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ID Theft & Information Security News
Edited by Rob Douglas
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Friday,
December 28, 2007
AT&T
Is Far From Alone On Data Breaches - In less than a week's time, San Antonio-based phone giant
AT&T Inc. has sued data brokers for fraudulently accessing customers'
private phone records and announced that hackers broke into one of its
e-commerce sites to steal customer credit card data. Between the brokers and
the hacking incident, the company said outsiders have accessed the private data
of as many as 21,500 customers. Computer-security experts said data breaches —
whether by hackers, internal thieves or employee carelessness — are on the
rise, and AT&T isn't alone in grappling with them…Even though AT&T
isn't alone, at least one expert said the breaches should be a wake-up call to
the company. "AT&T's security measures have been
defeated in the two major ways that they can be defeated," said Rob
Douglas, a Colorado-based information security consultant. "First,
they've been hacked, meaning there's a technological way to defeat their security
system. And with the data brokers, they've also been defeated by people just
calling up and pretending to be a customer."
AT&T
Sues, Alleging Fraudulent Access to Customer Accounts - AT&T,
headquartered in San Antonio, where the suit was filed, hopes to learn the
defendants' identities through their Internet protocol addresses. AT&T has
"most if not all" of the defendants' IP addresses and will ask the
court to subpoena the Internet providers to disclose the identities linked to
those addresses, spokesman Walt Sharp said…Sharp said that of AT&T's total
48 million land lines, 2,500 defrauded accounts is a relatively small amount.
"It's very, very, very tiny," he said. "But we consider any too
many." Information security consultant Rob Douglas said 2,500 accounts is
"the low end of what's stolen every day." Thieves are after more than
phone records, he said. "They steal your cable TV records, your satellite
TV records, your gas and electric records and all the rest," said Douglas,
who edits Privacytoday.com, an information security Web site. "Every
interaction we have is being recorded somewhere, and every minute thieves are
working trying to figure out how to gain access to that information and use it
for profit. That's what this demonstrates."
AT&T
Takes Data Brokers To Court - In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court
in San Antonio, the company says the defendants used false identities to set up
online billing accounts and illegally obtain up to 2,500 customers' calling
records…Phone companies such as AT&T are taking legal action because the
federal government hasn't acted decisively to stop the practice, said Robert
Douglas, a Colorado-based information security consultant who has testified
before Congress on the issue. Current federal laws don't specifically prohibit
the sale of private phone records.
AT&T sues
brokers over customer data - While there are thousands of places to buy
records, most can be tracked back to a fairly small number of data brokers who
actually extract customer information, said Rob Douglas, CEO of
PrivacyToday.com and an information security consultant who has testified
before Congress on the issue. “The people who are actually doing this is a
relatively finite number ... at most a couple dozen across the country,”
Douglas said from Steamboat Springs, Colo. Douglas said those seeking
information like phone records could include soon-to-be ex-spouses in the midst
of a divorce proceeding, competing businesses and corporations, stalkers and
law enforcement.
AT&T
unleashes lawyers -- phone-record 'roaches' scurry - AT&T filed a
lawsuit in San Antonio today designed to unmask the identities of 25 so-called
data brokers who the carrier says have ripped off phone-calling records from
2,500 of its customers -- a legal countermeasure one expert says may already be
paying small dividends…Security expert Rob Douglas, who has
testified before Congress about phone-records theft, says legal volleys such as
the one launched by AT&T today -- as well as those of other carriers --
hold significant promise for driving data brokers out of business, perhaps more
so than the spate of state and federal legislation filed in recent
months…"The civil remedies that the carriers can avail themselves of can
bring a pain that many of the brokers will find intolerable. Ideally what I'd like to see are the carriers
banding together in a concerted effort to go after the brokers." However,
any such benefit will require persistent pressure, adds
Rob
Douglas of PrivacyToday.com Talks About Privacy Issues With Ron Reagan on KIRO
Radio – Rob & Ron Reagan discussed NSA phone surveillance; monitoring
of international banking transaction; the theft and sale of Americans’ phone
and banking records by private investigators and illicit information brokers;
and, how to protect yourself from identity theft.
Rob
Douglas of PrivacyToday.com Delivers Keynote Address at AAFCS 97th Annual
Conference & Expo - Identity Theft: It Can Cost You Your Life!
Ten million Americans will fall prey this year to identity thieves. Social
security numbers, bank transactions, phone call records, and yes—even your
medical history—are for sale on the Internet. This multi-media presentation
will demonstrate why identity theft is not just a severe threat to your
financial security, but can be a threat to your life. With vivid and sometimes
frightening examples, you'll learn why identity theft is the nation's fastest growing
crime and what steps educators, corporate executives, and consumers can take to
combat this growing epidemic. Most importantly, through real life examples
combined with insights from Robert Douglas, a leading authority on identity
crimes, you'll learn what skills you and your family need to protect
yourselves.
Information
Brokers Grilled At Congressional Hearing - State Rep. Jim Welker invoked
his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at a congressional hearing
today probing the use of deception to obtain and sell phone records and other
private information. Another Colorado information broker, John Strange of
Frederick, also invoked the Fifth, while James Rapp of Parker and David Gandal of Loveland described the ease at getting private
information by impersonating customers and others. Rapp says he’s now out of
the business…Welker, a
First
Data Tied To Post-9/11 Terror Sweep - In the days after the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks, First Data Corp. and its Western Union unit volunteered
itself for the
Welker
Called To Testify On Phone Files - State Rep. Jim Welker has been
subpoenaed to testify at a congressional hearing today about the sale of
private phone records but is expected to invoke his Fifth Amendment right
against self-incrimination. At least three other current and former Colorado
information data brokers - James Rapp, David Gandal
and John Strange - are expected to testify at the two-day House Energy and
Commerce subcommittee hearing…Colorado security consultant Rob Douglas said the
hearing also is a "welcome development" to explore more deeply the
relationship between data brokers and law enforcement agencies.
Is
the NSA spying on U.S. Internet traffic? - In a pivotal network operations
center in metropolitan St. Louis, AT&T has maintained a secret, highly
secured room since 2002 where government work is being conducted, according to
two former AT&T workers once employed at the center. In interviews with
Salon, the former AT&T workers said that only government officials or
AT&T employees with top-secret security clearance are admitted to the room,
located inside AT&T's facility in
AP
Exclusive: Data Brokers Get by Subpoenas - Federal and local police across
the country - as well as some of the nation's best-known companies - have been
gathering Americans' phone records from private data brokers without subpoenas
or warrants. These brokers, many of whom market aggressively on the Internet,
have broken into customer accounts online, tricked phone companies into
revealing information and sometimes acknowledged that their practices violate
laws, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press…Those using data
brokers include agencies of the Homeland Security and Justice departments -
including the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service - and municipal police departments
in California, Florida, Georgia and Utah. Experts believe hundreds of other
departments frequently use such services.
'I Just Bought
Your Hard Drive' – Bob Sullivan’s Red Tape Chronicle.
VA official
steps down after theft - A
Veteran Affairs deputy assistant secretary who didn't immediately notify top officials
about a theft of 26.5 million veterans' personal information is stepping
down, citing missteps that led to the security breach.
College
Door Ajar for Online Criminals - Computer systems at universities across
the nation are becoming favorite targets of hackers, and rising numbers of
security breaches have exposed the personal information of thousands of
students, alumni, employees and even college applicants. Since January, at
least 845,000 people have had sensitive information jeopardized in 29 security
failures at colleges nationwide. In these incidents, compiled by identity theft
experts who monitor media reports, hackers have gained access to Social
Security numbers and, in some cases, medical records.
Senate
Panel Split Over Questioning Phone Company Executives - Members of a Senate
committee are divided over proposals to question executives of four telephone
companies about whether they gave the government records of millions of calls
in the United States to aid anti-terrorist surveillance. After objections from
both Republicans and Democrats, Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter
(R-Pa.) yesterday postponed a vote on issuing subpoenas for the chief
executives of Verizon
Communications Inc., AT&T Inc., BellSouth Corp.
and Qwest
Communications International Inc. He scheduled more debate for June
6 after Congress returns from a one-week recess…Joseph Nacchio,
former chief executive of Qwest, has said through his attorney that he refused
the government's request for such records after concluding it would violate
federal privacy law. AT&T spokesman Walt Sharp said today in an e-mail that
the company "is happy to appear before the committee as the members desire." Verizon spokesman Bob Varettoni declined to comment. F. Duane Ackerman,
BellSouth's chairman and chief executive, "has nothing to hide" and
is willing to say under oath that the company has "never provided any
information at all to the NSA," said spokesman Jeff Battcher.
"We can't find anybody in this company who has ever been approached by the
NSA," Battcher said.
Eavesdropping
to Go On, Cheney Tells Midshipmen - Vice President Cheney highlighted
VA
Knew Early About Data Theft - Senior officials at the Department of
Veterans Affairs knew that sensitive personal information about veterans had
been stolen from a VA employee's home within hours of the crime but did not
tell Secretary Jim Nicholson until 13 days later, according to a VA briefing
document…Among items stolen from the Aspen Hill home was an external computer
hard drive that VA officials say contained the unencrypted names, birthdates
and Social Security numbers of 19.6 million to 26.5 million veterans. The
12-page timeline provides the first detailed accounting of how VA officials
reacted to one of the nation's largest information security breaches, an
institutional failure that ignited anxiety and anger among millions of veterans
concerned about identity theft. It also reveals new details about the
60-year-old man at the heart of the scandal. He is a senior-level career
employee working as an information technology specialist in the Office of
Policy. As a GS-14 level employee, he earns between $91,407 and $118,828 a
year.
Hayden
Confirmed as CIA Chief - Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, a career
intelligence officer who has overseen some of the government's most secret and
controversial surveillance programs, was confirmed by the Senate yesterday to
head the CIA as it tries to regain some of its lost luster…Hayden's nomination
drew fire from some Democrats and civil liberties groups because he headed the
National Security Agency when it began conducting warrantless wiretaps of
Americans' international phone calls in a bid to find possible terrorists.
Hayden and Bush, who acknowledged the program only after press reports outlined
it, have said the effort is narrowly targeted at
terrorism suspects. But thousands of phone calls reportedly have been monitored
without producing promising leads, and many lawmakers say Hayden and other
officials have yet to explain adequately why they should not have to obtain
court warrants for the wiretaps.
Time
Ordered to Give Internal Documents to Libby - Time magazine must turn over
some internal documents to former vice presidential aide I. Lewis
"Scooter" Libby's attorneys because the evidence could help his
defense against perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges in the CIA leak
case, a federal judge ruled yesterday.
Are the
Police Digging into Your Phone Records? - The National Security Agency may
not be the only one looking at your phone records. As the agency’s
controversial program of collecting Americans’ calling data continues to draw
heat, new questions have emerged about whether federal and local law
enforcement officials are possibly skirting privacy laws by obtaining phone
records from companies that get the information in a questionable manner and
then hawk it over the Internet. Since February, Congress has been investigating
such so-called data brokers for the ways in which they gather their
information. Some of them use people inside the phone company who are willing
to divulge the data. But more commonly, these businesses obtain phone records
through an illegal practice known as "pretexting,"
in which someone calls up the phone company and impersonates a subscriber to
con the service representative into releasing copies of the records. The
possible connection with law enforcement came to light when the data brokers
were asked as part of the Congressional inquiry to submit letters revealing
their client lists. One data broker listed as clients the FBI and unspecified
"foreign governments," while another claimed to have done work for
the Department of Homeland Security…In its letter to the House committee, made
public earlier this month, Advanced Research, Inc. (ARI), the operator of
ADVSearch.com, said the company has "done work for municipalities, banks,
mortgage and insurance companies, private companies, foreign governments, law
enforcement, even the FBI."… Patrick Baird, vice president of PDJ
investigations, says that in its six years the company has supplied information
for between 200 and 300 law enforcement cases. He said the FBI and the
Department of Homeland Security were among the company's past clients.
Data theft
not reported for two weeks - Under intense bipartisan fire from Capitol
Hill, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said Wednesday he was outraged
by his agency’s decision to keep the theft of veterans’ personal data quiet for
two weeks…Nicholson’s remarks came amid growing outrage from lawmakers over the
May 3 theft, which involved the birthdates and Social Security numbers of 26.5
million veterans. The VA employee had taken the information home without
authorization…The Senate Homeland Security Committee and the Committee on
Veterans Affairs said they would hold a joint emergency hearing Thursday and
call Nicholson to testify. “Twenty-six million people deserve answers,” said
Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, chair of the VA panel.
Veterans
Angered by File Scandal - Veterans brimmed with shock and anger yesterday
at the loss of their personal data by the Department of Veterans Affairs, but
in many ways the information security breach should not have come as a
surprise. The department has consistently ranked near the bottom among federal
agencies in an annual congressional scorecard of computer security. For five
years, the VA inspector general has identified information security as a
material weakness and faulted officials for slow progress in tackling the
problem.
Gonzales
Defends Phone-Data Collection - Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said
yesterday that the government can obtain domestic telephone records without
court approval under a 1979 Supreme Court ruling that authorized the collection
of business records…Gonzales has previously defended the government acquisition
of phone company records on the grounds that privacy protections do not apply
to them. But his reference to the 1979 Supreme Court case may hint that a
technologically updated version of the pen register has been used on a much
wider scale in the NSA operation.
FCC won't
investigate NSA call program - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission
will not pursue complaints about a spy agency's access to millions of telephone
records because it cannot obtain classified material, the FCC's chairman said
in a letter released on Tuesday…”We can't have a situation where the FCC,
charged with enforcing the law, won't even begin an investigation of apparent
violations of the law because it predicts the administration will roadblock any
investigations citing national security," Markey said in response to
Martin.
FCC
Refuses to Investigate NSA Program, Predicting Likely Administration Road
Blocks – [Press release from Congressman Ed Markey] Last week
Representative Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Ranking Democrat on the House
Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, sent a letter to the
Chairman of the Federal Communications Committee (FCC) regarding reports of the
disclosure by the nation’s largest telecommunications carriers, AT&T,
Verizon, and BellSouth, of private consumer information from millions of
Americans to the National Security Agency (NSA). Specifically, Rep.
Markey requested that the FCC investigate these apparent violations of the
Communications Act or explain why the agency thought the NSA program did not
violate the law. Today the FCC refused to commence an investigation or
respond to Rep. Markey’s questions, citing the Bush Administration’s likely
claim of “states secrets privilege.”… “Today the watchdog agency that oversees
the country’s telecommunications industry refused to investigate the nation’s
largest phone companies’ reported disclosure of phone records to the NSA.
The FCC, which oversees the protection of consumer privacy under the Communications
Act of 1934, has taken a pass at investigating what is estimated to be the
nation’s largest violation of consumer privacy ever to occur. If the
oversight body that monitors our nation’s communications is stepping aside then
Congress must step in.” …On May 11, 2006, Representative Edward J. Markey,
the ranking Democrat on the House Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee
along with all other Democrats serving on the House Energy and Commerce
Committee sent a letter to Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX)
requesting committee hearings on the subject. To date there has been no
response from the Committee Chairman.
Schakowsky
demands answers from AT&T - Rep. Jan Schakowsky asked AT&T Tuesday
to disclose whether it shared consumers' phone records and Internet messages
with the National Security Agency…Schakowsky, who represents Chicago's North
Side and north suburbs, also wanted to know if AT&T had played a role in sidetracking
legislation she sponsored to ban the sale of consumers' phone records.
Vets deserve
better treatment after data theft - On Monday, the Veterans Administration
announced that an employee had taken home data on 26.5 million veterans, and
that data was stolen. It's a staggering amount, dwarfing other recent
high-profile incidents at major
Data about
millions of veterans stolen - A computer disk with the personal information
of about 26.5 million
Whistle-Blower's
Evidence, Uncut - Former AT&T technician Mark Klein is the key witness
in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class-action lawsuit against the
telecommunications company, which alleges that AT&T cooperated in an
illegal National Security Agency domestic surveillance program.
Protection
from prying NSA eyes - From the
The
Eternal Value of Privacy - The most common retort against privacy advocates
-- by those in favor of ID checks, cameras, databases, data mining and other
wholesale surveillance measures -- is this line: "If you aren't doing
anything wrong, what do you have to hide?" Some clever answers: "If
I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me."
"Because the government gets to define what's wrong, and they keep
changing the definition." "Because you might do
something wrong with my information." My problem with quips like
these -- as right as they are -- is that they accept the premise that privacy
is about hiding a wrong. It's not. Privacy is an inherent human right, and a
requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect.
Supreme
Court Backs Police in Emergencies - The Supreme Court reaffirmed Monday
that police can enter homes in emergencies without knocking or announcing their
presence. Justices said four Brigham City, Utah, police officers were justified
in going inside a home in 2000 after peering through a window and seeing a
fight between a teenager and adults.
Prosecution
of Journalists Is Possible in NSA Leaks - Attorney General Alberto R.
Gonzales raised the possibility yesterday that New York Times journalists could
be prosecuted for publishing classified information based on the outcome of the
criminal investigation underway into leaks to the Times of data about the
National Security Agency's surveillance of terrorist-related calls between the
United States and abroad.
The
Wiretapping Tango - By the mid-1970s illegal phone company cooperation with
surveillance had become a scandal nationwide. Though no city's taps topped New
Haven's, in cities like New York and Chicago, local police red squads routinely
relied on friendly telecommunications executives for access to records. Under
J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI did the same. In 1975 the Senate committee
investigating government surveillance activities, headed by Frank Church,
revealed that phone companies had for years allowed warrantless surveillance by
the National Security Agency under the code name Operation Shamrock:
computerized monitoring of all telegraphic data into and out of the United
States. As Jason Vest of the Project on Government Oversight notes on POGO's
blog, in 1976 Representative Bella Abzug did exactly what Senator Arlen Specter
is threatening to do today--she subpoenaed top officials of Western Union, ITT
and RCA Global. Indeed, today's NSA scandal and the Administration's response
to the revelations track directly back to that era. When Abzug issued her
subpoenas, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld--President Ford's Chief of Staff and
Defense Secretary, respectively--persuaded the Justice Department to assert
unprecedented claims of executive privilege not only over FBI and NSA testimony
but also over that of
Legal
loophole emerges in NSA spy program - An AT&T attorney indicated in
federal court on Wednesday that the Bush administration may have provided legal
authorization for the telecommunications company to open its network to the
National Security Agency…AT&T may be referring to an obscure section of
federal law, 18 U.S.C. 2511, which permits a telecommunications company to
provide "information" and "facilities" to the federal
government as long as the attorney general authorizes it. The authorization
must come in the form of "certification in writing by...the Attorney
General of the United States that no warrant or court order is required by
law”… "If the certification exists, AT&T is in pretty good
shape," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center and co-author of a book on information privacy law.
Privacy
Case May Rest on Alito Vote - The Supreme Court heard a rare mid-May oral
argument yesterday, on the authority of police to search private homes without
knocking first -- in a major privacy-rights case likely to be decided by the
vote of the court's newest member, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. At issue in
ISP
snooping plans take backseat - A prominent Republican in the
Online
gamblers targeted by scams - Gamblers playing in online casinos are being
warned that they may increasingly be targeted by hackers looking to steal.
Punting
the Interesting Answers to the Secret Session - The dictionary tells us
that "oversight" can mean either watchful supervision or an omission
caused by inattention. As it held a confirmation hearing for CIA nominee
Michael Hayden yesterday, the Senate intelligence committee seemed to be
operating under the latter definition.
Hayden:
Spying program is legal - President Bush's nominee to head the CIA defended
the administration's warrantless surveillance program Thursday and said media
reports about it have had a "corrosive
effect" on the nation's intelligence gatherers.
BellSouth
Wants Story Retractions - BellSouth Corp.,
the nation's third-largest telephone company, yesterday took a further step to
distance itself from reports that it gave domestic calling records to the
National Security Agency, demanding that
Oversight? What oversight? Congress briefed, then gagged
- When anti-terror programs of questionable legality are revealed — such as the
National Security Agency's snooping on phone calls and records — President Bush
hastens to point out that members of Congress from both parties have been
"briefed." That's as it should be. Congress is supposed to oversee
the executive branch's intelligence operations. From all indications, however,
that oversight is badly broken.
Judge
Rejects Call to Release AT&T Papers - The documents at issue in the
case came from Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician, who said in April
that cables and equipment installed at an AT&T office in San Francisco in
2003 for the NSA "were tapping into" circuits carrying customers'
dial-in services. He supplied documents to EFF to support his assertions, which
were filed under seal…EFF legal director Cindy Cohn said in an interview that
the case concerns customers' Internet and phone records, and, according to the
information provided by Klein, AT&T's "real-time diversion of customer
Internet data." The Justice Department has asked
Judge
denies AT&T request for closed hearing - A federal judge rejected a
request from AT&T on Wednesday to kick the public out of a hearing in a
lawsuit alleging the telecommunications company illegally cooperated with the
National Security Agency…Both sides have been quarreling over what to do with
the documents provided by former AT&T technician Mark Klein and filed under
seal with the court, with EFF saying they should be made entirely public and
AT&T arguing they should be returned because they contain confidential
information.
Down
to the Fourth Estate - This month, Congress is faced with a most
inconvenient crime. With the recent disclosure of a massive secret database
program run by the National Security Agency involving tens of millions of
innocent Americans, members are confronted with a second intelligence operation
that not only lacks congressional authorization but also appears patently
unlawful. In December, the public learned that the NSA was engaging in
warrantless domestic surveillance of overseas communications — an operation
many experts believe is a clear federal crime ordered by the president more
than 30 times. What is most striking about these programs is that they were
revealed not by members of Congress but by members of the Fourth Estate:
Journalists who confronted Congress with evidence of potentially illegal
conduct by this president that was known to various congressional leaders…The
plain fact is that neither party wants to acknowledge that the president might
have ordered the commission of federal crimes in the name of national security.
Thus, while there have been calls for another feeble hearing (possibly with
telecom executives), Congress would prefer to investigate steroids in baseball
and the selling of horses to
The NSA is on
the line -- all of them - When intelligence historian Matthew Aid read the USA Today story last Thursday about how the National Security
Agency was collecting millions of phone call records from AT&T, Bell South
and Verizon for a widespread domestic surveillance program designed to root out
possible terrorist activity in the United States, he had to wonder whether the
date on the newspaper wasn't 1976 instead of 2006. Aid, a visiting fellow at
George Washington University's National Security
Archive, who has just completed the first book of a three-volume
history of the NSA, knew the nation's bicentennial marked the year when secrets
surrounding another NSA domestic surveillance program, code-named Project
Shamrock, were exposed. As fireworks showered
NSA report
renews data mining concerns - The NSA declined to comment. But several
experts said it seemed likely the agency would want to assemble a picture from
more than just landline phone records. Other forms of communication, including
cell phone calls, e-mails and instant messages, likely are trackable
targets as well, at least on international networks if not inside the U.S.
GOP
skepticism over NSA program widens - Speaking at a privacy seminar here at
the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Sen. John Sununu of New
Hampshire said the latest revelations that the nation's three biggest phone
companies have delivered
call records on potentially millions of Americans to the NSA raise
concerns about the government's encroachment into private citizens' lives, even
if the actions were legal.
FCC
Chief Calls for Probe of Phone Cos. - The Federal Communications
Commission, which regulates the telephone industry, should open an
investigation into whether the nation's phone companies broke the law by
turning over millions of calling records to the government, an FCC commissioner
says…"There is no doubt that protecting the security of the American
people is our government's No. 1 responsibility," Commissioner Michael J. Copps, a Democrat, said in a statement Monday. "But in
a digital age where collecting, distributing and manipulating consumers'
personal information is as easy as a click of a button, the privacy of our
citizens must still matter."… An FCC investigation, if undertaken, would
be the second attempt this year by the government to explore an aspect of an
NSA program. The Justice Department sought to investigate the role of its
lawyers in the warrantless eavesdropping program, but it ended the inquiry last
week because its lawyers were denied security clearances.
BellSouth Says
It Gave NSA No Call Records - BellSouth said Monday its "thorough
review" found no indication it gave telephone records to the National
Security Agency as part of a federal anti-terrorism surveillance program.
From
the Land of the Free to a Nation of Suspects - The Bush administration has
managed to cross George Orwell with Sting. Every step you take, every move you
make, Big Brother will be watching you…President Bush insisted, "We're not
mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans."
In fact, that's exactly what his administration is doing -- 24 hours a day, 365
days a year…It's not just the NSA that will know whom you call. According to
A
Pattern of Excess – The routine has become distressingly familiar: A news
organization reveals a secret operation by the Bush administration that employs
new means to fight the war on terrorism but also raises serious issues of civil
liberties or human rights. The president responds with a curt assertion that
the actions are legal, even as his administration moves to head off any intervention
by Congress. Resisting further requests for information, the White House
countenances a public debate only to the extent it can be put to partisan use,
as a means of casting Democratic critics as weak on national security…almost
all of the exceptional steps President Bush approved have been compromised and
discredited by the administration's behavior: its insistence on secrecy and
imperious readings of the law; its contempt for meaningful congressional
oversight and disregard of international opinion and U.S. alliances; its
stubborn resistance to good-faith efforts by Congress to bring the operations
under statute. The consequence is that much of the administration's
counterterrorism strategy lacks the democratic legitimacy that would be conferred
by open debate and congressional votes.
Cheney
Pushed U.S. to Widen Eavesdropping - For the first time since 1978, when the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act was passed and began requiring court approval for
all eavesdropping on United States soil, the N.S.A. is intentionally listening
in on Americans' calls without warrants.
Phone
Calls Are Just the Start - Telephone records are just a sliver of the data
on individuals that the government could assemble. Through our movements,
transactions and activities, residents of industrialized societies throw off
megabytes of data each day. Gathering this data is technically straightforward,
and the potential for authorities to build much larger databases -- relying on
sources we may not have contemplated before -- is quite real. Such databases
would require extensive protections to prevent abuse from low-level insiders
and senior government officials.
U.S. Asks for Suit Against AT& T to Be Dismissed - The government filed a motion yesterday to intervene and seek
dismissal of a lawsuit by a civil liberties group against AT&T Inc. over a
federal program to monitor U.S. communications. The suit filed in the
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California accuses AT&T of
unlawful collaboration with the National Security Agency in its surveillance
program to intercept telephone and e-mail communications between people in the
United States and people linked to al-Qaeda and affiliated organizations…In its
motion seeking intervention, posted on the court's Web site, the government
said the interests of the parties in the lawsuit "may well be in the
disclosure of state secrets" in their effort to present their claims or
defenses. "Only the United States is in a position to protect against the
disclosure of information over which it has asserted the state secrets
privilege, and the United States is the only entity properly positioned to
explain why continued litigation of the matter threatens the national
security," said the motion, dated May 12.
Qwest
Defies NSA - Rob Douglas, a security consultant in Colorado who has
testified before Congress numerous times about privacy issues, said it was the
possible record-sharing among agencies that struck him the most. "It
demonstrates the slippery slope,"
NSA has
massive database of Americans' phone calls - The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting
the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by
AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the
arrangement told