Obama Authorizes Warrantless ‘Cybersecurity’ Surveillance - Immunity Given to ISPs
by Trevor Timm via sal - CommonDeams Friday, Apr 26 2013, 9:31am
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Surveillance on steroids with puppet president Obama.
"Good evening viewers, our special guest tonight is, 'none of your business,' from the Ministry of Truth.
Minister NYB, would you care to clarify certain concepts that people may be having difficulty with.
"My pleasure, we all know that 'Peace is War,' 'Freedom is constant Surveillance, and democracy is indefinite detention without charge, trial or due process.'
Yes, but how do those policies separate the administration from organised crime?
Well, the short answer is they don't, but you have forgotten the 52nd statute, 'CRIME IS LAW'
O, of course, how silly of me!
Yesterday, in a disturbing report published on CNET, new
documents obtained
by EPIC reveal
that Obama administration officials have authorized a new
government program involving the interception of communications on
Internet service providers, including AT&T—one of the key
players in the NSA
warrantless wiretapping program.
Under long-standing federal law, the government needs to use
legal process to compel service providers to hand over customer
communications, yet reportedly, the government is promising these
companies they will not to prosecute them for violating US
wiretapping laws if they hand over the information voluntarily.
And the secret surveillance authorization seems quite broad,
touching on huge swaths of private, domestic activity:
The secret legal authorization from the Justice Department
originally applied to a cybersecurity pilot project in which the
military monitored defense contractors' Internet links. Since
then, however, the program has been expanded by President Obama
to cover all critical infrastructure sectors including energy,
healthcare, and finance starting June 12.
CNET reported also that the National Security Agency (NSA) and
Department of Defense were “deeply involved in press for the
secret legal authorization” further underscoring widespread
worries that the military may be given access to Americans’
personal information through cybersecurity operations. The
report comes as Congress is debating CISPA, a dangerous
bill that carves a “cybersecurity” loophole in all our privacy
laws.
While we are still sifting through the more than thousand pages
of documents—obtained by EPIC
Privacy through the Freedom of Information Act and posted to
their website—the most controversial aspect of this program
seems to be that the government has not used legal process to
obtain Internet traffic from AT&T and other ISPs involved in
the program. Instead, the Justice Department has handed them what
the Justice Department calls a “2511 letter”—named after a section of
the Wiretap Act—which purports to immunize them from
prosecution.
Section 2511 makes it a crime to wiretap—intercept electronic
communications—with some exceptions, like a properly issued
warranted. It provides no exception for a letter from the Justice
Department. CNET reported an industry representative told them
"the 2511 letters provided legal immunity to the providers by
agreeing not to prosecute for criminal violations of the Wiretap
Act. It's not clear how many 2511 letters were issued by the
Justice Department."
Beyond what CNET reported, we still need to analyze these new
documents to determine how pervasive this surveillance is and its
impact on the American public. We are currently reading them over
and will have a more detailed analysis soon.
Author retains copyright.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/04/25-7
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