Saturday, June 8, 2013

Cyberspace-led Terrorism and Personal Liberties

The difference between Star Trek and the real cyberworld is that Trekkies and their creator believe true evil is visible, easily identified and so susceptible to being destroyed by massive frontal attack. The real cyberworld is not like that. It is hidden, not easily identified and cannot be attacked and destroyed with massed military power. Cyber criminals seem to have three profiles. There are the traditional con men who lie to innocent or poorly protected Internet users in order to steal money. There are cyber spies who fish the Net for commercial secrets and patented technology and steal it in order to give their less inventive clients the illegally gained level commercial playing field they would not otherwise have. And there is the third type of cybercriminal. These are the terrorists, the jihadists, the radical islamists, the al-Qaida cells - call them what you choose - who want to destroy personal liberty and democratic government by terrorizing, killing, mass bombing, and brainwashing vulnerable youth to do their dirty work for them. As we might expect - and even demand - the US govenment is going after these terrorist cybercriminals, and has been for some time under the umbrella of the Patriot Act adopted after 9/11. But recent reports that first appeared in Britain's Guardian newspaper and The Washington Post indicate that the National Security Agency retrieves phone and email records, but not their actual content, from its secret warrants allowing it to collect data from major telecom companies. The program is aimed at detecting the calling patterns of terrorist suspects. A separate government program also collects massive amounts of data from at least nine Internet and electronic firms, retrieving everything from emails to photographs. Back in 2006, Vice President, Dick Cheney, was direct during a radio appearance, denying that the government was engaging in domestic surveillance. Cheney told radio host Hugh Hewitt that "what we're interested in are intercepting communications, one end of which are outside the United States and one end of which we have reason to believe is al-Qaida-related." Cheney's description of the program was accurate, even though several top Bush administration officials adamantly insisted that the government was not engaged in mass data-trawling as part of its secret NSA programs. Michael Hayden, the then CIA head of national intelligence, told a National Press Club audience in January 2006 that there was no effort to cast a wide net over communications data. "This is not about intercepting conversations between people in the United States. This is hot pursuit of communications entering or leaving America involving someone we believe is associated with al-Qaida." Bush's attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, also minimized the reach of the NSA data-gathering, telling a Senate Judiciary hearing in February 2006 that the surveillance "is narrowly focused and fully consistent with the traditional forms of enemy surveillance found to be necessary in all previous armed conflicts." But in May 2011, when the Patriot Act faced reauthorization, the NSA's secret programs began to receive carefully-couched attention from two Democratic Senators, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado. Constrained by requirements for speaking about classified secret programs, the two Senators offered only guarded warnings about how the government secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, saying that the American people would be "stunned and they will be angry" if they knew the facts. Wyden said during a floor speech in May 2011 : "Many members of Congress have no idea how the law is being secretly interpreted by the executive branch, because that interpretation is classified." But on Friday, President Barack Obama himself acknowledged the existence of such programs, giving the government's standard rationale to ease fears that Americans' privacy rights are being violated. Obama said that the electronic data-mining is not aimed at American citizens or inside the US. He said they sift through the metadata and they might "identify potential leads of people who might engage in terrorism,...Nobody is listening to your telephone calls," Obama assured the nation. What the government is doing, he said, is digesting phone numbers and the durations of calls, seeking links that might "identify potential leads with respect to folks who might engage in terrorism." If the intelligence community then actually wants to listen to a phone call, they've got to go back to a federal judge, just like they would in a criminal investigation." These programs are meant to make America safe, he said, but he offered no specifics about how the surveillance programs have done that. Some members of Obama's own Democrat Party are now attacking him for overreaching, and civil liberties groups are comparing him unfavorably to President George W. Bush. Obama said that the program was tightened under his administration but did not explain how. "In rooting out terror threats. understand that there are some trade-offs involved," Obama said. The President said that Americans cannot be 100% safe while maintaining 100% privacy. ~~~~~ Dear readers, we will surely return to this setious question - the trade-offs between security in the face of cyber-led terrorism and the fundamental human right to personal privacy. It is not an easy matter to balance the two. But that does not mean giving the government unmonitored carte blanche to play fast and loose with constitutional rights to personal liberty. Once again, citizens must be informed and involved before the government acts. Afterward, it will be too late to take back liberties given away because of fear generated by the heat of terrorist attacks.

7 comments:

  1. Concerned CitizenJune 8, 2013 at 9:30 AM

    "Absolute power corrupts absolutely"

    The revelations of the past few weeks makes me nauseated.

    If a bunch of politicians have the approval to match phone numbers here and abroad, they have the ability to extend that to reprints of conversations held.

    Politicians speeches about personal liberties, invasion of privacy issues, national security, etc. leads me to believe that George Orwell would have loved this sketchy information.

    Because all we know is "sketchy" information and the knowledge that Washington has only admitted that because of fear of reprisal from the citizen in recalls, rebuking them at the ballot box and outright rebellion.

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  2. 1984 came and stayed...Big Brother is Watching!

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  3. "Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties".
    Abraham Lincoln

    Well they are interfering with the Constitution and it is being done in the shadows not the sunlight.

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  4. A congressman from Wisconsin said Friday that "Any law can be abused." He was referring to the Patriot Act. The congressman was being a tad glib in characterizing the Patriot Act - his creation - as "any law." It most certainly isn't any law, and its abuse seems inevitable in light of the revelations about indiscriminately sweeping up phone call data from Americans, regardless any suspicion of terrorist intent. The original intent was good, it was the Act that was poorly wrote.

    The abuse of the Patriot Act is an "overreach and dragnet." But this is what happens when "people think that big government is good." I would say that this is characterized as "Orwellian."

    But was Congress thinking about when they first wrote the Act?

    The Patriot Act isn't some clean air and water regulation that the EPA is misusing; it's a national security law that permits the federal government - the executive branch, in particular - broader discretion in operating against the nation's enemies (jihadist Muslims, primarily) domestically.
    There was never any intent to extend the patriot Act to the extent that the Federal government is is doing today ... and has been doing for quiet sometime.


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  5. Stand Up And Be CountedJune 8, 2013 at 7:04 PM

    The recent revelations on the federal government’s surveillance operations are nothing short of astonishing. This seems to be Big Brother is watching over all of us, just not those of suspect. Millions of citizens are in disbelief over the intelligence targeting operation directed at millions of Americans personal phone records, internet communications, and e-mails.

    It is apparent that some members of the Justice Department, White House press staff, and IRS are simply being less than truthful.

    To me what is occurring is very troublesome and suspicious. This complete program is not direct at anyone who uses a phone, calls overseas, or any of the so called “social networking” sites. This administration is simply monitoring private US citizens. And to what end? They have yet to utter on word on where this whole program is going or to what end.

    Some members of the House of Representatives and the Senate have even admitted that they knew of this monitoring program long before it became a scandal.

    This is without a doubt illegal to some degree and may well rise to the level of being unconstitutional.

    With all the lies and secrets about secrets it is No wonder that the citizens of the US have NO TRUST in the Congress at all. And the administration branch is trying their best to catch up with the House and Senate low level of approval.
    It doesn’t matter if this is a good Intelligence program or not. It is not authorized by law and it is therefore ILLEGAL

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  6. With all the scandals that are surrounding the Obama administration these days. And the seriousness of everyone of them, we seem to be witnessing the IMPLOSION of the Obama Administration at least in it's own political effectiveness here in the US.

    And we all know the level of influence that this administration has with foreign governments.

    A real test of the fortitude of the people to keep the ship upright isn't it.

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  7. Exactly who is protecting us, from exactly what, exactly why,exactly by what authority.

    Or are we simply being disabled.

    "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves." William Pitt in the House of Commons November 18, 1783

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