Category Archive

Very bizarre testimony yesterday from James Comey, the deputy attorney general when Ashcroft was the AG. The Washington Post calls it ""an account of Bush administration lawlessness so shocking it would have been unbelievable coming from a less reputable source." In March 2004, a paper needed to be signed by AG Ashcroft to continue the controversial warrentless eavesdropping program.  By … Read More

But for a scandal-ridden administration and a scandal-weary public, the exclusive report by ABC news would probably be considered a "bombshell".  Sadly, it’s probably just going to be thrown on the pile as yet another abuse of laws and the Constitution by the Bush Administration — a cabal who never feels beholden to follow the law and Constitution in the … Read More

The Washington Post foloows one woman’s typical day and finds that because she used her credit card four times, paid eight electronic tolls, sent 20 e-mails and passed by at least 50 security cameras (that she wasn’t aware of), it’s possible to track her every movement in today’s digital world. Good reading.

You wouldn’t know it from the media websites, but the "Breaking News" isn’t about Jon Benet Ramsey’s killer. It’s that a federal judge has held that the NSA wiretapping without warrent scheme is unconstitutional, and has enjoined the government from using it. Glenn Greenwald analyzes the court opinion: I am almost done with the opinion. Here is my analysis of … Read More

Remember earlier this year, when the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) announced that it could not pursue an investigation into the role of DOJ lawyers in crafting the NSA warrantless wiretapping program?  The OPR said it was denied security clearance to conduct the investigation. Previously, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would not explain why the security clearances had been … Read More

From Slate’s "Low Concept" feature, an excerpt of Robert Raben‘s recent missive to the chief executive: Dear Mr. President, I think it’s ridiculous that some of my friends on the left, and some in your party as well, are complaining about the fact that you and some of your colleagues in the executive branch have been monitoring and maintaining personal … Read More

Forget the civil rights implications — data mining simply doesn’t work.  Bruce Schneier, an expert on data systems and privacy, explains why: Collecting information about every American’s phone calls is an example of data mining. The basic idea is to collect as much information as possible on everyone, sift through it with massive computers, and uncover terrorist plots. It’s a … Read More

A whistleblower talks to Wired about the secret room at AT&T where call data is forward to the NSA. Meanwhile, Seymour Hersh has a pretty sensible guess as to how the whole NSA wiretapping thing works: The N.S.A. also programmed computers to map the connections between telephone numbers in the United States and suspect numbers abroad, sometimes focussing on a … Read More

Unbelieveable. Back in 1999, the NSA developed a phone/email "monitoring" program (called ThinThread) that was (a) more efficient than the (illegal) wiretapping program they have now; and (b) had technology that "provided a simple solution to privacy concerns".  This involved encrypting the phone numbers before it got to analysts.  Then, if something got red-flagged, the intelligence officials would get a … Read More

Strange.  Both BellSouth and Verizon are denying they gave telephone records to the NSA, as USA Today reported last week. Is it word-parsing or lying on the part of the telecoms, or did USA Today simply get the story wrong?  And why has AT&T remained silent?  And if the story is incorrect, why did it take Bellsouth and Verizon so … Read More

Last week it was revealed that Qwest Communications was one of the few major telecom companies that didn’t voluntarily provide customers records to the NSA, insisting instead that the NSA get a court order or at least an opinion from the Attorney General first. The blogospheric fallout was predictable.  Liberals and civil libertarians applauded Qwest.  On the right, pundits accused … Read More

For the right: Orin Kerr For the left: Glenn Greenwald Both are polite and coherent, even for non-lawyers.  Neither takes a firm stance, but together, they make a nice starting primer on the issue.  I’m not sure Greenwald one-ups Kerr on the legal analysis, but he ends with an indisputable truth about the lay of the legal landscape: Ultimately, however, … Read More