How Do You Say "Overcollection" in Farsi?

There is a bizarre disconnect between news coverage of Internet surveillance and censorship in Iran and here in the US. To a certain point, this has some rational basis: after all, US citizens are not out in the street laying down their lives in defense of democracy. Here in the US, nine years ago we all stayed home and watched on TV while the Supreme Court handed a contested election to George W. Bush.

Be that as it may, Americans need to take a deep breath and a look in the mirror, for the same technical surveillance capabilities being used and abused in Iran are being used - and abused - here at home.

A lead article in today's Wall Street Journal reports on the Iranian government's web surveillance technologies, specifically a "monitoring center" installed last year within the government's telecom monopoly, provided to the theocratic state by the Finnish cell phone giant Nokia and the German electronics conglomerate Siemens AG. According to the WSJ, the technology enables the Iranian state to scan through vast amounts of electronic communications searching for particular keywords and the like. This is ominous, because it suggests that the Iranian authorities may have been tracking the identity of those who have been emailing and tweeting about opposition activities over the last week, and may now be in a position to begin picking these people off in a highly targeted way, if they are not doing so already.

Incredibly, this lead story in this leading news publication also tells us

in the U.S., the National Security Agency has such capability, which was employed as part of the Bush administration's "Terrorist Surveillance Program." A White House official wouldn't comment on if or how this is being used under the Obama administration.

Hello? That's it? Really?

Ahem.

Time to review what we know, and what we don't know, about Internet surveillance in the US.

In 2005, AT&T technician Mark Klein "blew the whistle" on the existence of a secret "monitoring center" at AT&T's facility located at 611 Folsom Street in San Francisco, where a complete copy of all the Internet traffic AT&T receives at that center is diverted onto a separate fiber-optic cable which is connected to a room secretly run by the NSA. Subsequent lawsuits by the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as congressional hearings, have established that there are at least 15 to 20 other such "monitoring centers" at other AT&T facilities around the country and possibly more, and likely equivalents at other corporate facilities. All of which is completely unconstitutional and illegal.

Unfortunately, much of the effort to find out exactly what happens in these "monitoring centers" was derailed last year when congress passed and President Bush signed the FISA Amendments Act (FISAAA), which gave the giant telecomms retroactive immunity for breaking the law in facilitating the illegal NSA surveillance. Then-candidate Barack Obama initially promised to join Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold in a filibuster against the law, then reversed himself and voted for it, triggering intense dissent among his activist base. Obama defended his flip-flop arguing that the revised law would create a legal structure for ensuring that state surveillance of electronic communications was kept within constitutional bounds.

Last April, less than a year after FISAAA was passed and only three months into Obama's term, the administration announced it had already "discovered" that the NSA has been - surprise surprise - engaging in "significant and systemic... overcollection" of domestic communications between Americans. In other words, the NSA was and is engaged in exactly what Obama had preposterously claimed the new law would prevent.

Then just last month, a federal appeals court dismissed dozens of lawsuits challenging illegal domestic surveillance of American citizens, ruling that FISAAA gave the giant telecomms immunity from liability. Finally, at closed-door congressional hearings just a couple of weeks ago, NSA officials again asked forgiveness for "inadvertent overcollection" of surveillance on American citizens.

The dismissal of the lawsuits brings to a screeching halt the related discovery efforts of the ACLU and EFF to learn exactly what happens in the secret monitoring centers the NSA runs across the country. This was actually one of the main arguments used against the FISAAA legislation last summer: that giving the corporations retroactive immunity would halt the discovery proceedings attached to lawsuits, that were our best shot at learning what goes on in those secret centers. As of a couple of weeks ago, this has come to pass in exactly the manner foreseen.

Meanwhile, with a democratic insurrection exploding on the streets of Tehran, Nokia and Siemens AG are under extreme pressure to fess up and tell the world exactly what is in that monitoring center they built for the Iranian government. Which leaves you and I in the supremely ironic situation that we know less about the surveillance operations of our own government than we do about the surveillance operations of the theocratic Islamic regime in Tehran.

I wonder if there is a word in Farsi for "overcollection."

Fact is, there is no word for it in English either. "Overcollection" is not part of the English language. Google it and you will see that this word was actually born three months ago, birthed in the Obama administration's bumbling effort to explain away the new surveillance regime.

One of the surest clues to the abuse of power is when state officials start inventing new words to describe their own actions.

If you want to know more about what you and I don't know about what our government knows about us, visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation at http://www.eff.org.

And remember, what you don't now can hurt you.

Comments

[dredeyedick]

Bob, I made a collection of widely scattered pdf's into html pages replete with references to citations on the subject of warrantless domestic surveillance. It includes articles, issues briefings, congressional testimony and the ability to search findlaw. The collection is downloadable. It's here:

http://thewall.civiblog.org/rsf/nsa.html

It's a companion to my article "Personal Account - Earth: Blogging and the Emergence of DotCommunism" which is here:

http://thewall.civiblog.org/rsf/pa_earth.html

Hope this helps,

-dcm

[brandnewstuff]

Dear Bob,

The reason the ACLU V NSA needs a new law suit-
under "just causes" as many new facts available of wrong doing

Violation of 4th amendment
a classic case of constitutional law- Olmstead V United States

The need for fusing constitutional laws and the 21st century as well as establishment of Technolgy Courts

Thanks
Jenny

[PoliticalAnimal]

When a repressive government is wrong, there is nothing more dangerous than being right ... ask Dan Froomkin!

[medic628]

The people should not be afraid of the government!

[Steamboater]

"One of the surest clues to the abuse of power is when state officials start inventing new words to describe their own actions."

Hmmm ... like "Homeland Security' and "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"?

[vim876]

Who stayed home and watched TV when they coronated Bush? I protested in the streets.

[JHawkKC]

You can join the tea parties now and protest again, it seems that Obama is more secretive than Bush ever was while promising to disclose everything, having a waiting list so bills could be examined while forcing them to be signed without even being read by those signing them.

Will not speak up for freedom and democracy in Iran but bows to Saudi Kings, has a ship trailed that we suspect has weapons of mass destruction but refuses to board the ship, I guess we will watch it unload and wait for them to be launched against us as well and tell them we are sorry for the ship that tailed them and frightened them.

[larry278]

Y bother? We have 2 parties but only 1 policy. If you voted 4 Obama to get change that u could trust-u got taken 4 a fool. Obama is well on his way 2 becoming a clone of W. I don't tea bag in public; tea parties r 2 much like public sex. Were u not aware that politicians lie & that BHO is a politician?
U could profit by studying the words of PT Barnum. His opinion & words on the birth rate of a segment of humanity r true. "There's a sucker born every minute." Every politician is aware of that.

[lastpost]

Once upon a time two dinosaurs were taking.
In response to an observation by one the other one replied “Yes….but even if we could change why on Earth should we?”

Doesn’t survival depend on maintaining the ability to adapt?

If a few dinosaurs were ever in a position to deny change in all life-forms, what would be the end result?

[Ulvang]

Many of the same Americans that "feared" the youthful support for change here in America are critical of Obama not wanting to go to Iran and "force" the same kind of movement. I can only say that Americans don't seem as willing as the Iranian people to go to the streets for their rights. Is it because our "democratic process" is more established and we have more faith in it? Or is it in-fact more streamlined to trump any true opposition to power?

[altohone]

Taking to the streets for our own freedom is quite different than trying to impose it on others.

Imposing it on others through force is what we object to.

[pfrogger]

it's called apathy.
practiced in the US to a fault.

[darker]

it's because Americans are conformist, lazy people who are easily manipulated and
frightened. We have a facade of "democratic process" that mostly is rigged by whoever
is in power behind the scenes.

[oxi]

"Is it because our "democratic process" is more established"

Oh really, what happened in 2000?

Gore recieved more votes than Bush, now how is that democractic?

Your the fool for believeing in a broken system!

[altohone]

The so-called left accepting this simply because it's coming from Obama is truly disappointing.

[rolodex]

If you think the left is accepting any of this, even if coming from Obama, then you have not been listening to much liberal/progressive media. His flip-flop on the FISA legislation caused a lot of consternation as have several other of Obamas policies since taking office.

Your tone sounds like your impression is that the left is going along with whatever Obama does because he 'can do no wrong'. There are a few of those people to be sure, evidenced by the backlash Bill Maher got from his criticism of Obama on 6/12. However, I think a significant number of liberals, and most liberal media pundits have not been short on criticism. Part of their impetus for being critical on so many issue is that the republican criticisms have been so ridiculous blatantly obstructive and as to not be useful at all. Some sort of loyal opposition is needed and the left is doing that itself.

Obama has been criticized by the left for his handling of the banking crisis, Wall Street abuses, Don't Ask - Don't Tell, Gay Marriage, prosecution over torture, FISA & wiretapping, health care/insurance reform, sucking up to religion with the Office of Faith Based B.S. ... etc.

Not to sound too negative, there are many things that he is doing right as well, but Obama is definitely NOT getting any free passes from the left.

[altohone]

I hear ya.

But, criticism without consequences hasn't changed any of those policies he sold us out on.

I'm not giving up on him, but our side deserves a few victories that aren't compromised into meaninglessness.

Torture and wiretapping aren't negotiable for me.
The current "compromise" maintains both.

Bush crimes and Wall St./oil market fraud need much better excuses than what we've been given thus far. The reasons not to prosecute are paltry.

The rest aren't at the top of my list.

Right now, the "unity" bond is allowing our principles to be violated.
Angry statements from many haven't done squat to change that.

[oxi]

The Obama administration, while insisting it is not meddling in Iran, yesterday confirmed it had asked Twitter to remain open to help anti-government protesters.

The company had planned a temporary shutdown to overhaul its service in the middle of the night on Monday but the US state department put in a request to postpone this.

The New York Times last night identified the author of the request as Jared Cohen, a 27-year-old state department official. Twitter complied with the request, delaying its overhaul until last night.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/17/obama-iran-twitter

[Pupadup4oBama]

I don't see that as meddling....I see that as opening the lines of communication so we are aware of what is going on over there, and we can get first hand accounts from the people who are actually living this.
Do you NOT want them to feel they can "talk to us"? Just because Obama doesn't want to "take sides" doesn't mean he doesn't want the people to give a voice to what they are going through.

[oxi]

You do not see this as meddling? You need to educate yourself.

This further proves the U.S. government is involved in rigging this election and/or trying to change its outcome by PICKING SIDES! The other is ofcourse the $400 million Bush signed into action for conducting clandestine operations within Iran not too long ago.

What right and business does the federal government have to request private businesses to remain open to try and sway public support to tilt the election results in Iran?

This leads me to believe that Twiiter is now on the U.S. payroll like Google and I will never use their services.

Twitter should be ashamed for themselves period. If you want to know what is going on over there, move there and find out, we cannot expect private businesses to be and the call of the federal government to sway public support one way or another in another countries election so you can sit on your rear over here and let the federal government take more control over the private sector!

Wake up!