U.S. gives big, secret push to Internet surveillance - Justice Department agreed to issue '2511 letters; immunizing AT&T and other companies participating in a cybersecurity program from criminal prosecution under the Wiretap Act

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U.S. gives big, secret push to Internet surveillance

Justice Department agreed to issue "2511 letters"
immunizing AT&T and other companies participating in a
cybersecurity program from criminal prosecution under the
Wiretap Act, according to new documents obtained by the
Electronic Privacy Information Center.

By Declan McCullagh
CNET News
Wednesday, April 24, 2013

NSA director Keith Alexander, shown here in a file photo,
who's also the commander of the U.S. Cyber Command.
(Credit: Getty Images)

Senior Obama administration officials have secretly
authorized the interception of communications carried on
portions of networks operated by AT&T and other Internet
service providers, a practice that might otherwise be
illegal under federal wiretapping laws.

The secret legal authorization from the Justice
Department originally applied to a cybersecurity pilot
project in which the military monitored defense
contractors' Internet links. Since then, however, the
program has been expanded by President Obama to cover all
critical infrastructure sectors including energy,
healthcare, and finance starting June 12.

"The Justice Department is helping private companies
evade federal wiretap laws," said Marc Rotenberg,
executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information
Center, which obtained over 1,000 pages of internal
government documents and provided them to CNET this week.
"Alarm bells should be going off."

Those documents show the National Security Agency and the
Defense Department were deeply involved in pressing for
the secret legal authorization, with NSA director Keith
Alexander participating in some of the discussions
personally. Despite initial reservations, including from
industry participants, Justice Department attorneys
eventually signed off on the project.

The Justice Department agreed to grant legal immunity to
the participating network providers in the form of what
participants in the confidential discussions refer to as
"2511 letters," a reference to the Wiretap Act codified
at 18 USC 2511 in the federal statute books.

Continues at:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57581161-38/u.s-gives-big-secret-push-to-internet-surveillance/

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti

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