Analysis: New Law Gives Government Six Months to Turn Internet and Phone Systems into Permanent Spying Architecture -
Pastor Dale Morgan
Analysis: New Law Gives Government Six Months to Turn Internet and Phone
Systems into Permanent Spying Architecture - *
By Ryan Singel
August 06, 2007
A new law expanding the government's spying powers gives the Bush
Administration a six-month window to install possibly permanent back
doors in the nation's communication networks. The legislation was
passed hurriedly by Congress over the weekend and signed into law Sunday
by President Bush.
The bill, known as the Protect America Act, removes the prohibition on
warrantless spying on Americans abroad and gives the government wide
powers to order communication service providers such as cell phone
companies and ISPs to make their networks available to government
eavesdroppers.
The Administration pushed for passage of the changes to close what it
called a "surveillance gap," referring to a long-standing feature of the
nation's surveillance laws that required the government to get court
approval to capture communications inside the United States.
While the nation's spy laws have been continually loosened since 9/11,
the Administration never pushed for the right to tap the nation's
domestic communication networks until a secret court recently struck
down a key pillar of the government's secret spying program.
The Administration argues that the world's communication networks now
route many foreign to foreign calls and emails through switches in the
United States.
Prior to the law's passage, the nation's spy agencies, such as the
National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, didn't
need any court approval to spy on foreigners so long as the wiretaps
were outside the United States.
Now, those agencies are free to order services like Skype, cell phone
companies and arguably even search engines to comply with secret spy
orders to create back doors in domestic communication networks for the
nation's spooks. While it's unclear whether the wiretapping can be used
for domestic purposes, the law only requires that the programs that give
rise to such orders have a "significant purpose" of foreign
intelligence gathering.
The law:
* Defines the act of reading and listening into American's phone
calls and internet communications when they are "reasonably believed" to
be outside the country as not surveillance.
* Gives the government 6 months of extended powers to issue orders
to "communication service providers," to help with spying that "concerns
persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States." The
language doesn't require the surveillance to only target people outside
the United States, only that some of it does.
* Forces Communication Service providers to comply secretly, though
they can challenge the orders to the secret Foreign Intelligence Court.
Individuals or companies given such orders will be paid for their
cooperation and can not be sued for complying.
* Makes any program or orders launched in the next six months
perpetually renewable after the six month "sunset" of the new powers
last for a year after being authorized
* Grandfathers in the the current secret surveillance program --
sometimes referred to as the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- and any
others that have been blessed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court.
* Requires the Attorney General to submit to the secret surveillance
court its reasons why these programs aren't considered domestic spying
programs, but the court can only throw out those reasons if it finds
that they are "clearly erroneous."
* Requires the Attorney General to tell Congress twice a year about
any incidents of surveillance abuse and give statistics about how many
surveillance programs were started and how many directives were issued.
* Makes no mention of the Inspector General, who uncovered abuses of
the Patriot Act by the FBI after being ordered by Congress to audit the
use of powerful self-issued subpoenas, is not mentioned in the bill.
In short, the law gives the Administration the power to order the
nation's communication service providers -- which range from Gmail, AOL
IM, Twitter, Skype, traditional phone companies, ISPs, internet backbone
providers, Federal Express, and social networks -- to create possibly
permanent spying outposts for the federal government.
These outposts need only to have a "significant" purpose of spying on
foreigners, would be nearly immune to challenge by lawsuit, and have no
court supervision over their extent or implementation.
Abuses of the outposts will be monitored only by the Justice Department,
which has already been found to have underreported abuses of other
surveillance powers to Congress.
In related international news, Zimbabwe's repressive dictator Robert
Mugabe also won passage of a law allowing the government to turn that
nation's communication infrastructure into a gigantic, secret microphone.