Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: Those privacy-hating Chinese communist tyrants (and US Teleco Immunity)
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:23:01 -0700
________________________________________ From: Peter Swire [peter () peterswire net] Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 5:05 PM To: David Farber Subject: RE: [IP] Those privacy-hating Chinese communist tyrants (and US Teleco Immunity) Dave: Your post about the Chinese learning from FISA is part of a broader phenomenon: "U.S. policy creates bad precedents that totalitarian and other regimes will follow." http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/06/laptop_testimony.html. Here are some other examples. 1. Laptop searches. The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol now routinely does searches of laptops and PDAs at the border, without needing probable cause or reasonable suspicion. In a recent Senate hearing, the same Sen. Brownback clearly stated -- "I don't want them looking at my Blackberry." 2. Fingerprints. U.S. Visit has required visitors to the United States to provide their fingerprints. Now, Europe and Japan are going to require U.S. visitors to provide fingerprints to them. When a totalitarian country decides to do the same, and we explain that we think that this will expose our citizens to identify fraud, how well will that sell? 3. Deep-packet inspection. If DPI becomes routine in the U.S., how well can any of us object to the same practice by totalitarian countries looking for political dissent, human rights groups, etc.? And, one more: 4. Torture. Think about the next time a U.S. soldier or other citizen is subjected to waterboarding. The U.S. faces a serious question about when it wants to export freedom. Or whether, instead, it wants to export surveillance techniques that will be used to suppress freedom. The next administration will need to look at all of these issues in terms of what sort of world the United States hopes to help lead. Peter Prof. Peter P. Swire C. William O'Neil Professor of Law Moritz College of Law The Ohio State University Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress (240) 994-4142, www.peterswire.net -----Original Message----- From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net] Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 4:34 PM To: ip Subject: [IP] Those privacy-hating Chinese communist tyrants (and US Teleco Immunity) ________________________________________ From: Robert J. Berger [rberger () ibd com] Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 4:19 PM To: Dewayne Hendricks; David Farber Subject: Those privacy-hating Chinese communist tyrants (and US Teleco Immunity) Those privacy-hating Chinese communist tyrants http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/30/china/index.html Associated Press, yesterday: ---------------------------- Foreign-owned hotels in China face the prospect of "severe retaliation" if they refuse to install government software that can spy on Internet use by hotel guests coming to watch the summer Olympic games, a U.S. lawmaker said Tuesday. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., produced a translated version of a document from China's Public Security Bureau that requires hotels to use the monitoring equipment. . . . . Brownback said several international hotel chains confirmed receiving the order from China's Public Security Bureau. The hotels are in a bind, he said, because they don't want to comply with the order, but also don't want to jeopardize their investment of millions of dollars to expand their businesses in China. Rocky Mountain News, October 11, 2007: --------------------------------------- The National Security Agency and other government agencies retaliated against Qwest because the Denver telco refused to go along with a phone spying program, documents released Wednesday suggest. . . . The secret contracts -- worth hundreds of millions of dollars -- made [Qwest CEO Joseph] Nacchio optimistic about Qwest's future, even as his staff was warning him the company might not make its numbers, Nacchio's defense attorneys have maintained. . . . Nacchio planned to demonstrate at trial that he had a meeting on Feb. 27, 2001, at NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Md., to discuss a $100 million project. According to the documents, another topic also was discussed at that meeting, one with which Nacchio refused to comply. The topic itself is redacted each time it appears in the hundreds of pages of documents, but there is mention of Nacchio believing the request was both inappropriate and illegal, and repeatedly refusing to go along with it. The NSA contract was awarded in July 2001 to companies other than Qwest. USA Today reported in May 2006 that Qwest, unlike AT&T and Verizon, balked at helping the NSA track phone calling patterns that may have indicated terrorist organizational activities. Nacchio's attorney, Herbert Stern, confirmed that Nacchio refused to turn over customer telephone records because he didn't think the NSA program had legal standing. In the documents, Nacchio also asserts Qwest was in line to build a $2 billion private government network called GovNet and do other government business, including a network between the U.S. and South America. <snip> That's the same Sen. Sam Brownback who voted last year to enact the Protect America Act, which"allow[ed] for massive, untargeted collection of international communications without court order or meaningful oversight by either Congress or the courts. It contain[ed] virtually no protections for the U.S. end of the phone call or email, leaving decisions about the collection, mining and use of Americans' private communications up to this administration." And it's the same Sen. Brownback who also voted for this year's FISA Amendments Act, which empowers the U.S. Government to tap directly into the U.S. telecommunications systems in order to monitor international emails and telephone calls with no individual warrant required. The idea that the U.S. can exert meaningful leverage on China's surveillance behavior is laughable forreasons wholly independent of what the U.S. Government itself does with regard to spying on its own citizens. Nonetheless, to watch U.S. Senators like Sam Brownback actually maintain a straight face while protesting China's warrantless spying on the email and telephone communications of foreigners, and lamenting that private companies feel unfairly pressured to cooperate with China's government spying out of fear of losing lucrative business opportunities, is so surreal that it's actually hard to believe one is seeing it. How many days do we have to wait before we get to read a righteous Fred Hiatt Editorial condemning China's Communist tyrants for their outrageous spying intrusions? Maybe Jay Rockefeller can co-sponsor Brownback's Senate Resolution condemning China's surveillance activities and demanding that they stop it at once. ------------------------------ Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC. Voice: 408-838-8896 eFax: +1-408-490-2868 http://www.ibd.com ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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- Those privacy-hating Chinese communist tyrants (and US Teleco Immunity) David Farber (Jul 30)
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- Re: Those privacy-hating Chinese communist tyrants (and US Teleco Immunity) David Farber (Jul 30)