "national public health or safety."
Those could be very broad categories, says Rosenzweig, author of a new book called "Cyber War," which discusses the legality of more widespread monitoring of Internet communications.
"I think there's a great deal of discretion," Rosenzweig says. "I could make a case for the criticality of several meat packing plants in Kansas. The disruption of the meat rendering facilities in Kansas would be very disruptive to the meat-eating habits of Americans."
Source:click here
I didn't think Obama was against CISPA and I was right. I figured he approved of all the other assaults upon our civil liberties why would he be opposed to CISPA? Now we know truth.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
FBI invades privacy
FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited
WASHINGTON--The FBI is pressing Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years, a requirement that law enforcement believes could help it in investigations of child pornography and other serious crimes.
FBI Director Robert Mueller supports storing Internet users' "origin and destination information," a bureau attorney said at a federal task force meeting on Thursday.
As far back as a 2006 speech, Mueller had called for data retention on the part of Internet providers, and emphasized the point two years later when explicitly asking Congress to enact a law making it mandatory. But it had not been clear before that the FBI was asking companies to begin to keep logs of what Web sites are visited, which few if any currently do.
The FBI is not alone in renewing its push for data retention. As CNET reported earlier this week, a survey of state computer crime investigators found them to be nearly unanimous in supporting the idea. Matt Dunn, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in the Department of Homeland Security, also expressed support for the idea during the task force meeting.
Greg Motta, the chief of the FBI's digital evidence section, said that the bureau was trying to preserve its existing ability to conduct criminal investigations. Federal regulations in place since at least 1986 require phone companies that offer toll service to "retain for a period of 18 months" records including "the name, address, and telephone number of the caller, telephone number called, date, time and length of the call."
At Thursday's meeting (PDF) of the Online Safety and Technology Working Group, which was created by Congress and organized by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Motta stressed that the bureau was not asking that content data, such as the text of e-mail messages, be retained.
"The question at least for the bureau has been about non-content transactional data to be preserved: transmission records, non-content records...addressing, routing, signaling of the communication," Motta said. Director Mueller recognizes, he added "there's going to be a balance of what industry can bear...He recommends origin and destination information for non-content data."
Motta pointed to a 2006 resolution from the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which called for the "retention of customer subscriber information, and source and destination information for a minimum specified reasonable period of time so that it will be available to the law enforcement community."
Recording what Web sites are visited, though, is likely to draw both practical and privacy objections.
"We're not set up to keep URL information anywhere in the network," said Drew Arena, Verizon's vice president and associate general counsel for law enforcement compliance.
And, Arena added, "if you were do to deep packet inspection to see all the URLs, you would arguably violate the Wiretap Act."
Another industry representative with knowledge of how Internet service providers work was unaware of any company keeping logs of what Web sites its customers visit.
If logs of Web sites visited began to be kept, they would be available only to local, state, and federal police with legal authorization such as a subpoena or search warrant.
What remains unclear are the details of what the FBI is proposing. The possibilities include requiring an Internet provider to log the Internet protocol (IP) address of a Web site visited, or the domain name such as cnet.com, a host name such as news.cnet.com, or the actual URL such as http://reviews.cnet.com/Music/2001-6450_7-0.html.
While the first three categories could be logged without doing deep packet inspection, the fourth category would require it. That could run up against opposition in Congress, which lambasted the concept in a series of hearings in 2008, causing the demise of a company, NebuAd, which pioneered it inside the United States.
The technical challenges also may be formidable. John Seiver, an attorney at Davis Wright Tremaine who represents cable providers, said one of his clients had experience with a law enforcement request that required the logging of outbound URLs.
"Eighteen million hits an hour would have to have been logged," a staggering amount of data to sort through, Seiver said. The purpose of the FBI's request was to identify visitors to two URLs, "to try to find out...who's going to them."
A Justice Department representative said the department does not have an official position on data retention.
Disclosure: The author of this story participated in the meeting of the Online Safety and Technology Working Group, though after the law enforcement representatives spoke.
Source:click here
This is an invasion of privacy and very a slippery slope but with that son of a bitch in the White House nothing is off limits. Look for this law to be used for unconstitutional political purposes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
