US response to terrorism is weakened by lapses in communication - Los Angeles Times | FBI aware of multiple potential victims in Hastert case - CBS News

US response to terrorism is weakened by lapses in communication - Los Angeles Times | FBI aware of multiple potential victims in Hastert case - CBS News - FBI News Review

June 07, 2015

» US response to terrorism is weakened by lapses in communication - Los Angeles Times
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Los Angeles Times US response to terrorism is weakened by lapses in communication Los Angeles Times According to FBI Director James Comey and other top federal officials, the bureau immediately warned Garland, Texas, police...

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» Alabama Bill To Eliminate Marriage Licenses Dies In House ...
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» FBI, Avon police searching for missing girls - cleveland.com
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» Sheriff's Dept. responds to StingRay allegations - Victorville Daily Press
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FBI : Planes over Phoenix are 'no secret' azcentral.com The ACLU has stated it is worried about what sort of information the FBI is gathering, but the FBI has reiterated that the program is for investigative purposes and follows ...

» Marin librarians celebrate revisions to Patriot Act; user data safer now - Marin Independent Journal
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Marin librarians celebrate revisions to Patriot Act; user data safer now Marin Independent Journal According to a report issued by the Justice Department's Inspector General in 2007, the FBI issued almost 200,000 national security le...

» FBI arrests suspected 'Clean Cut Bandit' - Contra Costa Times
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KRON4.com FBI arrests suspected 'Clean Cut Bandit' Contra Costa Times The FBI on Friday arrested a man wanted in connection with a number of bank robberies in the Bay Area known as the "Clean Cut Bandit." Darius Gilbert...

» FBI Misuse of Patriot Act Authority. “Anyone can be Spied on ...
06/06/15 13:22 from fbi - Google Blog Search

» Divining the capabilities of the FBI's ubiquitous spy aircraft - Boing Boing
06/06/15 12:10 from fbi - Google News
Boing Boing Divining the capabilities of the FBI's ubiquitous spy aircraft Boing Boing The FBI has filled the skies of America's cities with covert aircraft, crisscrossing overhead, bristling with sensors and cloaked in mystery, ...

» Alabama Republicans Kill Bid To Scrap Marriage Licenses - Daily Caller
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On Top Magazine Alabama Republicans Kill Bid To Scrap Marriage Licenses Daily Caller An Alabama bill designed to outmaneuver a possible Supreme Court ruling in favor of gay marriage by scrapping marriage licenses died quickly in the stat...

» FBI arrests Bay Area “Clean Cut Bandit” - KRON4.com
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KRON4.com FBI arrests Bay Area “Clean Cut Bandit” KRON4.com LOS ANGELES (BCN)– The FBI today arrested a man wanted in connection with a number of bank robberies in the Bay Area known as the “Clean Cut Bandit.” Darius Gilbert, 48, was arr...

» Divining the capabilities of the FBI's ubiquitous spy aircraft ...
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» Google And Apple Helping ISIS Spread Terror? Here's Why, According To FBI - Tech Times
06/06/15 04:58 from fbi - Google News
Tech Times Google And Apple Helping ISIS Spread Terror? Here's Why, According To FBI Tech Times The FBI finds it extremely difficult to intercept communication if encrypted channels are involved, which creates a "dark space"...

» Former FBI agent says northern Colorado shooting task force should engage ... - The Denver Channel
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FBI and TSA issued an alert to airlines: Beware, hackers Crain's Detroit Business (blog) The plane went on to Philadelphia where the FBI inspected it and found evidence of damage and tampering with the Seat Electronic Box below Chris'...

» When It’s a Crime to Withdraw Money From Your Bank
06/06/15 00:00 from NYT > Federal Bureau of Investigation
A look at what the former House speaker Dennis Hastert is accused of, and why the government is so interested in what people do with their money.

» FBI: Hastert Sexual Misconduct Count As Many As Three ...
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Senators boost judicial budget by $3.5 million next year WAFB.com Though lawmakers have been struggling to fill financial gaps, the Senate Finance Committee disagreed with the House decision to provide a standstill $176 million judicial ...

» What an NYPD Spy Copter Reveals About the FBI's Spy Planes - Wired
05/06/15 21:22 from fbi - Google News
Wired What an NYPD Spy Copter Reveals About the FBI's Spy Planes Wired It should have surprised no one that the FBI has a secret fleet of spy planes it uses domestically to watch us, as the Associated Press reported this week. WIRED ...

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» FBI aware of multiple potential victims in Hastert case - CBS News
05/06/15 18:53 from fbi - Google News
Chicago Daily Herald FBI aware of multiple potential victims in Hastert case CBS News CBS News has learned that during the investigation into Dennis Hastert, the FBI became aware of as many as two, maybe three, potential victims alleging...

» FBI may have talked with more than one victim in Hastert case - CBS News
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CBS News FBI may have talked with more than one victim in Hastert case CBS News Hastert last month was indicted and charged with violating federal banking laws and lying to FBI investigators. According to the indictment, Hastert agreed t...

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FBI aware of multiple potential victims in Hastert case
Sunday June 7th, 2015 at 3:29 PM

Last Updated Jun 5, 2015 7:29 PM EDT

CBS News has learned that during the investigation into Dennis Hastert, the FBI became aware of as many as two, maybe three, potential victims alleging sexual misconduct by the House speaker.

Hastert last month was indicted and charged with violating federal banking laws and lying to FBI investigators. According to the indictment, Hastert agreed to pay $3.5 million in 2010 to a person identified only as "Individual A," in an effort to "compensate and conceal" Hastert's "prior misconduct."

"Individual A" is one of the alleged victims the FBI may have interviewed, according to law enforcement sources.

Word of the more expansive FBI investigation came on the same day of more explosive charges from the family of an alleged abuse victim.

Jolene Burdge told ABC that Hastert molested her brother, Stephen Reinboldt, all through high school. At the time, Hastert was the wrestling coach and Reinboldt was the student equipment manager at Yorkville High School in Illinois.

"He damaged Steve I think more than any of us will ever know," Burdge said.

Reinboldt is not "Individual A" mentioned in Hastert's indictment. According to Burdge, Reinboldt died in 1995 at the age of 42 from AIDS. When her brother came out as gay, Burdge said he told her a secret.

"I asked him, 'Steve, what was your first same-sex experience?' And he looked at me and said, 'It was with Dennis Hastert,'" Burdge said. "And, you know, I was stunned."

While Reinboldt was a student, he went to the Bahamas along with several others from their local Explorer troop. Hastert was on the trip as well.

"I mean, here was the mentor, the man who was, you know, basically his friend, who was the one abusing him," Burdge said.

Jolene Burdge told The Associated Press on Thursday that the FBI interviewed her in mid-May about Hastert.

Gary Matlock was a Yorkville wrestler from 1969 to 1973, and has called Hastert a mentor. He also went on that Bahamas trip but recalls nothing untoward.

When asked if the allegations have shaken his respect for Hastert, Matlock told CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds, "I don't know if the word is 'shaken.' It's surprised me. It's disappointed me."

If given an opportunity to speak with Hastert, Matlock says he would ask him, "Denny, what the hell happened?"

Hastert served as speaker from 1999 to 2007 and stood second in line to the U.S. presidency. He has not been charged with sexual abuse.

Instead, Hastert is charged with violating federal banking laws when he made big cash withdrawals and with lying to the FBI about why. His arraignment is set for next Tuesday in federal court.

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· ·

What an NYPD Spy Copter Reveals About the FBI's Spy Planes
Sunday June 7th, 2015 at 3:28 PM

WIRED

It should have surprised no one that the FBI has a secret fleet of spy planes it uses domestically to watch us, as the Associated Press reported this week. WIRED published a story about surveillance aircraft spotted flying in unusual patterns in California and Virginia back in 2006. And the Wall Street Journal reported last year that the US Marshals Service has surveillance planes that use so-called “dirtboxes” to track mobile phone users on the ground.

But long before this, the New York Police Department had a high-tech surveillance helicopter that it obtained in 2003 through a government grant and exposed publicly to the media that year when it gave journalists a tour of the $10 million toy.

WIRED began investigating the chopper in 2008, and uncovered, but hasn’t published until now, information about the precise surveillance components installed on it and the methods the NYPD used to conceal its ownership and operation. Like the FBI, the NYPD used a shell company to register the aircraft. But the NYPD also requested special “undercover” registration handling from the FAA to thwart tracking by aviation enthusiasts who might spot it in the air and attempt to investigate the registration number associated with it. The NYPD also asked the FAA to notify its aviation unit if anyone contacted the agency inquiring about the aircraft.

This raises serious questions about how many agencies are operating them in the US and how exactly they’re being used.

Last month, the issue of secret law enforcement aircraft began getting attention after plane spottersaround the country began reporting suspicious aircraft registered to shell companies that were flying unusual routes over numerous cities. The Associated Press caught on to the stories and this weekpublished its own piece identifying some 50 surveillance craft that were registered to more than a dozen shell companies and were being used by FBI field offices around the country.

The response to that story has been mixed. Some readers were shocked by the secret flights and Big Brother surveillance; others scoffed at the alarm the AP appeared to be inciting, arguing that spy planes are just another surveillance tool law enforcement uses to monitor suspects in areas, or for lengths of time, they couldn’t otherwise monitor through conventional means by foot or car. For example, authorities used a special surveillance helicopter with thermal imaging equipment in 2013 to spot the Boston Marathon bomber as he lay hidden beneath a tarp covering a stored boat.

But regardless of the utility of high-tech surveillance aircraft, their use raises serious questions about how many agencies are operating them in the U.S. and how exactly they’re being used and to what end.

The AP story didn’t provide much detail about the technology aboard the FBI planes, other than to note that some carry imaging systems that can capture “video from long distances, even at night,” while others have stingrays or dirtboxes on board to capture cellphone signals.

But detailed information about what the NYPD has on board its spy copter is available and can serve to further enlighten. The New York Police Department is the nation’s largest local law enforcement agency, and it generally leads the way in acquisition of modern equipment. Where it goes, the rest of the country tends to follow. So an examination of its aerial surveillance capabilities can be instructive for understanding what other law enforcement agencies around the country may be using.

The NYPD’s surveillance activities can also be instructive for another reason. The department has repeatedly been criticized for its over-zealous spy programs—including at least one documented case involving its spy copter. So concerns about abuse of such aircraft are not unfounded.

$10 Million Spy Jewel

The public first learned about the NYPD’s Bell 412EP surveillance helicopter in October 2003 when aregional New York newspaper published a small story unveiling the recently purchased $9.8 million “jewel.” The specially modified chopper, which the department kept parked at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, was unmarked—meaning it carried no insignia identifying it as law enforcement aircraft. Acquired through a Justice Department grant, it was customized with a photo- and video-surveillance system capable of capturing clear images of license plates—or the faces of individuals—from 1,000 feet away. It could even, the story noted, “pick up the catcher’s signals at Yankee Stadium.”

It was described as the “most advanced in use by any police force” at the time, and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly noted that it would be used to fight conventional crime, conduct search-and-rescue missions and “play a key role in anti-terrorism efforts.”

The NYPD referred to the helicopter only as “23”—a reference to the number of police officers killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks—and initially the aircraft had no registration number painted on its tail or side. In later investigating the aircraft, WIRED learned that in 2003 the NYPD had asked the FAA to change the original registration number for the aircraft from N2411X to a special one containing the “23” reference—N23FH (believed to be a reference to “23 Fallen Heroes”). NYPD Deputy Inspector Joseph Gallucci also wrote the FAA at the time asking that the registration be handled in an “undercover” manner and that “any inquiries to the registration number be flagged” and referred to Robert Kikel in the NYPD’s Aviation Unit. WIRED obtained documents for the aircraft only after learning the original registration number and filing a FOIA request with the FAA.

The camera could beam live footage to police command centers below or to wireless devices in the hands of police commanders.

Five years after that 2003 story about the helicopter was published, the public learned more about the technology installed on the helicopter from an Associated Press article published about it in 2008. That piece described three flat-screen monitors onboard that were displaying Statue of Liberty sightseers from a mile and a half away. It also described the high-powered camera, mounted in a turret below the chopper’s nose, that had infrared night-vision capabilities and satellite navigation to zoom in on any address typed into its computer. The system could beam live footage to police command centers below or to wireless devices in the hands of police commanders in the field. The helicopter had been used, the story noted, to track fleeing suspects and to patrol the skies during a visit by Pope Benedict XVI to New York.

A privacy advocate interviewed for the story raised concerns about how the helicopter might be abused, but John Diazo, crew chief for the aircraft, replied, “Obviously, we’re not looking into apartments. We don’t invade the privacy of individuals. We only want to observe anything that’s going on in public.”

But the NYPD’s surveillance helicopter had in fact already been involved in at least one privacy controversy at the time Diazo made his remark. On the night of August 27, 2004, an officer aboard the helicopter was monitoring several thousand bicyclists conducting a street protest prior to the Republican National Convention when he directed the copter’s camera to a nearby balcony. For nearly four minutes he lingered on a music executive and his girlfriend having sex on the terrace of the executive’s Second Avenue penthouse. Jeffrey Rosner, the executive, later said he had no idea the helicopter was watching him, let alone filming him. It was dark outside and Rosner and his girlfriend were shielded by a wall of shrubs. But the camera’s thermal imaging system saw right through those obstacles and caught them in their intimate embrace.

“When you watch the tape, it makes you feel kind of ill,” Rosner later told the New York Times.

The surveillance only came to light after one of the bicyclists on the ground was arrested and demanded to see footage from the helicopter’s camera. A police spokesman told the Times that police sometimes videotaped rooftop activity if they thought someone might be in a position to throw objects at officers below. “In this instance, the officer was instructed afterward to terminate taping once it was determined a threat did not exist,” he said.

Other cases of abuse might exist, but the NYPD has fought efforts by the ACLU and others to obtain information about its spy aircraft, so it’s hard to know for sure.

Shell Companies and Schematics

One of the most intriguing aspects of the recent FBI spy plane stories is the revelation of the web of shell companies the agency has used to register the fleet, all with three-letter names like FVX Research, KQM Aviation, and PXW Services. Many of the shell companies have addresses in Bristow, Virginia, making it easy to single them out.

The NYPD’s helicopter, as previously noted, was also registered to an apparent shell company, this one called Montero Inc. in Brooklyn, New York. FAA records show that Montero took ownership of the aircraft from Bell Helicopter, the manufacturer, in 2003. Stephen Vance, identified as president of Montero, signed the registration papers. But efforts by WIRED in 2008 and later to locate Vance and his company were unsuccessful. The Montero address listed on the FAA documents—1957 86th Street, Suite 249 in Brooklyn, NY—was the address for Mailboxes, Etc., a company that provides post office box services to multiple customers. Oddly, after being registered to Montero for more than a decade, the helicopter’s registration recently reverted back on April 10 from Montero to Bell Helicopter in Texas.

In addition to revealing the shell ownership, however, the FAA documents for the NYPD helicopter proved interesting for another reason. They provided a detailed list of all the components and modifications the Bell helicopter underwent to meet the NYPD’s surveillance needs.

Spy equipment added to the NYPD helicopter in 2003 includes a WESCAM MX-15 Video Imaging System, also described as a Thermal Imager, and a WESCAM SkyPod B Airborne Microwave Transmission System. The latter includes a GPS receiver that allows the camera to zoom in on specified locations.

Additionally, there is a Comant CI 405 GPS antenna installed on the cockpit roof, a Chelton 931-8 Direction Finding system and a Datong Tracking System “for tracking targeted electronic beacons.” The latter presumably is for monitoring GPS trackers that law enforcement agencies place surreptitiously on vehicles. (See the documents below for more details about the components installed on the aircraft.)

The equipment installed in the helicopter was likely state-of-the-art at the time it was placed in the aircraft in 2003, but in the intervening decade it no doubt has been surpassed by more powerful technologies. One thing that apparently wasn’t installed in the helicopter at the time was a stingray—a device, sometimes called an IMSI catcher or dirtbox, that simulates a cell phone tower in order to trick mobile phones and other devices into connecting them and revealing their location. Stingrays don’t just affect targeted phones; they pick up signals emanating from every mobile device in an area and allow authorities not only to track the devices but, with additional information, to identify who might be carrying them.

The FBI told the AP that its surveillance planes use stingrays but only in limited situations and that their use now require a court order. A Wall Street Journal story published last year revealed that the US Marshals Service also operates surveillance planes equipped with stingrays. It’s not known if the NYPD helicopter has used them as well.

While law enforcement is using aircraft to secretly spy on people, there are tools available to spy on spy planes.

The irony around the recent revelations about the FBI and US Marshals Service spy planes is that while these law enforcement agencies have been using the aircraft to secretly monitor people on the ground, people on the ground have been monitoring the spy planes. The AP and others have been able to track the movement of the FBI surveillance planes using <a href="http://FlightAware.com" rel="nofollow">FlightAware.com</a>, a web site that displays animated maps showing the routes that aircraft owned by the FBI and others take, based on the aircraft registration numbers, flight plans and other data.

Unfortunately, helicopters aren’t as easily tracked. The last flight path available on FlightAware for the NYPD’s N23FH spy plane is from September 2011 when the helicopter flew from York, Pennsylvania to Newark, NJ one Saturday morning. A representative for FlightAware told WIRED that the site only tracks flights navigated by instrument; not ones navigated by visual means alone, the manner in which helicopters are generally flown. And helicopter pilots also don’t generally file flight plans, since they tend to remain within a single region. They’ll file a flight plan, he said, only if they leave the region and fly to another state, for example.

As technologies advance, many of the piloted spy craft that currently populate the air from law enforcement agencies will eventually be replaced with unmanned drones that can do the same kinds of surveillance at a fraction of the cost, while at the same time being harder to track.
It’s also unclear what kind of oversight will be put in place to ensure that agencies don’t abuse them. A recent report by the National Journal noted that only fourteen states currently require law enforcement to obtain a warrant before using drones for surveillance. The friendly skies are getting much less friendly every day.

NYPD Helicopter N23FH

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FBI: Hastert Sexual Misconduct Count As Many As Three Victims
Sunday June 7th, 2015 at 3:27 PM

Comments On: FBI: Hastert Sexual Misconduct Count As Many As Three Victims

by Ken Meyer | 11:08 pm, June 5th, 2015

On Friday, Jolene Burdge talked to ABC News about her deceased brother, who she claims was sexually victimized in high school during the teaching days of Dennis Hastert. Later that day, CBS News learned that the FBI has brought up the count of potential victims to three.

The former House Speaker was recently indicted after investigators discovered acts of bank fraud and lying to the FBI as part of his plan to pay for the silence of his victims. The report stated that an “Individual A” was named in the federal indictment last week as the person to whom Hastert was sending hush money.

Burdge said that her brother, Stephen Reinboldt, was molested by Hastert all throughout high school, having served as the equipment manager for the wrestling team Hastert coached. “He damaged Steve I think more than any of us will ever know,” Burdge said, adding that Reinboldt never told anyone else because he thought “nobody would believe him”.

Reinboldt died of AIDS in 1995, meaning that he is not the “Individual A” Hastert had an agreement with in order to “compensate and conceal” his prior acts.

Hastert has yet to be charged for the sexual abuse, currently facing charges for only the acts involved in the cover-up.

You can watch the video here, via CBS News:

[Image via Screengrab]

— —

>> Follow Ken Meyer (@KenMeyer91) on Twitter

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· · ·

When It’s a Crime to Withdraw Money From Your Bank
Sunday June 7th, 2015 at 3:26 PM

NYT > The Upshot

Dennis Hastert has not been indicted on a charge of sexual abuse, nor has he been indicted on a charge of paying money he was not legally allowed to pay. The indictment of Mr. Hastert, a former House speaker, released last week, lays out two counts: taking money out of the bank the wrong way, and then lying to the F.B.I. about what he did with the money.

Does that make sense? Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic, for example, is worried that the indictment constitutes government overreach, punishing Mr. Hastert for concealing payments whose disclosure he may have thought would be damaging to his reputation, but which were not illegal.

Federal prosecutors allege Mr. Hastert was paying hush money in exchange for wrongdoing that happened long ago. But Mr. Hastert is charged with structuring: making repeated four-figure cash withdrawals from his bank in order to avoid the generation of cash transaction reports, which banks are required to send the government about every transaction over $10,000. These reports have been required since 1970, with the intention of helping the federal government identify organized criminals and tax evaders.

To be clear: It’s not illegal simply to take $8,000 out of the bank repeatedly.

“The criminal provisions there do have strong mens rea (criminal intent) requirements: The government has the burden to prove that the defendant knew about the reporting requirement and intended to evade it,” said Jim Copland, who directs the Center for Legal Policy at the Manhattan Institute, a right-of-center think tank. “So this is quite unlike many of the regulatory crimes that can ensnare the unsophisticated.”

“Whether a former House Speaker who presided over the Patriot Act’s enactment can show absence of mens rea here, of course, may be doubtful,” he added.

Prosecutions for structuring without any charge of an underlying offense with the money are not unusual, said Peter Djinis, a lawyer focusing on laws against money laundering, who until 2002 was executive assistant director for regulatory policy at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the arm of the Treasury Department that enforces these rules.

“In many cases, the most attractive route to take when you can’t prove the underlying crime is to go with the activity that’s in front of you,” Mr. Djinis said.

Of course, that’s exactly the sort of prosecutorial approach Mr. Friedersdorf is worried about, since it assumes the existence of an underlying crime. As he notes, a person who engages in structuring because of “a simple aversion to being monitored,” despite having no intention of using the money for an illegal purpose, is committing a crime.

And over time, the size of the transaction you can make without the government watching has fallen in real terms. The reporting threshold has not been raised since the Bank Secrecy Act was passed in 1970, and $10,000 today is equivalent to just $1,640 in 1970 dollars. Actions by Congress have also tightened the rules around moving cash: Congress banned structuring in 1986, started requiring banks to report smaller-but-still-suspicious transactions in 1992, and added further reporting requirements in the Patriot Act, under Mr. Hastert’s watch.

With the reporting threshold having fallen so much in real terms, about 15 million cash transaction reports are filed annually for transactions over $10,000, plus about 1.6 million reports of otherwise suspicious activity, often for cash transactions below $10,000.

Still, privacy concerns need to be balanced with the entirely valid purpose of anti-money-laundering laws, that is, disrupting the activities of illegal businesses and tax evaders. Even in this case, there is a tax angle: Large cash transactions that go unnoticed by the government might go unreported to the Internal Revenue Service.

Paul Caron, a tax law professor at Pepperdine University, noted that the person who was paid money by Mr. Hastert may have owed income tax on the payments, whether they constituted a settlement, extortion or something else. Yes, even proceeds from extortion are taxable income; there was a Supreme Court case about the matter in 1952.

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· · ·

FBI and TSA issued an alert to airlines: Beware, hackers - Crain's Detroit Business
Sunday June 7th, 2015 at 3:25 PM

Divining the capabilities of the FBI's ubiquitous spy aircraft
Sunday June 7th, 2015 at 3:22 PM

Boing Boing

The FBI has filled the skies of America's cities with covert aircraft, crisscrossing overhead, bristling with sensors and cloaked in mystery, from the shell companies that own them to the obfuscated tail-numbers they sport.

The FBI won't talk about the capabilities or uses of their planes, but we can make some good guesses at their capabilities, thanks to the NYPD. The nation's largest police force did a lot of ill-advised bragging about its $10M spy helicopter, and since then, there's been a steady leak of good technical detail of what a state-of-the-art spy aircraft is likely doing when it passes overhead.

In addition to revealing the shell ownership, however, the FAA documents for the NYPD helicopter proved interesting for another reason. They provided a detailed list of all the components and modifications the Bell helicopter underwent to meet the NYPD’s surveillance needs.

Spy equipment added to the NYPD helicopter in 2003 includes a WESCAM MX-15 Video Imaging System, also described as a Thermal Imager, and a WESCAM SkyPod B Airborne Microwave Transmission System. The latter includes a GPS receiver that allows the camera to zoom in on specified locations.

Additionally, there is a Comant CI 405 GPS antenna installed on the cockpit roof, a Chelton 931-8 Direction Finding system and a Datong Tracking System “for tracking targeted electronic beacons.” The latter presumably is for monitoring GPS trackers that law enforcement agencies place surreptitiously on vehicles. (See the documents below for more details about the components installed on the aircraft.)

What an NYPD Spy Copter Reveals About the FBI’s Spy Planes [Kim Zetter/Wired]

(Image: New York City Police Bell 412EP, Ad Meskens, CC-BY-SA)

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Page 2

FBI Misuse of Patriot Act Authority. “Anyone can be Spied on” | Global Research
Sunday June 7th, 2015 at 3:21 PM

Global Research

America is a police state. The FBI is the nation’s Gestapo. It’s an instrument for systematically violating civil liberties. It’s a rogue agency operating unconstitutionally.

Bureau secrecy and cover-up make it impossible to know the full extent of its lawlessness. It operates with minimal oversight and accountability.

A new Justice Department Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report titled “A Review of the FBI’s Use of Section 215 Orders: Assessment of Progress in Implementing Recommendations and Examination of Use in 2007 – through 2009.”

Section 215 of the Patriot Act tramples on Bill of Rights protections. Its language is vague and deceptive. It’s used to permit unconstitutional meta-data mining.

It allows police state investigatory practices. It authorizes government access to “any tangible item” – including personal financial records and transactions, medical records, phone conversations, emails, other Internet use and whatever else Washington wants to monitor.

FBI powers are sweeping. They’re greatly enhanced. They’re used extrajudicially. Anyone can be spied on for any reason or none at all.

No probable cause, reasonable grounds, or suspicions are needed. Exercising free expression makes you vulnerable.

Section 215 is unconstitutional. It permits warrantless searches without probable cause. It violates First Amendment rights by mandating secrecy. It prohibits targeted subjects from telling others what’s happening to them.

It compromises free expression, assembly and association by authorizing the FBI to investigate anyone based on what they say, write, or do with regard to groups they belong to or associate with.

It violates Fourth and Fifth Amendment protections by not telling targeted subjects their privacy was compromised. It subverts fundamental freedoms for contrived, exaggerated, or nonexistent security reasons.

Section 215 powers expire on June 1 if Congress fails to extend them. So far, enough votes are lacking to do so.

The battle continues. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called for another reauthorization vote on Sunday, May 31 before the provision expires. House leaders oppose re-extension.

In early May, the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals struck down bulk NSA phone spying. It ruled Section 215 doesn’t permit bulk collection of Americans’ phone records. A three-judge panel ruled unanimously – overturning a lower court decision.

It said collecting and storing meta-data “anywhere in the private sector (constitutes) an unprecedented and unwarranted contraction of the privacy expectations of all Americans.”

The FBI administers the law. It gets secretive virtually rubber-stamp Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) authorization for the NSA and itself to do so.

OIG’s new report discusses the FBI’s egregious abuse of Section 215 powers. The 2005 Patriot Act Reauthorization required the agency to follow “minimization procedures” to limit the amount of private information collected, retained, disseminated and used – often inappropriately.

The FBI failed to comply until March 2013 – nor NSA. Illegal interpretation of Section 215 persists.

NSA abuse of power is notorious. The FBI concocted a set of so-called “Interim Procedures” under which it unilaterally decided it could obey its congressionally mandated procedures by declaring its preexisting duties enough.

Section 215 minimization procedures in force contain vague language with lots of wiggle room permitting retention of information “necessary to understand foreign intelligence.”

In other words, whatever the FBI claims it needs to protect against alleged foreign threats (real or invented) is OK to collect, retain and use in whatever way the agency wishes – undermining privacy protections.

The FBI, like the NSA, is a secretive agency operating unaccountably. Whatever it does is OK because nothing is done constrain it.

Illegal surveillance persists out-of-control. Section 215 is a license for abuse. Agencies like the FBI and NSA operate extrajudicially.

Read the whole story

· · · ·

Marin librarians celebrate revisions to Patriot Act; user data safer now
Sunday June 7th, 2015 at 3:21 PM

Librarians in Marin County and around the country this week lauded Congress’s passage of the USA Freedom Act, which will amend the USA Patriot Act and place new limits on government’s ability to obtain information about library users.

Sarah Houghton, San Rafael Public Library director, said “the intellectual freedom to read, listen to and watch what you like without Big Brother looking over your shoulder” is something that librarians prize highly.

“Librarians have gone to jail over this,” Houghton said.

“I was happy to hear the news, “ said Sara Jones, director of the Marin County Free Library. “It’s not everything that we wanted, but there are a couple of things that have changed that are really significant.”

“It is a victory,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the Office of Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association. “For the first time in 14 years, Congress has considered privacy rights and balanced them against claims that we need to put aside some of those rights to have national security. It’s a first step towards reform.”

Following passage of the Patriot Act in 2001 the government had two mechanisms for ordering the disclosure of customer records held by telephone companies, Internet service providers, banks and libraries. Requests made under Section 215 of the act required approval from a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, but the use of a “National Security Letter,” an instrument that predates the Patriot Act, did not.

Both mechanisms made it a crime for recipients of information requests to disclose the fact that they had been contacted by the government.

Both Houghton and Jones said retention of user data at their libraries has been kept to a minimum due to the Patriot Act.

“Now that the Patriot Act has been revised, we’re in a little bit better position,” Houghton said. “Law enforcement can still request those records, but they have to show to a court exactly who they are looking at and why they’re looking at them, and they have to be able to tie them to some kind of terror group or imminent criminal threat.

“They can’t just say, ‘We want to know what Steve is reading because we don’t like Steve,’ which is what they could do before.”

In addition, the Freedom Act removes the gag order from libraries and other recipients of government requests for information. Previously, the gag order made it impossible to know how many information requests have been made to libraries since passage of the Patriot Act, Caldwell-Stone said.

One of the rare occasions an information request became public occurred in 2005 when the Library Connection, a nonprofit of co-op library databases in Connecticut, enlisted the American Civil Liberties Union to challenge a national security letter request it received from the FBI.

“They had to do so in secret and under pseudonyms until the court finally gave them leave to identify themselves,” Caldwell-Stone said. The government eventually dropped the matter.

According to a report issued by the Justice Department’s Inspector General in 2007, the FBI issued almost 200,000 national security letters from 2003 to 2006 alone.

Jones, who was director of the Carson City Library in Nevada when the Patriot Act was enacted, said she was surprised how long it took for the legislation to be amended.

“At the time the Patriot Act passed, I did a number of presentations about it with the ACLU,” Jones said. “We had hoped if we talked about it loudly that people would realize the wholesale loss of our civil liberties, but here we are 12 years later.”

And librarians say government isn’t the only threat to the privacy of library users.

“We were very concerned when it turned out that Adobe Digital Editions was collecting information about individual readers’ reading habits and use of e-books and sending it back to Adobe,” Caldwell-Stone said.

Read the whole story

· · ·

Sheriff's Dept. responds to StingRay allegations - News - VVdailypress.com - Victorville, CA
Sunday June 7th, 2015 at 3:20 PM

By Anneli Fogt
Staff Writer

Posted Jun. 6, 2015 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jun 6, 2015 at 9:53 PM

SAN BERNARDINO — Officials from the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department this week responded to allegations brought to light by technology site ArsTechnica, which claims the department used a device that can pinpoint the location of a cellphone "hundreds of times without a warrant, and under questionable judicial authority."

Last week's ArsTechnica report alleges that the department does not obtain a warrant and does not tell judges that it is using the StingRay, a device that the article alleges "intercepts" calls, text messages and data. The site says it submitted a public records request and learned the department used the StingRay device more than 300 times without a warrant since January 2014.

Sheriff's Detective Randy Hansen told the Daily Press on Friday that the article is correct in reporting that the department does not obtain a warrant for StingRay use — because it's not required under California law.

"There's no requirement at this time to use a search warrant," Hansen said. "There's no laws requiring us to use a search warrant. (The StingRay technology) is something that's new, so we had to adapt something. I'm sure there will be case laws that come out to give us further direction."

State law only requires peace officers obtain a court order to use the devices. The legal standard for a court order is lower than a warrant, as officers only need to give "reasonable suspicion," not probable cause. Hansen said the Sheriff's Department has self-imposed a higher standard than other agencies when requesting a court order, adding the requirement of probable cause to its deputies' orders. He said that judges are aware of "what we're doing and how we're using (the StingRay)."

ArsTechnica also alleges that federal and local law enforcement have "tried to keep (the) existence (of StingRays) a secret while simultaneously upgrading their capabilities" and entering into a "questionable non-disclosure agreement" with the FBI.

Hansen acknowledged that the department has a non-disclosure agreement with the FBI.

"We can't be too public," Hansen said. "We can't discuss the exact ways the device works to keep people from figuring out how to work around it."

An American Civil Liberties Union statement on their website describes a StingRay as a device "capable of locating a cellphone with extraordinary precision" by operating in "dragnet fashion, scooping up information from a target device, as well as other wireless devices in the vicinity." The ACLU reports that the device can be "configured to capture the content of voice and data communications."

But Hansen said that the Sheriff's Department's StingRay use "has nothing to do with" intercepting calls or text messages and explained that the public's wariness of the device possibly comes from the fact that the public is "uneducated" about how it works.

Hansen said the device does not allow deputies to see phone numbers or content of text messages, nor does it allow them to hear phone calls.

"The main thing it's used for is to see where someone is at," Hansen said. "We don't intercept, we can't just turn it on and listen to phone calls. I actually saw it on (TV show) 'NCIS' once, they pulled out a StingRay and pointed it at a person and heard the phone conversation. That's not how it works."

On their website, the ACLU warns of the secrecy of the devices and says that judges may be unaware of what exactly it is that they are approving.

"(The government is) failing to alert courts to constitutionally material facts about the technology, such as the full breadth of information it obtains from a suspect and its impact on third parties," a statement on the ACLU website reads. "As a result, courts are probably not aware that they are authorizing use of this device and have not had an opportunity to rule on its legality, except in very rare instances."

Anneli Fogt can be reached at <a href="mailto:AFogt@VVDailyPress.com">AFogt@VVDailyPress.com</a> or 760-951-6276. Follow her on Twitter @DP_anneli_fogt.

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