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New Documents Detail FBI Eavesdropping On Americans'
Emails, IMs and Phone Calls
More revelations of government spying in the panopticon
society
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Fresh documents reveal that the FBI is actively engaged in the
monitoring of electronic communications and cell phone calls of
American citizens without the prior approval of a court.
The latest documents were released under the Freedom
of Information Act to the advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation,
and obtained by the Washington
Post.
"Different versions of the system are used
for criminal wiretaps and for foreign intelligence investigations
inside the United States. But each allows authorized FBI agents
and analysts, with point-and-click ease, to receive e-mails, instant
messages, cellphone calls and other communications that tell them
not only what a suspect is saying, but where he is and where he
has been, depending on the wording of a court order or a government
directive." The Post reports.
The protections of the Fourth Amendment dictate
that wiretaps to obtain the content of a phone call or an e-mail
must be authorized by a court upon a showing of probable cause.
However, the FBI gets around this by classing the
information it intercepts as "transactional data" about
a communication, that is from whom the communication originated,
to whom it was sent, how long it lasted and the like.
The bureau can collect this information under current
law by asserting that it is relevant to an official investigation.
It can administer a subpoena known as a national security letter
(NSL).
As the Post reports, according to the Justice Department's
inspector general, the number of NSLs issued by the FBI soared
from 8,500 in 2000 to 47,000 in 2005.
(Article continues below)
Last week separate
Pentagon documents, obtained by the ACLU, revealed
that the military is using the FBI as a go between in order to
"skirt legal restrictions" on domestic surveillance
and obtain private records of Americans' Internet service providers,
financial institutions and telephone companies.
The DoD is not authorized to obtain e-mail and phone records
or lists of web sites that people have visited as it is illegal
for the military to engage in domestic investigations, so it has
been using the FBI to obtain the information via national security
letters, hence the more than 500% increase in NSLs in recent years.
These revelations indicate that the FBI is as fully immersed
within the program to spy on the communications of American citizens
as its military counterpart, the NSA, and should demand more immediate
and decisive action on behalf of those in Congress who continue
to dither and debate over possible modifications to the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act, which governs federal surveillance.
Late last year,
reports circulated that the NSA, has increasing
control over SSL, now called Transport Layer Security, the cryptographic
protocol that provides secure communications on the internet for
web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging, and other data transfers.
In other words the agency is capable of intercepting and reading
your emails and instant messages in real time. It is now beyond
doubt that the NSA's "terrorist surveillance program"
now extends to this.
Last week the ACLU also uncovered
details pertaining to a secret Justice Department
memo from October 2001 that reveals the Bush administration effectively
suspended the Fourth Amendment where domestic counter terrorism
operations are concerned.
It is almost certain that the memo was written to provide a legal
basis for the NSA to begin its warrantless wiretapping program,
which was initiated in the same month.
Another set
of documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF) last June showed that US telco AT&T allowed
the NSA to set up a 'secret room' in its offices to monitor internet
traffic.
Recently, the
lawyer for an AT&T engineer alleged that "within
two weeks of taking office, the Bush administration was planning
a comprehensive effort of spying on Americans” That is BEFORE
9/11, before the nation was embroiled in the freedom stripping
exercise commonly known as the "war on terror" had even
begun.
In the wake of the allegations, CNET
reported that both Google and Microsoft refused to
say if they have provided users private data to the federal government
under the warrantless wiretapping program.
However, it is clear where Google's
interests lie given that the company is supplying
the software, hardware and tech support to US intelligence agencies
in the process of creating a vast closed source database for global
spy networks to share information.
Earlier this year came the announcement that US National Intelligence
Director Mike McConnell is drawing
up plans for cyberspace spying that would make the
current debate on warrantless wiretaps look like a "walk
in the park".
The plan would mean giving the government the authority to examine
the content of any e-mail, file transfer or Web search.
In addition, late last year, new programs of internet
monitoring were announced by a freshly created department branch
of Homeland Security called the National Applications Office
"Mr. Chertoff also plans soon to unveil a cyber-security
strategy, part of an estimated $15 billion, multiyear program
designed to protect the nation's Internet infrastructure. The
program has been shrouded in secrecy for months and has also prompted
privacy concerns on Capitol Hill because it involves government
protection of domestic computer networks." The Wall
Street Journal wrote.
Essentially the program allows the DHS to regulate and control
access to the internet in the name of "protecting" national
security.
With further revelations last week of state run "fusion
centers" collecting information and working
in conjunction with NORTHCOM under the DHS, it is becoming clear
that the panopticon program extends its tentacles across agencies
and between branches of government.
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