Decius wrote:

This is a very interesting window into imperfect human lives.

This is sure to be some fascinating data.

I revised Decius's title because I thought it might be deceptive to people who haven't been following this story. (Google has not released this kind of data and is not involved in this latest data leak.)

The secrets people whisper to AOL

By: Steven Bellovin, Columbia University; Matt Blaze, University of Pennsylvania; Ernest Brickell, Intel Corporation; Clinton Brooks, NSA (retired); Vinton Cerf, Google; Whitfield Diffie, Sun Microsystems; Susan Landau, Sun Microsystems; Jon Peterson, NeuStar; John Treichler, Applied Signal Technology

June 13, 2006

For many people, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) looks like a nimble way of using a computer to make phone calls. Download the software, pick an identifier and then wherever there is an Internet connection, you can make a phone call. From this perspective, it makes perfect sense that anything that can be done with the telephone system -- such as E9111 and the graceful accommodation of wiretapping -- should be able to be done readily with VoIP as well.

This simplified view of VoIP misses the point of the new technology. The network architectures of the Internet and the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) are substantially different. Lack of understanding of the implications of the differences has led to some difficult -- and potentially dangerous -- policy decisions. One of these is the recent FBI request to apply the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) to VoIP. The FCC has issued an order for all "interconnected" and all broadband access VoIP services to comply with CALEA (without issuing specific regulations on what that would mean). The FBI has suggested that CALEA should apply to all forms of VoIP, regardless of the technology involved in its implementation[17].

Some cases -- intercept against a VoIP call made from a fixed location with a fixed Internet address2 connecting directly to a big Internet provider’s access router -- are the equivalent to a normal phone call, and such interceptions are relatively easy to do. But if any of these conditions is not met, then the problem of assuring interception is enormously harder. In order to extend authorized interception much beyond the easy scenario outlined above, it is necessary either to eliminate the flexibility that Internet communications allow -- thus making VoIP essentially a copy of the PSTN -- or else introduce serious security risks to domestic VoIP implementations. The former would have significant negative effects on U.S. ability to innovate, while the latter is simply dangerous. The current FBI and FCC direction on CALEA applied to VoIP carries great risks. In this paper, we amplify and expand upon these issues.

Security Implications of Applying the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act to Voice over IP

As illustrated by Negroponte's remarks last week, administration officials have been punctilious in discussing the NSA program over the past five months, parsing their words with care and limiting comments to the portion of the program that had been confirmed by the president in December.

In doing so, the administration rarely offered any hint that a much broader operation, involving millions of domestic calls, was underway. Even yesterday -- after days of congressional furor and extensive media reports -- administration officials declined to confirm or deny the existence of the telephone-call program, in part because of court challenges that the government is attempting to derail.

I continue to be surprised that no one else has recommended Black Arts, by Thomas Powers, more than a year after its publication and appearance on MemeStreams. For this reason, I will reiterate his closing statement for you:

About the failure everyone now agrees. But what was the problem? And what should be done to make us safe?

It wasn't respect for the Constitution that kept the NSA from reading the "Tomorrow is zero hour" message until the day after the disaster. It was lack of translators. To meet that kind of problem, the Comint professionals have a default solution: more. Not just more Arab linguists but more of everything -- more analysts, more polygraph examiners and security guards, more freedom to listen in on more people, more listening posts, more coverage, more secrecy.

Is more what we really need?

In my opinion not.

But running spies is not the NSA's job. Listening is, and more listening is what the NSA knows how to organize, more is what Congress is ready to support and fund, more is what the President wants, and more is what we are going to get.

Don't say you were surprised by the USA Today story last week.

You might also recall this thread from February, in which Russell Tice testified before Congress about the broader program. Again, no one recommended that article.

Negroponte Had Denied Domestic Call Monitoring

A small group of National Security Agency officials slipped into Silicon Valley on one of the agency's periodic technology shopping expeditions this month.

On the wish list, according to several venture capitalists who met with the officials, were an array of technologies that underlie the fierce debate over the Bush administration's anti-terrorist eavesdropping program: computerized systems that reveal connections between seemingly innocuous and unrelated pieces of information.

So if Acidus is seemingly innocuous, and Decius is unrelated to Acidus ... then the NSA must be interested in both of them -- and their technology!

You see: they are related ... Acidus recommended 10 memes from Decius in 2005, and Decius recommended 13 memes from Acidus during the same period.

Question: Is there a market for a monthly magazine that is a cross between Vogue and Foreign Affairs?

NSA Spies MemeStreams Technology

The President has been waiting to get his fix ...

Senate Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts said he has worked out an agreement with the White House to change US law regarding the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program and provide more information about it to Congress.

Without offering specifics, Roberts said the agreement with the White House provides "a fix" to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and offers more briefings to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

All gone!

White House Agrees to Spy Law Change

This is a UPI story, but it's reporting directly on testimony at a recent House hearing, so it isn't entirely made up, although it might be egregiously extrapolated.

A former NSA employee said Tuesday there is another ongoing top-secret surveillance program that might have violated millions of Americans' Constitutional rights.

Russell D. Tice told the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations he has concerns about a "special access" electronic surveillance program that he characterized as far more wide-ranging than the warrentless wiretapping recently exposed by the New York Times but he is forbidden from discussing the program with Congress.

You might be interested in Tice's testimony. He seems to be a suffering whistleblower who characterizes his trials with NSA as a "Kofkesk journey" [sic]. This guy was called before Congress to talk about his experience as a whistleblower and the assessment of a government psychologist that he was paranoid. There is nothing in his prepared testimony about any special access program, so if the UPI story is even remotely valid, it must have come up during questioning. So perhaps there is less to this story than meets the eye, and my early skepticism about UPI was warranted.

In a recent thread about the recent review by Thomas Powers of James Risen's new book, State of War, I quoted Powers:

I believe that the Judiciary Committee will find, if it is willing to persist, that within the large pointless program there exists a small, sharply focused program that delivers something the White House really wants. This it will never confess willingly.

It's rather too early to tell, but it's possible this "additional program" is the "focused program" Powers was talking about. (It should be said that "focused" should not be read as "limited" or "legal".) I still think Powers is onto something, but having seen Tice's prepared testimony, I am not inclined to get particularly excited about his claims.

And, of course, any time I post something on this topic, I am inclined to quote Powers from last year, as well:

Is more what we really need?

In my opinion not.

But running spies is not the NSA's job. Listening is, and more listening is what the NSA knows how to organize, more is what Congress is ready to support and fund, more is what the President wants, and more is what we are going to get.

Here's a nugget from yesterday's Washington Post coverage of the hearings:

"We have lists that are having baby lists at this point; they're spawning faster than rabbits."

(The National Counterterrorism Center maintains a central repository of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects or people who allegedly aid them, a number that has more than quadrupled since the fall of 2003.)

"Soon, those baby lists will be having babies of their own. And if 9/11 has taught us anything, it is that someday mankind must face and destroy the pregnant baby list menace."

You might also be interested in Babies Having Babies, a "hard look" at teenage pregnancy. (Survey Question: How many of you have ever seen a "soft look" at or a "lighthearted take" on teenage pregnancy?)

Whistleblower says NSA violations bigger

The White House characterized last week's closed-door briefings as a significant concession and a sign of the administration's respect for Congress.

Many Democrats dismissed the briefings as virtually useless.

I sense an impasse.

Senate intelligence committee member Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) is drafting legislation that would "specifically authorize this program" by excluding it from the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Senators Snowe and Hagel also support the plan.

What, then, exactly, would be left for the FISA court to do? By all indications, DeWine's "exclusion" is effectively a repeal of FISA.

Hagel said, "if the inquiry is just some kind of a punitive inquiry that really is not focused on finding a way out of this, then I'm not so sure that I would support that."

Because really, what's the big deal?

Congressional Probe of NSA Spying Is in Doubt

Senator Rick Durbin: "If you measure [the compromise] against the original Patriot Act ... we've made progress [toward] protecting basic civil liberties at a time when we are dealing with the war on terrorism."

Democrat Harry Reid called the compromise "a step in the right direction."

The proposal would restrict federal agents' access to library records, one of the Patriot Act's most contentious 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." But libraries that are "Internet service providers" would remain subject to the letters.

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

The compromise bill also addresses "Section 215 subpoenas," which are granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. Recipients of such subpoenas originally were forbidden to tell anyone about the action. The proposed Senate measure would allow them to challenge the "gag order" after one year, rather than the 90-day wait in earlier legislation.

Patriot Act Compromise Clears Way for Senate Vote

The Bush administration is rebuffing requests from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for its classified legal opinions on President Bush's domestic spying program, setting up a confrontation in advance of a hearing scheduled for next week, administration and Congressional officials said Wednesday.

Mr. Specter said that he wanted a fuller explanation as to how the Justice Department asserts that the eavesdropping operation does not conflict with the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which set strict and "exclusive" guidelines for intelligence wiretaps.

The operation was approved by President Bush, to allow the National Security Agency to conduct wiretaps on Americans' international communications without a court warrant. Mr. Specter said his view was that the operation "violates FISA — there's no doubt about that."

He also questioned why the administration did not go to Congress or the intelligence court to seek changes in the process before moving ahead on its own with the classified program after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Senate Panel Rebuffed on Documents on US Spying

This is an update for those following the ongoing story [1,2,3] about Locatecell.

On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission, citing concern that call records can be obtained by unauthorized users, recommended fining AT&T and Alltel $100,000 each for failing to certify that they complied with rules to protect customer records. [Reuters story]

"I mean to make it very illegal," Rep. Joe L. Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement.

This guy's phone records must be really something ... (Texas, Energy ... Chenergy ...) No, really:

September 2004 -- The committee chair did not allow debate on the resolution, H.Res. 745, dismissing it as an effort to attack the White House heading into the election, and a distraction from congressional efforts to craft energy policy. The resolution is a "purely political ploy," said committee Chairman Joe Barton.

"This whole committee is a farce," said Henry Waxman as he walked out before the final 30-22 vote defeating the resolution.

Have you seen Syriana? Do you remember Tim Blake Nelson as Danny Dalton?

Corruption? Corruption is our protection! Corruption is what keeps us safe and warm! Corruption is how we win!

(And did you know Google does reviews and showtimes?)

House to investigate call-record theft