July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

[liberationtech] ETH ZC<rich Systems Design Publication: The Network of Global Corporate Control
by Moritz Bartl 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.5728 Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, Stefano Battiston Chair of Systems Design, ETH ZC<rich (Submitted on 28 Jul 2011, last revised 19 Sep 2011) The structure of the control network of transnational corporations affects global market competition and financial stability. So far, only small national samples were studied and there was no appropriate methodology to assess control globally. We present the first investigation of the architecture of the … [View More]international ownership network, along with the computation of the control held by each global player. We find that transnational corporations form a giant bow-tie structure and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions. This core can be seen as an economic "super-entity" that raises new important issues both for researchers and policy makers. >QUOTE: This is the o,rst time a ranking of economic actors by global control is presented. Notice that many actors belong to the o,nancial sector and many of the names are well-known global players. The interest of this ranking is not that it exposes unsuspected powerful players. Instead, it shows that many of the top actors belong to the core. This means that they do not carry out their business in isolation but, on the contrary, they are tied together in an extremely entangled web of control. This o,nding is extremely important since there was no prior economic theory or empirical evidence regarding whether and how top players are connected. Finally, it should be noted that governments and natural persons are only featured further down in the list. (via http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed--the-capitalist… , quoted below: ) AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy. The 1318 transnational corporations that form the core of the economy. Superconnected companies are red, very connected companies are yellow. The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable. The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere. But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs). "Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it's conspiracy theories or free-market," says James Glattfelder. "Our analysis is reality-based." Previous studies have found that a few TNCs own large chunks of the world's economy, but they included only a limited number of companies and omitted indirect ownerships, so could not say how this affected the global economy - whether it made it more or less stable, for instance. The Zurich team can. From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company's operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power. The work, to be published in PloS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues. When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more tightly knit companies - all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity - that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group. John Driffill of the University of London, a macroeconomics expert, says the value of the analysis is not just to see if a small number of people controls the global economy, but rather its insights into economic stability. Concentration of power is not good or bad in itself, says the Zurich team, but the core's tight interconnections could be. As the world learned in 2008, such networks are unstable. "If one [company] suffers distress," says Glattfelder, "this propagates." "It's disconcerting to see how connected things really are," agrees George Sugihara of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, a complex systems expert who has advised Deutsche Bank. Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), warns that the analysis assumes ownership equates to control, which is not always true. Most company shares are held by fund managers who may or may not control what the companies they part-own actually do. The impact of this on the system's behaviour, he says, requires more analysis. Crucially, by identifying the architecture of global economic power, the analysis could help make it more stable. By finding the vulnerable aspects of the system, economists can suggest measures to prevent future collapses spreading through the entire economy. Glattfelder says we may need global anti-trust rules, which now exist only at national level, to limit over-connection among TNCs. Bar-Yam says the analysis suggests one possible solution: firms should be taxed for excess interconnectivity to discourage this risk. One thing won't chime with some of the protesters' claims: the super-entity is unlikely to be the intentional result of a conspiracy to rule the world. "Such structures are common in nature," says Sugihara. Newcomers to any network connect preferentially to highly connected members. TNCs buy shares in each other for business reasons, not for world domination. If connectedness clusters, so does wealth, says Dan Braha of NECSI: in similar models, money flows towards the most highly connected members. The Zurich study, says Sugihara, "is strong evidence that simple rules governing TNCs give rise spontaneously to highly connected groups". Or as Braha puts it: "The Occupy Wall Street claim that 1 per cent of people have most of the wealth reflects a logical phase of the self-organising economy." So, the super-entity may not result from conspiracy. The real question, says the Zurich team, is whether it can exert concerted political power. Driffill feels 147 is too many to sustain collusion. Braha suspects they will compete in the market but act together on common interests. Resisting changes to the network structure may be one such common interest. The top 50 of the 147 superconnected companies 1. Barclays plc 2. Capital Group Companies Inc 3. FMR Corporation 4. AXA 5. State Street Corporation 6. JP Morgan Chase & Co 7. Legal & General Group plc 8. Vanguard Group Inc 9. UBS AG 10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc 11. Wellington Management Co LLP 12. Deutsche Bank AG 13. Franklin Resources Inc 14. Credit Suisse Group 15. Walton Enterprises LLC 16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp 17. Natixis 18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc 19. T Rowe Price Group Inc 20. Legg Mason Inc 21. Morgan Stanley 22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc 23. Northern Trust Corporation 24. SociC)tC) GC)nC)rale 25. Bank of America Corporation 26. Lloyds TSB Group plc 27. Invesco plc 28. Allianz SE 29. TIAA 30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company 31. Aviva plc 32. Schroders plc 33. Dodge & Cox 34. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc* 35. Sun Life Financial Inc 36. Standard Life plc 37. CNCE 38. Nomura Holdings Inc 39. The Depository Trust Company 40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance 41. ING Groep NV 42. Brandes Investment Partners LP 43. Unicredito Italiano SPA 44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan 45. Vereniging Aegon 46. BNP Paribas 47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc 48. Resona Holdings Inc 49. Capital Group International Inc 50. China Petrochemical Group Company * Lehman still existed in the 2007 dataset used Graphic: The 1318 transnational corporations that form the core of the economy (Data: PLoS One) -- Moritz Bartl https://www.torservers.net/ _______________________________________________ liberationtech mailing list liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once you click above) next to "would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest?" You will need the user name and password you receive from the list moderator in monthly reminders. Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator. Please don't forget to follow us on http://twitter.com/#!/Liberationtech ----- 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 [View Less]

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Re: [tor-talk] [info] Anonymous Publishing Is Dead.
by grarpamp 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

>> like the NSA for example, consider that they haven't yet managed to track >> down the guys running the Silk Road drug site (http://silkroadvb5piz3r.onion) Call me stupid, but I actually think the NSA does have the capability to locate Tor hidden services, even if only those existing within the USA. But as usual, they may be restricted from originally passing it to enforcement, or from producing data at bequest of same. Or for whatever reason, no one cares, or wishes to keep … [View More]

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Indymedia Seizures Initiated In Europe
by brian-slashdotnews＠hyperreal.org 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

Link: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/10/1716256 Posted by: timothy, on 2004-10-10 17:18:00 from the fbi-just-along-for-the-ride dept. [1]daveschroeder writes "According to [2]this Indymedia.org article and [3]AFP report, the request to seize Indymedia servers hosted by a U.S. company in the UK (covered in this [4]previous slashdot story) originated from government agencies in Italy and Switzerland, not the United States. Because Indymedia's hosting company, … [View More]

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Canada's high-tech spies (CSE) leave (commissioner) Lamer in the
by michael taylor 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

dark <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060626.wcse0626/BNStory /National/home> Canada's high-tech spies leave Lamer in the dark JIM BRONSKILL Canadian Press [The Globe and Mail, June 27, 2006] Ottawa b The watchdog over Canada's eavesdropping agency says he's not getting the detailed information he needs to be sure the secretive spy outfit is obeying the rules. In his annual report, Antonio Lamer laments a "lack of clarity" in the information the Communications … [View More]Security Establishment provides when seeking ministerial permission for sensitive operations. The disagreement raises questions about whether Mr. Lamer, as CSE commissioner, can provide full assurances that the spy agency is meeting all legal requirements. The Ottawa-based CSE, an ultra-secret wing of the Defence Department, monitors foreign radio, telephone, fax, satellite and computer traffic for information of interest to Canada. The intelligence is used in support of Canadian crime-fighting, defence and trade policies. Military listening posts assist the agency's efforts to intercept the communications of foreign states and organizations, as well as the phone calls and messages of suspected terrorists, drug traffickers and smugglers. The CSE has long been prohibited from directing its surveillance at Canadians or anybody in Canada. However, the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001 gave the CSE authority to tap into conversations and messages even if those communications begin or end in Canada. For instance, the CSE could now intercept a phone call from a member of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network somewhere in Asia to a residence in Montreal. Various safeguards, including the need for the defence minister's approval, were built into the practice. Mr. Lamer, a former Supreme Court chief justice, recently concluded his term as CSE commissioner, an independent watchdog who scrutinizes the spy agency's activities to ensure compliance with the law. In his final report, he says there should be a clear linkage between the government's intelligence priorities, the targets chosen and the activities for which ministerial approval is needed. But supporting documentation provided by the CSE as part of its requests for authorization address foreign intelligence requirements "only in general terms." The dispute stems from differing legal interpretations held by Mr. Lamer's independent counsel and the deputy minister of Justice, whose department provides legal direction to the CSE. "The lack of clarity in this regard has made it difficult for my staff to assess compliance with certain of the conditions that the legislation requires to be satisfied before a ministerial authorization is given." Mr. Lamer says he has "offered specific recommendations" to the defence minister and CSE to iron out "ambiguities" in the legislation governing the CSE. As a result, Mr. Lamer qualifies his finding that CSE activities 2005-06 complied with the law "as it is currently interpreted by the Department of Justice." CSE spokesman Adrian Simpson said Monday that, as a government agency, the organization "must follow the interpretation" of the Justice Department. Mr. Simpson added that the CSE "takes great pains to comply with all of the laws of Canada." Mr. Lamer says his one regret is leaving the post "without a resolution of the legal interpretation issues that have bedevilled this office since December 2001." "I wish my successor well in bringing this matter to a satisfactory conclusion for all concerned." Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor's office had no immediate comment. A spokesman for Mr. Lamer was unavailable. Mr. Lamer's concerns emerge as the CSE's American counterpart, the National Security Agency, faces the glare of controversy. In December, the New York Times disclosed that U.S. President George W. Bush had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States without court-approved warrants, as has been the recognized practice there. Despite pointed criticism from privacy advocates, U.S. officials have defended the program. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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] [View Less]

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[liberationtech] ETH ZC<rich Systems Design Publication: The Network of Global Corporate Control
by Moritz Bartl 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.5728 Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, Stefano Battiston Chair of Systems Design, ETH ZC<rich (Submitted on 28 Jul 2011, last revised 19 Sep 2011) The structure of the control network of transnational corporations affects global market competition and financial stability. So far, only small national samples were studied and there was no appropriate methodology to assess control globally. We present the first investigation of the architecture of the … [View More]international ownership network, along with the computation of the control held by each global player. We find that transnational corporations form a giant bow-tie structure and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions. This core can be seen as an economic "super-entity" that raises new important issues both for researchers and policy makers. >QUOTE: This is the o,rst time a ranking of economic actors by global control is presented. Notice that many actors belong to the o,nancial sector and many of the names are well-known global players. The interest of this ranking is not that it exposes unsuspected powerful players. Instead, it shows that many of the top actors belong to the core. This means that they do not carry out their business in isolation but, on the contrary, they are tied together in an extremely entangled web of control. This o,nding is extremely important since there was no prior economic theory or empirical evidence regarding whether and how top players are connected. Finally, it should be noted that governments and natural persons are only featured further down in the list. (via http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed--the-capitalist… , quoted below: ) AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy. The 1318 transnational corporations that form the core of the economy. Superconnected companies are red, very connected companies are yellow. The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable. The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere. But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs). "Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it's conspiracy theories or free-market," says James Glattfelder. "Our analysis is reality-based." Previous studies have found that a few TNCs own large chunks of the world's economy, but they included only a limited number of companies and omitted indirect ownerships, so could not say how this affected the global economy - whether it made it more or less stable, for instance. The Zurich team can. From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company's operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power. The work, to be published in PloS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues. When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more tightly knit companies - all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity - that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group. John Driffill of the University of London, a macroeconomics expert, says the value of the analysis is not just to see if a small number of people controls the global economy, but rather its insights into economic stability. Concentration of power is not good or bad in itself, says the Zurich team, but the core's tight interconnections could be. As the world learned in 2008, such networks are unstable. "If one [company] suffers distress," says Glattfelder, "this propagates." "It's disconcerting to see how connected things really are," agrees George Sugihara of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, a complex systems expert who has advised Deutsche Bank. Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), warns that the analysis assumes ownership equates to control, which is not always true. Most company shares are held by fund managers who may or may not control what the companies they part-own actually do. The impact of this on the system's behaviour, he says, requires more analysis. Crucially, by identifying the architecture of global economic power, the analysis could help make it more stable. By finding the vulnerable aspects of the system, economists can suggest measures to prevent future collapses spreading through the entire economy. Glattfelder says we may need global anti-trust rules, which now exist only at national level, to limit over-connection among TNCs. Bar-Yam says the analysis suggests one possible solution: firms should be taxed for excess interconnectivity to discourage this risk. One thing won't chime with some of the protesters' claims: the super-entity is unlikely to be the intentional result of a conspiracy to rule the world. "Such structures are common in nature," says Sugihara. Newcomers to any network connect preferentially to highly connected members. TNCs buy shares in each other for business reasons, not for world domination. If connectedness clusters, so does wealth, says Dan Braha of NECSI: in similar models, money flows towards the most highly connected members. The Zurich study, says Sugihara, "is strong evidence that simple rules governing TNCs give rise spontaneously to highly connected groups". Or as Braha puts it: "The Occupy Wall Street claim that 1 per cent of people have most of the wealth reflects a logical phase of the self-organising economy." So, the super-entity may not result from conspiracy. The real question, says the Zurich team, is whether it can exert concerted political power. Driffill feels 147 is too many to sustain collusion. Braha suspects they will compete in the market but act together on common interests. Resisting changes to the network structure may be one such common interest. The top 50 of the 147 superconnected companies 1. Barclays plc 2. Capital Group Companies Inc 3. FMR Corporation 4. AXA 5. State Street Corporation 6. JP Morgan Chase & Co 7. Legal & General Group plc 8. Vanguard Group Inc 9. UBS AG 10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc 11. Wellington Management Co LLP 12. Deutsche Bank AG 13. Franklin Resources Inc 14. Credit Suisse Group 15. Walton Enterprises LLC 16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp 17. Natixis 18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc 19. T Rowe Price Group Inc 20. Legg Mason Inc 21. Morgan Stanley 22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc 23. Northern Trust Corporation 24. SociC)tC) GC)nC)rale 25. Bank of America Corporation 26. Lloyds TSB Group plc 27. Invesco plc 28. Allianz SE 29. TIAA 30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company 31. Aviva plc 32. Schroders plc 33. Dodge & Cox 34. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc* 35. Sun Life Financial Inc 36. Standard Life plc 37. CNCE 38. Nomura Holdings Inc 39. The Depository Trust Company 40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance 41. ING Groep NV 42. Brandes Investment Partners LP 43. Unicredito Italiano SPA 44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan 45. Vereniging Aegon 46. BNP Paribas 47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc 48. Resona Holdings Inc 49. Capital Group International Inc 50. China Petrochemical Group Company * Lehman still existed in the 2007 dataset used Graphic: The 1318 transnational corporations that form the core of the economy (Data: PLoS One) -- Moritz Bartl https://www.torservers.net/ _______________________________________________ liberationtech mailing list liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once you click above) next to "would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest?" You will need the user name and password you receive from the list moderator in monthly reminders. Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator. Please don't forget to follow us on http://twitter.com/#!/Liberationtech ----- 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 [View Less]

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CRYPTO-GRAM, October 15, 2008
by Bruce Schneier 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

CRYPTO-GRAM October 15, 2008 by Bruce Schneier Chief Security Technology Officer, BT schneier(a)schneier.com http://www.schneier.com A free monthly newsletter providing summaries, analyses, insights, and commentaries on security: computer and otherwise. For back issues, or to subscribe, visit <http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram.html>. You can read this issue on the web at <http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0810.… [View More]

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paycash payment system ver. 1.xx
by Victor Dostov 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

Paycash, digital cash payment system, released production version 1.xx. It can be downloaded at English section of www.paycash.ru. Current pilot version has about 10,000 users what is about 1-2% of active Russian internet users. Concerning current growth rate it is expected that in the next 6 month this number will increase five times. To the moment the system has operating representative companies in Russia, Latvia, Ukraine and USA. For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), … [View More]

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web home for waste
by lgonze＠panix.com 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

I've gotten a bunch of queries about WASTE, generally with a focus on user problems like how to get a connection or FAQ issues like how to build on OS X. To help people to help each other, as well as to foster discussion of technical issues related to WASTE, I have created a mailing list and web home at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waste-discuss/. - Lucas --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation … [View More]

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Sen.: White House Agrees to Spy Law Change
by feis 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

Sen.: White House Agrees to Spy Law Change By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 35 minutes ago Senate Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts said he has worked out an agreement with the White House to change U.S. law regarding the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program and provide more information about it to Congress. "We are trying to get some movement, and we have a clear indication of that movement," Roberts, R-Kan., said. Without offering specifics, … [View More]Roberts said the agreement with the White House provides "a fix" to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and offers more briefings to the Senate Intelligence Committee. The deal comes as the committee was set to have a meeting Thursday about whether to open an investigation into the hotly disputed program. Roberts indicated the deal may eliminate the need for such an inquiry. Democrats have been demanding an investigation but some Republicans don't want to tangle the panel in a testy election-year probe. "Whether or not an investigation is the right thing to do at this particular time, I am not sure," Roberts told reporters while heading into the meeting. The White House was not immediately available for comment on Roberts' statement. Earlier in the day, White House spokesman Scott McClellan hinted at a "good discussion going on" with lawmakers and praised in particular "some good ideas" presented by Sen. Mike DeWine (news, bio, voting record). The Ohio Republican has suggested the FISA law be changed to accommodate the NSA program. However, McClellan left the impression that any deal would not allow for significant changes. He said the White House continued to maintain that Bush does not need Congress' approval to authorize the warrantless eavesdropping and that the president would resist any legislation that might compromise the program. "There's kind of a high bar to overcome," McClellan said. "We think there's some good ideas, but we have not seen actual legislation." Separately, the Justice Department has strongly discouraged the Senate Judiciary Committee from calling former Attorney General John Ashcroft and his deputy to testify about the surveillance program, saying they won't have new information for Congress about it. Just as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could not talk about the administration's internal deliberations when he appeared before the committee earlier this month, neither can Ashcroft nor his former No. 2, James Comey, Assistant Attorney General William Moschella said in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa. The letter, written Wednesday, was obtained by The Associated Press. "In light of their inability to discuss such confidential information, along with the fact that the attorney general has already provided the executive branch position on the legal authority for the program, we do not believe that Messrs. Ashcroft and Comey would be in a position to provide any new information to the committee," Moschella wrote. He was responding to Specter's request that the two men testify this month. While Moschella indicated their testimony wouldn't be of value, he did not say the committee could not call Ashcroft and Comey to appear. The Judiciary Committee has been looking into the legality of the National Security Agency's program. In a heated daylong hearing on Feb. 6, four Republicans joined the committee's Democrats in raising questions about whether President Bush went too far in authorizing the wiretapping without court warrants. Specter wants the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review the program's constitutionality. Reports have indicated that Comey and others had reservations about the program in 2004. White House Chief of Staff Andy Card and Gonzales, then the White House counsel, visited Ashcroft about those issues while Ashcroft was in the hospital for gallstone pancreatitis. ___ Associated Press Writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060216/ap_on_go_co/eavesdropping_4&printer=1;_… t=A86.I2Ct.vRD4L0AqQWMwfIE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE- --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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] [View Less]

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CRYPTO-GRAM, October 15, 2008
by Bruce Schneier 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

CRYPTO-GRAM October 15, 2008 by Bruce Schneier Chief Security Technology Officer, BT schneier(a)schneier.com http://www.schneier.com A free monthly newsletter providing summaries, analyses, insights, and commentaries on security: computer and otherwise. For back issues, or to subscribe, visit <http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram.html>. You can read this issue on the web at <http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0810.… [View More]

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