July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

Power politics
by Somebody 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Bob, I've been reading Noam Chomsky's book on Kosovo and came across this quote from a Cabinet note written by Churchill in January 1914 explaining the need for increased military expenditure (taken in turn from Clive Ponting's Churchill, 1994, P 132): "We are not a young people with an innocent record and a scanty inheritance. We have engrossed to ourselves an altogether disproportionate share of the wealth and traffic of the world. We have got all we want in territory, and our claim to be left in the unmolested enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions, mainly acquired by violence, largely maintained by force, often seems less reasonable to others than to us." I thought you might appreciate it. <Somebody's .sig> --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "...our claim to be left in the unmolested enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions, mainly acquired by violence, largely maintained by force, often seems less reasonable to others than to us." -- Winston Churchill, January 1914

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Re: LA Times on NYT spying story
by Bill Stewart 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Hi, Brock, Dave - the URL lost a hyphen when it got folded; the two halves are: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/ la-na-media20dec20,1,3657594.story?coll=la-headlines-nation Meanwhile, not only is this yet another reminder of the fallacy of the right-wing rants about liberal press bias, but President Bush has been asserting that he's told Congress a dozen times that he's doing this, and none of the Congresscritters who were informed have seen fit to tell the public either, so the President and NYTimes have a lot of unindicted co-conspirators. Another LA Times story http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/ la-na-spy20dec20,1,4766037.story?coll=la-headlines-nation reports that the main difference between Bush's authorization and the powers already granted under the 1978 FISA laws is that FISA has the Constitutional requirement for a court to find "probable cause" for issuing warrants, while Bush's order allows an NSA shift supervisor to decide there's "a reasonable basis" for wiretapping, even if there's not enough evidence for a FISC rubber stamp. Bill Stewart ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as eugen(a)leitl.org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]

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[IP] more on LA Times on NYT spying story
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Begin forwarded message:

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Surveillance blimp currently up over NYC
by Jock Gill 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Dave, For IP if you wish. A couple of questions about that surveillance blimp currently up over NYC. I understand it has some VERY sophisticated cameras on board with "exceptional" resolving power. I'd like to know who provided the camera and if it is actually legal. IE: If this is domestic spying, who is authorized to do it and who is prohibited? Secondly, what does such a surveillance blimp say about our constitutional rights to freely assemble without restraint or intimidation and our rights to free speech? Thirdly, who gets to see the pictures taken? Will they be subject to FOIA? Will they be archived in secret? What is their fate and should we be concerned? What recourse do we have? Regards, Jock Jock Gill www.jockgill.com (781) 577-2888 ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as eugen(a)leitl.org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

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[IP] Surveillance blimp currently up over NYC
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Begin forwarded message:

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TSA Says It Can Decide Who Can Learn
by John Gilmore 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

[for I-P] TSA has started issuing "Learner's Permits" and demanding that people who wish to learn get a Learner's Permit from TSA. Every innocent student is to be forced to be "assessed" for their "threat potential". This violates the fundamental right of freedom of inquiry, which is guaranteed to all persons in the United States, whether they are citizens or not. For the moment, these permits are only required if you want to learn about flying, but I predict that they will soon be required for other areas of forbidden knowledge. Unless the education community and the citizenry reject the whole concept that the government can tell them who is permitted to study and what subjects they are permitted to learn. Don't worry though -- today it only applies at a few schools, and only to non-US citizens. It only delays the student by four to six weeks, and only requires them to provide their full name, passport and visa, current photograph, specifics about their course of study, and $130. Approval is, of course, not guaranteed. It doesn't threaten *you* -- probably. By the time they come for your school and your students and your subject, nobody will remember who Rev. Martin Niemoller was. John Gilmore October 22, 2004 Media Contact: TSA Public Affairs 571-227-2829 TSA Takes Over Security Threat Assessments on Non-U.S. Citizens Seeking Flight School Training Agency also expands program scope to include non-commercial pilot candidates LONG BEACH, CALIF. -- The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) today announced it is now requiring security threat assessments for non-U.S. citizens seeking training at U.S. flight schools, regardless of the type and size of the aircraft. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act mandated the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct threat assessments for non-U.S. citizens who sought training on aircraft weighing 12,500 pounds or more including commercial aircraft. Vision 100 -- Century of Aviation Reauthorization Act transferred this responsibility from Justice to TSA as of October 5, 2004. "September 11th taught us that terrorists exploited the use of U.S flight schools," said Rear Adm. David M. Stone, USN (Ret.), Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for TSA. "Fortifying security by knowing who trains at these schools is an integral part of our mission to secure the homeland." The program is designed to prevent terrorists from receiving pilot training from flight schools. As a prerequisite to flight training, non-U.S. citizens must provide to TSA fingerprints, biographical information, including full name, passport and visa information, and training specifics such as the type of aircraft the candidate seeks instruction to operate. In addition to security assessments, TSAs new initiative will: * Streamline the threat assessment process from 45 to 30 days for most applicants, and 5 days for some * Require flight schools to submit a students photograph to TSA to ensure the student reporting for flight training is the same individual who successfully completed a security threat assessment * Implement an application fee of $130 for the security threat assessment * Require flight schools to provide security awareness training for appropriate staff on an annual basis. To help fulfill this requirement, TSA plans to offer an on-line course on the agencys Web site within a few weeks. Beginning this week, TSA will accept applications for non-U.S. citizens seeking flight training in aircraft weighing 12,500 pounds or less who do not currently hold a FAA or foreign pilots certificate. Starting on December 19, 2004, TSA will accept applications for all non-U.S. citizens who seek training in aircraft weighing 12,500 pounds or less, including those who already have an airmans certificate and seeking additional training for a new certificate and/or rating. For more information, please visit our Web site at www.tsa.gov and click on "Industry Partners" and find "Flight Training for non-U.S. Citizens." # # # ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as eugen(a)leitl.org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

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[IP] TSA Says It Can Decide Who Can Learn
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Begin forwarded message:

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Hayden's statement from Oct 2002 on liberty and security
by John Gilmore 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

http://www.nsa.gov/releases/relea00072.html While testifying to a joint hearing of the House and Senate intelligence committees a year after 9/11, Michael Hayden, as NSA Director, testified about NSA's response to 9/11. In closing, he said: 38. When I spoke with our workforce shortly after the September 11th attacks, I told them that free people always had to decide where to draw the line between their liberty and their security, and I noted that the attacks would almost certainly push us as a nation more toward security. I then gave the NSA workforce a challenge: We were going to keep America free by making Americans feel safe again. 39. Let me close by telling you what I hope to get out of the national dialogue that these committees are fostering. I am not really helped by being reminded that I need more Arabic linguists or by someone second-guessing an obscure intercept sitting in our files that may make more sense today than it did two years ago. What I really need you to do is to talk to your constituents and find out where the American people want that line between security and liberty to be. 40. In the context of NSA's mission, where do we draw the line between the government's need for CT information about people in the United States and the privacy interests of people located in the United States? Practically speaking, this line-drawing affects the focus of NSA's activities (foreign versus domestic), the standard under which surveillances are conducted (probable cause versus reasonable suspicion, for example), the type of data NSA is permitted to collect and how, and the rules under which NSA retains and disseminates information about U.S. persons. 41. These are serious issues that the country addressed, and resolved to its satisfaction, once before in the mid-1970's. In light of the events of September 11th, it is appropriate that we, as a country, readdress them. We need to get it right. We have to find the right balance between protecting our security and protecting our liberty. If we fail in this effort by drawing the line in the wrong place, that is, overly favoring liberty or security, then the terrorists win and liberty loses in either case. 42. Thank you. I look forward to the committees' questions. Now we know a small part of what he was really talking about. At least he had the balls to mention it. But who among us could suspect that when Congress responded by Patriot Act tune-ups making many kinds of wiretapping easier, NSA's reaction was to ignore the laws, treating the illegality of its operations as a "classified technique" for surprising the "secret enemy under our beds". Anyone who had said NSA was a rogue that ignored the laws, before or after 9/11, was either called paranoid, unrealistically cynical, or "against us and for the terrorists". Read this again: Practically speaking, this line-drawing affects the focus of NSA's activities (foreign versus domestic), the standard under which surveillances are conducted (probable cause versus reasonable suspicion, for example), the type of data NSA is permitted to collect and how, and the rules under which NSA retains and disseminates information about U.S. persons. Now we find out that NSA has crossed each of these lines. It is now focusing domestically. It now uses a "reasonable suspicion" standard adjudicated by its own staff. It is collecting all types of data "and how!", apparently retaining that data indefinitely, and disseminating it as it sees fit (to the FBI, at least). In the open crypto community, we noticed this curious part of his speech, but generally didn't engage with him. Personally I felt that whatever I said would be ignored, just as my concerns were ignored during the entirety of the 1990's, in the Clipper Chip debacle and the Export Control madness. We were ignored until we forced change upon NSA with the courts and, in partnership with business, in Congress. We are having to take the same routes today (though business is now against us, since business is up to its eyeballs in spying). Did anyone else respond to Mr. Hayden at that time, and if so, what reaction did you get? John PS: NSA's web site SIGINT FAQ still says they don't "unconstitutionally spy on Americans". It raises some guff about the Fourth Amendment and strictly following the laws. (http://www.nsa.gov/about/about00020.cfm) But I hear that if you're discussing something classified, it's not only acceptable to lie, but it's actually required. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)metzdowd.com ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]

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Judge: Americans need background checks to date internationally
by Richard Forno 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

US Judge Affirms IMBRA: Americans Must Have Criminal Checks Before Contacting Foreigners on Internet http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/4/prweb515227.htm A new federal law that makes it a crime for Americans to communicate with foreigners on dating websites without criminal background checks is upheld by a federal judge. Washington, DC (PRWEB) April 2, 2007 -- On March 26, 2007, a new federal law restricting Americans from contacting foreigners through internet dating sites was upheld by a federal court after a Constitutional challenge by an internet dating company. In European Connections v. Alberto Gonzales, 1:06-CV-0426-CC, Judge Clarence Cooper of the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia dismissed a lawsuit by European Connections which claimed that the law violated the right to freedom of speech contained in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The plaintiff had failed to challenge the law based on the First Amendment right to assemble. According to Tristan Laurent, President of the advocacy group Online Dating Rights, "We will now have to take legal action from the point of view of the users of online dating sites. The whole idea that it is now a crime for American men to send emails to women in other countries is so preposterous it is beyond belief. The judge's ruling that there is no Constitutional violation in forcing Americans to divulge all sorts of highly personal information to a complete stranger or scammer abroad before the American can even say hello or know to whom he is writing is only exceeded in foolishness by Congress in making the law." The law was originally called the International Matchmaker Regulation Act, but it did not pass Congress in previous years by that name and it was later named the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA) before it passed on December 17th, 2005. The law, which was attached to the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was apparently not debated in public and Mr. Laurent says that no dating company or dating site user was invited to a closed-door Senate hearing in July 2004. IMBRA makes it a felony for an internet dating company, that primarily focuses on introducing Americans to foreigners, to allow any American to communicate with any person of foreign nationality without first subjecting that American to a criminal background check, a sex offender check and without first having the American certify any previous convictions or arrests, any previous marriages or divorces any children and all states of residence since 18. Match.com is excluded from the law, and the judge found that this exception posed no challenge to the Fifth Amendment equal protection clause because American women are supposedly not abused by American men that they meet on the internet, and thus are not in need of protection. The law was sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-KS and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-WA and was championed by key women's groups. The law was passed after these groups made claims that foreign women who marry American men are subjected to higher rates of abuse than are American women. However, the only study that addresses this issue was done by the INS in 1999 and it found that the rate of abuse in such international marriages is one- seventh the rate of abuse in domestic marriages. See http://www.online-dating-rights.com/index.php? ind=downloads&op=entry_view&id en=24 Online Dating Rights Director of Public Relations Jim Peterson said of the judge's ruling: "It is a sad day for freedom in our country when an American has to have a criminal background check before he can say 'Hello" to a foreigner through the internet." He also said that "America is the only country in the world that regulates communication between two consenting adults seeking to communicate via internet, with the possible exceptions of China and North Korea. Without new email technology, IMBRA could not have been even feasible because people generally sent paper letters to each other's home addresses just a few years ago. Is it right for the US government to make a form of communication illegal when it was the only form of communication possible just a few years ago?" The law has been attacked in a bipartisan fashion by prominent feminist Wendy McElroy http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2006/0111.html and by men's rights supporter David Usher http://capitolhillcoffeehouse.com/more.php?id=2444_0_1_0_M and by immigration attorney Gary Bala http://www.online-dating-rights.com/index.php? ind=downloads&op=entry_view&id en=21 Mr. Laurent says that his organization has undertaken a fundraising drive to raise $100,000 for a class-action suit against the government on behalf of all the men who can no longer contact women in Canada, England, Germany, Russia and the Philippines due to this law. Contributors are asked to visit the website at www.online-dating-rights.com. Both Mr. Laurent and Mr. Peterson are available for media interviews but since both have to work for a living and do not receive federal taxpayer funding, arrangements for telephone interviews should be made by email if possible. Contact Mr. Laurent at onlinedatingrights @ yahoo.com and Mr. Peterson at veterans @ veteransabroad.com ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/7492250-c9cc4d Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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[IP] Judge: Americans need background checks to date internationally
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Begin forwarded message:

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