POST CONSTITUTIONAL AMERICA
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT: ANY EXPLOSIVE DEVICE IS A WMD
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2005/04/doj041205.html
STEVE AFTERGOOD, SECRECY NEWS - Almost any explosive device or weapon may be considered a "weapon of mass destruction" according to the Department of Justice. The Department announced on Tuesday that three British nationals had been indicted in New York for conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction, among other charges. At a press briefing on the indictment, an alert reporter asked Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey exactly which "weapons of mass destruction" the individuals had conspired to use.
"Is there any implication in the use of that term that there was a biological or a chemical or a radiological element to the plan?" the reporter inquired.
"We have not alleged that," Mr. Comey replied.
But, he added, "a weapon of mass destruction in our world goes beyond that and includes improvised explosive devices."
This is an unconventional use of the term "weapon of mass destruction" that further relaxes its already expansive definition, which encompasses everything from thermonuclear explosives to willful releases of toxic chemicals.
If improvised explosive devices also count as WMD, then not only did Saddam Hussein possess abundant quantities of WMD, but two years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, so do the Iraqi insurgents who are using them to kill American soldiers almost every day.
On closer inspection, however, Mr. Comey's all-encompassing usage appears to have a basis in statute. According to 18 U.S.C. 2332a, which is cited in the latest indictment, a "weapon of mass destruction" includes "any destructive device." That in turn is defined in 18 U.S.C. 921 to include almost any type of weapon that is not "generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes."
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CONGRESSMAN: EXTREME BROADCAST CENSORSHIP BILL COULD PASS
http://www.backstage.com/backstage/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000881892
ROGER ARMBRUST, BACKSTAGE - U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler of Manhattan believes that federal broadcast decency legislation currently making its way through Congress -- which could result in heavy fines for performers -- has a good chance of becoming law.
"Oh, yeah, it could pass," said Nadler, a chief opponent of the proposal, last Friday when asked about the legislation's prospects. "There's a very strong push now among the conservatives and the religious right. No one wants to be in a position of being in favor of indecency. But very few [in Congress] want to risk trying to state their position in 30-second TV ads -- trying to explain the First Amendment and self-censorship and that there are better ways of protecting kids with V-chips and software. It would take a lot of money to reply.". . .
In February, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly (389 to 38) approved legislation that would increase broadcast performers' fines for indecency from $11,000 to $500,000. Nadler was one of the 38 who voted nay. Both the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) -- realizing the bill would pass the House -- pushed for amendments to protect performers.
The House legislation, titled the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005, would fine performers just as it does broadcast networks and local stations. However, a Senate bill introduced in January, S.193, would not. Sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), it increases the fines only on broadcast licensees and contains no performer fines. The Senate bill caps broadcaster fines at $3 million.
A second Senate bill introduced in mid-March by Sen. John D. Rockefeller (D-W.V.) includes a fine of $500,000 per infraction -- not to exceed $3 million in a 24-hour period -- for airing "obscene, indecent, or profane language or images." It also makes no specific mention of fining performers.
Back Stage contacted the offices of both Sen. Charles Schumer and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to get the two New York senators' positions on the upper-house legislation. Schumer's office didn't return Tuesday's phone call by press time. Clinton's office e-mailed a transcript of her March 8 remarks to the Kaiser Family Foundation regarding children and the media environment. However, that talk didn't discuss the Senate broadcast decency legislation.
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EVEN YOU COULD BE A TARGET OF THE PATRIOT ACT
http://www.reason.com/sullum/040805.shtml
JACOB SULLUM, REASON - Under Section 215, which will expire at the end of the year unless Congress decides to renew it, the FBI can demand the production of "any tangible things," a breadth of coverage that makes you wonder why the law's critics have chosen to focus so obsessively on library records. The law says the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (which operates in secret) "shall enter" a Section 215 order as long as the records are "sought for" a terrorism or espionage investigation that is not based "solely" on a U.S. citizen or resident's exercise of his First Amendment rights.
Another provision of the Patriot Act that allows secret seizures of private records has received less attention, although it includes even fewer safeguards, has been used more often, and is not scheduled to expire. Section 505 expands the use of national security letters, which order the production of records without even cursory judicial review.
Unlike Section 215, which seems to cover everything that could conceivably be turned over to the government, Section 505 pertains only to Internet records, credit reports, and financial records. But in 2003 Congress expanded the definition of "financial institutions" covered by NSLs to include any business "whose cash transactions have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, or regulatory matters," including casinos, insurers, real estate brokers, travel agents, pawn shops, car dealers, and jewelry stores.
Both Section 215 and Section 505 can be used to obtain records of people who are not suspected of terrorism, and both prohibit the recipient of an order from discussing it with the subject of the records or anyone else. On their face, they do not allow the recipient to challenge the order in court; indeed, the ban on discussion seems to preclude even talking to an attorney.
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LEADING WEB SITE OPERATOR HARASSED BY AMERICAN AIRLINES, FEDS
http://boingboing.net/
CORY DOCTOROW, BOING BOING - Back in January, I flew American Airlines from London Gatwick to San Francisco. At the check-in counter, I was shocked when an AA security guard (not a customs officer - private, corporate contract-security for AA) demanded that I produce a written dossier of the names and addresses of the friends I planned on staying with in the USA. She cited an unspecified TSA regulation that required this, and could not tell me what AA's document retention policy was, nor what would be done with this information. Her aggressive supervisor accused me of undermining the safety of airlines in the sky by refusing to answer, and affirmed that the TSA required it. I stood fast, and finally the terminal supervisor told me that since I fly American enough to hold a Platinum card, I wouldn't be required to turn over this information. I wrote an open letter to AA asking why they asked me for this info, and what TSA rule they were operating under when they did so.
Imagine my surprise when I got a reply from AA telling me that they'd been telling the press that my "specific behaviors" had triggered the secondary screening and that I had been told that they would give me the information they were taking on my friends' names and addresses when I left the counter. The latter is a flat out lie -- not a misunderstanding or a grey area of the truth, a total and utter fabrication. The former is intriguing -- what behaviors "triggered the secondary screening?" Moreover, AA told me that this was a case of a screener who misunderstood the policy, but if that's so, why did her supervisor back her up?
So I wrote a response, pointing out all of this and repeating my unanswered questions about the screening procedure.
On Friday, I got a terse reply from AA, telling me that a Federal Aviation Administration rule forbids them discussing the specifics of their procedures. That's a weird answer, since nearly all of my questions had nothing to do with the specifics of their procedures, and since the FAA no longer oversees much in the way of airline security, having been deprecated in favor of the Transport Security Agency.
My latest letter points all of this out. The FAA may tell them not to tell me which behaviors trigger secondary screening (ah, security through obscurity, I feel safer already), but it surely doesn't prevent them from explaining why they issued a press-release that lied about what happened at the counter, nor does it require them not to disclose their privacy policy, which they are required under British law to have and to produce on demand. And of course, it's not a law if it's not written down and subject to inspection, so they should certainly be able to tell me the number, name or reference for this regulation.
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NEW RFID PASSPORTS WOULD ENDANGER AMERICAN TRAVELERS
http://64.207.156.228/
NOAH SHACTMAN, DEFENSE TECH - After reading this story in Salon, I get it. The dangers of RFID passports are pretty freakin' obvious.
The reason RFID is more controversial than, say, a bar code is that the data on the chip is read by a remote reader. The State Department asserts that the tags it will use can be read from only 4 inches away. But privacy advocates say there's no way the State Department can guarantee that.
As security expert Bruce Schneier writes on his blog: "Unfortunately, RFID chips can be read by any reader, not just the ones at passport control. The upshot of this is that travelers carrying around RFID passports are broadcasting their identity. Think about what that means for a minute. It means that passport holders are continuously broadcasting their name, nationality, age, address and whatever else is on the RFID chip. It means that anyone with a reader can learn that information, without the passport holder's knowledge or consent. It means that pickpockets, kidnappers and terrorists can easily -- and surreptitiously -- pick Americans or nationals of other participating countries out of a crowd." There are no plans to encrypt the data on the tags in passports. "This is a dangerous, inappropriate device to be installing in U.S. passports," says Scannell, who imagines terrorists overseas identifying Americans by their passports when picking targets to bomb. "Which cafe do we lob the grenade into? Ping, ping, ping. There are 21 Americans in there." The tags could also be used to identify people who walk into an abortion clinic, a mosque or a political meeting.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2005/04/07/savi/
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2005/04/doj041205.html
STEVE AFTERGOOD, SECRECY NEWS - Almost any explosive device or weapon may be considered a "weapon of mass destruction" according to the Department of Justice. The Department announced on Tuesday that three British nationals had been indicted in New York for conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction, among other charges. At a press briefing on the indictment, an alert reporter asked Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey exactly which "weapons of mass destruction" the individuals had conspired to use.
"Is there any implication in the use of that term that there was a biological or a chemical or a radiological element to the plan?" the reporter inquired.
"We have not alleged that," Mr. Comey replied.
But, he added, "a weapon of mass destruction in our world goes beyond that and includes improvised explosive devices."
This is an unconventional use of the term "weapon of mass destruction" that further relaxes its already expansive definition, which encompasses everything from thermonuclear explosives to willful releases of toxic chemicals.
If improvised explosive devices also count as WMD, then not only did Saddam Hussein possess abundant quantities of WMD, but two years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, so do the Iraqi insurgents who are using them to kill American soldiers almost every day.
On closer inspection, however, Mr. Comey's all-encompassing usage appears to have a basis in statute. According to 18 U.S.C. 2332a, which is cited in the latest indictment, a "weapon of mass destruction" includes "any destructive device." That in turn is defined in 18 U.S.C. 921 to include almost any type of weapon that is not "generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes."
______________________________________________________________________________
CONGRESSMAN: EXTREME BROADCAST CENSORSHIP BILL COULD PASS
http://www.backstage.com/backstage/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000881892
ROGER ARMBRUST, BACKSTAGE - U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler of Manhattan believes that federal broadcast decency legislation currently making its way through Congress -- which could result in heavy fines for performers -- has a good chance of becoming law.
"Oh, yeah, it could pass," said Nadler, a chief opponent of the proposal, last Friday when asked about the legislation's prospects. "There's a very strong push now among the conservatives and the religious right. No one wants to be in a position of being in favor of indecency. But very few [in Congress] want to risk trying to state their position in 30-second TV ads -- trying to explain the First Amendment and self-censorship and that there are better ways of protecting kids with V-chips and software. It would take a lot of money to reply.". . .
In February, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly (389 to 38) approved legislation that would increase broadcast performers' fines for indecency from $11,000 to $500,000. Nadler was one of the 38 who voted nay. Both the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) -- realizing the bill would pass the House -- pushed for amendments to protect performers.
The House legislation, titled the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005, would fine performers just as it does broadcast networks and local stations. However, a Senate bill introduced in January, S.193, would not. Sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), it increases the fines only on broadcast licensees and contains no performer fines. The Senate bill caps broadcaster fines at $3 million.
A second Senate bill introduced in mid-March by Sen. John D. Rockefeller (D-W.V.) includes a fine of $500,000 per infraction -- not to exceed $3 million in a 24-hour period -- for airing "obscene, indecent, or profane language or images." It also makes no specific mention of fining performers.
Back Stage contacted the offices of both Sen. Charles Schumer and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to get the two New York senators' positions on the upper-house legislation. Schumer's office didn't return Tuesday's phone call by press time. Clinton's office e-mailed a transcript of her March 8 remarks to the Kaiser Family Foundation regarding children and the media environment. However, that talk didn't discuss the Senate broadcast decency legislation.
______________________________________________________________________________
EVEN YOU COULD BE A TARGET OF THE PATRIOT ACT
http://www.reason.com/sullum/040805.shtml
JACOB SULLUM, REASON - Under Section 215, which will expire at the end of the year unless Congress decides to renew it, the FBI can demand the production of "any tangible things," a breadth of coverage that makes you wonder why the law's critics have chosen to focus so obsessively on library records. The law says the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (which operates in secret) "shall enter" a Section 215 order as long as the records are "sought for" a terrorism or espionage investigation that is not based "solely" on a U.S. citizen or resident's exercise of his First Amendment rights.
Another provision of the Patriot Act that allows secret seizures of private records has received less attention, although it includes even fewer safeguards, has been used more often, and is not scheduled to expire. Section 505 expands the use of national security letters, which order the production of records without even cursory judicial review.
Unlike Section 215, which seems to cover everything that could conceivably be turned over to the government, Section 505 pertains only to Internet records, credit reports, and financial records. But in 2003 Congress expanded the definition of "financial institutions" covered by NSLs to include any business "whose cash transactions have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, or regulatory matters," including casinos, insurers, real estate brokers, travel agents, pawn shops, car dealers, and jewelry stores.
Both Section 215 and Section 505 can be used to obtain records of people who are not suspected of terrorism, and both prohibit the recipient of an order from discussing it with the subject of the records or anyone else. On their face, they do not allow the recipient to challenge the order in court; indeed, the ban on discussion seems to preclude even talking to an attorney.
______________________________________________________________________________
LEADING WEB SITE OPERATOR HARASSED BY AMERICAN AIRLINES, FEDS
http://boingboing.net/
CORY DOCTOROW, BOING BOING - Back in January, I flew American Airlines from London Gatwick to San Francisco. At the check-in counter, I was shocked when an AA security guard (not a customs officer - private, corporate contract-security for AA) demanded that I produce a written dossier of the names and addresses of the friends I planned on staying with in the USA. She cited an unspecified TSA regulation that required this, and could not tell me what AA's document retention policy was, nor what would be done with this information. Her aggressive supervisor accused me of undermining the safety of airlines in the sky by refusing to answer, and affirmed that the TSA required it. I stood fast, and finally the terminal supervisor told me that since I fly American enough to hold a Platinum card, I wouldn't be required to turn over this information. I wrote an open letter to AA asking why they asked me for this info, and what TSA rule they were operating under when they did so.
Imagine my surprise when I got a reply from AA telling me that they'd been telling the press that my "specific behaviors" had triggered the secondary screening and that I had been told that they would give me the information they were taking on my friends' names and addresses when I left the counter. The latter is a flat out lie -- not a misunderstanding or a grey area of the truth, a total and utter fabrication. The former is intriguing -- what behaviors "triggered the secondary screening?" Moreover, AA told me that this was a case of a screener who misunderstood the policy, but if that's so, why did her supervisor back her up?
So I wrote a response, pointing out all of this and repeating my unanswered questions about the screening procedure.
On Friday, I got a terse reply from AA, telling me that a Federal Aviation Administration rule forbids them discussing the specifics of their procedures. That's a weird answer, since nearly all of my questions had nothing to do with the specifics of their procedures, and since the FAA no longer oversees much in the way of airline security, having been deprecated in favor of the Transport Security Agency.
My latest letter points all of this out. The FAA may tell them not to tell me which behaviors trigger secondary screening (ah, security through obscurity, I feel safer already), but it surely doesn't prevent them from explaining why they issued a press-release that lied about what happened at the counter, nor does it require them not to disclose their privacy policy, which they are required under British law to have and to produce on demand. And of course, it's not a law if it's not written down and subject to inspection, so they should certainly be able to tell me the number, name or reference for this regulation.
______________________________________________________________________________
NEW RFID PASSPORTS WOULD ENDANGER AMERICAN TRAVELERS
http://64.207.156.228/
NOAH SHACTMAN, DEFENSE TECH - After reading this story in Salon, I get it. The dangers of RFID passports are pretty freakin' obvious.
The reason RFID is more controversial than, say, a bar code is that the data on the chip is read by a remote reader. The State Department asserts that the tags it will use can be read from only 4 inches away. But privacy advocates say there's no way the State Department can guarantee that.
As security expert Bruce Schneier writes on his blog: "Unfortunately, RFID chips can be read by any reader, not just the ones at passport control. The upshot of this is that travelers carrying around RFID passports are broadcasting their identity. Think about what that means for a minute. It means that passport holders are continuously broadcasting their name, nationality, age, address and whatever else is on the RFID chip. It means that anyone with a reader can learn that information, without the passport holder's knowledge or consent. It means that pickpockets, kidnappers and terrorists can easily -- and surreptitiously -- pick Americans or nationals of other participating countries out of a crowd." There are no plans to encrypt the data on the tags in passports. "This is a dangerous, inappropriate device to be installing in U.S. passports," says Scannell, who imagines terrorists overseas identifying Americans by their passports when picking targets to bomb. "Which cafe do we lob the grenade into? Ping, ping, ping. There are 21 Americans in there." The tags could also be used to identify people who walk into an abortion clinic, a mosque or a political meeting.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2005/04/07/savi/
posted by T. Scott Brineman at 6:07 AM
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