The
Washington Post reports today that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would not rule out a legal basis for U.S. wiretapping of purely domestic communications. Gonzales made the comments during a House Judiciary hearing yesterday.
"You would look at precedent," he said. "What have previous commander in chiefs done?"
Answering his question, he cited Woodrow Wilson's authorizing the interception of all cables to and from Europe in World War I "based upon the Constitution and his inherent role as commander in chief."
Mr. Gonzales said he would use that legal framework to decide whether intercepting purely domestic communications without a warrant was legally permissible. He would not say whether such wiretapping has been conducted.
Meaning BushCo has conveniently drop-kicked "probable cause" out the window.
[Because only one related diary
(this one on a "Wired" story) has gotten any love, & because mine is significantly different from the others, here's my offering. So sorry that
this one and
this one and
this one scrolled off the Recent Diaries List so soon. I'll try to keep the torch lit. Cross-posted at
SoapBlox/Chicago.]
Fortunately, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and others have picked up the ball in challenging the NSA surveillance program on its face.
However, Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF) has taken another approach. In a class action lawsuit, EFF claims that telecommunications company ATT has been engaging in dragnet-type surveillance and sharing this information with NSA.
The lawsuit was actually filed earlier this year, but after a legal tussle with the feds over what constituted classified information, EFF made this statement yesterday:
"The evidence that we are filing supports our claim that AT&T is diverting Internet traffic into the hands of the NSA wholesale, in violation of federal wiretapping laws and the Fourth Amendment," said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "More than just threatening individuals' privacy, AT&T's apparent choice to give the government secret, direct access to millions of ordinary Americans' Internet communications is a threat to the Constitution itself. We are asking the Court to put a stop to it now." [emphasis added.]
The evidence reportedly includes internal ATT documents as well as a very hearty blow of the whistle from former ATT tech Mark Klein. Klein says he does not believe that the surveillance was limited to foreign communications.
According to a statement released by Klein's attorney, an NSA agent showed up at the San Francisco switching center in 2002 to interview a management-level technician for a special job. In January 2003, Klein observed a new room being built adjacent to the room housing AT&T's #4ESS switching equipment, which is responsible for routing long distance and international calls.
"I learned that the person whom the NSA interviewed for the secret job was the person working to install equipment in this room," Klein wrote. "The regular technician work force was not allowed in the room."
Klein's job eventually included connecting internet circuits to a splitting cabinet that led to the secret room. During the course of that work, he learned from a co-worker that similar cabinets were being installed in other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego.
Want to know if your Internet company is part of the NSA stable? You can look here if you like, but I'll not guarantee peace of mind.
Meanwhile--in case you haven't seen this and/or aren't uneasy enough yet--here's an Internet privacy tip courtesy of EFF: Do not use the "Search Across Computers" feature of Google Desktop.
If a consumer chooses to use it, the new "Search Across Computers" feature will store copies of the user's Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google's own servers, to enable searching from any one of the user's computers. EFF urges consumers not to use this feature, because it will make their personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who've obtained a user's Google password.
Says EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston:
..."If you use the Search Across Computers feature and don't configure Google Desktop very carefully--and most people won't--Google will have copies of your tax returns, love letters, business records, financial and medical files, and whatever other text-based documents the Desktop software can index. The government could then demand these personal files with only a subpoena rather than the search warrant it would need to seize the same things from your home or business, and in many cases you wouldn't even be notified in time to challenge it. Other litigants--your spouse, your business partners or rivals, whoever--could also try to cut out the middleman (you) and subpoena Google for your files."
Unlike warrants, I guess we still use subpoenas.