The FBI Demands Back Door Internet Surveillance

The Republican-Democrat war on the fourth amendment continues apace.  From CNET:

The FBI is renewing its request for new Internet surveillance laws, saying technological advances hinder surveillance and warning that companies should be required to build in back doors for police. 

"We must ensure that our ability to obtain communications pursuant to court order is not eroded," FBI director Robert Mueller told a U.S. Senate committee this week. Currently, he said, many communications providers "are not required to build or maintain intercept capabilities." 

Mueller's prepared remarks reignite a long-simmering debate pitting the values of privacy, limited government, and freedom to innovate against law enforcement requests that often find a receptive audience on Capitol Hill. Two days ago, for instance, senators delayed voting on a privacy bill that would require search warrants for e-mail after sheriffs and district attorneys objected.  

In May, CNET disclosed that the FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a proposed law that would require firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in back doors for government surveillance. The bureau's draft proposal would require that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly.

New Law Prepares Way for Massive Surveillance Program in Europe and Around the World

From Slate:

Europeans, take note: The U.S. government has granted itself authority to secretly snoop on you.
That’s according to a new report produced for the European Parliament, which has warned that a U.S. spy law renewed late last year authorizes “purely political surveillance on foreigners' data” if it is stored using U.S. cloud services like those provided by Google, Microsoft and Facebook. 

Europeans were previously alarmed by the fact that the PATRIOT Act could be used to obtain data on citizens outside the United States. But this time the focus is a different law—the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Amendments Act—which poses a “much graver risk to EU data sovereignty than other laws hitherto considered by EU policy-makers,” according to the recently published report, Fighting Cyber Crime and Protecting Privacy in the Cloud, produced by the Centre for the Study of Conflicts, Liberty and Security. 

The FISA Amendments Act was introduced in 2008, retroactively legalizing a controversial “warrantless wiretapping” program initiated following 9/11 by the Bush administration. Late last month, it was renewed through 2017. During that process, there was heated debate over how it may violate Americans’ privacy. But citizens in foreign jurisdictions have even greater cause for concern, says the report’s co-author, Caspar Bowden, who was formerly chief privacy adviser to Microsoft Europe. 

According to Bowden, the 2008 FISA amendment created a power of “mass surveillance” specifically targeted at the data of non-U.S. persons located outside America, which applies to cloud computing . . .

Google Rolls Out Free Wi-Fi in NYC

From Business Week:

Google Inc., the world’s biggest Internet-search company, plans to offer free wireless Internet access in parts of New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, creating the largest public outdoor network in the city. 

The Wi-Fi network, which doesn’t require a password, is available today, Google said in a statement. U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other officials attended an event to announce the service in Chelsea, where Google has offices. . . .  

The new network is part of an effort to cultivate Silicon Alley, a concentration of startups in Manhattan. Wi-Fi will be available to thousands of New Yorkers between Gansevoort Street and 19th Street from 8th Avenue to the West Side Highway, according to a statement.

Faceless on Facebook

From Tech Crunch:

A Northern German state’s data protection commissioner has threatened to fine Mark Zuckerberg $26,000 for Facebook allegedly violating the country’s law stating citizens may use media services anonymously. Facebook plans to “fight [the threat] vigorously”. That’s wise, as altering its real-name policy could jeopardize Facebook’s future. Prohibiting pseudonyms lets Facebook remove spammers and serve as an identity provider for the web.

The Guardian reports that Thilo Weichert, the data protection commissioner of northern German state Schleswig-Holstein has informed Facebook Ireland and Zuckerberg that the CEO may be fined €20,000 for breaking German privacy law unless Facebook provides an option for Germans to use the service anonymously.

Secret Laws, Secret Courts and Illegal Wiretapping

From Techdirt:

The folks over at the CATO Institute have put together a short five minute video onthe rush by the federal government to renew the FISA Amendments Act, with no changes, which effectively has sanctioned warrantless wiretapping on millions of Americans. Even though the plain language of the bill suggests it only should be used on foreigners, it's become clear that thanks to weasel language in the bill, and a "secret" interpretation by a secret court, the definition of "targeting" foreigners has been interpreted to mean any communication that might possibly somehow shed light on some sort of illegal activity that might possibly maybe involve foreigners sometimes in some manner. As such, it seems likely that the NSA, in particular, has used this bill and its secret interpretation to sweep up huge databases of information about Americans, even as most people (including many in Congress) believe the bill only is used to spy on foreigners.

Programmers Beware: Any Code You Write May Be Used Against You in a Court of Law

From Wired:

In a criminal case sure to make programmers nervous, a software maker who licenses a program used by online casinos and bookmakers overseas is being charged with promoting gambling in New York because authorities say his software was used by others for illegal betting in that state. 

New York authorities say that about $2.3 million that Robert Stuart and his company, Extension Software, received in cash and money orders for licensing his software constitutes direct proceeds of illegal, U.S.-based bookmaking operations. . . .

“It’s overreaching where they’re going after a software developer who sells the software with a legal license, and yet we’re still being prosecuted on how it’s being used,” Stuart says. He notes that authorities have not told him yet who exactly he’s accused of aiding and abetting.

It appears the government is prosecuting Stuart because he refused to be blackmailed by New York State authorities:

Stuart asserts that New York authorities only came after him because they wanted to use him as a conduit to uncover illegal gambling operations in that state. He says the New York district attorney’s office tried to strong-arm him into a plea agreement that would have had him hacking into the systems of his software clients in order to obtain the usernames and passwords of gamblers and their bookmakers to help authorities gather evidence of illegal gambling. 

Although Stuart initially agreed to the terms of the plea, he later recanted because he said he was uncomfortable being used as a pawn to secretly collect information on his customers. He claims authorities are charging him now in retaliation for refusing to cooperate with them.

Typical: FAA Can't Explain Its Tech Rules and Regulations

From the New York Times:

Federal Aviation Administration [continues] to uphold a rule that is based on the unproven idea that a phone or tablet can interfere with the operation of a plane.  

These conflicts have been going on for several years. In 2010, a 68-year-old man punched a teenager because he didn’t turn off his phone. Lt. Kent Lipple of the Boise Police Department in Idaho, who arrested the puncher, said the man “felt he was protecting the entire plane and its occupants.” . . .  

Dealing with the F.A.A. on this topic is like arguing with a stubborn teenager. The agency has no proof that electronic devices can harm a plane’s avionics, but it still perpetuates such claims, spreading irrational fear among millions of fliers.