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"Mike Kernell, a longtime Tennessee state assemblyman from Memphis and a technology enthusiast, is concerned about future elections because the new machines are harder to get a look at. ''We used to be able to check the machines and see if they'd been tampered with,'' he said. ''It is now almost impossible.'' Mr. Kernell wonders whether he will have to hire a computer programmer in his next race to make sure the machines are working smoothly and haven't been tampered with. ''We've hit a brick wall,'' he said." - NY Times A "technology enthusiast" indeed. Did he help with his...

You are clever and creative; it's time to find a target worthy of your talents. Like Sarah Palin. Start harassing her! ......PS: Don't blow up our servers. Thanks! .....and that it was time for them to find a new target. We even threw out a suggestion: Sarah Palin! And then yesterday, this happened........ Just last week, we posted a brief open letter to Anonymous, the Internet-based rabble-rousers who have made a name for themselves taking on Scientology, in which we said that they'd succeeded in ruining the Church's reputation, and that it was time for them to find a new...

Hey, it's politics. In the primary, when Barack Obama wanted to connect with his party's disaffected left, he said that he would support a filibuster to stop a reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act if it granted retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that had cooperated with the federal government after the 9/11 attacks. Now Obama has those voters in the bag. So he is reaching out to the majority of Americans who want aggressive international surveillance to prevent another terrorist attack. And the average voter certainly isn't going to lose sleep if the price of that security is that...

Senate passes Electronic Surveillance Bill 69-28

Weak, timid, spineless. Those are a few words to describe Congress as it prepares to back President Bush's plans to justify his warrantless spying on Americans. What's billed as a compromise measure to codify rules on antiterrorist surveillance is too tame by half. The agreement kowtows in important ways to Bush's overwrought view that the war of terror cannot be bound by judicial oversight or the Bill of Rights. At issue is a bid by the White House to legitimize its covert eavesdropping on communications between this country and overseas. Under a 1978 law, such surveillance needed the approval a...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. phone companies would be shielded from potentially billions of dollars in lawsuits under an anti-terror spy measure that appears headed toward approval, congressional sources said on Wednesday. House of Representatives Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer, a lead negotiator on the bill, said, "We're very close to having an agreement," and a House vote could come as early as Friday. Democratic and Republican aides and a lobbyist familiar with negotiations said the House would likely approve the measure overwhelmingly. Despite opposition from its top two Democrats, the Senate would then likely give it final approval, clearing the way...

Sweden approves wiretapping law Sweden's parliament has approved controversial new laws allowing authorities to spy on cross-border e-mail and telephone traffic. The country's intelligence bureau will be able to scan international calls, faxes and e-mails. The measure was passed by a narrow majority after a heated debate in the Stockholm parliament. Critics say it threatens civil liberties and represents Europe's most far-reaching eavesdropping plan. "By introducing these new measures, the Swedish government is following the examples set by governments ranging from China and Saudi Arabia to the US government's highly criticised eavesdropping programme," said Peter Fleischer, of Google. Checks and...

A federal jury has found Los Angeles private detective Anthony Pellicano guilty of racketeering and conspiracy. The verdict, which could mean a penalty of eight to 10 years in federal prison, effectively brings to a close the career of the most infamous private eye in Los Angeles -- a man who insinuated himself into the loftiest legal and entertainment circles in town and even consulted on law enforcement cases, until he became the subject of one. Pellicano sat grinning and looking around room before the verdicts were read. But when he realized the jury had found him guilty, he crossed...

A judge on Thursday dropped nearly half the charges against "private eye to the stars" Anthony Pellicano and a co-defendant at the request of prosecutors, who were preparing to rest their case in the wiretapping and bribery trial. The 28 counts against Pellicano and ex-Los Angeles police sergeant Mark Arneson were dismissed by U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer after federal prosecutors said that witnesses required to prove them could not be brought to court. Both men still face 35 counts in the case, which centers on accusations that Pellicano wiretapped telephones and bribed police and telephone company officials to run...

In 1998, Congressman Jim McDermott...obtained and distributed to the media an illegally-obtained tape of a private conversation of Representative John Boehner. After litigating the dispute for ten years, and losing each step of the way, McDermott is now being forced by a federal judge to pay Boehner some $1.6 million in damages and legal fees: Still, it's amazing that House Democrats have stood with McDermott in his attempts to prod the courts to authorize warrantless wiretaps by private citizens against other law-abiding private citizens, while they continue to refuse to authorize government wiretaps of terrorist communications. And unfortunately for McDermott,...

WASHINGTON - House Democratic leaders agreed Thursday to a rare closed-door session — the first in 25 years — to debate surveillance legislation. Republicans requested privacy for what they termed "an honest debate" on the new Democratic eavesdropping bill that is opposed by the White House and most Republicans in Congress. The closed-door debate was scheduled for late Thursday night, after the House chamber could be cleared and swept by security personnel to make sure there are no listening devices. The last private session in the House was in 1983 on U.S. support for paramilitary operations in Nicaragua. Only five...

A do-gooder who recorded abusive Boston police officers was himself arrested under a controversial ‘wiretapping’ law This past October, when Simon Glik used his cell phone to record Boston police officers making what he thought was an overly forceful arrest on Tremont Street, he didn’t think he would be the one who ended up in the back of a police cruiser. But cops saw Glik using his cell phone’s camera with its sound-recording feature, so they arrested him for breaking the Massachusetts law that prohibits secret electronic recording, deemed “wiretapping.”Was he wiretapping, though? In Massachusetts, a “two-party consent” state since...

U.S. spy agencies have missed intelligence in the days since terrorism surveillance legislation expired, the Bush administration said on Friday, but Democrats accused it of fear mongering and blamed it for any gaps. U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell fired the latest shot in the administration's battle with Congress to obtain new legislation to wiretap terrorism suspects. The officials told Congress telecommunications firms have been reluctant to cooperate with new wiretaps since six-month temporary legislation expired last weekend. "We have lost intelligence information this past week as a direct result of the uncertainty created...

The U.S. Supreme Court's refusal Tuesday to hear a lawsuit challenging President Bush's electronic surveillance program left a critical balance-of-powers question - whether judges can decide the legality of the secretive program - in the hands of two federal courts in San Francisco. The justices rejected an appeal by the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued on behalf of journalists, lawyers and academics who believed their phone and e-mail messages were being intercepted. That ended the only case so far to test the constitutionality of Bush's order that launched the surveillance program in early 2002. U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs...

From DCRTV: Sunday Afternoon Fireworks On WMAL - 2/17 - A DCRTVer tells us about "a nasty, dragged out, and loud blowout" between WMAL's Jerry Klein (on the political left) and Chris Plante (on the political right) during their program, "The Chris Plante And Jerry Klein Show," on Sunday afternoon. "It got so bad, that Chris walked out of the studio at one point." The topics were waterboarding, wiretapping, and terrorism. "It got very personal and downright nasty." The audio is not yet up at Chris Plante's audio page at wmal.com, but maybe soon.....

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats appear to have decided that November's election is a distraction from their effort to simply pull the plug on a sitting President... Democrats voted yesterday, for the first time in decades, to hold two White House officials in contempt of Congress. Hours later it emerged that Ms. Pelosi has apparently decided not to vote on the warrantless wiretap bill passed by the Senate... This means that the Protect America Act -- which conferred Congressional support to wiretapping suspected al Qaeda terrorists -- will expire at midnight... We admit to wondering earlier this week whether...

Keith Weissman and Steven Rosen Are PhDs and Middle East Experts Who Did Some Lobbying. They Thought They Were Doing What Washington Insiders Always Do. Thomas O’Donnell didn’t reveal his job when he phoned Keith Weissman in 2004 and got the policy analyst’s wife. He says he didn’t want to scare her. When Weissman returned the call and found out O’Donnell was an FBI agent, his first reaction was to attempt a joke: “What did I do?” “I’m sure you didn’t do anything,” O’Donnell told him. He wanted to meet that day, for five or ten minutes, and get Weissman’s...

LOS ANGELES A federal judge refused to suppress evidence in a government case that accused Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano of illegally wiretapping stars. U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer issued six separate rulings on Friday that went against Pellicano and five co-defendants. The motions sought to suppress evidence the defense argued was mishandled or obtained through government misconduct. That included recordings of Pellicano's telephone conversations that were seized in a search of his Sunset Strip offices four years ago. One of the motions sought to have the entire criminal indictment dismissed. "We are extremely pleased with the court's ruling,"...

Congressman backed Ramadan, Diwali, But the Washington Democrat drew the line at Christmas.

The long legal fight between two members of Congress over an illegally taped telephone call ended Monday when the Supreme Court refused to review the case. The court, without comment, left in place a federal appeals court ruling that Representative Jim McDermott, Democrat of Washington, acted improperly in giving reporters access to a recording of a 1996 telephone call of Republican leaders discussing the House ethics case against Representative Newt Gingrich, who was then House speaker. Mr. McDermott had asked the justices to hear his appeal of that ruling, which he said infringed on his free-speech rights.

LOS ANGELES - A federal appeals court in San Francisco yesterday handed a major victory to the Bush administration, ruling that a lawsuit challenging the government's warrantless wiretapping program could not go forward because of the "state secrets" privilege. In a 3-to-0 decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit sided with the government, which had argued that allowing an Islamic charity's assertion that it was illegally spied upon would threaten national security. In the opinion, Judge M. Margaret McKeown flatly rejected the government's argument that "the very subject matter of the litigation is a state secret."

Excerpt - Attorney General Dustin Mc-Daniel said the state Republican Party chairman took “a cheap shot” in asking him to investigate whether then-first lady Hillary Clinton violated state law during her husband’s presidential campaign in 1992 by listening to a recording of a phone conversation. McDaniel, a Democrat who is co-chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in Arkansas, said GOP Chairman Dennis Milligan “wanted... to get me to make some sort of comment that in some way blurred the lines between my job as attorney general and the fact that I am supporting Hillary. “ They know that this was...

Big Brother Britain: Government and councils to spy on ALL our phonesBy JASON LEWIS - More by this author » Last updated at 23:31pm on 29th September 2007  Officials from the top of Government to lowly council officers will be given unprecedented powers to access details of every phone call in Britain under laws coming into force tomorrow.  The new rules compel phone companies to retain information, however private, about all landline and mobile calls, and make them available to some 795 public bodies and quangos. The move, enacted by the personal decree of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, will...

At first blush it's not particularly easy to connect the New England Patriots' spying flap to President Bush, but Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson found a way to do it Friday. "The president has been allowed to spy on Americans without a warrant, and our U.S. Senate is letting it continue," said the New Mexico governor in a statement. "You know something is wrong when the New England Patriots face stiffer penalties for spying on innocent Americans than Dick Cheney and George Bush." Richardson attended high school and college in the Boston area. After the NFL determined the Patriots secretly...

The US director of intelligence has said wiretaps played a significant role in stopping bomb attacks by suspected Islamists in Germany last week. Michael McConnell told a Senate committee eavesdropping had revealed that the suspects had obtained explosive liquids. He said Congress should not restrict the programme. In August, a temporary bill was adopted allowing eavesdropping on foreign terror suspects without a warrant. Controversial programme Mr McConnell said the surveillance programme had made "significant contributions" in discovering and breaking up a suspected plot in Germany to bomb US installations. "It allowed us to see and understand all the connections to...

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has confirmed for the first time that American telecommunications companies played a crucial role in the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program after asserting for more than a year that any role played by the companies was a state secret. The acknowledgement was made in an unusual interview that Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, conducted with The El Paso Times last week in which he disclosed details on classified intelligence issues that the administration has long insisted would harm national security if discussed publicly. He made the remarks, an apparent effort to bolster...

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 15 — Three federal appeals court judges hearing challenges to the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs appeared skeptical of and sometimes hostile to the Bush administration’s central argument Wednesday: that national security concerns require that the lawsuits be dismissed. The three judges, members of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, were hearing arguments in two lawsuits challenging the highly classified surveillance programs, which the administration says are essential in fighting international terrorism. The appeals were the first to reach the court after dozens of suits against the government and telecommunications companies over N.S.A....

Ashland, Ore. - It's hard – often impossible – to prove that secret government wiretapping in the name of national security is violating one's privacy rights. The evidence itself usually is top secret. But one rather obscure case could pull back the veil on a surveillance program that's at the heart of the US fight against terror. In the federal appeals court in San Francisco Wednesday, lawyers for a Saudi charity accused of helping Al Qaeda will argue that their clients, including two American attorneys, were illegally spied on without the required court warrant. How do they know? Treasury Department...

War On Terror: If al-Qaida were writing Congress' script, it's hard to imagine things would play out much differently than what leading Democrats are doing now. Considering the threat we're under, that's a chilling statement. The CIA's tough interrogation of terrorist prisoners like 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has helped foil at least 10 serious al-Qaida plots, three of them on U.S. soil, according to President Bush. But far from being grateful to those in government who have saved perhaps thousands of innocent American lives, Democrats in Congress are acting like al-Qaida stooges:

The backlash on this should be fun. I can see all the posts about the death of the 5th Amendment again from people who've never read the 5th Amendment, and more whining without any historical perspective. Best part is that those decrying fowl for being able to listen to international calls are going to propose opening more crates in our ports ... as if there is a difference. NY Times: President Bush signed into law on Sunday legislation that broadly expanded the government’s authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.

Much has been said in the mainstream media about how the Bush presidency is essentially over, a lame duck mired in controversy. Thursday, however, George W. Bush demonstrated that when he does wish to use the bully pulpit, especially with powerful allies like Mitch McConnell in the United States Senate, he very much can move legislation through in a very timely fashion. Throughout this week in both houses of Congress, there has been consideration and negotiation on a piece of legislation submitted by Vice Admiral Mike McConnell, the National Director of Intelligence, who very clearly spelled out in Congressional testimony...

US President George W. Bush on Saturday called for Congress to revise a US security law in order to ease restrictions on the government's secret communications surveillance of terror suspects. Amid furor over Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's handling of the government's secret warrantless wiretap program, Bush urged legislators to pass the update of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) proposed in April. The changes would ease intelligence collection aimed at people plotting attacks on the United States, Bush said in his weekly radio address. "Today we face sophisticated terrorists who use disposable cell phones and the Internet to communicate...

The U.S. homeland hasn't been struck by terrorists since September 11, and one reason may be more aggressive intelligence policies. So Americans should be alarmed that one of the best intelligence tools--warrantless wiretapping of al Qaeda suspects--has recently become far less effective and is in danger of being neutered by Congressional Democrats. President Bush approved this terrorist surveillance not long after 9/11, allowing intelligence officials to track terrorist calls overseas, as well as overseas communications with al Qaeda sympathizers operating in the U.S. The New York Times exposed the program in late 2005, and Democrats and antiwar activists immediately denounced...

Last Updated: Wednesday, 27 June 2007, 19:43 GMT 20:43 UK E-mail this to a friend Printable version Bush faces eavesdropping subpoena The US Senate has issued a subpoena ordering the White House to give up documents related to its surveillance of domestic terror suspects. The Senate Judiciary Committee asked the Bush administration to give up the papers as part of its inquiry into the controversial spying programme. The administration has refused a series of requests to release the documents. The president rejects claims he broke the law by ordering surveillance without first securing warrants. The programme, authorised after the...

Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed said he will review all evidence before deciding whether to prosecute an 18-year-old Carlisle man for taping a police officer during a traffic stop. But two defense attorneys versed in wiretapping cases said Brian D. Kelly shouldn't even have been charged. The state Supreme Court has ruled that taping police in such public situations is legal, they said. Freed said the evidence he'll study will include not only police recordings of the May 24 incident, but the audio and video Kelly shot before Carlisle police arrested him on a felony wiretapping charge. "Once the...

Search engine giant Google has slammed Sweden's proposed wiretapping legislation as illiberal and incompatible with Western democracy. Speaking on a visit to Sweden on Tuesday, the company's global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer, warned that Google would rule out making any major investments in Sweden should the controversial bill become law. "We have contacted Swedish authorities to give our view of the proposal and we have made it clear that we will never place any servers inside Sweden's borders if the proposal goes through," Fleischer told Internet World. The proposal, which would allow the National Defence Radio Establishment (Försvarets Radioanstalt -...

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Jim McDermott has had the luxury of winning big and cheaply in recent elections, facing only token opposition But that fortunate history could pose a problem for McDermott if the Seattle Democrat is forced to pay more than $1 million in legal fees and penalties to settle his long-running legal battle with House Minority Leader John Boehner. Unlike colleagues who have been able to tap into campaign funds for legal costs, McDermott doesn't have enough cash in his coffers to cover his bills. The prospect that McDermott soon will be liable for a huge payout became a...

A federal wiretapping trial involving private investigator Anthony Pellicano and five co-defendants was postponed to Feb. 27. U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer on Monday granted a defense motion seeking a delay. One of the defendants, Kevin Kachikian, hired a new attorney and asked for additional time to have the lawyer review the case. Trial was slated to begin in August. Prosecutors opposed the motion, arguing defense attorneys have had enough time to prepare for trial. "While this case is complex, it is not so complex as to require the delay that defendants now seek of a full two years between...

The U. S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, ruling en banc, delivered another in a long series of verdicts that have found Representative Jim McDermott, serving his 9th term representing Washington's 9th district, violated the rights of Rep. John Boehner when McDermott leaked an illegally taped conversation. The Court also ruled that Mr. McDermott broke House Ethics rules.

I have posted several times in the past about this topic, this is just an update for you techheads who might be interesetd...oh, and anyone who uses the internet... which is...everyone. Most people have no idea what CALEA is. It is a law to assist law enforcement's ability to intercept phone calls. It was written and passed and signed into law in 1994 by Congress. It mandated that digital switching equipment technology be required to have certain specific capabilities which would make tapping a person's phone calls, and making the call history easier to get. Congress ante'd up millions to...

Well, it appears that even Freepers don't get what's going on around them, and so I have to start from the beginning. In the early '90's Law enforcement, specifically, the FBI was increasingly concerned that new physical methods of providing phone service would make wiretapping all but impossible. Congress wrote and passed CALEA - Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Agencies. Included with this effort was a considerable amount of money which was specified to be used for programming and other technical needs, to compensate providers of phone services (telco) and equipment makers for the extra work required to add "tappability"...

I posted a while back about the financial and business aspects of CALEA on your local ISP's. Oddly enough, most people thought I was just ignorant. Well, THEY are ignorant. There's an interesting blog thread here: http://blogs.globalcrossing.com/paulk?from=60 He makes a very sharp point. While the original CALEA legislation was little other than requiring (and paying) the telcos to ensure that normal phone taps could occur, the DOJ and FCC have suddenly strayed far beyond that. VIOP was unknown at the time CALEA was written. But, it's been construed by the FCC to apply to all services that carry voice, chat,...

A federal grand jury on Wednesday returned a revised indictment in a Hollywood wiretapping scandal that chronicles further conversations between private investigator Anthony Pellicano and an attorney representing billionaire Kirk Kerkorian. The new indictment comes more than a year after initial charges were filed in the case and six months before trial is expected to begin. Prosecutors promised another indictment was forthcoming but no new defendants and charges were included in the latest version. It does include detailed discussions between Pellicano, 62, and Terry Christensen, an attorney who represented Kirkorian in a child-support battle with his ex-wife. Prosecutors accused Christensen...

Democrats put Pentagon under scrutiny WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 (UPI) -- Covert activities carried out by the Pentagon for U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are coming under scrutiny by the new Democratic Congress. Before winning control of both houses in November elections, Democrats' questions about such things are warrantless wiretapping and the collection of personal data were deflected by majority Republicans, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The leader of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., has scheduled hearings beginning March 1 to investigate the practices, as well as to determine if the Pentagon created an intelligence agency parallel...

WASHINGTON - As a senior member of the House ethics committee, Rep. Jim McDermott (news, bio, voting record) had an obligation not to disclose the contents of an illegally taped telephone call involving House Republican leaders, a lawyer for one of the House Republicans said Thursday. Just as a federal judge should not reveal confidential information about a case, McDermott should not have given reporters access to the taped telephone call, regardless of how it was obtained, said lawyer Michael Carvin. "He had a duty not to disclose, therefore he can't claim First Amendment rights" allowing him to make the...

VIENNA: The CIA, using a double-agent Russian scientist, may have handed a blueprint for a nuclear bomb to Iran. State of War by James Risen, the New York Times reporter who exposed the Bush administration's controversial domestic spying operation, claims the plans contained fatal flaws designed to derail Tehran's nuclear drive. But the deliberate errors were so rudimentary they would have been easily fixed by sophisticated Russian nuclear scientists, the book said. The operation, which took place during the Clinton administration in early 2000, was codenamed Operation Merlin and "may have been one of the most reckless operations in...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17-The Bush administration, in what appears to be a concession to its critics, said to day it will allow an independent court to monitor its warrantless electronic-eavesdropping program.Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to supervise anti-terrorism wiretapping within the United States, will supervise the eavesdropping operations from now on.

A businessman pleaded guilty Tuesday to aiding and abetting charges linked to the wiretapping case against one-time private eye to the stars Anthony Pellicano. Daniel Nicherie, 46, was the seventh defendant to plead guilty in connection with sweeping allegations of a conspiracy involving wiretapping and digging up dirt on people, including celebrities such as Sylvester Stallone. Nicherie admitted in federal court that he authorized Pellicano to intercept the telephone conversations of a man he was in a business dispute with. Prosecutors alleged that Nicherie listened to the intercepted conversations and translated those talks at Pellicano's office. Under a deal with...

The Fourth Amendment to our Constitution protects Americans against "unreasonable searches and seizures" and against warrants being issued without "probable cause" that they have done something wrong. While most Americans who might be familiar with this portion of our Bill of Rights probably consider its protections to apply only to criminals and therefore of little consequence to them, the Fourth Amendment actually provides vital protection to all Americans, not just "criminals." In fact, its prefatory language makes this clear, explicitly providing that its goal is to assure that the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,...

Indict the New York Times By Henry Mark Holzer FrontPageMagazine.com | September 29, 2006 It is an article of faith on the Left and among its fellow travelers that the Bush administration stole two elections, made war on Iraq for venal reasons, tortured hapless foreigners, and conducted illegal surveillance of innocent Americans. A corollary of this mindset is that the press, primarily the Washington Post and The New York Times, has a right, indeed a duty, to print whatever they want about the administration—even if the information compromises national security. Not true. The press is not exempt from laws that...