Georgetown Security Law Brief

Concerns arise on US effort to allow internet ‘wiretaps’

05/17/13:  The New York Times reports surveillance can be a tricky affair in the Internet age. A federal law called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act allows law enforcement officials to tap a traditional phone, as long as they get approval from a judge. But if communication is through voice over Internet Protocol technology — Skype, for instance — it’s not as simple. That conversation doesn’t pass through a central hub controlled by the service provider. It is encrypted — to varying degrees of protection — as it travels through the Internet, from the caller’s end to the recipient’s. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has made it clear it wants to intercept Internet audio and video chats. And that, according to a new report being released Friday by a group of technologists, could pose “serious security risks” to ordinary Internet users, giving thieves and even foreign agents a way to listen in on Americans’ conversations, undetected. The 20 computer experts and cryptographers who drafted the report say the only way that companies can meet wiretap orders is to re-engineer the way their systems are built at the endpoints, either in the software or in users’ devices, in effect creating a valuable listening station for repressive governments as well as for ordinary thieves and blackmailers.

Phone records of journalists seized by US

05/14/13:  The New York Times reports federal investigators secretly seized two months of phone records for reporters and editors of The Associated Press in what the news organization said Monday was a “serious interference with A.P.’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news.”  The A.P. said that the Justice Department informed it on Friday that law enforcement officials had obtained the records for more than 20 telephone lines of its offices and journalists, including their home phones and cellphones. It said the records were seized without notice sometime this year. The organization was not told the reason for the seizure. But the timing and the specific journalistic targets strongly suggested they are related to a continuing government investigation into the leaking of information a year ago about the Central Intelligence Agency’s disruption of a Yemen-based terrorist plot to bomb an airliner. The disclosures began with an Associated Press article on May 7, 2012, breaking the news of the foiled plot; the organization had held off publishing it for several days at the White House’s request because the intelligence operations were still unfolding. In an angry letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Monday, Gary Pruitt, the president and chief executive of The A.P., called the seizure, a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into its news gathering activities. Justice Department regulations call for subpoenas for journalists’ phone records to be undertaken as a last resort and narrowly focused, subject to the attorney general’s personal signoff. Under normal circumstances, the regulations call for notice and negotiations, giving the news organization a chance to challenge the subpoena in court.

Biometric database of all adult Americans hidden in immigration reform

05/11/13:  Wired's Threat Level reports the immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the US, in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system. Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID. Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo. This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet.

FBI pushes for more online snooping powers, fines for violators

05/08/13:  The Washington Times reports the White House is likely to fulfill the FBI's request for more authority to eavesdrop online, administration and law enforcement insiders said.  The FBI has been arguing for expanded powers to monitor Internet communications, saying advances in technology have made it easier and faster for suspects to “go dark,” Newser reported. The White House is now poised to agree to these requests, The New York Times reported. On the horizon: The FBI’s ability to fine companies that don’t comply with wiretap orders. Foreign companies could be hardest hit, Newser reported. They could face fines of $25,000 per day for not giving the FBI access to communications. Technology companies — and privacy-rights activists — aren’t pleased. “We’ll look a lot more like China than America after this,” said one lawyer in the Newser report. And a spokesman for the Center for Democracy and Technology said the expanded FBI authorities “would also mean that innovators who want to avoid new and expensive mandates will take their innovations abroad and develop them there,” Newser reported.

Panel seeks to fine tech companies for noncompliance with wiretap orders

04/30/13:  The Washington Post reports a government task force is preparing legislation that would pressure companies such as Face­book and Google to enable law enforcement officials to intercept online communications as they occur, according to current and former US officials familiar with the effort. Driven by FBI concerns that it is unable to tap the Internet communications of terrorists and other criminals, the task force’s proposal would penalize companies that failed to heed wiretap orders — court authorizations for the government to intercept suspects’ communications. But law enforcement officials say the cloak drawn on suspects’ online activities — what the FBI calls the “going dark” problem — means that critical evidence can be missed. “The importance to us is pretty clear,” Andrew Weissmann, the FBI’s general counsel, said last month at an ANA discussion on legal challenges posed by new technologies. “We don’t have the ability to go to court and say, ‘We need a court order to effectuate the intercept.’ Other countries have that. Most people assume that’s what you’re getting when you go to a court.” There is currently no way to wiretap some of these communications methods easily, and companies effectively have been able to avoid complying with court orders. While the companies argue that they have no means to facilitate the wiretap, the government, in turn, has no desire to enter into what could be a drawn-out contempt proceeding. Under the draft proposal, a court could levy a series of escalating fines on firms that fail to comply with wiretap orders. A company that does not comply with an order within a certain period would face an automatic judicial inquiry, which could lead to fines. Instead of setting rules that dictate how the wiretap capability must be built, the proposal would let companies develop the solutions as long as those solutions yielded the needed data. That flexibility was seen as inevitable by those crafting the proposal, given the range of technology companies that might receive wiretap orders. Smaller companies would be exempt from the fines. The proposal, however, is likely to encounter resistance, said industry officials and privacy advocates.

 

Army policeman gets 16 years for trying to sell secrets to Russia

04/16/13:  The Washington Times reports a military policeman serving in the US Army was sentenced to 16 years in prison and given a dishonorable discharge for trying to sell secrets to an agent he believed was a Russian spy. Spc. William Colton Millay pleaded guilty to the spying charge last month, The Associated Press reported. A panel of eight military officials handed down the ruling Tuesday. Prosecutors said Millay was a white supremacist, sick and tired of the military and his country, and didn’t care that his sale of secrets would put his fellow soldiers in harm’s way, AP said. Defense lawyers countered that Millay was emotionally immature and that his attempt at espionage was aimed only at getting him some attention, AP reported. During testimony, an FBI official said Millay “expressed his disgust with the U.S. military” and offered to work for Russia. Millay said he could provide information on America’s Warlock Duke jamming system, which is used by the military to scan for roadside bombs, the agent testified, as AP reported.  Millay ultimately was arrested when he traded an envelope of information to the man he believed was a Russian official for $3,000, AP reported.

Google takes on rare fight against national security letters

04/05/13:  Wired's Threat Level reports Google has filed a rare petition to challenge an ultra-secret national security letter issued by the government to obtain private data about one or more of its users. The extraordinary petition, which was filed under seal in the US District Court of Northern California on March 29, comes just days after a US District Judge in California ruled in a case brought by an unnamed company and the Electronic Frontier Foundation that so-called NSLs that come with a gag order on the recipient are an unconstitutional impingement on free speech. On March 14, US District Judge Susan Illston ordered the government to stop issuing NSLs and to cease enforcing the gag provision in cases where they have already been issued. Illston, however, stayed her order for 90 days to give the government a chance to appeal her ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The recent Google challenge has also been assigned to Judge Illston. It’s not known exactly when Google received the NSL or why it decided to fight back against this particular one, though the company was likely emboldened to act by the recent ruling.

Raids in Russia target ‘foreign agents’

03/29/13:  The New York Times reports it has been a nerve-jangling week for civil society groups in Russia as they awaited a knock on the door by state officials on the hunt for “foreign agents.” Amid concerns among international advocacy organizations about what has been described as the worst crackdown on Russian democracy since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the authorities have raided scores of offices of rights groups, foreign cultural bodies and other nongovernmental organizations. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Transparency International, the corruption watchdog, were among those targeted, as well as Memorial, Russia’s oldest human rights organization. The Russian Justice Ministry said the checks by judicial and tax officials were to investigate if the real activities of these organizations matched the declared ones. Responding to Western criticism that the raids amounted to harassment and intimidation, President Vladimir V. Putin described them on Thursday as “legal and routine.” The raids follow adoption last year of a law requiring NGOs that receive foreign funding to declare themselves foreign agents, a term that, to Russians, evokes Cold War-era espionage. Although noncompliance carries large fines, possible jail terms, and potential closure, no organization has so far registered. Reacting to the wave of raids that began on March 21, High Williamson, Human Rights Watch’s Europe director, said the scale of the operations was "unprecedented and only serves to reinforce the menacing atmosphere for civil society.”  The US State Department expressed deep concern at what looked like a witch hunt, while German and French officials warned that the inspections could damage their countries’ relations with Moscow.

 

Judges question the use of cell phone tracking devices

03/28/13:  The Wall Street Journal reports Judges in California have expressed concerns about the federal use of cellphone tracking devices known as “stingrays,” suggesting that investigators have been using the technology without explaining to judges exactly what they are doing, according to internal Justice Department emails. Stingrays are devices that simulate a cellphone tower and can locate a phone even if it isn’t making a call. Several federal judges across the country have now expressed concerns about similar cellphone location technology, particularly because federal officers have been using it after getting lower court orders that don’t meet the same standard as search warrants. In California, emails among several U.S. attorneys in 2011 indicate that this has become what they describe as a “problem” in that state as well.  The WSJ Blog also provides more details.

Justices limit use of drug-sniffing dogs

03/28/13:  The New York Times reports the Supreme Court on Tuesday limited the ability of the police to use drug-sniffing dogs outside homes. The case concerned Franky, a chocolate Labrador retriever who detected the smell of marijuana outside a Florida house used by Joelis Jardines. Based on Franky’s signal, the police obtained a warrant to search the house, and they found a marijuana-growing operation inside. Mr. Jardines moved to suppress the evidence, saying that using Franky to sniff around his residence was an unreasonable search barred by the Fourth Amendment. The Florida Supreme Court agreed, and so did a majority of the United States Supreme Court. The 5-to-4 decision in the case, Florida v. Jardines, No. 11-564, featured an unusual alignment of justices. Justice Antonin Scalia, a member of the court’s conservative wing, wrote the majority decision. He was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, a frequent ally, along with three of the court’s more liberal members, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Justice Scalia said the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches, is particularly concerned with the home and its immediate surroundings. Allowing a dog on a six-foot leash to roam outside a residence, he said, was “an unlicensed physical intrusion” that was different in kind from visits from, say, salesmen, Girl Scouts or trick-or-treaters.

Russian authorities raid Amnesty International office

03/25/13: The New York Times reports Russian authorities on Monday raided the local headquarters of the human rights group Amnesty International, the latest in a continuing series of office searches aimed at putting pressure on nongovernmental groups.  The head of Amnesty International, Sergei Nikitkin, said officials from the general prosecutor’s offices and from the tax police arrived Monday morning unannounced to conduct what they described as an “audit” and demanded a list of documents, most of which Nikitkin said were already on file with the government.  “They don’t have any concrete complaints.  They say it’s a regular check and other cliché phrases,” he said.  Last week, the authorities conducted a similar raid at the offices of Memorial, an international historical society and human rights group that has operated in Russia for more than two decades.

Microsoft releases report on law enforcement requests

03/21/13: The New York Times reports Microsoft on Thursday disclosed for the first time the number of government law enforcement requests it had received for data on its hundreds of millions of customers around the world, joining the ranks of Google, Twitter and other Web businesses in publishing regular transparency reports. The report, which Microsoft plans to update every six months, showed that law enforcement agencies in five countries — Turkey, the United States, Britain, France and Germany — accounted for 69 percent of the 70,665 requests Microsoft received during 2012. In 8 of 10 requests, Microsoft provided agencies with elements of so-called non-content information such as an account holder’s name, gender, e-mail address, IP address, country of residence and dates and times of data traffic. In 2.1 percent of requests Microsoft disclosed the actual content of a communication, such as the subject headline of an e-mail, the contents of an e-mail, or a picture stored on SkyDrive, its cloud computing service. Microsoft said it disclosed the content of communications in 1,544 cases to US law enforcement agencies, and in 14 cases to agents in Brazil, Ireland, Canada and New Zealand.

Chinese contractor at NASA makes court appearance

03/19/13:  CNN reports a Chinese aerospace contractor, who one senior lawmaker suspects is a spy, made his first appearance in federal court on Monday. Bo Jiang worked at NASA's Langley's Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and was seized over the weekend as he boarded a flight to Beijing at Dulles airport outside Washington. Jiang was charged with making false statements to U.S. authorities by failing to disclose all of the electronic devices he was carrying on his one-way flight. He was jailed following his appearance in federal court in Norfolk. U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Virginia, said Jiang recently arranged travel after the lawmaker went public with his concerns about NASA security. Wolf told reporters Monday that he believes Jiang had access to highly sensitive documents, including source codes for high-tech imaging used in missiles, unmanned aerospace equipment and other technology desired by the Chinese government. Wolf, who oversees congressional funding of several agencies, believes Jiang was spying.

Court curbs laptop searches at US border

03/09/13:  The Washington Times reports a federal appeals court on Friday said the Border Patrol cannot confiscate or download every laptop or electronic device brought into the US, ruling that people have an expectation their data are private and that the government must have “reasonable suspicion” before it starts to snoop. In a broad ruling, the court also said merely putting password protection on information is not enough to trigger the government’s “reasonable suspicion” to conduct a more intrusive search — but can be taken into account along with other factors. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals judges said it was a “watershed care” that gets at what kinds of limits the government must observe when it comes to technology and privacy. Privacy advocates cheered the decision, saying that the government had previously believed it had the right to copy all electronic data of anyone crossing into the US.

Feds demand dismissal of dragnet-surveillance challenge

03/07/13:  Wired's Threat Level reports citing week-old Supreme Court precedent, the President Barack Obama administration told a federal judge Wednesday that it should quash a federal lawsuit accusing the government of secretly siphoning Americans’ electronic communications to the National Security Agency without warrants. The San Francisco federal court legal filing was in response to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White’s written question to the government asking what to make of the high court’s Feb. 26 decision halting a legal challenge to a once-secret warrantless surveillance project that gobbles up Americans’ electronic communications — a program that Congress eventually legalized in 2008 and again in 2012. In that case, known as Clapper, the justices ruled 5-4 that the American Civil Liberties Union, journalists and human-rights groups that sued to nullify the FISA Amendments Act had no legal standing to sue.

Small airports irked by removal of body scanners

03/07/13:  The Miami Herald reports managers at dozens of small airports have expressed outrage at federal officials for hauling new full-body scanners away from their facilities and sending them to large hubs that haven't yet upgraded older machines criticized for showing too much anatomy. US Transportation Security Administration contractors were threatened with arrest after officials at a Montana airport said they received no notice before the workers arrived. In North Dakota, the scanners are set to be yanked from a terminal remodeled last year with $40,000 in local funds just to fit the new machines. The L3 Millimeter Wave body scanners, which are about the size of a minivan on end and produce cartoonlike outlines of travelers, are being removed from 49 smaller airports across the country to help replace 174 full-body scanners used at larger airports. After controversy erupted over the bare images of a person's body the full-body scanners produce, Congress set a June deadline for them to be removed or updated. But officials at smaller airports said removing their machines will produce longer lines, increased pat-downs, decreased security and a waste of taxpayer money. 

Decades-old illegal wiretap inspires demand on CIA for more information

03/04/13: The Washington Post has this story about Jim Scott, the son of the late journalist Paul Scott, who is involved in a dispute with the CIA over the Agency’s spying on his father in the 1960’s.  In 2007 the CIA declassified a trove of documents popularly called “the family jewels,” which revealed the Agency’s unlawful surveillance of the Scott home in an operation code-named “Project Mockingbird.”  For the past five years, Jim has sought to declassify and make public any documents Langley might still have on his father and why he was wiretapped.  So far, the CIA has released to Jim a handful of intriguing documents, but Jim has been trying to compel the agency to cough up more. A federal declassification review panel is reviewing Jim’s case.  Paul Scott died in 2001.

Supreme Court rejects challenge to surveillance law

02/26/13:  The New York Times reports in a 5-to-4 decision that broke along ideological lines, the Supreme Court on Tuesday turned back a challenge to a federal law that authorized intercepting international communications involving Americans. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said that the journalists, lawyers and human rights advocates who challenged the constitutionality of the law could not show they had been harmed by it and so lacked standing to sue. Their fear that they would be subject to surveillance in the future was too speculative to establish standing, he wrote. The decision, Clapper v. Amnesty International, No. 11-1025, probably means the Supreme Court will never rule on the constitutionality of the law, a 2008 measure that broadened the government’s power to eavesdrop on international communications. The law, an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, was passed after the 2005 disclosure of the Bush administration’s secret program to wiretap international communications of people inside the United States without obtaining court warrants. The electronic spying, intended to help pursue terrorists, began after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The 2008 law was challenged by Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups and individuals, including journalists and lawyers who represent prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The plaintiffs said the law violated their rights under the Fourth Amendment by allowing the government to intercept their international telephone calls and e-mails. In 2011, a unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ruled for the plaintiffs on the threshold question of whether they had standing.

Guantanamo Bay official reveals hidden microphone in meeting room

02/13/13: The Miami Herald reports a senior official for the Guantánamo Bay prison admitted Tuesday that the Government had placed a hidden microphone inside a meeting room but that he was assured it was not used to monitor the private conversations that prisoners have with their lawyers.  Navy Captain Thomas Welsh, the senior legal adviser to Guantánamo’s commander, conceded the microphone appeared to be intended to resemble a smoke detector in the ceiling of a meeting room for men labeled “high-value"” detainees by the Pentagon and held in a special top security camp.  “I agree with your point that it was not recognizable, it was not readily identifiable,” Welsh said on cross-examination by a detainee’s lawyer.  The admission came during a pretrial hearing.

9/11 suspects' lawyers fear government eavesdropping at Guantanamo

02/11/13: The Miami Herald reports lawyers for the five Guantánamo Bay prisoners charged in the September 11 attacks want to know if government officials have been eavesdropping on their private conversations with the defendants.  The evidence for any such listening, the subject of a hearing scheduled to start Monday, is circumstantial.  At a hearing January 28, the sound system in the Guantánamo courtroom was suddenly cut.  The judge, Army Colonel James Pohl, later revealed that a government official following the proceedings from outside the courtroom intervened to prevent the potential release of classified information.  Pohl later said the information was not classified; he ordered the government to disconnect any equipment that could unilaterally cut the sound and released a transcript of the censored remarks.  But the incident has made defense counsel concerned about possible monitoring.

Congress to renew cybersecurity push

02/11/13: The Hill reports a cybersecurity bill that received pushback from privacy advocates and the White House last year will be re-introduced on Wednesday, setting up a potential battle between Congress and the Administration over cybersecurity legislation.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) will reintroduce the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) and hold a public hearing analyzing the current state of cyber threat information-sharing between the US Government and industry next week.   The bill aims to thwart cyberattacks by making it easier for private companies to share information about threats and malicious source code with the intelligence community and the Department of Homeland Security.  The privacy and civil liberties groups that fought CISPA last year plan to revive their efforts to oppose the bill.

DHS Watchdog okays ‘suspicionless’ seizure of electronic devices along border

02/09/13:  The Wired's Threat Level reports the Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights watchdog has concluded that travelers along the nation’s borders may have their electronics seized and the contents of those devices examined for any reason whatsoever — all in the name of national security.  The DHS, which secures the nation’s border, in 2009 announced that it would conduct a “Civil Liberties Impact Assessment” of its suspicionless search-and-seizure policy pertaining to electronic devices “within 120 days” More than three years later, the DHS office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties published a two-page executive summary of its findings.  "We also conclude that imposing a requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefits,” the executive summary said.

Surveillance Court gets new presiding Judge

02/08/13:  Wired's Threat Level reports the 11-judge Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was set up in the wake of the Watergate scandal in the President Richard M. Nixon era, and is best described as a rubber-stamp for giving the federal government carte blanche powers to spy on Americans at home or abroad.  Chief Justice John Roberts — whose position as head of the Supreme Court is responsible for naming judges to seven-year terms, has appointed District of Columbia U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton as the presiding judge. Walton replaces U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, another District of Columbia judge whose secret-court term expires Feb. 21.  Walton, a President George W. Bush appointee to the district court, has presided over a number of high-profile cases in the District of Columbia, including the prosecutions of Scooter Libby, Roger Clemens, and various habeas corpus cases from Guantanamo Bay detainees.

NYPD sued for spying on Muslims

02/05/13:  The Washington Times reports civil rights lawyers filed a suit against the New York Police Department on Monday, alleging law enforcement has created a climate of fear with its “widespread and intense” surveillance of Muslims.  Lawyers characterize New York's police surveillance of Muslims as an “all-encompassing dragnet” for intelligence, based on false premises — that “conservative Muslim beliefs and participation in Muslim organizations are themselves bases for investigation,” The Guardian writes.  Some of the complaints: The NYPD has wrongly sent spies into mosques to photograph and take notes. And a NYPD special unit used overly aggressive techniques to monitor restaurants and bookstores frequented by Muslims, The Guardian reported.

UK turning to deep packet inspection of internet traffic

02/05/13:  ABC News reports British intelligence agencies are planning to install an unspecified number of spy devices along Britain's telecommunications network so they can monitor Britons' interactions with overseas services such as Facebook and Twitter, according to lawmakers.  The devices are intended as a lynchpin of a nationwide surveillance plan intended to log nearly everything Britons do online — from Skype calls to instant messages to visits to pornographic websites.  Some new details have been unveiled in a parliamentary report published Tuesday.  The report says the devices would rely on "Deep Packet Inspection," so-called because it allows those intercepting the data to comb through its content.  Authorities say the government aims to gather information about the data's sender, its recipients, and time and location information associated with both.

Obama Administration concludes President has broad cyberwarfare powers

02/04/13: The New York Times reports a secret legal review on the use of America’s growing arsenal of cyberweapons has concluded that President Obama has the broad power to order a preemptive strike if the United States detects credible evidence of a major digital attack looming from abroad.  That decision was among several reached in recent months as the administration moves, in the next few weeks, to approve the nation’s first rules for how the military can defend, or retaliate, against a major cyberattack.  The rules will be highly classified, like those governing drone strikes.  John Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser and his nominee to run the Central Intelligence Agency, played a central role in developing the administration’s policies regarding both drones and cyberwarfare, the two newest and most politically sensitive weapons in the American arsenal.

Niger agrees to station US surveillance drones

01/30/13: Al Jazeera reports Niger has given permission for US surveillance drones to be stationed on its territory to improve intelligence on al-Qaeda-linked fighters in northern Mali and the wider Sahara.  Bisa Williams, US ambassador to Niger, made the request at a meeting on Monday with Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou, who immediately accepted it, a senior government source said Wednesday.  The drones could be stationed in Niger’s northern desert region of Agadez, which borders Mali, Algeria and Libya, the source said.  Niger will be the sixth African nation to have a US drone base, joining Morocco, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Uganda, and Djibouti.  A spokesperson for the US African Command (AFRICOM) declined to comment.

Google tells police to get warrants for e-mail, cloud data

01/24/13:  Wired's Threat Level reports Google demands probable-cause, court-issued warrants to divulge the contents of Gmail and other cloud-stored documents to authorities in the United States — a startling revelation Wednesday that runs counter to federal law that does not always demand warrants.  The development surfaced as Google publicly announced that more than two-thirds of the user data Google forwards to government agencies across the United States is handed over without a probable-cause warrant.  The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, the relevant law in question, was adopted at a time when e-mail wasn’t stored on servers for a long time, but instead was held there briefly on its way to the recipient’s inbox.  That law is still on the books today, even as the advancement of technology has undermined its original theory.  But clearly, changing the law to comport with Google’s interpretation has been met with unreceptive members of Congress.  The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a measure last year mirroring Google’s interpretation, but the bill died a quiet death. Moves to change the law have been scuttled over and again.

 

TSA to remove controversial X-ray scanners

01/19/13:  The Washington Times reports the TSA confirms that it is getting rid of airport body scanners that produce a naked image of travelers.  Right now the TSA uses two types of scanners. One makes a generic image showing where agents should look for an object on the traveler’s body. Those scanners are staying.  The other kind of scanner uses X-rays. They raised privacy concerns because they show metal objects on the traveler’s body — along with every other detail, too. Congress has mandated that those scanners be changed or removed by June.  TSA says the X-ray scanners will be gone by June. It says the company that makes them, Rapiscan, was not able to come up with a software fix to make the scanners comply with the Congressional mandate.

Laws urged to curb snooping by drones

01/17/2013:  The Washington Times reports Big Brother and Big Business may soon be able to easily spy on American citizens using surveillance drones, security and civil liberties specialists warned Tuesday.  As technology inches closer to that of science fiction, U.S. law has failed to keep up with those advances, they said, claiming that Fourth Amendment and other personal privacy protections are no longer enough to shield citizens from the unseen eye of drones, which will become commonplace sooner than most Americans realize.

Commentary: FBI needs hackers, not backdoors

01/15/13:  Wired published an article by Matt Blaze and Susan Landau discussing wiretap ready requirements versus the use of hackers in gathering digital information.  Whether we like them or not, wiretaps — legally authorized ones only, of course — are an important law enforcement tool. But mandatory wiretap backdoors in internet services would invite at least as much new crime as it could help solve.  Especially because we’re knee deep in what can only be called a cybersecurity crisis. Criminals, rival nation states, and rogue hackers routinely seek out and exploit vulnerabilities in our computers and networks — much faster than we can fix them. In this cybersecurity landscape, wiretapping interfaces are particularly juicy targets.

FISA Amendments Act on warrantless wiretapping renewed

12/28/12:  Wired's Threat Level reports the Senate on Friday reauthorized for five years broad electronic eavesdropping powers that legalized and expanded the President George W. Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.  The FISA Amendments Act which was expiring Friday at midnight, allows the government to electronically eavesdrop on Americans’ phone calls and e-mails without a probable-cause warrant so long as one of the parties to the communication is believed outside the United States. The communications may be intercepted “to acquire foreign intelligence information.”  In the end, the identical package the House passed 301-118 swept through the Senate on a 73-23 vote.

Nations prepare for Dubai meeting to update telecom treaty

11/25/12: The Hill reports government officials from around the world will arrive in Dubai next month to revise a treaty that could have a major effect on the future of the Internet.   The 193 member nations of the UN’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU) will meet in Dubai to update the International Telecommunications Regulations treaty for the first time since 1988.  The treaty governs how telephone calls and other communications traffic are exchanged internationally.  The negotiations will take place over a two-week period December 3-14.  Ambassador Terry Kramer will lead the 95-person US delegation during the conference.  Kramer has made clear in a series of public appearances that the US is committed to maintaining liberalized markets in the telecom industry and upholding human rights and free speech principles during the treaty negotiations.

Case pits technology-based police search against citizens' rights

11/20/12:  The New York Times reports a former music teacher walked into a Wells Fargo bank waving a gun and ordered everyone to lie down. About 15 minutes later, a phalanx of police cars descended upon an intersection a few miles away, blockading dozens of shocked motorists — including the suspect, whom the authorities had tracked with a GPS device buried in the $26,000 he was accused of stealing. But with only the faintest physical description and unsure which vehicle the device was in, the police trained their weapons on all 20 cars at the intersection and ordered people to show their hands. For nearly two hours, the police ordered every driver and passenger to step out of their cars, even handcuffing some of them, before discovering the missing money and two loaded firearms in Mr. Paetsch’s S.U.V.  The case, now winding its way through the federal court system, is being watched by Fourth Amendment lawyers and law enforcement experts. 

Inside China's smoke-filled room

11/08/12:  Foreign Policy published an article by Willy Lam detailing the uncoming Chinese elections.  With its control of 1.3 billion people the Chinese Communist Party is the most powerful political machine in the world. Given that it holds a national congress only once every five years to confirm a new slate of leaders, Beijing has pulled out all the stops to prevent any mishaps. A month before the party congress starts dissidents were forced to take "vacations" thousands of miles from the capital. Meanwhile, 1.4 million "volunteers" have been mobilized in Beijing to perform the function of vigilantes-cum-informants, reporting to the authorities potentially threatening characters -- for example, suspicious-looking Uighurs from western China who could be separatist-inclined terrorists.

Feds ordered to disclose data about wiretap backdoors

11/03/12:  Wired's Threat Level reports a federal judge is ordering the Justice Department to disclose more information about its so-called “Going Dark” program, an initiative to extend its ability to wiretap virtually all forms of electronic communications.  The ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg of San Francisco concerns the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. Passed in 1994, the law initially ordered phone companies to make their systems conform to a wiretap standard for real-time surveillance. The Federal Communications Commission extended CALEA in 2005 to apply to broadband providers like ISPs and colleges, but services like Google Talk, Skype or Facebook and encrypted enterprise Blackberry communications are not covered.

DHS sued for information about drone loans to police departments

11/01/12:  PressTV reports DHS has been sued by an American Internet privacy advocacy group for its refusal to explain the use of Predator drones inside the United States. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced on Wednesday that it has filed a legal suit against the DHS in an effort to to gain access to information about the killer drones, which have been lent to domestic law-enforcement departments by the federal agency. EFF said that the suit was filed in a San Francisco federal court following DHS’s failure to respond to its Freedom of Information Act request for more details about the function of the pilotless aircraft within US borders. 

Kremlin's new internet surveillance plan goes live today

11/01/12:  Wired's Danger Room reports on the surface, it’s all about protecting Russian kids from internet pedophiles. In reality, the Kremlin’s new “Single Register” of banned websites, which goes into effect today, will wind up blocking all kinds of online political speech. And, thanks to the spread of new internet-monitoring technologies, the Register could well become a tool for spying on millions of Russians.  Signed into law on July 28, the internet-filtering measure contains a single, innocuous-sounding paragraph that allows those compiling the Register to draw on court decisions relating to the banning of websites. The problem is, the courts have ruled to block more than child pornographers’ sites. The judges have also agreed to online bans on political extremists and opponents of the Putin regime.

When a robot comes knocking at your door

10/27/12:  NPR reports bit by bit, we are growing more comfortable with digital devices in our daily lives. There are robots with human arms and humans with robotic arms.  There are robots that provide health care.  Robots that clean houses.  Service robots take care of us; rescue robots save us; industrial robots build things for us; education robots teach us; phone bots assist us; and military robots wage wars on our behalf.  Artificial-intelligence researchers and code-writing whizzes are rigging up robots to anticipate human needs and desires, to go places where humans refuse to go, and to do things that humans do not want to do. We are apparently facing an inevitable future filled with androids, humanoids, replicants and other part-human, part-machine hybrids.

Drug-sniffing cases send Supreme Court to the dogs

10/26/12: The Miami Herald reports Franky found drugs in Florida. He’s a dog, so he left the constitutional questions to others. But Franky’s work in Miami and another drug-sniffing dog’s diligence will draw the Supreme Court’s attention next week. Not for the first time, justices must figure out when a canine sniff is a search, with all the constitutional consequences that implies. Dubbed the “dog-sniff cases” by court cognoscenti, the two disputes to be heard separately next Wednesday morning involve distinct sets of facts. Taken together, though, they could end up either limiting or, more likely, spurring the already-popular use of dogs in law enforcement.

Supreme Court to hear arguments over government spying

10/26/12: Reuters reports a debate over how freely the U.S. government can eavesdrop on international communications reaches a climax on Monday in the country's highest court. At issue is a law passed by Congress in 2008 allowing the government to monitor the overseas communications of individuals without obtaining a warrant for each target. The government has said it needs flexible surveillance power. But a group of attorneys, journalists and human rights organizations has challenged the law, saying thousands or even millions of innocent Americans are likely being monitored merely because they are communicating with people overseas.

Feds cite state secrets privilege in Dragnet case

10/25/12:  Wired's Threat Level reports the administration is again arguing that a lawsuit accusing the National Security Agency of vacuuming up Americans’ electronic communications without warrants threatens national security and would expose state secrets if litigated. “This case may be dismissed on the ground that its very subject matter constitutes a state secret,” the government said in a legal filing in San Francisco federal court. Brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the case is now four years old and its merits have never been litigated. The civil rights group claims that the major telecoms provided the NSA a warrantless backdoor to the nation’s communication backbone.

BioWatch technology couldn't detect lethal germs, tests found

10/23/12:  The LA Times reports for two years, the nationwide BioWatch system, intended to protect Americans against a biological attack, operated with defective components that left it unable to detect lethal germs, according to scientists with direct knowledge of the matter.  The federal official who oversaw installation of the components was quietly shifted to a position with no responsibility for BioWatch, and the entire episode was kept out of public view.  DHS, which oversees BioWatch, opened an internal investigation, whose status remains confidential.

Weekly Tech Updates 10/20/12

10/20/12:  Here are this week's technology updates related to National Security:

• Feds Pilot Rapid DNA to Identify Casualties, Immigrants
• Israel's Elephant UAV
• Explosives Detectors Go Nose To Nose with Sniffer Dogs
• USAF Tests Vortex Surfing for Aircraft
• Technology may Allow Wireless and Wireline in a Single Platform
• Effort to Mass Produce Flexible Nanoscale Electronics
• Silent Circle App makes High Level Encryption Easily Accessible
• Nanoscale Optical Accelerometer for Better Positioning Information
• Magnetic Properties of Silicon Nano Ribbons
• Hackers Reverse Engineer Pace Makers To Deliver Fatal Shocks at Up to 30ft
• Cyber Security Experts Engage with DARPA
• Britain Seeking Spies from the Video Game Era
• UK's Sim Ship for Naval Simulations
• DHS Working to Screen Liquids for Explosives
• Prototype System makes Gasoline Out of Air?

As drone debate rages, police move on to million-dollar spy planes

10/16/12:  Wired's Threat Level reports while the nation disputes if, when and where the government should use drones over U.S. soil, Texas state police are taking their surveillance efforts to the next level. In a little-noticed July purchase, officials at the Texas Department of Public Safety inked a $7.4 million contract for a high-altitude spy plane. Unique technology affixed to the state’s new aircraft could raise the ire of civil libertarians and privacy advocates. Among its features is a $1 million array of surveillance cameras with high-resolution and thermal-imaging capabilities, and a $300,000 downlink system that enables the plane’s crew to send real-time surveillance images anywhere in the state, according to records obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting through the Texas Public Information Act.

TSA put inspection notices in luggage it didn't inspect

10/10/12: CNN reports the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General (IG) announced Tuesday that a number of incidents took place in 2010 in which Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials placed notices in checked luggage indicating that it had been inspected without actually performing an inspection.  The incidents led to the firing of thirty-six screeners at Honolulu International Airport.  The IG’s report said a whistle-blower triggered investigations when he came forward with video showing some TSA officers skirting procedures.  Thousands of bags went on commercial jets unscreened, risking the safety of the traveling public.  The IG concluded that while the screeners in Honolulu were ultimately responsible for the failures, the situation “might not have occurred” if TSA leaders had more thoroughly evaluated protocols before changing them and provided better oversight, adequate staff, and screening equipment.

Supreme Court lets stand telecom immunity in wiretap case

10/09/12:  The Washington Times reports the Supreme Court is leaving in place a federal law that gives telecommunications companies legal immunity for helping the government with its email and telephone eavesdropping program. The justices said Tuesday they will not review a court ruling that upheld the 2008 law against challenges brought by privacy and civil liberties advocates on behalf of the companies’ customers. The case stemmed from surveillance rules passed by Congress that included protection from legal liability for telecommunications companies that allegedly helped the U.S. spy on Americans without warrants.

Supreme Court won't hear challenge to TSA full-body scans

10/01/12: The Miami Herald reports the US Supreme Court won’t hear a Michigan man’s attempt to challenge the use of full-body scanners at airports.  The Court on Monday denied the petition of Jonathan Corbett, which had sought to review a judgment of the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit dismissing his challenge to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)’s use of full-body scanners or enhanced pat-downs at airport security lines.  A federal District Court in Florida dismissed the suit, holding it could only be filed with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.  The 11th Circuit affirmed, and the Supreme Court denied the petition for certiorari.  The TSA started allowing the use of the advanced imaging technology in October 2010.

New Justice Department documents show huge increase in warrantless electronic surveillance

09/28/12:  The ACLU reports that Justice Department documents released Thursday reveal that federal law enforcement agencies are increasingly monitoring Americans’ electronic communications, and doing so without warrants, sufficient oversight, or meaningful accountability.  The documents, handed over by the government only after months of litigation, are the attorney general’s 2010 and 2011 reports on the use of “pen register” and “trap and trace” surveillance powers. The reports show a dramatic increase in the use of these surveillance tools, which are used to gather information about telephone, email, and other Internet communications.

Cyberwarfare emerges from shadows for public discussion by US officials

09/27/12:  The New York Times reports for years, even as the United States carried out sophisticated cyberattacks on Iran’s nuclear program and the Pentagon created a Cyber Command, officials have been hesitant to discuss American offensive cyberwarfare programs openly.  But the reticence is giving way. The chorus of official voices speaking publicly about American cyberattack strategy and capabilities is steadily growing, and some experts say greater openness will allow the United States to stake out legal and ethical rules in the uncharted territory of computer combat. Next month the Pentagon’s research arm will host contractors who want to propose “revolutionary technologies for understanding, planning and managing cyberwarfare.” It is an ambitious program that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, calls Plan X, and the public description talks about “understanding the cyber battlespace,” quantifying “battle damage” and working in Darpa’s “cyberwar laboratory.”