Under the shield and stars of the FBI crest, the letter directed Christian to surrender "all subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person" who used a specific computer at a library branch some distance away. Christian, who manages digital records for three dozen Connecticut libraries, said in an affidavit that he configures his system for privacy. But the vendors of the software he operates said their databases can reveal the Web sites that visitors browse, the e-mail accounts they open and the books they borrow.

The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters -- one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people -- are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans.

The situation with NSLs has always gotten me riled up. I think giving the investigative agencies a license to request information without any type of review is a disaster for civil liberties happening silently.

I do understand the value of having as much information on hand as possible to do link analysis. It's a subject I might even qualify as an expert on. Let's just say you are pulling telephone call records for a suspect, and the records of everyone he was in contact with. You certainly do have a good pool there to do link analysis. Going out another level would be pointless, but from what you find at the first level, you may decide to expand certain specific people who show connections or become of interest. It's a very reasonable way to conduct a non-intrusive investigation. That's exactly the type of thing going on, I'm sure of it, and it has a hell of a lot more to it than phone records.

However non-intrusive that may appear at first glance, some review is still necessary. There is a big difference between a directed and scoped search, and trying to find needles in a haystack by x-raying the haystack. We do have this thing called the 4th amendment. I would like to think that our right to privacy extends to data of ours that we entrust to others, like our banks, schools, libraries, service providers, etc.. I fear that rather than privacy, we only simply have the right to be left alone. Which when put that way, doesn't say anything against ransacking your digital records, as long as you don't know about it.

Is the citizens' duty in the Global War on Terrorism to submit to being a node in a big graph? What kind of node are you? What kind of nodes are your friends? All mine are hackers, and we are nervous. Nodes can easily look nefarious when that's what you are looking to find.

I strongly suggest reading this entire article.

The FBI's Secret Scrutiny (Washington Post)

Days beforehand, I had made an internal report of unethical and apparently illegal behavior by the company: Use of open proxies for web harvesting to avoid blockage by web site operators. HMS apparently decided that working with me to address their use of open proxies was not an option.

Health Market Science is a large corporation with, compared to me, effectively infinite resources. My legal bills have topped $40K already over just two months. If HMS succeeds in tarring me with their false accusations, what's to stop your employer or client from doing the same to you, should your relationship sour?

Slashdot | Perl's Chip Salzenberg Sued, Home Raided

Lawmakers voted Wednesday to block the Justice Department and the FBI from using the Patriot Act to peek at library records and bookstore sales slips.The House voted 238-187 despite a veto threat from Bush to block the part of the anti-terrorism law that allows the government to investigate the reading habits of terror suspects.

The House decides that you can support the War on Terror, support Freedom and Liberty, and still vote against provisions in the Patriot Act.

House Votes to Limit Patriot Act Rules

Lets hope that the Illinois Senate comes off looking really stupid.

] The measure approved Thursday would require store owners
] to determine which games are too violent or sexually
] explicit for anyone under 18. Anyone selling them to a
] minor could be fined.

Brilliant!

This is just golden:

] The sponsor, Sen. Deanna Demuzio, denied the measure
] would interfere with free speech rights.
]
] "Video games are not art or media," she said. "They are
] simulations, not all that different from the simulations
] used by the U.S. military in preparation for war."

But the saddest thing in this entire article is:
] "I'm going to vote for this bill, but I'm voting for it
] for one reason: because this is a political bill,"
] said Sen. Mike Jacobs. "If I vote against it, it will
] show up in a campaign mail piece

Illinois Senate OKs Video Game Restrictions

] H.R. 418 would require the Secretary of Homeland Security
] to waive any and all laws that he determines necessary,
] in his sole discretion, to ensure the expeditious
] construction of barriers and roads under IIRIRA 102...
]
] Section 102 of H.R. 418 would amend the current provision
] to require the Secretary of Homeland Security to waive
] any law upon determining that a waiver is necessary for
] the expeditious construction of the border barriers.
] Additionally, it would prohibit judicial review of a
] waiver decision or action by the Secretary and bar
] judicially ordered compensation or injunction or other
] remedy for damages alleged to result from any such
] decision or action.

Does the Real ID act contain a Constitution-busting Trojan horse?

] "Certainly broadcasters and cable operators have
] significant First Amendment rights, but these rights are
] not without boundaries," he wrote. "They are limited by
] law. They also should be limited by good taste."

The new FCC commissioner thinks your first amendment rights are limited by "good taste."

The New York Times - Under New Chief, F.C.C. Considers Widening Its Reach

] As already reported on quite a few blogs, Jeremy was
] detained and interrogated by US Immigration when he
] arrived in New York last week for a meeting with
] McGraw-Hill to discuss a great business opportunity for
] Jeremy in the area of blogging. It appears that the
] immigration people simply did not believe that Jeremy
] could make a living as a blogger. And they gave him the
] third degree - including an humiliating strip search - as
] a result for some hours. And banned him from entering the
] US.

Protecting our borders does not involve creating an opportunity for people who have chips on their shoulders to harrass random travellers. We need a bill of rights for travellers.

[Politech] Don't say blogger to customs!

] When I pointed out to the officials that they only had
] authority to search for threats to the aircraft, one of
] them, a bug-eyed, crew-cutted troglodyte, declared that,
] if I had taken any of these substances, then I would have
] endangered Flight 310. That such an obviously ungifted
] person was capable of so imaginative a conceptual leap
] remains a marvel to me.

Barlow is contesting charges stemming from the discovery of marijuana, mushrooms, and ketamine in his baggage by airport security personnel, claiming that the search was unconstitutional because it was not limited to what would be threats to the aircraft.

] Now the more authoritarian among you might say that
] if these searches reveal other, non-terror-related,
] criminal activity, then so much the better. The 4th
] Amendment should provide no sanctuary for the guilty,
] whatever their crimes. But randomly searching people's
] homes against the possibility that someone might have
] a bio-warfare lab in his basement would reveal a lot of
] criminal activity. And it is certainly true that such
] searches would reduce the possibility of anthrax
] attacks and enhance public safety. Still, I doubt you're
] ready to go there. Yet. Given a few exotic outbreaks,
] you might be. Should that day come, would you still
] believe such searches should not be precisely limited?
] This may seem hyperbolic, and of course it is, but it's
] actually a fairly short conceptual distance away from
] what's going on in the nation's airports at present.

BarlowFriendz: A Taste of the System

] Cryptome received a visit today from FBI Special Agents.
]
] SA Renner said that a person had reported Cryptome as a
] source of information that could be used to harm the United
] States. He said Cryptome website had been examined and
] nothing on the site was illegal but information there might be
] used for harmful purposes.

FBI Visits Cryptome

] Not only was BlackBoxVoting.org pulled down, but ALL of
] the documents, databases and programming for approximately
] 500 pages of material, most of which did not relate to Diebold at
] all, was confiscated. Dozens of web pages were pulled down which
] had nothing whatever to do with the disputed information. AIT Inc.
] has indicated that it believes it has the right to pull down the entire
] web site including unrelated pages. AIT Inc. is now prohibiting Bev
] Harris or Black Box Voting from accessing any of her own files, even
] for the purpose of removing them.

If these allegations are correct, there could be another interesting DMCA court case in here...

[IP] yet another misuse of dmca? Black Box Voting files confiscated