Deeplinks Blogs related to NSA Spying
A New Look at the Hub of AT&T's Spying Program
Posted by Rebecca JeschkeOur class action lawsuit against AT&T for collaborating with the National Security Agency in the massive, illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications includes powerful evidence of a secret room in San Francisco.
But the hub of the spying program may be just outside of St. Louis, in a Missouri town called Bridgeton. A special report from local station KMOV puts the pieces together in a comprehensive and disturbing story about this dragnet surveillance, with the help of AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein. Watch the video on the KMOV site for a fresh look at a key piece of this spying puzzle.
Stopping Abuse of the State Secrets Privilege
Posted by Tim JonesUpdate: A victory! On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the State Secrets Protection Act. Thanks to everyone who contacted their Senator. Stay tuned to Deeplinks for more info as the bill moves through the Senate.
This week presents an opportunity to put a stop to one of the main tactics in the Bush administration's bag of sketchy legal tricks.
The State Secrets Privilege allows the White House to hide evidence of wrongdoing, and even to try to dismiss important lawsuits, with a unilateral claim that "State Secrets" are endangered. This doctrine was adopted by the Supreme Court in the McCarthy era, and was originally meant to be used only in exceptional circumstances. However, since 2001, the Bush Administration has repeatedly abused the Privilege in attempts to cover up potentially embarrassing or illegal activities.
For instance, when the ACLU sued the NSA in 2006, asserting that domestic spying activities were unconstitutional, the Justice Department misused the privilege to keep the court from deciding the case on its merits. And, right now, the Bush administration is trying to do the same thing to the EFF's lawsuit against AT&T and other lawbreaking phone companies.
Now, Congress may finally be ready to act to stop these abuses. On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider S.2533, the State Secrets Protection Act, which would bring much-needed judicial supervision that could help eliminate bogus state secrets claims, while carefully protecting legitimate interests in national security.
In the wake of the Act's introduction, there's been important media attention to SSP abuse. National Journal detailed how "the government has shown, time and time again, that it cannot be trusted not to use bogus national security claims to avoid exposure of misconduct or embarrassment." On Friday, The New York Times editorial board asked "Whose Privilege?," writing that the bill "would go a long way toward restoring the balance and the accountability and openness that are essential for a democracy." And this week, The New Yorker published an article discussing the problems states secrets abuse poses for targeted organizations like the Islamic charity Al Haramain.
If one of your Senators is on the Judiciary Committee, then you're uniquely positioned to encourage the Committee to approve this legislation and make a real difference in fighting government secrecy. Contact them now and tell them to support the State Secrets Protection Act.
More Questions Swirl Around Mukasey's Emotional Plea for Warrantless Wiretapping
Posted by Rebecca JeschkeThe San Francisco Chronicle reports that lawmakers are still looking for answers about Attorney General Michael Mukasey's strange tale of an unmonitored terrorist phone call. Mukasey gave the account at a speech in San Francisco last month as part of an emotional plea to legalize warrantless wiretapping. But House Judiciary Committee members say this is the first they have heard of such a call.
As Chronicle reporter Bob Egelko has shown in his ongoing investigation, Mukasey's story is difficult for many experts to understand. Our legal analysis shows that the government had the authority to listen in on the call that Mukasey describes. Now, some members in Congress are speculating that the phone call may have already been investigated -- and found to have been actually intercepted, but simply not passed on to other intelligence agencies. We're pleased that both reporters and lawmakers are taking a hard look at Mukasey's story. Congress has some tough decisions to make about surveillance law in the coming months, and Americans should not lose their civil liberties to make up for the government's own failures.
Letters To The Editor: People Speak Out On Surveillance
Posted by Tim JonesWith Congress in the middle of recess, surveillance issues have receded from the front pages. But look a few pages further in, and you'll find signs that the issues are very much on the minds of ordinary Americans:
Jerry Moe of Brown Deer, Wisconsin, in The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
Once again, Congress will vote on new Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation. President Bush says he will not sign any bill that doesn't include retroactive immunity for telecom companies which have, in his words, "helped the government in the war on terror" by allowing access to customers' phone calls and e-mails.
Exactly how the telecoms behaved and what information they passed onto the government is not known. The issue is not that complicated, though. Do we citizens really want our landlords, or others, for example, to "help" the government search our homes without a warrant? Of course not. The assault on our constitutional liberties is the same but without the high-tech mumbo jumbo that surrounds the FISA debate.
Terence Hughes of Phoenix, AZ, in The Arizona Republic:
It's important to recognize that it's our Constitution that ultimately protects us, most notably from the abuses of those who are sworn to uphold it. Congress needs to continue to stand firm and deny immunity for the telecom industry. Ignorance of the law, or being encouraged to ignore it, is no defense.
Maureen Ugolini of Bloomington, Indiana in The Bloomington Pantagraph:
I was beginning to think our representatives in the House would give this president everything he asked of them. Not so today (Friday). They said ``no'' to immunity for telecom companies. Thank you all.
Linda Maloney of Burlington, Vermont in The Burlington Free Press:
Congratulations to Sen. Leahy for standing against legalized lawbreaking. Why do we have laws, if they can be selectively broken by the privileged few, with no penalties attached? We must not fall for scare tactics again. Getting rid of the Constitution does not make us safer; it makes us something less than Americans. It makes us unfree. Is there a greater danger than that?
Kaye Gamble of Sleepy Hollow, Illinois in The Daily Herald:
If the House passes the Senate FISA with immunity for the telecom companies, Americans who have been illegally spied on will have no recourse...
President Bush is actually concerned about the telecommunication companies getting sued because when the companies are sued, his administration will be pulled into the illegal wiretapping quagmire.
We elected House and Senate members to protect our rights. It is time for our legislators to do their job.
and Lynn Barnett of Vernon Hills, Illinois:
I applaud the efforts of the Democratic leadership to pass the Restore Act (HR 3773). I strongly agree that our national security needs can be met by this bill, which does not grant retroactive immunity to the telecom companies for their "collaboration" with the government. I think the courts should decide whether the telecoms deserve immunity for their release of records to the Bush administration, without court orders and in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Unfortunately, Mark Kirk voted against this bill, as did many of his Republican colleagues. I disagree with Congressman Kirk on many issues, but his support for the erosion of my civil rights is especially troubling. (He voted for the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Bill S3930, which stripped habeas corpus rights from detainees). He already knows this, but I will be voting for Dan Seals in November.
Talk Back to the House
Posted by Tim JonesIt seems somehow appropriate that the House's awesome vote to hold phone companies accountable for illegal spying would happen at the onset of a week dedicated to government transparency. Few things need transparency more than secret government surveillance law, and so we've rebuilt Stop The Spying.org to help you find where your congressperson stands.
Visit the site to find out how your representative voted. If they stood strong, you can send them a thanks, and if they didn't stand so strong, you can ask them to do better next time.
And as you thank the house, EFF thanks you for giving them the support they needed to cast the right vote!
AT&T Whistleblower on Immunity for Telecoms
Posted by Rebecca JeschkeMark Klein, the AT&T technician who came to EFF with evidence of government spying, eloquently explained to PBS NOW this weekend why Congress should reject immunity for telecoms taking part in the spying. If you missed it, you can watch the show online. Fortunately, a majority of the House agrees with Mark Klein, passing a bill on Friday amending FISA without letting telecoms off the hook. The battle moves to the Senate when Congress comes back from recess in April.
How Surveillance Hurts Free Speech
Posted by Hugh D'AndradeSunday's LA Times has a great opinion piece by political writer Julian Sanchez, situating the current debate over FISA reform within the long and sordid history of illegal surveillance in the US.
Going back to the '20s, Sanchez reviews multiple occasions when authorities have used spying powers not to protect the country, but to further the political aims of parties and politicians:
The original FISA law was passed in 1978 after a thorough congressional investigation headed by Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) revealed that for decades, intelligence analysts — and the presidents they served — had spied on the letters and phone conversations of union chiefs, civil rights leaders, journalists, antiwar activists, lobbyists, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices — even Eleanor Roosevelt and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The Church Committee reports painstakingly documented how the information obtained was often "collected and disseminated in order to serve the purely political interests of an intelligence agency or the administration, and to influence social policy and political action."
Sanchez traces the history of US government surveillance abuses by both Democrats and Republicans throughout the 20th century. He emphasizes that surveillance isn't just a threat to privacy — it's a threat to free speech. That's why today's wiretapping debate matters, even to those who may think they have nothing to fear:
It's probably true that ordinary citizens uninvolved in political activism have little reason to fear being spied on, just as most Americans seldom need to invoke their 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech. But we understand that the 1st Amendment serves a dual role: It protects the private right to speak your mind, but it serves an even more important structural function, ensuring open debate about matters of public importance. You might not care about that first function if you don't plan to say anything controversial. But anyone who lives in a democracy, who is subject to its laws and affected by its policies, ought to care about the second.
The Atlantic Monthly's Matthew Yglesias follows up, putting the current legislative fight over immunizing telephone companies in context:
Given the long bipartisan record of wiretap abuse, and given the greater range of possible abuses under modern technological circumstances, it's all-but-inevitable that if we further weaken the restrictions on the White House's ability to act, that abuses will happen.
It's really baffling to me that Republican members of congress — and all-too-many Senate Democrats — don't see it this way. Unlimited, unaccountable power will be abused, and not always in ways that Republicans like.
House Passes Bill with No Immunity for Phone Companies
Posted by Tim JonesWow. This morning, the House stood up for our rights and passed a FISA reform bill with no retroactive immunity for phone companies! This is a flat-out rejection of the bill passed by the Senate last month, which would have let phone companies off the hook for illegally delivering innocent Americans' emails and phone calls to the government.
This is an incredible victory. House members opposed to immunity were confronted with a veto threat, a massive lobbying effort, a deceptive fear-mongering ad campaign and bizzare last-minute scare tactics. Despite it all, they listened to their constituents and stood strong.
The debate that preceeded the vote was almost as impressive as the vote itself. As members of the Senate consider whether to ratify the House's bill, we hope they'll keep these words in mind:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California:
Why would the Administration oppose a judicial determination of whether the companies already have immunity? There are at least three explanations:
First, the President knows that it was the Administration’s incompetence in failing to follow the procedures in statute that prevented immunity from being conveyed – that’s one possibility. They simply didn’t do it right.
Second, the Administration’s legal argument that the surveillance requests were lawfully authorized was wrong; or public reports that the surveillance activities undertaken by the companies went far beyond anything about which any Member of Congress was notified, as is required by the law.
None of these alternatives is attractive but they clearly demonstrate why the Administration’s insistence that Congress provide retroactive immunity has never been about national security or about concerns for the companies; it has always been about protecting the Administration."
Rep. Jay Inslee of Washington:
From time to time, we are called to again define what it means to be an American, and this is never more so than when security concerns threaten our commitment to liberty. At those moments, at this moment, we need to be imbued with the spirit of 1776, a spirit against tyrany, a spirit that recognizes that the rule of law is the ultimate bulwark of liberty.
A nation that threw off the shackles of King George should never yield to an executive who seeks to trample on the rule of law... We should never yield to an executive that, instead of coming to Congress to change a law, simply decides to ignore it. We are nothing without this commitment.
There are more videos and transcripts at The Gavel. As always, Glenn Greenwald has great commentary.
Congress will now recess for two weeks. When they return in April, the bill's next steps will be decided in the Senate.
House Judiciary Committee Slams Immunity and Calls for Deeper Investigation of Warrantless Surveillance
Posted by Richard EsguerraFor weeks, the House has been deliberating on its response to the Senate's FISA Amendments Act, which aims to grant retroactive immunity for telecoms involved in warrantless wiretapping. While it's seemed like a possibility that the House was going to cave and agree to grant immunity, the tides have shifted in a big way in the last few days.
Yesterday, House leaders announced a bill that would not grant telecom immunity, and today, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and 19 Members of the House Judiciary Committee issued a strong statement dismantling flawed pro-immunity arguments and delivering concrete findings and recommendations on dealing with the secretive terrorist surveillance program and telecom immunity.
Phone or email your Representative today -- urge them to maintain opposition to retroactive immunity.
Advocacy Groups Urge Congress to Hold Fast Against Immunity
Posted by Richard EsguerraIn light of new allegations of unusual and suspicious telecom systems, 34 prominent advocacy groups have signed a letter urging Congress to hold fast in defending against telecom immunity.
Citing a significant body of opposition to telecom immunity, including a letter from leaders from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, long-standing evidence of telecom lawbreaking from AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein, whistleblower Babak Pasdar's allegations of an unsecured gateway to wireless communications at a major telecom, and a strong letter from four former senior intelligence officials, the groups say:
If Messrs. Pasdar and Klein are telling the truth, they have described the tip of an iceberg. Congress must find out what is underneath. Accordingly, we urge you to investigate these matters fully and not grant retroactive immunity in the meantime.
