Archive for category: emptywheel

The documents made available by the RMN yesterday provide more details about what the NSA and other government agencies have been doing with fiber optic networks–but it’s still not exactly clear what those documents show. As a preliminary, I’m going to try to put the contents of this CIPA filing into a coherent chronology, to clarify some of the issues. The filing is what Nacchio submitted when the judge said his previous CIPA filing was not detailed enough, and it has a timeline going back to the late 1990s.

From reading the filing, I think (though I think others will disagree) that what Nacchio describes as Groundbreaker is at least the physical tap into switches that we know AT&T to have accomplished. That’s important, because Nacchio walked out of his meeting on February 27, 2001 willing to doGroundbreaker (at least the hardware side of it), but unwilling to do something else NSA requested at thatmeeting. Which means the telecom involvement goes beyond simply tappinginto the switches, and the switch-related aspect is not the troubling side of it.

The rest of this chronology just describes how Qwest has built several fiber optics networks for our intelligence agencies–potentially global in scale–that they claim are "impervious to attack." While it’s not clear whether these networks are connected up with public networks or not (GovNet, the proposed network for the government that got scotched with 9/11, was supposed to be private), it does raise the question of how much of these global networks are for communicating (that is, secure communication within an intelligence agency) and how much are for eavesdropping.

And boy, if I were the rest of the world, I’d be less than thrilled to know Qwest had build a redundant fiber optics network for US intelligence agencies throughout my country.

Here’s the timeline:

I’ve long suspected that MZM is the latter-day incarnation of COINTELPRO, though it had the added advantage that it also made a profit for George Bush’s cronies. Via the Daily Muck, it looks like we might make some progress on MZM.

A formerofficial at the Albemarle County-based National Ground IntelligenceCenter pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to a conflict ofinterest charge.

Robert Fromm,a 60-year-old Earlysville resident, was charged in a corruptioninvestigation centered on now-defunct defense contracting firm MZM Inc.

[snip]

The conflictof interest charge arises from allegations that he worked on MZM’sbehalf to influence U.S. Army and Department of Defense officialsregarding the program he previously managed at NGIC.

Fromm’sdefense attorneys previously said their client did not intentionallybreak the law. As part of his plea agreement, Fromm will also cooperatewith a larger federal investigation.

Fromm’s sentencing is January 2008, which suggests he has 3 months to prove he’s a nice guy. Perhaps we’ll learn a little more about MZM in the meantime?

AT&T wants something from you. They want immunity from prosecution for breaking existing laws on customer privacy. They want more bandwidth. They want to eliminate net neutrality. They may well want to suck up another company or two, to return to the good old days of MaBell. They want to be the exclusive provider to iPhone customers. And these are all just the issues on the front burner.

Thing is, we’re beginning to catch onto their plans. It has not escaped our notice that AT&T has been planting its allies in all corners of the Federal government just in time to make policy decisions that will make AT&T rich!

Which is why, I suspect, that AT&T has launched into PR mode. They responded somewhat expeditiously when the tech sites noticed that their Terms of Service prevented you from saying anything mean about them.

T&T has altered the language in its reviled TOS to say it thinks it’s okay for people to speak their mind. Really, they hard-wired thatinto the legalese:

AT&T respects freedom of expression and believes it is afoundation of our free society to express differing points of view.AT&T will not terminate, disconnect or suspend service because ofthe views you or we express Read more →

Or at least that’s one thing we might surmise from the news that Gonzales hired George Terwilliger to represent him just after he resigned (h/t bmaz).

No sooner did Alberto Gonzales resign as attorney general last monththan he retained a high-powered Washington criminal-defense lawyer torepresent him in continuing inquiries by Congress and the JusticeDepartment.

[snip]

The top concern for Gonzales, and now Terwilliger, is the expandinginvestigation by Glenn Fine, the Justice Department’s fiercelyindependent inspector general, according to three legal sourcesfamiliar with the matter who declined to speak publicly about ongoinginvestigations. Originally, Fine’s internal Justice probe—conducted inconjunction with lawyers from the department’s Office of ProfessionalResponsibility—focused on the mass dismissal of U.S. attorneys latelast year. The investigation has since broadened to include, amongother matters, charges that Gonzales lied to Congress about the Bushadministration’s warrantless surveillance program and the circumstancessurrounding his late-night March 10, 2004, visit to the hospital roomof then attorney general John Ashcroft.

Here’s the requisite Isikoff credulity, which is (as usual) telling in and of itself.

I happen to be reading Stonewall right now. And I gotta say, I’ve already said what Bernstein said several times.

Watergate would not have played out the same way today because Congressno longer performs its oversight role, said Carl Bernstein, one of thejournalists famous for uncovering the story.

“The difference with today is that the system did its job. The pressdid its job. The court did its job. The Senate committee did its job,”Bernstein said Saturday. “There’s been great reporting on thispresident. But there’s been no oversight. We have a Democratic Congressnow and there’s still no oversight.” 

Bernstein also said that “35 years of ideological warfare” could also change how the public would react to such a scandal.

“Welive in a very different atmosphere today,” Bernstein said. “WithWatergate, eventually the people of this country looked around anddecided Nixon was a criminal president. I’m not sure the same chain ofevents would have taken place today.”

I’m going to come back and comment on this in more depth. But for now, I’d like your opinion on the following:

• Bernstein blames Congress, implicitly excusing the press and the courts–or at least not commenting on their failure. Do you agree with his assessment, or do you think he’s just Read more →