statism watch

The PASS/REALID program is resurrected yet again (that didn’t take long), and this time the political spin is that it will solve issues around immigration. It’s a national ID card not only for the US, but fits into the overall initiative of North American integration. You know your new Canadian driver’s license? The one you’re going to have to fingerprint for? Same thing. This is a global initiative to track and trace populations. In addition to Canada and the US, India and the UK are two states that this journal is aware of that are issuing standardized biometric ID. The UK is also issuing its police forces with portable fingerprint scanners, so you can see the sort of biometrically-enabled tyranny we’re headed for here. Why not just start wearing dog collars? It’s the same thing. You are the herd, and your authoritarian masters will keep track of every little thing you do from now on. What do you think of that idea?

Related: US Move to National ID Cards Delayed | UK: Chipped ID card scheme launched in Greater Manchester | UK Government plans to link criminal records to ID cards | UK national ID card cloned in 12 minutes | Alberta Hutterites need enhanced driver’s licence photos: top court | US: REALID tracking chip ID card resurrected by PASS initiative | India to issue all 1.2 billion citizens with biometric ID cards | BC Bars swipe patron IDs, collect data | Incoming CSIS chief to seek biometric data at border | Ontario’s high-tech driver’s licences pose privacy risk: watchdog | Moratorium sought on RFID driver’s licenses | RFID passport security defeated in minutes | Saskatchewan adopting US-mandated ID card, to include RFID chip, facial recognition | Drivers licences with chips spark heated debate | Ontario Privacy Czar Worried about High-Tech Licences | North American ID card in the works through SPP | Ontario sees allies in licence proposal | New licence may double as passport | Wilkins touts ’simple’ ID card for travel to U.S.

Laura Meckler, The Wall Street Journal
March 8, 2010

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill are proposing a new national biometric ID card that would be required of all U.S. workers.

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.

The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past.

The uphill effort to pass a bill is being led by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who plan to meet with President Barack Obama as soon as this week to update him on their work. An administration official said the White House had no position on the biometric card.

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This journal has criticized Mr. Freeze in the past for characterizing the ability of Canada’s SIGINT establishment to conduct espionage on Canadian citizens abroad – first granted publicly in September 2009 – as the closing of a ‘loophole’. Now he’s back on the online intelligence beat, writing soothingly that CSIS is ‘reaching out’ to Canadian business in order to keep us safe from the newly devastating threat of cyberterror. To characterize botnets and hackers as a massive new threat to the security of the West is patently false. The net has gotten along very nicely, thank you, by organically adapting to new issues as they arise. Colin Freeze is simply following the talking points coming out of the mouths of Pentagon contractors (Like Michael McConnell) that are seeking to establish control of global information flow via federalization and nationalization of the Internet. A single article may not give one enough information to see which way the wind is blowing on an international level when such a massive project is underway. And indeed this particular CSIS program, establishing links between CSIS and strategically important corporations, is just one small indicator of the overall trend – but it follows on the American initiative to roll business networks into an NSA program through the agency of the CSE on this side of the border. StatismWatch has already done much of the research needed to collate this info – all you need to do to get up to speed is read through it. Please? Jesse Brown’s latest Search Engine podcast over at TVO, “The Enemy of The Internet” is also recommended.

Flashback: United States weighs massive expansion of Internet monitoring | Cyberwar Hype Intended to Destroy the Open Internet | Google, NSA may team up to probe cyberattacks | UN agency calls for global cyberwarfare treaty, ‘driver’s license’ for Web users | Death Of The Internet: Censorship Bills In UK, Australia, U.S. Aim To Block “Undesirable” Websites | Australia introduces web filters | Obama Wants Computer Privacy Ruling Overturned | UK Internet surveillance plan to go ahead | Security boss calls for end to net anonymity | Case for Internet spying not closed | Planned Internet, wireless surveillance laws worry watchdogs | UK ISPs condemn Internet surveillance plans | UK to found new ‘cyber-security’ units attached to national eavesdropping centre | ISPs must help police snoop on internet under new bill | UK plans to integrate ‘cybersecurity’ centre with US, Canada | Cybersecurity Is Framework For Total Government Regulation & Control Of Our Lives | Obama Set to Create A Cybersecurity Czar With Broad Mandate | EU wants ‘Internet G12′ to govern cyberspace | UK Home Secretary has secret plan to surveil, ‘Master the Internet’ | Munk Centre researchers discover botnet, call for international cyberspace ‘legal regime’ | NSA Dominance of Cybersecurity Would Lead to ‘Grave Peril’, Ex-Cyber Chief Tells Congress | Do We Need a New Internet? | Defense Contractors See $$$ in Cyber Security | RCMP to helm a Canadian “cyber-security strategy” | Sweden approves wiretapping law | Law Professor tells tech conference: plans to shut down Internet already on deck

Colin Freeze, The Globe and Mail
March 8, 2010

As economic espionage and hacking become growing threats to the West, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is stepping up efforts to persuade businesses to safeguard secrets deemed vital to national interests.

CSIS’s corporate-outreach program, which started in the 1990s, largely fell by the wayside during the years after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, when fighting terrorism absorbed nearly all the spy service’s energies.

But emerging threats – including shadowy-but-powerful hacker networks based in China – are sparking a renewed federal interest in forging partnerships between the corporate and intelligence worlds.

“CSIS has and continues to speak with various corporations in Canada on potential security threats, which may have an impact on national security interests,” CSIS spokeswoman Isabelle Scott said in an e-mailed response to questions from The Globe and Mail. “CSIS alerts firms to common covert methods used by those who may target them.”

She did not elaborate on which hostile entities may be targeting Canada, and added that any information shared during briefing sessions with corporations is confidential.

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It’s incredibly disturbing how effective the psychological trauma of 9/11 has been in convincing formerly rational adult populations of the need to go to war, the need to allow the government to surveill them and tend to their every need, lest the terror overtake society. The flight-or-flight instinct of an individual threatened with physical violence has been manipulated on a social level, and now, people simply dissociate when faced with yet another uncomfortable fact and accept their town councils calmly announcing that their garbage bins now all have spy chips installed. It’s insane. Oh, and wait your turn, Toronto (and presumably, other major Canadian cities – send in your clippings). You’ve got these bins and the chips as well, as was mentioned ever so fleetingly in this Globe and Mail article. But, you know, pay no mind to what’s happening to your culture: Bin Brother loves you.

Flashback: UK: Garbage spies alarm neighbourhood | Toronto: New bin regime spawns new rules, confusion for avid recyclers | Trash search doesn’t violate privacy rights, says top court | London Police Encourage Citizens To Inform on Neighbour’s Garbage | UK Slips New Garbage Bin Taxes into Climate Bill | Garbage piles up in Toronto as new garbage bin scheme fails to deliver | Supreme Court set to consider privacy rights | Toronto Mayor David Miller hails new taxes on water, trash | Toronto’s New Garbage Tracking Bins Delayed for Many | Top court to decide whether trash is private | Toronto Mayor delays garbage tax grab for twelve months | Garbage bin fee hike possible before new RFID bins even hit the kerb | ‘Environmental volunteers’ will be encouraged to spy on their neighbours | Microchip bin tax scheme to go ahead despite failures | Toronto Residents Furious Over RFID Garbage Bins | The monster (blue bin) that ate downtown | Bin Brother is watching you

Steve Doughty, The Daily Mail
March 5, 2010

The growing threat of a stealth tax on the rubbish we throw away was exposed by startling figures yesterday.

More than 2.5 million homes now have wheelie bins fitted with microchips to weigh their contents.

This is an increase of nearly two-thirds in just a year. The bins, which can be electronically identified and weighed, are designed for ‘pay-as-you-throw’ rubbish tax schemes.

Under such schemes – which are likely to be hugely unpopular – families who put out more waste will pay higher taxes to their local council.

Disclosure of the rapid spread of chipped bins followed the announcement this week of the first council to bring in a bin tax. Bristol City is presenting its scheme as a reward for recyclers, with cash payments to homes that leave out less rubbish.

The spread of chipped bins marks the revival of a tax idea that the Government appeared to have abandoned last year.

Gordon Brown promised to ditch bin taxes in the spring of 2008, at a point when the unpopularity among voters of fortnightly collections, strict bin rules, and the threat of pay-as-you-throw was at its height.

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So, the increased online surveillance and tracking we’ve been expecting is revealed as an ‘updated’ version of the Einstein program. Looking back on previous reports on the Einstein program, it’s clear that a Federal pilot program intended (initially) to spy on government employees is now to be ready to be rolled out to the rest of the Internet. Wayne Madsen revealed through his sources in Sept 2008 that Einstein, far from conducting routine traffic analysis – the official line at the time – conducts analysis of message content, and that the technology, codenamed Pinwheel, was developed for foreign signals intelligence. Mr. Madsen further reported that “The DNI and NSA also plan to move Einstein into the private sector by claiming the nation’s critical infrastructure, by nature, overlaps into the commercial sector. There are classified plans, already budgeted in so-called “black” projects, to extend Einstein surveillance into the dot (.) com, dot (.) edu, dot (.) int, and dot (.) org, as well as other Internet domains” This should not be news to anyone – whistleblowers within the telecom industry have already revealed the extent to which the NSA wiretaps Americans. Lawsuits against the telcos were dismissed in January for reason that the damages inflicted were ‘non-specific’. But this story’s even bigger than that: US net surveillance is just one aspect of a global program. You’d best speak up now while you can.

Flashback: Cyberwar Hype Intended to Destroy the Open Internet | Google, NSA may team up to probe cyberattacks | UN agency calls for global cyberwarfare treaty, ‘driver’s license’ for Web users | Death Of The Internet: Censorship Bills In UK, Australia, U.S. Aim To Block “Undesirable” Websites | Australia introduces web filters | Obama Wants Computer Privacy Ruling Overturned | UK Internet surveillance plan to go ahead | Security boss calls for end to net anonymity | Case for Internet spying not closed | Planned Internet, wireless surveillance laws worry watchdogs | UK ISPs condemn Internet surveillance plans | UK to found new ‘cyber-security’ units attached to national eavesdropping centre | ISPs must help police snoop on internet under new bill | UK plans to integrate ‘cybersecurity’ centre with US, Canada | Cybersecurity Is Framework For Total Government Regulation & Control Of Our Lives | Obama Set to Create A Cybersecurity Czar With Broad Mandate | EU wants ‘Internet G12′ to govern cyberspace | UK Home Secretary has secret plan to surveil, ‘Master the Internet’ | Munk Centre researchers discover botnet, call for international cyberspace ‘legal regime’ | NSA Dominance of Cybersecurity Would Lead to ‘Grave Peril’, Ex-Cyber Chief Tells Congress | Do We Need a New Internet? | Defense Contractors See $$$ in Cyber Security | RCMP to helm a Canadian “cyber-security strategy” | Sweden approves wiretapping law | Law Professor tells tech conference: plans to shut down Internet already on deck

Declan McCullagh, CNET News
March 4, 2010

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who told a House appropriations hearing that Einstein 3 could only be discussed in a classified setting, speaks at the RSA conference on Wednesday. (Credit: James Martin/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO–Homeland Security and the National Security Agency may be taking a closer look at Internet communications in the future.

The Department of Homeland Security’s top cybersecurity official told CNET on Wednesday that the department may eventually extend its Einstein technology, which is designed to detect and prevent electronic attacks, to networks operated by the private sector. The technology was created for federal networks.

Greg Schaffer, assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications, said in an interview that the department is evaluating whether Einstein “makes sense for expansion to critical infrastructure spaces” over time.

Not much is known about how Einstein works, and the House Intelligence Committee once charged that descriptions were overly “vague” because of “excessive classification.” The White House did confirm this week that the latest version, called Einstein 3, involves attempting to thwart in-progress cyberattacks by sharing information with the National Security Agency.

Greater federal involvement in privately operated networks may spark privacy or surveillance concerns, not least because of the NSA’s central involvement in the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping scandal. Earlier reports have said that Einstein 3 has the ability to read the content of emails and other messages, and that AT&T has been asked to test the system. (The Obama administration says the “contents” of communications are not shared with the NSA.)

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Teach your children well – while you’re still allowed to, that is.

Flashback: UK: Parents need license to play with children in public | UK: Now Big Brother targets helpful parents – 1 in 4 Britons vetted for giant new child protection database | Has your child been CAFed? How the Government plans to record intimate information on every child in Britain | Do Swiss parents need a childrearing licence? | UK Parents Need Government Permission to Kiss Children

Ryan Kisiel, Steve Doughty, The Daily Mail
March 4, 2010

Heads will be forced to list children as young as five on school ‘hate registers’ over everyday playground insults.

Even minor incidents must be recorded as examples of serious bullying and details kept on a database until the pupil leaves secondary school.

Teachers are to be told that even if a primary school child uses homophobic or racist words without knowing their meaning, simply teaching them such words are hurtful and inappropriate is not enough.

Instead the incident has to be recorded and his or her behaviour monitored for future signs of ‘hate’ bullying.

The accusations will also be recorded in databases held by councils and made available to Whitehall and ministers to help them devise future anti-bullying campaigns.

The scale of the effort to stop children using homophobic or racist language was revealed after the parents of a ten-year-old primary school pupil in Somerset, Peter Drury, were told that his name would be put on a register and his behaviour monitored while he remained at school.

The boy was reported after he called a friend ‘gay boy’. His parents fear the record of homophobic bullying will count against him throughout his school career and even into adulthood.

In another incident last year a six-year-old girl, Sharona Gower, was reported for ‘racist bullying’ at her school near Tunbridge Wells in Kent.

Sharona was chased by two 11-year-old girls, one of whom taunted her that she had chocolate on her face.

The six-year-old responded to one of the girls, who was black: ‘Well, you’ve got chocolate on yours.’

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The technology doesn’t have to be capable of storing fingerprints – that’s a red herring – other biometric initiatives, like the UK national ID card, already collect this data. Doesn’t anyone see what’s going on here? If you don’t have a problem with this you may as well just go ahead and put on a collar and a gimp mask. Speak out. Shout out!

Flashback: Australia to fingerprint, face-scan visitors from Muslim nations | UK: Chipped ID card scheme launched in Greater Manchester | UK Government plans to link criminal records to ID cards | Incoming CSIS chief to seek biometric data at border | Parents, children to be fingerprinted at initial 250+ nursery schools in UK | Police will use new device to take fingerprints in street, vendors say face scanning next | Scots schoolchildren to be fingerprinted in controversial ID scheme | Eye scans, fingerprints to control NZ borders | Air Canada objects to US plans to fingerprint exiting foreigners | American Border Officers Want to Fingerprint Canadians at SPP Bridge | UNBC students give thumbs down to fingerprint scanners | Give public biometrics the finger

BBC News
March 4, 2010

All 43 police forces in England and Wales are to start using mobile fingerprint scanners to check the identity of suspects in the street.

Up to 3,000 devices, the size of a mobile phone, will be deployed this summer, enabling officers to cross-reference prints with national records.

The National Policing Improvement Agency has signed a three-year contract worth £9m with US firm Cogent Systems.

Civil liberty campaigners fear the devices could lead to random searches.

Liberty said last year it had “very real concerns” about the policy and there needed to be further debate over use of the machines.

It called for a government consultation to “determine the proper boundaries of police conduct in this very sensitive area”.

But senior officers say the scanners will speed up criminal inquiries and save thousands of hours in police time.

They say the scanned fingerprints would not be added to a database.

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Mitochondrial DNA, as the article notes, is best for aged or degraded DNA samples where the DNA in a cell’s nucleus is unreliable. This throws into question, to some degree, not only ‘cold case’ genetic evidence, but also some of the results of evolutionary genetics: like the IBM-National Geographic ‘Genographic Project‘, which is building up a massive database of DNA sent in by the well-meaning and curious anxious to find out about their ancestry.

Flashback: Israeli Scientists Show DNA Evidence Can be Fabricated | UK: Pilot project for DNA, isotope analysis of immigrants ‘deeply flawed’ | Study finds genetic discrimination by insurance firms | US: Ruling allowing Taser use to get DNA may be nation’s first | UK: Police ‘arrest innocent youths for their DNA’, officer claims | UK: Fury as Commons denied vote on DNA database | Australians refused insurance because of poor genes

Brandon Keim, Wired.com
March 3, 2010

A DNA-matching technique often used in forensics has been called to the stand.

Fine-grained analysis of DNA found in cell structures called mitochondria suggests that it can vary widely between tissues, making samples tricky to compare.

“I wouldn’t say that it throws other results out the window, but it does throw a curve ball,” said Nickolas Papadopoulos, a Johns Hopkins University geneticist and co-author of the study, published March 4 in Nature.

Mitochondria are found by the hundreds in every human cell. They convert glucose to energy, and possess their own tiny genomes, separate and distinct from the organismal genome found in each cell nucleus.

In the mid-1990s, law enforcement added mitochondrial DNA comparison to its forensic genetic toolkit. Because there are so many mitochondria in each cell, readable copies of their genomes can often be found even when the nuclear genome has been damaged. This is especially useful for old, highly degraded biological samples.

Mitochondrial DNA-matching is based on the assumption that it doesn’t vary much in an individual: Aside from a few inevitable mutations, mitochondrial DNA are generally supposed to be the same in, say, heart cells and hair cells. But when Papadopoulos’ team applied the latest in gene-sequencing technology to mitochondrial genomes from nine tissue types in two people, that’s not what they found.

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Flashback: Australia to fingerprint, face-scan visitors from Muslim nations | Privacy commissioner OKs Barwatch software | US: REALID tracking chip ID card resurrected by PASS initiative | India to issue all 1.2 billion citizens with biometric ID cards | BC Bars swipe patron IDs, collect data | Incoming CSIS chief to seek biometric data at border | Australian nightclub installs face-scanning security system | Alberta bars could collect names, photos under proposed bill | Let’s face it, soon Big Brother will have no trouble recognising you | UK: Face scanners to be installed in schools | Police will use new device to take fingerprints in street, vendors say face scanning next | Interpol wants facial recognition database to catch suspects | ‘Pre-crime’ detector shows promise | Billboards that look back | Saskatchewan adopting US-mandated ID card, to include RFID chip, facial recognition | Tanks, Face-Scanning Cameras Part of ‘Discreet’ 2010 Games Security | Tokyo Vending Machines Learn New Trick: Facial Recognition | North American ID card in the works through SPP | Alberta privacy commission to rule on bar scans

Lesley Ciarula Taylor, The Toronto Star
March 2, 2010

The nose knows.

Knows who you are, where you’ve been and, eventually, how nervous you are.

Researchers at two English universities are in the early stages of turning the nose into the ultimate biometric-scan feature: hard to conceal, difficult to change and distinctive from person to person.

“The nose is remarkably good. It lends itself quite well to recognition,” Professor Melvyn Smith of the University of the West of England in Bristol told the Star.

Smith’s team have developed PhotoFace, part of a $1 billion project by the Imperial College, the British Home Office, and General Dynamics, the U.S. defence industry contractor, to create a sophisticated and reliable facial-recognition system.

Noses are a spinoff of that.

“Noses are prominent facial features and yet their use as a biometric has been largely unexplored,” said Dr. Adrian Evans of the University of Bath, which took PhotoFace and focused it on the nose.

“Ears have been looked at in detail, eyes have been looked at in terms of iris recognition, but the nose has been neglected.”

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Here’s the UK attempting to push through its requirements for national internet filtering, but placing the burden on access points rather than ISPs. Here comes ‘cyber-security’, the effect of which will be to stifle the flow of information, channeling it once more through official sources. Good-bye, online anonymity; good-bye, alternative media. For your safety, and the children, of course. (Incidentally, India is cracking down on open WiFi because it helps the terror. The Vancouver Sun stated in 2007 that ‘anyone with a laptop and wireless access could commit a terrorist act’ on the city’s open network – so you can see the associations being built up in the public mind here.)

Flashback: Swedish Justice Minister reluctant to store internet user’s data | UK: Telecom firms’ fury at plan for ‘Stasi’ checks on every phone call and email | Death Of The Internet: Censorship Bills In UK, Australia, U.S. Aim To Block “Undesirable” Websites | Australia introduces web filters | Obama Wants Computer Privacy Ruling Overturned | UK Internet surveillance plan to go ahead | Security boss calls for end to net anonymity | Case for Internet spying not closed | Planned Internet, wireless surveillance laws worry watchdogs | UK ISPs condemn Internet surveillance plans | UK to found new ‘cyber-security’ units attached to national eavesdropping centre | ISPs must help police snoop on internet under new bill | UK plans to integrate ‘cybersecurity’ centre with US, Canada | Cybersecurity Is Framework For Total Government Regulation & Control Of Our Lives | Obama Set to Create A Cybersecurity Czar With Broad Mandate | EU wants ‘Internet G12′ to govern cyberspace | UK Home Secretary has secret plan to surveil, ‘Master the Internet’ | Munk Centre researchers discover botnet, call for international cyberspace ‘legal regime’ | NSA Dominance of Cybersecurity Would Lead to ‘Grave Peril’, Ex-Cyber Chief Tells Congress | Do We Need a New Internet? | Defense Contractors See $$$ in Cyber Security | RCMP to helm a Canadian “cyber-security strategy” | Sweden approves wiretapping law | Law Professor tells tech conference: plans to shut down Internet already on deck | UK Business Secretary sets date for blocking filesharers’ internet connections | The bait and switch: EU now to endorse internet disconnection for ‘piracy’ | UK: 70% oppose internet ban for filesharers, poll shows | Security boss calls for end to net anonymity | UN Urges International Action on Cyber Security Threat | Judge in Pirate Bay Appeal Removed for Bias | MP Charlie Angus on copyright: industry lobby pulling for ‘dead business model’ | UK Government to consider internet disconnection policy, restrictions | The dawn of Internet censorship in Germany | Pirate Bay Retrial Denied | Stockholm Court: Pirate Bay Judge ‘Unbiased’ | Next up for France: police keyloggers and Web censorship | France passes ‘three strikes’ Internet surveillance law | Pirate Bay lawyer calls for retrial after judge confirms ties to copyright groups | Jail terms for Pirate Bay founders, appeal in works | Cybersecurity law would give feds unprecedented net control | Protests in Australia over proposal to block Web sites | Microsoft patents web moderator robots, forbidden phrases to be memory-holed | Berners-Lee W3C Consortium to ‘Authorize’ Website Content? | Canada Considering “Three Strikes and You’re Out” ISP Policy

David Meyer, ZDNet.com
February 26, 2010

The government will not exempt universities, libraries and small businesses providing open Wi-Fi services from its Digital Economy Bill copyright crackdown, according to official advice released earlier this week.

This would leave many organisations open to the same penalties for copyright infringement as individual subscribers, potentially including disconnection from the internet, leading legal experts to say it will become impossible for small businesses and the like to offer Wi-Fi access.

Lilian Edwards, professor of internet law at Sheffield University, told ZDNet UK on Thursday that the scenario described by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in an explanatory document would effectively “outlaw open Wi-Fi for small businesses”, and would leave libraries and universities in an uncertain position.

“This is going to be a very unfortunate measure for small businesses, particularly in a recession, many of whom are using open free Wi-Fi very effectively as a way to get the punters in,” Edwards said.

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Flashback: Authority to Spy on Americans Unclear as Patriot Act Expires | U.S. Spies Buy Stake in Firm That Monitors Blogs, Tweets | Report: Massive FBI database set to quadruple in size | EU Plans Massive Surveillance Panopticon That Would Monitor “Abnormal Behavior” | US Police to get access to classified military intelligence | Obama Backs Extending Patriot Act Spy Provisions | UK plans to integrate ‘cybersecurity’ centre with US, Canada | US Federal Judge Tosses Telecom Spy Suits | Showdown in NSA Wiretap Case: Judge Threatens Sanctions Against Justice Department | NSA Surveillance Exploding, Americans Wiretapped Beyond Congressional Limits | Put NSA in Charge of Cyber Security, Or the Power Grid Gets It | NSA Dominance of Cybersecurity Would Lead to ‘Grave Peril’, Ex-Cyber Chief Tells Congress | New law to give police access to online exchanges | Whistleblower: NSA even collected credit card records | RCMP to helm a Canadian “cyber-security strategy” | Big brother to track all emails, internet history and telephone calls under UK plan | US military targets social nets | ‘Einstein’ replaces ‘Big Brother’ in Internet surveillance | UK Security services want personal data from sites like Facebook | Secret EU security draft risks uproar with call to pool policing and give US personal data | Vision 2015: Consolidation of U.S. Intelligence Into Global Intel Network | Bush approves surveillance bill | Sweden approves wiretapping law | Secretive Canadian spy agency to get $62-million HQ | Whistle-Blower: Feds Have a Backdoor Into Wireless Carrier — Congress Reacts | Canada working with FBI on ’server in the sky’ | Listening in on the enemy: Canada’s master eavesdroppers

Nate Cardozo, EFF.org
February 25, 2010

The Department of Defense has released more than 800 heavily-redacted pages of intelligence oversight reports, detailing activities that its Inspector General has “reason to believe are unlawful.” The reports are the latest in an ongoing document release by more than a half-dozen intelligence agencies in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by EFF in July 2009.

The reports, submitted to the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) by various Department of Defense components, cover the period from 2001 through 2008. The IOB’s role within the Executive Office of the President is to ensure that each component of the intelligence community works within the Constitution and all applicable laws. As such, the Inspector General of each intelligence agency is required to submit periodic reports to the IOB, which in turn is required to forward to the Attorney General any report identifying an intelligence activity that violates the law. Intelligence oversight reporting is rarely disclosed to the public.

This new release, from various Defense components including the Army and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, comes in four parts, see here. Much of the reported improper activity consisted of intelligence gathering on so-called “U.S. Persons,” including citizens, permanent residents and U.S.-based organizations. Although Defense agencies are generally prohibited from collecting such information (except as part of foreign intelligence or counter-intelligence activity), it is apparent from the unredacted reports released to EFF that some DoD components have had chronic difficulty complying with that prohibition.

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