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(2007-09-18) — The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) today raised the specter of a new wave of civil rights abuses by the U.S. intelligence community, which the ACLU accused of eavesdropping on the private communications of Chinese and Russian spies. The charge comes after national intelligence director Mike McConnell revealed that espionage activity by China and Russia against the U.S. has returned to Cold War levels. “The Bush administration knows that these foreign nations are spying more,” said an unnamed ACLU spokesman, “because the U.S. has been listening in on phone calls, intercepting emails and secretly videotaping the activities of...

HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has signed into law a bill allowing the state to eavesdrop on private phone conversations and monitor faxes and emails. The Interception of Communication Act, published in the government gazette on Friday, provides for the setting up of an interception centre to listen into telephone conversations, open mail and intercept emails and faxes. The law also compels internet service providers to install equipment to facilitate interception "at all times or when so required" and ensure that its equipment allows full-time monitoring of communications. "A service provider who fails to give assistance in terms...

Has the federal government infringed upon U.S. citizens' privacy rights since 9/11? yes no

Should a special counsel be appointed to investigate the legality of the Bush administration's eavesdropping program? Yes No

Russell Tice was a signals intelligence officer at the super-secret National Security Agency (NSA).  In a letter to the Senate and House Intelligence Committee Chairmen, Trice sought protection under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA) for leaking highly classified information to the New York Times.  The missive was dated December 18th, 2005.  Remember that date, it's important. President Bush's decision to order the National Security Agency to monitor international electronic communications into and out of the United States from suspected terrorists was first revealed by the New York Times on December 16th.  The Times story, held for more...

THE WASHINGTON Post on Friday reported the existence of a massive covert program within the CIA to catch, detain and interrogate terrorists worldwide. Like President Bush's NSA program to eavesdrop on terror suspects without waiting for a warrant from the notoriously sluggish FISA court, the CIA program has drawn its share of short-sighted condemnation, as if 9/11 never happened. Here is how the Post described the nation's ability to gather intelligence on terrorists nearly four and a half years ago: "The CIA faced the day after the 2001 attacks with few al Qaeda informants, a tiny paramilitary division and no...

President Bush is finally applying some of the lessons of public relations grudgingly taught and probably reluctantly learned at the Harvard Business School. Politics is difficult to reduce to a spreadsheet, though our masters of business administration can't resist trying. But over the past several days George W. has offered details of the how and when of what America can accomplish in Iraq, and yesterday he even called an unexpected press conference to explain why it's a good idea for government agents to eavesdrop on certain telephone conversations without a warrant.

Overlooked in most of the commentary on the New York Times article is the simple, undeniable fact that the president has the power to conduct warantless surveillance of foreign powers conspiring to kill Americans or attack the government. The Fourth Amendment, which prohibits "unreasonable" searches and seizures has not been interpreted by the Supreme Court to restrict this inherent presidential power. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (an introduction from a critic of the Act is here) cannot be read as a limit on a constitutional authority even if the Act purported to so limit that authority. "Further, the instant...

'This goes no further...'By Brian Wheeler BBC News Online Magazine Following revelations about bugging at the United Nations, is there any way of ensuring that your private conversations stay that way? News that Kofi Annan and other senior UN figures may have been routinely bugged by US or British security services has caused a huge political row around the world. But it will also have caused alarm among other people in the public eye who deal with sensitive information - or anyone, indeed, who values their privacy. If the secretary general of the United Nations cannot prevent his private conversations...

Eavesdrop if you must, but get facts straight David Porter September 21, 2002 I know how Eunice Stone must have felt. Stone is the woman who was eating in a restaurant near Interstate 75 in Georgia last week when she heard fragments of a conversation that she suspected might have been part of a terrorist plot. The three young Arab men who had been engaged in the conversation were stopped later in Florida and detained for 17 hours while they were checked out by authorities. When you overhear snatches of someone else's conversation, it's easy to reach a distorted conclusion...

Nanny-Cam May Leave a Home ExposedSat Apr 13, 2:55 PM ETBy JOHN SCHWARTZ The New York TimesThousands of people who have installed a popular wireless video camera, intending to increase the security of their homes and offices, have instead unknowingly opened a window on their activities to anyone equipped with a cheap receiver. • Venezuela's Chief Forced to Resign; Civilian Installed • Nanny-Cam May Leave a Home Exposed • For the latest breaking news, visit NYTimes.com • Get DealBook, a daily email digest of corporate finance newsDealBook. Search NYTimes.com: The wireless video camera, which is heavily advertised on the Internet,...