Loss of Privacy

President Bush has submitted a new bill via the DOJ that will create large, and dangerous, changes to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. If the bill becomes a law, it will eliminate the need for the government to obtain individual warrants before an American citizen could be spied upon.

For more than five years, President Bush authorized government spying on phone calls and e-mail to and from the United States without warrants. He rejected offers from Congress to update the electronic eavesdropping law, and stonewalled every attempt to investigate his spying program.

To heighten the false urgency, the Bush administration will present this issue, as it has before, as a choice between catching terrorists before they act or blinding the intelligence agencies. But the administration has never offered evidence that the 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, hampered intelligence gathering after the 9/11 attacks. Mr. Bush simply said the law did not apply to him.

Again, we are told that this sort of law needs to be implemented to help prevent terrorism. We should all know by now that “preventing terrorism” really means “we want to spy on every single American and keep them under our thumbs.”

Mr. Bush’s motivations for submitting this bill now seem obvious. The courts have rejected his claim that 9/11 gave him virtually unchecked powers, and he faces a Democratic majority in Congress that is willing to exercise its oversight responsibilities. That, presumably, is why his bill grants immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated in five years of illegal eavesdropping. It also strips the power to hear claims against the spying program from all courts except the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets in secret.

According to the administration, the bill contains “long overdue” FISA modifications to account for changes in technology. The only example it offered was that an e-mail sent from one foreign country to another that happened to go through a computer in the United States might otherwise be missed. But Senator Feinstein had already included this fix in the bill Mr. Bush rejected.

That’s right. Instead of actually creating legislation or modifying existing legislation that might actually help the country, Bush played politics and buried Feinstein’s bill, presumably because she is a democrat and attempted to keep Bush within the law. Bush wants what he has been doing for five years to be made legal. We should be more upset that he’s been subverting the law, and getting away with it, for five years than being shocked that he is even thinking of changing the law.

The FBI already admitted to abusing the powers given them in the Patriot Act. Do you really think that no one is going to abuse any of the newly proposed changes?

The measure would not update FISA; it would gut it. It would allow the government to collect vast amounts of data at will from American citizens’ e-mail and phone calls. The Center for National Security Studies said it might even be read to permit video surveillance without a warrant.

This is a dishonest measure, dishonestly presented, and Congress should reject it. Before making any new laws, Congress has to get to the truth about Mr. Bush’s spying program. (When asked at a Senate hearing yesterday if Mr. Bush still claims to have the power to ignore FISA when he thinks it is necessary, Mr. McConnell refused to answer.)

So, instead of updating and amending the Act again, President Bush has decided to gut it and recreate the law as he sees fit. Americans need to get out from under the, “I’m not doing anything wrong so why should I worry?” mantra. President Bush already has the power to enact Martial Law whenever he sees fit. He also has the power to decide who is a terrorist, while changing what the definition of a terrorist is, depending on the situation. This will, as history has often showed, begin with the legislators, judges, politicians, prosecutors, and political opponents. Once all opponents are out of the way, those in power can continue to do whatever the hell they want to with no opposition to their hair-brained schemes.

This situation doesn’t stop when Bush leaves office. This power has been given to the executive branch, creating an imbalance in the proper checks of our governmental systems. Every single law that has been passed since 9/11 has been touted as “protecting the children” or “to stop terrorists/terrorism.” However, what it really did, is strip individual Americans’ privacy rights. The saddest thing in all this is that the common American has spent more time getting to know the latest American Idol rather than getting to know the bills that are becoming laws and the Acts created to further kill individual rights in this country.

This proposed law from President Bush would create a situation where the government would be allowed to spy on whomever they chose and make it illegal for anyone to know what they are doing. Remember, if we were really fighting terrorists and going after those responsible for the terroristic act of 9/11, we’d be in Afghanistan chasing Bin Laden, looking under every rock for him, until he was captured. Instead, we are told we should accept changes to a law that already works well, so that the President can cover his ass for his past illegal activities.

People are ignoring the fact that Ohio officials are being investigated for tampering with election results, leading one to believe that, again, Bush isn’t a legitimate president. Congress is too busy dealing with their own scandals and thinking of ways to keep their jobs to be bothered with actually caring about their constituents. If the past is any indication, Congress will end up rubber-stamping these idiotic changes.

Most of the so-called terrorist threats against this country for the past five years have come from President Bush pissing off nearly every country in the world, including those that have been our staunchest allies. Not satisfied with that, Bush has moved on to his fellow citizens, to the point that they want him impeached and given a good ass-kicking.

The fact remains that we are not in any more danger now than we were on 9/11. Yes, that was a tragic event and people suffered horrific deaths, but we are in more danger from within than without. If the US government had paid attention to the information they had obtained before 9/11, that crisis could have been avoided. The laws on the books then were, and are, more than adequate in preventing terrible crimes in the United States.

These laws are merely another ploy at grabbing more power to eliminate those pesky people in Congress who might otherwise object. We are not in imminent danger. We should not be living in fear. We should be forcing our Congressmen to get a set of balls and stand up to the President to stop him in changing the United States from a Republic to a Dictatorship.

Mr. Bush, you are the only terrorist threat to this country. Please, for the love of God, stop speaking. Just stay in bed until the 2008 elections and do nothing. The individual citizens of the United States would thank you for it.

The British government is seriously considering adding lipreading technology to its millions of surveillance cameras in order to thwart terrorists, and other criminals, by reading what everyone says.

This is yet another scheme that will not work.  The simplest way to avoid detection is to cover your mouth with your hand or go inside, where there are no cameras to read your lips.  Other, intentionally stealth ways to circumvent this would be by wearing a mask or a burka.  I’m sure a Guy Fawkes mask would be a nice touch in giving the cameras the ol’ F-U!

There is also the problem that lipreading is extremely difficult.

The way other people speak can also affect how well you lipread. Some people don’t speak clearly and lipreading someone with an unfamiliar accent may be tricky. It may also be difficult to lipread someone with a beard or a large moustache.

If a lipreader had time to study surveillance tapes, they could come up with a workable transcript, however, lipreading on the fly is not as easy as Hollywood and the politicians would like you to believe.

Computer-based lip-reading technology would help video surveillance systems spot people planning a crime or terror attack by literally watching suspects’ lips for clues. Once it finds someone speaking certain key words or sentences, the system would automatically send an alert message to a central console, mobile phone, or other communications device. Police or security agents could then be dispatched to the scene to question the individual.

If a human has difficulty telling the differences between t, c, g, and z, then how is a computer going to distinguish which is which and know exactly what a person is saying?  How will it get around facial hair and accents?

Considering that the United Kingdom is already considered a surveillance society, it isn’t surprising that they are interested in this new technology.  They already have 4.2 million cameras watching their citizens, many of which can now shout at you as you walk by.  Body monitoring cameras are already installed in airports and train stations.  They are also investigating the practical use of x-ray cameras that can scan you as you walk by, as well as facial recognition and eavesdropping cameras.  So, it is understandable that they want to add lipreading to their “arsenal” of attempting to prevent terrorism.

If all of these technologies end up being implemented, then British citizens will be living in an society that stretches beyond the imagination of Orwell himself.  What the British government does not understand is that the more you put people under your thumb, the more likely they are going to rebel.  This is not going to stop terrorism, but it will force innocent people underground with their every day conversations.

The net effect of having lipreading cameras would be a self-conscious decision to self-censor oneself.  This is probably what the British government is hoping for.  Free speech will be hurt because people will become afraid to say anything that might be misinterpreted as something else.  For now, it’s a research project.  However, with the government keenly interested, British citizens should take heed to ensure this technology isn’t added to the war on terror or else they may find themselves on the wrong end of this “war.”

In case you haven’t already seen it, The Privacy Coalition website has been up for some time, urging members of the public to submit their comments on REAL-ID before the May 8th deadline.  Several states have already said they will not be complying with REAL-ID and others are planning to follow suit.

REAL-ID is not going to make us safer.  We must look at the fact that there are going to be far too many points on intrusion into the databases, solely because it is being relied upon as being the defacto identification card in the United States.

REAL-ID is control.  The government has no need to know where you are, what your are doing, or how you got there, unless you have committed a crime.  Then, the police will step in and do their jobs to find out about the crime.  Otherwise, the federal government doesn’t need to know what I’m doing or where I am at during the course of a day.

The main defense from many people is that the government already knows several things that you are doing, such as traveling outside the country, paying your bills, etc., however this should not be used as a defense for REAL-ID.  Currently, you have to have search warrants and follow specific protocols in order to access these databases if law enforcement wants to keep a tab on you.  If the government is allowed to create a large database that encompasses all that you do, it will be used for data mining and extrapolation, many times without your knowledge.  Do not delude yourself into thinking that this will not be abused and don’t even think that there will never be false positives.

REAL-ID, most likely, will also ad some sort of RFID technology to it, either from the start or added at a later time.  It will already carry pertinent private information and can be expanded to add biometrics.  Do you really want such devices to store all its information about you in a single database?  Do you really believe that this will make your life more secure?  I suspect that data miners and identity thieves will come to love the REAL-ID database.

While some ask, “why is it such a big deal to have one ID when the government has already issued you several like a driver’s license, social security number, or passport,”  I must reply that, as an American citizen, I want to remain as private as I can be.  I keep myself as far off the radar of law enforcement as possible.  I want to remain “assumed innocent.”  I do not want some random piece of data about me being implicated in something illegal.  Why do I need to be monitored when I am simply going about my daily business?

One of the issues with REAL-ID is that you cannot enter a federal building without it.  When I was in college, I used to cut through the federal courthouse on my way to class.  Several other students did so as well, mainly because, in the harsh winter, it was nice to cut off an extra block of walking by going through a nice warm building.  Everyone knew what we were doing, yet we remained nameless.  No one cared.  Now, if REAL-ID goes into effect, I would have to walk around or be subjugated to being scanned every single time I went through the building.  This is something that the government simply doesn’t need to know about.  Yet, there it would be, in the national database.  I could be tracked each day at a specific time.  If, and when, the database is hacked in to, anyone could then track my movements.

Another argument is that, when the USA began, people didn’t roam around all that much.  They pretty much stayed in their own state.  Thus, because people travel so often now, we need a way to easily identify people as they move around.  I think, people need to go back and learn their history.  Why is it necessary for anyone to know that I traveled to another state today?  Why should the government need to know that I popped over to [insert state name] because I wanted to see [insert event]?  They don’t.  But defenders of REAL-ID think that the government should know.

If the FBI can figure out who belongs to which mafia family by using phone records, imagine what they can find with a single database that can be mined for any type of data, with or without a warrant.  Won’t that be nice when the government decides you’re a terrorist because you go to the same church as the guy who ran the red light camera last week because he was late for his meeting with the other guy who owns a chop-shop, who happens to have some name on the super-secret “you are a terrorist” list.

If you think this won’t happen, then ask yourself why the government wants access to everyone’s library records to see what people are checking out.  The bullshit stance of “if you’re innocent, then you have nothing to fear,” is just scare mongering to make you think you should accept this like a good, patriotic citizen.

REAL-ID is a bad law passed while America was busy trying to support our troops and provide tsunami relief.  We should all be writing to the DHS and giving them the middle finger.  We need to voice our displeasure with this legislation and work to get it repealed.  We need to inform our legislators that passing bills with unrelated riders attached at the last minute, with politicians who don’t even know the legislation even existed, has got to stop.

There have been many articles written on REAL-ID, both pro and con.  Inform yourself of its dangers and let the Department of Homeland Security know your feelings.  They are only going to listen until May 8th.  After that, we have to continue to encourage our state legislatures to defy the government and refuse to use REAL-ID.  So write them too.  If the majority of states refuse to comply, we’ll rid ourselves of some bad legislation.

Congress may be stating that they need to protect ordinary citizens from spyware and adware, however, the new Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act (Spy Act) isn’t the legislation that would do it.

The federal preemption provisions (Section 6), meanwhile, trump most of the stricter state laws that might have been used to go after badware vendors. This is particularly disappointing, as state laws have opened a new front in the war on badware. A few categories of state laws are preserved, including trespass, contract, tort, and fraud laws. And, in an interesting twist, H.R. 964 preserves state consumer protection statutes, but only if the state’s Attorney General is bringing the enforcement action.

If the Act passes, which seems likely at this point, and becomes law, it would override all current state laws protecting individual privacy and would prevent citizens from bringing lawsuits against spyware and adware vendors.  Section 6 is specifically aimed at individuals and keeping them out of the courtrooms.

While the United Kingdom’s government places their surveillance of its citizens, mostly, out in public, the United States’ government prefers to pass measures such as the Spy Act quietly so that they can have the cover of legality when they spy on its own citizens.  The United States does this because they know and understand that there will be many people that will oppose such legislation.

By continually repeating how spyware and adware is bad for us and they are only trying to protect us, many will believe that the government is looking out for our best interests.  They will point out that such legislation will protect our jobs, our children, our privacy.  What it will really allow is small peeks into our online lives that should be private.

H.R. 964 combines a variety of redundant prohibitions on deceptive practices (Section 2) and ambiguous “notice” requirements (Section 3) with broad federal preemption of state laws (Section 6). In fact, you can essentially skip the first 15 pages of the bill — the FTC already has the authority to police many, if not all, of the “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” prohibited therein. If anything, by creating a heightened intent requirement (Section 4(c)), this law could constrain the authority the FTC already possesses against badware vendors.

So these provisions are pure window dressing. Both the FTC and Department of Justice have said (see p. 21 of this 2005 FTC report) that they already have the enforcement authority they need. In just the last two years, the FTC has commenced 11 spyware enforcement actions, demonstrating that they’ve got the authority they need. Of course, more enforcement would be a good thing, but H.R. 964 allocates no new money for it. (There is one improvement tucked in Section 4 of the bill — granting the FTC the power to seek civil penalties against those who violate the law.)

Since the FTC and Department of Justice already have all the authority they need, then why create more legislation that adds nothing to current law?  This legislation would, basically, allow vendors to spy on you, searching your machine for illegal and/or fraudulent activities.  They don’t even have to know that you are doing something wrong.  They can simply search your machine looking for the possibility of your wrongdoing.  And, they do not need to tell you that they are doing it or have done it.

And by the way, another exception provision specifically protects computer manufacturers from any liability for spyware they load on your computer before they send it to you. Of course, the exception for software companies checking to make sure you’re an authorized user is the strongest evidence of what this bill is all about.

If you feel that you are being harassed by these vendors or that they have no justification for peeking around your computer, you must try to convince the FTC or your Attorney General to take up the case.  If you can’t convince them, there is nothing else you can do.

The Spy Act is as useless as the Can Spam Act if you’re an individual.  If you are a vendor, it’s great legislation.  It is supposed to outlaw spyware.  Instead, it actually allows it by installing exemptions to the law.  Anyone that is considered a vendor is going to be exempt from this law, creating a situation where the vendor can monitor and interact with you, legally, and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.