The Surveillance State Unveiled (by Thomas R. Eddlem)
President Bush and adherents to his viewpoint have defended the idea that the government has a right to wiretap, but their assertions do not stand up to scrutiny.
President Bush has inaugurated the largest surveillance state in human history, ordering the NSA to wiretap millions of Americans’ telephone calls and e-mails abroad (according to the New York Times) and collecting the telephone records of as many as 200 million Americans (according to USA Today). Moreover, the FBI acknowledged searching the personal effects of more than 3,500 Americans without a court search warrant (according to the Associated Press) using a procedure called a “National Security Letter” under the Patriot Act. And many news sources have hinted that these revelations are merely the “tip of the iceberg” of the size of the actual surveillance conducted against Americans by the same Bush administration that had until December 2005 claimed at least seven times publicly that it sought a court warrant before conducting any search.
Following is an analysis of the Bush administration’s public rationale for conducting warrantless surveillance.
“Trust Your Leaders”
“We’re not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans. Our efforts are focused on links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates.”
— President George W. Bush
May 11, 2006
President Bush made the statement above even though he and his administration spokesmen have not denied the accuracy of USA Today’s report on May 10, which revealed that the NSA is storing the telephone call logs of as many as 200 million Americans. Although administration officials repeatedly use the term “Terrorist Surveillance Program” to imply that they are only spying on known terrorists, the reverse is true. Clearly, the administration is mining and trolling through the personal lives of hundreds of millions of innocent Americans — otherwise President Bush is accusing 200 million Americans of being “links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates.”
President Bush’s claim above that he is not “trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans” is no more credible than his earlier claim that the government does not tap the telephone calls of American citizens without a court warrant: “Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. 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.” (April 20, 2004, at Kleinshans Music Hall in Buffalo, New York.)
Generally, governments spy upon their enemies. It’s not worth expending resources to spy on friends. The revelation that the Bush administration is spying upon all Americans does not bode well for continued freedom in the United States.
Constitutional Authority
“The President’s authority to authorize the terrorist surveillance program is firmly based … in his constitutional authority as Commander-in-Chief.”
— Justice Department policy paper
“The NSA Program to Detect and Prevent Terrorist Attacks, Myth v. Reality”
January 27, 2006
The president’s “commander-in-chief” powers under Article II of the U.S. Constitution simply make the president commander of the armed forces, not commander of civilians or a chief legislator empowered to spy upon whomever he chooses. The relevant clause of the U.S. Constitution states simply: “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.” It gives the president no power over civilians, and no power to wage war, which is vested solely with the Congress.
Even if we assume the president was given the power to authorize warrantless surveillance of American citizens under his “commander-in-chief” authority in the U.S. Constitution, the Fourth Amendment took that power away. The Fourth Amendment — which overrode any constitutional provisions contrary to it — banned all searches of people’s private effects that did not include both probable cause and a court warrant supported by an oath. The Fourth Amendment reads in its entirety: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
It’s worth noting that the Bush administration has employed the same old trick that liberals use to negate the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms: negate the amendment by intentionally misrepresenting the introductory segment. Consider this exchange between reporters and the new CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden on January 23, 2006:
QUESTION: Jonathan Landay with Knight Ridder. I’d like to stay on the same issue, and that had to do with the standard by which you use to target your wiretaps. I’m no lawyer, but my understanding is that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate an American’s right against unlawful searches and seizures. Do you use —
GEN. HAYDEN: No, actually — the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure.
QUESTION: But the —
GEN. HAYDEN: That’s what it says.
QUESTION: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.
GEN. HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.
QUESTION: But does it not say probable —
GEN. HAYDEN: No. The amendment says —
QUESTION: The court standard, the legal standard —
GEN. HAYDEN: — unreasonable search and seizure.
Of course, if all the Fourth Amendment did was to prohibit the government from conducting searches that officials don’t find “reasonable,” then the amendment is less than worthless. Why even bother mentioning “probable cause,” “warrants,” and “oath or affirmation” if the government is given all the power it needs to conduct any search it deems “reasonable”? Like the Second Amendment’s preamble about a “well-regulated militia,” the first clause of the Fourth Amendment explains the reasoning for the amendment’s subsequent specifics. The plain construction of the Fourth Amendment is to define as “reasonable” only those searches which involve court “warrants” based upon “probable cause” supported by an “oath or affirmation.”
“Legal” Argument
“Congress confirmed and supplemented the President’s constitutional authority to authorize this program when it passed the AUMF [Authorization for the Use of Military Force]. The AUMF authorized the President to use ‘all necessary and appropriate military force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided in the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.’”
— Justice Department policy paper
“The NSA Program to Detect and Prevent Terrorist Attacks, Myth v. Reality”
January 27, 2006
For the Bush administration to claim that to spy on virtually all American citizens’ phone calls, phone bills, and e-mail messages constitutes using “force” against terrorists who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided in the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001” requires that a person suspend an understanding of the English language, or alternatively that the administration is afflicted with a paranoia against the people it swore an oath to serve. Besides, if the Fourth Amendment bans warrantless searches — and the plain text of the amendment clearly does — Congress has no more power to authorize such searches than the president does on his own power.
“Practical” Needs
“After September the 11th, I vowed to the American people that our government would do everything within the law to protect them against another terrorist attack.... [I]f al Qaeda or their associates are making calls into the United States or out of the United States, we want to know what they are saying.”
— President George W. Bush
in a May 11, 2006 press conference
This “practical” argument is misleading, and it is an argument for lawlessness. If the president or one of our spies knows al-Qaeda is going to call the United States, then he will have no trouble getting a court warrant with his probable cause. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) allows the president to conduct instantaneous searches of suspected terrorists without a court warrant, so long as a court warrant is obtained within 72 hours after beginning the surveillance.
In sum, nobody is arguing that the United States should not monitor al-Qaeda calls to the United States. The Bush administration only faces problems with wiretapping calls when the calls are probably not being made by terrorists — when the executive branch goes on a fishing expedition with taps on all Americans’ phone lines. Thus, when the president argues he needs warrantless searches in order “to know what they are saying,” he is deliberately misleading the American people. He can wiretap al-Qaeda at any time with probable cause.
“FISA Isn’t Fast Enough”
“FISA [Foreign Intelligence Service Act] requires the Attorney General to determine in advance that a FISA application … will be approved by the court before an emergency authorization can be granted, and the review process itself can and does take precious time.”
— Justice Department policy paper
“The NSA Program to Detect and Prevent Terrorist Attacks, Myth v. Reality”
January 27, 2006
In this case, the Bush administration is trying to have it both ways. First, it claims its surveillance program is narrowly defined to known al-Qaeda contacts (in the words of this same memo: “The NSA activities described by the President are narrow in scope and aim”), but then the quote above says that the government is monitoring far too many calls for the Attorney General and other parts of the Justice Department to manage through the FISA process. The truth is that calls from terrorists are few, and they can be managed through the FISA court “probable cause” warrant process that follows Fourth Amendment guidelines. On the other hand, massive fishing expedition-style surveillance of tens of millions of Americans — the vast majority of whom are not terrorists — would make getting warrants cumbersome as well as violate the whole intent behind the Fourth Amendment.
“Phone Records Aren’t Private”
“[T]hose kinds of records do not enjoy Fourth Amendment protection. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in those kinds of records.”
— Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
in a May 23, 2006 press conference
The Bush administration’s defense of its massive phone-record surveillance against, according to USA Today, as many as 200 million Americans, is beginning to take the form of absurdity. Attorney General Gonzales’ argument that Americans have no right to expect privacy in their phone calling records can be refuted with the following question: would you be comfortable if any one of your neighbors — or your employer — could purchase your telephone records from the telephone company for $5? Even if one does not make calls to “900” number sex lines or conduct other socially embarrassing transactions over the phone, there are many reasons people want telephone privacy. For example, most people would not be comfortable with an employer accessing their telephone calls to competitors as they conduct a search for a new job. Just as those phone calls are none of the employer’s business, it’s none of the government’s business either.
As “evidence” that people have no legitimate expectation of privacy in phone records, Bush administration supporters are quick to cite Supreme Court rulings, such as Smith v. Maryland in 1978, which are consistent with the Bush policy. But conservatives were once quick to decry activist courts. Why is this “conservative” president, as well as his administration’s supporters, suddenly citing these same activist courts as authorities over the strict construction of — and the clear language of — the U.S. Constitution (and, in this instance, common sense as well)?
“Only Terrorists Fear Surveillance”
“If you are not a terrorist, you have nothing to fear.”
— Common rebuttal to criticisms of
surveillance programs on the Internet
Although the Bush administration has not publicly made this argument, it is a popular cliché among those people who have given up on the concept of living under law or a Constitution.
It’s worth asking people who say that they’ve got no problem with the government monitoring their telephone calls: “Do you really think the federal government monitoring 200 million calls from children to their parents is really going to help stop terrorism?”
To allow the current administration to search phone-call logs, tap telephone calls, and monitor Internet traffic without warrants to look for terrorism is to authorize all future administrations to tap all phone calls without warrants for whatever reason they see fit. But even if we assume the unlikely fiction that all future presidents will not knowingly wiretap their political opponents like the Nixon administration did, the threat from the surveillance state remains from lesser officials who could use the information for the purposes of blackmail, stalking by sexual predators (several Homeland Security officials have been arrested for sexual assault against minors in recent months), and so on.
It is a misconception that government surveillance of innocents won’t hurt those being monitored. Such surveillance has already hurt innocent Americans such as Walter Soehnge of Scituate, Rhode Island. Soehnge saw the payment to his JCPenney Platinum MasterCard disappear into the ether for months — because he paid off his $6,522 credit card balance. Homeland Security officials suspected Soehnge of being a potential “terrorist threat” because he had made a larger than usual payment on his credit card and suspended crediting his account until he made extensive inquiries and complained.
Whenever the government ignores the constitutional requirement of conducting searches only under “probable cause,” abuses inevitably occur. As long as the Bush administration continues to insist upon ignoring the Constitution, more abuses will be bound to appear.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publi...icle_3991.shtml
Full Version: The Surveillance State Unveiled
Unexplained Mysteries Discussion Forums > News, Media & World Events > Conspiracies & Secret Societies
QUOTE
AT&T rewrites rules: Your data isn't yours
David Lazarus
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
AT&T has issued an updated privacy policy that takes effect Friday. The changes are significant because they appear to give the telecom giant more latitude when it comes to sharing customers' personal data with government officials.
The new policy says that AT&T -- not customers -- owns customers' confidential info and can use it "to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."
The policy also indicates that AT&T will track the viewing habits of customers of its new video service -- something that cable and satellite providers are prohibited from doing.
Moreover, AT&T (formerly known as SBC) is requiring customers to agree to its updated privacy policy as a condition for service -- a new move that legal experts say will reduce customers' recourse for any future data sharing with government authorities or others.
The company's policy overhaul follows recent reports that AT&T was one of several leading telecom providers that allowed the National Security Agency warrantless access to its voice and data networks as part of the Bush administration's war on terror.
"They're obviously trying to avoid a hornet's nest of consumer-protection lawsuits," said Chris Hoofnagle, a San Francisco privacy consultant and former senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
"They've written this new policy so broadly that they've given themselves maximum flexibility when it comes to disclosing customers' records," he said.
AT&T is being sued by San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation for allegedly allowing the NSA to tap into the company's data network, providing warrantless access to customers' e-mails and Web browsing.
AT&T is also believed to have participated in President Bush's acknowledged domestic spying program, in which the NSA was given warrantless access to U.S. citizens' phone calls.
AT&T said in a statement last month that it "has a long history of vigorously protecting customer privacy" and that "our customers expect, deserve and receive nothing less than our fullest commitment to their privacy."
But the company also asserted that it has "an obligation to assist law enforcement and other government agencies responsible for protecting the public welfare, whether it be an individual or the security interests of the entire nation."
Under its former privacy policy, introduced in September 2004, AT&T said it might use customer's data "to respond to subpoenas, court orders or other legal process, to the extent required and/or permitted by law."
The new version, which is specifically for Internet and video customers, is much more explicit about the company's right to cooperate with government agencies in any security-related matters -- and AT&T's belief that customers' data belongs to the company, not customers.
"While your account information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T," the new policy declares. "As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."
It says the company "may disclose your information in response to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process," omitting the earlier language about such processes being "required and/or permitted by law."
The new policy states that AT&T "may also use your information in order to investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud (or) situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person" -- conditions that would appear to embrace any terror-related circumstance.
Ray Everett-Church, a Silicon Valley privacy consultant, said it seems clear that AT&T has substantially modified its privacy policy in light of revelations about the government's domestic spying program.
"It's obvious that they are trying to stretch their blanket pretty tightly to cover as many exposed bits as possible," he said.
Gail Hillebrand, a staff attorney at Consumers Union in San Francisco, said the declaration that AT&T owns customers' data represents the most significant departure from the company's previous policy.
"It creates the impression that they can do whatever they want," she said. "This is the real heart of AT&T's new policy and is a pretty fundamental difference from how most customers probably see things."
John Britton, an AT&T spokesman, denied that the updated privacy policy marks a shift in the company's approach to customers' info.
"We don't see this as anything new," he said. "Our goal was to make the policy easier to read and easier for customers to understand."
He acknowledged that there was no explicit requirement in the past that customers accept the privacy policy as a condition for service. And he acknowledged that the 2004 policy said nothing about customers' data being owned by AT&T.
But Britton insisted that these elements essentially could be found between the lines of the former policy.
"There were many things that were implied in the last policy." He said. "We're just clarifying the last policy."
AT&T's new privacy policy is the first to include the company's video service. AT&T says it's spending $4.6 billion to roll out TV programming to 19 million homes nationwide.
The policy refers to two AT&T video services -- Homezone and U-verse. Homezone is AT&T's satellite TV service, offered in conjunction with Dish Network, and U-verse is the new cablelike video service delivered over phone lines.
In a section on "usage information," the privacy policy says AT&T will collect "information about viewing, game, recording and other navigation choices that you and those in your household make when using Homezone or AT&T U-verse TV Services."
The Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 stipulates that cable and satellite companies can't collect or disclose information about customers' viewing habits.
The law is silent on video services offered by phone companies via the Internet, basically because legislators never anticipated such technology would be available.
AT&T's Britton said the 1984 law doesn't apply to his company's video service because AT&T isn't a cable provider. "We are not building a cable TV network," he said. "We're building an Internet protocol television network."
But Andrew Johnson, a spokesman for cable heavyweight Comcast, disputed this perspective.
"Video is video is video," he said. "If you're delivering programming over a telecommunications network to a TV set, all rules need to be the same."
AT&T's new and former privacy policies both state that "conducting business ethically and ensuring privacy is critical to maintaining the public's trust and achieving success in a dynamic and competitive business climate."
Both also state that "privacy responsibility" extends "to the privacy of conversations and to the flow of information in data form." As such, both say that "the trust of our customers necessitates vigilant, responsible privacy protections."
The 2004 policy, though, went one step further. It said AT&T realizes "that privacy is an important issue for our customers and members."
The new policy makes no such acknowledgment.
David Lazarus
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
AT&T has issued an updated privacy policy that takes effect Friday. The changes are significant because they appear to give the telecom giant more latitude when it comes to sharing customers' personal data with government officials.
The new policy says that AT&T -- not customers -- owns customers' confidential info and can use it "to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."
The policy also indicates that AT&T will track the viewing habits of customers of its new video service -- something that cable and satellite providers are prohibited from doing.
Moreover, AT&T (formerly known as SBC) is requiring customers to agree to its updated privacy policy as a condition for service -- a new move that legal experts say will reduce customers' recourse for any future data sharing with government authorities or others.
The company's policy overhaul follows recent reports that AT&T was one of several leading telecom providers that allowed the National Security Agency warrantless access to its voice and data networks as part of the Bush administration's war on terror.
"They're obviously trying to avoid a hornet's nest of consumer-protection lawsuits," said Chris Hoofnagle, a San Francisco privacy consultant and former senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
"They've written this new policy so broadly that they've given themselves maximum flexibility when it comes to disclosing customers' records," he said.
AT&T is being sued by San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation for allegedly allowing the NSA to tap into the company's data network, providing warrantless access to customers' e-mails and Web browsing.
AT&T is also believed to have participated in President Bush's acknowledged domestic spying program, in which the NSA was given warrantless access to U.S. citizens' phone calls.
AT&T said in a statement last month that it "has a long history of vigorously protecting customer privacy" and that "our customers expect, deserve and receive nothing less than our fullest commitment to their privacy."
But the company also asserted that it has "an obligation to assist law enforcement and other government agencies responsible for protecting the public welfare, whether it be an individual or the security interests of the entire nation."
Under its former privacy policy, introduced in September 2004, AT&T said it might use customer's data "to respond to subpoenas, court orders or other legal process, to the extent required and/or permitted by law."
The new version, which is specifically for Internet and video customers, is much more explicit about the company's right to cooperate with government agencies in any security-related matters -- and AT&T's belief that customers' data belongs to the company, not customers.
"While your account information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T," the new policy declares. "As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."
It says the company "may disclose your information in response to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process," omitting the earlier language about such processes being "required and/or permitted by law."
The new policy states that AT&T "may also use your information in order to investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud (or) situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person" -- conditions that would appear to embrace any terror-related circumstance.
Ray Everett-Church, a Silicon Valley privacy consultant, said it seems clear that AT&T has substantially modified its privacy policy in light of revelations about the government's domestic spying program.
"It's obvious that they are trying to stretch their blanket pretty tightly to cover as many exposed bits as possible," he said.
Gail Hillebrand, a staff attorney at Consumers Union in San Francisco, said the declaration that AT&T owns customers' data represents the most significant departure from the company's previous policy.
"It creates the impression that they can do whatever they want," she said. "This is the real heart of AT&T's new policy and is a pretty fundamental difference from how most customers probably see things."
John Britton, an AT&T spokesman, denied that the updated privacy policy marks a shift in the company's approach to customers' info.
"We don't see this as anything new," he said. "Our goal was to make the policy easier to read and easier for customers to understand."
He acknowledged that there was no explicit requirement in the past that customers accept the privacy policy as a condition for service. And he acknowledged that the 2004 policy said nothing about customers' data being owned by AT&T.
But Britton insisted that these elements essentially could be found between the lines of the former policy.
"There were many things that were implied in the last policy." He said. "We're just clarifying the last policy."
AT&T's new privacy policy is the first to include the company's video service. AT&T says it's spending $4.6 billion to roll out TV programming to 19 million homes nationwide.
The policy refers to two AT&T video services -- Homezone and U-verse. Homezone is AT&T's satellite TV service, offered in conjunction with Dish Network, and U-verse is the new cablelike video service delivered over phone lines.
In a section on "usage information," the privacy policy says AT&T will collect "information about viewing, game, recording and other navigation choices that you and those in your household make when using Homezone or AT&T U-verse TV Services."
The Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 stipulates that cable and satellite companies can't collect or disclose information about customers' viewing habits.
The law is silent on video services offered by phone companies via the Internet, basically because legislators never anticipated such technology would be available.
AT&T's Britton said the 1984 law doesn't apply to his company's video service because AT&T isn't a cable provider. "We are not building a cable TV network," he said. "We're building an Internet protocol television network."
But Andrew Johnson, a spokesman for cable heavyweight Comcast, disputed this perspective.
"Video is video is video," he said. "If you're delivering programming over a telecommunications network to a TV set, all rules need to be the same."
AT&T's new and former privacy policies both state that "conducting business ethically and ensuring privacy is critical to maintaining the public's trust and achieving success in a dynamic and competitive business climate."
Both also state that "privacy responsibility" extends "to the privacy of conversations and to the flow of information in data form." As such, both say that "the trust of our customers necessitates vigilant, responsible privacy protections."
The 2004 policy, though, went one step further. It said AT&T realizes "that privacy is an important issue for our customers and members."
The new policy makes no such acknowledgment.
Source
The Panopticon:A Mass Surveillance Prison for Humans
http://z13.invisionfree.com/THE_UNHIVED_MI...?showtopic=4245
The end of net neutrality?Big telecoms want to control the internet. Http://z13.invisionfree.com/THE_UNHIVED_MI...showtopic=11111
Police bypass subpoenas to get Americans phone records
http://z13.invisionfree.com/THE_UNHIVED_MI...showtopic=11076
NWO Plans for the (666)RFID Chip
http://z13.invisionfree.com/THE_UNHIVED_MI...showtopic=10835
Court says Gov can keep on snooping on VoIP
http://z13.invisionfree.com/THE_UNHIVED_MI...showtopic=10791
http://z13.invisionfree.com/THE_UNHIVED_MI...?showtopic=4245
The end of net neutrality?Big telecoms want to control the internet. Http://z13.invisionfree.com/THE_UNHIVED_MI...showtopic=11111
Police bypass subpoenas to get Americans phone records
http://z13.invisionfree.com/THE_UNHIVED_MI...showtopic=11076
NWO Plans for the (666)RFID Chip
http://z13.invisionfree.com/THE_UNHIVED_MI...showtopic=10835
Court says Gov can keep on snooping on VoIP
http://z13.invisionfree.com/THE_UNHIVED_MI...showtopic=10791
QUOTE(Pagan_2k @ Jun 23 2006, 05:59 AM) [snapback]1242603[/snapback]
The Panopticon:A Mass Surveillance Prison for Humans
http://z13.invisionfree.com/THE_UNHIVED_MI...?showtopic=4245
18 months ago I was arrested for absolutely no reason by a copper in a bad mood. I was charged with some bs and bailed to appear at court the next week. Fortunately , thanks to a cctv camera, it was very easy to show I had done nothing wrong and the case against me was quickly dropped.
1 month ago I was stopped late at night by two guys demanding my phone and money, I told them to wave to the camera that was watching us and they quickly melted away .
So far its a big 'thank you' to cctv
QUOTE(Moon Monkey @ Jun 23 2006, 09:38 AM) [snapback]1242654[/snapback]
18 months ago I was arrested for absolutely no reason by a copper in a bad mood. I was charged with some bs and bailed to appear at court the next week. Fortunately , thanks to a cctv camera, it was very easy to show I had done nothing wrong and the case against me was quickly dropped.
1 month ago I was stopped late at night by two guys demanding my phone and money, I told them to wave to the camera that was watching us and they quickly melted away .
So far its a big 'thank you' to cctv
Yeah, it can absolutely be used in positive ways, the problem is in the fact that that is not the intention. Before the motto was "Innocent until proven guilty" now its "Not guilty until we find something"
they are making BS laws to make everyone into criminals. You can now get a 30pound fine for smoking in your car. They are suspicious of everyone and everyone gets all the phone and internet records recorded and analysed. They plan to be able to track you personally as well as your car. They want to see where you go and who you interact with, what you do and why.
Dude, I know what its like living in a police state, I can remember what apartheid was like and I can tell you one thing, its not pleasant at all.
QUOTE(Moon Monkey @ Jun 23 2006, 08:38 AM) [snapback]1242654[/snapback]
18 months ago I was arrested for absolutely no reason by a copper in a bad mood. I was charged with some bs and bailed to appear at court the next week. Fortunately , thanks to a cctv camera, it was very easy to show I had done nothing wrong and the case against me was quickly dropped.
1 month ago I was stopped late at night by two guys demanding my phone and money, I told them to wave to the camera that was watching us and they quickly melted away .
So far its a big 'thank you' to cctv
Must of been quite a nervous moment with the two guys MM?
We in the UK are the most watched nation in the world..............the CCTV camera is taking over! Its has its good and its bad points.
QUOTE
U.S. learns to live with less freedom
Jun. 19, 2006. 05:30 AM
TIM HARPER
WASHINGTON BUREAU
MANCHESTER, N.H.—The fierce cultural aversion to the long reach of government is emblazoned on every licence plate here, an omnipresent statement that should make Rich Tomasso's job easier.
But even a man who makes it his business to protect individual liberties in a state where no government would dare collect a sales tax or personal income tax — or force a seatbelt around a driver or a helmet on a motorcyclist — has to face some harsh realities in George W. Bush's America.
"People are more afraid of terror than having their privacy violated," says Tomasso, chair of the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. "For so long the rhetoric has been about fear, not hope and more traditional American values."
"Live Free or Die" is not just a cheesy licence plate slogan in this tiny New England state. But even New Hampshire is not immune to the national erosion of civil liberties that has permeated every part of the United States since terrorists forced their way into airline cockpits almost five years ago, taking away a nation's bravado and replacing it with fear.
The exploitation of that fear by an administration intent on inflating the powers of the presidency, at the expense of a cowed Congress and with the tacit approval of an anxious nation, may be a cautionary tale for Canadians should some of that U.S.-style fear find its way north of the border in the wake of Toronto's recent terrorism arrests.
In recent years, it has become a truism that Americans will trade away some liberties because they have been attacked. Canadians have not.
But where is that rugged U.S. individuality that had helped define this nation?
"Canadians, over the past couple of decades, appear to be much more aware of civil liberties. They have the balance just about right between the sense of community and individualism," says Phillip Cooper, an expert on separation of powers at Portland State University in Oregon.
"I hope this politics of fear doesn't gravitate across the border. One hopes that your country won't see the polarization we have here. Canadians look down here and see this U.S. individuality, but it has become a fearful, combative individuality."
Since Bush declared his global war on terror, "it has become a war on American citizens," says Dan Belforti, who is running for the U.S. Congress as a Libertarian candidate in New Hampshire.
It started with the country — those of all political stripes — rallying around a leader who cast the U.S. as victim, declaring the rest of the world was either with him or against him. Bush and his inner circle allowed to stand the perception that the Iraq war was linked to Sept. 11, 2001 — a belief still held today by a substantial number of Americans.
With the threat of another attack foremost in their minds, Americans looked the other way as "enemy combatants" were held without due process at Guantanamo Bay, shrugged amid revelations their government was secretly picking up terrorist suspects and flying them to countries with ugly human rights records, yawned when they were told the CIA might be holding prisoners in secret sites in Eastern Europe.
But more surprising has been the lack of pushback when they were told the Bush administration had ignored a law requiring court approval and had begun wiretapping international calls of Americans and assembling a massive databank of phone records of Americans.
In Canada, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service must get court approval before conducting any electronic surveillance, and the Communications Security Establishment needs written authorization from the minister of defence. Here, Bush argued his constitutional power overrode the need to go to a court that took too long to give approval anyway.
More quietly, Bush has claimed, some 750 times, the authority to disobey laws he has signed — including a much-publicized ban on torture — if they conflict with his interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. No U.S. president has ever invoked that right so many times.
The U.S. Congress has passed legislation that essentially establishes a national ID card, and there are calls for a national DNA registry of Americans.
The Bush administration believes it is on the winning side when it comes to the tug between security and liberty.
"When you push even the harshest critic, even they say, `Yeah, we should be listening to Al Qaeda,'" a senior administration official told The Washington Post, making a reference to the wiretapping program. "So from that perspective, that's a winning (issue) and we're on the side of the public."
But there have been recent signs that the beginning of a pushback may finally be at hand.
"The Bush administration has been bent on a scheme for years of reducing Congress to akin to an extra in a Cecil B. DeMille political (movie) extravaganza," Bruce Fein, a justice official in Ronald Reagan's administration, told Congress recently.
"(It includes) the assertion of executive privilege to deny Congress any authority to oversee executive branch operations; a claim of inherent presidential authority to flout any statute that he thinks impedes his ability to gather foreign intelligence, whether opening mail, conducting electronic surveillance, breaking and entering, or committing torture."
Gene Healy and Timothy Lynch of the libertarian Cato Institute have written that Bush has conferred upon himself the power to pursue any tactic he wishes to win the war on terror, simply by telling audiences he will use any "legal" means to protect the country.
"That is what most Americans want to hear and believe," they write. "Unfortunately, the president appears to believe that he is the ultimate arbiter of what is legal and what is illegal — at least in matters relating to national security."
Cooper says there is nothing unusual or wrong about people rallying around leaders in times of stress. What is wrong, he says, is when they stop paying attention to what the government is doing.
"There is not much doubt the administration has utilized the fear of another 9/11 and the war on terror to expand the executive power," Cooper says.
But he says the wakeup call might have been sounded. "People are starting to ask questions," he says. "In a way, I'm a little bit surprised that things as obscure and arcane as presidential signing statements appear to have had some staying power in the media."
Bush's predilection for presidential signing statements, which give him the right to ignore portions of the laws he signs, had largely gone unnoticed until late last year, when he signed an amendment to a military spending bill that banned cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of foreign prisoners.
Then, after a highly publicized signing ceremony with the man behind the ban, Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, Bush quietly put a statement in the U.S. register giving him the right to ignore the ban if he felt it was protecting Americans from terror.
A litany of court challenges have been issued by civil liberties groups over the reported data-mining by U.S. phone companies and arguments were heard in a Detroit court last week in a legal challenge to the wiretapping program.
A Supreme Court ruling on Bush's plan to try "enemy combatants" under special military tribunals at Guantanamo could come this month and if the court rules the tribunals invalid, it could begin the process of closing the prison camp.
Revolt may finally be brewing within the ranks of Congress where Republicans facing mid-term elections in the fall are finding backbone.
Revolt is brewing in New Hampshire, too. It is the first state to openly challenge the so-called Real ID Act, approved last year and scheduled to come into effect in May 2008. Many believe it is the precursor to a national ID card.
The bill requires states to check whether driver's licence applicants are in the country legally, and to require documents showing their birthdate, social security number and home address. The act also requires that states find a way to verify the documents are valid.
If New Hampshire rejects the law, its residents will no longer be allowed to use driver's licences as required identification at airports, federal buildings and, potentially, the Canadian border.
"The view here is `get off my motorcycle, get out of my car, stay away from my guns and get out of my bedroom,'" says Michael Dupre, a professor of political sociology at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics.
"The culture of liberty is still very strong here."
Jun. 19, 2006. 05:30 AM
TIM HARPER
WASHINGTON BUREAU
MANCHESTER, N.H.—The fierce cultural aversion to the long reach of government is emblazoned on every licence plate here, an omnipresent statement that should make Rich Tomasso's job easier.
But even a man who makes it his business to protect individual liberties in a state where no government would dare collect a sales tax or personal income tax — or force a seatbelt around a driver or a helmet on a motorcyclist — has to face some harsh realities in George W. Bush's America.
"People are more afraid of terror than having their privacy violated," says Tomasso, chair of the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. "For so long the rhetoric has been about fear, not hope and more traditional American values."
"Live Free or Die" is not just a cheesy licence plate slogan in this tiny New England state. But even New Hampshire is not immune to the national erosion of civil liberties that has permeated every part of the United States since terrorists forced their way into airline cockpits almost five years ago, taking away a nation's bravado and replacing it with fear.
The exploitation of that fear by an administration intent on inflating the powers of the presidency, at the expense of a cowed Congress and with the tacit approval of an anxious nation, may be a cautionary tale for Canadians should some of that U.S.-style fear find its way north of the border in the wake of Toronto's recent terrorism arrests.
In recent years, it has become a truism that Americans will trade away some liberties because they have been attacked. Canadians have not.
But where is that rugged U.S. individuality that had helped define this nation?
"Canadians, over the past couple of decades, appear to be much more aware of civil liberties. They have the balance just about right between the sense of community and individualism," says Phillip Cooper, an expert on separation of powers at Portland State University in Oregon.
"I hope this politics of fear doesn't gravitate across the border. One hopes that your country won't see the polarization we have here. Canadians look down here and see this U.S. individuality, but it has become a fearful, combative individuality."
Since Bush declared his global war on terror, "it has become a war on American citizens," says Dan Belforti, who is running for the U.S. Congress as a Libertarian candidate in New Hampshire.
It started with the country — those of all political stripes — rallying around a leader who cast the U.S. as victim, declaring the rest of the world was either with him or against him. Bush and his inner circle allowed to stand the perception that the Iraq war was linked to Sept. 11, 2001 — a belief still held today by a substantial number of Americans.
With the threat of another attack foremost in their minds, Americans looked the other way as "enemy combatants" were held without due process at Guantanamo Bay, shrugged amid revelations their government was secretly picking up terrorist suspects and flying them to countries with ugly human rights records, yawned when they were told the CIA might be holding prisoners in secret sites in Eastern Europe.
But more surprising has been the lack of pushback when they were told the Bush administration had ignored a law requiring court approval and had begun wiretapping international calls of Americans and assembling a massive databank of phone records of Americans.
In Canada, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service must get court approval before conducting any electronic surveillance, and the Communications Security Establishment needs written authorization from the minister of defence. Here, Bush argued his constitutional power overrode the need to go to a court that took too long to give approval anyway.
More quietly, Bush has claimed, some 750 times, the authority to disobey laws he has signed — including a much-publicized ban on torture — if they conflict with his interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. No U.S. president has ever invoked that right so many times.
The U.S. Congress has passed legislation that essentially establishes a national ID card, and there are calls for a national DNA registry of Americans.
The Bush administration believes it is on the winning side when it comes to the tug between security and liberty.
"When you push even the harshest critic, even they say, `Yeah, we should be listening to Al Qaeda,'" a senior administration official told The Washington Post, making a reference to the wiretapping program. "So from that perspective, that's a winning (issue) and we're on the side of the public."
But there have been recent signs that the beginning of a pushback may finally be at hand.
"The Bush administration has been bent on a scheme for years of reducing Congress to akin to an extra in a Cecil B. DeMille political (movie) extravaganza," Bruce Fein, a justice official in Ronald Reagan's administration, told Congress recently.
"(It includes) the assertion of executive privilege to deny Congress any authority to oversee executive branch operations; a claim of inherent presidential authority to flout any statute that he thinks impedes his ability to gather foreign intelligence, whether opening mail, conducting electronic surveillance, breaking and entering, or committing torture."
Gene Healy and Timothy Lynch of the libertarian Cato Institute have written that Bush has conferred upon himself the power to pursue any tactic he wishes to win the war on terror, simply by telling audiences he will use any "legal" means to protect the country.
"That is what most Americans want to hear and believe," they write. "Unfortunately, the president appears to believe that he is the ultimate arbiter of what is legal and what is illegal — at least in matters relating to national security."
Cooper says there is nothing unusual or wrong about people rallying around leaders in times of stress. What is wrong, he says, is when they stop paying attention to what the government is doing.
"There is not much doubt the administration has utilized the fear of another 9/11 and the war on terror to expand the executive power," Cooper says.
But he says the wakeup call might have been sounded. "People are starting to ask questions," he says. "In a way, I'm a little bit surprised that things as obscure and arcane as presidential signing statements appear to have had some staying power in the media."
Bush's predilection for presidential signing statements, which give him the right to ignore portions of the laws he signs, had largely gone unnoticed until late last year, when he signed an amendment to a military spending bill that banned cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of foreign prisoners.
Then, after a highly publicized signing ceremony with the man behind the ban, Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, Bush quietly put a statement in the U.S. register giving him the right to ignore the ban if he felt it was protecting Americans from terror.
A litany of court challenges have been issued by civil liberties groups over the reported data-mining by U.S. phone companies and arguments were heard in a Detroit court last week in a legal challenge to the wiretapping program.
A Supreme Court ruling on Bush's plan to try "enemy combatants" under special military tribunals at Guantanamo could come this month and if the court rules the tribunals invalid, it could begin the process of closing the prison camp.
Revolt may finally be brewing within the ranks of Congress where Republicans facing mid-term elections in the fall are finding backbone.
Revolt is brewing in New Hampshire, too. It is the first state to openly challenge the so-called Real ID Act, approved last year and scheduled to come into effect in May 2008. Many believe it is the precursor to a national ID card.
The bill requires states to check whether driver's licence applicants are in the country legally, and to require documents showing their birthdate, social security number and home address. The act also requires that states find a way to verify the documents are valid.
If New Hampshire rejects the law, its residents will no longer be allowed to use driver's licences as required identification at airports, federal buildings and, potentially, the Canadian border.
"The view here is `get off my motorcycle, get out of my car, stay away from my guns and get out of my bedroom,'" says Michael Dupre, a professor of political sociology at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics.
"The culture of liberty is still very strong here."
U.S. learns to live with less freedom
QUOTE
The Eternal Value of Privacy
By Bruce Schneier| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM May, 18, 2006
The most common retort against privacy advocates -- by those in favor of ID checks, cameras, databases, data mining and other wholesale surveillance measures -- is this line: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"
Some clever answers: "If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me." "Because the government gets to define what's wrong, and they keep changing the definition." "Because you might do something wrong with my information." My problem with quips like these -- as right as they are -- is that they accept the premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong. It's not. Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect.
Two proverbs say it best: Quis custodiet custodes ipsos? ("Who watches the watchers?") and "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." Watch someone long enough, and you'll find something to arrest -- or just blackmail -- with. Privacy is important because without it, surveillance information will be abused: to peep, to sell to marketers and to spy on political enemies -- whoever they happen to be at the time.
Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.
We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals, sing in the privacy of the shower, and write letters to secret lovers and then burn them. Privacy is a basic human need.
A future in which privacy would face constant assault was so alien to the framers of the Constitution that it never occurred to them to call out privacy as an explicit right. Privacy was inherent to the nobility of their being and their cause. Of course being watched in your own home was unreasonable. Watching at all was an act so unseemly as to be inconceivable among gentlemen in their day. You watched convicted criminals, not free citizens. You ruled your own home. It's intrinsic to the concept of liberty.
For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that -- either now or in the uncertain future -- patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts. We lose our individuality, because everything we do is observable and recordable.
How many of us have paused during conversation in the past four-and-a-half years, suddenly aware that we might be eavesdropped on? Probably it was a phone conversation, although maybe it was an e-mail or instant-message exchange or a conversation in a public place. Maybe the topic was terrorism, or politics, or Islam. We stop suddenly, momentarily afraid that our words might be taken out of context, then we laugh at our paranoia and go on. But our demeanor has changed, and our words are subtly altered.
This is the loss of freedom we face when our privacy is taken from us. This is life in former East Germany, or life in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And it's our future as we allow an ever-intrusive eye into our personal, private lives.
Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.
By Bruce Schneier| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM May, 18, 2006
The most common retort against privacy advocates -- by those in favor of ID checks, cameras, databases, data mining and other wholesale surveillance measures -- is this line: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"
Some clever answers: "If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me." "Because the government gets to define what's wrong, and they keep changing the definition." "Because you might do something wrong with my information." My problem with quips like these -- as right as they are -- is that they accept the premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong. It's not. Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect.
Two proverbs say it best: Quis custodiet custodes ipsos? ("Who watches the watchers?") and "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." Watch someone long enough, and you'll find something to arrest -- or just blackmail -- with. Privacy is important because without it, surveillance information will be abused: to peep, to sell to marketers and to spy on political enemies -- whoever they happen to be at the time.
Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.
We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals, sing in the privacy of the shower, and write letters to secret lovers and then burn them. Privacy is a basic human need.
A future in which privacy would face constant assault was so alien to the framers of the Constitution that it never occurred to them to call out privacy as an explicit right. Privacy was inherent to the nobility of their being and their cause. Of course being watched in your own home was unreasonable. Watching at all was an act so unseemly as to be inconceivable among gentlemen in their day. You watched convicted criminals, not free citizens. You ruled your own home. It's intrinsic to the concept of liberty.
For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that -- either now or in the uncertain future -- patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts. We lose our individuality, because everything we do is observable and recordable.
How many of us have paused during conversation in the past four-and-a-half years, suddenly aware that we might be eavesdropped on? Probably it was a phone conversation, although maybe it was an e-mail or instant-message exchange or a conversation in a public place. Maybe the topic was terrorism, or politics, or Islam. We stop suddenly, momentarily afraid that our words might be taken out of context, then we laugh at our paranoia and go on. But our demeanor has changed, and our words are subtly altered.
This is the loss of freedom we face when our privacy is taken from us. This is life in former East Germany, or life in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And it's our future as we allow an ever-intrusive eye into our personal, private lives.
Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.
The Eternal Value of Privacy
QUOTE
U.S. Gets Access to Worldwide Banking Data
By JEANNINE AVERSA and KATHERINE SHRADER
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 22, 2006; 9:59 PM
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government gained sweeping access to international banking records as part of a secret program to choke off financial support for terrorism, officials confirmed Thursday.
Treasury Department officials said they used broad subpoenas to collect the financial records from an international system known as Swift. Stuart Levey, Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, called the subpoenas "a legal and proper use of our authorities."
"Since immediately following 9-11, the American government has taken every legal measure to prevent another attack on our country," Dana Perino, deputy White House press secretary, said Thursday evening. "One of the most important tools in the fight against terror is our ability to choke off funds for the terrorists."
The White House and Treasury Department issued statements about the secret subpoenas after The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times posted stories about the program on their Web sites.
Under the program, which started shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, U.S. counterterrorism analysts combed Swift's massive data base looking for financial transactions by suspected terrorists, according to the newspapers' accounts. They said the program was run by the CIA and overseen by the Treasury Department.
Swift, or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is a Belgium-based cooperative that handles financial message traffic from 7,800 financial institutions in more than 200 countries.
The administration defended use of the program, saying it plays a vital role in their efforts to identify terrorist financiers.
"Our subpoena of terrorist-related records from Swift has provided us with a unique and powerful window into the operations of terrorist networks," Levey said.
Both he and Perino expressed concern that public disclosure of the program could undermine their terror-tracking efforts.
"We know the terrorists pay attention to our strategy to fight them, and now have another piece of the puzzle of how we are fighting them," Perino said. "We also know they adapt their methods, which increases the challenge to our intelligence and law enforcement officials."
Perino added: "The president is concerned that once again The New York Times has chosen to expose a classified program that is working to protect our citizens."
The Times said administration officials had requested that the newspaper not publish the article.
Bill Keller, the Times' executive editor, said it considered the administration's arguments but in the end decided to publish. "We remain convinced that the administration's extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use it may be, is a matter of public interest."
The CIA declined to comment. Since 9/11, the agency has worked closely with Treasury to track terrorists.
Some in Congress were briefed on the operations, including members of the House Intelligence Committee. Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., declined to comment.
By JEANNINE AVERSA and KATHERINE SHRADER
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 22, 2006; 9:59 PM
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government gained sweeping access to international banking records as part of a secret program to choke off financial support for terrorism, officials confirmed Thursday.
Treasury Department officials said they used broad subpoenas to collect the financial records from an international system known as Swift. Stuart Levey, Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, called the subpoenas "a legal and proper use of our authorities."
"Since immediately following 9-11, the American government has taken every legal measure to prevent another attack on our country," Dana Perino, deputy White House press secretary, said Thursday evening. "One of the most important tools in the fight against terror is our ability to choke off funds for the terrorists."
The White House and Treasury Department issued statements about the secret subpoenas after The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times posted stories about the program on their Web sites.
Under the program, which started shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, U.S. counterterrorism analysts combed Swift's massive data base looking for financial transactions by suspected terrorists, according to the newspapers' accounts. They said the program was run by the CIA and overseen by the Treasury Department.
Swift, or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is a Belgium-based cooperative that handles financial message traffic from 7,800 financial institutions in more than 200 countries.
The administration defended use of the program, saying it plays a vital role in their efforts to identify terrorist financiers.
"Our subpoena of terrorist-related records from Swift has provided us with a unique and powerful window into the operations of terrorist networks," Levey said.
Both he and Perino expressed concern that public disclosure of the program could undermine their terror-tracking efforts.
"We know the terrorists pay attention to our strategy to fight them, and now have another piece of the puzzle of how we are fighting them," Perino said. "We also know they adapt their methods, which increases the challenge to our intelligence and law enforcement officials."
Perino added: "The president is concerned that once again The New York Times has chosen to expose a classified program that is working to protect our citizens."
The Times said administration officials had requested that the newspaper not publish the article.
Bill Keller, the Times' executive editor, said it considered the administration's arguments but in the end decided to publish. "We remain convinced that the administration's extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use it may be, is a matter of public interest."
The CIA declined to comment. Since 9/11, the agency has worked closely with Treasury to track terrorists.
Some in Congress were briefed on the operations, including members of the House Intelligence Committee. Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., declined to comment.
U.S. Gets Access to Worldwide Banking Data
Why We Published the AT&T Docs
Stumbling Into a Spy Scandal
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.