Originally posted by Doug:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Ghost Of Donger:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Soulful1015:
Thanks to the Homeland Security Act and Patriot Acts I and II there are quite a few. Here are analyses of those acts done by the Electronic Freedom Foundation, which is a group that focuses on protecting our rights in the digital domain.
Patriot Act I Analysis (http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Terrorism_militias/20011031_eff_usa_patriot_analysis.html)
Patriot Act II Analysis (http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Terrorism_militias/patriot-act-II-analysis.php)
Here's one of their newsletters where they discuss some of the provisions of the HSA which includes Total Information Awareness.
link (http://www.eff.org/effector/HTML/effect15.38.html)
Our government is taking away our freedoms under the guise of national security. This country is in very real danger of becoming a police state. Ok, I am sorry but I don't want links to articles, etc.
Let's come up with an easy to read list (bulleted or numbered) that we can all look at. </font>[/QUOTE]Dong,
There are bulleted lists if you follow each link. </font>[/QUOTE]and some more
black mans burden indeed or is that burdon
Analysis
1.
Shrinking Privacy Protections
a.
Everyone Else Turns Over Information About You.
i.
Increasing Amounts of Our Personal Information Is Held by Others.
Even before USAPA's passage, Americans found their privacy increasingly eroded through the stockpiling, aggregating, selling and spilling of their personal information by third parties. The government5 has long argued, and several courts have accepted, the proposition that if you reveal this information to one private entity for one purpose (like an ISP storing your e-mail or a mortgage company offering you a loan), you no longer have a Fourth Amendment right to protect the information from unfocused, unchecked law enforcement fishing expeditions.
The danger of this is clearly demonstrated by events in recent memory. In the 1970s Americans discovered that the FBI had maintained dossiers on more than a million of us, including Martin Luther King and Truman Capote, and used the information to harass and threaten innocent people.6 Yet the information available to J. Edgar Hoover and his associates is nothing like the range of information about Americans that exists now and can be easily collected and organized now. Some examples of the increase in third-parties holding once-private information include:
* Correspondence Contents. Letters written on paper were traditionally stored in the home or business. The post office neither kept nor stored your letters. To be able to read them, the government normally had to get a warrant to search your home or office by proving "probable cause" that you had done something wrong.
* Now, an increasing number of Americans store their correspondence on computers at their ISPs where it can be obtained by law enforcement on much lower standards than those required for a physical search of your home, dependingon whether the e-mail has been opened by and how old it is. And while you'd usually know whether someone had invaded your home and rummaged through your papers, you're unlikely to ever find out that your e-mail had been searched while it was sitting on your ISP's mail server.
* Envelope Info. As with the content of your letters, the Post Office did not routinely gather or store the information contained on the front of your envelopes, i.e. who you communicate with and when. If law enforcement wanted this information gathered, it had to make a specific request and the information was only gathered after the request was received.
* Now this "envelope" information is automatically gathered and stored by your ISP for every e-mail you send and receive. Because of this, the government can now have access to your past as well as future communications records based only on a statement that it is relevant to a criminal investigation; you don't even have to be the target of the investigation.
* Activities in the Non-Digital World. Your daily activities, whether wandering through a shopping mall, doing errands down a busy street, stopping for a burger or crossing a local bridge or toll road, used to be largely anonymous -- the only way someone could know where you had gone was to follow you.
* Now the ubiquitous use of surveillance cameras and data collection devices like EZ-Passes means that a record of your activities is created almost everywhere you go. That information is completely outside your control and can be obtained by government or even volunteered to them with no notice to you.
* Online. All of your activities on the web are generally recorded, from the Google search where you locate information, to the various websites you visit while shopping, researching, or discussing, to your purchases, downloads and printing of information. Nearly all websites keep both a record of what you do while visiting them and your IP address, which can easily be used to identify and locate you. This information can be (and sometimes is) aggregated over time and various web locations creating a mini-dossier of your activities available to law enforcement with a simple subpoena under USAPA II (or in the case of websites such as e-Bay.com, simply handed over to law enforcement upon request).7
Ultimately, this problem seems unlikely to be addressed in any significant way without broad recognition that the Fourth Amendment guarantees against unreasonable search and seizure include limitations on the government's ability to gather and aggregate personal information about Americans that third parties gathered for other purposes.8
ii. USAPA II expansion. So more information about you is in the hands of third parties than ever before. USAPA II grants the government even more powers to gather and compile this information and reduces the safeguards intended to prevent its misuse. Specifically, USAPA II provides:
1. Third Parties can be Compelled by Merely An Administrative Subpoena (secs. 128 & 129). Administrative subpoenas can be issued by government without prior court approval and are not even reviewed by a court unless the subpoenaed party (not you) objects. Under USAPA II, rather than seek a court order, the government will be able to issue a simple subpoena to require a third party such as your ISP, library, doctor, friend or loved one, to turn over information about you to the government. The government need only assert, if challenged, that the information was sought "with respect to an investigation" into any one of the broad category of offenses related to domestic or international terrorism. Another provision makes it easier to use "National Security Letters" (like subpoenas) to get information from ISPs, credit reporting firms, and financial institutions for "counter-intelligence" purposes. Additionally, USAPA II allows:
a. Gag orders for those required to turn over information about you with penalties for telling anyone about the subpoena, including the target. 18 USC §1510(e) (secs 128 & 129)(see below)
b. Judicial enforcement for noncompliance. Those subpoenaed can make a motion with the court to resist the subpoena on your behalf, but you'll never know if they do.
2.
TIPS is back. Businesses encouraged to volunteer information about you (sec 313). This provision strengthens government's ability to pressure businesses into giving information about their customers to law enforcement without a court order or subpoena. It also creates an incentive for snooping (or fulfilling a grudge). The provision creates civil liability protection for businesses and their personnel who voluntarily provide information to federal law enforcement agencies to assist with terrorism investigations. This would overrule many privacy laws, like the Electronic Communications Privacy Act provisions that prevent your ISP and other hosts of your communications from simply turning this information over to the police except in emergency situations.
The EFF and many others were highly critical9 of the dive certifying organizations PADI, NAUI and SSI when they turned over information about all certified divers to the FBI without requiring any legal process. Indeed, when EFF challenged a similar request on behalf of a Beverley Hills dive shop, the US Attorneys office backed down10, apparently recognizing that it would be difficult to convince a judge of the need for this sort of broad, unfocused information. This provision would create an additional incentive for the businesses to yield to unreasonable fishing expeditions for data by law enforcement.
3. Instant Police Access to Credit Reports With No Limits or Oversight (sec. 126). USAPA II would allow law enforcement to obtain your credit reports upon a simple certification that they will use the information only "in connection with their duties to enforce federal law." The provision does not require that the investigation be related to terrorism or even to a violent offense. And the requirement of consumer notice is lifted, so you'll never know when they pull your credit rating. 15 USC §1681b(a)(1).
iii. You Shouldn't Protect Your Privacy: Cryptography Sentence Enhancements. (sec. 404). Just as the government encourages Americans to lock their doors and take other personal precautions against crime and terrorism, it should encourage Americans to use encryption. USAPA II steps in exactly the opposite direction, creating a five-year sentence enhancement for any person who, while committing or attempting to commit a federal felony, knowingly and willfully uses encryption technology to conceal any incriminating communication or information relating to that felony. This provision creates a disincentive for Americans to protect their data and information from identity thieves, stalkers and other criminals. It applies to any federal felony, most of which have nothing to do with terrorism. It creates the spectre of sentence enhancements for business travelers who use VPN systems to gain access to their data remotely or those who use file-sharing systems that utilize cryptography to protect the contents of a file.
iv. New Devices, Less Privacy. (sec. 124). This provision applies to those who have multi-function devices such as a BlackBerry or a computer with voice over IP or even a computer with a modem. It would eliminate the traditional rule that if the government wants to surveil or search you, it must specify "with particularity" what it is planning to search or listen to. That is, if the government gets a search warrant to monitor your e-mail it does not also get to monitor your telephone conversations unless the warrant says that too. This rule is designed to ensure that surveillance doesn't become a "fishing expedition" and that law enforcement only does what it tells the court it is going to do. This provision would eliminate that limitation where the two functions are in one device.
1. That is, a court order allowing the FBI to monitor your e-mail can also be used to monitor your telephone conversations if you use your computer for those calls, even if this sort of surveillance isn't specified in the order and the "predicates" for wiretapping telephone conversations have not been met. This weakens privacy because telephone wiretaps are only allowed for investigating specified "serious" crimes, while e-mail intercepts are allowed for investigating any federal felony.
2. Similarly, if the FBI gets an order to wiretap your modem line, they also have access to the stored data on your hard drive even if the information they discover is about a completely unrelated crime.
v. DNA Database (secs. 302) EFF has long noted the dangers of centralized databases of information about Americans, ranging from the vulnerabilities of such databases to corruption, hacking and information leakage to the inevitability of bad data in large databases and the risk in relying upon them for such important issues as deciding who is a terrorist. USAPA II, by expanding the national DNA database in some extremely suspect ways, exacerbates these problems,
1. Dramatic expansion of collection from "terrorism" suspects, not just those convicted (sec. 302, 303, 306) Previously DNA samples could only be taken from those convicted of terrorism. 42 USC. §14132. USAPA II allows collection and use of DNA samples of mere suspects, including suspected terrorists and persons suspected of being members of a terrorist organization. The Attorney General has tremendous discretion to designate someone as a "suspected terrorist." It also allows collection from aliens engaged in activity that endangers national security and those designated "enemy combatants."
2. Collection from and Use of Database Info Beyond Terrorism (sec. 303). Creation of DNA database for terrorists includes input from all federal agencies -- that is, if the Park Ranger decides that you are a suspected terrorist he can take a DNA sample. USAPA II also grants authority to use all federal biometric databases, including fingerprints, DNA and other identifying information to investigate terrorism or "other unlawful activities by suspected terrorists."
3. Sharing of DNA Information with State, Local or Foreign Agencies (sec. 303). USAPA II allows sharing of information with federal, state, local or foreign agencies to investigate terrorism or "other unlawful activities by suspected terrorists."
4. Coerced DNA Samples In Exchange for Release on Bail (sec. 306). USAPA II requires those terrorists or suspected terrorists in custody to give DNA samples as a condition of release.
vi. More Surveillance, Longer Surveillance, Less Privacy.
1. Non-supervised Surveillance of Churches, Mosques, Protesters Returns (sec. 312). In many cities throughout the United States, past police abuses of surveillance authority, including the keeping of dossiers on innocent individuals, harassment of political activists and other constitutional rights violations have resulted in consent decrees and other court provisions preventing the wholesale, unsupervised surveillance of groups and organizations. Such surveillance continues today: last December, it was discovered that the Denver Police Department had kept thousands of dossiers on peaceful groups.11 USAPA II would repeal all of those decrees, allowing police to keep dossiers on innocent people and peaceful protest groups. It also allows police to attend community meetings, religious services and other associational activities as a matter of course with no judicial oversight to prevent abuse.
2. Extended time for "domestic terrorism" searches and surveillance (sec. 123). Federal law has long maintained strict rules about law enforcement surveillance. USAPA II would relax those rules for investigations into domestic terrorism.
a. Electronic surveillance can continue for 90 days without need for court reauthorization. The previous limit was 30 days. 18 USC §2518(5)
b. Courts currently can order periodic progress reports from law enforcement to protect against abuses. The schedule of these reports is set by the judge, based upon his or her evaluation of the individual situation. USAPA II would restrict a court's ability to monitor potential law enforcement abuse by preventing a judge from ordering reports for periods less than 30 days. §2518(6)
c. USAPA II creates another way for law enforcement to delay telling you that your stored electronic communications have been searched. This is accomplished by adding "national security" to the list of specified "adverse results" that allow delay in notification. §2705
d. Surveillance of "envelope" information (see above) has been extended to 120 days without court review rather than the previous 60 days. This surveillance, called pen/trap surveillance, involves the tracking of messages to and from aperson, including sender/recipient, size, date, and all other "non-content" information. 18 U.S.C. §3213
3. Nationwide search warrants for nonviolent acts (sec. 125) Issuance of terrorism-related search warrants by far away courts used to be limited to situations involving "violent acts." Now, any court in the country may issue warrants that can be executed anywhere else in the country for any non-violent offense in the growing terrorism-related crimes list in §2332b(g)(5)(B), including computer crimes, harm to the communications infrastructure and providing material support to terrorists. 18 USC §2331.
4. Allows full panoply of electronic surveillance techniques for not just terrorism crimes, but any offense in the broader list of "terrorist activities" (sec. 121 & 122). This provision allows the full use of electronic surveillance techniques against not just terrorism crimes but also acts of international or domestic terrorism. Under USAPA, the concept of "terrorism" was expanded dramatically to include any violation of federal or state law committed with the intent of affecting government policy and that is potentially dangerous. Obviously this sweeps in much activity formerly treated as civil disobedience and even activities where there is no intent to break the law, such as political protests, if someone gets hurt.
a. The provision also allows for surveillance (wiretaps and pen traps) without a court order in emergency situations. 18 USC §2518(7) and § 3125.
b. It also allows wiretaps and pen/traps orders for "envelope" information to be issued either where the order is to be executed or in the place where the alleged offense occurred or where the activities are being investigated. The goal is to make it easier to get jurisdiction for foreign wiretap requests, which don't usually have a US jurisdiction for the investigation.
3. End Runs Around Limitations on Various Forms of Surveillance. USAPA created a series of "end runs" around the checks and balances of various forms of surveillance, such as by removing limitations on the use of information gathered for one purpose for other purposes. This was given a boost recently by the FISA Court of Appeal, which held that the 30-year long assumption that there was a "wall" between domestic and national security surveillance was just a figment of the joint imaginations of several judges and hundreds of attorneys both inside and outside of government. But apparently even this is not sufficient for the Bush Administration. USAPA II authorizes even more information "sharing" and sets up so many easy ways for law enforcement to evade the strictures of traditional surveillance that it's getting hard to keep track. And while some information sharing may be appropriate for legitimate terrorism investigations, USAPA II eliminates most of the USAPA I provisions that limited such sharing to terrorism investigations.
a. Information sharing (Sec. 311). Consumer credit information, visa-related information, educational records can now be sent to state and local law enforcement with no limitations except "guidelines as the Attorney General shall issue to protect confidentiality." The "sharing" need not be part of a terrorism investigation.
b. DNA Database of Suspected Terrorists (sec. 303). Information in the DNA database, fingerprints or other "identifying information" may be shared by all federal and local agencies, and even foreign agencies if used to investigate terrorism or "other unlawful activities by suspected terrorists."
c. National Security investigations (Sec. 129) Information obtained through third-party administrative subpoenas issued by FBI officials for use in national security may be shared with federal, state and local law enforcement "as provided in guidelines approved by the Attorney General." This information previously could not be shared unless the information was related to foreign intelligence collection and counterintelligence investigations. 18 USC. §2709.
d. Free-flowing FISA Information
i. FISA Information flows more easily to law enforcement (sec. 105). Any Deputy, Associate or Assistant US Attorney may authorize use of FISA-derived information in a criminal proceeding. Previously only the Attorney General himself could authorize such use. 50 USC §1806.
ii. Law enforcement can be given FISA pen register information about US citizens for any purpose, not just terrorism. (sec. 107). USAPA allowed this information to be given only for the purposes of investigating international terrorism. This limitation is removed.
1. For telephones, this is the numbers you call and that call you along with dates and times and lengths of calls
2. For e-mails, after USA Patriot Act, this is all non-message information including sender, recipient, date, size of message, existence of attachments and routing information-- essentially, all header information except the subject line.
4. Gag Orders Increased.
a. Administrative Subpoenas Gag Orders (sec. 128 & 129). Those who are forced to give information to the government pursuant to administrative subpoenas, a list that could include everyone who you come into contact with or do business with, are forbidden from telling you or any other person (except counsel).
b. Credit reports (sec. 126). When your bank or mortgage company seeks your credit report, notice to you is required. This requirement of consumer notice is lifted for government. 15 USC §1681b(a)(1).
c. Grand jury subpoena gag orders (sec. 206): The Reef Seekers Rule. Subpoena recipients may now have secrecy imposed on them (except for counsel) in cases where serious adverse consequences may otherwise result. Fed. Rule Crim. P. 6(e)(2)(B). This provision would gag businesses like Reef Seekers Dive Shop which sought to draw attention to a grand jury subpoena seeking the names of all students who had not finished scuba classes. http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/20021021_eff_pr.html
5. Government information black hole. Even while the privacy of Americans is being relentlessly reduced, the Bush Administration continues its assault on public access to information. In addition to the gag orders mentioned above, USAPA II contains several provisions that reduce transparency in government:
a. Detainee Information Exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (sec. 201). The Government continues its cynical argument that the basis for refusing to give any public information about its detention policies, even to terrified friends and family, is to protect the privacy of those detained.
b. Gagging the Environmental Protection Agency from informing us of dangers of chemical releases (sec. 202) EPA requires reports on dangers of chemical releases. 42 USC §7412(r). USAPA II limits both what information is given out and who can get it. Only those who live and work in the geographic area likely to be affected can see the reports, and access is "read-only," so they cannot send it on to friends or loved ones (or the press). Additionally, the public is not allowed to see any information that might allow someone to deduce the location of the potential chemical threat.
c. Capital buildings information exempt from FOIA (sec. 203).
d. Reducing Judicial Oversight of Classified Information Requests (sec. 204). This provision increases the government's ability to use secret evidence. It allows government shall be able to make a request for Classified Information Act procedures without notice to the other side and in the judge's chambers rather than in the public courtroom. It reduces a judge's ability to force the government to make its case in open court, even if the judge believes that this is necessary or appropriate.
6.
FISA on steroids. USAPA greatly expanded the power and scope of the once- limited secret court. In addition to the FISA provisions listed above that allow the information to be widely shared, USAPA II expands FISA authority to