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'Torture Boy' Signals More Spying
by coderman 02 Mar '06

02 Mar '06

i feel like throwing a FOIPA party, ---cut--- 'Torture Boy' Signals More Spying http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/030206.html By Robert Parry March 2, 2006 Correcting misleading testimony to Congress, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has signaled that George W. Bush's warrantless surveillance of Americans went beyond the known eavesdropping on communications to suspected terrorists overseas. In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 28, Gonzales recanted testimony he gave on Feb. 6 when he declared that Bush had only authorized a narrowly constructed warrantless wiretapping program by the National Security Agency against Americans in touch with foreign terror suspects. Referring to a part of his testimony in which he said Bush had approved the NSA program "and that is all that he has authorized," Gonzales withdrew that language, saying "I did not and could not address any other classified intelligence activities." [Washington Post, March 1, 2006] The strained wording of Gonzales's letter and the fact that he deemed it necessary to correct his testimony suggest that other warrantless surveillance programs exist outside the framework of the NSA program, which began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and was exposed by the New York Times in December 2005. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the committee's Republican chairman, didn't put Gonzales under oath at the Feb. 6 hearing, but false statements to Congress still constitute a potential criminal offense. Close Questioning The dubious testimony came during close questioning by Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the committee's ranking Democrat. Leahy pressed Gonzales on the administration's claim that Congress gave Bush the power to wiretap without a court warrant when it authorized use of force against al-Qaeda after the Sept. 11 attacks. In his testimony, Gonzales argued that the congressional use-of-force authorization, combined with the President's Commander-in-Chief power in the Constitution, permitted Bush to approve a wiretapping program for communications between Americans and terror suspects operating outside the United States. But in challenging Bush's right to ignore the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires a special court to approve wiretaps Leahy demanded to know if the administration's legal interpretation also let Bush conduct other warrantless spying on Americans, including tapping purely domestic phone calls, mail openings and "black bag" break-ins into people's homes and offices. "Under that (administration) logic, is there anything that stops you from wiretapping without a warrant somebody inside the United States that you suspect of having al-Qaeda connections?" Leahy asked. "Clearly, Senator, that is not what's going on here," Gonzales responded. "The President had authorized a much more narrow program. We are always, of course, subject to the Fourth Amendment. So the activities of any kind of surveillance within the United States would, of course, be subject to the Fourth Amendment," which requires "probable cause" and a court warrant before the property of Americans can be searched. Leahy persisted. "Under your interpretation of this, can you go in and do mail searches? Can you go into e-mails? Can you open mail? Can you do black-bag jobs? Can you go and do that (to) Americans?" Gonzales responded, "Sir, I've tried to outline for you and the committee what the President has authorized, and that is all that he has authorized." "Did it authorize the opening of first-class mail of U.S. citizens?" Leahy continued. "That you can answer, yes or no." Gonzales: "There is all kinds of wild speculation about..." Leahy: "Did it authorize it?" Gonzales: "There is all kinds of wild speculation out there about what the President has authorized and what we're actually doing. And I'm not going to get into a discussion, Senator." Recanted Testimony Three weeks later, by recanting the statement about "that is all that he (Bush) has authorized" in the context of Leahy's line of questioning, Gonzales appears to be acknowledging that some of Leahy's concerns are valid, that there are other components to Bush's warrantless surveillance operations beyond the NSA program. Given the fact that the Bush administration and its media allies have openly challenged the loyalty of Americans who have disagreed with Bush's policies, it would not be a big jump to suspect that Bush has authorized spying on citizens, journalists and/or politicians who have, in his view, undermined his strategy in the War on Terror or the Iraq War. Some Republicans publicly have urged Bush to counter these Americans whom they call "Fifth Columnists" for supposedly sympathizing with or otherwise helping the enemy. At the Feb. 6 hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., declared that "I stand by this President's ability, inherent to being Commander in Chief, to find out about Fifth Column movements, and I don't think you need a warrant to do that." When Graham offered to work with the administration to draft guidelines for how best to neutralize this alleged threat, Gonzales smilingly replied, "Senator, the President already said we'd be happy to listen to your ideas." [See Consortiumnews.com's "Bush's Mysterious 'New Programs'."] With Bush's elastic use of language and his aggressive interpretation of his own powers, there would seem to be little that Bush feels he cannot do. Gonzales, who was Bush's White House counsel before becoming Attorney General, is part of a cadre of far-right lawyers who have asserted virtually unlimited powers for Bush during the indefinite War on Terror. Gonzales earned the nickname "Torture Boy" for going along with ideologues like John Yoo and David Addington in defending interpretations of Bush's authority that opened the door to torture and other abuses of U.S. detainees imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan and secret CIA jails scattered around the world. [See Consortiumnews.com's "U.S. Disconnect on Bush's Abuses."] Legal Resistance The right-wing lawyers encountered opposition from professional attorneys at the Justice Department and the Defense Department. The professionals the likes of Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith and U.S. Navy general counsel Alberto Mora forced the Bush lawyers into some retreats on the most expansive assertions of executive power, especially involving torture. Referring to one of Yoo's opinions that asserted the President's power to subject Guantanamo inmates to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, Navy general counsel Mora wrote, "The memo espoused an extreme and virtually unlimited theory of the extent of the President's Commander-in-Chief authority." [See Mora's 22-page chronology, as posted by The New Yorker.] But, one by one, these internal critics were pushed out of the government. Goldsmith resigned to take a teaching position at Harvard Law School; Mora quit to take a job as general counsel for Wal-Mart's international operations. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Another Bush Lie" on Goldsmith, or The New Yorker's "The Memo" on Mora.] In the context of Bush's top legal advisers rationalizing Bush's right to torture prisoners or to jail American citizens without charges, the likelihood seems high they also would claim for Bush the power to spy on domestic opponents. As Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 6, "detention is far more intrusive than electronic surveillance." But it's unclear whether the American people will ever learn what these additional eavesdropping programs were or whom they targeted. The Bush administration has wrapped its domestic spying program in layer after layer of secrecy and lies. In a speech in Buffalo, N.Y., on April 20, 2004, Bush went out of his way to mislead the American people into a false sense of security about his respect for Fourth Amendment prohibitions on warrantless wiretaps. "By the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires a wiretap requires a court order," Bush said. "Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so." At the time of his speech, Bush had been authorizing wiretaps without getting approval from the FISA court for more than two years. [For more on Bush's deceptions, see Consortiumnews.com's "Talkin' 'Texan' Means Lying Big." Secrecy Charade The administration's claim about the need for extraordinary secrecy surrounding the wiretap program is also largely a charade. Al-Qaeda and other enemy groups have long been aware that the United States has the capability of electronic eavesdropping and have structured their operations accordingly. In the Feb. 6 hearing, Gonzales acknowledged as much under questioning from Sen. Joe Biden, D-Delaware. Biden asked, "How has this revelation damaged the program" since the administration's attack on the disclosure "seems to presuppose that these very sophisticated al-Qaeda folks didn't think we were intercepting their phone calls?" Gonzales responded, "I think, based on my experience, it is true you would assume that the enemy is presuming that we are engaged in some kind of surveillance. But if they're not reminded about it all the time in the newspapers and in stories, they sometimes forget" a response that drew laughter from the citizens in the hearing room. "You're amazed at some of the communications that exist," Gonzales continued. "So when you keep sticking it in their face that we're involved in some kind of surveillance, even if it's unclear in these stories, it can't help but make a difference, I think." In other words, Gonzales argued that the reason for the extraordinary secrecy around the wiretap program is not that the disclosure of its existence would alert al-Qaeda to a previously unknown U.S. spying capability, but that newspaper stories might remind them to be a little more cautious while chatting on the telephone. Such a slim argument would suggest that the Bush administration has another motive for trying to intimidate anyone whether in the press or in Congress who wants to investigate the surveillance program. On Feb. 28, reflecting on Gonzales's earlier testimony, Leahy said the Attorney General's unresponsive answers led to the conclusion that Gonzales "has a radically different understanding of the laws than do many of us the people's representatives in Congress who wrote the laws." As for Gonzales's responses to senators' questions about the program, Leahy said, "whatever we asked, it was either too relevant or not relevant enough, and either way, we were getting no answers from the Attorney General." A logical suspicion is that the administration is blocking a thorough examination of the wiretapping program because it might show that Bush followed the legal advice on his unlimited powers into pervasive spying of his political enemies. --- Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.' --end-cut---

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[dave@farber.net: [IP] Stanford --Signaling Vulnerabilities in Law-Enforcement Wiretap Systems * 4:15PM, Wed Mar 08, 2006 in Gates B01]
by Eugen Leitl 02 Mar '06

02 Mar '06

----- Forwarded message from David Farber <dave(a)farber.net> -----

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Hey man, you ever try pheromones?
by Kristi Mccarthy 02 Mar '06

02 Mar '06

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mixminion nodes wanted
by coderman 01 Mar '06

01 Mar '06

stealth monger looking for mixminion node operators: [ref: http://packages.debian.org/experimental/net/mixminion ] (actually i'm not certain which debian mixnet package is hinted at here...) ---cut--- http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg05826.html Re: NPR : E-Mail Encryption Rare in Everyday Use StealthMonger Wed, 01 Mar 2006 06:14:43 -0800 ... Ben Laurie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > OK, I buy the problem, but until we do something about the totally > non-anonymising properties of the 'net, revealing that I want the public > key for some person seems to be quite minor - compared, for example, to > revealing that I sent him email each time I do. But you don't have to reveal that you sent him email. You can use stealthy communication. Stealthy communication is communication wherein not only is the content concealed from eavesdroppers by encryption, but information about who is communicating with whom, when, or if at all, is concealed, as well. The Internet can be used for stealthy communication. The basic idea is that each potential participant has ongoing traffic to and from a message pool which is propagated world-wide. When the participant has no live traffic to send, dummy traffic is sent instead. The dummy traffic is indistinguishable from the live traffic except by using decryption keys which are chosen by correspondents. The outbound traffic continues autonomously without interruption for months and years and is not correlated to the live traffic, so an observer without the keys cannot determine when or how much live communication is happening. Inbound cover traffic consists of taking a full feed of the message pool at all times without interruption. A Debian Linux package exists which enables stealthy email. It has been in everyday use for years, although not widely. Details on request. I am looking for someone to host it. Any volunteers? -- StealthMonger

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What?
by Gwen L. Beatty 01 Mar '06

01 Mar '06

hollandaise orimmemorial itbayesian ,circumflex bebendix thewoodard notavail aancestral industbin butprize notemancipate in amok orroughcast notthreefold notcountersink butbowstring beresorcinol apuffery itcriss orportrayal !broach ,dingy orlanguish somepolish butvanadium beplugboard it'scarbide it'sbloodshed !tel oncruz buttriennial trysharpe butbacteria somenixon ,graybeard on

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Re-finance at the lowestt ratess
by Rocco Zavala 01 Mar '06

01 Mar '06

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[Clips] PET Workshop 2006 submission deadline extended -- updated CFP
by R. A. Hettinga 01 Mar '06

01 Mar '06

--- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: clips(a)philodox.com Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 10:04:15 -0400 To: "Philodox Clips List" <clips(a)philodox.com> From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah(a)shipwright.com> Subject: [Clips] PET Workshop 2006 submission deadline extended -- updated CFP Reply-To: rah(a)philodox.com Sender: clips-bounces(a)philodox.com --- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: nymip-res-group(a)nymip.org To: PET research: ;, anonymity researchers: ;, pet(a)mailman.aldigital.co.uk, sec-lists: ; Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 12:12:11 +0000 From: George Danezis <George.Danezis(a)cl.cam.ac.uk> Cc: gdanezis(a)esat.kuleuven.be Subject: PET Workshop 2006 submission deadline extended -- updated CFP Sender: nymip-res-group-bounces(a)nymip.org Dear Colleagues, Due to popular demand the Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PET) workshop is extending the paper submission deadline to the 10th March. Please find attached the updated Call for Papers. Yours, George Danezis Philippe Golle (Program Chairs) 6th Workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies Robinson College, Cambridge, United Kingdom June 28 - June 30, 2006 http://petworkshop.org/2006/ (Note: paper submission DEADLINE EXTENDED to 10 March.) CALL FOR PAPERS The workshop seeks submissions from academia and industry presenting novel research on all theoretical and practical aspects of privacy technologies, as well as experimental studies of fielded systems. We encourage submissions from other communities such as law and business that present their perspectives on technological issues. As in past years, we will publish proceedings after the workshop in the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. Suggested topics include but are not restricted to: * Anonymous communications and publishing systems * Censorship resistance * Pseudonyms, identity management, linkability, and reputation * Data protection technologies * Location privacy * Privacy in ubiquitous computing environments * Policy, law, and human rights relating to privacy * Privacy and anonymity in peer-to-peer architectures * Economics of privacy * Fielded systems and techniques for enhancing privacy in existing systems * Protocols that preserve anonymity/privacy * Privacy-enhanced access control or authentication/certification * Privacy threat models * Models for anonymity and unobservability * Attacks on anonymity systems * Traffic analysis * Profiling and data mining * Privacy vulnerabilities and their impact on phishing and identity theft * Deployment models for privacy infrastructures * Novel relations of payment mechanisms and anonymity * Usability issues and user interfaces for PETs * Reliability, robustness and abuse prevention in privacy systems Stipends to attend the workshop will be made available, on the basis of need and merit, to cover travel expenses, hotel, or conference fees. You do not need to submit a technical paper and you do not need to be a student to apply for a stipend. For more information, see: http://petworkshop.org/2006/stipends.html Important dates: March 10, 2006 - Paper submission (EXTENDED) May 1, 2006 - Notification of acceptance June 2, 2006 - Camera-ready for pre-proceedings June 28-30, 2006 - Workshop July 28, 2006 - Camera-ready for proceedings General Chair: Richard Clayton, University of Cambridge, UK Program Chairs * George Danezis, University of Cambridge, UK * Philippe Golle, Palo Alto Research Center, USA Program Committee * Alessandro Acquisti, Heinz School, Carnegie Mellon University, USA * Mikhail Atallah, Purdue University, USA * Michael Backes, Saarland University, Germany * Alastair Beresford, University of Cambridge, UK * Nikita Borisov, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA * Jan Camenisch, IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, Switzerland * Kim Cameron, Microsoft, USA * Fred Cate, Indiana University at Bloomington, USA * Roger Dingledine, The Free Haven Project, USA * Hannes Federrath, University of Regensburg, Germany * Simone Fischer-Huebner, Karlstad University, Sweden * Ian Goldberg, Zero Knowledge Systems, Canada * Markus Jakobsson, Indiana University at Bloomington, USA * Dennis Kugler, Federal Office for Information Security, Germany * Brian Levine, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA * David Martin, University of Massachusetts at Lowell, USA * David Molnar, University of California at Berkeley, USA * Andreas Pfitzmann, Dresden University of Technology, Germany * Mike Reiter, Carnegie Mellon University, USA * Andrei Serjantov, The Free Haven Project, UK * Paul Syverson, Naval Research Lab, USA * Matthew Wright, University of Texas at Arlington, USA Papers should be at most 15 pages excluding the bibliography and well-marked appendices (using an 11-point font), and at most 20 pages total. Submission of shorter papers (from around 4 pages) is strongly encouraged whenever appropriate. Papers must conform to the Springer LNCS style described here. Reviewers of submitted papers are not required to read the appendices and the paper should be intelligible without them. The paper should start with the title, and an abstract. The introduction should give some background and summarize the contributions of the paper at a level appropriate for a non-specialist reader. Submitted papers should be anonymized by removing or sanitizing author names, affiliations, acknowledgments, and obvious self-references. A preliminary version of the proceedings will be made available to workshop participants. Final versions are not due until after the workshop, giving the authors the opportunity to revise their papers based on discussions during the meeting. Submit your papers in Postscript or PDF format. To submit a paper, compose a plain text email to pet2006-submissions(a)petworkshop.org containing the title and abstract of the paper, the authors' names, email and postal addresses, phone and fax numbers, and identification of the contact author (to whom we will address all subsequent correspondence). Attach your submission to this email and send it. By submitting a paper, you agree that if it is accepted, you will sign a paper distribution agreement allowing for publication, and also that an author of the paper will register for the workshop and present the paper there. Our current working agreement with Springer is that authors will retain copyright on their own works while assigning an exclusive 3-year distribution license to Springer. Authors may still post their papers on their own Web sites. See here for the 2004 version of this agreement. Submitted papers must not substantially overlap with papers that have been published or that are simultaneously submitted to a journal or a conference with proceedings. Paper submissions must be received by March 3, 2006. We acknowledge all submissions manually by email. If you do not receive an acknowledgment within a few days (or one day, if you are submitting right at the deadline), then contact the program committee chairs directly to resolve the problem. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be sent to authors no later than May 1 and authors will have the opportunity to revise for the preproceedings version by June 2, 2006. We also invite proposals of up to 2 pages for panel discussions or other relevant presentations. In your proposal, (1) describe the nature of the presentation and why it is appropriate to the workshop, (2) suggest a duration for the presentation (ideally between 45 and 90 minutes), (3) give brief descriptions of the presenters, and (4) indicate which presenters have confirmed their availability for the presentation if it is scheduled. Otherwise, submit your proposal by email as described above, including the designation of a contact author. The program committee will consider presentation proposals along with other workshop events, and will respond by the paper decision date with an indication of its interest in scheduling the event. The proceedings will contain 1-page abstracts of the presentations that take place at the workshop. Each contact author for an accepted panel proposal must prepare and submit this abstract in the Springer LNCS style by the "Camera-ready copy for preproceedings" deadline date. _______________________________________________ NymIP-res-group mailing list NymIP-res-group(a)nymip.org http://www.nymip.org/mailman/listinfo/nymip-res-group --- 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 "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _______________________________________________ Clips mailing list Clips(a)philodox.com http://www.philodox.com/mailman/listinfo/clips --- 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 "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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[Clips] First announcement for ECC 2006
by R. A. Hettinga 01 Mar '06

01 Mar '06

--- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: clips(a)philodox.com Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 10:00:20 -0400 To: "Philodox Clips List" <clips(a)philodox.com> From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah(a)shipwright.com> Subject: [Clips] First announcement for ECC 2006 Reply-To: rah(a)philodox.com Sender: clips-bounces(a)philodox.com --- begin forwarded text From: ECC 2006 <ecc2006(a)math.uwaterloo.ca> Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2006 11:31:28 -0500 (EST) To: rah(a)ibuc.com Subject: First announcement for ECC 2006 ======================================================================== If you wish to be removed from the ECC 2006 mailing list, please send a brief email to ecc2006(a)uwaterloo.ca ======================================================================== THE 10TH WORKSHOP ON ELLIPTIC CURVE CRYPTOGRAPHY (ECC 2006) The Fields Institute, Toronto, Canada September 18, 19 & 20, 2006 FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT February 26, 2006 ECC 2006 is the tenth in a series of annual workshops dedicated to the study of elliptic curve cryptography and related areas. Over the past years the ECC conference series has broadened its scope beyond elliptic curve cryptography and now covers a wide range of areas within modern cryptography. For instance, past ECC conferences included presentations on hyperelliptic curve cryptography, pairing-based cryptography, side-channel attacks, voting protocols, quantum key distribution, AES, hash function, implementation issues, and deployments. At the same time ECC continues to be the premier conference on elliptic curve cryptography. It is hoped that ECC 2006 will further our mission of encouraging and stimulating research on the security and implementation of elliptic curve cryptosystems and related areas, and encouraging collaboration between mathematicians, computer scientists and engineers in the academic, industry and government sectors. As with past ECC conferences, there will be about 15 invited lectures (and no contributed talks) delivered by internationally leading experts. There will be both state-of-the-art survey lectures as well as lectures on latest research developments. SPONSORS: Certicom The Fields Institute MITACS University of Waterloo ORGANIZERS: Mark Bauer (University of Calgary) Tanja Lange (Technical University of Denmark) Alfred Menezes (University of Waterloo) Kumar Murty (University of Toronto) Christof Paar (Ruhr-Universitat Bochum) Scott Vanstone (University of Waterloo) FIELDS FALL 2006 THEMATIC PROGRAM IN CRYPTOGRAPHY: ECC 2006 will be one of the events being organized in conjunction with the Fields Institute Fall 2006 Thematic Program in Cryptography. ECC 2006 attendees who are interested in office space or funding can apply to Fields for funding: http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/06-07/crypto SUMMER SCHOOL: Tanja Lange will be teaching a course at Fields on "Elliptic and Hyperelliptic Curve Cryptography". The course is intended for graduate students in cryptography and mathematics, and will take place from September 11-15. Further details are available on the Fields web site: www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/06-07/crypto/courses/index.html TRAVEL AND ACCOMMODATIONS: The Fields Institute is located in the downtown campus of the University of Toronto. The Fields web site http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/resources/travel/index.html has travel information information, directions to the Institute including a map, and a listing of hotels that are within walking distance the Institute. REGISTRATION: The second announcement will be made in the beginning of May and will include registration information and a list of speakers. FURTHER INFORMATION: For further information, please contact: Alfred Menezes (email: ajmeneze [at] uwaterloo.ca) ======================================================================== --- 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 "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _______________________________________________ Clips mailing list Clips(a)philodox.com http://www.philodox.com/mailman/listinfo/clips --- 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 "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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[dave@farber.net: [IP] Patriot Act E-Mail Searches Apply to Non-Terrorists, Judges Say]
by Eugen Leitl 01 Mar '06

01 Mar '06

----- Forwarded message from Dave Farber <dave(a)farber.net> -----

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NYT sues Pentagon over domestic spying
by Eugen Leitl 01 Mar '06

01 Mar '06

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060227/ts_nm/security_nsa_nytimes_dc NYT sues Pentagon over domestic spying Mon Feb 27, 6:11 PM ET NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Times sued the U.S. Defense Department on Monday demanding that it hand over documents about the National Security Agency's domestic spying program. The Times wants a list of documents including all internal memos and e-mails about the program of monitoring phone calls without court approval. It also seeks the names of the people or groups identified by it. The Times in December broke the story that the NSA had begun intercepting domestic communications believed linked to al Qaeda following the September 11 attacks. That provoked renewed criticism of the way U.S. President George W. Bush is handling his declared war on terrorism. Bush called the disclosure of the program to the Times a "shameful act" and the U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation into who leaked it. The Times had requested the documents in December under the Freedom of Information Act but sued upon being unsatisfied with the Pentagon's response that the request was "being processed as quickly as possible," according to the six-page suit filed at federal court in New York. David McCraw, a lawyer for the Times, acknowledged that the list of documents sought was lengthy but that the Pentagon failed to assert there were "unusual circumstances," a provision of the law that would grant the Pentagon extra time to respond. The Defense Department, which was sued as the parent agency of the NSA, did not immediately respond to the suit. McCraw said there was "no connection" between the Justice Department probe and the Times' lawsuit. "This is an important story that our reporters are continuing to pursue and of the ways to do that is through the Freedom of Information Act," McCraw said. The U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requires the federal government to obtain warrants from a secret federal court for surveillance operations inside the United States. But the Bush administration says the president as commander in chief of the armed forces has the authority to carry out the intercepts and that Congress also gave him the authority upon approving the use of force in response to the September 11 attacks. -- 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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