Patriot Act News

Pentagon, CIA check U.S. suspects' bank records

2007-01-30T16:42:00.000-08:00

Gov't continues to use national security letters to investigate people thought to be terrorist supsects. Letters have been used in up to 500 investigations according to a recent CNN story.

Phone locks if owner gets to far away

2006-10-28T15:00:00.000-07:00

An interesting new security feature is available in a Japanese phone, it locks if the owner gets too far away. Facial recognition can also be used as additional security:

Here's how that works. Owners must first take at least three photos of themselves with the phone's camera. Up to 10 can be shot, in various situations — with and without glasses, with and without makeup, indoors and outdoors. Then, if the facial-recognition feature is turned on, before accessing the handset a user has to take a picture of himself with the camera. The phone analyzes features such as distance between the eyes and unlocks if the image matches the stored data. A separate function recognizes whether the eyes are blinking — in case someone tries to show the owner's photo to gain fraudulent entry. Not only that, a four-letter password can be added to this process, to guard against an identical twin getting unauthorized access.

The phone can be tracked via sattelite if lost. The security is a good idea since this phone, like other Japanese phones, can be used as credit cards or prepaid cash.

Credit cards & RFID

2006-10-23T22:32:00.000-07:00

Credit card companies are now experimenting with RFID. What sounded like a dubious idea to me in passports, now sounds almost ridiculous. Quoting from the Engadget blog:

"Our latest security problem du jour is that credit card companies are apparently issuing plastic that relays your digits wirelessly; as you might have guessed, security researchers are checking into this, and in a demonstration for The New York Times, easily hacked a University of Massachusetts computer science professor's newfangled RFID credit card. In short order (and with his permission), a researcher working with RSA Labs was able to steal the professor's name and credit card number that was being transmitted in cleartext -- thereby poking massive holes in Visa, MasterCard and American Express' claims that these card include "the highest level of encryption allowed by the U.S. government." Predictably, the credit card companies have already dismissed claims that the populus will be greatly affected by this hack. Brian Triplett, senior vice president for emerging-product development for Visa, told the Gray Lady: "This is an interesting technical exercise, but as a real threat to a consumer - that threat really doesn't exist."

Check out the tech report, from the NYTimes. It details the supposed RFID credit card vulnerabilities.

Thanks to a Stanford colleague for pointing out the credit card RFID story that appeared in the NY Times.

Makes you think again about what's in your wallet, doesn't it?

Expectations of Privacy and Search Engines

2006-08-09T20:01:00.000-07:00

A while back, the Bush administration issued subpoenas to major search engines like Google. Search engines collect a lot of information about us. They log our searches, often our IP address, and track sites we visit via cookies.

In November, Search Engine Watch wrote about a man who was convicted of killing his wife partly because law enforcement authorities discovered that he used Google to search for “neck,” “snap,” and “hold.” A less disturbing thread from WebmasterWorld reported that a woman clicked on her ex-boyfriends AdSense links so often that his account was suspended.

For more on privacy and search engines, see the Slate article by Timothy Wu.

Related to this topic...I heard a story about this on NPR today on the way home. I believe on NPR's Digital Culture...however I was unable to locate the story again as I missed what search engine doesn't track your IP address when you search. I found other references online to DogPile and Ice Rocket...but these didn't sound like the name of the engine in the story.

Did anybody catch it?

VA loses sensitive data again...

2006-08-07T20:19:00.000-07:00

Oops. Okay, maybe the first time was forgivable. Understandable even...but the second time? third?

"The disclosure comes after a string of recent data breaches at the VA, including the May 3 theft of 26.5 million veterans' personal data from a VA employee's home in suburban Maryland. The laptop and external drive containing that information has since been recovered, and two teens were arrested Saturday as part of what appeared to be a routine burglary.

In recent weeks, the VA has also acknowledged losing sensitive data for more than 16,000 veterans in at least two other cases in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Indianapolis, Indiana." [Source: CNN]

These people served our country. Can't their privacy and credit be protected at a minimum?

RFID e-passports

2006-08-07T18:37:00.000-07:00

Back from a slight posting hiatus (library construction, planning to move half way across the country, etc), I’ve been hearing a story that I think is worth exploring. There’s been quite the buzz in news and blogs that the US Department will begin issuing passports embedded with RFID tags in October.

There has been confusion mixed with equal parts controversy regarding whether the e-passports will have RFID tags or something called an ISO 14443 chip. RFID systems pretty much consist of RFID chips (also sometimes called tag or smart card) and a reader. RFID tags can be passive or active. Passive tags are powered by the readers, while active cards have their own power.

RFID are commonly used for tracking supply chains (such as WalMart). RFID has seem some adoption by libraries, although this has certainly been tempered due to cost of implementing the system. The e-passports will have a type of RFID tag that is passive and uses the ISO 14443 chip. This chip can be encrypted, but it doesn't have to be. The State Department does not plan to encrypt the chips used in the passports.

Public outcry is largely centered around the fear that these e-passports will be able to be read from a great distance. Some say 10 or 30 feet – although this distance could certainly be open to debate. Stoking the fire, Luke Grunwald – a German security expert – demonstrated how personal information from an e-passport could be copied and transferred.

In response to concerns, The State Department will:

"...include an anti-skimming material in the front cover and spine of the electronic passport that will mitigate the threat of skimming from distances beyond the ten centimeters prescribed by the ISO 14443 technology, as long as the passport book is closed or nearly closed." [Source]

Could the data stolen off an e-passport could identify American citizens in other countries? Could it lead to identity theft? This whole issue is certainly worth hashing out before October rolls around.

House Approves Patriot Act Renewal

2006-03-09T07:16:00.000-08:00

This story has been all over the news so I haven't been posting on it that much. Looks like the Patriot Act has been renewed pretty much. Read more here.

Port Deal

2006-03-09T07:10:00.000-08:00

The House Committee voted to block the port deal that would give control of major US ports to a UAE state-run company. I have to say that the Administration's defense of that Patriot Act as a necessary tool seems to weaken when you are willing to sell the administration of the ports to UAE. The Bush Administration views UAE as an ally in the fight against terror since 9/11.

Shipping experts have noted that many of the world's largest port companies are not based in the United States, and have pointed to DP World's strong economic interest in operating ports securely and efficiently.

Doesn't this boil down to the fact that this is an Arab company and people fear they might have terrorist ties, either now or sometime in the future?

More on this from NPR and The Washington Post.

Patriot Act Renewal

2006-03-03T00:19:00.000-08:00

The Senate has voted to renew the Patriot Act 89 to 10 yesterday (Thursday).

Port Authority

2006-02-24T20:05:00.000-08:00

Interesting story in the news lately about the port authority. President Bush supports tranferring control of 6 US ports to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Some law makers criticize this transfer citing a danger to national security. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have started legal action to stop the transfer. More on this at CNN.

President Bush points out that the ports have been managed by a private British company. NPR noted that the UAE company is state owned. They also report that the UAE company has decided to delay the takeover in order to give President Bush time to convice Congress of the merits of the plan.

6 US ports have been run by a British company called Peninsular and Oriental. The ports they manage are Baltimore, Miami, New Jersey, New Orleans, New York and Philadelphia.

Links worth looking at:

From NPR: understanding the links between the US and Dubai
From the Washington Post: GOP Leaders Draw Back From Bid to Block Port Deal

Categories: UAE, Port Authority

Senators Compromise to get Patriot Act renewed

2006-02-10T07:08:00.000-08:00

Four Republican senators have crafted a deal to renew the Patriot Act, agreeing to strike certain provisions. Those same four joined with Democrats to filibuster the reauthorization of the act last December, saying the law needed stronger civil liberties protections. The agreement, announced yesterday, would extend the law for four years.

Several Democrats said the compromise lacks important civil liberties safeguards, and even the Republican negotiators said they had to yield to the administration on several points. With almost all 55 GOP senators supporting the comprise, and Democrats joining them, the plan appears to have enough support to overcome the Senate filibuster that has thwarted a four-year renewal of the statute for months.

Senators said they think the White House will be able to coax the Republican-controlled House to agree as well, even though House leaders have complained that senators' demands had weakened the measure.

"It was a bipartisan group of us that really believed we could do better . . . to protect civil liberties even as we gave law enforcement important tools to conduct terrorism investigations," Senator John E. Sununu (R-N.H.) told reporters. He said that he and his fellow negotiators had to make more concessions to the administration than they wanted to, but that Congress will monitor the law's application over the coming years.

The changes:
1) Restrict federal agents' access to library records, one of the Patriot Act's most controversial provisions. A form of secret subpoena known as a National Security Letter could no longer be used to obtain records from libraries that function "in their traditional capacity, including providing basic Internet access," Sununu and others said in a statement. But libraries that are "Internet service providers" would remain subject to the letters, Durbin said.

2) The Senate proposal would no longer require National Security Letter recipients to tell the FBI the identity of their lawyers.

3) The compromise also addresses "Section 215 subpoenas," which are granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. Recipients of such subpoenas originally were subject to a gag order. The proposed Senate measure would allow them to challenge the gag order after one year, instead of the proposed change of 90 days. Sununu said the administration wanted the longer waiting period. "You now have a process to challenge the gag order," he said, defending the concession. "That didn't exist before."

Sununu said he and his allies were disappointed that the compromise does not require agents to "show a connection to a suspected terrorist or spy" before obtaining a Section 215 subpoena. Instead, a FISA judge would have to agree that reasonable grounds exist to believe the items being sought are relevant to a terrorism investigation.

The Patriot Act still has opponents, however. Senator Russell Feingold, D-Wis., the only senator to vote against the bill in 2001, told the Washington Post that the compromise doesn't "address the major problems." The Justice Department, however, has argued that the measure balances the need to stop terrorists with the need to preserve civil liberties. Sources: Washington Post, NPR

Question for librarians:
Does your library provide basic internet access or are you an Internet Service Provider? That's a distinction that is being made in this compromise.

Categories: Patriot Act, Compromise, Renewal

The impact of new CALEA legislation

2006-02-08T14:52:00.000-08:00

In Early February, I wrote a little about how colleges are fighting the new CALEA requirements

Last summer, the US Government updated the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) and surprised everybody by including vague wording that might require ISPs to allow surveillance access to their networks. In a recent brief filed with the US Court of Appeals, the Association of American Universities, American Library Association, and some companies are asking the court to reconsider the ruling.

The University of Illinois estimates that it would take $13 M to comply with the requirements – on top of a $20 M upgrade that they are undertaking now (source: Arstechnia). Budgets at many universities and colleges can not handle an expensive upgrade and this cost cannot likely be absorbed into tuition fees.

CALEA was crafted specifically to regulate phone networks, which are closed systems. The Internet, on the other hand, is a distributed, global network. It is my opinion, CALEA should be applied to telephone networks, not wired or wireless networks of colleges and universities. It would also help if the impact of CALEA was a little bit clearer.

Does a school need to provide access at every router or only where the Internet meets the school's intranet? It's not entirely clear at this time. Certainly only providing access at the Internet/intranet location is more financially viable, but still a mess if you have to then have to possibly monitor every e-mail/communication leaving and entering the school.

Interested in reading more? There is material worth checking out from Educause

Categories: CALEA

Bill to Amend Patriot Act Introduced

2006-02-07T14:22:00.000-08:00

Senator Sensenbrenner, R-Wis, has introduced bill H.R. 4659 to amend the Patriot Act by extending the sunset of certain provisions of the Act. The bill, introduced January 31st, has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee and the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

Categories: Patriot Act, Bill

Insights Into the Secret World of Eavesdropping

2006-02-04T20:15:00.000-08:00

An NPR story that is worth a listen: Madeleine Brand talks with Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Chatter: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping, about the investigation into the NSA program and other intelligence gathering activities.

Categories: NSA, NPR story

Wiretapping Battle Gets a Hearing in the Senate

2006-02-03T14:02:00.000-08:00

On Monday, Arlen Specter of The Senate Judiciary Committee, will open hearings over the super secretive warantless wiretap program. The hearings will help determine if the president's actions were legal or illegal. Supporters of the president say warrantless wiretaps are agressive and appropriate, while many Democrats chalk it up to presidential overreaching.

You might recall that the program was leaked in a report to The New York Times. Since that time, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have attempted to repair the damage, with mixed results as evidenced by recent polls.

The administration consistently argues that the Constitution gives the President, as commander in chief, the authority to do what he sees fit to protect the country.

The message from the White House clearly seems to be saying that Republicans are more committed than Democrats to protecting Americans against terrorism. Speaking at a National Republican Committee meeting, Karl Rove, suggested that the NSA wiretapping program would be at the heart of the GOP strategy in the upcoming midterm elections: "President Bush believes if al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they're calling and why," Rove said. "Some important Democrats clearly disagree."

Is this accurate? Democrats in Congress, including Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, say that they want the president possible to find terrorists. The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Jane Harman of California, has pointed out that the White House has asked Congress to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) several times since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks...and Congress has always agreed. Democrats have some Republican allies, including Specter, and fellow GOP Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina.

NPR concludes that Democrats suspect the President's reluctance for amending the law -- and thereby ending the debate over the legality of the program -- stems from not wanting to lose the political issue, and possibly the precedent for expanding presidential powers in other areas.

We won't make any progress until we can overcome our very different views of what core issues are at stake. Is it protecting ourselves against terrorism regardless of the cost? We can't let fear allow us to give up core values, such as civil liberties, that make us American.

Postscript: Of interest to fellow Nebraskans, from NPR.

Categories: Patriot Act, Extension

House votes to extend Act

2006-02-02T05:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the House voted to extend the Act to allow time for the Congress and Senate to hammer out a deal. Later today, the Senate is expected to vote to extend the provisions until March 10. UPDATE: NPR carried this story too.

Reported in a number of news outlets yesterday, Senators who blocked the renewal of the Act in December are concerned with privacy and civil liberty issues:

Sensenbrenner said amendments approved in the House in December would add 27 new safeguards against potential abuse.

Democrats, however, said the issue wasn't whether to extend the Patriot Act, but how best to strengthen it without compromising constitutional rights.

"None of us want to be hit again," said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas). "But we do want to protect our civil liberties." (source)

This is putting all that stuff you learned in your government high school class into action.

Colleges Fight FCC's New Online Wiretapping Rules

2006-02-01T14:35:00.000-08:00

A group of colleges, libraries, and technology companies has asked a federal court to overturn a ruling, issued by the Federal Communications Commission, that facilitates Internet wiretapping. The 71-page brief, filed by organizations such as Sun Microsystems, Pulver.com, the American Association of Community Colleges, the Association of American Universities, and the American Library Association, has been sent to the US Court of Appeals arguing that the FCC has overstepped its bounds.

The ruling these groups want overturned could require ISPs and colleges to rewire their networks so that federal investigators can more easily track individuals' Web browsing and e-mail use. College and library officials argued that the rewiring would prove prohibitively expensive, and that it would inevitably lead to violations of their network users' privacy. (Sources: CNET News & Wired Campus)

More on CALEA and its possible impact later...

Categories: Wiretaps, CALEA

House prepares to extend the Patriot Act

2006-02-01T13:52:00.000-08:00

The House will likely vote later this afternoon to extend the Patriot Act until March 10. The hope is that this 5 week extension will give the Senate and Congress time to hammer out a compromise.

Source about extension: NY Times

Categories: Patriot Act, Extension

State of the Union Speech

2006-02-01T04:10:00.000-08:00

I've always enjoyed State of the Union speeches. Why? I think I like the applause, cheering. President Bush surprised me by talking about US dependence on foreign oil and the need to explore alternative fuel sources...like switch grass and a few others.

He also defended his use of surveillance. I recommend checking out the resources on NPR about the debate over domestic surveillance.

If you'd like to read the transcript of President Bush's speech, it's also available.

Categories: State of the Union, Domestic Surveillance

FBI backs down when a librarian demands a warrant

2006-01-31T14:48:00.000-08:00

The Chronicle has reported that the FBI wanted to seize 30 library computers at a public library in Newton, Mass. According to the article, an e-mail threat had led to an evacuation of more than a dozen Brandeis U buildings on Jan. 18.

The FBI agents alledged that someone had used the public library's Internet connection to send the threatening e-mail. The library director, Kathy Glick-Weil, told agents they could not take the machines without a warrant. Fortunately for her, David Cohen -- Newton's mayor-- supported her.

Finally the FBI officials sought a warrant for a judge while Glick-Weil allowed an FBI examiner to work with IT from the library to narrow down what computers might have been used. They decided that three of the computers might have been used. The FBI warrant allowed the agents to take away these computers and view only the threatening e-mail message as well as the messages sent immediately before and after that message.

According to the Chronicle article:

Mr. Cohen said in an interview on Monday that he and Ms. Glick-Weil demanded the warrant because the FBI agents did not indicate that anyone at Brandeis faced a "clear and present danger." If there had been such a danger, Mr. Cohen added, agents probably would have seized the computers without even asking for them.

"We were able to both protect public safety and also protect the rights of people, the sense of privacy of many, many innocent users of the computers," he said. "Had we given them the computers, they would have gotten to see e-mails from ordinary citizens doing ordinary things and would not have preserved privacy."

Some have lashed out arguing that officials handled the situation irresponsibly, but the mayor reported he received many positive comments from people who supported his actions. Personally, I think the library director is very lucky to have a supportive mayor.

Categories: Librarian, FBI, Warrants

Feingold to Gonzales: "You've got some 'splainin to do"

2006-01-31T14:28:00.000-08:00

Senator Feingold charged yesterday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales intentionally misled the Senate during his confirmation hearing a year ago when he avoided answering questions about the possibility of warrantless wiretapping of US citizens.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that Feingold: "demanded to know why Gonzales dismissed the senator's question about warrantless eavesdropping as a "hypothetical situation" during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January 2005."

In fact, the President did authorize warrantless searches on US citizens post-9/11. According to the Post article, Gonzales -- who was White House counsel at the time the surveillance began -- "acknowledged his role in affirming the president's authority to launch the surveillance effort." The article concludes with a statement from Feingold, "It now appears that the Attorney General was not being straight with the Judiciary Committee and he has some explaining to do."

Gonzales is scheduled to testify Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee and will likely be asked to about the legal rationale behind the program.

This is a deception that begs the question, what else don't we know about? It's one thing to hoodwink our opponents, like Hitler at Normandy...but isn't it something else to hoodwink the American public as well? Or is it a necessary evil if we want to protect ourselves from terrorists and terror?

This again comes down to the same issue, how can we safeguard ourselves reasonably without sacrificing civil liberties?

Categories: Wiretaps, Legality

Judge Alito

2006-01-31T13:57:00.000-08:00

The New York Times reports that Alito is sworn in as Justice after a close vote in the Senate. 58 to 42. This is a victory for President Bush and he will address the nation tonight.

Here's some background on Alito's rulings from a previous post.

Categories: Alito

Countdown: The Patriot Act Deadline Approaching

2006-01-28T21:17:00.000-08:00

The Patriot Act is set to expire next Friday.

If you haven't been following the debate, this post will bring you up to speed on the upcoming countdown to the new expiration date of the Patriot Act. Congress granted a five-week extension at the end of the last year. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter this week urged fellow senators to either approve the agreement that's been hammered out with the House or pass another extension.

While the Act gives law enforcement new tools to fight terrorism, a bipartisan group of senators says the renewal plan doesn't safeguard privacy enough. House officials have said they're finished negotiating and are standing behind the earlier agreement with Senate bargainers.

Categories: Patriot Act, Deadline

Slippery Slope?

2006-01-25T21:21:00.000-08:00

In the previous post, I wrote about COPA and the Government’s request for Google’s record. Some say that this might be the beginning of a slippery slope. In November, Search Engine Watch wrote about a man who was convicted of killing his wife partly because law enforcement authorities discovered that he used Google to search for “neck,” “snap,” and “hold.”

The authorities did not get that information from Google, but from the man’s ISP. Basically, everything you do on the Internet is recorded on your computer – in your cache, in your browser history, and possibly stored by your ISP. Your ISP can see pages you are requesting and may store some amount of records that you’ve requested for a specific period of time.

You know, personally I’m glad they caught this guy. The concern over the Government getting involved in combing through search records sounds familiar doesn’t it? Battelle has a post that suggests that while:

"...the government intends to use these data specifically for its COPA-related test, it's possible that the information could lead to further investigations and, perhaps, subpoenas to find out who was doing the searching. What if certain search terms indicated that people were contemplating terrorist actions or other criminal activities? Says the DOJ's Miller, "I'm assuming that if something raised alarms, we would hand it over to the proper [authorities]." Privacy advocates fear that if the government request is upheld, it will open the door to further government examination of search behavior."

A phrase often attributed to Franklin is: "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

What do you value more?

Categories: COPA, Google, Privacy

More on Google

2006-01-24T20:13:00.000-08:00

What is COPA? It was a 1998 Child Online Protection Act (COPA). The act required credit card or age verification for access to adult sites. The Supreme Court struck down the act citing a First Amendment violation and said that the Government should devise a less intrusive revision of the law or prove that the law does not violate the First Amendment.

The Department of Justice has argued that Internet filtering software was ineffective, the solution must be the COPA. The Government has subpoenaed Google, as well as other search engines, seeking a large amount of information from their databases. The Government hopes to prove how much pornography is returned in search results and show that we should return to COPA.

While other search engines complied with the Government’s request, Google has not. They have argued that it would violate privacy rights of users and also reveal trade secrets. According to an IIT article, a “privacy advocate said that it sets a dangerous precedent – it opens the door to subpoenaing Google and other companies for “national security” reasons, such as the IP addresses of anyone who searched for information on bomb making.”

More on the idea that this might be a slippery slope later.

Categories: Google, Privacy, COPA