From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Jun 1 10:54:24 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2014 11:54:24 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Pseudonyms by Another Name: Identity Management in a Time of Surveillance Message-ID: <489E216B-FBCC-4C1D-8A3C-FE1B96FF70C3@infowarrior.org> Pseudonyms by Another Name: Identity Management in a Time of Surveillance Posted on May 31, 2014 by Michael Froomkin I was recently asked to contribute to a set of essays being assembled in honor of the Electronic Privacy Information Center?s 20th anniversary. Here?s a draft: Pseudonyms by Another Name: Identity Management in a Time of Surveillance A. Michael Froomkin Laurie Silvers & Mitchell Rubenstein Distinguished Professor University of Miami School of Law < - > http://www.discourse.net/2014/05/pseudonyms-by-another-name-identity-management-in-a-time-of-surveillance --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Jun 2 07:36:10 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2014 08:36:10 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?The_U=2ES=2E=92s_Hypocritical_St?= =?windows-1252?q?ance_Against_Chinese_Hackers?= Message-ID: <8B8D375D-65F0-4958-915B-6EA9BB3FAB3A@infowarrior.org> The U.S.?s Hypocritical Stance Against Chinese Hackers Bruce Schneier May 20, 2014 http://time.com/106250/us-chinese-hackers-indictment/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Jun 2 13:51:54 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2014 14:51:54 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - SCOTUS refuses to hear James Risen case Message-ID: Supreme Court refuses to take reporter?s case on revealing confidential source By Robert Barnes http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-refuses-to-take-reporters-case-on-revealing-confidential-source/2014/06/02/d704de58-ea54-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_print.html The Supreme Court on Monday declined to intervene on behalf of a New York Times reporter and author who has been subpoenaed to reveal a confidential source. The court without comment turned down requests from reporter James Risen and a host of media groups to overturn a lower court order and find that reporters are protected by the Constitution from testifying about their sources. In a 2006 book, ?State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration,? Risen detailed classified information about the CIA?s efforts to disrupt Iran?s nuclear program. Prosecutors want Risen to testify in its prosecution of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA analyst. A district judge had said Risen did not have to testify. But a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond disagreed in a 2 to 1 decision. The majority said that under Supreme Court precedent, the First Amendment does not protect reporters from revealing who supplied them with unauthorized leaks. ?Risen?s direct, firsthand account of the criminal conduct indicted by the grand jury cannot be obtained by alternative means, as Risen is without dispute the only witness who can offer this critical testimony,?? wrote Circuit Judge William Byrd Traxler Jr. Circuit Judge Roger Gregory disagreed. ?Under the majority?s articulation of the reporter?s privilege, or lack thereof, absent a showing of bad faith by the government, a reporter can always be compelled against her will to reveal her confidential sources in a criminal trial,? he wrote. ?The majority exalts the interests of the government while unduly trampling those of the press, and in doing so, severely impinges on the press and the free flow of information in our society.? Gregory said there was plenty of circumstantial evidence linking Sterling to Risen and that Risen?s direct testimony was not crucial to the government?s case. Risen has said he will go to prison rather than testify. But U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. last week said at a meeting with journalists that would be unlikely. ?As long as I?m attorney general, no reporter will go to jail for doing his job,? Holder told those in attendance. The Washington Post was among the news organizations filing a brief on Risen?s behalf. The case was Risen v. U.S. ? The Washington Post Company --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Jun 2 18:09:33 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2014 19:09:33 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Google dropping $1B to build 180 Internet satellites Message-ID: Jun 2, 2014, 6:20am PDT Updated: Jun 2, 2014, 7:59am PDT Google dropping $1B to build 180 Internet satellites http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/06/02/google-dropping-1b-to-build-180-internet.html Google Inc. is spending $1 billion to create and deploy 180 low-Earth orbit satellites to equip underserved regions of the world with Internet access, according to The Wall Street Journal. Project details are scarce, but the Journal reports that the company expects to launch satellites that will orbit the globe at altitudes lower than traditional satellites, in a venture led by O3b Networks Ltd. founder Greg Wyler. He recently joined Mountain View-based Google after it hired Brian Holz, the satellite-communications company?s chief technology officer, in April. Engineers from Palo Alto satellite company Space Systems/Loral LLC have also been brought in to work on the project, which could run more than $3 billion due to the network?s final design and a future increase in the number of satellites, according to the Journal. The search and advertising company?s ambitions to bring Internet access to underserved areas have been building for some time now. Google launched Project Loon ? an initiative to deliver Wi-Fi through high-flying solar-powered air balloons ? last June. It acquired high-altitude drone maker Titan Aerospace in April and is reportedly in talks to buy Mountain View-based Skybox Labs, which builds smaller satellites that can be arranged in constellations for improved satellite imaging. Google isn't the only Silicon Valley company with eyes on the sky. Menlo Park-based Facebook Inc. is also looking to connect unwired corners of the Earth and operates Internet.org, an initiative that aims to bring Internet connections to 5 billion unconnected people. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 3 06:43:25 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2014 07:43:25 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - EFF: The Top 5 Claims That Defenders of the NSA Have to Stop Making to Remain Credible Message-ID: The Top 5 Claims That Defenders of the NSA Have to Stop Making to Remain Credible https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/06/top-5-claims-defenders-nsa-have-stop-making-remain-credible --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 3 10:11:04 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2014 11:11:04 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Bill Blunden's Rejected DEFCON Presentation Posted Online Message-ID: <401B540A-E910-4BD8-B7F5-C3D2CFC3EFA4@infowarrior.org> Bill Blunden's Rejected DEFCON Presentation Posted Online narrative ... http://www.belowgotham.com/OTMR-TRANSCRIPT.pdf slides ... http://www.belowgotham.com/ODE-TO-MIKE-ROGERS.pdf --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 3 18:16:38 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2014 19:16:38 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?U=2ES=2E_Marshals_Seize_Cops=92_?= =?windows-1252?q?Spying_Records_to_Keep_Them_From_the_ACLU?= Message-ID: U.S. Marshals Seize Cops? Spying Records to Keep Them From the ACLU ? By Kim Zetter ? 06.03.14 | ? 6:15 pm | http://www.wired.com/2014/06/feds-seize-stingray-documents/ A routine request in Florida for public records regarding the use of a surveillance tool known as stingray took an extraordinary turn Tuesday when federal authorities seized the documents before police could release them. The surprise move by the U.S. Marshals Service stunned the ACLU, which earlier this year filed a routine public records request with the Sarasota, Florida, police department for information detailing its use of the controversial surveillance tool. The ACLU had an appointment Tuesday morning to review documents pertaining to a case investigated by a Sarasota police detective. But marshals swooped in at the last minute to grab the records, claiming they belong to the U.S. Marshals Service and barring the police from releasing them. ACLU staff attorney Nathan Freed Wessler called the move ?truly extraordinary and beyond the worst transparency violations? the group has seen regarding documents detailing police use of the technology. ?This is consistent with what we?ve seen around the country with federal agencies trying to meddle with public requests for stingray information,? Wessler said, noting that federal authorities have in other cases invoked the Homeland Security Act to prevent the release of such records. ?The feds are working very hard to block any release of this information to the public.? Stingrays, also known as IMSI catchers, simulate a cellphone tower and trick nearby mobile devices into connecting with them, thereby revealing their location. A stingray can see and record a device?s unique ID number and traffic data, as well as information that points to its location. By moving a stingray around, authorities can triangulate a device?s location with greater precision than is possible using data obtained from a carrier?s fixed tower location. The records sought by the ACLU are important because the organization has learned that a Florida police detective obtained permission to use a stingray simply by filing an application with the court under Florida?s ?trap and trace? statute instead of obtaining a probable-cause warrant. Trap and trace orders generally are used to collect information from phone companies about telephone numbers received and called by a specific account. A stingray, however, can track the location of cell phones, including inside private spaces. The government has long asserted it doesn?t need a probable-cause warrant to use stingrays because the device doesn?t collect the content of phone calls and text messages, but instead operates like pen-registers and trap-and-traces, collecting the equivalent of header information. The ACLU and others argue that the devices are more invasive than a trap-and-trace. Recently, the Sarasota police department revealed it had used stingrays at least 200 times since 2010 without telling a judge because the device?s manufacturer made it sign a non-disclosure agreement that police claim prevented them from telling the courts. The U.S. Marshals Service claimed it owned the records Sarasota police offered to the ACLU because it had deputized the detective in the case, making all documentation in the case federal property. The agency dispatched a marshal from its office in Tampa to seize the records and move them to an undisclosed location. The U.S. Marshals Service declined to comment, saying it ?does not discuss pending litigation.? Florida public records law requires that even if a dispute over records occurs, the Sarasota Police Department were legally obligated to hold onto the records for at least 30 days once they had received the ACLU?s request. That period would have given the ACLU a chance to argue their case in court to obtain the records. ?We?ve seen our fair share of federal government attempts to keep records about stingrays secret, but we?ve never seen an actual physical raid on state records in order to conceal them from public view,? the ACLU wrote in a blog post Tuesday morning. The ACLU filed an emergency motion seeking a temporary injunction preventing the police department from releasing additional files to the marshals. The motion also asks the court to find the department in violation of state law for allowing the U.S. Marshals Service to seize the documents. The ACLU wants the court to order the police department to retrieve the documents. Because the ACLU filed the motion in a state court, the judge cannot directly order the U.S. Marshal Service to return the documents. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 3 19:10:15 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2014 20:10:15 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Giving the 'Hunger Games' salute in Thailand can get you arrested Message-ID: <9F84BC48-94B6-4379-821E-EF8F6C7470C3@infowarrior.org> Giving the 'Hunger Games' salute in Thailand can get you arrested http://www.dailydot.com/news/thai-protestors-hunger-games-salute/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 3 23:57:33 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 00:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - U.S. reconstitutes group to fight homegrown extremists Message-ID: U.S. reconstitutes group to fight homegrown extremists By By Julia Edwards 6 hours ago http://news.yahoo.com/u-revives-group-fight-homegrown-extremists-officials-155621629.html WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is reviving a law enforcement group to investigate those it designates as domestic terrorists, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday. Following hate-motivated shootings such as the one at a Jewish Community Center in Kansas City, Missouri in April, federal prosecutors have pressed the need to coordinate intelligence about such criminals on a national level, Justice Department officials said. The Department of Justice will reconstitute a task force that was originally formed after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing but dissolved after the Sept. 11, 2001 hijacked plane attacks as law enforcement agencies focused on threats from militants abroad. On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement that the United States remains concerned about threats from Islamic extremists, but the group will focus on other motives for attacks within U.S. borders. Events like the April 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon, in which the attackers appeared to be influenced by extremists abroad, would not fall under the jurisdiction of the group, named the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee. "We must also concern ourselves with the continued danger we face from individuals within our own borders who may be motivated by a variety of other causes from anti-government animus to racial prejudice," Holder said. The American Civil Liberties Union said it plans to engage with the Justice Department to ensure the effort does not lead to racial profiling or other bias targeting of individuals who may be wrongfully suspected of having violent intentions, said Naureen Shah, legislative counsel for the ACLU. "Attorney General Holder?s announcement that the new task force will focus on evidence of anti-government animus and racial intolerance raises concerns that it could be a sweeping mandate to monitor and collect controversial speech,? said Lee Rowland, a staff attorney at the ACLU. The committee's members will come from the FBI, the National Security Division of the Justice Department and the Attorney General's Advisory Committee, which includes representatives of federal prosecutors. (Reporting by Julia Edwards and Aruna Viswanatha; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Grant McCool) --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jun 4 15:20:09 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 16:20:09 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Pelosi Confronted By Teen Reporter On NSA Message-ID: ?Deer in the headlights? is a gross understatement here. ?rick Pelosi Confronted By Teen Reporter On NSA http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/pelosi-confronted-teen-reporter-nsa Finally, a reporter asks House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) some tough questions. Unfortunately, this reporter is a teenager from the YouTube "TeenTake" and not someone from the Capitol Hill press corps. When Andrew Demeter asked Pelosi, ?Why do you support the NSA?s illegal and ubiquitous data collection?? she had a bit of a "deer in the headlights" look on her face. ?Well I, I do not, I have questions about the metadata collection that they were, uh, collecting,? Pelosi stammered in response. Demeter, unlike his professional counterparts in the mainstream media, actually challenged Pelosi with a follow-up: "You did vote for a bill to continue funding for the NSA, though.? Pelosi responded, ?Yeah, of course.? Demeter pressed the issue calling NSA data gathering a "clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jun 4 17:51:02 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 18:51:02 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Sprint, T-Mobile close to merger Message-ID: (Too bad ? I fear that Sprint is going to screw this up good, and the many customers - including me - that flocked to TMobile in recent months may leave just as quickly. ?rick) Sprint, T-Mobile Said Near Accord on Price, Termination Fee By Alex Sherman - Jun 4, 2014 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2014-06-04/sprint-t-mobile-said-near-accord-on-price-termination-fee.html Sprint Corp. (S) is nearing an agreement on the price, capital structure and termination fee of an acquisition for T-Mobile US Inc. that could value the wireless carrier at almost $40 a share, people with knowledge of the matter said. Sprint will offer about 50 percent stock and 50 percent cash for T-Mobile, leaving parent Deutsche Telekom AG with about a 15 percent stake in the combined company, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the process is private. The agreement could be announced as soon as July, the people said. Deutsche Telekom, which owns about 67 percent of T-Mobile, was seeking at least $40 a share, two of the people said. SoftBank Corp., which owns 80 percent of Sprint, is willing to pay in the upper $30s, and the two sides have bridged the gap, the people said. They companies haven?t set an announcement date, and there?s still a lot of work to be done before a deal is completed, including deciding management of the new company, the people said. Bill White, a spokesman for Sprint, and Anne Marshall, a spokeswoman for T-Mobile, didn?t immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Enterprise Value At about $40 a share, T-Mobile?s equity value would be about $31 billion. The company has about $14.5 billion of debt and $5.5 billion of cash, giving T-Mobile a theoretical enterprise value of about $40 billion. T-Mobile rose as much as 6.5 percent to $36.50 in late trading, while Sprint gained as much as 4.8 percent. Additional work that remains to be done includes developing a model that forecasts Sprint and T-Mobile?s future independently and together, two of the people said. The projections are key to convincing regulators that allowing a merger is in consumers? best interests. AT&T Inc.?s $48.5 billion deal for DirecTV has given SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son more confidence that he can make a strong case, two of the people said. The sides are nearing an agreement on a reverse termination fee, two of the people said. Son wants to pay about $1 billion, while Deutsche Telekom has pushed for closer to $3 billion, people familiar with the matter said earlier this month. Bloomberg News previously reported a deal would probably be announced in June or July. It?s possible a deal announcement could slip into August, one of the people said. If no deal is reached by then, the sides are likely to stop negotiations for several years and wait for a new presidential administration, the person said. To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Sherman in New York at asherman6 at bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mohammed Hadi at mhadi1 at bloomberg.net Elizabeth Wollman, Sarah Rabil --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jun 5 09:28:59 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 10:28:59 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Snowden, a year on: reformers frustrated as NSA preserves its power Message-ID: Edward Snowden, a year on: reformers frustrated as NSA preserves its power ? Spencer Ackerman in Washington ? theguardian.com, Thursday 5 June 2014 09.01 EDT http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/05/edward-snowden-one-year-nsa-surveillance-reform --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jun 5 18:59:29 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 19:59:29 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Court Again Orders Government Not to Destroy Evidence in NSA Spying Case Message-ID: <0C1113C2-F646-4213-BE1B-EBACC60CF81A@infowarrior.org> Court Again Orders Government Not to Destroy Evidence in NSA Spying Case Judge Requires Explanation by Friday About Whether Government Is Still Destroying Evidence Despite Court Order https://www.eff.org/press/releases/court-again-orders-government-not-destroy-evidence-nsa-spying-case San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked a judge today to schedule an emergency hearing, after learning that the government is apparently still destroying evidence of NSA spying despite a temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by the court in March. In an order issued in response this afternoon, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White instructed the government not to destroy any more materials and file a brief responding to EFF's allegations by 12 p.m PT on Friday. "In communications with the government this week, EFF was surprised to learn that the government has been continuing to destroy evidence relating to the mass interception of Internet communications it is conducting under section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act even though the court explicitly ordered it to stop in March," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "Specifically, the government is destroying content gathered through tapping into the fiberoptic cables of AT&T." She added: "Once again, the government has apparently secretly and unilaterally reinterpreted its obligations about the evidence preservation orders, and has determined that it need not comply. Today marks a year to the day that Edward Snowden leaked documents confirming the NSA's massive spying, yet the government is still engaging in outlandish claims and gamesmanship ? even destroying evidence ? to block an adversarial court ruling on whether its mass spying is legal or constitutional." EFF filed its Jewel v. NSA lawsuit in 2008. In recent weeks, declarations from the government in the Jewel case made it clear that the government has destroyed five years of the content it collected between 2007 and 2012, three years worth of the telephone records it seized between 2006 and 2009, and seven years of the Internet records it seized between 2004 and 2011, when it claims to have ended the Internet records seizures. In an emergency hearing last March over that evidence destruction, Judge White issued the current TRO, ordering the government to stop any further destruction of records or content until the matter could be sorted out. "There can be no dispute that the government was aware of the broad scope of this TRO, and in his order this afternoon, Judge White confirmed that it reached materials gathered under Section 702," Cohn said. "We're asking Judge White to enforce the order and impose on the government whatever further measures are necessary to ensure that no further destruction of evidence occurs. It will be very interesting to see what the government says in its defense in its briefing tomorrow." For EFF's full emergency application: https://www.eff.org/document/plaintiffs-emergency-application-enforce-courts-tro For the judge's order: https://www.eff.org/document/order-re-evidence-preservation-0 For more on Jewel v. NSA: https://www.eff.org/cases/jewel Contacts: Cindy Cohn Legal Director Electronic Frontier Foundation cindy at eff.org --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jun 5 19:00:30 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 20:00:30 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?65_Things_We_Know_About_NSA_Surv?= =?windows-1252?q?eillance_That_We_Didn=92t_Know_a_Year_Ago?= Message-ID: <35894B13-23EE-4BE4-8189-77F5E1432518@infowarrior.org> On 6/5, 65 Things We Know About NSA Surveillance That We Didn?t Know a Year Ago June 5, 2014 | By Nadia Kayyali and Katitza Rodriguez https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/06/65-65-things-we-know-about-nsa-surveillance-we-didnt-know-year-ago --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jun 5 19:04:02 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 20:04:02 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Verizon Sends Netflix A Cease & Desist, Saying It Can't Blame Verizon For Clogged Networks Message-ID: <019A1C9E-2DB7-4F73-9F38-6152A7A52A27@infowarrior.org> Verizon Sends Netflix A Cease & Desist, Saying It Can't Blame Verizon For Clogged Networks from the really,-now? dept https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140605/12291627480/verizon-sends-netflix-cease-desist-saying-it-cant-blame-verizon-clogged-networks.shtml So, yesterday, some of the tech blogosphere blew up over the fact that Netflix had started blaming Verizon for network congestion: Netflix claimed it had actually been testing this for a few weeks now, and others have seen it on AT&T networks as well. Verizon was, to put it mildly, not happy about all of this. It quickly told reporters that the whole thing was a "PR stunt" and pushed out an angry blog post, saying that it was all Netflix's fault for the way it routed traffic to Verizon's network. Notably, just about a month ago, Netflix had agreed to an interconnection deal, similar to the one that Netflix famously did with Comcast, but it's possible that the new ports aren't fully operational yet. Either way, I was going to ignore this latest round of little stupid spats that have been going back and forth -- except that now it appears that Verizon has taken it up a level and actually issued a cease and desist to Netflix sayng it should no longer blame Verizon when the network is clogged. I'm not sure what actual legal basis Verizon thinks it has to do this, and wonder if Netflix will just cave in and stop with the messages. But, it certainly would create quite the interesting lawsuit if Verizon decided to go to court about this. Update: Netflix has indicated that it won't stop. Either way, it's pretty clear that even once Netflix has signed an interconnection agreement with them, these ISP's are still not at all happy about the situation. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jun 5 19:58:05 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 20:58:05 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Teenager unleashes computer power for cancer diagnosis Message-ID: Teenager unleashes computer power for cancer diagnosis 4 June 2014 Last updated at 20:25 ET By Helen Briggs BBC News She is only 19 but has already experimented with neural networks, built prototype software to help doctors diagnose breast cancer, won a $50,000 college scholarship from Google and been invited to the White House to showcase her research. And her ambition doesn't stop there. Brittany Wenger wants a dual career as a paediatric oncologist and research scientist. The teenager from Sarasota, Florida, became interested in neural networks - a form of artificial intelligence that continuously learns and mimics the human brain - in high school. She was building a neural network that could play soccer, her favourite game, when her cousin was diagnosed with breast cancer, inspiring her to put her talents to medical use. Ms Wenger came up with the idea of creating an artificial intelligence software program to analyse data from a breast tissue biopsy. "In the simplest terms, I am trying to teach the computer how to diagnose cancer," she says. "I'm trying to teach the computer how to think so it can detect patterns that allow it to diagnose cancers easier and quicker." Coding challenges In London, to speak at the Royal Society of Medicine, she is passionate about the idea of fusing the concepts of computer science and biology. She says a key message is to inspire others to give it a try. "Coding is not easy," she says. "This experiment flopped three times before it was successful and I had to scrap the entire experiment." She believes the great thing about science is that you learn just as much from failed experiments as successful ones. "I think it was Thomas Edison who said, 'I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work'," she says. "It's all a puzzle and it's exciting to find the pieces that fit together. And in that moment, that eureka moment, when you do figure it out, it's definitely worth all the hard work." The breast cancer programme is being tested in two hospitals, in the US and Italy. She is also applying the same sort of approach to leukaemia, with a cloud-based computer program to find patterns in a patient's genetic signature that can be used to predict relapse. Tailored treatments Now a first-year student at Duke University, North Carolina, studying biology, she eventually wants to become both a paediatric oncologist and a research scientist. "I was that kid who never outgrew the why? phase," she says. "And through this means of science I can not only come up with my own questions, but I can find the answers." Commenting on the role of computers in cancer diagnosis, Dr Emma Smith, senior science information officer at Cancer Research UK, said they were essential in modern research as they can store and process large amounts of data. "This depth of knowledge has already led to big steps forward in diagnosing cancer and getting patients more tailored treatments. "But any new technology needs to be thoroughly tested in clinical trials to prove it's as least as good as the current system before it can be used in the clinic." --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jun 6 07:43:45 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 08:43:45 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Vodafone reveals existence of secret wires that allow state surveillance Message-ID: Vodafone reveals existence of secret wires that allow state surveillance Wires allow agencies to listen to or record live conversations, in what privacy campaigners are calling a 'nightmare scenario' ? Juliette Garside ? The Guardian, Thursday 5 June 2014 http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jun/06/vodafone-reveals-secret-wires-allowing-state-surveillance --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jun 6 07:56:39 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 08:56:39 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Remembering June 6, 1944 Message-ID: <036864D3-AD07-476E-B540-0D8B65BDB8A1@infowarrior.org> http://www.army.mil/d-day/message.html General Eisenhower?s Message Sent Just Prior to the Invasion Listen to General Eisenhower?s Message Below (click the ?play? arrow to begin the message) http://www.army.mil/d-day/message.html Transcript: Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon a great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers in arms on other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened, he will fight savagely. But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man to man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our home fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to victory! I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory! Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking. -- Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jun 6 08:05:30 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 09:05:30 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Stunning color photos from D-Day Message-ID: Color, Photographs from the Normandy Invasion Original color photographs of the D-Day invasion of Normandy during World War II. From British and American soldiers preparing for the invasion in England to German prisoners being marched through the streets after France?s liberation, these images are some of the only color photographs taken during the war. This set of photographs is primarily from the German Galerie Bilderwelt, part of Getty Image?s exclusive Hulton Archive collection. < - > http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2014/06/05/color-photos-d-day-world-war-ii/7043/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jun 6 20:10:01 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 21:10:01 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Judge allows NSA evidence destruction to continue Message-ID: Judge Asks for More Information About NSA Spying Evidence Destruction After Emergency Hearing https://www.eff.org/press/releases/judge-asks-more-information-about-nsa-spying-evidence-destruction-after-emergency Government Argues Court's Order Does Not Apply to Certain Categories of Surveillance San Francisco - A federal judge asked for more briefing today after an emergency court hearing over destruction in a case challenging NSA spying from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "We are pleased the court is receptive to our arguments ? that this is the information that court ordered the government to retain, and is an important element of our litigation," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "It's unfortunate that the court's order today allows the government to continue destroying evidence that the government itself insists we need, but we are looking forward to giving the judge all the information he needs to come to a final decision." U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking evidence destruction in March. But yesterday afternoon, EFF filed an emergency motion, explaining that communications with government lawyers over the last week had revealed that the government has continued to destroy evidence relating to the mass interception of Internet communications it is conducting under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. Today, Judge White called an emergency hearing, where the government argued that preserving the surveillance data gathered under Section 702 would be gravely harmful to national security programs. While the TRO remains in effect, that Judge White ruled that the government nevertheless did not need to preserve data collected pursuant to Section 702 until the court makes a further ruling on the issue. EFF has been litigating against illegal NSA surveillance for more than eight years. Jewel v. NSA is a case brought on behalf of AT&T customers who were subject to unconstitutional NSA spying. In First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA, EFF represents 22 groups whose First Amendment rights to association are violated by the NSA program. EFF also filed one of the first lawsuits against the surveillance program back in 2006, Hepting v. AT&T. For more on Jewel v. NSA: https://www.eff.org/cases/jewel Contact: Rebecca Jeschke Media Relations Director Electronic Frontier Foundation press at eff.org --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Jun 7 07:43:05 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 08:43:05 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Judge Says NSA Can Continue To Destroy Evidence Message-ID: Judge Says NSA Can Continue To Destroy Evidence https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140606/16063627499/judge-says-nsa-can-continue-to-destroy-evidence.shtml < - > About an hour before the hearing, the DOJ presented its opposition to the temporary restraining order, arguing, basically, that it would be too damn complicated to stop destroying evidence in the case. Part of this is because the data collected under the Section 702 program apparently isn't just one big database, but is quickly fed into all sorts of other systems. < - > In short: because we're ordered to delete some data by the law to avoid spying on Americans, to now ask us not to delete any data would violate the law that says we have to delete some data. And, to figure out how to do this would be crazy confusing, because the NSA is a giant bureaucratic machine of spying, and you can't just throw a rock into it like that. Or something: < - > --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Jun 7 07:46:17 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 08:46:17 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Cable Companies Are Astroturfing Fake Consumer Support to End Net Neutrality Message-ID: Cable Companies Are Astroturfing Fake Consumer Support to End Net Neutrality http://www.vice.com/read/cables-companies-are-astroturfing-fake-consumer-support-to-end-net-neutrality --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Jun 7 07:52:41 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 08:52:41 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Internet Giants Erect Barriers to Spy Agencies Message-ID: <23F6896C-5EBD-4D50-9F6B-9A8FE15193CF@infowarrior.org> Better late than never, I guess. Provided this is effective for end-users, obviously. Internet Giants Erect Barriers to Spy Agencies By DAVID E. SANGER and NICOLE PERLROTHJUNE 6, 2014 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/07/technology/internet-giants-erect-barriers-to-spy-agencies.html MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. ? Just down the road from Google?s main campus here, engineers for the company are accelerating what has become the newest arms race in modern technology: They are making it far more difficult ? and far more expensive ? for the National Security Agency and the intelligence arms of other governments around the world to pierce their systems. As fast as it can, Google is sealing up cracks in its systems that Edward J. Snowden revealed the N.S.A. had brilliantly exploited. It is encrypting more data as it moves among its servers and helping customers encode their own emails. Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo are taking similar steps. After years of cooperating with the government, the immediate goal now is to thwart Washington ? as well as Beijing and Moscow. The strategy is also intended to preserve business overseas in places like Brazil and Germany that have threatened to entrust data only to local providers. Google, for example, is laying its own fiber optic cable under the world?s oceans, a project that began as an effort to cut costs and extend its influence, but now has an added purpose: to assure that the company will have more control over the movement of its customer data. A year after Mr. Snowden?s revelations, the era of quiet cooperation is over. Telecommunications companies say they are denying requests to volunteer data not covered by existing law. A.T.&T., Verizon and others say that compared with a year ago, they are far more reluctant to cooperate with the United States government in ?gray areas? where there is no explicit requirement for a legal warrant. But governments are fighting back, harder than ever. The cellphone giant Vodafone reported on Friday that a ?small number? of governments around the world have demanded the ability to tap directly into its communication networks, a level of surveillance that elicited outrage from privacy advocates. Vodafone refused to name the nations on Friday for fear of putting its business and employees at risk there. But in an accounting of the number of legal demands for information that it receives from 14 companies, it noted that some countries did not issue warrants to obtain phone, email or web-searching traffic, because ?the relevant agencies and authorities already have permanent access to customer communications via their own direct link.? The company also said it had to acquiesce to some governments? requests for data to comply with national laws. Otherwise, it said, it faced losing its license to operate in certain countries. Eric Grosse, Google?s security chief, suggested in an interview that the N.S.A.?s own behavior invited the new arms race. ?I am willing to help on the purely defensive side of things,? he said, referring to Washington?s efforts to enlist Silicon Valley in cybersecurity efforts. ?But signals intercept is totally off the table,? he said, referring to national intelligence gathering. ?No hard feelings, but my job is to make their job hard,? he added. In Washington, officials acknowledge that covert programs are now far harder to execute because American technology companies, fearful of losing international business, are hardening their networks and saying no to requests for the kind of help they once quietly provided. Robert S. Litt, the general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees all 17 American spy agencies, said on Wednesday that it was ?an unquestionable loss for our nation that companies are losing the willingness to cooperate legally and voluntarily? with American spy agencies. ?Just as there are technological gaps, there are legal gaps,? he said, speaking at the Wilson Center in Washington, ?that leave a lot of gray area? governing what companies could turn over. In the past, he said, ?we have been very successful? in getting that data. But he acknowledged that for now, those days are over, and he predicted that ?sooner or later there will be some intelligence failure and people will wonder why the intelligence agencies were not able to protect the nation.? Companies respond that if that happens, it is the government?s own fault and that intelligence agencies, in their quest for broad data collection, have undermined web security for all. Many point to an episode in 2012, when Russian security researchers uncovered a state espionage tool, Flame, on Iranian computers. Flame, like the Stuxnet worm, is believed to have been produced at least in part by American intelligence agencies. It was created by exploiting a previously unknown flaw in Microsoft?s operating systems. Companies argue that others could have later taken advantage of this defect. Worried that such an episode undercuts confidence in its wares, Microsoft is now fully encrypting all its products, including Hotmail and Outlook.com, by the end of this year with 2,048-bit encryption, a stronger protection that would take a government far longer to crack. The software is protected by encryption both when it is in data centers and when data is being sent over the Internet, said Bradford L. Smith, the company?s general counsel. Mr. Smith also said the company was setting up ?transparency centers? abroad so that technical experts of foreign governments could come in and inspect Microsoft?s proprietary source code. That will allow foreign governments to check to make sure there are no ?back doors? that would permit snooping by United States intelligence agencies. The first such center is being set up in Brussels. Microsoft has also pushed back harder in court. In a Seattle case, the government issued a ?national security letter? to compel Microsoft to turn over data about a customer, along with a gag order to prevent Microsoft from telling the customer it had been compelled to provide its communications to government officials. Microsoft challenged the gag order as violating the First Amendment. The government backed down. Hardware firms like Cisco, which makes routers and switches, have found their products a frequent subject of Mr. Snowden?s disclosures, and their business has declined steadily in countries like Asia, Brazil and Europe over the last year. The company is still struggling to convince foreign customers that their networks are safe from hackers ? and free of ?back doors? installed by the N.S.A. The frustration, companies here say, is that it is nearly impossible to prove that their systems are N.S.A.-proof. Most American companies said they never knowingly let the N.S.A. weaken their systems, or install back doors. But Mr. Snowden?s documents showed how the agency found a way. In one slide from the disclosures, N.S.A. analysts pointed to a sweet spot inside Google?s data centers, where they could catch traffic in unencrypted form. Next to a quickly drawn smiley face, an N.S.A. analyst, referring to an acronym for a common layer of protection, had noted, ?SSL added and removed here!? Google was already suspicious that its internal traffic could be read, and had started a program to encrypt the links among its internal data centers, ?the last chink in our armor,? Mr. Grosse said. But the slide gave the company proof that it was a regular target of the N.S.A. ?It was useful to have proof, in terms of accelerating a project already underway,? he said. Facebook and Yahoo have also been encrypting traffic among their internal servers. And Facebook, Google and Microsoft have been moving to more strongly encrypt consumer traffic with so-called Perfect Forward Secrecy, specifically devised to make it more labor intensive for the N.S.A. or anyone to read stored encrypted communications. One of the biggest indirect consequences from the Snowden revelations, technology executives say, has been the surge in demands from foreign governments that saw what kind of access to user information the N.S.A. received ? voluntarily or surreptitiously. Now they want the same. At Facebook, Joe Sullivan, the company?s chief security officer, said it had been fending off those demands and heightened expectations. Until last year, technology companies were forbidden from acknowledging demands from the United States government under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But in January, Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft brokered a deal with the Obama administration to disclose the number of such orders they receive in increments of 1,000. As part of the agreement, the companies agreed to dismiss their lawsuits before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. ?We?re not running and hiding,? Mr. Sullivan said. ?We think it should be a transparent process so that people can judge the appropriate ways to handle these kinds of things.? The latest move in the war between intelligence agencies and technology companies arrived this week, in the form of a new Google encryption tool. The company released a user-friendly, email encryption method to replace the clunky and often mistake-prone encryption schemes the N.S.A. has readily exploited. But the best part of the tool was buried in Google?s code, which included a jab at the N.S.A.?s smiley-face slide. The code included the phrase: ?ssl-added-and-removed-here-; - )? Steve Lohr contributed reporting from New York and Mark Scott from London. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Jun 7 08:18:42 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 09:18:42 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Valerie Plame op-ed: Would You Rather Not Know? Message-ID: <5F7765E7-6615-421D-85ED-A20C24311DDC@infowarrior.org> Would You Rather Not Know? One year after Edward Snowden?s leaks, we?re better off for the debate he started. By VALERIE PLAME June 05, 2014 http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/thanks-edward-snowden-107494.html Valerie Plame, a former career covert CIA ops officer, is author, most recently, of the spy thriller Blowback. One year ago today, the Guardian first reported on the NSA?s mass surveillance programs. After 12 months of near-incessant accusations and arguments about everyone from Glenn Greenwald to James Clapper to Vladimir Putin, are Americans any better off for having met a bespectacled young NSA contractor and whistleblower named Edward Snowden? In short, yes. As a former covert CIA ops officer, I firmly believe in the need for strong intelligence capabilities to keep our country secure. But as a citizen, I also believe that our intelligence services must protect both the nation and the freedoms that make it worth protecting. It has now become clear that the government has lost sight of that dual responsibility. And by violating the Constitution and evading proper oversight by Congress and the courts, the intelligence community is undermining the democratic system that it aims to protect. Despite Secretary of State John Kerry?s recent detrimental statements toward Snowden, we wouldn?t be having the current debate over the scope of our intelligence services if it were not for his leaks?a debate that President Obama himself has welcomed. But some in the government are trying to distract Americans from the real issue of whether the NSA?s programs are legal, wise or effective. This comes as no surprise to me. In the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, my husband, Amb. Joe Wilson, questioned President George W. Bush?s claim that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons. In an effort to distract from the substantive questions about those alleged weapons, the Bush White House tried to shift public attention to my husband and me, seeking retribution by revealing my work for the CIA. Now, NSA surveillance supporters?including Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Bill Nelson, Reps. Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper?are similarly attempting to muddy the waters. They claim?with scant evidence or examples?that Snowden?s revelations have deeply harmed national security. This is a mere talking point, and a tired tactic used for decades by intelligence officials fearful that when the public learns what the government is actually up to, it won?t be able to do it anymore. Even the president?s own review panel, which included a former counterterrorism advisor and former senior CIA official, found that the NSA?s phone records collection program has not been instrumental in preventing any attacks against the United States. Much of the public, many members of Congress from both parties and President Obama all understand this: They have said over the past year that dragnet surveillance must end. And they are correct. Yes, we freely share information about ourselves online through social media and web browsing. But letting private companies collect data, as the NSA does, is very different from giving it to the government, which has the power to deprive us of our freedom. The Constitution limits what the government can do, and the safeguards in the Bill of Rights were written to protect us from a federal government run amok. Accepting the NSA?s violations of the Constitution puts our democracy at risk. Unfortunately, our history is rife with examples of government surveillance tools being abused, from spying on Martin Luther King Jr. to monitoring anti-war groups opposed to the Iraq War. Why should we be so certain that such things will never happen again? Even the fear of such surveillance can change people?s habits: A recent ESET/Harris poll found that after learning about what the NSA was doing, nearly half of the respondents said they thought more carefully about what they said and did online. Our country is now at a pivotal moment. The question before us is whether we want America to be a place where citizens are free to talk to whom we want and read what we want without looking over our shoulders. The Senate is considering legislation to rein in the runaway surveillance state and hopefully improve on the bill passed by the House last month. Colorado Sen. Mark Udall was right when he said, ?Our intelligence agencies should focus their efforts on terrorists and spies?and not law-abiding Americans.? After the national trauma of September 11, 2001, the intelligence community amassed too much power amid an absurd level of secrecy, with more than 1.5 million people holding a Top Secret clearance. Investing intelligence agencies with this much unchecked authority endangers both our liberty and our security. Now that the American people know the truth, the government is finally starting to move back in the right direction. So when you think about what Edward Snowden did, ask yourself: Do you wish you didn?t know? I, for one, am glad we do. Valerie Plame, a former career covert CIA ops officer, is author, most recently, of the spy thriller Blowback. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Jun 8 08:17:36 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2014 09:17:36 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - MPAA: Consumer Right to Resell Online Videos Would Kill Innovation Message-ID: <2FDE207D-9D80-40CB-B829-377B9B14C5D5@infowarrior.org> MPAA: Consumer Right to Resell Online Videos Would Kill Innovation ? By Ernesto ? on June 8, 2014 http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-consumer-right-resell-online-videos-kill-innovation-140608 The MPAA is concerned that innovation in the film industry will be ruined if consumers get the right to resell movies and other media purchased online. Responding to discussions in a congressional hearing this week, the MPAA warns that this move would limit consumer choices and kill innovation. This week the U.S. House of Representatives? Committee on the Judiciary?s Subcommittee Intellectual Property and the Internet held a hearing on the issue of ?digital resales.? In other words, whether consumers should be allowed to sell digital videos, music files and software they purchased previously. Proponents of the rights to resell digital goods want the First Sale Doctrine to apply in the digital domain as well. However, this argument is meeting fierce resistance from the entertainment industries who see this right as a threat to their online business models. For example, the record labels previously pointed out that MP3s are simply too good to resell, as they don?t deteriorate in quality. Responding to the hearing in Washington, the MPAA also voiced its critique of the plans. According to the movie studios digital resales would hamper innovation, increase prices and decrease the availability of online film. In their view it would undo most of the innovation the Internet brought. ?Critics say the movie and television industry was slow to embrace the Internet. But ironically, now that online video is ubiquitous, some of these same critics are trying to reverse time and drag the creative community?along with audiences?back into the pre-Internet era,? MPAA?s Neil Fried notes. The ability to resell movies bought on the Internet has the potential to create a huge secondary market. This would make it much cheaper for consumers to access media, and the MPAA believes therefore that content creators will be wary of making it available in the first place. ?A new government mandate requiring creators to allow reselling of licensed Internet content would undermine incentives to create, reduce consumer choices, and deter innovation,? Fried argues. ?Forcing creators to allow resale of Internet content they license would either require creators to substantially raise prices or discourage them from offering flexible, Internet-based models in the first place,? he adds. The MPAA believes that those who want to own movies and resell them should stick to the offline world. The physical ownership model doesn?t translate to the online world, which is better off with a licensing scheme that restricts resales. ?This is a relatively new marketplace. Government intervention now, seeking to force the content community to return to a 1908 construct built around physical ownership, will only short-circuit the experimentation and innovation that is going on all around us,? Fried says. Of course there are also many people who object to the arguments of the copyright holders. John Ossenmacher, CEO of the MP3-reselling platform ReDigi, gave a testimony during the congressional hearing where he laid out a variety of counterarguments. According to Ossenmacher the content owners are trying to change consumer rights that have been in place for more than hundred years, only to guarantee maximum profit for themselves. ?The First Sale doctrine is premised on a simple concept ? you bought it, you own it ? and it has never concerned itself with a specific format or technology, nor with the condition of the goods being resold. It establishes the commonsense principle that the creator deserves to be paid once, and then the owners, and subsequent owners, have the right to resell that good, to donate it or to give it away,? Ossenmacher said in his testimony. ?It is not an extreme position to advocate that ?you bought it, you own it.? It is a logical, conservative position that adheres to the long-standing principles of law. It applies in every other type of good; it should apply here as well,? he added. It will be interesting to see how this debate plays out in the months to come. One thing is for certain, we haven?t heard the last of it yet. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Jun 8 08:49:45 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2014 09:49:45 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Message-ID: <28428F59-5FD5-4158-B952-377BBFC00F04@infowarrior.org> Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created in One of the World's Freest Countries June 2, 2014 | http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/noam-chomsky-surveillance-state-beyond-imagination-being-created-one-freest In the past several months, we have been provided with instructive lessons on the nature of state power and the forces that drive state policy. And on a closely related matter: the subtle, differentiated concept of transparency. The source of the instruction, of course, is the trove of documents about the National Security Agency surveillance system released by the courageous fighter for freedom Edward J. Snowden, expertly summarized and analyzed by his collaborator Glenn Greenwald in his new book, "No Place to Hide." The documents unveil a remarkable project to expose to state scrutiny vital information about every person who falls within the grasp of the colossus - in principle, every person linked to the modern electronic society. Nothing so ambitious was imagined by the dystopian prophets of grim totalitarian worlds ahead. It is of no slight import that the project is being executed in one of the freest countries in the world, and in radical violation of the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights, which protects citizens from "unreasonable searches and seizures," and guarantees the privacy of their "persons, houses, papers and effects." Much as government lawyers may try, there is no way to reconcile these principles with the assault on the population revealed in the Snowden documents. It is also well to remember that defense of the fundamental right to privacy helped to spark the American Revolution. In the 18th century, the tyrant was the British government, which claimed the right to intrude freely into the homes and personal lives of American colonists. Today it is American citizens' own government that arrogates to itself this authority. Britain retains the stance that drove the colonists to rebellion, though on a more restricted scale, as power has shifted in world affairs. The British government has called on the NSA "to analyse and retain any British citizens' mobile phone and fax numbers, emails and IP addresses, swept up by its dragnet," The Guardian reports, working from documents provided by Snowden. British citizens (like other international customers) will also doubtless be pleased to learn that the NSA routinely receives or intercepts routers, servers and other computer network devices exported from the United States so that it can implant surveillance tools, as Greenwald reports in his book. As the colossus fulfills its visions, in principle every keystroke might be sent to President Obama's huge and expanding databases in Utah. In other ways too, the constitutional lawyer in the White House seems determined to demolish the foundations of our civil liberties. The principle of the presumption of innocence, which dates back to Magna Carta 800 years ago, has long been dismissed to oblivion. Recently The New York Times reported the "anguish" of a federal judge who had to decide whether to allow the force-feeding of a Syrian prisoner who is on a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment. No "anguish" was expressed over the fact that he has been held without trial for 12 years in Guantanamo, one of many victims of the leader of the Free World, who claims the right to hold prisoners without charges and to subject them to torture. These exposures lead us to inquire into state policy more generally and the factors that drive it. The received standard version is that the primary goal of policy is security and defense against enemies. The doctrine at once suggests a few questions: security for whom, and defense against which enemies? The answers are highlighted dramatically by the Snowden revelations. Policy must assure the security of state authority and concentrations of domestic power, defending them from a frightening enemy: the domestic population, which can become a great danger if not controlled. It has long been understood that information about the enemy makes a critical contribution to controlling it. In that regard, Obama has a series of distinguished predecessors, though his contributions have reached unprecedented levels, as we have learned from the work of Snowden, Greenwald and a few others. To defend state power and private economic power from the domestic enemy, those two entities must be concealed - while in sharp contrast, the enemy must be fully exposed to state authority. The principle was lucidly explained by the policy intellectual Samuel P. Huntington, who instructed us that "Power remains strong when it remains in the dark; exposed to the sunlight it begins to evaporate." Huntington added a crucial illustration. In his words, "you may have to sell [intervention or other military action] in such a way as to create the misimpression that it is the Soviet Union that you are fighting. That is what the United States has been doing ever since the Truman Doctrine" at the outset of the Cold War. Huntington's insight into state power and policy was both accurate and prescient. As he wrote these words in 1981, the Reagan administration was launching its war on terror - which quickly became a murderous and brutal terrorist war, primarily in Central America, but extending well beyond to southern Africa, Asia and the Middle East. From that day forward, in order to carry out violence and subversion abroad, or repression and violation of fundamental rights at home, state power has regularly sought to create the misimpression that it is terrorists that we are fighting, though there are other options: drug lords, mad mullahs seeking nuclear weapons, and other ogres said to be seeking to attack and destroy us. Throughout, the basic principle remains: Power must not be exposed to the sunlight. Edward Snowden has become the most wanted criminal in the world for failing to comprehend this essential maxim. In brief, there must be complete transparency for the population, but none for the powers that must defend themselves from this fearsome internal enemy. ? 2014 Noam Chomsky, distributed by the New York Times Syndicate --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Jun 8 09:02:49 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2014 10:02:49 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Tice: NSA Spying On Congress, Admirals, Lawyers Message-ID: <7D18A024-9AC3-4F7E-8C8A-31EA5AB53637@infowarrior.org> NSA Spying On Congress, Admirals, Lawyers ? Content As Well As Metadata ? Cheney Was Running the Show http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2014-06-08/nsa-whistleblower-snowden-never-had-access-juiciest-documents --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Jun 8 09:06:36 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2014 10:06:36 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - DoJ to Brush Cobwebs Off Music Licensing Agreements Message-ID: <4D72F794-FF41-48E5-B1E7-FEF4DDE71C2B@infowarrior.org> DoJ to Brush Cobwebs Off Music Licensing Agreements By Kris Holt E-Commerce Times 06/06/14 8:05 AM PT http://www.technewsworld.com/story/80561.html The Justice Department has decided that the 70-year-old rules governing the U.S. music industry need some refreshing. The last time the DoJ reviewed its agreement with ASCAP was in 2001, and it hasn't examined its agreement with BMI since 1994. That was before the birth of Internet music-streaming services like Pandora, Spotify and Rdio. It was even before the iPod. The U.S. Department of Justice this week said it would review long-held agreements with two major performing-rights organizations with an eye to updating them to reflect the climate of the music industry more accurately. The DoJ's agreements with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music Inc (BMI) have been in place for more than 70 years. The consent decrees were last updated in 2001 and 1994 respectively, long before the rise of streaming music services that can pay less than a cent to an artist each time one of their songs is played. "We don't think [the old rules] fit well with the new business environment," Stuart Rosen, SVP and general counsel at BMI, told the E-Commerce Times. "The fact that they're taking a fresh look at things and seeing if there's a way to modernize the decrees is nothing but good news from our perspective," he added. "We are gratified by the Department of Justice's decision to open a formal review of the ASCAP and BMI consent decrees," said Paul Williams, ASCAP president and chairman. "Since the ASCAP decree was last reviewed in 2001 -- before even the iPod was introduced -- new technologies have dramatically transformed the way people listen to music." 90 Percent ASCAP and BMI, both of which are nonprofit entities, have pushed for the move. Between them, they license about 90 percent of music played in movies and restaurants, and on television and online services. Songwriters use publishers to promote their works, as well as to license, sell and distribute recordings. Publishers and songwriters often turn to ASCAP and BMI to collectively license songs for public performance to music services like Pandora, Spotify and Rdio. When there's a dispute over the cost of a license, it's arbitrated by so-called rate courts, which were set up in 1941 through consent decrees between the DoJ, ASCAP and BMI. The decrees did not have an expiration date at the time, though they usually expire after five or seven years. Publishers need to have an all-or-nothing relationship with BMI or ASCAP. If they wish to work with BMI or ASCAP, they don't have the option to license their works to a radio station but not Spotify, for instance. "What we would like to do, ultimately, is move the rate process to a point where it's a free market -- where, through open negotiations that aren't regulated, we can set what is an appropriate market rate," BMI's Rosen said. "We don't think the current model works that way. We think that the results of rate courts are intended to replicate open market negotiations, but we don't think the results back that up. Anything that we can do to create a more free market environment is really what we're trying to get to." 'Current Model Slow' "We think the current model is slow," Rosen added. "The current model is expensive. We don't think it allows for an easy way of paying the writers and publishers while the parties are in the middle of a dispute. We think that the results really have not reflected fair market value," he explained. "What if we moved the rate-setting model from a court to an arbitration panel? We think an arbitration panel could move more quickly -- it could move more cheaply. We think a panel might have a cross-section of industry experts, business people and lawyers that would achieve a result that would better reflect fair market value," Rosen argued. "ASCAP remains committed to working with the Department of Justice and all industry stakeholders to modernize the music licensing system so that it better serves songwriters, the businesses who depend on our music, and the people who listen to it -- not just today, but for generations to come," ASCAP's Williams said. "Updating music licensing regulations to reflect the realities of today's music landscape will preserve the benefits of collective licensing to businesses that license music, give consumers greater access to the music they love, and allow the more than 500,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers we represent to be compensated for the true value their music brings to the marketplace," Williams concluded. End to Rate Courts ASCAP also would like an end to the rate courts in favor of an arbitration process, according to Reuters. Both ASCAP and BMI would like an end to the all-or-nothing model as well. The DoJ will be receiving public comment on the arbitration issue and whether the all-or-nothing model should stay in place. The tussle between the performing rights organizations and music services has on occasion become litigious. BMI, for instance, brought legal action against Pandora last year in search of "reasonable, market-driven fees" for the service after negotiations broke down. 'Long Overdue' "In short, a review of the licensing system in the U.S. is long overdue, and my guess is all the players involved on all sides will welcome it," Simon Dyson, editor of the Music & Copyright newsletter at Informa, told the E-Commerce Times. "The likes of ASCAP and BMI will benefit from knowing in the longer term what they are able to offer licenses for, given that the music publishers have made it clear that they want to license direct-to-digital services. The worry is that if publishers cannot withdraw their digital licensing rights, then one of the big publishers might pull out of ASCAP or BMI altogether," he said. "Digital services might not like having to pay higher rates, if that is what the review eventually suggests," Dyson added, "but the difference between what a publisher/author earns from a digital music service and what record companies earn is way too big, and the review will need to close the gap." Kris Holt is a writer and editor based in Montreal. He has written for the Daily Dot, The Daily Beast, and PolicyMic, among others. He's Scottish, so would prefer if no one used the word "soccer" in his company. You can connect with Kris on Google+. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 10 19:41:38 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 20:41:38 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Cory Doctorow novel pulled from school reading for 'questioning authority' Message-ID: <157B1ED9-D64D-4829-917C-69ADE9159E75@infowarrior.org> Cory Doctorow novel pulled from school reading for 'questioning authority' Little Brother has been dropped from Florida high school programme over fears parents might object ? Alison Flood ? theguardian.com, Tuesday 10 June 2014 16.35 BST http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/10/cory-doctorow-novel-pulled-school-reading-questioning-authority Little Brother, Cory Doctorow's novel about teenagers rebelling against the surveillance state, has been pulled from a school reading programme in Florida this summer following what the author said were concerns from the school's principal over its questioning of authority and its "lauding" of hacker culture. According to the National Coalition Against Censorship, Little Brother was chosen for a school-wide summer reading programme at Booker T Washington High School in Pensacola, Florida "after an extensive process by the professional staff". It has subsequently been withdrawn "because of concerns that some parents might object to scenes involving sex and violence and the idea of questioning authority", said the American free speech organisation. Doctorow wrote on his blog Boingboing that the principal, Dr Michael Roberts, "cited reviews that emphasised the book's positive view of questioning authority, lauding 'hacker culture', and discussing sex and sexuality in passing ? In short, he made it clear that the book was being challenged because of its politics and its content." Doctorow's publisher Tor has now sent 200 free copies of the novel to the school, and the novelist told the Guardian that he hoped its head teacher would change his mind about his decision. "As the son of two state-school teachers, I know that most career educators have the best interests of their students at heart. I presume that the principal is a good person, but I think he's wrong about this," said Doctorow. "The right way to address controversial subjects is through discourse. Students and schools around the world have had fruitful discussions that started with Little Brother. I think that the students of Pensacola, Florida are every bit as robust and intellectually capable as their peers in the hundreds of classrooms where I've presented the book ? and, importantly, so do the professional educators in the school, who had prepared an excellent curriculum around the text, and had it signed off by the school administration. I hope the principal will reconsider and give the kids the chance for a school-wide conversation about these important subjects." The National Coalition Against Censorship has also written to Roberts expressing its concern about the cancellation of the assignment, saying that "confronting controversial and complex themes in literature is part of the educational mission of the schools", and urging him to reinstate the title as the summer reading assignment. "School officials are bound by constitutional considerations, including a duty not to give in to pressure to suppress unpopular or controversial ideas," said NCAC executive director Joan Bertin. "Removing a book because it contains ideas that some members of the community may object to, or disapprove of, violates basic constitutional principles." Earlier this year, the American Library Association said that the number of attempts to pull books from shelves in schools fell in 2013, to 307 from 464 the previous year. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 10 19:47:46 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 20:47:46 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Whatever happened to Livejournal, anyway? Message-ID: This is the first MSM regarding LJ that I?ve seen in *ages*, btw. Whatever happened to Livejournal, anyway? http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/06/10/whatever-happened-to-livejournal-anyway/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 10 20:26:29 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 21:26:29 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Microsoft fights U.S. search warrant for customer e-mails held in overseas server Message-ID: <2CD8BCED-B6E2-49DB-9262-E70059D871B2@infowarrior.org> Microsoft fights U.S. search warrant for customer e-mails held in overseas server By Ellen Nakashima June 10 at 8:11 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/microsoft-fights-us-search-warrant-for-customer-e-mails-held-in-overseas-server/2014/06/10/6b8416ae-f0a7-11e3-914c-1fbd0614e2d4_story.html Microsoft, one of the world?s largest e-mail providers, is resisting a government search warrant to compel the firm to turn over customer data held in a server located overseas. In what could be a landmark case, the Redmond, Wash. company is arguing that such a warrant is not justified by law or the Constitution. Microsoft and other tech firms also fear that if the government prevails and can reach across borders, foreign individuals and businesses will flee to their non-U.S. competitors. The materials sought by the government are e-mails held in a Microsoft data center in Ireland and connected to a drug-trafficking investigation. The battle, which began in December when a magistrate judge in New York issued the warrant, also raises significant economic and diplomatic issues for U.S. companies that store mounds of data for others as part of the burgeoning cloud computing industry, which has been battered in the wake of revelations about its cooperation with U.S. spy agencies conducting broad surveillance. ?If the government?s position prevails, it would have huge detrimental impacts on American cloud companies that do business abroad,?? said Michael Vatis, a lawyer who co-authored an amicus brief for Verizon, which operates data centers overseas and which filed its brief Tuesday in support of Microsoft. Microsoft?s efforts to push back against the government in this and other cases, company officials say, predate the disclosures by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden about the reach of U.S. surveillance. But the revelations, which began a year ago, ?certainly put a premium on demonstrating to people that we are fighting,? said one company official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The legal issues are novel ? a classic example of how technology has lapped the law. Only a few years ago, U.S. e-mail providers held their data in the United States, so there was no issue of whether a court had jurisdiction to issue a warrant for the data. But as more and more U.S. companies host massive amounts of data from customers around the world, they have begun to store much of that information overseas. That is both to ensure that clients abroad get their videos and e-mails without delay and to give European clients, for instance, confidence that their records will be subject to European laws. Microsoft argues that for data held overseas, the U.S. government should abide by their mutual legal assistance treaties, or MLATs. Those are agreements between the United States and foreign countries that typically require the requesting government to be in compliance with the other government?s laws. Irish law requires authorization from an Irish District Court judge to obtain e-mail content from a provider. Microsoft opened its data center in Ireland in 2010. The company has about 100 such facilities in 40 countries. ?Congress has not authorized the issuance of warrants that reach outside U.S. territory,? Microsoft lawyers wrote in a brief filed Friday. ?The government cannot seek and a court cannot issue a warrant allowing federal agents to break down the doors of Microsoft?s Dublin facility.? In a speech last week in New York, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith likened the warrant it received to a ?general warrant? issued by the British in the Colonial days. ?It, in fact, tells Microsoft to go from building to building to building and go from country to country to country throughout the cloud of Microsoft data centers .?.?. to find and turn over the information that the government seeks,? he said in a speech at the Personal Democracy Forum, a conference on technology and democracy. ?It is, in a sense, the broadest possible warrant that one literally can imagine in the 21st century.? The government argues that the location of the records is irrelevant under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the 1986 law on which the court relied to issue the warrant. Rather it is the company that is the subject of the warrant, prosecutors say. Moreover, they say, imposing limits sought by Microsoft would ?lead to absurd results and severely undercut criminal investigations.? A criminal could ?easily reduce the risk of detection? by lying about his residence, causing Microsoft to store his records outside the United States ?and beyond law enforcement?s ability to obtain the records in a timely manner, if at all,? Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, wrote in a brief opposing Microsoft?s motion to vacate the warrant. In ruling against Microsoft in April, U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV agreed with the government?s position, saying that the warrant was more of a hybrid ? part search warrant and part subpoena. It is obtained like a warrant, with a judge finding probable cause that the data seized would turn up evidence of a crime. But it is executed like a subpoena, Francis said, in that it is served on the company and does not involve federal agents searching the company?s servers. ?It has long been the law that a subpoena requires the recipient to produce information in its possession .?.?. regardless of the location of that information,? Francis wrote. One of the key unresolved issues that the case raises is the lack of clarity on what constitutes a search and a seizure and where they take place in the digital world ? where data can be sent by a user in Paris, stored in Dublin and then retrieved by a company in Redmond, Wash. The judge opined that the search would take place only when the e-mails were opened and read ? and that would be in the United States. Microsoft argues that the search and seizure take place when the government compels technicians to search for and retrieve data that resides on the Dublin servers. A privacy group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is planning to file an amicus brief this week that will argue in part that if Microsoft was to copy the data in Dublin so it can be retrieved by employees in Redmond, that act of copying would amount to a seizure under the Fourth Amendment, which the judge, the group says, does not have jurisdiction to order. The government?s reply is expected in July, several weeks before oral arguments begin. ?The scope of the privacy laws around the world is now a very important question, and this is the beginning of what may be a lot of litigation on the question,? said Orin S. Kerr, a George Washington University law professor and surveillance-law scholar. ?So it?s a big case to watch.? Verizon in its brief argued that the magistrate?s ruling, if left standing, ?could cost U.S. businesses billions of dollars in lost revenue, undermine international agreements and understandings, and prompt foreign governments to retaliate by forcing foreign affiliates of American companies to turn over the content of customer data stored in the United States.? The ruling, Verizon argued, would mean that foreign customers? stored data would be available to ?hundreds or thousands of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, regardless of the laws of the countries where the data is held.? Microsoft is doing the prudent thing by fighting the government, said Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union. ?They're really, really scared about losing their foreign customers,? he said. ?They?re doing everything they can to signal to their foreign corporate and government customers that their data remains safe in the cloud.? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jun 11 07:01:51 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 08:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Amazon: Is Hachette is just the beginning? Message-ID: <25ABC8AD-E599-418D-A24C-58033CA93C32@infowarrior.org> Amazon Stops Taking Advance Orders for ?Lego? and Other Warner Videos http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/amazon-stops-taking-advance-orders-for-lego-other-warner-videos/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jun 11 07:09:53 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 08:09:53 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - MPAA says digital 'first-sale doctrine' undermines emerging models Message-ID: The TL;DR version: "Anything we can't control undermines our industry now and in the future. Therefore please stop any innovation or modernisation unless it's from us." (that's also the first time I've ever used 'TL;DR' in communication, too. *shudder*) MPAA says digital 'first-sale doctrine' undermines emerging models updated 08:59 pm EDT, Tue June 10, 2014 House IP subcommittee heard testimony on possible first sale extension http://www.electronista.com/articles/14/06/10/house.ip.subcommittee.heard.testimony.on.possible.first.sale.extension/ Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on the Judiciary's Subcommittee Intellectual Property held a hearing on the "first sale doctrine" as part of review on copyright laws. The committee heard testimony from a number of businesses and groups on the subject of extending first-right sales to digital items. That extension, however, was a point of contention for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Virgina, outlined the purpose of the hearing before it was opened to testimony. Going back to the first case of "first sale doctrine" in 1908, Chairman Latte explained how integral "first sale" has become to consumers and business practices. "First sale has been such an integral part of our economy that entire businesses have been built upon it, such as Blockbuster video stores and Netflix by mail," said Goodlatte. "Consumer expectations have also been built upon this doctrine. Laws and consumer expectations are developed independently, but they can help shape each other." The concept of "first-sale" makes possible the resale, re-use or certain allowable other users of copyrighted products, including library lending, gifting, video rentals and secondary markets for copyrighted works such as buyers trading in old CDs or selling their books after reading them. In trademark law, this same doctrine enables reselling of trademarked products after the trademark holder put the products on the market. While the hearing was meant to cover different types of digital media, including movies, music, software and books, the MPAA took primary interest in how a "first sale doctrine" that applies to digital items would change the future of Internet media. If consumers were allowed to re-sell digital property, the MPAA claims, it would stop digital innovation from moving forward. Senior Vice President of Government and Regulatory Affairs Neil Fried said the change would "reverse time and drag the creative community -- along with audiences -- back into the pre-Internet era." In a post on the MPAA blog, Fried highlights a number of issues that might arise if the government changed how current digital models work. A possible danger is that it would alter the system of over 100 legitimate online places to buy or watch media online. Fried says that in 2013, 5.7 billion movies were legally accessed by consumers in the United States. Fried points out a number of differences between virtual and physical property, after pointing out the doctrine has thus far only applied to physical objects, as a factor in the argument to keep "first-sale doctrine" separate from virtual media. One example is that under the current model, legally-bought digital media can be re-supplied to the buyer multiple times if lost - a position the US Copyright office supports as beneficial for consumers. Models like streaming and license-based services would have no basis for the doctrine, since their services don't explicitly really imply ownership. "Internet video also takes up relatively no space, is easily transmitted and theoretically never decays," says Fried. The biggest problem is that by forcing resale elements into Internet content, the way of licensing and streaming content over the Internet could mean fewer choices for consumers. It would also reduce incentives for people to create digital media, the MPAA claims. "Used" digital content would be seen as "indistinguishable from the original," though proponents argue that used books are also essentially unaltered from their original form, and first-sale hasn't destroyed the market for new books. Nevertheless, used goods do generally reside in a different and less-expensive market than "new" items, and content producers worry that because digital copies are perfectly identical, it would lower the value of new intellectual property. "Forcing creators to allow resale of Internet content they license would either require creators to substantially raise prices or discourage them from offering flexible, Internet-based models in the first place," said Fried. A recording of the hearing that triggered the reaction from the MPAA can be found below via Ustream. The committee is currently in hearings over music licensing as part of the copyright review. Read more: http://www.electronista.com/articles/14/06/10/house.ip.subcommittee.heard.testimony.on.possible.first.sale.extension/#ixzz34Kd9YktO --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jun 12 06:32:48 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 07:32:48 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The art of deceptive advertising Message-ID: (Deception, it's useful for more than just advertising! --rick) The art of deceptive advertising: From brown shoe polish on burgers to hairspray for brighter ingredients, how commercials trick us into buying their products Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2655351/The-art-deceptive-advertising-From-brown-shoe-polish-burgers-hairspray-brighter-ingredients-commercials-trick-buying-products.html --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jun 12 06:36:09 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 07:36:09 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Spies Say They're Confused and Outraged by Restrictions on Talking to Journalists Message-ID: Spies Say They're Confused and Outraged by Restrictions on Talking to Journalists ? BY SHANE HARRIS http://complex.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/05/30/spies_say_theyre_confused_and_outraged_by_restrictions_on_talking_to_journalists A controversial and, by many accounts, baffling government policy meant to prevent disclosure of classified information has some current and former intelligence agency employees utterly confused and crying foul. Contrary to official statements that the policy is neither new nor overly restrictive, many spooks interpret it as a blanket prohibition meant to keep them from talking to journalists or speaking publicly about national security issues and controversies. At issue is an instruction released earlier this month by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) about the so-called pre-publication review process. Current and former intelligence agency employees must submit any materials they intend to publish for vetting to prevent the release of classified information. Confusion over the policy was widespread enough that the ODNI had to issue aclarification, which, based on interviews with seven current and former intelligence officials, clarified little. Those affected by the policy say that they're confused about what kinds of public statements need to be cleared. Are short blog posts or Tweets considered as sensitive as long op-eds and articles, for example? And they're unsure whether any interaction with journalists is now forbidden. One former intelligence official who now works in the private sector said he declined five recent requests to discuss national security issues on television news shows because he was afraid of having his security clearance revoked or being fined for breaking the rules. Ironically, the former official said, he only learned about new restrictions on talking to the press from Gen. Keith Alexander, the former director of the National Security Agency, when he discussed it with comedian John Oliver for his new HBO talk show. "It's very confusing; and I feel like this is punishing people who served honorably in government," said the former official, who, like everyone interviewed for this article, asked for anonymity to avoid possibly running afoul of the policy. "I would ask permission from my former agency if I planned to write something publicly because that's the agreement I signed. But I didn't sign an agreement not to have lunch with a reporter or talk to him." Although the ODNI stressed that it was merely reiterating years-old policy, several sources said the reminder was a direct response to the Edward Snowden scandal intended to block others from discussing even benign or unclassified matters with reporters. "Clearly we're reacting here to the Snowden leaks," one former intelligence official said. "Some people believe this is an overreaction and it was very badly drawn." "Outrageous," is how another former intelligence official put it. "Everybody's upset at Snowden, I get that. But this isn't going to stop the next Snowden." The policy could actually boomerang on the intelligence agencies and ultimately be more harmful than helpful. Some former officials said that they're now less likely to let journalists quote them by name, even for articles that might afford an opportunity to defend controversial government policies and stand up for their former employers. In a year when the NSA, in particular, has taken fire from even some of its stalwart allies on Capitol Hill, the intelligence agencies need all the public bolstering they can get, former officials said. The sources believe they are being punished for Snowden's massive, unauthorized leak of classified information -- something they all consider a crime. As long as no classified information is revealed, it's their right to speak publicly about intelligence issues on panels, in the media, or before a classroom, they argue. And many of them make their living doing so. "There's a large intelligence-industrial complex out there," said another former intelligence official. "If you're going to restrict their constitutional rights and hurt their business, you'd better be prepared for a lawsuit. What are you going to do, shut down Raytheon or Lockheed Martin?" Furthermore, the "new" policy may be old, they said, but it's an admonition to keep quiet about every aspect of their former lives. "It's meant to silence us," one former official said. None objected to submitting op-eds, articles, speeches and books for a pre-publication review. But in the daily news cycle, there's no time for permission slips, they said. "The issue that the ODNI doesn't understand is, if a reporter calls me for a comment, he doesn't have three days to wait for me to get permission to talk to him," one former official said. Historically, ex-spooks asked to speak extemporaneously on TV or for a quick comment to a news reporter were obliged to use their judgment and not disclose classified information. The ODNI's clarification notes that it's "understood" there are times when some former employees might have to respond quickly to a media request without getting prior approval, but it doesn't make clear what they should do in such a case -- file a report afterward or call the ODNI on the way to an interview? In any case, the message seems not to be getting across. The ODNI defends its instruction and has made several attempts to clarify it. "This internal instruction imposes no requirements beyond those that the Non-Disclosure Agreement imposes on ODNI employees," spokesman Jeffrey Anchukaitis said, referring to a standard agreement not to reveal classified information. "It does state pre-pub[lication] guidance that was, while previously covered by the policy, not included explicitly in the instructions. It is not, however, a new policy." Several sources said such clarifications only further muddled the message. Many also wonder which rules apply to ODNI employees versus other employees-- past and present-- in the much larger intelligence community. Former officials say they're particularly aggrieved because after a career in the spy business, they know what they can and can't discuss with people lacking security clearances. Some said they were particularly put out because the order came from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, a man many of them have known and worked with for years and who himself had a brief career as an ex-official, from 2006 to 2007, when he worked as a government contractor. Current officials are equally confused and frustrated. One, who works on energy issues, said he doesn't know if he can discuss even unclassified information with colleagues who have lower or even no security clearance. The question of who exactly is a journalist these days complicates matters even more, many said. Several former officials are blogging, for example, on sites such as Lawfare and Just Security, two respected forums for debating and analyzing national security issues that are widely read by intelligence professionals inside and outside the government. Does that, or writing columns regularly, make them journalists? Several sources cited Michael Hayden, the former director of the NSA and the CIA, as a prime example. Hayden writes a regular column for the Washington Times. Does that mean Hayden is now a journalist, some former officials asked? If so, are they prohibited from talking to him, too? "I can tell you that General Hayden clears all written material through a review process, similar to other former directors," said a spokesperson for Hayden. Hayden is a principal at the Chertoff Group, a consulting firm run by ex-federal judge and former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, and largely staffed by former government officials. For all the grousing by retired spooks, though, it doesn't appear that they're altering their behavior much. Since issuing the policy, "We have seen no change in the amount of pre-publication requests, which is not surprising given that the policy didn't change," the ODNI's Anchukaitis said. "A few former ODNI employees have contacted us -- having heard erroneously of a new policy -- to inquire about their responsibilities. We'd ask any other formers with questions or concerns to do likewise." It's doubtful that many will. The former intelligence official who said he first learned of the policy by watching HBO said he's reluctant to call Clapper's office because he thinks it'll only invite more scrutiny. Another said that until he hears otherwise, he will continue to clear articles through his former agency, not the ODNI. And, he predicted, his colleagues will do the same. "They're not going to confront Clapper about this, they're just going to ignore him," the former official said. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jun 12 15:52:58 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 16:52:58 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - USG pushing local cops to stay mum on surveillance Message-ID: <18B14CC2-D603-4529-A771-28B9DF0FC1BA@infowarrior.org> US pushing local cops to stay mum on surveillance US pushing local police departments to keep quiet on cell-phone surveillance technology By Jack Gillum and Eileen Sullivan, Associated Press 18 minutes ago http://news.yahoo.com/us-pushing-local-cops-stay-174613067.html WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration has been quietly advising local police not to disclose details about surveillance technology they are using to sweep up basic cellphone data from entire neighborhoods, The Associated Press has learned. Citing security reasons, the U.S. has intervened in routine state public records cases and criminal trials regarding use of the technology. This has resulted in police departments withholding materials or heavily censoring documents in rare instances when they disclose any about the purchase and use of such powerful surveillance equipment. Federal involvement in local open records proceedings is unusual. It comes at a time when President Barack Obama has said he welcomes a debate on government surveillance and called for more transparency about spying in the wake of disclosures about classified federal surveillance programs. One well-known type of this surveillance equipment is known as a Stingray, an innovative way for law enforcement to track cellphones used by suspects and gather evidence. The equipment tricks cellphones into identifying some of their owners' account information, like a unique subscriber number, and transmitting data to police as if it were a phone company's tower. That allows police to obtain cellphone information without having to ask for help from service providers, such as Verizon or AT&T, and can locate a phone without the user even making a call or sending a text message. But without more details about how the technology works and under what circumstances it's used, it's unclear whether the technology might violate a person's constitutional rights or whether it's a good investment of taxpayer dollars. Interviews, court records and public-records requests show the Obama administration is asking agencies to withhold common information about the equipment, such as how the technology is used and how to turn it on. That pushback has come in the form of FBI affidavits and consultation in local criminal cases. "These extreme secrecy efforts are in relation to very controversial, local government surveillance practices using highly invasive technology," said Nathan Freed Wessler, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which has fought for the release of these types of records. "If public participation means anything, people should have the facts about what the government is doing to them." Harris Corp., a key manufacturer of this equipment, built a secrecy element into its authorization agreement with the Federal Communications Commission in 2011. That authorization has an unusual requirement: that local law enforcement "coordinate with the FBI the acquisition and use of the equipment." Companies like Harris need FCC authorization in order to sell wireless equipment that could interfere with radio frequencies. A spokesman from Harris Corp. said the company will not discuss its products for the Defense Department and law enforcement agencies, although public filings showed government sales of communications systems such as the Stingray accounted for nearly one-third of its $5 billion in revenue. "As a government contractor, our solutions are regulated and their use is restricted," spokesman Jim Burke said. Local police agencies have been denying access to records about this surveillance equipment under state public records laws. Agencies in San Diego, Chicago and Oakland County, Michigan, for instance, declined to tell the AP what devices they purchased, how much they cost and with whom they shared information. San Diego police released a heavily censored purchasing document. Oakland officials said police-secrecy exemptions and attorney-client privilege keep their hands tied. It was unclear whether the Obama administration interfered in the AP requests. "It's troubling to think the FBI can just trump the state's open records law," said Ginger McCall, director of the open government project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. McCall suspects the surveillance would not pass constitutional muster. "The vast amount of information it sweeps in is totally irrelevant to the investigation," she said. A court case challenging the public release of information from the Tucson Police Department includes an affidavit from an FBI special agent, Bradley Morrison, who said the disclosure would "result in the FBI's inability to protect the public from terrorism and other criminal activity because through public disclosures, this technology has been rendered essentially useless for future investigations." Morrison said revealing any information about the technology would violate a federal homeland security law about information-sharing and arms-control laws ? legal arguments that that outside lawyers and transparency experts said are specious and don't comport with court cases on the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. The FBI did not answer questions about its role in states' open records proceedings. But a former Justice Department official said the federal government should be making this argument in federal court, not a state level where different public records laws apply. "The federal government appears to be attempting to assert a federal interest in the information being sought, but it's going about it the wrong way," said Dan Metcalfe, the former director of the Justice Department's office of information and privacy. Currently Metcalfe is the executive director of American University's law school Collaboration on Government Secrecy project. A criminal case in Tallahassee cites the same homeland security laws in Morrison's affidavit, court records show, and prosecutors told the court they consulted with the FBI to keep portions of a transcript sealed. That transcript, released earlier this month, revealed that Stingrays "force" cellphones to register their location and identifying information with the police device and enables officers to track calls whenever the phone is on. One law enforcement official familiar with the Tucson lawsuit, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak about internal discussions, said federal lawyers told Tucson police they couldn't hand over a PowerPoint presentation made by local officers about how to operate the Stingray device. Federal officials forwarded Morrison's affidavit for use in the Tucson police department's reply to the lawsuit, rather than requesting the case be moved to federal court. In Sarasota, Florida, the U.S. Marshals Service confiscated local records on the use of the surveillance equipment, removing the documents from the reach of Florida's expansive open-records law after the ACLU asked under Florida law to see the documents. The ACLU has asked a judge to intervene. The Marshals Service said it deputized the officer as a federal agent and therefore the records weren't accessible under Florida law. ___ Associated Press writer Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee, Florida, contributed to this report. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jun 12 19:42:42 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 20:42:42 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Resignations_threat_over_Taylor_?= =?windows-1252?q?=26_Francis_=91censorship=92?= Message-ID: <8903E011-6638-4C11-B2D9-2A72F9C247FE@infowarrior.org> Resignations threat over Taylor & Francis ?censorship? 5 June 2014 | By Paul Jump Editorial board of journal could quit after debate on publishing suffers delay http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/resignations-threat-over-taylor-and-francis-censorship/2013752.article Silence! Publication delays and unexplained editing have ?destroyed trust? between the journal editors and Taylor & Francis A journal?s editorial board has been left on the brink of resignation after an eight-month standoff with its publisher Taylor & Francis over the publication of a debate on academic publishing and the profits made by major firms. The debate, in the journal Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation, was due to appear last September, but was delayed by Taylor & Francis and published only at the end of last month. Its ?proposition? paper, ?Publisher, be damned! from price gouging to the open road?, by four academics from the University of Leicester?s School of Management, criticises the large profits made by commercial publishers on the back of academics? labours, and the failure of the Finch report on open access to address them. The paper compares academic publishing with the music industry, which, it says, has ?booming? sales after lowering prices in the face of widespread piracy. It suggests that ?doing nothing to prevent the trading of electronic copies of our academic work? could also force prices down in publishing. The journal?s general editor, Stuart Macdonald, a visiting professor of economics at Aalto University in Finland, said the non-appearance of the journal in September was followed, two months later, by a letter from a senior manager at Taylor & Francis demanding that more than half of the proposition article be cut. ?They never said why. They just said they didn?t want this debate to take place,? Professor Macdonald said. ?They also said I should have got their approval before inviting debate papers, but I have never done that before and it seems quite improper.? He said matters came to a head at a ?very unpleasant? meeting in January, when the journal?s editorial board threatened to resign en masse unless Taylor & Francis backed down. The publisher eventually did so, but insisted on removing all publishers? names from both the proposition article and the four responses. Professor Macdonald reluctantly agreed, but Taylor & Francis still did not publish the debate, prompting him to withhold subsequent editions of the journal for fear they would be published in preference. The result was a ?huge backlog? of papers waiting to be published. He was also upset that, when the edition was finally published, Taylor & Francis unilaterally added a long disclaimer to each article warning that ?the accuracy of the content should not be relied upon?. He said the episode was illustrative of the ?enormous sensitivity? surrounding publishers? profits. He had been unable to persuade a single publisher to respond to the proposition paper, managing to elicit a riposte only from former publisher Iain Stevenson, professor of publishing at University College London. Professor Stevenson dismisses the article as ?contentious and seriously flawed? but he said even more severe criticisms of the proposition paper had been edited out of his response. Professor Macdonald said this was done by Taylor & Francis, but he did not know why. Professor Macdonald said the episode had destroyed trust between the publisher and the editors, who were all considering their positions. One option was to resign and set up a rival journal. ?It is a mess and I just don?t see why the mess was necessary,? he said. In a statement, Taylor & Francis confirms that it ?worked with? the editors ?and, through them, the authors, to agree a version of the?articles?We have subsequently published the debate on an open access basis, at no cost to the authors, to ensure all readers can access [it] and come to their own view.? Professor Stevenson said that if the editors resigned, ?they will find that ?publishing without publishers? is not as easy or as trouble-free as they fondly imagine?. But Steffen B?hm, director of the Essex Sustainability Institute at the University of Essex and co-author of one of the response articles, said the episode lent further strength to his call for academics to take publishing back in-house. ?This is the first time I have seen a publisher directly interfere with the autonomous work of academics and it is a very serious breach of the relationship,? he said. ?We can only keep our freedom to publish what we like if we control the publishing process.? Simon Lilley, head of Leicester?s School of Management and co-author of the proposition paper, said if universities launched their own branded journals, the cost of open access publishing could drop by two-thirds. ?Taylor & Francis? ham-fisted attempt at censorship gives some indication of the level of fear that must be running through the industry at the moment,? he added. paul.jump at tsleducation.com --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jun 13 06:13:44 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 07:13:44 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - US government OKs sharper satellite images Message-ID: US government OKs sharper satellite images A long-standing restriction has been lifted to usher in better quality online mapping By Martyn Williams, IDG News Service http://www.itworld.com/demand-software/422874/us-government-oks-sharper-satellite-images June 12, 2014, 2:58 PM ? The U.S. government has lifted a long-standing restriction that meant companies like Google and Microsoft didn't have access to the most accurate pictures taken by imaging satellites. Until this week, satellite operators like DigitalGlobe were prevented by law from selling images to foreign or commercial organizations in which features smaller than 50 centimeters were visible. The restriction was meant to ensure that foreign powers didn't get access to satellite images that were too good. But now that's changed. DigitalGlobe said it has received approval from the U.S. Department of Commerce to sell sharper images to its clients. That immediately unlocks pictures from its GeoEye-1 satellite, with a resolution of 41 centimeters, and Worldview-2 satellite, at 46 centimeters, but much better pictures will soon be available. The company's Worldview-3 satellite can see features as small as 31 centimeters and is due for launch in mid-August from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The government has said DigitalGlobe can sell high-resolution images from that satellite six months after it enters operation, which would make them available sometime in the first half of 2015. The sharper images will mean more than just better quality online satellite pictures. Companies like Google and Nokia automatically process such images to help build accurate online maps and there is a host of uses outside of the Internet industry including agriculture, disaster relief, mining, transportation and civil engineering. The announcement came in the same week that Google said it would buy satellite imaging start-up SkyBox Imaging for $500 million. SkyBox says its SkySat satellite can capture images at "sub-meter" resolution, which probably means they are not as fine as DigitalGlobe's pictures. Martyn Williams covers mobile telecoms, Silicon Valley and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Martyn on Twitter at @martyn_williams. Martyn's e-mail address is martyn_williams at idg.com --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jun 13 07:09:33 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 08:09:33 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - We're ALL Winston Smith now Message-ID: <89F6D7C6-A607-4932-88F5-5E51AC14C50F@infowarrior.org> We're ALL Winston Smith now http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/11/privacy_invasion_by_the_state_is_far_worse_than_by_private_firms_worstall_weds/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jun 13 13:30:39 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 14:30:39 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - More insanity from Rep Mike Rogers Message-ID: <0F5B5429-00CC-451C-9563-04E7BA418B2B@infowarrior.org> I join many in the World of Reality(tm) who can't wait for this nitwit to retire after this session of Congress ends...... Mike Rogers Says Google Is Unpatriotic For Not Wanting NSA To Spy On Its Users https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140613/07480127565/mike-rogers-says-google-is-unpatriotic-not-wanting-nsa-to-spy-its-users.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Jun 14 10:17:43 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 11:17:43 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Congressman Asks NSA To Restore Two Years Of "Lost" Lois Lerner IRS Emails Message-ID: Congressman Asks NSA To Restore Two Years Of "Lost" Lois Lerner IRS Emails http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-14/congressman-asks-nsa-restore-two-years-lost-lois-lerner-irs-emails --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Jun 14 10:26:27 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 11:26:27 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?New_Ruling_Shows_the_NSA_Can=92t?= =?windows-1252?q?_Legally_Justify_Its_Phone_Spying_Anymore?= Message-ID: New Ruling Shows the NSA Can?t Legally Justify Its Phone Spying Anymore ? By Jennifer Granick ? 06.13.14 | ? 6:30 am | http://www.wired.com/2014/06/davis-undermines-metadata/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Jun 15 13:59:27 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 14:59:27 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Chelsea Manning OpEd: the U.S. Military and Media Freedom Message-ID: The Fog Machine of War Chelsea Manning on the U.S. Military and Media Freedom By CHELSEA MANNING JUNE 14, 2014 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/opinion/sunday/chelsea-manning-the-us-militarys-campaign-against-media-freedom.html FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. ? WHEN I chose to disclose classified information in 2010, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others. I?m now serving a sentence of 35 years in prison for these unauthorized disclosures. I understand that my actions violated the law. However, the concerns that motivated me have not been resolved. As Iraq erupts in civil war and America again contemplates intervention, that unfinished business should give new urgency to the question of how the United States military controlled the media coverage of its long involvement there and in Afghanistan. I believe that the current limits on press freedom and excessive government secrecy make it impossible for Americans to grasp fully what is happening in the wars we finance. If you were following the news during the March 2010 elections in Iraq, you might remember that the American press was flooded with stories declaring the elections a success, complete with upbeat anecdotes and photographs of Iraqi women proudly displaying their ink-stained fingers. The subtext was that United States military operations had succeeded in creating a stable and democratic Iraq. Those of us stationed there were acutely aware of a more complicated reality. Military and diplomatic reports coming across my desk detailed a brutal crackdown against political dissidents by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and federal police, on behalf of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. Detainees were often tortured, or even killed. Early that year, I received orders to investigate 15 individuals whom the federal police had arrested on suspicion of printing ?anti-Iraqi literature.? I learned that these individuals had absolutely no ties to terrorism; they were publishing a scholarly critique of Mr. Maliki?s administration. I forwarded this finding to the officer in command in eastern Baghdad. He responded that he didn?t need this information; instead, I should assist the federal police in locating more ?anti-Iraqi? print shops. I was shocked by our military?s complicity in the corruption of that election. Yet these deeply troubling details flew under the American media?s radar. It was not the first (or the last) time I felt compelled to question the way we conducted our mission in Iraq. We intelligence analysts, and the officers to whom we reported, had access to a comprehensive overview of the war that few others had. How could top-level decision makers say that the American public, or even Congress, supported the conflict when they didn?t have half the story? Among the many daily reports I received via email while working in Iraq in 2009 and 2010 was an internal public affairs briefing that listed recently published news articles about the American mission in Iraq. One of my regular tasks was to provide, for the public affairs summary read by the command in eastern Baghdad, a single-sentence description of each issue covered, complementing our analysis with local intelligence. The more I made these daily comparisons between the news back in the States and the military and diplomatic reports available to me as an analyst, the more aware I became of the disparity. In contrast to the solid, nuanced briefings we created on the ground, the news available to the public was flooded with foggy speculation and simplifications. One clue to this disjunction lay in the public affairs reports. Near the top of each briefing was the number of embedded journalists attached to American military units in a combat zone. Throughout my deployment, I never saw that tally go above 12. In other words, in all of Iraq, which contained 31 million people and 117,000 United States troops, no more than a dozen American journalists were covering military operations. The process of limiting press access to a conflict begins when a reporter applies for embed status. All reporters are carefully vetted by military public affairs officials. This system is far from unbiased. Unsurprisingly, reporters who have established relationships with the military are more likely to be granted access. Less well known is that journalists whom military contractors rate as likely to produce ?favorable? coverage, based on their past reporting, also get preference. This outsourced ?favorability? rating assigned to each applicant is used to screen out those judged likely to produce critical coverage. Reporters who succeeded in obtaining embed status in Iraq were then required to sign a media ?ground rules? agreement. Army public affairs officials said this was to protect operational security, but it also allowed them to terminate a reporter?s embed without appeal. There have been numerous cases of reporters? having their access terminated following controversial reporting. In 2010, the late Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings had his access pulled after reporting criticism of the Obama administration by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and his staff in Afghanistan. A Pentagon spokesman said, ?Embeds are a privilege, not a right.? If a reporter?s embed status is terminated, typically she or he is blacklisted. This program of limiting press access was challenged in court in 2013 by a freelance reporter, Wayne Anderson, who claimed to have followed his agreement but to have been terminated after publishing adverse reports about the conflict in Afghanistan. The ruling on his case upheld the military?s position that there was no constitutionally protected right to be an embedded journalist. The embedded reporter program, which continues in Afghanistan and wherever the United States sends troops, is deeply informed by the military?s experience of how media coverage shifted public opinion during the Vietnam War. The gatekeepers in public affairs have too much power: Reporters naturally fear having their access terminated, so they tend to avoid controversial reporting that could raise red flags. The existing program forces journalists to compete against one another for ?special access? to vital matters of foreign and domestic policy. Too often, this creates reporting that flatters senior decision makers. A result is that the American public?s access to the facts is gutted, which leaves them with no way to evaluate the conduct of American officials. Journalists have an important role to play in calling for reforms to the embedding system. The favorability of a journalist?s previous reporting should not be a factor. Transparency, guaranteed by a body not under the control of public affairs officials, should govern the credentialing process. An independent board made up of military staff members, veterans, Pentagon civilians and journalists could balance the public?s need for information with the military?s need for operational security. Reporters should have timely access to information. The military could do far more to enable the rapid declassification of information that does not jeopardize military missions. The military?s Significant Activity Reports, for example, provide quick overviews of events like attacks and casualties. Often classified by default, these could help journalists report the facts accurately. Opinion polls indicate that Americans? confidence in their elected representatives is at a record low. Improving media access to this crucial aspect of our national life ? where America has committed the men and women of its armed services ? would be a powerful step toward re-establishing trust between voters and officials. Chelsea Manning is a former United States Army intelligence analyst. A version of this op-ed appears in print on June 15, 2014, on page SR4 of the New York edition with the headline: The Fog Machine of War. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Jun 16 07:22:12 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 08:22:12 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - State Legislators Discussing Laws That Will Put Law Enforcement Surveillance Cameras Inside Private Businesses Message-ID: State Legislators Discussing Laws That Will Put Law Enforcement Surveillance Cameras Inside Private Businesses from the because-no-square-footage-can-go-unsurveilled dept The government does enjoy installing cameras pretty much everywhere it can do so with a minimum of complaints. If it thinks there might be some controversy, it just buries the details until after the fact. Eugene Volokh has a roundup of new places state governments are planning to install cameras -- only the government won't be buying the cameras? or maintaining them? or even installing them. That's left to the private businesses these bills are pushing additional surveillance requirements on. < -- > Given the government's penchant for equating nearly everything with its two favorite Wars (Terrorism/Drugs), a vast cross-section of retailers will find themselves legislatively "encouraged" to oblige the government's "collect it all" excesses. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Jun 16 07:22:15 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 08:22:15 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - What We've Lost Since 9/11 Message-ID: What We've Lost Since 9/11 Taking Down the First Amendment in Post-Constitutional America By Peter Van Buren ? June 15, 2014 ? 3,500 Words ? Leave a Comment < - > http://www.unz.com/article/what-weve-lost-since-911/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Jun 16 16:59:08 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 17:59:08 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?OpEd=3A_Has_DHS_become_America?= =?windows-1252?q?=92s_standing_army=3F?= Message-ID: WHITEHEAD: Has the Dept. of Homeland Security become America?s standing army? Posted: Monday, June 16, 2014 11:36 am By John W. Whitehead The Rutherford Institute http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/friendswood/opinion/whitehead-has-the-dept-of-homeland-security-become-america-s/article_81acf508-4660-5e0a-87fc-fee9c447f61f.html ?A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.??James Madison ?Here [in New Mexico], we are moving more toward a national police force. Homeland Security is involved with a lot of little things around town. Somebody in Washington needs to call a timeout.??Dan Klein, retired Albuquerque Police Department sergeant Advertisement If the United States is a police state, then the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is its national police force, with all the brutality, ineptitude and corruption such a role implies. In fact, although the DHS? governmental bureaucracy may at times appear to be inept and bungling, it is ruthlessly efficient when it comes to building what the Founders feared most?a standing army on American soil. The third largest federal agency behind the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense, the DHS?with its 240,000 full-time workers, $61 billion budget and sub-agencies that include the Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)?has been aptly dubbed a ?runaway train.? In the 12 years since it was established to ?prevent terrorist attacks within the United States,? the DHS has grown from a post-9/11 knee-jerk reaction to a leviathan with tentacles in every aspect of American life. With good reason, a bipartisan bill to provide greater oversight and accountability into the DHS? purchasing process has been making its way through Congress. A better plan would be to abolish the DHS altogether. In making the case for shutting down the de facto national police agency, analyst Charles Kenny offers the following six reasons: one, the agency lacks leadership; two, terrorism is far less of a threat than it is made out to be; three, the FBI has actually stopped more alleged terrorist attacks than DHS; four, the agency wastes exorbitant amounts of money with little to show for it; five, ?An overweight DHS gets a free pass to infringe civil liberties without a shred of economic justification?; and six, the agency is just plain bloated. To Kenny?s list, I will add the following: The menace of a national police force, a.k.a. a standing army, vested with so much power cannot be overstated, nor can its danger be ignored. Indeed, as the following list shows, just about every nefarious deed, tactic or thuggish policy advanced by the government today can be traced back to the DHS, its police state mindset, and the billions of dollars it distributes to police agencies in the form of grants. Militarizing police and SWAT teams. The DHS routinely hands out six-figure grants to enable local municipalities to purchase military-style vehicles, as well as a veritable war chest of weaponry, ranging from tactical vests, bomb-disarming robots, assault weapons and combat uniforms. This rise in military equipment purchases funded by the DHS has, according to analysts Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz, ?paralleled an apparent increase in local SWAT teams.? The end result? An explosive growth in the use of SWAT teams for otherwise routine police matters, an increased tendency on the part of police to shoot first and ask questions later, and an overall mindset within police forces that they are at war?and the citizenry are the enemy combatants. Spying on activists, dissidents and veterans. In 2009, DHS released three infamous reports on Rightwing and Leftwing ?Extremism,? and another entitled Operation Vigilant Eagle, outlining a surveillance program targeting veterans. The reports collectively and broadly define extremists as individuals and groups ?that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely.? In 2013, it was revealed that DHS, the FBI, state and local law enforcement agencies, and the private sector were working together to conduct nationwide surveillance on protesters? First Amendment activities. Stockpiling ammunition. DHS, along with other government agencies, has been stockpiling an alarming amount of ammunition in recent years, which only adds to the discomfort of those already leery of the government. As of 2013, DHS had 260 million rounds of ammo in stock, which averages out to between 1,300 to 1,600 rounds per officer. The US Army, in contrast, has roughly 350 rounds per soldier. DHS has since requisitioned more than 1.6 billion rounds of ammo, ?enough,? concludes Forbes magazine, ?to sustain a hot war for 20+ years.? Distributing license plate readers. DHS has already distributed more than $50 million in grants to enable local police agencies to acquire license plate readers, which rely on mobile cameras to photograph and identify cars, match them against a national database, and track their movements. Relying on private contractors to maintain a license plate database allows the DHS and its affiliates to access millions of records without much in the way of oversight. Contracting to build detention camps. In 2006, DHS awarded a $385 million contract to a Halliburton subsidiary to build detention centers on American soil. Although the government and Halliburton were not forthcoming about where or when these domestic detention centers would be built, they rationalized the need for them in case of ?an emergency influx of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs? in the event of other emergencies such as ?natural disasters.? Viewed in conjunction with the NDAA provision allowing the military to arrest and indefinitely detain anyone, including American citizens, it would seem the building blocks are already in place for such an eventuality. Tracking cell-phones with Stingray devices. Distributed to local police agencies as a result of grants from the DHS, these Stingray devices enable police to track individuals? cell phones?and their owners?without a court warrant or court order. The amount of information conveyed by these devices about one?s activities, whereabouts and interactions is considerable. As one attorney explained: ?Because we carry our cellphones with us virtually everywhere we go, stingrays can paint a precise picture of where we are and who we spend time with, including our location in a lover?s house, in a psychologist?s office or at a political protest.? Carrying out military drills and lockdowns in American cities. Each year, DHS funds military-style training drills in cities across the country. These Urban Shield exercises, elaborately staged with their own set of professionally trained Crisis Actors playing the parts of shooters, bystanders and victims, fool law enforcement officials, students, teachers, bystanders and the media into thinking it?s a real crisis. Using the TSA as an advance guard. The TSA now searches a variety of government and private databases, including things like car registrations and employment information, in order to track travelers? before they ever get near an airport. Other information collected includes ?tax identification number, past travel itineraries, property records, physical characteristics, and law enforcement or intelligence information.? Conducting virtual strip searches with full-body scanners. Under the direction of the TSA, American travelers have been subjected to all manner of searches ranging from whole-body scanners and enhanced patdowns at airports to bag searches in train stations. In response to public outrage over what amounted to a virtual strip search, the TSA has begun replacing the scanners with equally costly yet less detailed models. The old scanners will be used by prisons for now. Carrying out soft target checkpoints. VIPR task forces, comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams have laid the groundwork for the government?s effort to secure so-called ?soft? targets such as malls, stadiums, bridges, etc. Some security experts predict that checkpoints and screening stations will eventually be established at all soft targets, such as department stores, restaurants, and schools. DHS? Operation Shield, a program which seeks to check up on security protocols around the country with unannounced visits, conducted a surprise security exercise at the Social Security Administration building in Leesburg, Fla., when they subjected people who went to pick up their checks to random ID checks by federal agents armed with semi-automatic weapons. Directing government workers to spy on Americans. Terrorism Liaison Officers are firefighters, police officers, and even corporate employees who have received training to spy on and report back to government entities on the day-to-day activities of their fellow citizens. These individuals are authorized to report ?suspicious activity? which can include such innocuous activities as taking pictures with no apparent aesthetic value, making measurements and drawings, taking notes, conversing in code, espousing radical beliefs, and buying items in bulk. Conducting widespread spying networks using fusion centers. Data collecting agencies spread throughout the country, aided by the National Security Agency, fusions centers?of which there are at least 78 scattered around the U.S.? constantly monitor our communications, collecting and cataloguing everything from our internet activity and web searches to text messages, phone calls and emails. This data is then fed to government agencies, which are now interconnected: the CIA to the FBI, the FBI to local police. Despite a budget estimated to be somewhere between $289 million and $1.4 billion, these fusion centers have proven to be exercises in incompetence, often producing irrelevant, useless or inappropriate intelligence, while spending millions of dollars on ?flat-screen televisions, sport utility vehicles, hidden cameras and other gadgets.? Carrying out Constitution-free border control searches. On orders from the DHS, the government?s efforts along the border have become little more than an exercise in police state power, ranging from aggressive checkpoints to the widespread use of drone technology, often used against American citizens traveling within the country. Border patrol operations occur within 100 miles of an international crossing, putting some 200 million Americans within the bounds of aggressive border patrol searches and seizures, as well as increasingly expansive drone surveillance. With 71 checkpoints found along the southwest border of the United States alone, suspicionless search and seizures on the border are rampant. Border patrol agents also search the personal electronic devices of people crossing the border without a warrant. Funding city-wide surveillance cameras. As Charlie Savage reports for the Boston Globe, the DHS has funneled ?millions of dollars to local governments nationwide for purchasing high-tech video camera networks, accelerating the rise of a ?surveillance society? in which the sense of freedom that stems from being anonymous in public will be lost.? These camera systems, installed on city streets, in parks and transit systems, operating in conjunction with sophisticated computer systems that boast intelligent video analytics, digital biometric identification, military-pedigree software for analyzing and predicting crime and facial recognition software, create a vast surveillance network that can target millions of innocent individuals. Utilizing drones and other spybots. The DHS has been at the forefront of funding and deploying surveillance robots and drones for land, sea and air, including robots that resemble fish and tunnel-bots that can travel underground. Despite repeated concerns over the danger surveillance drones used domestically pose to Americans? privacy rights, the DHS has continued to expand its fleet of Predator drones, which come equipped with video cameras, infrared cameras, heat sensors, and radar. DHS also loans its drones out to local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies for a variety of tasks, although the agency refuses to divulge any details as to how, why and in what capacity these drones are being used by police. Incredibly, the DHS has also been handing out millions of dollars in grants to local police agencies to ?accelerate the adoption? of drones in their localities. It?s not difficult to see why the DHS has been described as a ?wasteful, growing, fear-mongering beast.? If it is a beast, however, it is a beast that is accelerating our nation?s transformation into a police state through its establishment of a standing army, a.k.a. national police force. This, too, is nothing new. Historically, as I show in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, the establishment of a national police force has served as a fundamental and final building block for every totalitarian regime that has ever wreaked havoc on humanity, from Hitler?s all-too-real Nazi Germany to George Orwell?s fictional Oceania. Whether fictional or historical, however, the calling cards of these national police agencies remain the same: brutality, inhumanity, corruption, intolerance, rigidity, and bureaucracy?in other words, evil. Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His latest book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State (SelectBooks) is available online at www.amazon.com. He can be contacted at johnw at rutherford.org. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Jun 16 17:05:16 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 18:05:16 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Big Brother: Meet the Parents Message-ID: Big Brother: Meet the Parents By: Stephanie Simon June 5, 2014 05:03 AM EDT You?ve heard of Big Oil and Big Tobacco. Now get ready for Big Parent. Moms and dads from across the political spectrum have mobilized into an unexpected political force in recent months to fight the data mining of their children. In a frenzy of activity, they?ve catapulted student privacy ? an issue that was barely on anyone?s radar last spring ? to prominence in statehouses from New York to Florida to Wyoming. A months-long review by POLITICO of student privacy issues, including dozens of interviews, found the parent privacy lobby gaining momentum ? and catching big-data advocates off guard. Initially dismissed as a fringe campaign, the privacy movement has attracted powerful allies on both the left and right. The American Civil Liberties Union is pushing for more student privacy protection. So is the American Legislative Exchange Council, the organization of conservative legislators. The amateur activists have already claimed one trophy, torpedoing a privately run, $100 million database set up to make it easier for schools to share confidential student records with private companies. The project, known as inBloom, folded this spring under tremendous parent pressure, just 15 months after its triumphal public launch. Now, parents are rallying against another perceived threat: huge state databases being built to track children for more than two decades, from as early as infancy through the start of their careers. Promoted by the Obama administration, the databases are being built in nearly every state at a total cost of well over $1 billion. They are intended to store intimate details on tens of millions of children and young adults ? identified by name, birth date, address and even, in some cases, Social Security number ? to help officials pinpoint the education system?s strengths and weaknesses and craft public policy accordingly. < - > http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=2C52710D-E5C9-4655-B1C5-6CBEFAB99D6E --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Jun 16 17:05:22 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 18:05:22 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Appeals court overturns surveillance disclosure order Message-ID: <39F14E55-6856-428C-B892-1EC29AB236BF@infowarrior.org> Appeals court overturns surveillance disclosure order By JOSH GERSTEIN | 6/16/14 4:12 PM EDT http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2014/06/appeals-court-overturns-surveillance-disclosure-order-190488.html A federal appeals court has overturned a district court judge's landmark order requiring the government to show defense lawyers foreign-intelligence-related surveillance on how a terrorism investigation developed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit ruled Tuesday that a lower court judge was wrong to grant such access to attorneys for Adel Daoud, who is charged with plotting to set off a bomb in Chicago in 2012. "The judge appears to have believed that adversary procedure is always essential to resolve contested issues of fact. That is an incomplete description of the American judicial system in general and the federal judicial system in particular," Judge Richard Posner wrote in an opinion joined by Judges Michael Kanne and Ilana Rovner (and posted here). "Conventional adversary procedure...has to be compromised in recognition of valid social interests that compete with the social interest in openness." The appeals court's ruling didn't just address procedure, however. The judges ruled that the surveillance in Daoud's case was lawful, though their explain their reasoning on that point was placed in a classified opinion not available to the public. However in the public ruling, they also seemed to presuppose Daoud's guilt, or at least his intent. "The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is an attempt to strike a balance between the interest in full openness of legal proceedings and the interest in national security, which requires a degree of secrecy concerning the government?s efforts to protect the nation. Terrorism is not a chimera. With luck Daoud might have achieved his goal of indiscriminately killing hundreds of Americans?whom he targeted because as he explained in an email, civilians both 'pay their taxes which fund the government?s war on Islam' and 'vote for the leaders who kill us everyday,'" Posner wrote. While the decision was unanimous, Rovner wrote a concurring opinion suggesting that the deck is effectively stacked against defendants trying to challenge a FISA warrant and changes to the law may be needed. She also said the law is difficult to square with a 1978 Supreme Court decision giving defendants the right to challenge false statements made to obtain evidence in their cases, Franks v. Delaware. "Defendants in FISA cases face an obvious and virtually insurmountable obstacle in the requirement that they make a substantial preliminary showing of deliberate or reckless material falsehoods or omissions in the FISA application without having access to the application itself," Rovner wrote. "Thirty-six years after the enactment of FISA, it is well past time to recognize that it is virtually impossible for a FISA defendant to make the showing that Franks requires in order to convene an evidentiary hearing, and that a court cannot conduct more than a limited Franks review on its own. Possibly there is no realistic means of reconciling Franks with the FISA process. But all three branches of government have an obligation to explore that question thoroughly before we rest with that conclusion." Daoud's appeal drew attention earlier this month after the appeals court panet held a private argument with government lawyers and investigators present, but defense lawyers and the public locked out. Suspicions were raised further when the court announced that the public argument in the case was never recorded, due to what the clerk termed a mix-up brought on by security concerns. The court later arranged a highly unusual repeat of the public argument. In Tuesday's ruling, Posner defends the closed session and says it could only operate to Daoud's benefit. "The purpose of the hearing was to explore, by questioning the government?s lawyer on the basis of the classified materials, the need for defense access to those materials (which the judges and their cleared staffs had read). In effect this was cross-examination of the government, and could only help the defendant," Posner wrote. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Jun 16 17:49:52 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 18:49:52 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Tech giants seek to halt overseas snooping by US Message-ID: <0F2FA32C-ACF9-42D1-9A2B-882CE3474567@infowarrior.org> Tech giants seek to halt overseas snooping by US By LARRY NEUMEISTER ? Jun. 16, 2014 3:49 PM EDT http://bigstory.ap.org/article/tech-giants-seek-halt-overseas-snooping-us NEW YORK (AP) ? Microsoft Corp. and four other large American technology companies are using a Manhattan court case to draw a line in the cloud, saying the U.S. government has no right to seize computer data stored outside the country. U.S. companies that host services over the Internet and sell remote data storage ? a concept broadly known as "cloud computing" ? say they stand to lose billions of dollars in business if emails and other files they house overseas are seen vulnerable to U.S. snooping. Lawyers for the companies say the perception was stoked by former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden's revelations last year that the U.S. and other countries' intelligence agencies routinely and indiscriminately gather and store huge amounts of data from phone calls and Internet communications. And it was harmed again in April, they say, when a Manhattan magistrate judge concluded it was legal for the government to order Microsoft to comply with a sealed search warrant for a consumer email account it stores in Dublin, Ireland. A Microsoft vice president wrote in a court document that the company offers its cloud services in more than 100 countries and tries to keep a customer's data ? including email, calendar entries and documents ? in a data center near where the customer is located for easy and cost-effective access. Microsoft maintains data centers worldwide, including in the United States, Ireland, the Netherlands, Japan and Brazil. The mammoth software company said in court papers this month that the ruling threatens to rewrite the Constitution's protections against illegal search and seizure, damage U.S. foreign relations and "reduce the privacy protection of everyone on the planet." "Over the course of the past year, Microsoft and other U.S. technology companies have faced growing mistrust and concern about their ability to protect the privacy of personal information located outside the United States," Microsoft said. "The government's position in this case further erodes that trust, and will ultimately erode the leadership of U.S. technology companies in the global market." Two phone carriers, Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc., have joined the fight, along with Apple Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc., submitting arguments in support of Microsoft in recent days to a district judge prior to a late-July hearing. In court papers, prosecutors said Microsoft's position that the warrant effectively authorizes law enforcement agents to conduct a search in Ireland is "simply not so." They said the warrant is the functional equivalent of a subpoena compelling the Redmond, Washington-based provider to review its stored records and produce relevant material. Microsoft's position "serves as a dangerous impediment to the ability of law enforcement to gather evidence of criminal activity," they said. Microsoft lost the first round of what is likely to be a lengthy court battle in April, when the New York magistrate judge who issued the search warrant in December ruled that the Stored Communications Act in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 gave the government authority to subpoena information on the Internet that is stored outside the country. Magistrate Judge James C. Francis referred to the warrant as a "hybrid, ? part search warrant and part subpoena" ? and said it has long been law that the recipient of a subpoena must produce information in its possession regardless of where it is stored. Francis added that if territorial restrictions on conventional warrants were extended to cyberspace, "the burden on the government would be substantial, and law enforcement efforts would be seriously impeded." With conventional warrants, information can only be seized overseas according to the terms of a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between the countries. Already, Microsoft said, foreign leaders are raising concerns about the ruling. Compliance with U.S. search warrants may cause companies to violate data-protection laws in countries where the targeted data is stored, it added. Microsoft said it has encountered "rising concerns among both current and potential customers overseas" and some customers have cited the ruling as they chose a foreign provider to store data. "If this trend continues, the U.S. technology sector's business model of providing 'cloud' Internet-based services to enterprises, governments, and educational institutions worldwide will be substantially undermined," Microsoft said. Lawyers for Apple and Cisco filed a brief Friday. The lawyers said some servers for Apple's iCloud service and Cisco are in other countries. The lawyers said the ruling puts "Apple and other providers in the untenable situation of being forced to violate one nation's laws to comply with another. In court papers last week, Verizon said the ruling, if allowed to stand, "would have an enormous detrimental impact on the international business of American companies, on international relations and on privacy." It said the ruling "could cost U.S. businesses billions of dollars in lost revenue, undermine international agreements and understandings, and prompt foreign governments to retaliate by forcing foreign affiliates of American companies to turn over the content of customer data stored in the United States." In court papers, AT&T said the ruling threatened to provide law enforcement with "a global information access tool without bounds." In papers Friday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, said the government's "approach poses a grave risk to privacy.? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 17 06:38:42 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 07:38:42 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - British Spy Agencies Are Said to Assert Power to Intercept Web Traffic Message-ID: <43D20B59-4F97-4B6F-946E-D1CB2A858117@infowarrior.org> British Spy Agencies Are Said to Assert Power to Intercept Web Traffic By MARK SCOTTJUNE 16, 2014 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/business/international/british-spy-agencies-said-to-assert-broad-power-to-intercept-web-traffic.html?hpw&rref=technology LONDON ? In a broad legal rationale for collecting information from Internet use by its citizens, the British government has reportedly asserted the right to intercept communications that go through services like Facebook, Google and Twitter that are based in the United States or other foreign nations, even if they are between people in Britain. The British position is described in a draft summary of a report to be released Tuesday by Privacy International and other advocacy groups. The summary, seen by The New York Times, says the findings are based on a government document that the groups obtained through a lawsuit. According to the summary, the government document says any contact between people in Britain through social networks based elsewhere, or use of search engines located outside Britain, constitutes ?external communication,? and as such, is subject to interception, even when no wrongdoing is suspected. By contrast, under British law, ?internal communication? between people based in the country may be intercepted only when there is suspicion of illegal activity as specified in a government-issued warrant overseen by the courts. It is not clear how loosely the British government is applying such an interpretation of ?external communication? or how many warrants it may have obtained under those guidelines to intercept the communications of people in the country. The British surveillance agency that oversees such activity, the Government Communications Headquarters, declined on Monday to affirm the portrayal of its position, citing ?a longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters.? But it added, in a statement, that ?all of G.C.H.Q.?s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate.? The government?s position is attributed in the draft summary to Charles Farr, director general of the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism, a British government body that helps coordinate the country?s antiterrorism strategy. Privacy International declined to comment Monday on the summary of its report before its official release. Apprised of the contents of the summary, Google issued a statement that said in part: ?We provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don?t follow the correct process.? A Facebook representative declined to comment, and Twitter did not immediately respond to an invitation to do so. The British government?s defense was in response to a lawsuit filed last year by privacy advocates, including Privacy International and Amnesty International, related to disclosures about government surveillance by Edward J. Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency. Among other things, the privacy groups are calling for the British government to stop using information from Prism, a system that allows the N.S.A. to collect emails of non-Americans abroad, without individualized warrants, from American-based providers like Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail. The privacy groups also want the British government to stop its Tempora surveillance program, under which an intelligence agency may tap fiber-optic cables carrying Internet traffic in and out of Britain. The cables each day transport millions of emails and web searches, among other personal data. As part of the legal case, which is to be heard next month by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a British court that handles legal cases against the country?s intelligence agencies, Mr. Farr of the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism will be a crucial witness for the British government in its efforts to keep using the surveillance methods. When revelations surrounding Prism and the other surveillance activities first occurred last year, the British government said the country?s intelligence agencies abided by local rules aimed at protecting citizens? privacy. But the legal defense reflected in the draft summary of the privacy groups? report would be the most detailed discussion that has surfaced of the government?s approach to collecting individuals? communications on some of the most popular Internet services. Charlie Savage contributed reporting from Washington. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 17 10:20:36 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:20:36 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: Neocons Getting The Band Back Together Message-ID: <35178839-03CC-42FB-8BA5-4ACBF5921C76@infowarrior.org> First off, here's some GOOD historical reading .... No End of a Lesson - Unlearned (http://hnn.us/article/155996) Then, we make note thet the drums-of-war are beating loudly in DC this week ... this op-ed is but one glimpse into the pro-war interventionist idiocy that's making a resurgence in this town. Including, I might add, the fear-mongering calls of how this is another 9/11 in the making if we don't do anything, etc, etc, etc. But is there a competent grand strategy? Fuggedaboutit. --rick Neocons Getting The Band Back Together Via Liberaland. By: Russell, 6/17/2014, 2:43:02 AM http://crooksandliars.com/2014/06/neocons-getting-band-back-together As predictably as the sun rising in the East, the two foremost proponents of ousting Saddam, William Kristol and Frederick Kagan, are calling in The Weekly Standard for President Obama to ?act boldly and decisively? by returning American ground troops to Iraq ? not simply the special operators who are essential for targeting airstrikes [whenever a president says "airstrikes but no ground troops" he means "airstrikes and some ground troops"], but ?regular military forces.? The goal of such a return would be not only to stop ISIS, but to do so ?without empowering Iran,? which is what they?re really concerned about. Just as Iraqi Freedom was really about Israel for both Kristol and Kagan, so too is Return to Iraq about Israel; they?re not at all concerned about Iraqis. They?re concerned about ?stability,? which they define in zero-sum terms: good or bad for Israel. As an Iraq veteran, I find it almost laughable that these two in particular are yet again advocating a military adventure in which they?ll share none of the costs. That?s not unusual for the Wise Men of Washington with their seemingly endless thirst for war. What?s especially noxious about Kristol and Kagan is their declaration that ?now is not the time to re-litigate either the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 or the decision to withdraw from it in 2011.? Right. Because the decision to invade Iraq was taken by America?s Yokel-in-Chief, a man who ought to have been convicted of steering the ship of state while under the influence of neoconservatism. Let?s not forget that it was Kristol and Fred Kagan?s brother, Robert, who first ginned up the ?Saddam Must Go? campaign in a January 30, 1998, New York Times op-ed. Neither of the Kagans, nor Kristol, ever served in the military, and the closest Fred Kagan ever came to the military was a Wingnut Welfare sinecure teaching military history at West Point, though his academic training was in Soviet military strategy ? something singularly pointless when analyzing the Middle East. So let?s not re-litigate that, because it might make us look bad. Likewise the let?s-n0t-re-litigate-the-withdrawal, which Kristol and Kagan cleverly date to 2011 ? so as to blame it Obama by inference (and look magnanimous and statesman-like in their forbearance of ?litigation?) ? despite the fact that Fred Kagan was one of the architects of the so-called ?surge,? which was intended (theoretically) to tamp down the sectarian violence that had engulfed Iraq and would permit the signing of a Status-of-Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the two countries to facilitate American withdrawal ? something George W. Bush was all-too-keen to do, so that his presumptive Republican predecessor would inherit a ?victory? in Iraq. Kagan is especially keen that we not re-litigate the decision to withdraw because in 2008, after Bush signed the SOFA with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, he dutifully trooped over to Hugh Hewitt?s all-neocon/all-the-time radio show to declare the SOFA ?a great accomplishment.? Of course, once President Obama was in the Oval Office, Kagan decreed from his perch at the American Enterprise Institute that fulfilling the obligations of the SOFA ? namely, withdrawing U.S. troops ? suddenly went from being ?a great accomplishment? to ?a retreat.? In a famous scene from the 1984 mockumentary, This is Spinal Tap, the eponymous band finds itself lost and blundering about backstage, trying to follow a janitor?s directions to the stage door but endlessly finding themselves at a dead end. To keep the band?s spirits up, bass player Derek Smalls (played by Harry Shearer), keeps shouting ?rock and roll!? every time they embark on yet another fruitless quest to find the stage. That?s Kristol and Kagan today, wandering through the conference facilities and green rooms of the Beltway, pumping themselves up with more war rock-and-roll, and, as always, finding themselves at a dead end. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 17 19:24:51 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 20:24:51 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Judge_allows_US_Marshals=92_seiz?= =?windows-1252?q?ure_of_stingray_records=2C_dimisses_lawsuit?= Message-ID: Judge allows US Marshals? seizure of stingray records, dimisses lawsuit What began as request for info on cell tracking records turns into surreal tale. by Cyrus Farivar - June 17 2014, 7:40pm EDT http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/judge-allows-us-marshals-seizure-of-stingray-records-dimisses-lawsuit/ The American Civil Liberties Union has lost in its attempt to get the city of Sarasota, Florida, to hand over city records pertaining to the use of stingrays, or fake cell tower surveillance devices. As we reported earlier this month, the ACLU asked a Florida court for an emergency motion (PDF) that would require the city to make its stingray records available via a public records request. These devices, which are also known as international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) catchers, can be used to track phones or, in some cases, intercept calls and text messages. The term ?Stingray? is a trademarked product manufactured by a Florida-based company, the Harris Corporation. But it has since come to be used as a generic term, like Xerox or Kleenex. Harris is notoriously secretive about the capabilities of its devices and generally won?t talk to the press about their capabilities or deployments. Federal authorities frustrated the ACLU?s efforts to learn how the devices are used in Sarasota after the US Marshals Service (USMS) deputized a local police detective. The USMS then physically moved the stack of paper records hundreds of miles away. In a four-page decision issued on Tuesday, state circuit court judge Charles Williams found that his court lacked jurisdiction over a federal agency?effectively recognizing the transfer of the stingray documents to the US government. The case was therefore dismissed. However, pursuant to the government?s own voluntarily handover as it was described to the court on June 12, the court ordered that the US government must turn over applications and orders approving the use of stingray devices that have already been filed under seal and issued by Florida state judges. Those records will, at least for the time being, remain sealed. Appeal forthcoming Michael Barfield, vice president of the ACLU of Florida, told Ars that he planned on appealing the decision and filing a motion to unseal these stingray records. ?I can guarantee you that we will move to unseal them and we also are evaluating our options in terms of appealing the judge?s decision because we never had an opportunity to address a critical factual issue in his ruling,? he said, noting that it remains unclear what portion of the stingray records the US government is willing to hand over. ?Now based on the judge?s order it appears that factual representations were made and, because we didn?t refute them at the status conference, they?re being used as a basis for the judge?s rationale, which obviously we disagree with.? Barfield added that he continues to believe, despite the federal government?s claims, that the stingray records as they originated with the Sarasota Police Department are a state record and that state records law applies. ?When the government goes to such lengths to keep the public in the dark about its warrantless spying on citizens, then the requirement that courts approve of government searches is rendered pointless,? he added by e-mail. ?Both the federal and local governments need to respect open records laws so the public knows what police are doing in their name.? Sean Flynn, the appearing attorney for the United States, did not immediately respond to Ars? request for comment. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 17 19:40:51 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 20:40:51 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Swarming boats? Really? Message-ID: Military Blimps Will Float In Aberdeen, Tracking Potential Threats http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2014/06/17/military-blimps-will-float-in-aberdeen-tracking-potential-threats/ ABERDEEN, Md. (WJZ)?Soon, Maryland will be the home to a couple of new landmarks. Actually, sky-marks. As Mike Schuh reports, two large blimps will soon rise over Harford County and stay put. Radar blimps like these have been used on the battlefield to track the enemy, and in the Caribbean to intercept drug runners. Testing in Utah is complete. Now they?re being packed up and sent to Maryland. ?There is some equipment already on grounds, yes,? said Kelly Luster, a spokesman for Aberdeen Proving Ground. What will they be looking for? Anti-ship cruise missiles, unmanned aircraft and swarming boats. These blimps are a lot like a toy balloon. They are unmanned and are held in place by a very long tether. Hovering over Aberdeen, some days you?ll be able to see them from Baltimore. ?On a clear day, you can see them for up to 50 miles,? Luster said. With a range from Richmond to Staten Island, privacy experts have concerns. ?That kind of tracking technology raises privacy concerns, and if the military wants to test hardware they should not be testing out on the American public,? said David Rocah, ACLU staff attorney. Aberdeen?s spokesman says that?s not happening. ?There are no cameras aboard the payloads of either of these aerostats. We are not going to be hovering around our neighbors around Aberdeen Proving Grounds, seeing what they are doing in their backyards; no cameras, no spying,? Luster said. The long cables tying the blimps to the ground shouldn?t be a concern to private and commercial airplanes, as all of the airspace above Aberdeen is restricted, so special permission is needed to enter. More than 140 people are moving to Maryland to operate the blimps. The first flight is this fall. They will be aloft for three years. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jun 18 11:12:43 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2014 12:12:43 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - African firm is selling pepper-spray bullet firing drones Message-ID: <0483C480-A5F0-4628-9C3D-69C5F724FDB0@infowarrior.org> African firm is selling pepper-spray bullet firing drones http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27902634 < - > Desert Wolf's website states that its Skunk octacopter drone is fitted with four high-capacity paintball barrels, each capable of firing up to 20 bullets per second. In addition to pepper-spray ammunition, the firm says it can also be armed with dye-marker balls and solid plastic balls. The machine can carry up to 4,000 bullets at a time as well as "blinding lasers" and on-board speakers that can communicate warnings to a crowd. < - > --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jun 18 13:02:01 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2014 14:02:01 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - New NSA Revelations: Inside Snowden's Germany File Message-ID: <480B659B-903D-404F-98DF-C5FBAB2BC952@infowarrior.org> New NSA Revelations: Inside Snowden's Germany File http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/new-snowden-revelations-on-nsa-spying-in-germany-a-975441.html Der Spiegel Releases 200 pp of Snowden Docs (PDF) http://cryptome.org/2014/06/nsa-spiegel-snowden-14-0618.pdf --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jun 19 13:30:40 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 14:30:40 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?_MPAA_Offers_=2420=2C000_Grants_?= =?windows-1252?q?For_=93Unbiased=94_Piracy_Research?= Message-ID: MPAA Offers $20,000 Grants For ?Unbiased? Piracy Research ? By Ernesto ? on June 19, 2014 http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-offers-20000-grants-piracy-research-140619/ The MPAA is inviting academics to pitch research proposals that aim to provide insight into the copyright challenges faced by the movie industry in the digital age. Researchers are being offered a $20,000 grant for projects that address various piracy related topics, including the impact of copyright law and the effectiveness of DMCA takedown notices. Late last year a study from European researchers revealed that the Megaupload shutdown had a negative effect on the box office revenues of smaller films. The researchers suggested that the decrease in sales may be the result of a drop in word-of-mouth promotion from pirates, which affects smaller movies more since they have less advertising budget. The MPAA wasn?t happy with the media coverage the study generated and went on the defensive citing two Carnegie Mellon University studies to show that piracy harms sales. Interestingly, it failed to disclose that those findings came from research that was supported by a $100,000 grant from the MPAA. While we trust that the research is solid, the above shows that academic research plays an important role in the MPAA?s lobbying efforts. For this reason, the Hollywood group has recently started a grants program, hoping to enlist more academics to conduct copyright-related research. The MPAA is now accepting research proposals on a series of predefined topics. They include the impact of copyright law on innovation and the effectiveness of DMCA takedown notices. The best applications will be awarded a $20,000 grant. ?We want to enlist the help of academics from around the world to provide new insight on a range of issues facing the content industry in the digital age,? says MPAA CEO and former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd. According to the MPAA boss, academic researchers can contribute to understanding the changes the industry faces by providing unbiased insights. ?We need more and better research regarding the evolving role of copyright in society. The academic community can provide unbiased observations, data analysis, historical context and important revelations about how these changes are impacting the film industry and other IP-reliant sectors,? Dodd notes. The MPAA clearly sees academic research as an important tool in their efforts to ensure that copyright protections remain in place, or are strengthened if needed. This outreach to academics may in part be fueled by what their ?opponents? are doing. Google, for example, is heavily supporting academic research on copyright-related projects in part to further their own interests. Both sides clearly steer researchers by giving them precise directions on the grounds they want covered. It?s now up to the academics to make sure that they don?t become pawns in a much bigger fight, and that their research is conducted and results presented in an objective manner. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jun 20 07:27:35 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 08:27:35 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Ex-NSA Chief Pitches Advice on Cyber Threats to the Banks Message-ID: Here we go again...... Ex-NSA Chief Pitches Advice on Cyber Threats to the Banks By Carter Dougherty and Jesse Hamilton Jun 20, 2014 12:01 AM ET http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-20/ex-nsa-chief-pitches-advice-on-cyber-threats-to-the-banks.html As the four-star general in charge of U.S. digital defenses, Keith Alexander warned repeatedly that the financial industry was among the likely targets of a major attack. Now he?s selling the message directly to the banks. Joining a crowded field of cyber-consultants, the former National Security Agency chief is pitching his services for as much as $1 million a month. The audience is receptive: Under pressure from regulators, lawmakers and their customers, financial firms are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into barriers against digital assaults. Alexander, who retired in March from his dual role as head of the NSA and the U.S. Cyber Command, has since met with the largest banking trade groups, stressing the threat from state-sponsored attacks bent on data destruction as well as hackers interested in stealing information or money. ?It would be devastating if one of our major banks was hit, because they?re so interconnected,? Alexander said in an interview. A lesson in the vulnerabilities came yesterday, when it was disclosed that hackers disrupted high-speed trading at a large hedge fund and rerouted data that might be used to make money in rogue stock-market transactions. Paul Henninger, global product director for BAE Systems (BA/) Applied Intelligence, said that the eight-week incident at the unidentified firm had ?all the signatures of an organized crime attack.? Rising Losses Banks that not long ago had 10 or 15 people repelling computer invaders now have 50 to 100 people ?that do nothing but respond to attacks and review intelligence,? Joe Nocera, head of the financial-services cybersecurity group at PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP, said in an interview. The largest banks are allocating the most resources. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) has 1,000 people focused on the danger and will spend $250 million this year, Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said in an April letter to shareholders. Financial executives responding to a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey reported that incidents rose from 1,720 in 2012 to 4,628 last year. Losses from the attacks are up ?significantly,? according to the report. For several months beginning in fall 2012, major U.S. bank websites were hit by what is known as distributed denial-of-service attacks, in which hackers flood systems with information to shut them down. Clients of JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. (C) and Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) had trouble accessing their accounts. The banks turned to the NSA for help in analyzing and protecting against the attacks, the Washington Post reported at the time. Wiper Threat Alexander, 62, said in the interview he was invited to give a talk to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, known as Sifma, shortly after leaving the NSA and starting his firm, IronNet Cybersecurity Inc. He has met with other finance groups including the Consumer Bankers Association, the Financial Services Roundtable and The Clearing House. At the sessions, Alexander discussed destructive computer programs such as Wiper, which the U.S. government said was notable because attacks using it appeared to originate from North Korea and Iran. ?I told them I did think they could defend against that,? Alexander said. Still, despite the banks? growing investments in computer security, Alexander said, ?many of them aren?t really confident they?re getting their money?s worth.? The ex-NSA chief is leasing office space from Promontory Financial Group LLC, a Washington consultancy that focuses on the banking industry. Eugene Ludwig, Promontory?s founder and chief executive officer, joined Alexander at a meeting with Sifma, Wall Street?s largest lobby group. Sifma Meeting Alexander offered to provide ongoing advice to Sifma for $1 million a month, according to two people briefed on the talks. The asking price later dropped to $600,000, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the negotiation was private. Alexander declined to comment on the details, except to say that his firm will have contracts ?in the near future.? Kenneth Bentsen, Sifma?s president, said at a Bloomberg Government event yesterday in Washington that ?cybersecurity is probably our number one priority? now that most regulatory changes imposed after the 2008 credit crisis have been absorbed. ?There are a lot of very high-caliber people that have served in public positions who bring a tremendous amount of expertise that our industry or other industries can benefit from. General Alexander is certainly one of those people,? Bentsen said. CIA Deputy Former U.S. intelligence officials are part of the burgeoning Internet security industry. Michael Morell, who last year was deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, now works for Beacon Global Strategies LLC and appeared at a Sifma event to warn financial firms about cybersecurity threats. CrowdStrike Inc., a security-technology company that does work for the largest banks, has former FBI officials on its staff. The firm?s general counsel, Steven Chabinsky, was a deputy assistant director in the FBI?s cyber division. Alexander specialized in technology and intelligence during four decades in the military, including as commander of Army Intelligence and Security and deputy Army chief of staff, before being named to head the NSA in 2005. Defense Secretary Robert Gates nominated him in 2009 to also head the new Cyber Command, which consolidates resources from all the military branches. Snowden Leaks Alexander had devoted many of his public statements to the growing threats to private infrastructure -- before his tenure at the NSA became embroiled in responses to revelations about the agency contained in files leaked by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. ?Offensive cyber programs and capabilities are growing, evolving and spreading before our eyes,? he told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2013. ?They are particularly targeting our telecommunications, information technology, financial, security and energy sectors. They are exploiting these targets on a scale amounting to the greatest unwilling transfer of wealth in history.? In the interview, Alexander said that a successful major attack on a bank would shake consumer confidence even if the institution were able to recover quickly. ?If all your banking stuff was just wiped out? and the bank had no record of how much money its customers had on deposit, ?they could go back to their last surviving record -- but that might not be today,? Alexander said. U.S. Oversight That scenario also has banking regulators and lawmakers pressing the industry to strengthen protections. Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry, who heads the federal agency overseeing national banks, said his examiners used to focus exclusively on financial risks. Now the regulators scrutinize cyber defenses to ensure the firms are meeting new expectations for being prepared, he said in an interview. Curry said the recent data breaches at large retailers including Target Corp. (TGT) ?put the issue on the front page and in forefront of executives? and regulators? minds.? Some state regulators also have been leaning on the banks they supervise. ?I don?t want to be Chicken Little and say the sky is falling,? Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of New York?s department of financial services, said in an interview. ?But we really need to focus on this issue.? Congressional Inquiry In Congress, Representative Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican who chairs a House Financial Services subcommittee, held a March hearing on the security of customer data, saying ?recent breaches demonstrated an evolving sophistication of attacks.? Alexander said in the interview that one obstacle to a stronger system is the legitimate concern banks have about privacy and liability when they give data to other firms and the government. The Senate Intelligence Committee next week will take up a bipartisan bill -- sponsored by Senators Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, and Saxby Chambliss, a Georgia Republican -- which would set rules and protections for information-sharing. Such a law would be an important tool to improve the nation?s defenses, Alexander said. ?What I?m concerned about is we?re going to have a 9/11 in cyberspace,? he said. ?We don?t need to suffer this kind of attack.? For Related News and Information: To contact the reporters on this story: Carter Dougherty in Washington at cdougherty6 at bloomberg.net; Jesse Hamilton in Washington at jhamilton33 at bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Maura Reynolds at mreynolds34 at bloomberg.net Lawrence Roberts, Anthony Gnoffo --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jun 20 07:30:16 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 08:30:16 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Stingray Documents Show Law Enforcement Using 'Terrorism' To Obtain Equipment To Fight Regular Crime Message-ID: Stingray Documents Show Law Enforcement Using 'Terrorism' To Obtain Equipment To Fight Regular Crime https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140619/09211027625/stingray-documents-show-law-enforcement-using-terrorism-to-obtain-equipment-to-fight-regular-crime.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jun 20 07:32:13 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 08:32:13 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - House votes 293-123 to cut funding for NSA spying on Americans Message-ID: <725C1E33-D691-4998-B316-673C1591FCEF@infowarrior.org> (Poor Rep Mike Rogers must be in tears beside himself. Oh, well. --rick) House votes 293-123 to cut funding for NSA spying on Americans The amendment would also stop "backdoors" from being built into tech products. by Megan Geuss - June 20 2014, 2:25am EDT http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/house-votes-293-123-to-cut-funding-for-nsa-spying-on-americans-building-backdoors/ In a surprising vote late Thursday night, a strong majority of the House of Representatives voted to cut funding to NSA operations that involve warrantless spying on Americans or involve putting hardware or software "backdoors" into various products. The amendment to a defense appropriations bill, offered by Reps. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), and Thomas Massie (R-KY), passed 293 to 123. The amendment specifies that, with a few exceptions, ?none of the funds made available by this Act may be used by an officer or employee of the United States to query a collection of foreign intelligence information acquired under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1881a) using a United States person as an identifier.? In addition, ?none of the funds made available by this Act may be used by the National Security Agency or the Central Intelligence Agency to mandate or request that a person...alter its product or service to permit the electronic surveillance...of any user of said product or service for said agencies.? Since Edward Snowden began leaking documents about the NSA's tactics in June of last year, security experts have worried about reports of intentional weaknesses left in widely used cryptography specifications. The amendment is a contrast to the USA Freedom Act passed last month. That bill was initially intended to reform the NSA but, in its final form, still permitted the spy agency to access its vast trove of phone call metadata. Because the item passed tonight was an amendment to an appropriations bill, it went to the floor without being scrutinized by the intelligence committee, which is "basically a proxy for the intelligence community,? as Julian Sanchez of the Cato Institute explained to Wired. The amendment still has to be approved by the Senate in order to take effect in 2015. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jun 20 07:48:00 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 08:48:00 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: Dick Cheney Would Be an Awful Trader Message-ID: (And yet the MSM is trotting these people - the neocons - out to opine and offer their 'advice' on how to deal with the present Iraq situation, which they also see as an opportunity to craft a revisionist narrative to eliminate any responsibility of their own for things now. MSM producers and bookers forget that being in power, regardless of title, doesn't mean you're actually smart, right, or competent ..... regardless of party affiliation. --rick) Dick Cheney Would Be an Awful Trader Jun 20, 2014 8:24 AM EDT By Barry Ritholtz http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-06-20/dick-cheney-would-be-an-awful-trader I have spilled a great deal of pixels and time in these pages discussing the importance of not letting your biases get the best of you as an investor. (See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this). Further, when you are wrong, you must do more than merely acknowledge it: Embrace the error, understand it and learn from it. Traders who don't learn these lessons very quickly become ex-traders. If only the same were true for the pundits and politicians who refuse to acknowledge their mistakes. Instead, they double down on the same bad philosophy and belief system that led to the error in the first place. The latest example of this is former Vice President Dick Cheney. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed -- one that isn't even worthy of a link -- he blames the entire Iraq fiasco on the current president, stating ?Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many.? I did a double-take when I read that: I wasn?t sure if he was discussing the current president or the man Cheney ostensibly worked for, George W. Bush. Regardless of what you think about the current sitting president -- he has been an enormous disappoint for many, and his poll numbers reflect that -- invading Iraq was a choice made by the Bush administration. And the only person more wrong about Iraq than Bush was the invasion?s chief advocate and architect, Cheney himself. Paul Waldman writing in the Washington Post pulled together some Cheney quotes that are instructive: ? ?Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.? ? ?It?s been pretty well confirmed? that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta ?did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service.? ? ?We do know, with absolute certainty, that [Saddam Hussein] is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon? ? ?I think they?re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.? (2005) Waldman further notes that among the other people who were terribly wrong about Iraq -- and it is a long list that includes Bill Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld -- no one ?has been more wrong and more shamelessly dishonest on the topic of Iraq than Dick Cheney.? My own analysis of the invasion of Iraq, published the night before hostilities formally began, was called ``Not So Hidden Agenda.'' Using open-source material, I wrote at the time it was fairly conclusive that Iraqi leader Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction. And since it was unimaginable to me that any American president would invade a country under false pretenses, I tried to reverse engineer the actual reasons we might invade a sovereign country that posed no direct threat and hadn't attacked the U.S. or its allies. I got it wrong. My failure was to miss the mendacity of Bush-Cheney administration, its lack of planning for the occupation and its ignorance of the history and culture of the nation we invaded. At least I accurately estimated that the war would last more than a decade and cost at least $1 trillion. Which leads me back to the original theme I have been harping on lately: Being wrong has consequences -- but they are easily recognizable, and if corrected early enough, not often terribly costly. Being wrong, staying wrong, and refusing to acknowledge your errors are expensive, fatal flaws. It's as true for politicians as it is for traders. To contact the author of this article: Barry Ritholtz at britholtz3 at bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this article: James Greiff at jgreiff at bloomberg.net. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jun 20 09:09:44 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 10:09:44 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?How_Secret_Partners_Expand_NSA?= =?windows-1252?q?=92s_Surveillance_Dragnet?= Message-ID: <1EA7E89C-1C85-4847-A665-1FFCF85D5346@infowarrior.org> How Secret Partners Expand NSA?s Surveillance Dragnet https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/06/18/nsa-surveillance-secret-cable-partners-revealed-rampart-a/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jun 20 13:24:28 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 14:24:28 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - More than 400 U.S. drones have crashed since 2001 Message-ID: <2372D95D-6017-421D-9092-F349A3DD8E32@infowarrior.org> Big WaPo investigative story..... More than 400 U.S. drones have crashed since 2001 http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/06/20/when-drones-fall-from-the-sky/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jun 20 15:42:13 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 16:42:13 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Emails Show Feds Instructed Police To Lie About Using Stingrays Message-ID: <1E399BD6-3A25-4EB4-BFEC-F965B4E76538@infowarrior.org> New Emails Show That Feds Instructed Police To Lie About Using Stingray Mobile Phone Snooping by Mike Masnick Fri, Jun 20th 2014 12:03pm https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140620/10271327635/new-emails-show-that-feds-instructed-police-to-lie-about-using-stingray-mobile-phone-snooping.shtml < - > Late last night, the ACLU came out with perhaps the most explosive information so far: a set of internal police emails showing that the US Marshals have been instructing police to lie to courts about the use of such devices. Specifically, rather than revealing the use of the tool, they're told to just tell the court they got the information from a "confidential source.? While affidavits may initially note the use of such a device, the police are told to submit a new affidavit after the fact without mentioning the Stingray, and seal the old one, so that it never becomes public. < - > --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jun 20 17:50:12 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 18:50:12 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Court renews NSA phone program Message-ID: <99EB23F5-D5B3-41CE-9FB0-030A130EEC2D@infowarrior.org> Court renews NSA phone program By Julian Hattem - 06/20/14 05:38 PM EDT http://thehill.com/policy/technology/210121-nsa-program-renewed-while-congress-debates-reform The federal court overseeing the country?s spy agencies renewed an order Friday allowing the National Security Agency to collect phone records of people in the United States. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court?s renewal of the contested program, authorized under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, comes as lawmakers continue to debate reform legislation. ?Given that legislation has not yet been enacted, and given the importance of maintaining the capabilities of the Section 215 telephony metadata program, the government has sought a 90-day reauthorization of the existing program,? the Justice Department and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said in a joint statement. The NSA?s bulk collection of phone "metadata," such as which numbers people dial and how long they talk, was one of the most controversial programs revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden last summer. The program requires renewal by the secretive spy court every 90 days. Some privacy advocates have urged the Obama administration not to ask for reauthorization while Congress debates a measure to effectively end the program. The program is ?not effective,? ?unconstitutional? and ?has been misused,? more than two-dozen groups wrote in a letter this week. Administration officials have said that the program is necessary to track terrorists and foreign agents and have rejected calls to end or significantly reform the program without legislation from Congress. The program?s renewal, which was officially issued on Thursday but unclassified on Friday, expires on Sept. 12. The House last month passed the USA Freedom Act to end the phone records program, but that bill is still working its way through the Senate. Multiple reform advocates have worried that it does not go far enough. The bill would end the NSA program and require government agents to get a court order before searching private phone companies? storehouses of phone records, a move endorsed by President Obama earlier this year. ?Overall, the bill?s significant reforms would provide the public greater confidence in our programs and the checks and balances in the system, while ensuring our intelligence and law enforcement professionals have the authorities they need to protect the Nation,? the Justice Department and ODNI explained. Critics on both sides of the aisle, however, have worried that compromise language in the version passed by the House could still allow NSA agents to grab vast amounts of records in one sweep, such as those of every resident in a single ZIP code or all subscribers of a particular phone company like Verizon. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jun 20 18:17:22 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 19:17:22 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Breakthrough in Alzheimer's research, Georgetown seeks volunteers Message-ID: <68D45B2C-C8F3-4B7F-9F14-3BE6FDA88596@infowarrior.org> Breakthrough in Alzheimer's research, Georgetown seeks volunteers Friday - 6/20/2014, 6:48pm ET By Paula Wolfson http://www.wtop.com/267/3648094/Wanted-10000-volunteers-for-brain-study WASHINGTON -- A huge international medical trial could be a gamechanger for millions of people at risk of getting Alzheimer's disease. Researchers at 60 sites in the United States, Canada and Australia are getting ready to test an antibody that they believe could break-up a dangerous form of plaque that builds in the brain. It is called amyloid plaque and this abnormal protein has the ability to kill nerve cells, triggering the dementia of Alzheimer's. The theory goes, detect the plaque early, destroy it, and the disease will never take hold. For many years that was an illusive goal because the only way to find the plaque was through an autopsy. But a new form of imaging - the PET scan -- is giving doctors the ability to find amyloid plaque years before the first symptoms of Alzheimer's appear. "This was the breakthrough that really allowed this prevention study to happen because now we can identify the patients that are at high risk of getting Alzheimer's disease," says Dr. Scott Turner, director of the memory disorders program at Georgetown University Medical Center. Georgetown and the other trial sites are now recruiting 10,000 volunteers for PET screening -- all of them healthy seniors between the ages 65 and 85. They need so many because most of the volunteers are likely to test negative for amyloid plaque. Their goal is to find 1,000 with positive test results who are willing to take part in the 39-month trial. So far, the response to the call for volunteers has been slow. Georgetown, for example only has one person in the screening process, and several more signed up. "I think it will take longer than planned because almost all our studies take longer than planned," says Turner, who believes the original recruiting target will eventually be met. Of equal concern to this Georgetown professor of neurology is getting a volunteer pool that is representative of the diversity of the Alzheimer patient population. "The people that tend to join our studies are very educated and overwhelmingly Caucasian and yet we know that Alzheimer's affects everyone," he says. Traditionally, African-Americans and Hispanics have accounted for only only a tiny fraction of the participants in clinical trials. This time, the researchers have set an ambitious target, insisting that 20 percent of those taking part in the study must come from these groups. Some research sites say they are having problems with recruitment because so many seniors are scared to find out if they are high risk of Alzheimer's. Turner says that isn't really an issue, and that most of the volunteers are likely to be people with a family history, who have seen first hand the devastating affect of the disease. It will be what is called a "blind trial." Half the participants will be randomly chosen to get the treatment and half will take a placebo. Neither patients nor their health care providers will know which is being administered until the end of the study. The stakes for the researchers are huge. Five million Americans have Alzheimer's, and there are about 15 million caregivers. Turner says if this trial works, the medical community will finally be able to move forward and, hopefully, prevent the disease. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jun 20 21:44:36 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 22:44:36 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Secret trade agreement covering 68 percent of world services published by WikiLeaks Message-ID: <2128C5BB-1706-49BE-8A00-EAF80ED2BE8E@infowarrior.org> Secret trade agreement covering 68 percent of world services published by WikiLeaks http://rt.com/usa/167088-wikileaks-tisa-secret-trade/ Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) - Financial Services Annex https://wikileaks.org/tisa-financial/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Jun 21 11:32:26 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 12:32:26 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - You Keep Using That Word. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means. Message-ID: You Keep Using That Word. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means. June 20, 2014 By Kara Drapala http://blog.opendns.com/2014/06/20/keep-using-word-think-means-think-means/ Buzzwords are the worst, and unfortunately the security industry is rife with jargon?terms that either don?t mean anything in the first place or try ineffectively to dress up un-sexy verbiage for marketing purposes. You?ll definitely see some familiar argot below; many practitioners and all vendors are guilty of using these phrases?including us! In this post, we round up the worst words around and examine how they?re being used in the security space. Now, you can stop shouting ?the cloud! the cloud!? at your screen ? we?ll get to it. But first, the rest of the list: Defense-in-Depth (a.k.a. expense-in-depth): Buyer, beware! This concept refers to the multiple layers of security protecting your data. Unfortunately, this term has also become the battlecry of ?me too? vendors ? salesmen trying to con buyers into wasting money on solutions they don?t really need. Smart security spending, strategically aligned to what your greatest risks are, will trump a mess of the latest and greatest any day. APT (Advanced Persistent Threat): More like advanced persistent term, amirite? First, an incredibly brief definition: APTs are a specific type of targeted attack. They are conceived and executed by professionals using highly evolved methods, and their goal is to live in your network for long periods of time, siphoning data from your organization for malicious purposes. Real APTs are serious threats and should be recognized as such. That being said, APT is a handy acronym that looks great when written threateningly at the top of a Web page or one-pager. This once-serious term has been ground through the marketing mill so thoroughly that it has very little meaning anymore ? vendors claim that their solutions can protect against APTs, but guess what? THEY DON?T?they?re just slapping the APT label on any attack that threatens your network, advanced, persistent, targeted, or not. Big Data: First things first?if you are storing or analyzing ?big data? in an SQL database or SIEM, it is not big data. In a world where everyone claims to have vast amounts of information at their fingertips, the term is subjective and size is relative. More importantly, when discussing the concept of Big Data, most people get hung up on volume, and often neglect the fact that extracting relevant and compelling intelligence (in a timely fashion) from that data is the real prize. For more information on Big Data, check out this blog from OpenDNS Product Manager Trey Kelly. Unknown Threat: ?Reports that say there?s?that something hasn?t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things that we know that we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don?t know we don?t know.? ? Donald Rumsfeld ROI: A phrase seemingly invented to placate management types. What could be better than explaining how much money and/or time you?re about to save the company? Not much. However, this term becomes relatively meaningless to actual security practitioners before the ink dries on the contract. User-friendly: A great characteristic to list on your product page, but irrelevant for practiced professionals. ?User-friendly? smacks of the technically incompetent. Next-Generation: Vendors are constantly trying to out-do their competition??so it makes sense that companies don?t just want to be the best TODAY, they want to be the best tomorrow, too. But who decides when one generation ends, and another begins? Does a survey go out? Is there a countdown clock? And in 2015, are we going to start seeing marketing promos for the Next-Next-Generation Firewalls? At the end of the day, this phrase is so overused it has absolutely no meaning. The Cloud: Typing ?What is the cloud?? into Google yields about 265,000,000 results, yet somehow, no one seems to know what the cloud is. It?s a term as nebulous and ephemeral as its namesake, and thus has been exploited to death by marketers looking to capitalize on the confusion of buyers. Here?s the thing: done right, the cloud is awesome. It can give individuals and organizations alike access to new tools that promote efficiency, collaboration, productivity, and security at scale. Unfortunately, these tangible benefits of cloud computing have remained a mystery to most people, causing them to place the cloud on a puffy pedestal and creating headaches for their earth-bound IT admins (sometimes with hilarious results). --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Jun 23 14:13:32 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2014 15:13:32 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?=93Civilian_casualties=94_author?= =?windows-1252?q?ized_under_secret_US_drone-strike_memo?= Message-ID: <1E328E7D-638E-4374-B92B-10E471549727@infowarrior.org> ?Civilian casualties? authorized under secret US drone-strike memo US justifies killings as acts of war despite civilian deaths, global precedent. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/civilian-casualties-authorized-under-secret-us-drone-strike-memo/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Jun 23 17:36:07 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2014 18:36:07 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - How The House Leadership Tried To Misrepresent Amendment That Defunded NSA Backdoor Searches Message-ID: How The House Leadership Tried To Misrepresent Amendment That Defunded NSA Backdoor Searches https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140620/16332727640/how-house-leadership-tried-to-misrepresent-amendment-that-defunded-nsa-backdoor-searches.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Jun 23 21:17:31 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2014 22:17:31 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Seizing_data_for_2=2E5_years_amo?= =?windows-1252?q?unts_to_=93general_warrant=2C=94_court_says?= Message-ID: <18D2AFB9-50E0-4703-8EBC-BFDFACCAAA39@infowarrior.org> Seizing data for 2.5 years amounts to ?general warrant,? court says Decision limits government powers to search seized computer data carte blanche. by David Kravets - June 23 2014, 6:30pm EDT http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/seizing-data-for-2-5-years-amounts-to-general-warrant-court-says/ A federal appeals court has reversed an accountant's tax-evasion conviction because the government seized his computer data and held it for more than 2.5 years?a breach of the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches. The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that the government's tactics against the Connecticut accountant amounted to an "unreasonable seizure." The authorities seized the accountant's records while investigating alleged illegal activity of his clients. But they continued holding the data for years and later brought charges against the accountant, who was not the target of the original investigation. "If the government could seize and retain non-responsive electronic records indefinitely, so it could search them whenever it later developed probable cause, every warrant to search for particular electronic data would become, in essence, a general warrant," Judge Denny Chin wrote for the appeals court. At least one digital rights group said the decision may affect the National Security Agency's vast electronic snooping programs disclosed by whistleblower Edward Snowden. "I would certainly argue that it calls into question the whole collect-it-all-and-sniff-through-it-later practice," Hanni Fakhoury, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Courthouse News Service. The accountant's data was seized in 2003 pursuant to a valid warrant. But in 2006, the authorities began developing a case against the accountant. The feds examined more of the data, obtained a warrant, and then brought charges of alleged tax evasion. The man was convicted and sentenced to two years. His sentence was stayed pending appeal. "The Fourth Amendment was intended to prevent the government from entering individuals' homes and indiscriminately seizing all their papers in the hopes of discovering evidence about previously unknown crimes," Chin wrote. "Yet this is exactly what the government claims it may do when it executes a warrant calling for the seizure of particular electronic data relevant to a different crime.? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 24 05:57:00 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 06:57:00 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Researchers Find and Decode the Spy Tools Governments Use to Hijack Phones Message-ID: <99A916B0-2573-4579-A012-F754DD5B71BD@infowarrior.org> Researchers Find and Decode the Spy Tools Governments Use to Hijack Phones ? By Kim Zetter ? 06.24.14 | ? 6:00 am | http://www.wired.com/2014/06/remote-control-system-phone-surveillance/ Newly uncovered components of a digital surveillance tool used by more than 60 governments worldwide provide a rare glimpse at the extensive ways law enforcement and intelligence agencies use the tool to surreptitiously record and steal data from mobile phones. The modules, made by the Italian company Hacking Team, were uncovered by researchers working independently of each other at Kaspersky Lab in Russia and the Citizen Lab in Canada, who say the findings provide great insight into the trade craft behind Hacking Team?s tools. The new components target Android, iOS, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry users and are part of Hacking Team?s larger suite of tools used for targeting desktop computers and laptops. But the iOS and Android modules provide cops and spooks with a robust menu of features to give them complete dominion over targeted phones. They allow, for example, for covert collection of emails, text messages, call history and address books, and they can be used to log keystrokes and obtain search history data. They can take screenshots, record audio from the phones to monitor calls or ambient conversations, hijack the phone?s camera to snap pictures or piggyback on the phone?s GPS system to monitor the user?s location. The Android version can qlso enable the phone?s Wi-Fi function to siphon data from the phone wirelessly instead of using the cell network to transmit it. The latter would incur data charges and raise the phone owner?s suspicion. ?Secretly activating the microphone and taking regular camera shots provides constant surveillance of the target?which is much more powerful than traditional cloak and dagger operations,? notes Kaspersky researcher Sergey Golovanov in a blog post about the findings. < ---> http://www.wired.com/2014/06/remote-control-system-phone-surveillance/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 24 06:19:57 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 07:19:57 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Digitization Results In Routine Lock-Down Of Public Domain Books Message-ID: <924D80B5-79B8-4FB4-BDCD-4831C93B7D0B@infowarrior.org> New Research Shows Digitization Results In Routine Lock-Down Of Public Domain Books https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140621/02255227644/new-research-shows-digitization-results-routine-lock-down-public-domain-books.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 24 06:22:29 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 07:22:29 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Enclosing the public domain: The restriction of public domain books in a digital environment Message-ID: <7EAA36B0-D4F5-4F76-80CF-9551FB7BB390@infowarrior.org> Enclosing the public domain: The restriction of public domain books in a digital environment by Alex Clark and Brenda Chawner. First Monday, Volume 19, Number 6 - 2 June 2014 This paper explores restrictions that are being applied to New Zealand public domain books once they have been digitized and hosted online. The study assesses access and usage restrictions within six online repositories, using a sample of 100 pre?1890 New Zealand heritage books. The findings indicate that new restrictions are being applied to works no longer protected by copyright. Out of the 50 titles that had been digitized, only three were hosted by repositories that do not restrict any type of subsequent use. Furthermore, 48 percent (24) were subject to access restrictions. Copyright law?s delicate balance between public and private interests is being eroded by the prevalence of online terms and conditions, which invoke the doctrine of contract law in an attempt to restrict the public domain and opt?out of limitations upon copyright. Furthermore, ambiguity surrounding the copyright status of some books is encouraging digitizers to adopt restrictive access policies, even when a work is highly likely to be in the public domain. Unless clear rules of online curatorship are articulated within legislation, previously liberated public domain works are at risk of being restricted by online intermediaries http://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4975/4089 --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 24 06:24:16 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 07:24:16 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - US police departments are increasingly militarised, finds report Message-ID: <734063A9-8DA8-4D7C-93A2-8960DE15D1AE@infowarrior.org> US police departments are increasingly militarised, finds report ? Ed Pilkington in New York ? theguardian.com, Tuesday 24 June 2014 00.01 EDT ? ACLU cites soaring use of war zone equipment and tactics ? Swat teams increasingly deployed in local police raids ? Seven civilians killed and 46 injured in incidents since 2010 http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/jun/24/military-us-police-swat-teams-raids-aclu --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 24 07:06:11 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 08:06:11 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Report: Russia Switching to ARM Chips for Government PCs Message-ID: <8B91AC34-9AB5-4CC9-9A83-BC94E0AB34E0@infowarrior.org> Report: Russia Switching to ARM Chips for Government PCs By Niels BroekhuijsenJune 23, 2014 2:26 PM - Source: Kommersant.ru http://www.tomshardware.com/news/russia-intel-amd-arm,27118.html#xtor=RSS-181 Russia might be entirely ditching Intel and AMD CPUs for its government-related computers. Reports are all over the web with the information that the Russian government will be ditching all x86-based processors which means, of course, AMD and Intel. The report indicates that a number of Russian government-owned companies will collaborate to design a new chip, based on the ARM architecture. These chips will be known as the Baikal chips. It is expected that these will be making their way into all government computers and computers owned by government-owned firms, which in total equates to about 700,000 PCs per annum along with about 300,000 servers. Exactly what the motives are behind this plan remains unclear, though it is suggested that it may be due to fear of security leaks, despite the report making no mention of that. What the report does clearly state is that the chips from AMD and Intel are American made, which could mean anything. The Baikal chips, which will first come out as the Baikal M and Baikal M/S chips, will be 64-bit Cortex A-57 chips with eight cores, each clocked at 2.0 GHz. They will be fabricated using a 28 nm lithographic process. Time will tell how much of this will happen, or whether it is even true in the first place. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 24 17:13:20 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 18:13:20 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Judge rules no-fly list violates travelers' rights Message-ID: Judge rules no-fly list violates travelers' rights Michael Winter, USA TODAY 6 p.m. EDT June 24, 2014 http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/24/judge-rules-no-fly-list-unconstitutional/11320105/ A federal judge Tuesday ordered the government to revise its post-September 11 no-fly list, ruling it violates Americans' constitutional rights to travel freely and to effectively challenge being blacklisted because of alleged links to terrorism. "The court concludes international travel is not a mere convenience or luxury in this modern world. Indeed, for many international travel is a necessary aspect of liberties sacred to members of a free society," wrote U.S. District Court Judge Anna Brown in Portland, Ore. "Accordingly, on this record the court concludes plaintiffs inclusion on the no-fly list constitutes a significant deprivation of their liberty interests in international travel." She ruled that the Department of Homeland Security's process for challenging inclusion on the list "does not provide a meaningful mechanism for travelers who have been denied boarding to correct erroneous information in the government's terrorism databases." Thirteen American Muslims, including four military veterans, filed suit in 2010 after they were barred from boarding aircraft to or from the United States because their names were on the secret no-fly list, which is compiled from information deemed classified. All are U.S. citizens or permanent residents, and all have denied any involvement with terrorism, and none was charged with any crime. All had submitted applications to Homeland Security asking why their names were on the list, but DHS provided no explanations and would not say whether they would be allowed to fly in the future. In 2011, Brown dismisses the suit on procedural grounds, but a year later she was overruled by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which returned the case to her. In her 65-page ruling, Brown said DHS must devise a "meaningful procedure" for disclosing how a person ended up on the list, because a traveler "who has not been given any indication of the information that may be in the record does not have any way to correct that information." That, she wrote, violates due process guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. The FBI said last year the no-fly contained about 20,000 names, including 500 U.S. citizens. The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the case, hailed Brown's "excellent decision," saying it provides "the promise of a way out from a Kafkaesque bureaucracy." "For years, in the name of national security the government has argued for blanket secrecy and judicial deference to its profoundly unfair No Fly List procedures, and those arguments have now been resoundingly rejected by the court," said Hina Shamsi, the ACLU's national security project director. "Our clients will finally get the due process to which they are entitled under the Constitution." "We hope this serves as a wake-up call for the government to fix its broken watch-list system, which has swept up so many innocent people," she added. Several other court challenges have been filed. In January, a Malaysian university professor was cleared of terrorism charges after being mistakenly placed on the U.S. no-fly list because of a 2005 error by a Transportation Security Administration screener in San Francisco. Rahinah Ibrahim, who had studied at Stanford University, said she still cannot travel to the United States. Also In January, a federal judge allowed a Virginia man to continue his challenge to the travel blacklist, three years after he was stranded in Kuwait. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jun 24 18:49:56 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 19:49:56 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Senators push major FOIA change Message-ID: <296D1A11-673D-43D2-A80A-8045C9CEA7D6@infowarrior.org> Senators push major FOIA change By JOSH GERSTEIN | 6/24/14 1:08 PM EDT http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2014/06/senators-push-major-foia-change-191010.html Two senators are proposing the most significant reforms to the Freedom of Information Act in four decades, including altering a key exemption that government agencies frequently use to deny access to a vast swath of Executive Branch documents. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and fellow panel member Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) introduced legislation Tuesday that would allow the press and other public requesters to pierce the deliberative process privilege, a broad protection the courts give to records detailing the policymaking process as well as virtually any action leading up to any kind of decision by agency officials. In recent years, the provision?known as Exemption 5?has been ridiculed by transparency advocates as the 'withhold it because you want to' exception to FOIA. The legislation would also shut down that exemption after 25 years. Federal agencies have sometimes used it to withhold records created 40 years ago or more. However, with respect to presidential records, similar protection falls away after just 12 years unless a formal executive privilege claim is made. (Here, via Leahy's office, are a rundown of the bill and the full text.) "The Freedom of Information Act is one of our Nation's most important laws, established to give Americans greater access to their government and to hold government accountable," Leahy said in a statement stressing the bipartisan nature of the effort to put more teeth in FOIA. "Both Democrats and Republicans understand that a commitment to transparency is a commitment to the American values of openness and accountability." "Open government is the hallmark of a healthy democracy, and the American people have a fundamental right to know what their government is doing," added Cornyn, an advocate for FOIA and similar legislation since his days as Texas Attorney General. "I'm pleased to once again team up with Senator Leahy to strengthen FOIA and promote greater transparency across the board." Despite President Barack Obama's pledge to run the most transparent administration in history, use of Exemption 5 has risen in recent years to cover 12 percent of all requests. The Leahy-Cornyn bill would require a judge to balance the interest in protecting the decisionmaking process with the public interest in disclosure. Courts are not currently permitted to make such a balancing in FOIA, although they do so when applying the same deliberative process privilege in other types of litigation affecting government records. The same balancing would also be required with respect to materials prepared by government attorneys. The law would also allow requesters a chance to pierce the veil of attorney-client privileges, but only in cases where they can show a judge "compelling" public interest in the material. In February of this year, the House unanimously passed (410-0) FOIA reform legislation that also sought to rein in withholding of records by government agencies. However, openness advocates say the approach in that bill is less likely to unlock federal records than the Senate bill. The Freedom of Information Act was passed in 1966, but was highly dysfunctional in its early years. In a Watergate-driven reform drive, Congress overhauled the measure in 1974, drawing a veto from President Gerald Ford. Lawmakers promptly overrode Ford's veto. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jun 25 14:20:34 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 15:20:34 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - SCOTUS Rules Aerero is Illegal Message-ID: <0BF9A14A-CBAC-47F8-A436-1E3968F53838@infowarrior.org> U.S. Supreme Court Pulls the Plug on Aereo's Streaming TV Service By Pete Williams http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-supreme-court-pulls-plug-aereos-streaming-tv-service-n140486 The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday dealt a potentially fatal blow to Aereo, an Internet service that allows customers to watch broadcast TV programs on mobile devices. Launched a year ago in New York and then extended to 10 other U.S. cities, it allows customers to watch over-the-air TV programs on a smartphone, tablet, or computer for as little as $8 a month. Selections can be viewed live or recorded for later viewing. The court found that Aereo violates federal copyright law by retransmitting copyrighted programs without paying a copyright fee. Chet Kanojia, Aereo founder and CEO, said in a statement the ruling is "a massive setback for the American consumer." "This sends a chilling message to the technology industry," he said. Media mogul Barry Diller, a major backer of the service, told CNBC, "We did try, but it's over now,? Shortly after the service was launched, the nation's major broadcast networks filed a lawsuit claiming that Aereo illegally retransmited their programs without paying for them. The court ruled against Aereo by a vote of 6-3. NBC Universal, the parent company of NBC News, was among the challengers. The Walt Disney Co., the parent company of ABC, said in a statement: "We're gratified the Court upheld important Copyright principles that help ensure that the high-quality creative content consumers expect and demand is protected and incentivized." Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority, stressed that it was a limited decision that will not ?discourage the emergence or use of different kinds of technologies.? Lower federal courts issued contradictory rulings on Aereo's legality. At the heart of the case was a provision of federal law that applies to the public performance of copyrighted works. The law regulates the transmission of a TV program "to the public, by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times." Aereo argued that it was not covered by the law because of the way its system was designed: when a user chose a program to watch, a single micro antenna, about the size of a penny, was assigned to receive the chosen station. The signal was sent to a sector of a video recorder dedicated to that choice and then streamed to the customer. For that reason, the company said, it does not create a public performance. Even if thousands of users were watching the same program, Aereo said, it creates thousands of individual performances. But the broadcasters said the test of the copyright law was "whether an alleged infringer is transmitting a performance to the public, not whether multiple people are capable of receiving each transmission." The Obama administration sided with the broadcasters but urged the justices to rule narrowly and not "call into question the legitimacy of innovative technologies that allow consumers to use the Internet to store, hear, and view their own lawfully acquired copies of copyrighted works." Billions of dollars were in play. For Aereo, the future of the company was at stake. Broadcasters feared a ruling in favor of Aereo could undercut the legal foundation requiring cable and satellite services to pay copyright fees to carry network programs. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jun 25 14:21:49 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 15:21:49 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - SCOTUS bans warrantless cell phone searches, updates privacy laws Message-ID: <95596DED-2DCF-4B75-8F48-1E390ABFBB4D@infowarrior.org> Supreme Court bans warrantless cell phone searches, updates privacy laws Major ruling updates privacy laws for 21st century http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/25/supreme-court-bans-warrantless-cell-phone-searches/print/ The Washington Times Wednesday, June 25, 2014 The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that police cannot go snooping through people's cell phones without a warrant, in a unanimous decision that amounts to a major statement in favor of privacy rights. Police agencies had argued that searching through the data on cell phones was no different than asking someone to turn out his pockets, but the justices rejected that, saying a cell phone is more fundamental. The ruling amounts to a 21st century update to legal understanding of privacy rights. "The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought," Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the unanimous court. "Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple? get a warrant." Justices even said police cannot check a cellphone's call log, saying even those contain more information that just phone numbers, and so perusing them is a violation of privacy that can only be justified with a warrant. The chief justice said cellphones are different not only because people can carry around so much more data ? the equivalent of millions of pages of documents ? that police would have access to, but that the data itself is qualitatively different than what someone might otherwise carry. He said it could lay bare someone's entire personal history, from their medical records to their "specific movements down to the minute." The chief justice cited court precedent that found a difference between asking someone to turn out his pockets versus "ransacking his house for everything which may incriminate him" ? and the court found that a cellphone falls into that second category. Complicating matters further is the question of where the data is actually stored. The Obama administration and the state of California, both of which sought to justify cell phone searches, acknowledged that remotely stored data couldn't be searched ? but Chief Justice Roberts said with cloud computing, it's now sometimes impossible to know the difference. The court did carve out exceptions for "exigencies" that arise, such as major security threats. Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/25/supreme-court-bans-warrantless-cell-phone-searches/#ixzz35gFQAAIG --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jun 25 20:36:03 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 21:36:03 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Fwd: Uber alienating its workforce References: <60BADFEC-9F36-4252-AAD9-917A4A8F595F@well.com> Message-ID: <223083A0-78B7-4868-A965-663EF5DD772B@infowarrior.org> > From: "Dan > > http://laist.com/2014/06/25/fed_up_uber_drivers_give_company.php > > Fed-Up Uber Drivers Give Company Policies A One-Star Rating > > Uber's been facing some major opposition from taxi cab drivers, but now their own drivers are also criticizing them. > > A large group of Uber drivers, their family members and teamsters gathered in front of the company's office in Santa Monica on Tuesday to protest what they called a "general lack of communication, arbitrary treatment and unfair business practices." They're also lobbying for state legislation that they say would protect their livelihoods. > > The drivers who feel particularly aggrieved are UberSUV and UberBlack drivers, who typically use their own larger and higher-end vehicles and charge a premium rate to passengers. They made up the majority of the folks rallying on Tuesday, the L.A. Times reported. > > All Uber drivers have to pay for their own insurance while they are working, but the protesters feel that the company's insurance policies are not fair across the board. The protesters told the Times that because UberSUV and UberBlack drivers have more luxury cars, they have to have insurance policies that cover them the entire time they're "on the clock" even when they don't have a passenger in their car. UberX drivers, who have less expensive and older cars, don't need coverage when they don't have passengers because of an insurance loophole. > > The Teamsters Local 986 union helped the Uber drivers organize the protest. Drivers are hoping to form a trade association?though Uber drivers can't unionize because they're considered "independent contractors." > > Uber spokeswoman Eva Behrend issued a statement dismissing the protest as an attempt by the teamsters to grow their ranks, "While Uber is focused on a great experience for riders and economic opportunity for drivers, the Teamsters Local 986 is focused on recruiting membership and filling their coffers." > > They also railed against the rating system Uber uses for its drivers that relies on users to rate them on a five-star system. Lotfi Benyedder, who has driven for Uber for three years told KPCC: > > The [rating] system in unfair. A driver was given one star and was deactivated from the system for five days, the guy has kids to feed, has family, has bills and he was not able to drive because a difficult client gave him one star. He sent several emails to Uber and they did not respond until after six days and then they wanted him to take a class, when it was not even his fault. This rating system needs to stop. No more rating! If the client wants to give feedback they can always send an email and have a fair process of deactivation and hear what the other side has to say. > > Uber drivers and teamsters are focused on legislation that they said would address some of their grievances. They're trying to bring awareness to two bills they want passed: one would requireridesharing companies to carry a commercial liability insurance policy for all their drivers around the clock instead of having each driver have their own individual insurance policies. The other bill would require ride-sharing companies to get a permit to operate and follow the same regulations as taxi cab companies, including mandatory drug tests and background checks for drivers, and also carry commercial insurance policies for the drivers. > From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jun 26 16:19:35 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 17:19:35 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Massachusetts Ignores 5th Amendment; Says Defendant Can Be Forced To Decrypt His Computer Message-ID: <046A4FDE-4FD7-406D-804B-EBB822190EE7@infowarrior.org> Massachusetts Ignores 5th Amendment; Says Defendant Can Be Forced To Decrypt His Computer https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140626/06532327686/massachusetts-ignores-5th-amendment-says-defendant-can-be-forced-to-decrypt-his-computer.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jun 26 16:22:07 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 17:22:07 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?=93For_Official_Use_Only=94_is_U?= =?windows-1252?q?sed_Too_Much_at_DHS=2C_House_Says?= Message-ID: <22591EE1-1DCC-4EB5-A2B9-03840C369828@infowarrior.org> ?For Official Use Only? is Used Too Much at DHS, House Says Posted on Jun.26, 2014 in Secrecy by Steven Aftergood http://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2014/06/dhs-fouo/ There is too much information that is marked ?For Official Use Only? at the Department of Homeland Security, the House Appropriations Committee said in its report on DHS Appropriations for 2015. Efforts to sort out what is really sensitive have ?wasted substantial staff resources,? the report said. Therefore, the Committee would require any official who marked a document FOUO to identify himself or herself on the document, along with a justification for doing so. The Committee inaptly described the use of FOUO controls as a problem of ?overclassification,? and spoke of ?classifying? records as FOUO. Strictly speaking, however, national security classification and FOUO are mutually exclusive domains. Classified records cannot be marked as FOUO, and information or documents that are FOUO are by definition unclassified. Still, the Committee?s point is clear. Here is the Committee language from its June 19 DHS Appropriations report: Over-Classification of Information?? "The Committee is concerned with the number of reports, briefings, and responses to requests for information that are designated by the Department as ?For Official Use Only? (FOUO), often without a consistent and appropriate review as to why information requires such a classification. As a consequence, both the Committee and the Department have wasted substantial staff resources deliberating over what information can and could be publicly disclosed. The Committee directs that all reports, briefings, or responses to requests for information provided to the Committee that are classified as FOUO include the name(s) and title(s) of the personnel that made the designation and the specific reasons for the classification based on requirements detailed in DHS Management Directive 11042.1, which provides guidance for safeguarding sensitive but unclassified FOUO information." --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Jun 28 07:15:35 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2014 08:15:35 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Snowden, Meet Godwin: British Ambassador Says Leaks Would Have Helped Hitler Message-ID: <0BAC189D-0565-454C-8EE3-E1EF7E0A5B41@infowarrior.org> The spin parade of stupid moves into Year 2?.. Snowden, Meet Godwin: British Ambassador Says Leaks Would Have Helped Hitler https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140627/07460427700/snowden-meet-godwin-british-ambassador-says-leaks-would-have-helped-hitler.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Jun 28 10:48:11 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2014 11:48:11 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Recruits' Ineligibility Tests the Military Message-ID: <9157753B-7A67-4F86-8B40-DD2EDC7B2BCD@infowarrior.org> Recruits' Ineligibility Tests the Military More Than Two-Thirds of American Youth Wouldn't Qualify for Service, Pentagon Says By Miriam Jordan June 27, 2014 6:59 p.m. ET http://online.wsj.com/articles/recruits-ineligibility-tests-the-military-1403909945 More than two-thirds of America's youth would fail to qualify for military service because of physical, behavioral or educational shortcomings, posing challenges to building the next generation of soldiers even as the U.S. draws down troops from conflict zones. The military deems many youngsters ineligible due to obesity, lack of a high-school diploma, felony convictions and prescription-drug use for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. But others are now also running afoul of standards for appearance amid the growing popularity of large-scale tattoos and devices called ear gauges that create large holes in earlobes. A few weeks ago, Brittany Crippen said she tried to enlist in the Army, only to learn that a tattoo of a fish on the back of her neck disqualified her. Determined to join, the 19-year-old college student visited a second recruiting center in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and was rejected again. Apologetic recruiters encouraged her to return after removing the tattoo, a process she was told would take about year. "I was very upset," Ms. Crippen said. The military services don't keep figures on how many people they turn away. But the Defense Department estimates 71% of the roughly 34 million 17- to 24-year-olds in the U.S. would fail to qualify to enlist in the military if they tried, a figure that doesn't even include those turned away for tattoos or other cosmetic issues. Meanwhile, only about 1% of youths are both "eligible and inclined to have a conversation with us" about military service, according to Major Gen. Allen Batschelet, commanding general of U.S. Army Recruiting Command. Comparable data aren't available for earlier years because the Pentagon began tracking eligibility only recently. But experts said seniors graduating from high school this year face the longest odds to qualify for military service since the draft was abolished in 1973. "The quality of people willing to serve has been declining rapidly," said Gen. Batschelet. Each year, about 180,000 young men and women successfully volunteer for America's active-duty forces. An additional 110,000 join the services' reserve and National Guard units. Individual services manage their own recruiting and have the authority to grant waivers to applicants who don't meet broad standards. When the military faced escalating foreign engagement in recent years, recruiting standards were loosened: In 2007, only 79% of those who enlisted in the Army had completed high school, compared with 90% in 2001, while the Army also accepted recruits with more excess body fat during the height of the Iraq war. "We have not adopted a zero-defect mentality. We evaluate each applicant from a whole-person perspective," said Nathan Christensen, a Defense Department spokesman, who added that military services have been meeting their recruiting targets in recent years. To some degree, that has been aided by enlistment bonuses. From 2000 to 2008, the Defense budget for enlistment bonuses more than doubled to $625 million, and it jumped more than 50% to $1.4 billion for selective re-enlistment bonuses, according to a Rand Corp. analysis. Obesity, the single biggest reason for disqualifying new recruits, and other obstacles, such as poor educational attainment, led 90 retired military leaders in 2009 to form Mission: Readiness, a nonprofit aimed at raising awareness and seeking solutions. The group has lobbied state and federal officials to improve nutrition in schools and expand access to early education. "We're trying to make decision makers see this is a national-security matter?and they need to prioritize it," said retired Major Gen. Allen Youngman. In the past, he said, "a drill sergeant could literally run the weight off a soldier as part of the regular training program," but now, "we have young people showing up at the recruiter's office who want to serve but are 50 or more pounds overweight." About a quarter of high-school graduates also can't pass the Armed Forces Qualification Test, which measures math and reading skills, Gen. Youngman said. "They aren't educationally qualified to join the military in any capacity, not just the high-tech jobs," he said. U.S. Army First Sgt. James Sawyer, who heads recruiting across a swath of Los Angeles County, said tattoos have become the most common cosmetic reason that applicants are disqualified. The Army already banned tattoos on the face, neck and fingers, but according to regulations in effect May 1, soldiers also can't have more than a total of four visible tattoos below the elbows and knees, and tattoos must be relatively small. The goal of the tattoo rules is to maintain a professional-looking Army, Sgt. Sawyer said. He added that "the average person in California has a tattoo." Gabby Guillen, director of tattoo removal at Homeboy Industries, a Los Angeles nonprofit that provides services to former gang members, said that "on a daily basis, people come in saying they don't qualify for the military because of their tattoos. They have visible tattoos. Sometimes it's behind the neck area, on the hands, face, ears." Sgt. Sawyer's El Monte, Calif., recruiting center serves towns with a total population of 325,000 people. It enlists 10 to 15 people a month. "A lot of times, we don't even get to the interview stage," said the sergeant on a recent afternoon as some would-be soldiers dropped in. One young man showed up with two gaping holes in his earlobes, the result of wearing ear gauges. "Come back when they're closed," the recruiter said, after jotting down the applicant's information. David Monzon, a 23-year-old East Los Angeles man, said he had long wanted to join the Army but wasn't able to enlist after graduating; at 5 feet 6 inches tall, he weighed 300 pounds. After researching weight-loss programs, Mr. Monzon eliminated pizza, chili-cheese fries and other fatty foods from his diet, and he began riding his bike everywhere. In February, Mr. Monzon walked into the recruiting center weighing 210 pounds. Sgt. Sawyer told him he was impressed but that he still needed to drop a few more pounds. "I was pretty confident I would make it," Mr. Monzon said. He did. Now 190 pounds, Mr. Monzon is heading to South Carolina for basic training in September. Ms. Crippen, meanwhile, said she was still considering whether to remove her fish tattoo, the only one of four tattoos she has that is problematic. "My parents said they'll pay for it, but right now I really don't know what I'll do," she said. "My tattoo isn't offensive." Write to Miriam Jordan at miriam.jordan at wsj.com --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Jun 29 20:22:50 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 21:22:50 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Internet's Own Boy, free CC-licensed download Message-ID: <8052DD73-894C-4C66-8582-CE125D84463C@infowarrior.org> Internet's Own Boy, free CC-licensed download on Internet Archive Cory Doctorow at 9:00 am Sun, Jun 29, 2014 The Creative Commons-licensed version of The Internet's Own Boy, Brian Knappenberger's documentary about Aaron Swartz, is now available on the Internet Archive, which is especially useful for people outside of the US, who aren't able to pay to see it online. It's a remarkable movie and I hope you make some time to watch it. The Internet Archive makes the movie available to download or stream, in MPEG 4 and Ogg. There's also a torrentable version. < - > http://boingboing.net/2014/06/29/internets-own-boy-free-cc-l.html --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Jun 29 20:40:32 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 21:40:32 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Sky_Isn=92t_Falling_After_Snowde?= =?windows-1252?q?n=2C_N=2ES=2EA=2E_Chief_Says?= Message-ID: <8C8939A1-581B-47A0-A8BF-51673D7E9A9C@infowarrior.org> Sky Isn?t Falling After Snowden, N.S.A. Chief Says By DAVID E. SANGERJUNE 29, 2014 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/us/sky-isnt-falling-after-snowden-nsa-chief-says.html FORT MEADE, Md. ? The newly installed director of the National Security Agency says that while he has seen some terrorist groups alter their communications to avoid surveillance techniques revealed by Edward J. Snowden, the damage done over all by a year of revelations does not lead him to the conclusion that ?the sky is falling.? In an hourlong interview Friday in his office here at the heart of the country?s electronic eavesdropping and cyber operations, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, who has now run the beleaguered spy agency and the military?s Cyber Command for just short of three months, described the series of steps he was taking to ensure that no one could download the trove of data that Mr. Snowden gathered ? more than a million documents. But he cautioned that there was no perfect protection against a dedicated insider with access to the agency?s networks. ?Am I ever going to sit here and say as the director that with 100 percent certainty no one can compromise our systems from the inside?? he asked. ?Nope. Because I don?t believe that in the long run.? The crucial change, he said, is to ?ensure that the volume? of data taken by Mr. Snowden, a former agency contractor, ?can?t be stolen again.? But the Defense Department, of which the security agency and Cyber Command are a part, made the same vow in 2010 after an Army private, Chelsea Manning, downloaded hundreds of thousands of secret State Department and Pentagon files and released them to WikiLeaks. Notable in his comments was an absence of alarm about the long-term effects of the Snowden revelations. Like former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, who urged colleagues in the Obama administration to calm down about the WikiLeaks revelations in 2010, Admiral Rogers seemed to suggest that, as technology progressed, the agency would find new ways to compensate for the damage done, however regrettable the leaks. He repeated past warnings that the agency had overheard terrorist groups ?specifically referencing data detailed? by Mr. Snowden?s revelations. ?I have seen groups not only talk about making changes, I have seen them make changes,? he said. But he then added: ?You have not heard me as the director say, ?Oh, my God, the sky is falling.? I am trying to be very specific and very measured in my characterizations.? His tone was in contrast to that of some politicians and intelligence professionals, including his immediate predecessor, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, who described in stark terms the risks to American and allied national security from the revelations, calling it ?the greatest damage to our combined nations? intelligence systems that we have ever suffered.? Admiral Rogers discussed his vision of how the United States might use cyberweapons against adversaries ? a subject of debate inside the administration that American officials rarely discuss in public ? saying he could imagine a day when, under strict rules of armed conflict, they were used selectively but as part of ordinary military operations, like cruise missiles and drones. He also acknowledged that the quiet working relationships between the security agency and the nation?s telecommunications and high technology firms had been sharply changed by the Snowden disclosures ? and might never return to what they once were in an era when the relationships were enveloped in secrecy. Telecommunications businesses like AT & T and Verizon, and social media companies, now insist that ?you are going to have to compel us,? Admiral Rogers said, to turn over data so that they can demonstrate to foreign customers that they do not voluntarily cooperate. And some are far more reluctant to help when asked to provide information about foreigners who are communicating on their networks abroad ? a gray area in the law in which American courts have no jurisdiction but the agency relied instead on the cooperation of American-based companies. Last week, Verizon lost a longstanding contract to run many of the telecommunications services for the German government, which declared that the revelations of ?ties revealed between foreign intelligence agencies and the firms? showed that Germany needed to rely on domestic providers. Google has announced steps to seal gaps in its system that the security agency exploited to access the company?s databases. Microsoft is challenging in court the validity of warrants to turn over data that it stores outside the United States. ?I understand why we are where we are,? said Admiral Rogers, the first career cryptologist to run the country?s code-breaking and code-making agency, and the former commander of the Navy?s Fleet Cyber Command. ?I don?t waste a lot of time saying, ?Why wouldn?t you want to work with us?? ? Admiral Rogers said that the majority of corporations that have long given the agency its technological edge and global reach were still working with it, though they had no interest in advertising the fact. He was unapologetic about the agency?s past activities, even as he said he recognized that unlike his predecessors for the past six decades he was going to have to engage ?in a public dialogue? about how the agency operates. When asked about the changes the agency had made to prevent another insider attack like the one Mr. Snowden executed without detection ? including a ?two-man rule? that would require two systems operators to enter codes to gain access to sensitive data, much as two officers must enter codes to launch nuclear weapons ? he refused to say whether he had embraced one major recommendation of a presidential commission on the agency?s operations. The commission, which issued a public report in December, said it was surprised that the agency did not encrypt the vast databases of information it stores on its computers and in the Internet cloud. Had it encrypted that information, the files Mr. Snowden downloaded would have been unreadable, unless he also had the cryptologic key. In discussing the post-Snowden changes, Admiral Rogers said that the security agency had received instructions to cease its monitoring of a number of world leaders beyond Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, whose cellphone was monitored in a decade-long operation President Obama halted. ?There are some specific targets where we?ve been instructed, ?Hey, don?t collect against them anymore,? ? he said, declining to say how many beyond noting, ?probably more than half-a-dozen, but not in the hundreds by any means.? Admiral Rogers has taken command of the agency just as its power to collect and retain ?telephone metadata? ? the records of numbers dialed and the duration of calls ? is being stripped from the agency. Mr. Obama defended the program last summer, after the initial round of revelations. But he had a change of heart, fueled by his commission?s conclusion that it could not find a case in which the program had definitively halted a potential terrorist attack. Mr. Obama ultimately decided to cease the government collection of the data, putting it into the hands of a third party and requiring an individual warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to obtain the data. Admiral Rogers indicated that system, so long resisted by the security agency, was workable. ?I am not going to jump up and down and say, ?I have to have access to that data in minutes and hours,? ? he said. ?The flip side is that I don?t want to take weeks and months to get to the data.? The House passed a bill that would keep the data in the hands of telecommunications businesses; the Senate has yet to act. ?Clearly the intention,? he said, is to get the security agency ?out of the data-retention business? for domestic calling records. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Jun 30 12:30:04 2014 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 13:30:04 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Secret loopholes drive NSA's 'unrestrained surveillance' on Americans Message-ID: <07A8901D-77DA-454C-80F1-CE9EE7FA041D@infowarrior.org> Secret loopholes drive NSA's 'unrestrained surveillance' on Americans Thanks to a three-decade-old executive order, researchers say, Fourth Amendment protections against warrantless domestic surveillance may not be as strong as first thought. ? by Zack Whittaker ? June 30, 2014 8:11 AM PDT http://www.cnet.com/news/secret-loopholes-drive-nsas-unrestrained-surveillance-on-americans/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it.