And Remember...
posted by Unknown @ 3:11 PM
0 comments
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Monday, May 15, 2006
Things to look Forward to...
From Howard Fineman at Newsweek...
Rove's Revamp
With ratings down and the midterms coming up, the GOP adopts a new tack: Call it the 'apocalypse strategy.'
By Howard Fineman
Newsweek
Updated: 4:03 p.m. ET May 10, 2006
May 10, 2006 - This fall’s election season is going to make the past three look like episodes of “Barney.”
The conventional notion here is that Democrats want to “nationalize” the 2006 elections—dwelling on broad themes (that is, the failures of the Bush administration)—while the Republicans will try to “localize” them as individual contests that have nothing to do with, ahem, the goings-on in the capital.
That was before the GOP situation got so desperate. The way I read the recent moves of Karl Rove & Co., they are preparing to wage war the only way open to them: not by touting George Bush, Lord knows, but by waging a national campaign to paint a nightmarish picture of what a Democratic Congress would look like, and to portray that possibility, in turn, as prelude to the even more nightmarish scenario: the return of a Democrat (Hillary) to the White House.
Rather than defend Bush, Rove will seek to rally the Republicans’ conservative grass roots by painting Democrats as the party of tax increases, gay marriage, secularism and military weakness. That’s where the national message money is going to be spent.
The numbers explain the strategy
The president has a job-approval rating of 31 percent in the latest comprehensive poll by The New York Times and CBS. His “favorable” rating, a more general measure of attitudes, is only 29 percent—barely above the levels enjoyed, if that is the word, by Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter. Bush can’t hope to raise that number significantly by this November—no matter how many seniors sign up for the Medicare prescription-drug plan or how many Sunnis join the new Iraqi government.
So the White House will try to survive by driving down the ratings of the other side. Right now, an impressive 55 percent of voters say they have a favorable view of the Democrats, one of the party’s best ratings in years. But the favorables of leading national Democrats are weak: 34 percent for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton; 26 percent for Sen. John Kerry; 28 percent for former vice president Al Gore. The bottom line: as long as the Democrats remain a generic, faceless alternative, they win; Rove’s aim is to paint his version of their portrait.
You can see him busy with the brushes at his easel now, even as he waits to see whether special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is going to indict him for false testimony.
Take the new GOP deal on taxes. It would, among other things, extend by two years the Bush era’s reductions in taxes on capital gains and dividends. The claim is that doing so will sustain overall economic growth (which has been pretty impressive, even though Bush gets no credit for it). But the real political target is somewhat narrower: the estimated 60 million Americans who own stock.
Bush and the GOP talk earnestly about their vision of an “ownership society.” And maybe it’s true that they want everybody to be part of it. In the meantime, however, they will focus on trying to secure the support, or at least the acquiescence, of voters with portfolios. They aren’t the stereotypical country-club Republicans of old, by the way; they include tens of millions of middle-class Americans—ancestral Democrats—who nevertheless don’t want Congress to do anything that would depress the value of their 401(k)s.
The idea is to get Democrats to vote against the tax-cut bill—ANY tax-cut bill. Let the op-ed pages rail about the deficit and the debt; the White House survivalists won’t care if they can find a way to accuse the Democrats of “wanting to raise taxes.”
The political apocalypse strategy
Then there is the attention being paid—and it’s just starting—to obscure Democratic characters such as Rep. John Conyers of Michigan. As of now, only political junkies know that Conyers, an African-American and old-school liberal from Detroit, would become chairman of the Judiciary Committee if the Democrats regain control of the House. Few know that Conyers has expressed interest in holding hearings on the impeachment of the president.
But before this election season is over, Republican and conservative voters are going to know a lot about Conyers. To hear the GOP tell it, the impeachment of the president will be the No. 1 priority if Conyers gets his say, which of course Rep. Nancy Pelosi will be only too happy to give him. The aim will be to rally the GOP base with talk of a political apocalypse.
The issue of gay marriage will play a part. So far this year, at least seven states will have on their ballots measures to ban same-sex marriage: Alabama, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin. There are citizen-led campaigns seeking to add the issue to ballots in Arizona, Colorado and Illinois.
But GOP strategists eventually are going to want to “nationalize” this topic, too, by bringing up in Congress again in the draft of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I know that Dick Cheney isn’t for it, and neither is his daughter, Mary, whose new book “Now It’s My Turn” was released this week. Bush in the past has claimed that he won’t make lobbying for the measure a high priority, but he doesn’t have to. The aim is to bring it up for votes in Congress.
Strength and faith wins votes
Beyond that amendment is the more general GOP theme of faith in the public square. To highlight that issue, the White House will use judicial nominations. That’s one reason why Bush is now pushing the nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh. Faith matters—namely, that he is a conservative Roman Catholic.
A Rove Reliable on the Senate Judiciary Committee made the strategy clear at the confirmation hearing: Kavanaugh, he said, is the type of judge who will oppose “hostility to all things religious in American life.” Read: Democrats.
Finally, there is the war on terrorism and military strength—the only two areas in the New York Times/CBS poll where voters say they trust the GOP more than the Democrats.
Bush and Rove are daring the Democrats to turn the nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden as head of the CIA into a fight over the president’s secret eavesdropping program. That’s a fight they think they can win politically, by turning a legitimate constitutional issue into another Us vs. Them morality play.
It’s worked before.
Rove's Revamp
With ratings down and the midterms coming up, the GOP adopts a new tack: Call it the 'apocalypse strategy.'
By Howard Fineman
Newsweek
Updated: 4:03 p.m. ET May 10, 2006
May 10, 2006 - This fall’s election season is going to make the past three look like episodes of “Barney.”
The conventional notion here is that Democrats want to “nationalize” the 2006 elections—dwelling on broad themes (that is, the failures of the Bush administration)—while the Republicans will try to “localize” them as individual contests that have nothing to do with, ahem, the goings-on in the capital.
That was before the GOP situation got so desperate. The way I read the recent moves of Karl Rove & Co., they are preparing to wage war the only way open to them: not by touting George Bush, Lord knows, but by waging a national campaign to paint a nightmarish picture of what a Democratic Congress would look like, and to portray that possibility, in turn, as prelude to the even more nightmarish scenario: the return of a Democrat (Hillary) to the White House.
Rather than defend Bush, Rove will seek to rally the Republicans’ conservative grass roots by painting Democrats as the party of tax increases, gay marriage, secularism and military weakness. That’s where the national message money is going to be spent.
The numbers explain the strategy
The president has a job-approval rating of 31 percent in the latest comprehensive poll by The New York Times and CBS. His “favorable” rating, a more general measure of attitudes, is only 29 percent—barely above the levels enjoyed, if that is the word, by Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter. Bush can’t hope to raise that number significantly by this November—no matter how many seniors sign up for the Medicare prescription-drug plan or how many Sunnis join the new Iraqi government.
So the White House will try to survive by driving down the ratings of the other side. Right now, an impressive 55 percent of voters say they have a favorable view of the Democrats, one of the party’s best ratings in years. But the favorables of leading national Democrats are weak: 34 percent for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton; 26 percent for Sen. John Kerry; 28 percent for former vice president Al Gore. The bottom line: as long as the Democrats remain a generic, faceless alternative, they win; Rove’s aim is to paint his version of their portrait.
You can see him busy with the brushes at his easel now, even as he waits to see whether special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is going to indict him for false testimony.
Take the new GOP deal on taxes. It would, among other things, extend by two years the Bush era’s reductions in taxes on capital gains and dividends. The claim is that doing so will sustain overall economic growth (which has been pretty impressive, even though Bush gets no credit for it). But the real political target is somewhat narrower: the estimated 60 million Americans who own stock.
Bush and the GOP talk earnestly about their vision of an “ownership society.” And maybe it’s true that they want everybody to be part of it. In the meantime, however, they will focus on trying to secure the support, or at least the acquiescence, of voters with portfolios. They aren’t the stereotypical country-club Republicans of old, by the way; they include tens of millions of middle-class Americans—ancestral Democrats—who nevertheless don’t want Congress to do anything that would depress the value of their 401(k)s.
The idea is to get Democrats to vote against the tax-cut bill—ANY tax-cut bill. Let the op-ed pages rail about the deficit and the debt; the White House survivalists won’t care if they can find a way to accuse the Democrats of “wanting to raise taxes.”
The political apocalypse strategy
Then there is the attention being paid—and it’s just starting—to obscure Democratic characters such as Rep. John Conyers of Michigan. As of now, only political junkies know that Conyers, an African-American and old-school liberal from Detroit, would become chairman of the Judiciary Committee if the Democrats regain control of the House. Few know that Conyers has expressed interest in holding hearings on the impeachment of the president.
But before this election season is over, Republican and conservative voters are going to know a lot about Conyers. To hear the GOP tell it, the impeachment of the president will be the No. 1 priority if Conyers gets his say, which of course Rep. Nancy Pelosi will be only too happy to give him. The aim will be to rally the GOP base with talk of a political apocalypse.
The issue of gay marriage will play a part. So far this year, at least seven states will have on their ballots measures to ban same-sex marriage: Alabama, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin. There are citizen-led campaigns seeking to add the issue to ballots in Arizona, Colorado and Illinois.
But GOP strategists eventually are going to want to “nationalize” this topic, too, by bringing up in Congress again in the draft of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I know that Dick Cheney isn’t for it, and neither is his daughter, Mary, whose new book “Now It’s My Turn” was released this week. Bush in the past has claimed that he won’t make lobbying for the measure a high priority, but he doesn’t have to. The aim is to bring it up for votes in Congress.
Strength and faith wins votes
Beyond that amendment is the more general GOP theme of faith in the public square. To highlight that issue, the White House will use judicial nominations. That’s one reason why Bush is now pushing the nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh. Faith matters—namely, that he is a conservative Roman Catholic.
A Rove Reliable on the Senate Judiciary Committee made the strategy clear at the confirmation hearing: Kavanaugh, he said, is the type of judge who will oppose “hostility to all things religious in American life.” Read: Democrats.
Finally, there is the war on terrorism and military strength—the only two areas in the New York Times/CBS poll where voters say they trust the GOP more than the Democrats.
Bush and Rove are daring the Democrats to turn the nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden as head of the CIA into a fight over the president’s secret eavesdropping program. That’s a fight they think they can win politically, by turning a legitimate constitutional issue into another Us vs. Them morality play.
It’s worked before.
posted by Unknown @ 1:51 PM
0 comments
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Today's Boston Globe
SCOT LEHIGH
Our monarch, above the law
By Scot Lehigh, Globe Columnist | May 2, 2006
HAS GEORGE W. Bush come to believe he's king?
That's the question that springs to mind upon reading Charlie Savage's
front-page report in Sunday's Globe detailing the president's sotto
voce assertion that he can disregard laws if he thinks they impinge on
his constitutional powers.
That novel claim resides in the ''signing statements" the
administration issues outlining its legal interpretation of laws the
president has signed -- interpretations that often run contrary to the
statute's clear intent.
As Savage reports, Bush has registered hundreds of those reservations,
adding them to statutes on subjects ranging from military rules and
regulations to affirmative action language to congressionally mandated
reporting requirements to protections Congress has passed for
whistle-blowers to legal assurances against political meddling in
government-funded research.
Bush's position reduces to this: The president needn't execute the laws
as they are written and passed, but rather, has the right to implement
-- or ignore -- them as he sees fit. (Were it not for our pesky written
Constitution, perhaps George II could take his cue from Charles I,
dismiss Congress, and rule -- ah, govern -- without any legislative
interference whatsoever.)
Even members of the president's own party have balked at that claim.
After Republican Senator John McCain succeeded in passing a ban on the
torture of detainees in US custody, forcing it upon an unwilling White
House, the president's signing statement made it clear he thought he
could disregard the law if he deemed it necessary. That brought a
pointed rebuke from McCain and fellow Republican Senator John Warner.
Other presidents have periodically appended signing statements to
legislation, setting the objectionable precedent that Bush has followed
here. But as Savage reports, this president has taken it to a new
level, issuing such statements on more than 750 laws, or on more than
10 percent of the bills he has signed.
Rendering Bush's assertion more worrisome is this reality: Because so
much of what this administration does is shrouded in secrecy, it's hard
to know which laws are being followed and which are being ignored.
That makes it difficult for matters to ripen into a court challenge,
notes Boston attorney Harvey Silverglate. ''He is setting it up so that
the people hurt by what this administration is doing are unable to get
to court, because it is secret," Silverglate says.
We certainly do know that this president is ready to ignore even
established laws if he finds them too cumbersome. Although the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 prohibits warrantless
eavesdropping on Americans, Bush has authorized such snooping. In
trying to justify that, the administration has claimed that Congress's
post-Sept. 11 resolution authorizing force against terrorists somehow
imparted the authority for warrantless wiretapping.
That's farfetched, and members of the president's own party have said
as much.
Congressional figures of both parties have signaled a willingness to
consider the president's concerns with a wiretap-approval process that
is already all but pro forma.
The White House, however, has displayed little interest in meaningful
compromise.
Bush has a recourse if he doesn't agree with a newly passed law, of
course: He can veto it. (So far he hasn't exercised that prerogative
even once.)
But the president shouldn't be allowed to quietly disregard or
reinterpret provisions of a law he dislikes, for in doing so, he is not
protecting his own authority, but rather usurping the legitimate power
of Congress. Further, his assumption that it is within his purview to
decide whether a law is constitutional treads on ground that is the
clear province of the Supreme Court.
Thus far, the Republican congressional leadership has been dismayingly
compliant. But one Republican unwilling to let Bush interpret the law
as he sees fit is Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee.
Specter, who is pushing legislation to have the closed-door FISA court
rule on the constitutionality of Bush's wiretapping program, noted last
week that he had filed -- but would not seek an immediate vote on -- an
amendment to block funding for any domestic eavesdropping until the
administration provides Congress with much more information.
It speaks volumes about the attitude of this White House that a member
of the president's own party would have to make such a move to protect
bedrock constitutional principles.
Yet it will probably take something much more dramatic than Specter's
tentative threat to remind George W. Bush that he's president, and not
king.
Our monarch, above the law
By Scot Lehigh, Globe Columnist | May 2, 2006
HAS GEORGE W. Bush come to believe he's king?
That's the question that springs to mind upon reading Charlie Savage's
front-page report in Sunday's Globe detailing the president's sotto
voce assertion that he can disregard laws if he thinks they impinge on
his constitutional powers.
That novel claim resides in the ''signing statements" the
administration issues outlining its legal interpretation of laws the
president has signed -- interpretations that often run contrary to the
statute's clear intent.
As Savage reports, Bush has registered hundreds of those reservations,
adding them to statutes on subjects ranging from military rules and
regulations to affirmative action language to congressionally mandated
reporting requirements to protections Congress has passed for
whistle-blowers to legal assurances against political meddling in
government-funded research.
Bush's position reduces to this: The president needn't execute the laws
as they are written and passed, but rather, has the right to implement
-- or ignore -- them as he sees fit. (Were it not for our pesky written
Constitution, perhaps George II could take his cue from Charles I,
dismiss Congress, and rule -- ah, govern -- without any legislative
interference whatsoever.)
Even members of the president's own party have balked at that claim.
After Republican Senator John McCain succeeded in passing a ban on the
torture of detainees in US custody, forcing it upon an unwilling White
House, the president's signing statement made it clear he thought he
could disregard the law if he deemed it necessary. That brought a
pointed rebuke from McCain and fellow Republican Senator John Warner.
Other presidents have periodically appended signing statements to
legislation, setting the objectionable precedent that Bush has followed
here. But as Savage reports, this president has taken it to a new
level, issuing such statements on more than 750 laws, or on more than
10 percent of the bills he has signed.
Rendering Bush's assertion more worrisome is this reality: Because so
much of what this administration does is shrouded in secrecy, it's hard
to know which laws are being followed and which are being ignored.
That makes it difficult for matters to ripen into a court challenge,
notes Boston attorney Harvey Silverglate. ''He is setting it up so that
the people hurt by what this administration is doing are unable to get
to court, because it is secret," Silverglate says.
We certainly do know that this president is ready to ignore even
established laws if he finds them too cumbersome. Although the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 prohibits warrantless
eavesdropping on Americans, Bush has authorized such snooping. In
trying to justify that, the administration has claimed that Congress's
post-Sept. 11 resolution authorizing force against terrorists somehow
imparted the authority for warrantless wiretapping.
That's farfetched, and members of the president's own party have said
as much.
Congressional figures of both parties have signaled a willingness to
consider the president's concerns with a wiretap-approval process that
is already all but pro forma.
The White House, however, has displayed little interest in meaningful
compromise.
Bush has a recourse if he doesn't agree with a newly passed law, of
course: He can veto it. (So far he hasn't exercised that prerogative
even once.)
But the president shouldn't be allowed to quietly disregard or
reinterpret provisions of a law he dislikes, for in doing so, he is not
protecting his own authority, but rather usurping the legitimate power
of Congress. Further, his assumption that it is within his purview to
decide whether a law is constitutional treads on ground that is the
clear province of the Supreme Court.
Thus far, the Republican congressional leadership has been dismayingly
compliant. But one Republican unwilling to let Bush interpret the law
as he sees fit is Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee.
Specter, who is pushing legislation to have the closed-door FISA court
rule on the constitutionality of Bush's wiretapping program, noted last
week that he had filed -- but would not seek an immediate vote on -- an
amendment to block funding for any domestic eavesdropping until the
administration provides Congress with much more information.
It speaks volumes about the attitude of this White House that a member
of the president's own party would have to make such a move to protect
bedrock constitutional principles.
Yet it will probably take something much more dramatic than Specter's
tentative threat to remind George W. Bush that he's president, and not
king.
posted by Unknown @ 11:43 AM
0 comments
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Are We Safe Yet?
The attached article from the ACLU outlines the new domestic Spying capabilities the NSA has under the Patriot Act...
Eavesdropping 101: What Can The NSA Do? (1/31/2006)
Eavesdropping 101: What Can The NSA Do?
The recent revelations about illegal eavesdropping on American citizens by the U.S. National Security Agency have raised many questions about just what the agency is doing. Although the facts are just beginning to emerge, information that has come to light about the NSA's activities and capabilities over the years, as well as the recent reporting by the New York Times and others, allows us to discern the outlines of what they are likely doing and how they are doing it.
The NSA is not only the world's largest spy agency (far larger than the CIA, for example), but it possesses the most advanced technology for intercepting communications. We know it has long had the ability to focus powerful surveillance capabilities on particular individuals or communications. But the current scandal has indicated two new and significant elements of the agency's eavesdropping:
1. The NSA has gained direct access to the telecommunications infrastructure through some of America's largest companies
2. The agency appears to be not only targeting individuals, but also using broad "data mining" systems that allow them to intercept and evaluate the communications of millions of people within the United States.
The ACLU has prepared a map illustrating how all this is believed to work. It shows how the military spying agency has extended its tentacles into much of the U.S. civilian communications infrastructure, including, it appears, the "switches" through which international and some domestic communications are routed, Internet exchange points, individual telephone company central facilities, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs). While we cannot be certain about these secretive links, this chart shows a representation of what is, according to recent reports, the most likely picture of what is going on.
CORPORATE BEDFELLOWS
One major new element of the NSA's spying machinery is its ability to tap directly into the major communications switches, routing stations, or access points of the telecommunications system. For example, according to the New York Times, the NSA has worked with "the leading companies" in the telecommunications industry to collect communications patterns, and has gained access "to switches that act as gateways" at "some of the main arteries for moving voice and some Internet traffic into and out of the United States."(1)
This new level of direct access apparently includes both some of the gateways through which phone calls are routed, as well as other key nodes through which a large proportion of Internet traffic passes. This new program also recognizes that today's voice and Internet communications systems are increasingly converging, with a rising proportion of even voice phone calls moving to the Internet via VOIP, and parts of the old telephone transmission system being converted to fiber optic cable and used for both data and voice communications. While data and voice sometimes travel together and sometimes do not, and we do not know exactly which "switches" and other access points the NSA has tapped, what appears certain is that the NSA is looking at both.
And most significantly, access to these "switches" and other network hubs give the agency access to a direct feed of all the communications that pass through them, and the ability to filter, sift through, analyze, read, or share those communications as it sees fit.
DATA MINING
The other major novelty in the NSA's activities appears to be the exploitation of a new concept in surveillance that has attracted a lot of attention in the past few years: what is commonly called "data mining." Unlike the agency's longstanding practice of spying on specific individuals and communications based upon some source of suspicion, data mining involves formula-based searches through mountains of data for individuals whose behavior or profile is in some way suspiciously different from the norm.
Data mining is a broad dragnet. Instead of targeting you because you once received a telephone call from a person who received a telephone call from a person who is a suspected terrorist, you might be targeted because the NSA's computers have analyzed your communications and have determined that they contain certain words or word combinations, addressing information, or other factors with a frequency that deviates from the average, and which they have decided might be an indication of suspiciousness. The NSA has no prior reason to suspect you, and you are in no way tied to any other suspicious individuals – you have just been plucked out of the crowd by a computer algorithm's analysis of your behavior.
Use of these statistical fishing expeditions has been made possible by the access to communications streams granted by key corporations. The NSA may also be engaging in "geographic targeting," in which they listen in on communications between the United States and a particular foreign country or region. More broadly, data mining has been greatly facilitated by underlying changes in technology that have taken place in the past few years (see below).
This dragnet approach is not only bad for civil liberties – it is also a bad use of our scarce security and law enforcement resources. In fact, the creation of large numbers of wasteful and distracting leads is one of the primary reasons that many security experts say data mining and other dragnet strategies are a poor way of preventing crime and terrorism. The New York Times confirmed that point, with its report that the NSA has sent the FBI a "flood" of tips generated by mass domestic eavesdropping and data mining, virtually all of which led to dead ends that wasted the FBI's resources. "We'd chase a number, find it's a schoolteacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism," one former FBI agent told the Times. "After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration."(2)
COMBINING TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND OTHER PRIVATE DATA?
The NSA has historically been in the business of intercepting and analyzing communications data. One question is whether or not this communications data is being combined with other intimate details about our lives. A few years ago, the Pentagon began work on an breathtaking data mining program called Total Information Awareness, which envisioned programming computers to trawl through an extensive list of information on Americans (including, according to the program's own materials, "Financial, Education, Travel, Medical, Veterinary, Country Entry, Place/Event Entry, Transportation, Housing, Critical Resources, Government, Communications") in the hunt for "suspicious" patterns of activity. Congress decisively rejected this approach, voting to shut down the program, at least for domestic use – but we know Congress allowed elements of the program to be moved undercover, into the bowels of the Pentagon, while supposedly being restricted to non-Americans. We also know that the NSA is sharing its information with other security services. What we do not know is whether any of information from TIA-like enterprises is being combined with the NSA's communications intercepts.
HOW THE NSA SEARCHES FOR TARGETS
There are a range of techniques that are probably used by the NSA to sift through the sea of communications it steals from the world's cables and airwaves:
* Keywords. In this longstanding technique, the agency maintains a watch list or "dictionary" of key words, individuals, telephone numbers and presumably now computer IP addresses. It uses that list to pick out potentially relevant communications from all the data that it gathers. These keywords are often provided to the NSA by other security agencies, and the NSA passes the resulting intelligence "take" back to the other agencies or officials. According to the law, the NSA must strip out the names and other identifying information of Americans captured inadvertently, a process called "minimization." (According to published reports, those minimization procedures are not being properly observed.) In the 1990s, it was revealed that the NSA had used the word "Greenpeace" and "Amnesty" (as in the human rights group Amnesty International) as keywords as part of its "Echelon" program (see Echelon).
* Link analysis. It is believed that another manner in which individuals are now being added to the watch lists is through a process often called "link analysis." Link analysis can work like this: the CIA captures a terrorist's computer on the battlefield and finds a list of phone numbers, including some U.S. numbers. The NSA puts those numbers on their watch list. They add the people that are called from those numbers to their list. They could then in turn add the people called from those numbers to their list. How far they carry that process and what standards if any govern the process is unknown.
* Other screening techniques. There may be other techniques that the NSA could be using to pluck out potential targets. One example is voice pattern analysis, in which computers listen for the sound of, say, Osama Bin Laden's voice. No one knows how accurate the NSA's computers may be at such tasks, but if commercial attempts at analogous activities such as face recognition are any guide, they would also be likely to generate enormous numbers of false hits.
A THREE-STAGE PROCESS
So how are all these new techniques and capabilities being put into practice? Presumably, "The Program" (as insiders reportedly refer to the illegal practices) continues to employ watch lists and dictionaries. We do not know how the newer and more sophisticated link analysis and statistical data mining techniques are being used.
But, a good guess is that the NSA is following a three-stage process for the broadest portion of its sweep through the communications infrastructure:
1. The Dragnet: a search for targets. In this stage, the NSA sifts through the data coursing through the arteries of our telecom systems, making use of such factors as keyword searches, telephone number and IP address targeting, and techniques such as link analysis, and "data mining." At this stage, the communications of millions of people may be scrutinized.
2. Human review: making the target list. Communications and individuals that are flagged by the system for one reason or another are presumably then subject to human review. An analyst looks at the origin, destination and content of the communication and makes a determination as to whether further eavesdropping or investigation is desired. We have absolutely no idea what kind of numbers are involved at this stage.
3. The Microscope: targeting listed individuals. Finally, individuals determined to be suspicious in phase two are presumably placed on a target list so that they are placed under the full scrutiny of the NSA's giant surveillance microscope, with all their communications captured and analyzed.
EXPANDING SURVEILLANCE AS TECHNOLOGY CHANGES
Today's NSA spying is a response to, and has been made possible by, some of the fundamental technological changes that have taken place in recent years. Around the end of 1990s, the NSA began to complain privately – and occasionally publicly – that they were being overrun by technology as communications increasingly went digital. One change in particular was especially significant: electronic communications ranging from email to voice conversations were increasingly using the new and different protocols of the Internet.
The consequence of this change was that the NSA felt it was forced to change the points in the communications infrastructure that it targeted – but having done that, it gained the ability to analyze vastly more and richer communications.
The Internet and technologies that rely upon it (such as electronic mail, web surfing and Internet-based telephones known as Voice over IP or VOIP) works by breaking information into small "packets." Each packet is then routed across the network of computers that make up the Internet according to the most efficient path at that moment, like a driver trying to avoid traffic jams as he makes his way across a city. Once all the packets – which are labeled with their origin, destination and other "header" information – have arrived, they are then reassembled.
An important result of this technology is that on the Internet, there is no longer a meaningful distinction between "domestic" and "international" routes of a communication. It was once relatively easy for the NSA, which by law is limited to "foreign intelligence," to aim its interception technologies at purely "foreign" communications. But now, an e-mail sent from London to Paris, for example, might well be routed through the west coast of the United States (when, for example, it is a busy mid-morning in Europe but the middle of the night in California) along the same path traveled by mail between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
That system makes the NSA all the more eager to get access to centralized Internet exchange points operated by a few telecommunications giants. But because of the way this technology works, eavesdropping on an IP communication is a completely different ballgame from using an old-fashioned "wiretap" on a single line. The packets of interest to the eavesdropper are mixed in with all the other traffic that crosses through that pathway – domestic and international.
ECHELON
Much of what we know about the NSA's spying prior to the recent revelations comes from the late 1990s, when a fair amount of information emerged about a system popularly referred to by the name "Echelon" – a codename the NSA had used at least at one time (although their continued use of the term, if at all, is unknown). Echelon was a system for mass eavesdropping on communications around the world by the NSA and its allies among the intelligence agencies of other nations. The best source of information on Echelon was two reports commissioned by the European Parliament (in part due to suspicions among Europeans that the NSA was carrying out economic espionage on behalf of American corporations). Other bits of information were gleaned from documents obtained through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, as well as statements by foreign governments that were partners in the program (the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand).
As of the late 1990s/early 2000s, Echelon swept up global communications using two primary methods:
* The interception of satellite and microwave signals. One way that telephone calls and other communications are sent from the United States to Europe and other destinations is via satellite and microwave transmissions. ECHELON was known to use numerous satellite receivers ("dishes") – located on the east and west coasts of the United States, in England, Australia, Germany, and elsewhere around the globe – to vacuum up the "spillover" broadcasts from these satellite transmissions.
* Transoceanic cable tapping. ECHELON's other primary eavesdropping method was to tap into the transoceanic cables that also carry phone calls across the seas. According to published reports, American divers were able to install surveillance devices onto these cables. One of these taps was discovered in 1982, but other devices apparently continued to function undetected. It is more difficult to tap into fiber-optic cables (which unlike other cables do not "leak" radio signals that can be picked up by a device attached to the outside of the cable), but there is no reason to believe that that problem remained unsolved by the agency.
We do not know the extent to which these sources of data continue to be significant for the NSA, or the extent to which they have been superseded by the agency's new direct access to the infrastructure, including the Internet itself, over which both voice and data communications travel.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
The bottom line is that the NSA appears to be capable not only of intercepting the international communications of a relatively small number of targeted Americans, but also of intercepting a sweeping amount of U.S. communications (through corporate-granted access to communications "pipes" and "boxes"), and of performing mass analysis on those communications (through data mining and other techniques).
Despite the fuzzy picture of "The Program" that we now possess, the current spying scandal has highlighted many unanswered questions about the NSA's current activities. They include:
* Just what kinds of communications arteries has the NSA tapped into?
* What kinds of filters or analysis is the NSA applying to the data that flows through those arteries? How are data mining and other new techniques are being used?
* Which telecom providers are cooperating with the NSA?
* How are subjects selected for targeted intercepts?
* What kinds of information exchange are taking place between the NSA and other security agencies? We know they probably turn over to other agencies any data turned up by watch list entries submitted by those other agencies, and they are also apparently passing along data mining-generated "cold hits" to the FBI and perhaps other security agencies for further investigation. Does information flow the other way as well – are other agencies giving data to the NSA for help in that second phase of deciding who gets put under the microscope?
* Is data that NSA collects, under whatever rubric, being merged with other data, either by NSA or another agency? Is communications data being merged with other transactional information, such as credit card, travel, and financial data, in the fashion of the infamous "Total Information Awareness" data mining program? (TIA, while prohibited by Congress from engaging in "domestic" activities, still exists within the Pentagon – and can be used for "foreign intelligence purposes.)
* Just how many schoolteachers and other innocent Americans have been investigated as a result of "The Program"? And just how much privacy invasion are they subject to before the FBI can conclude they are not "involved in international terrorism"?
Rarely if ever in American history has a government agency possessed so much power subject to so little oversight. Given that situation, abuses were inevitable – and any limits to those abuses a matter of mere good fortune. If our generation of leaders and citizens does not rise to the occasion, we will prove ourselves to be unworthy of the heritage that we have been so fortunate to inherit from our Founders.
Eavesdropping 101: What Can The NSA Do? (1/31/2006)
Eavesdropping 101: What Can The NSA Do?
The recent revelations about illegal eavesdropping on American citizens by the U.S. National Security Agency have raised many questions about just what the agency is doing. Although the facts are just beginning to emerge, information that has come to light about the NSA's activities and capabilities over the years, as well as the recent reporting by the New York Times and others, allows us to discern the outlines of what they are likely doing and how they are doing it.
The NSA is not only the world's largest spy agency (far larger than the CIA, for example), but it possesses the most advanced technology for intercepting communications. We know it has long had the ability to focus powerful surveillance capabilities on particular individuals or communications. But the current scandal has indicated two new and significant elements of the agency's eavesdropping:
1. The NSA has gained direct access to the telecommunications infrastructure through some of America's largest companies
2. The agency appears to be not only targeting individuals, but also using broad "data mining" systems that allow them to intercept and evaluate the communications of millions of people within the United States.
The ACLU has prepared a map illustrating how all this is believed to work. It shows how the military spying agency has extended its tentacles into much of the U.S. civilian communications infrastructure, including, it appears, the "switches" through which international and some domestic communications are routed, Internet exchange points, individual telephone company central facilities, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs). While we cannot be certain about these secretive links, this chart shows a representation of what is, according to recent reports, the most likely picture of what is going on.
CORPORATE BEDFELLOWS
One major new element of the NSA's spying machinery is its ability to tap directly into the major communications switches, routing stations, or access points of the telecommunications system. For example, according to the New York Times, the NSA has worked with "the leading companies" in the telecommunications industry to collect communications patterns, and has gained access "to switches that act as gateways" at "some of the main arteries for moving voice and some Internet traffic into and out of the United States."(1)
This new level of direct access apparently includes both some of the gateways through which phone calls are routed, as well as other key nodes through which a large proportion of Internet traffic passes. This new program also recognizes that today's voice and Internet communications systems are increasingly converging, with a rising proportion of even voice phone calls moving to the Internet via VOIP, and parts of the old telephone transmission system being converted to fiber optic cable and used for both data and voice communications. While data and voice sometimes travel together and sometimes do not, and we do not know exactly which "switches" and other access points the NSA has tapped, what appears certain is that the NSA is looking at both.
And most significantly, access to these "switches" and other network hubs give the agency access to a direct feed of all the communications that pass through them, and the ability to filter, sift through, analyze, read, or share those communications as it sees fit.
DATA MINING
The other major novelty in the NSA's activities appears to be the exploitation of a new concept in surveillance that has attracted a lot of attention in the past few years: what is commonly called "data mining." Unlike the agency's longstanding practice of spying on specific individuals and communications based upon some source of suspicion, data mining involves formula-based searches through mountains of data for individuals whose behavior or profile is in some way suspiciously different from the norm.
Data mining is a broad dragnet. Instead of targeting you because you once received a telephone call from a person who received a telephone call from a person who is a suspected terrorist, you might be targeted because the NSA's computers have analyzed your communications and have determined that they contain certain words or word combinations, addressing information, or other factors with a frequency that deviates from the average, and which they have decided might be an indication of suspiciousness. The NSA has no prior reason to suspect you, and you are in no way tied to any other suspicious individuals – you have just been plucked out of the crowd by a computer algorithm's analysis of your behavior.
Use of these statistical fishing expeditions has been made possible by the access to communications streams granted by key corporations. The NSA may also be engaging in "geographic targeting," in which they listen in on communications between the United States and a particular foreign country or region. More broadly, data mining has been greatly facilitated by underlying changes in technology that have taken place in the past few years (see below).
This dragnet approach is not only bad for civil liberties – it is also a bad use of our scarce security and law enforcement resources. In fact, the creation of large numbers of wasteful and distracting leads is one of the primary reasons that many security experts say data mining and other dragnet strategies are a poor way of preventing crime and terrorism. The New York Times confirmed that point, with its report that the NSA has sent the FBI a "flood" of tips generated by mass domestic eavesdropping and data mining, virtually all of which led to dead ends that wasted the FBI's resources. "We'd chase a number, find it's a schoolteacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism," one former FBI agent told the Times. "After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration."(2)
COMBINING TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND OTHER PRIVATE DATA?
The NSA has historically been in the business of intercepting and analyzing communications data. One question is whether or not this communications data is being combined with other intimate details about our lives. A few years ago, the Pentagon began work on an breathtaking data mining program called Total Information Awareness, which envisioned programming computers to trawl through an extensive list of information on Americans (including, according to the program's own materials, "Financial, Education, Travel, Medical, Veterinary, Country Entry, Place/Event Entry, Transportation, Housing, Critical Resources, Government, Communications") in the hunt for "suspicious" patterns of activity. Congress decisively rejected this approach, voting to shut down the program, at least for domestic use – but we know Congress allowed elements of the program to be moved undercover, into the bowels of the Pentagon, while supposedly being restricted to non-Americans. We also know that the NSA is sharing its information with other security services. What we do not know is whether any of information from TIA-like enterprises is being combined with the NSA's communications intercepts.
HOW THE NSA SEARCHES FOR TARGETS
There are a range of techniques that are probably used by the NSA to sift through the sea of communications it steals from the world's cables and airwaves:
* Keywords. In this longstanding technique, the agency maintains a watch list or "dictionary" of key words, individuals, telephone numbers and presumably now computer IP addresses. It uses that list to pick out potentially relevant communications from all the data that it gathers. These keywords are often provided to the NSA by other security agencies, and the NSA passes the resulting intelligence "take" back to the other agencies or officials. According to the law, the NSA must strip out the names and other identifying information of Americans captured inadvertently, a process called "minimization." (According to published reports, those minimization procedures are not being properly observed.) In the 1990s, it was revealed that the NSA had used the word "Greenpeace" and "Amnesty" (as in the human rights group Amnesty International) as keywords as part of its "Echelon" program (see Echelon).
* Link analysis. It is believed that another manner in which individuals are now being added to the watch lists is through a process often called "link analysis." Link analysis can work like this: the CIA captures a terrorist's computer on the battlefield and finds a list of phone numbers, including some U.S. numbers. The NSA puts those numbers on their watch list. They add the people that are called from those numbers to their list. They could then in turn add the people called from those numbers to their list. How far they carry that process and what standards if any govern the process is unknown.
* Other screening techniques. There may be other techniques that the NSA could be using to pluck out potential targets. One example is voice pattern analysis, in which computers listen for the sound of, say, Osama Bin Laden's voice. No one knows how accurate the NSA's computers may be at such tasks, but if commercial attempts at analogous activities such as face recognition are any guide, they would also be likely to generate enormous numbers of false hits.
A THREE-STAGE PROCESS
So how are all these new techniques and capabilities being put into practice? Presumably, "The Program" (as insiders reportedly refer to the illegal practices) continues to employ watch lists and dictionaries. We do not know how the newer and more sophisticated link analysis and statistical data mining techniques are being used.
But, a good guess is that the NSA is following a three-stage process for the broadest portion of its sweep through the communications infrastructure:
1. The Dragnet: a search for targets. In this stage, the NSA sifts through the data coursing through the arteries of our telecom systems, making use of such factors as keyword searches, telephone number and IP address targeting, and techniques such as link analysis, and "data mining." At this stage, the communications of millions of people may be scrutinized.
2. Human review: making the target list. Communications and individuals that are flagged by the system for one reason or another are presumably then subject to human review. An analyst looks at the origin, destination and content of the communication and makes a determination as to whether further eavesdropping or investigation is desired. We have absolutely no idea what kind of numbers are involved at this stage.
3. The Microscope: targeting listed individuals. Finally, individuals determined to be suspicious in phase two are presumably placed on a target list so that they are placed under the full scrutiny of the NSA's giant surveillance microscope, with all their communications captured and analyzed.
EXPANDING SURVEILLANCE AS TECHNOLOGY CHANGES
Today's NSA spying is a response to, and has been made possible by, some of the fundamental technological changes that have taken place in recent years. Around the end of 1990s, the NSA began to complain privately – and occasionally publicly – that they were being overrun by technology as communications increasingly went digital. One change in particular was especially significant: electronic communications ranging from email to voice conversations were increasingly using the new and different protocols of the Internet.
The consequence of this change was that the NSA felt it was forced to change the points in the communications infrastructure that it targeted – but having done that, it gained the ability to analyze vastly more and richer communications.
The Internet and technologies that rely upon it (such as electronic mail, web surfing and Internet-based telephones known as Voice over IP or VOIP) works by breaking information into small "packets." Each packet is then routed across the network of computers that make up the Internet according to the most efficient path at that moment, like a driver trying to avoid traffic jams as he makes his way across a city. Once all the packets – which are labeled with their origin, destination and other "header" information – have arrived, they are then reassembled.
An important result of this technology is that on the Internet, there is no longer a meaningful distinction between "domestic" and "international" routes of a communication. It was once relatively easy for the NSA, which by law is limited to "foreign intelligence," to aim its interception technologies at purely "foreign" communications. But now, an e-mail sent from London to Paris, for example, might well be routed through the west coast of the United States (when, for example, it is a busy mid-morning in Europe but the middle of the night in California) along the same path traveled by mail between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
That system makes the NSA all the more eager to get access to centralized Internet exchange points operated by a few telecommunications giants. But because of the way this technology works, eavesdropping on an IP communication is a completely different ballgame from using an old-fashioned "wiretap" on a single line. The packets of interest to the eavesdropper are mixed in with all the other traffic that crosses through that pathway – domestic and international.
ECHELON
Much of what we know about the NSA's spying prior to the recent revelations comes from the late 1990s, when a fair amount of information emerged about a system popularly referred to by the name "Echelon" – a codename the NSA had used at least at one time (although their continued use of the term, if at all, is unknown). Echelon was a system for mass eavesdropping on communications around the world by the NSA and its allies among the intelligence agencies of other nations. The best source of information on Echelon was two reports commissioned by the European Parliament (in part due to suspicions among Europeans that the NSA was carrying out economic espionage on behalf of American corporations). Other bits of information were gleaned from documents obtained through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, as well as statements by foreign governments that were partners in the program (the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand).
As of the late 1990s/early 2000s, Echelon swept up global communications using two primary methods:
* The interception of satellite and microwave signals. One way that telephone calls and other communications are sent from the United States to Europe and other destinations is via satellite and microwave transmissions. ECHELON was known to use numerous satellite receivers ("dishes") – located on the east and west coasts of the United States, in England, Australia, Germany, and elsewhere around the globe – to vacuum up the "spillover" broadcasts from these satellite transmissions.
* Transoceanic cable tapping. ECHELON's other primary eavesdropping method was to tap into the transoceanic cables that also carry phone calls across the seas. According to published reports, American divers were able to install surveillance devices onto these cables. One of these taps was discovered in 1982, but other devices apparently continued to function undetected. It is more difficult to tap into fiber-optic cables (which unlike other cables do not "leak" radio signals that can be picked up by a device attached to the outside of the cable), but there is no reason to believe that that problem remained unsolved by the agency.
We do not know the extent to which these sources of data continue to be significant for the NSA, or the extent to which they have been superseded by the agency's new direct access to the infrastructure, including the Internet itself, over which both voice and data communications travel.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
The bottom line is that the NSA appears to be capable not only of intercepting the international communications of a relatively small number of targeted Americans, but also of intercepting a sweeping amount of U.S. communications (through corporate-granted access to communications "pipes" and "boxes"), and of performing mass analysis on those communications (through data mining and other techniques).
Despite the fuzzy picture of "The Program" that we now possess, the current spying scandal has highlighted many unanswered questions about the NSA's current activities. They include:
* Just what kinds of communications arteries has the NSA tapped into?
* What kinds of filters or analysis is the NSA applying to the data that flows through those arteries? How are data mining and other new techniques are being used?
* Which telecom providers are cooperating with the NSA?
* How are subjects selected for targeted intercepts?
* What kinds of information exchange are taking place between the NSA and other security agencies? We know they probably turn over to other agencies any data turned up by watch list entries submitted by those other agencies, and they are also apparently passing along data mining-generated "cold hits" to the FBI and perhaps other security agencies for further investigation. Does information flow the other way as well – are other agencies giving data to the NSA for help in that second phase of deciding who gets put under the microscope?
* Is data that NSA collects, under whatever rubric, being merged with other data, either by NSA or another agency? Is communications data being merged with other transactional information, such as credit card, travel, and financial data, in the fashion of the infamous "Total Information Awareness" data mining program? (TIA, while prohibited by Congress from engaging in "domestic" activities, still exists within the Pentagon – and can be used for "foreign intelligence purposes.)
* Just how many schoolteachers and other innocent Americans have been investigated as a result of "The Program"? And just how much privacy invasion are they subject to before the FBI can conclude they are not "involved in international terrorism"?
Rarely if ever in American history has a government agency possessed so much power subject to so little oversight. Given that situation, abuses were inevitable – and any limits to those abuses a matter of mere good fortune. If our generation of leaders and citizens does not rise to the occasion, we will prove ourselves to be unworthy of the heritage that we have been so fortunate to inherit from our Founders.
posted by Unknown @ 9:34 AM
3 comments
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
"Washington Times Points to Bush Impeachment"
Go to "About.com" to find link and comment...
http://usliberals.about.com/b/a/2006_01_24.htm
http://usliberals.about.com/b/a/2006_01_24.htm
posted by Unknown @ 12:29 PM
0 comments
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Poet Sharon Olds reponds to an invitation by Laura Bush
For reasons spelled out below, the poet Sharon Olds has declined to attend the National Book Festival in Washington, which, coincidentally or not, takesplace September 24, the day of an antiwar mobilization in the capital. Olds, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award and professor of creative writing at New York University, was invited along with a number of other writers by First Lady Laura Bush to read from their works. Three years ago artist Jules Feiffer declined to attend the festival's White House breakfast as a protest against the Iraq War ("Mr. Feiffer Regrets," November 11, 2002). We suggest that invitees to this year's event consider following their example.
Laura Bush
First Lady
The White House
Dear Mrs. Bush,
I am writing to let you know why I am not able to accept your kind invitation to give a presentation at the National Book Festival on September 24, or to attend your dinner at the Library of Congress or the breakfast at the White House.
In one way, it's a very appealing invitation. The idea of speaking at a festival attended by 85,000 people is inspiring! The possibility of finding new readers is exciting for a poet in personal terms, and in terms of the desire that poetry serve its constituents--all of us who need the pleasure, and the inner and outer news, it delivers.
And the concept of a community of readers and writers has long been dear to my heart. As a professor of creative writing in the graduate school of a major university, I have had the chance to be a part of some magnificent outreach writing workshops in which our students have become teachers. Over the years, they have taught in a variety of settings: a women's prison, several New York City public high schools, an oncology ward for children. Our initial program, at a 900-bed state hospital for the severely physically challenged, has been running now for twenty years, creating along the way lasting friendships between young MFA candidates and their students--long-term residents at the hospital who, in their humor, courage and wisdom, become our teachers.
When you have witnessed someone nonspeaking and almost nonmoving spell out, with a toe, on a big plastic alphabet chart, letter by letter, his new poem, you have experienced, close up, the passion and essentialness of writing. When you have held up a small cardboard alphabet card for a writer who is completely nonspeaking and nonmoving (except for the eyes), and pointed first to the A, then the B, then C, then D, until you get to the first letter of the first word of the first line of the poem she has been composing in her head all week, and she lifts her eyes when that letter is touched to say yes, you feel with a fresh immediacy the human drive for creation, self-expression, accuracy, honesty and wit--and the importance of writing, which celebrates the value of each person's unique story and song.
So the prospect of a festival of books seemed wonderful to me. I thought of the opportunity to talk about how to start up an outreach program. I thought of the chance to sell some books, sign some books and meet some of the citizens of Washington, DC. I thought that I could try to find a way, even as your guest, with respect, to speak about my deep feeling that we should not have invaded Iraq, and to declare my belief that the wish to invade another culture and another country--with the resultant loss of life and limb for our brave soldiers, and for the noncombatants in their home terrain--did not come out of our democracy but was instead a decision made "at the top" and forced on the people by distorted language, and by untruths. I hoped to express the fear that we have begun to live in the shadows of tyranny and religious chauvinism--the opposites of the liberty, tolerance and diversity our nation aspires to.
I tried to see my way clear to attend the festival in order to bear witness--as an American who loves her country and its principles and its writing--against this undeclared and devastating war.
But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I knew that if I sat down to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning what I seeto be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration.
What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be taking food from the hand of the First Lady who represents the Administration that unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the extent of permitting "extraordinary rendition": flying people to other countries where they will be tortured for us.
So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it.
Sincerely,
SHARON OLDS
posted by Unknown @ 12:53 PM
2 comments
