Tele-Aid: What's Your Emergency?

I was going over my Sitemeter yesterday like I frequently do to learn about my site demographics and to see where people are coming from and what page they're visiting. Going down my referrals, I noticed in interesting entry for a xx.nj.us (a New Jersey domain and usually governmental) but clicking on it, it came up with a Pennsylvania location and a company called ATX Telecommunications.

Finding it odd that a state.nj address was being accessed from Pennsylvania, I decided to look a little further into the company ATX and decided for fun, to search it with the terms spying, domestic spying, surveillance, etc. What I found I had never heard of before and considering recent assurance by FBI Director Robert Mueller that the FBI can use it's powers properly, I thought it'd be interesting just to point out this one particular case and offer my thoughts on it.

While doing my search on ATX Telecommunications, I came across a couple articles about an appeals court that limited the FBI's ability to effectively commandeer a car's global navigation and emergency system in order to track and eavesdrop on the occupants via a dedicated cellular line that ultimately prevented the safety mechanism (similar to On-Star) from working as intended.

The case arose from a 2001 FBI surveillance operation in Las Vegas, in which agents obtained a court order compelling a telematics company to secretly activate the stolen vehicle recovery feature in a customer's car. The feature, designed to listen-in on car thieves as they cruise around in a stolen auto, turns on a dashboard microphone and pipes conversations out over a cell phone connection -- normally to the company's response center, but in this case to an FBI listening post.

After initially complying for 30 days, the company asked a federal judge to block the order. It lost, and filed the appeal with 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals while complying with the order. The proceeding were handled in strict secrecy, and the text of the final ruling omits the name of the company. Geri Lama, a spokesperson for General Motors subsidiary OnStar, says it wasn't them.

The problem apparently was that when the system was activated and piped through to the FBI, the FBI aren't trained to identify potential emergency system notifications and in the event of an emergency, they might not even be aware of it.

Under federal law, the FBI can obtain court orders compelling telecommunications companies, ISPs, landlords and others to assist the Bureau in spying on customers. But the law requires that surveillance in such cases be conducted "unobtrusively and with a minimum of interference with the services" provided by the company. With the navigation system's cellular link dedicated full time to eavesdropping, the system had no way to communicate with the company's response center if the roadside assistance or emergency reporting features were activated, according to the court's split 2-1 decision.

"Pressing the emergency button and activation of the car's airbags, instead of automatically contacting the Company, would simply emit a tone over the already open phone line," the majority wrote. "[T]he FBI, however well-intentioned, is not in the business of providing emergency road services, and might well have better things to do when listening in than respond with such services... The result was that the Company could no longer supply any of the various services it had promised its customer, including assurance of response in an emergency."

The decision, released Tuesday, is only binding in the 9th Circuit, which covers eight western U.S. states and Hawaii. Other federal circuits have not addressed the issue.

That this ruling only affects this type of scenario in 8 states is certainly cause for concern, if you ask me. Of course, some of your more pro-police state folks would argue that if you've done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide, then you should have no fear about the FBI tapping into your vehicle navigation and emergency systems.

But if you remember during the domestic spying controversy, one of the main concerns was the roving pattern checking-style eavesdropping and data mining that tried to establish patterns between suspected terrorists overseas and people within the United States.

Do you see where I'm heading yet?

Let's suppose I'm a terrorist and I'm under electronic surveillance by the NSA, the FBI, etc. I accidentally call you instead of my other terrorist buddy but your name happens for whatever reason to trigger a flag. Let's say your name is Mohammed or some other Middle Eastern sounding name.

So the FBI decides to take a peek at you and in the process, learns you have a vehicle with one of these Tele-Aid or similar systems that they have the ability to tap into via a court order. While driving down the road one day with your family, you get into an accident and try to activate your emergency system, only to find you're not getting any response because the FBI has taken over the cellular emergency line that's built into the car and is preventing your emergency call from getting where it needs to go.

Sound unlikely? Not to former Congressman Bob Barr:

This tends to get a bit technical, but let me see if I can describe it accurately in a way that makes sense to us non-techno-geeks.

The manner in which the FBI has been worming its way into individual vehicles equipped with one of these "emergency" communications systems requires them to temporarily disable the particular system in the "target vehicle." The targeted vehicle therefore cannot send an outgoing "emergency" signal while the eavesdroppers are "dropping in."

Let's assume John or Jane Doe is proudly tooling around New York City in their late-model Cadillac equipped with OnStar. Unbeknownst to them, an FBI snoop believes they are discussing matters of gravest national security interest during their jaunt. The agent has therefore directed the Bureau's computer to reverse-engineer OnStar so it becomes a listening device instead of a transmitting device.

Unfortunately, if during the time the FBI is thus listening in, John or Jane suffers a real emergency, their expensive computer communications device cannot send out a distress signal.

This scenario is what the federal court seized on as the basis for slapping the FBI's hand. The customer has paid for an emergency communications device, and because the FBI snooping renders it potentially incapable of providing that service, the FBI has improperly disrupted a service the customer has paid for. This it cannot do, sayeth the Court.

Sure, perhaps it's a little bit of a stretch and some might even think the FBI would recognize a problem if they heard it and would give the line back to the emergency service so they could help you.

But would they?

Would that blow their investigation? Would they switch the line over due to the possibility of blowing their cover and screwing their investigation? And what if the navigation company were issued a gag order not to discuss any of this in the event that someone died needlessly due to a delay in providing service or getting the line transferred back to the company by the FBI and that as a result of the delay, the customer filed a lawsuit claiming negligence?

Would it be fair to simply leave all the chips to fall back onto the navigation systems company? The reason I bring this aspect of it up is due to the recent Washington Post article about a small ISP owner being the recipient of a National Security Letter that imposed a gag order not to discuss publicly any aspects of the case, even after the FBI no longer needed the information it had requested of the individual.

I just found this stuff late last night and so I haven't had a chance to see if the ruling has been amended or if another ruling had been issued that either increased the scope of the original ruling or trashed it altogether. The ruling apparently was also back in 2003.

But if the ruling remains in effect as it was initially ordered, then if you live outside of the 9 states covered by the 9th circuit court ruling and own a vehicle with one of these systems, you are potentially at risk of not receiving the type of help you expect and pay for in the event of an emergency because the FBI has taken over control of this tool and turned it against you as a means of domestic eavesdropping.

But perhaps we don't have to worry because as Bob Barr reminds us, the government effectively twisted the arm of the telecommunications industry into providing advanced methods that allow for easier eavesdropping into a whole host of devices.

What's even more frightening, however, is that this latest peek into the sub rosa world of high-tech government snooping is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. For the past 10 years, the government has used a little-known provision of the federal law, known as the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act, to browbeat the telecommunications industry into spending billions of dollars to make its technology eavesdrop-friendly, requiring technology advances to include built-in ways for the government to use that technology to listen in to whoever is using it.

The government's efforts to thus enhance its ability to listen in to our conversations have moved into high gear in the aftermath of 9/11.

Cell phones already will be required to have tracking devices installed therein, for the convenience of government employees who wish to track us and listen in on our cell phone conversations. Now we find out that automobile emergency communications systems can serve as one-way, secret phone lines directly to the FBI. We've all heard the stories that our home phones and computers serve the same purpose. As more information emerges such as the one concerning the OnStar court decision, it's getting harder and harder to dismiss these stories as "black helicopter" fantasies.

What do you think of that?

And just for shits and giggles, I looked a little further and found a Free Republic link that discussed the case and it's surprising that out of only 10 comments, about half of them suggest not getting an On-Start type system since it can be used against you.

And how ironic is it that right as I'm moving my mouse towards the 'Publish' button, one of those On-Star commercials comes on the TV?

Shhhhhhhhhh

Secret And Unwilling Govt. Informer Speaks Out About Receipt Of NSL

Three years ago, I received a national security letter (NSL) in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access and consulting business. The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that the FBI was seeking this information. Based on the context of the demand -- a context that the FBI still won't let me discuss publicly -- I suspected that the FBI was abusing its power and that the letter sought information to which the FBI was not entitled.

...

I resent being conscripted as a secret informer for the government and being made to mislead those who are close to me, especially because I have doubts about the legitimacy of the underlying investigation.

I apologize if the above excerpt seems a little weak in really giving you an impression of what's being said in the letter. The op/ed itself isn't gripping and of course, more details surrounding this case would certainly be helpful. But I wanted to highlight the main point of the article and I felt was one of the most impassioned statements within the article and then send you off to read the entire thing yourself. Don't worry, it's only a page long.

When you're finished reading it, ask yourself what would you do if you were issued one of these National Security Letters and ordered to not only work in what is effectively an intelligence gathering capacity for the US government, but also to risk criminal punishment yourself if you talked to anyone about it, including your spouse or significant other, children, or closest friends?

Imagine the difficulty alone in hiding this from your spouse, especially if you've ever had problems with your spouse in the past that you're trying to reconcile. I'm not saying that's the case with the author of tthis op/ed but for the sake of argument, it's worth considering.

But if that were the case, what happens if he or she begins asking questions and becomes suspicious that you're messing around on them or acting secretive or in some other manner that makes them uncomfortable? How do you explain to them that they just have to trust you? You know how many people have had that line thrown at them?

Is it fair for the government to come in and totally disrupt your life by threatening that non-compliance can result in incarceration for yourself?

"Trust me..."

Funny. Isn't that what George Bush wants us to do?

Before I sign off on this, there's just one more thing I want to point out in the article that leaves me fuming mad about.

I never released the information the FBI sought, and last November the FBI decided that it no longer needs the information anyway. But the FBI still hasn't abandoned the gag order that prevents me from disclosing my experience and concerns with the law or the national security letter that was served on my company. In fact, the government will return to court in the next few weeks to defend the gag orders that are imposed on recipients of these letters.

The government is effectively done with this guy and still they hold him to the gag order, years after they first issued him the NSL and after they decided they don't even need the information he may or may not have been able to provide. And still he can't return to normalcy, made evident by the fact that this letter isn't even signed and had to be published anonymously and as such, WaPo had to publish a disclaimer just to run the article.

It is the policy of The Washington Post not to publish anonymous pieces. In this case, an exception has been made because the author -- who would have preferred to be named -- is legally prohibited from disclosing his or her identity in connection with receipt of a national security letter. The Post confirmed the legitimacy of this submission by verifying it with the author's attorney and by reviewing publicly available court documents.

Enemy of The State Pt. II

What, you didn't believe me?

Enemy Of The State

Yes it's real and yes that high a resolution factor is available. Technology is neat...

...isn't it?

Privacy Lost

About

In the explosive new book PRIVACY LOST: How Technology is Endangering Your Privacy (Jossey- Bass, September 15, 2006), former security analyst, military code-breaker, futurist, activist and technologist David Holtzman details the undeniable connection between the evolution of technology and the erosion of privacy – from identity theft to government eavesdropping. Written neither for privacy advocates nor technologists, but for the general populace, Holtzman has created something that should be read by anyone who is concerned about the growing amount of data available about them, who’s collecting that data and what these people and companies plan on doing with all of this personal information.

PRIVACY LOST closely examines privacy infringements from targeted behavioral marketing to government actions condoned by the USA PATRIOT Act – counter-terrorism programs utilizing electronic probing of U.S. citizens on an unprecedented scale. None of these activities would be possible without the availability of sophisticated information technologies such as data-mining programs that are used to sift through the rapidly growing data heaps of our newly digitized civilization.

Focusing on the technology aspect of the privacy debate, rather than the legal issues involved therein, Holtzman reviews the past with an eye toward the future – we’ve seen how bad it’s become already, now how bad will it get in the coming decades as technology continues to evolve?

I like gifts, if anyone's interested. Thanks for the book suggestion to commentor " Privacy wonk."

"Just In Case"

AmericaBlog is once again leading the charge in a new privacy and security issue regarding your phone records and is specifically fingering AT&T;/Cingular because of opposition on their behalf to legislation attempts to secure the calling records and other private information of telephone customers.

What bothers me, and what I'm interested in hearing from people about is this part:

The first would tell phone companies to destroy customer records as soon as the records no longer are needed for legitimate business purposes. The government wants the records preserved for possible use in criminal investigations.

How do you feel about your personal records being held onto by the government for possible use in criminal investigations?

Is it OK across the board?

Should it only be allowable on cases of active invetigation?

To me, it seems like a "just in case" clause and just another backdoor into your privacy. If you get pulled over in your car by police for a broken tail-light, your license is up to date, your registration and insurance are current, your sober, polite, not acting suspicious, and are cooperating with the police, there is no valid, justificable reason for the police to search your trunk.

So why is it ok for the government to hold onto your phone records for "use at a later date" if you have otherwise been a law abiding citizen with no previous infractions of the law?

Better Analysis On FBI Eavesdropping

I wrote about it yesterday and just found another diary, both on DailyKos and TexasKaos that really provides much more of a descriptive analysis of what is or may be hapening with this type of surveilance.

Hey! That's Wonderful, Gonzales, Really Wonderful!

He's going to turn over details on the spy program!

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Wednesday he will turn over secret documents detailing the government's domestic spying program, ending a two-week standoff with the Senate Judiciary Committee over surveillance targeting terror suspects.

And just to show he meant no harm

"It's never been the case where we said we would never provide the access," Gonzales told reporters.

It still doesn't explain why we didn't get them when

President Bush secretly authorized the spying program after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks

or why they felt they were acting within the law when they were

allowing the National Security Agency to bypass court review and conduct domestic surveillance of people suspected of links to terrorism.

despite the fact that

a federal judge last August declared [the program] unconstitutional

But don't worry. It's all better now since Gonzales is going to turn it all over. Two weeks late, I might add.

"What They're Doing Is Intercepting Everyone And Then Choosing Their Targets."

(Also available in orange.)

Can you say overreaching and intrusive?

The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than previously has been disclosed.

Instead of recording only what a particular suspect is doing, agents conducting investigations appear to be assembling the activities of thousands of Internet users at a time into massive databases, according to current and former officials. That database can subsequently be queried for names, e-mail addresses or keywords.

...

Call it the vacuum-cleaner approach. It's employed when police have obtained a court order and an Internet service provider can't "isolate the particular person or IP address" because of technical constraints, says Paul Ohm, a former trial attorney at the Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. (An Internet Protocol address is a series of digits that can identify an individual computer.)

That kind of full-pipe surveillance can record all Internet traffic, including Web browsing--or, optionally, only certain subsets such as all e-mail messages flowing through the network. Interception typically takes place inside an Internet provider's network at the junction point of a router or network switch.

Pro-domestic spying types would surely say, "If you have nothing to hide..." But in this case, I don't think it really matters. Here's why:

In a telephone conversation afterward, Ohm said that full-pipe recording has become federal agents' default method for Internet surveillance. "You collect wherever you can on the (network) segment," he said. "If it happens to be the segment that has a lot of IP addresses, you don't throw away the other IP addresses. You do that after the fact."

"You intercept first and you use whatever filtering, data mining to get at the information about the person you're trying to monitor," he added.

...

"What they're doing is even worse than Carnivore," said Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who attended the Stanford event. "What they're doing is intercepting everyone and then choosing their targets."

Read that again to yourself. Intercepting EVERYONE and then choosing their targets.

It's a short article, only 2 pages in length but it's a good read, especially the part about minimization:

Federal law says that agents must "minimize the interception of communications not otherwise subject to interception" and keep the supervising judge informed of what's happening. Minimization is designed to provide at least a modicum of privacy by limiting police eavesdropping on innocuous conversations.

Doesn't sound like that's the case here, does it?

First they came for Al-Qaeda.
Then they came for insurgents.
Then they came for the homegrown terrorists.
Then they came for.....

Can You Just Imagine?

Just think what could've happened had this made it into Bush's State of the Union before it was caught and flagged as untrue?

WASHINGTON - Reversing itself, the Defense Department says an espionage report it produced that warned about Canadian coins with tiny radio frequency transmitters was not true.

The Defense Security Service said it never could substantiate its own published claims about the mysterious coins. It has begun an internal review to determine how the false information was included in a 29-page report about espionage concerns.

...

Phew! Am I ever breathing a sigh of relief...

Adminstration Decides FISA Is Acceptable Again.

(Note - Something to think about while reading and hearing about this article is if they're ready and willing to jettison the Terrorist Surveillance Program and revert control of domestic spying back to FISA, something that makes my face scrunch up in confusion since I just don't buy it to begin with, is there some other program being instituted or already under way, which is more likely, that we do not know about yet because if we did, we'd be raising just as much hell, if not more, over it?)

Update - Since I've already sent you to one of Glenn's links so far in this post, how about reading what he has to say on this new revelation?

You may recall some time ago when Bush's Terrorist Surveillance Program was revealed to the public, how much argument went on back and forth in the media and especially between left and right blogs on whether FISA was legal to begin with, whether FISA was pertinent to overseeing the types of surveillance that was needed with the dawn of this new era of anti-terrorism activities, and also whether the President had the authority to enable various spying methods above and beyond judicial scrutiny.

After hearing some of the rants of those of those with rightwing mentality, I did a little digging and came up with this, a depiction of conservatives from not too long and their then 180 degree opinion on the FISA court and statute and which Glenn Greenwald picked up on when making his case about conservatives and their disdain for FISA in this instance, among many other points.

Isn't it then surprising then that, even after all the cherry-picking of the law, all the posturing about how the authorization for use of military force allowed the:

use all necessary force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations, or persons.

and the argument that the President could basically do whatever he wanted with regards to national defense, we find out today that the Justice Department has decided to give [FISA] authority to monitor the government's controversial domestic spying program.:

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department, easing a Bush administration policy, said Wednesday it has decided to give an independent body authority to monitor the government's controversial domestic spying program.

In a letter to the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said this authority has been given to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and that it already has approved one request for monitoring the communications of a person believed to be linked to al-Qaida or an associated terror group.

Furthermore, if the plan was so important (you'll remember Bush was pretty pissed when this little leak occurred) why would Bush then decide:

"...the President has determined not to reauthorize the Terrorist Surveillance Program when the current authorization expires,"

Is the President giving up the fight? Or is it more likely that rather than face the Democrats in a tough fight trying to defend his illegal actions, it'll probably be easier to just revert control back to the proper body that was created for such activities and hope to avoid deeper digging into his actions that he was trying to keep secret to begin with?

FreeRepublic On FISA 11/30/2000 (A Trip Down Memory Lane)

(Cross-posted here, on DailyKos.)

Lately on RedState, they've been pushing this "biggest WMD story of all time," with regards to Iraq and intel, that's going to be released at the Intelligence Summit on Feb. 18th, 2006. I covered this a little while ago in a diary entitled New WMD Evidence Surfaces.

Well, I saw someone at RedState drop a comment about it again and so I started doing some Googling to find some more info on this Intelligence Summit. What I found was...almost eerie.

Found at FreeRepublic. Yes, I'm probably quoting way more than I should but A) I'm saving you the trouble of visiting FR but more importantly B) shit like this ought to be pointed out.

Seven judges on a secret court have authorized all but one of over 7,500 requests to spy in the name of National Security. They meet in secret, with no published orders, opinions, or public record. Those spied on May never know of the intrusion. Now, Clinton has expanded the powers to include not only electronic, but physical searches.

The aftershock of the Oklahoma City bombing sent Congress scurrying to trade off civil liberties for an illusion of public safety. A good ten weeks before that terrible attack, however with a barely noticed pen stroke President Bill Clinton virtually killed off the Fourth Amendment when he approved a law to expand the already extraordinary powers of the strangest creation in the history of the federal judiciary.

Clinton. Why am I not surprised to see his name...

Since its founding in 1978, a secret court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA rhymes with ice -a) has received 7,539 applications to authorize electronic surveillance within the U.S. In the name of national security, the court has approved all but one of these requests from the Justice Department on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. Each of these decisions was reached in secret, with no published orders, opinions, or public record. The people, organizations, or embassies spied on were not notified of either the hearing or the surveillance itself. The American Civil Liberties Union was not able to unearth a single instance in which the target of a FISA wiretap was allowed to review the initial application. Nor would the targets be offered any opportunity to see transcripts of the conversations taped by the government and explain their side of the story.

Without access to such materials, said Kate Martin of the ACLU, targets of FISA searches are denied any meaningful opportunity to contest the basis for the execution of the FISA search.

Wait...you mean...we should give them access to materials that might provide in their defense? We want to provide them with tools to get out of trouble?

Get ready for one hell of a kicker. I bet you didn't even see this one coming, either.

Granting new powers to the FISA court was accomplished quietly and treated as a non-event in the national media. The lack of reporting was somehow fitting, though, following as it did the silent debate last year when Congress rubberstamped the annual Intelligence Authorization Act.

Some legal minds found the whole exercise positively refreshing. The fact that this was done with a minimum of fuss and posturing on both sides, and without having to have a debate that tries to roll up the corners of classified information is very impressive, cheered former NSA General Counsel Stewart Baker.

Reportedly, the Clinton administration had not always been enthusiastic about expanding the court's powers. Like its predecessors, it operated under the assumption that the executive already had inherent authority to exempt itself from Fourth Amendment constraints and could order warrantless searches to protect national security. Nonetheless, the government avoided allowing this inherent authority to be tested in the courts.

What else do we have here? Hmm...

Physical searches to gather foreign intelligence depend on secrecy, argued Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick. If the existence of these searches were known to the foreign power targets, they would alter their activities to render the information useless. Gorelick went on to explain that A [traditional] search can only be made when there's probable cause to believe a crime is involved, whereas a national-security search can be made at a substantially earlier stage. We often don't know what we're looking for when we go in, she observed.

and...

The possibility of FISA-sanctioned fishing expeditions was only one of the potential abuses that alarmed legal scholars and people concerned with civil liberties. It's absolutely ripe for abuse, said New York City defense lawyer Ron Kuby. There are hundreds of solidarity groups that American citizens work with, and all of those groups could be targets under FISA. 16 These groups and individuals, engaged in legitimate dissent and solidarity work with the victims of U.S. foreign policy around the world, fear that their First and Fourth Amendment rights will be eroded.

Others worry that under cover of secrecy, the court would exceed even its own broad legal mandate. Clearly the FISA court was strengthened to allow the government to conduct searches they would not be allowed to conduct under the traditional constitutional provisions, said Turley. That means the government could attempt and fail to secure a search warrant under traditional constitutional arguments, then go to the FISA court and convert the case artificially into a national security investigation and secure approval for the very same search.

Let's see...what else...

The Supreme Court, however, has never endorsed the concept of a national security exception for physical searches. In 1972, it ruled that the Fourth Amendment prohibits warrantless surveillance of domestic targets. The Court specifically warned that the danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts under so vague a concept as the power to protect `domestic security.'

It continues...

In another case, people not themselves targets of a FISA-authorized telephone tap were hauled into court for having the misfortune of calling somebody who was under electronic surveillance. In 1988, after activists Vernon Bellecourt, Bill Means, and Bob Brown phoned a member of the Peoples' Committee for Libyan Students, they were ordered to testify before a grand jury investigating the group. When the three men refused to cooperate and testify even with immunity, they were slapped with a citation for contempt. James Cacheris was one of the federal judges who issued that citation in support of the FISA warrant. Five years later, he was appointed to the secret court.

The comments are even better, though.
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This is beyond frightening. Thank you for this find.

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This does not bode well for continued freedom.

This one made me laugh out loud.
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Any chance of Bush rolling some of this back? It sounds amazing on its face. Why didn't Wen Ho Lee just "disappear" into one of these Star Chambers, never to return?

Wait! Wait! It's getting better now.
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I don't see that as a possibility. This is wherein the danger lies in the precedent set by the Clinton criminal administration. God only knows who will be in power next, but there are no checks and balances anymore. This is exactly the SORT of thing I've been protesting all along. Libs just don't see this!

But when and where do they find this in the major media? They don't even know!

God forbid it gets too easy to get one of these warrants.
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Good question! Don't you remember? When the FBI asked Reno to get surveillance authorization for Lee from the FISA court, Reno refused. In fact, as a result of the China "spy scandal", Congress is currently working on legislation to make it even easier for the feds to get FISC warrants.

Something like this...why...could surely be abused!
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This is one of those ideas that has a valid purpose behind it, but is wide open to terrible abuse. And there's no way to check to see if it is abused.

Like all things that don't have the light of day shining on them, you can be sure that it is being twisted to suit the purposes of those who hold the power.

Thank god we still have Congressional oversight, right?
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Dog Gone, the article doesn't seem to say, but isn't there a Congressional subcommittee in charge of overseeing these operations? Or is Congress just passing the bills then turning its collective back?

Denies info to the White House? I thought it was the other way around.
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Congressional oversight of ALL intelligence issues is virtually non-existent. The intelligence community routinely denies information even to FBI and White House...... when Congress makes demands they just smile and wink at one another.

Chuck Grassley, Republican U.S. Senator from Iowa and one of the most honest members of Congress has tried in various ways to penetrate various classified compartments, but most of what he has gotten he's gotten through leaks from sympathetic pros/insiders who want the mess cleaned up.

And god forbid there's activities like spying directed at harmless, innocent American groups, right?
comment

The targets need not be under suspicion of committing a crime, but may be investigated when probable cause results solely from their associations or status: for example, belonging to, or aiding and abetting organizations deemed to pose a threat to U.S. national security.

This was discussed previously on FreeRepublic along with a Justice Department list of organizations to target. I saved it but unfortunately have lost it.. there were a lot of pro-life and pro-2nd Amendment groups on the list if I recall correctly. One group they targeted was a pro-life organization run by Catholic priests!

My the hypocrisy is thick in these here parts. Now, by no means am I surprised by this. Here we see conservatives voicing concern about the very thing we're raising issue about. Yet this time around, it's the war on terror, liberals hate America, we're traitors, Ann Coulter is a truth speaking deity, terrorism calls for "unprecedented" actions against "unprecedented" enemies and there are no limit to how far the government can, will, and is legally permitted to go to protect it's citizens, right?

So why was this wrong when Clinton did it, as it seems they're saying, but it's ok now when Bush does it? Do these people not remember their own words?

Could someone please explain this one again to me?

Other than that, I hope you all enjoyed this little trip down memory lane.