A Deep Blue Paranoid Moment (DBPM)

“Just Because I’m Paranoid Doesn’t Mean They’re Not Out to Get Me!”

OK, so sometimes I do go off the deep blue end but, I really think that very nearly all of our communications are monitored without warrant or our knowing consent. “So what?” you say, “If you’re not doing anything wrong what do you have to worry about?” If a US citizen cannot have their most private information free from others, we have no civil society but a state where any innocent series of calls or conversations could be made to look as though some wrongdoing were afoot. I’m an attorney and I have to be sure my communications are kept both secret and confidential. If others know what we’re up to in a given case, it sorta takes the wind out of sails and stacks the deck against us. How would they know? Easy! Old analog cell phones, some digital cells and the phones you can walk around with that have a base at work or home and talk can be listened to with a police scanner and the courts have ruled that since the signal is readily available to monitoring there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in your conversations and a warrant isn’t needed to listen or record the calls. The major phone companies just gave up all your calling data to the National Security Agency (NSA) , except Qwest, when the government simply asked for it. The telcos then went to Congress and got themselves a ban on any consumer lawsuits for illegally releasing your private, confidential calling information. We also all heard about the National Security Agency’s (NSA) illegal interception of US citizens’ communications under the Bush administration. Many of the Bush secret “anti-terror” policies have been continued by the Obama administration. Faxes and e-mails from offices should now have a warning notice to recipients that the sender cannot guarantee that some government agency is not intercepting the communication without their knowledge or consent or a search warrant.   And see here. It’s so bad that some citizens, like reporters, use so-called “burner phones” for calls to confidential sources and toss them after one or very few uses so as to not have their locations or sources compromised. Of course, then the reporters or whoever are now acting “suspiciously” and may have their innocent conduct of just wanting privacy used to have some eager beaver go get a roving wiretap on the person under the so-called USA Patriot Act. The US House and Senate just passed a “Defense Authorization Act” for President Obama to sign which includes another “authorization for the use of force” against suspected al Qaeda terrorists and allows for the possible indefinites detention of US citizens without charge, denies such US citizen “suspects” access to US civilian courts, and denies them access to counsel, all of which have never been allowed before in US history. President Obama must veto the bill. I don’t think it reasonable that we have to have any fear that all our communications are monitored by some government agency. So much has been justified in the “war on terror” that maybe I’m not so paranoid after all.

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The Constitutionally deplorable intentions of the United States regarding Julian Assange and Wikileaks

At Occasional Planet, Madonna Gauding explains that the U.S. campaign to imprison Julian Assange and put him to death, has nothing to do with national security:

Unfortunately, prosecuting leakers is not really about upholding the law or maintaining national security. It is about making sure the government or corporations can continue to hide information they do not want citizens to know, such as the video of the horrific gunning down of Baghdad civilians by U.S. forces in Iraq that Private Bradley Manning exposed. In this example, this secret brings the lie to the official story of the so called humanitarian mission in Iraq. Exposing military wrongdoing undermines the power of the government and the corporations it supports who make their fortunes off war. Prosecuting Assange to the fullest extent, which could mean prison or even execution for espionage, is not about bringing a criminal to “justice,” or protecting the citizens of the United States. It is about instilling fear and intimidation in any one else (including mainstream journalists) who might want to expose information about government or corporate malfeasance. The purpose of Assange’s prosecution is to send a strong message that whistle blowing will not be tolerated.
Mauding's account is bolstered by the unrelenting and precise writings of Glenn Greenwald, who points out that the Wikileak's release of materials apparently provided by Bradley Manning have done the opposite of threatening U.S. security. [More . . . ]

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Your privacy in the news

Here is some recent news I learned from links posted by Electronic Frontier Foundation. Carrier IQ’s code is raising lots of questions:

“Consumers need to know that their safety and privacy are being protected by the companies they trust with their sensitive information,” Franken said Thursday. “The revelation that the locations and other sensitive data of millions of Americans are being secretly recorded and possibly transmitted is deeply troubling. This news underscores the need for Congress to act swiftly to protect the location information and private, sensitive information of consumers. But right now, Carrier IQ has a lot of questions to answer.”
Amazon’s new browser, Silk, is raising concerns. (Senator Ed Markey is asking some good questions here):

Amazon told a Massachusetts congressman that the Silk browser in its Kindle Fire tablet doesn't pose a privacy threat to consumers, but the lawmaker wasn't ready to give the online retailer a pass. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the co-chairman of a congressional caucus on consumer privacy, on Tuesday released the retailer's responses to questions he had put to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in October about Silk and the data it collected.

Markey wasn't happy with Amazon's answers.

"Amazon's responses to my inquiries do not provide enough detail about how the company intends to use customer information, beyond acknowledging that the company uses this valuable information," said Markey in a statement.

New outrageous bill invites government to snoop.

The bill would allow a broad swath of ISPs and other private entities to "use cybersecurity systems" to collect and share masses of user data with the government, other businesses, or "any other entity" so long as it’s for a vaguely-defined "cybersecurity purpose." It would trump existing privacy statutes that strictly limit the interception and disclosure of your private communications data, as well as any other state or federal law that might get in the way. Indeed, the language may be broad enough to bless the covert use of spyware if done in "good faith" for a "cybersecurity purpose."

EFF is an excellent source of new on the issues of privacy and censorship. Here is an excerpt from the About page:

From the Internet to the iPod, technologies are transforming our society and empowering us as speakers, citizens, creators, and consumers. When our freedoms in the networked world come under attack, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the first line of defense. EFF broke new ground when it was founded in 1990 — well before the Internet was on most people's radar — and continues to confront cutting-edge issues defending free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights today. From the beginning, EFF has championed the public interest in every critical battle affecting digital rights.

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Walmart Censors the Bible

Granted that the one they chose to censor isn't a typical, dull, dry Bible that you actually have to read to get to the good parts. This one is gaily illustrated with photographs of Lego™ dioramas for every juicy story. Years of work went into developing the Brick Testament as an online presence. Then a paper publisher got interested, and more work went into producing several volumes (Available on Amazon). But Walmart refused to distribute the books as is, full of literal illustrations of the stories in the Holy book, including the sexual parts. So the publisher persuaded the author to pull the most explicit scenes. And they produced a new volume specifically for Walmart and its clientele. But after an initial small order, Walmart felt that even this censored version of the Bible was still too graphic, and refused to carry the volume. The other Bibles they sell, all of which include even the stories and scenes excised from the Brick Testament, are still for sale. Want more details? Here's a CNet report. Here's a "Patriot Update" report (I find that a Tea Party source can be an interesting perspective).

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Facebook attacks

New tactic to censor Facebook posts by those on the political right, according to Segway Jeremy Ryan:

People are suppressing information in Wisconsin by actively reporting people they deem to be a threat on Facebook. I myself have been reported and banned for one to three days for simply posting “Good job” or “The majority of Wisconsin doesn’t like Scott Walker.” People have been reported on pages for saying nothing more than my name and have been reprimanded by Facebook. The strategy is simple and Facebook lets it continue. If someone reports something as abusive to Facebook they don’t actually look at it, they just remove it and warn the person who posted it. If you get enough you are not able to dispute them at all, and with no admin contacts and no one at Facebook actually looking at the posts reported as “abusive,” the person gets blocked.

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