From declan@well.com Fri Jul 6 02:34:43 2018 From: Declan McCullagh To: cypherpunks-legacy@lists.cpunks.org Subject: [Politech] FBI illegal use of eavesdropping powers: not just national security letters [priv] Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2018 02:34:43 +0000 Message-ID: <172289249765.3881296.10837921773964100354.generated@mail.pglaf.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="===============6752160667412701061==" --===============6752160667412701061== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable So we've all heard about the FBI's misuse of national security letters.=20 The Justice Department's inspector general came out with a report on=20 March 9 describing "serious misuse" of the letters, which are secret=20 subpoena-like documents that can be sent to businesses including banks,=20 telephone companies, and ISPs: http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0703b/final.pdf I wrote about the inspector general's report here: http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6166015.html And in fact the inspector general, Glenn Fine, is going to be testifying=20 about them in the Senate on Wednesday at 10am ET: http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=3D2616 Fine showed up before a House committee on Tuesday and faced a hostile=20 audience -- not that the FBI's illegal acts are his fault, mind you, but=20 Bush administration officials seem oddly reluctant to testify in public=20 under oath nowadays: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/20/AR20070320009= 21.html The odd thing is that everyone, or nearly everyone, seems to think this=20 is entirely unexpected. In fact, it's a natural consequence of giving=20 the federal government more and more power over the years (national=20 security letters were made much more powerful by the Patriot Act).=20 Incentives matter, and the FBI has plenty of incentives to expand its=20 power and surveillance ability and precious few incentives to preserve=20 Americans' constitutional liberties. To give credit to EPIC, they realized this and sent a letter to the=20 Senate in June 2006 asking for more oversight: http://www.epic.org/privacy/surveillance/sen_iob_letter.pdf So have libertarian writers, who for years have called national security=20 letters "the ultimate constitutional farce," which is about right. The=20 letters represent FBI agents _authorizing themselves_ to seize=20 information without bothering to get a judge's approval, after all: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/napolitano2.html Occasionally other evidence about illegal FBI eavesdropping comes to=20 light, which is what I described in an article published two days before=20 the DOJ's report: http://news.com.com/2100-1039_3-6165067.html That article outlines how FBI agent Scott Wenther submitted a 42-page=20 sworn affidavit that was intentionally designed to mislead the court=20 into approving what a judge called an "illegal" wiretap. I've put the=20 some of the court documents here: http://politechbot.com/docs/fbi.agent.scott.wenther.affidavit.030607.txt http://politechbot.com/docs/fbi.wenther.opinion.030607.pdf http://politechbot.com/docs/fbi.wenther.defendant.brief.030607.pdf This is of course the same federal police agency that is using our tax=20 dollars to lobby Congress to mandate data retention, which should make=20 us think twice about how _that_ nice part of the surveillance apparatus=20 will be used and misused: http://www.politechbot.com/2007/01/24/not-just-isps/ -Declan _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/) ----- End forwarded message ----- --=20 Eugen* Leitl leitl http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE --===============6752160667412701061==--