Outsourcing Big Brother: Office of Total Information Awareness Relies on Private Sector to Track Americans
By Adam Mayle and Alex Knott
The Center for Public Integrity
December 17, 2002
WASHINGTON, Dec. 17, 2002 -- The Total Information Awareness System, the controversial Pentagon research program that aims to gather and analyze a vast array of information on Americans, has hired at least eight private companies to work on the effort. Since 1997, those companies have won contracts from the Defense Department agency that oversees the program worth $88 million, the Center for Public Integrity has learned.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which oversees the Total Information Awareness System (TIA), awarded 13 contracts to Booz Allen & Hamilton amounting to more than $23 million. Lockheed Martin Corporation had 23 contracts worth $27 million; the Schafer Corporation had 9 contracts totaling $15 million. Other prominent contractors involved in the TIA program include SRS Technologies, Adroit Systems, CACI Dynamic Systems, Syntek Technologies, and ASI Systems International.
TIA itself was first proposed by an employee of a private contractor. John Poindexter, who worked on DARPA projects for Syntek, an Arlington, Va.-based technical and engineering services firm, suggested the program in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Poindexter, who headed the National Security Council during the Reagan administration, was convicted in 1990 on five felony counts for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. The convictions were overturned in 1991 because he had been given immunity for his testimony during the congressional investigation of the affair. On Jan. 14, 2002, he returned to the government as the director of the Information Awareness Office.
TIA draws heavily on the private sector. Five of the eight contractors identified by the Center are involved in evaluating future contracts for the program. Grey E. Burkhart, an associate of Booz Allen Hamilton, identifies himself on his resume as “assistant project manager” of TIA system implementation. Even the phrase “Total Information Awareness” has a private pedigree—Visual Analytics, Inc., a Poolesville, Md.-based software developer and DARPA contractor, has applied for a trademark for the phrase.
In addition, the Center found that at least 24 universities received almost $10 million during the last five years to do research on TIA-related projects. Some of the largest grants went to Cornell University, Columbia University and University of California, Berkeley and dealt with the TIA's language translation program, Translingual Information Detection, Extraction, and Summarization.
“DARPA doesn’t do any of its own research,” Jan Walker, a spokeswoman for the agency, told the Center. She also said that DARPA doesn’t require private contractors to share their research solely with DARPA. “The government benefits when there are commercial applications [from DARPA research] because it keeps the cost down,” she said. Any limitations on commercial use are negotiated “on a case by case basis,” she said, adding that, “Many of the things DARPA does have commercial applications.”
DARPA employs 240 people and oversees a budget of roughly $2 billion, according to its Website. It relies heavily on outside contractors. Some act as “systems engineering technical assistance,” or SETA contractors, who assist DARPA in “managing the efforts and representing the program with Congress, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the military services and/or involved unified commander.” Typical projects involve five to ten contractors, two universities, and budgets between $10 and $40 million. DARPA’s Website also notes that the best program managers—the agency’s employees who oversee the contractors—“have always been freewheeling zealots in pursuit of their goals…”
A lack of oversight
Congress, which exercises oversight of the executive branch and the military, has not held a single public hearing on TIA and sources on the Hill suggested that members know little about it. In a Nov. 22, 2002, letter, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) asked the inspector general of the Defense Department to “conduct a complete and thorough review of the TIA program.” Noting that available information regarding TIA was not sufficient, Grassley wrote that “[the Defense Department’s] comments (about DARPA) only provide few answers and invite many more questions.”
Grassley questioned the parameters and scope of TIA, how Poindexter was selected to head it, and what protections are in place to ensure civil liberties are not violated.
Despite Congress’ lack of knowledge about the program, the overall budget for TIA programs is increasing, and will nearly triple from $43 million in fiscal year 2001 to $110 million in fiscal year 2003. According to declassified budgets released recently from DARPA, some projects that have existed since 1996 will receive similar spending boosts now that the TIA office has been officially created. For instance, a TIA project called Wargaming the Asymmetric Environment grew from $6.8 million in fiscal year 2001 to $18.5 million in fiscal year 2003.
An ongoing effort
The stated goal of TIA, which began in the 2002 fiscal year, is “to revolutionize the ability of the United States to detect, classify and identify foreign terrorists—and decipher their plans—and thereby enable the U.S. to take timely action to successfully preempt and defeat terrorist acts.” To accomplish this, the program seeks to combine several kinds of information—financial, education, travel, medical, veterinary, transportation and housing transactional records; face, finger print, and other identifying data—into databases.
TIA draws heavily on other DARPA research projects that were ongoing long before Sept. 11, 2001. For example, Project Genoa, a computer program designed to rapidly analyze data, share it and develop plans based upon it, began prior to 1997 and was completed in the 2002 fiscal year. The Defense Intelligence Agency has agreed to use Genoa. A Genoa II project is underway at DARPA.
Syntek was a contractor for the Genoa Project providing “specialized technical and programmatic” advice for more than five years. According to his resume—which had been posted on the home page of the Information Awareness Office (which oversees TIA) until it was removed in November along with the resumes of other IAO personnel—Poindexter joined Syntek in 1996. The first documented reference to Syntek’s involvement in Genoa indicates that the company began working for DARPA by mid-1996. Since 1997 Syntek received nine contracts from DARPA totaling $1.18 million. Poindexter worked for Project Genoa via Syntek through 2001 before returning to the Defense Department as the director of the Information Awareness Office (IAO).
According to financial disclosure documents filed by Poindexter, before joining DARPA he earned $147,182 a year while working for Syntek. Poindexter worked closely with DARPA helping to develop Project Genoa, which is now a component of TIA. Under Poindexter’s guidance, IAO will continue to use Syntek as a TIA contractor. He also reports receiving income for acting as a consultant to the U.S. Government for Syntek. These days, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Poindexter is receiving a salary of $138,200—the most of any DARPA employee and equal to the salary of DARPA Director Tony Tether.
One month after he joined the board of directors of Saffron Technology in September 2000, the company announced it had received funding from DARPA for Genoa, which is now part of the TIA program.
Poindexter characterized the mission of IAO as “the integration and assured transition of components developed in the programs Genoa, Genoa II, GENISYS, EELD, WAE, TIDES, HumanID, and Bio-surveillance,” in an August 2002 speech at the DARPATECH conference in Anaheim, Calif. Those programs, all of which predate TIA and are under the aegis of the IAO, analyze and extract data, allow the identification of individuals by their characteristic body movements, or automatically translate Arab, Persian and other languages into English. Poindexter explained that TIA is “the overarching program that binds IAO’s efforts together.”
Many of the components of TIA, such as Genoa, have been ongoing projects since the Clinton administration. And in the May 13, 1999, issue of Commerce Business Daily, a now-superceded bulletin board for government contracts, there is a notice from DARPA that it intended to award a company named Integral Visuals, Inc. a purchase order for technical and engineering support for “Project Genoa and Total Information Awareness,” suggesting that TIA, like its components, predates the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In a Nov. 20, 2002, news briefing, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology Pete Aldridge disclosed that Poindexter was the mastermind of the TIA project. Noting that Poindexter had “a passion for this project,” Aldridge explained, “He came to us with the project after September the 11th and volunteered it to DARPA. Tony Tether, the director of DARPA, came over with John and briefed it to me, and I thought it was a project worthy of pursuit.”
The private connection
Last April, IAO published a document with the bureaucratic title BAA 02-08 Information Awareness Proposer Information Pamphlet, which asks private companies to provide “innovative research proposals in the area of information technologies that will aid in the detection, classification, identification, and tracking of potential foreign terrorists…and to develop options to prevent their terrorist acts.”
The same document spells out the central role that contractors play in IAO, which will “…use personnel from SRS Technologies, Syntek Technologies, CACI, Schafer Corporation and Adroit Systems as special resources to assist with the logistics of administering proposal evaluation and to provide advice on specific technical areas.”
DARPA has hired diversified defense industry giants Lockheed-Martin and Booz Allen & Hamilton for TIA and related projects. Booz Allen has won what may become the largest TIA contract, potentially worth $62 million over the next five years if DARPA exercises all the contract’s options.
Booz Allen employee Grey E. Burkhart’s resume notes that he is the “assistant program manager for the implementation of an advanced collaborative analysis system for the counterterrorism and intelligence communities,” which he identifies as “Total Information Awareness (TIA) System Implementation.” DARPA spokeswoman Walker told the Center that Burkhart is not an employee of the government.
Burkhart has had more than 25 years of experience in strategic security, intelligence, and telecommunications. Working in both the private and public sectors he was a career intelligence officer, CEO of Allied Communications Engineering, and has become a “recognized expert on in the global proliferation of information technology.”
Burkhart’s resume also notes that he was a member of Booz Allen’s Homeland Security Coordination Center and Tiger Team, for which he “conducted analysis of new legislation and executive orders and assessed their impact on current and future business.”
Big brother on campus
Private companies have not been the only players in TIA research. Dozens of universities within and without the United States have also worked on the program’s components for years.
Since late 2000, researchers at Georgia Tech have been working on a new computer-based identification system called Human ID that theoretically can take video images from a camera and distinguish people by the way that they walk and their different mannerisms. The applications of this software could have unlimited potential when used with satellite imaging, government video, and even security cameras. The theory is that each person has distinctive body movements and by recording and analyzing these movements, the government could identify suspects even if they are wearing disguises or have altered their appearances.
According to unclassified budget documents recently released by the Defense Department, DARPA spent $11.8 million during the 2001 fiscal year to develop a “pilot force protection system” for Human ID as well as create prototype models and develop advanced sensors (p. 88.). DARPA’s new budget increases the program’s spending to $30.1 million during the next two fiscal years to identify the limitations of the range and accuracy of the program while fusing multi-modal technologies to derive biometric signatures.
Overall, Georgia Tech has received four federal grants totaling $1.2 million for the “HumanID from movement” project, beginning in the last quarter of 2000. The funds are part of a $50 million DARPA program to identify people from a distance that encompasses 26 research projects including two from Georgia Tech to analyze movement.
In addition to recognizing people by body movement, Human ID is working on facial recognition and iris recognition software. These uses have been tested on subjects at a distance of 25-150 feet, but future DARPA plans anticipate distances as far as 500 feet.
“I do computer vision research,” said Aaron Bobick, an associate professor at Georgia Tech researching HumanID for DARPA. “Part of it is to see how to get computers to see things. One of things that I am working on is understanding motion and recognizing people from a distance.”
Bobick told the Center that the research is still preliminary. “We’ve found it to be successful in a limited number of cases but gait recognition is really in its infancy. We don’t know how successful it will be. We are still at the point where we don’t know what will be possible.”
DARPA projects on identification go well beyond “naked eye” visual appearance. The defense agency is currently trying to identify potential suspects by their unseen traits using plumes of odorant molecules. While doing experiments on subjects as small as moths, bacteria and mammals, scientists are finding new ways of differentiating small particles to understand identity.
DARPA has spent more than $427,000 on four grants to the University of Arizona dating back to 1998 to study this identification method called “biologically-inspired search algorithms for locating unseen odor sources.”
Like gait recognition, the smell test is still in development.
Research associate Ben Coates, database editor Aron Pilhofer, and executive director Charles Lewis contributed to this report.
SFIM - Societe de Fabrication d'Instruments de Mesure
SOFMA (Societe Francaise de Materials D'Armement)
GERMANY
Aeromaritime Systembau GmbH
Dornier Security Systems GmbH
Rennhak Nachtsichtsysteme
SIM Security & Electronic System GmbH
GREECE
Econ Optics Mechanics
Intracom SA (Hellenic Telecommunications & Electronics)
INDIA
Bharat Electronics Ltd
ISRAEL
Elbit Computers Ltd
ELOP - Electro-Optics Industries Ltd
International Technologies (Lasers) Ltd
Personix Ltd
Rafael Armament Development Authority
Security World Ltd Security
Tadiran-Elisra
ITALY
A.T.E.T.
Officine Galileo
JORDAN
Jordan Technology Group
LUXEMBOURG
AlphaSafety SA
NETHERLANDS
Alphatron Observation and Communication B.V
BV Delft Electronische Producten (DEP)
Delft Instruments Electro-Optics BV
Reinaert Electronics PO
NORWAY
Simrad Optronics A/S
PORTUGAL
Montagrex-Optagrex (Soc Portuguesa de Importaco e Exp)
SAUDI ARABIA
International Information & Trading Services Co
SOUTH AFRICA
Barlows Electronics Ltd
Night Vision Optics
SPAIN
Defex SA
SWITZERLAND
Security Systems International
TAIWAN
Startek Engineering
UNITED KINGDOM
Action Information (Management)
AGEMA Infrared Systems Ltd
AI Cambridge Ltd (Security)
Amber Technology Ltd
AMPEX Great Britain Ltd
Audiotel International Ltd
AVIMO Ltd
Barr and Stroud Ltd
British Aerospace (Precision Products group)
Cardkey Systems Ltd
Civil Defence Supply
Commercial Defence International Ltd
Communications Devices Ltd
Computing Devices Eastbourne Ltd
Conjay Firearms & Ammunition Ltd
Continental Microwave Ltd
Cossor Electronics Ltd
Crisis International (Special Operations Group)
D Sig (Defence Security Intelligence Group)
Davin Optical Ltd
De La Rue Printak
Dennard Ltd
EEV Night Vision Systems Ltd
Fernau Avionics Ltd
Ferranti Computer Systems Ltd
Ferranti Defence Systems
Gallant Ordnance
GEC Marconi Command & Control Systems Ltd
GEC Sensors Ltd,
GPT Ltd (GEC Plessey Telecom)
Hagen Arrow
Hagen Electronics Ltd
Hall & Watts Ltd
Hawker Siddeley Dynamics & Engineering Ltd
Hawkeye Systems Ltd
Imagebase Technology Ltd
Insight Vision Systems Ltd
Intergraph (UK) Ltd
International Computers Ltd (ICL)
IO Research Ltd
J & S Franklin Ltd
Keymed (Medical & Industrial Equipment) KMI
Leica UK Ltd
Lynwood Scientific Developments Ltd
Marconi Radar & Control Systems (Information Systems)
Marconi Radar Ltd
Miracles of Science
Miriad International Systems Ltd
Nanoquest Defence Products Ltd
Pathfinder Lighting Products Ltd
Pearpoint Ltd
Pilkington Optronics Ltd
Pilkington PE Ltd
PK Electronic International Ltd
Pyser - SGI Ltd (Security Products)
Racal Electronics plc - Group Headquarters
Racal Radio Ltd
Racal Recorders Ltd
Radamec Defence Systems Ltd
Remsdaq Ltd
Rimfire International Ltd
S & D Security Equipment Ltd (SDSE)
SD-Scicon UK Ltd
Security and Defence Marketing Services Ltd (SDMS)
Security Systems International
Siemens Plessey Controls Ltd (Traffic Division)
Siemens Plessey Defence Systems Ltd
Solarray Identifiaction Systems (SIS) Ltd
Surveillance Technology Group
Surveillance Technology International (STI)
The Communications Company
Thorn EMI Electronics Ltd - Electro Optics Div
Trend Telecommunications Ltd
TV2 Ltd
Videomech
Walmore Defence Components
Winkelmann Security Systems Ltd
UNITED STATES
AES Corporation
Audio Intelligence Devices,
B.E Meyers & Co Inc
CCS Communication Control Systems
Control Data Corporation
Covert Operations International Ltd
Criminal Research Products Inc
Dektor Counter-Intelligence & Security Inc
E-Systems Inc
lbit systems
Eyedentify Inc
Hughes - Tactical Land Systems Div,
II Morrow Inc
International Commercial Services (AFM USA inc)
Law Enforcement Associates Inc
Litton Electron Devices Division
Motorola Inc
NAMSI (North American Morpho Systems Inc)
Optic-Electronic Corporation
Questar Corp Rte
RACOM Products Inc
Rockwell International Corporation
Sherwood International Export Corp
Sirchie Fingerprint Labs Inc
Stano Components
Star-Tron Technology Corporation
Sti-Co Industries, Inc
Surveillance Technology Group ( USA)
SWS Security
Technipol International Corp
Texas Instruments
_________________
John Smith, President In 1983, after years of serving as a Technology Consultant and IT Manager for various local govenment agencies, John founded ABC Information Solutions. He saw the need for a local company that...
Jane Smith, Director of Administration and Finance Jane has an extensive background in banking, administration and management. This experience is supplemented by broad skills in customer relationship and...
Arbeit Macht Frei
Dachau Concentration Camp Entrance. The literal translation is Work makes you free. A better translation might be Trust me, I'm your government
Also see Outlaws, Social Construction, Electronic Frontier, Electronic Property and Economics
To understand this important story, you have to understand how the telephone company works. Your telephone is connected to a local computer, which is in turn connected to a regional computer, which is in turn connected to a loudspeaker the size of a garbage truck on the lawn of Edna A. Bargewater of Lawrence, Kan.
Whenever you talk on the phone, your local computer listens in. If it suspects you're going to discuss an intimate topic, it notifies the computer above it, which listens in and decides whether to alert the one above it, until finally, if you really humiliate yourself, maybe break down in tears and tell your closest friend about a sordid incident from your past involving a seedy motel, a neighbor's spouse, an entire religious order, a garden hose and six quarts of tapioca pudding, the top computer feeds your conversation into Edna's loudspeaker, and she and her friends come out on the porch to listen and drink gin and laugh themselves silly.
-- Dave Barry, "Won't It Be Just Great Owning Our Own Phones?"
This reminder of the extent to how far citizens can safely trust their government was triggered by the anti-cryptographic initiatives government has been pursuing of late, including their heavy-handed treatment of Phil Zimmerman, the author of PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). And don't forget the raids on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco Texas and Randy Weaver's home on Ruby Ridge. And the FBI's recent confiscation of 1% of the nation's telephone capacity in order to tap telephone conversations from any central location they please. With a court order, of course.
Is this page an extremist overaction? I most certainly hope so. But government's insistence on technologies that could only be used to snoop on honest citizens who think they've nothing to hide, raises very serious questions as to what they really have in mind with all this. For example, see NSA Shortcircuiting Future Crypto Capabilities in the June 1995 issue of Computer Fraud & Security. On the other hand...
Your worst fears just came true: CALEA: In this Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Further NPRM), we address alleged deficiencies in industry-developed technical requirements for wireline, cellular, and broadband Personal Communications Services (PCS) carriers to comply with the assistance
capability requirements prescribed by the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (CALEA, or the Act).
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)
MIT distribution site for PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) FLASH: PGP 5.0 Freeware is now available for Windows '95, Windows NT and Macintosh (System 7.5+).PGP or Pretty Good (TM) Privacy is a high-security cryptographic software application that allows people to exchange messages with both privacy and authentication. Privacy means that only those intended to receive a message can read it. By providing the ability to encrypt messages, PGP provides protection against anyone eavesdropping on the network. Even if a packet is intercepted, it will be unreadable to the snooper. Authentication ensures that a message appearing to be from a particular person can have originated from that person only, and that the message has not been altered. In addition to its support for messages, PGP also enables you to encrypt files stored on your computer.
MIT distributes PGP free for non-commercial use. This distribution is done in cooperation with Philip Zimmermann, the author of PGP, PGP Incorporated and with RSA Data Security, Inc., which licenses patents to the public-key encryption technology on which PGP relies.
Background
BIG BROTHER INCORPORATED PRIVACY INTERNATIONAL A Report on the International Trade in Surveillance Technology and its Links to the Arms Industry. London November 1995 This report presents a detailed analysis of the international trade in surveillance technology. Its' primary concern is the flow of sophisticated computer-based technology from developed countries to developing countries - and particularly to non-democratic regimes. It is in this environment where surveillance technologies become technologies of political control.
Jackboots on the Infobahn by John Perry Barlow
Decrypting the Puzzle Palace by John Perry Barlow
9Oct95: Infowar and Disinformation: From the Pentagon to the Net by Daniel Brandt From NameBase NewsLine, No. 11, October-December 1995: In 1967, a satire was published under the title "Report From Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace." This analysis soberly reflected, in think-tank style, on the importance to society of waging war. Leonard Lewin, who pretended that the secret report was leaked and did not claim authorship until five years later, argued forcefully that war provides a type of social and psychological glue, without which society cannot function.
About Arrangements For Enforcing Legal Order In The Area Of Development, Production, Sales And Use Of Cryptographic Instruments, As Well As Rendering Services In Information Encryption by Boris Yeltsin In order to secure unconditional fulfillment of the Law of the Russian Federation "About federal bodies for government communications and information", as well as to intensify the struggle against organized crime and to enhance protection of information and telecommunication systems of the bodies of state power, Russian structures for banking and finance, enterprises and organizations I decree:
Malaysia Censors Netnews
Germany Doesn't German Minister of Justice: Governments' attempts to regulate the internet on their own are nonsensical, technically and economically. National states are obsolete. A crypto ban cannot be enforced.
HWEB Project Thanks to the Herculean efforts of Ken McVay between 1991 and present, there are now over 4,000 files of information concerning the Holocaust and the rise of modern-day fascism at Nizkor's ftp site. These files are stored as "plaintext" Enter the World-Wide Web. In what appears to be the fastest growth of an informational technology in recorded history, the Web is sweeping the globe with almost incredible popularity. Growing faster than the telephone or even the television, the Web has gone from insignificant in 1993 to what is now the single-most popular means of sending data across the Internet, having surpassed email in April 1995. By the end of this year, the Web will be the Internet to millions of people. The goal of the HWEB Project is to bring the valuable knowledge stored in those 4,000 plaintext files onto the planet-spanning Web of information.
Holocaust Pictures Exhibition Stuff about the Holocaust. Each poster contains one picture, a comment on it and the source. For the convenience of all visitors, I reduced the size of the pictures (I filtered them and sometimes I reduced the width and the height).
FBI Wiretap (Digital Telephony) Bill
30Aug94 Digital Telephony Resistance Status of the bills Five things you can do RIGHT now to stop Digital Telephony Records of legislators supporting/opposing/wavering on DT Digital Telephony bill FAQ The VTW Press Release Sample Letter To The Editor Who are we and how can you contact us?
Digital Telephony Bill of 1994 by Jim Warren (jwarren@well.sf.ca.us) $500,000,000.00 Allocated To Make United States Telecomm "Wiretap Ready" Appropriately in the dark of the night, Congress passed HR 4922, the national wiretap bill, about 9:30 pm on Oct. 7th. Half a billion tax dollars was authorized to begin making your, and my, and every previously- presumed-innocent citizen and business in Amerika undetectably wire-tappable by a remote keystoke, by whichever incumbent politicians and bureaucrats are willing to use their control of the system. Bill language implies that telecomm rate-payers will get to pay for the rest of the work to make their phones trivially tapable. .
Epic Alert Volume 2.05 March 26, 1995 Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) [1] Senate Committee Approves "Decency" Bill [2] EPIC Statement on Communications Decency Act [3] Caller ID Snafus Continue: FCC Delays Implementation [4] Security Policy Board Criticized: FCSM Letter to OMB [5] Commerce Dept. to Recommend Relaxing Crypto Export Control [6] Maryland Debates Online Privacy [7] Reminder: Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference [8] Upcoming Conferences and Events
Digital Telephony Bill Analysis Electronic Frontier Foundation Analysis of the above bill and the following freedom of information article by Brock Meeks of Cyberwire Dispatch. EFF issued this statement on the passage of this atrocity.
FCC regulation by Daniel J. Weitzner; EFF During the final hours before the Senate telecommunications bill (S.1822) was marked-up by the Senate Commerce Committee, a provision was added which would expand the current FCC regulation on obscene and indecent audiotext (900 number) services to virtually all electronic information services, including commercial online service providers, the Internet, and BBS operators.
EFF Seeks Release of FBI Wiretap Data by Dave Banisar of EPIC EPIC calls Proposed Surveillance Legislation Unnecessary
Rsa And Eit Joint Venture Will Make Internet Transactions Secure RSA Data Security Inc. (RSA) and Enterprise Integration Technologies Corp. (EIT) today announced the formation of Terisa Systems, a joint venture that will market, license and support technologies that make secure Internet transactions possible. The new company will provide toolkits and support to developers of Internet applications for the World Wide Web (WWW) and NCSA Mosaic.
EFF Statement on Digital Telephony Bill by Stanton McCandlish Leahy and Edwards introduce a narrow Digital Telephony bill with major new privacy protections. Also see response from Mark Stahlman: Well, what a fine kettle of fish you've gotten yourselves into this time. EFF "supports" a Digital Telephony (wiretap) bill. Quick, who's got the smelling salts?
Group Seeks Release of FBI Wiretap Data; Calls Proposed Surveillance Legislation Unnecessary by EPIC Alert A leading privacy rights group today sued the Federal Bureau of Investigation to force the release of documents the FBI claims support its campaign for new wiretap legislation. The documents were cited by FBI Director Louis Freeh during testimony before Congress and in a speech to an influential legal organization but have never been released to the public.
Ten Good Reasons for the Wiretap Bill by Dorothy Denning [bjc: From the governments most eager, ever willing, ever trusting supporter.]
Clipper Chip
Strong cryptography with a back door to which Big Brother holds the key. Also called Key Escrow Cryptography.
Can Wiretaps Remain Cost Effective? by Robin Hanson Until recently, technology has happened to allow for cheap wiretaps. New digital telephone technologies, however, may soon make wiretaps more difficult, and new encryption technologies may soon make them almost impossible. This may be good news to privacy buffs, but it worries U.S. police agencies -- since 1968 the law has explicitly allowed police wiretaps. And it worries U.S. spy agencies -- since 1978 the law has explicitly allowed them to wiretap foreigners. So in early-1992, the FBI proposed a bill to require all telecommunication and computer companies to do whatever it takes to preserve cheap police wiretaps. This bill evolved, became somewhat weaker, and acquired a provision to pay phone companies up to $500 million for costs incurred. In late-1994 it passed.
The Future of Cryptography by Dorothy Denning A few years ago, the phrase crypto anarchy was coined to suggest the impending arrival of a Brave New World in which governments, as we know them, have crumbled, disappeared, and been replaced by virtual communities of individuals doing as they wish without interference. [[bjc: fundamental clash here. To Denning government's the solution. To others government the problem. With such disparate premises there's little surprise at the disagreement.]
Industry Group Rebuffs U.S. on Encryption The campaign by the Clinton Administration to create a standard for data encryption acceptable to industry, civil liberties and law enforcement groups broke down yesterday when a group including some of the nation's most powerful technology companies rejected a compromise proposal.
CHANGES IN US CRYPTOGRAPHY POLICY In BillWatch (Issue #14) we described the background surrounding the announcement of the government's new "Key Escrow" proposal. Details are still sketchy, probably because they haven't been worked out yet. However detractors are calling the plan "Clipper II" while proponents are hoping it will strike a balance between industry, law enforcement, and the public. NIST has distributed two discussion drafts to guide presentations on the workshops on Sep. 6th and 7th. Because this is not a public-friendly process (few of your elected representatives are likely to be involved in this process) we have re-published these papers here for your perusal. VTW would like to publicly thank NIST for providing this information.August 25, 1995
Fbi Files: Clipper Must Be Mandatory WASHINGTON, DC - Newly-released government documents show that key federal agencies concluded more than two years ago that the "Clipper Chip" encryption initiative will only succeed if alternative security techniques are outlawed. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) obtained the documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation under the Freedom of Information Act. EPIC, a non-profit research group, received hundreds of pages of material from FBI files concerning Clipper and cryptography.
Summary of NYC Clipper Seminar Good news re: Clipper?
Clipper Chip's Scrapbook AWA:
Response to Blaze Attack by NIST: The following material was released by NIST in response to recent articles regarding AT&T/Matt Blaze and the key escrow chip. A second more technical response follows.
Clipper Testimony by Jerry Berman, EFF
Information on electric utilities by Rick Crawford: While monopoly power is a problem in any sector, the major threat from electric utilities getting into the NII construction business is that of SURVEILLANCE and the gradual degradation of PRIVACY.
K-12 Student Records: Privacy at Risk CPSR Policy Fact Sheet The U.S. education system is rapidly building a nationwide network of electronic student records. This computer network will make possible the exchange of information among various agencies and employers, and the continuous tracking of individuals through the social service, education and criminal justice systems, into higher education, the military and the workplace.
UnivAccessTimeIsGone.html by John Browning Politicians love to give it lip service, but universal service is a 1930s solution to a 21st century problem. The problem is an excess (not shortage) of bandwidth, and the solution is called Open Access.
FCC Regulation Stephanie Faul This "news report" is total bullshit. You've been had.
Dorothy Denning Answers Clipper Chip Critics by Dorothy Denning [bjc: I'm beginning to wonder if there's anything the government might do that this woman might disagree with. "Trust me, I'm the government" seems to be all the safeguards she requires.]
Letter to Phil Zimmerman from the Balkans A spine-tingling note from Central Europe [[bjc: Dorothy, what is your response?]
Communications Decency Act
Sign the Petition against the Exxon Communication Decency Act.
Communications Decency Act Passes Senate Commerce Committee Electronic Frontier Foundation - March 25, 1995 Senate Commerce Committee passed telecom legislation that included an amended version of the Communications Decency Act of 1995, commonly known as "the Exon Amendment." This draft was introduced by Sen. Slade Gorton (R-VT). The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) opposes the inclusion of the "decency" provisions in this legislation for the following reasons:
Communications Decency Act EFFector Online Volume 08, No. 03 March 20, 1995A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundatio ALERT - Join Us in Opposing Exon Censorship Bill - ACT NOW! EFF Legal Services Needs Your Help: The Cyberspace Defense Fund Zimmermann, Borg, Ware to Receive EFF Pioneer Awards Scotland and Italy Crack Down on "Anarchy Files" Bay-Area EFF Meeting, Mar. 31: Sovereignty of Cyberspace, CoS v Inet Calendar of Events What YOU Can Do
Intelligent Transportation Systems
Intelligent Transportation Systems in the United States Serious Privacy Issues -- Opportunity for Public CommentIntelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) is a very large program organized by industry and government to apply computer and communications technologies to transportation. If ITS lives up to its proponents' hopes then it will eventually affect virtually everybody. ITS systems are already implemented in many American states and other countries, particularly for automated toll collection, and numerous others can be expected soon. Architectures, standards, and regulatory frameworks for US national ITS systems are being formulated through a long, complex private-public partnership process that is already well under way. Although ITS promises to bring many benefits, if implemented incorrectly it can also pose a grave threat to personal privacy by making extensive information on individuals' travels available to governments, marketing organizations, and others.
Other Activities
DMV And 2D Bar Codes On the surface, the bar code looks like a 3D random dot pattern stereogram with a set of ordinary bar code-looking start and end sequences. That is envision a rectangular bar code whose center has been replace by random dots leaving the first two or three bars on the left and on the right sides.
The Network Observer 2(2)VOLUME 2, NUMBER 2 FEBRUARY 1995 This month: The industrial organization of public debate How can we make Free-Nets free? Democratic politics in a networked society Newt-O-Rama
Epic AlertVolume 2.04 March 9, 1995 [1] EPIC Files Suit Against National Security Council [2] Supreme Court Rules on Use of Inaccurate Computer Records [3] Caller ID Privacy Protection Fails in Two More States [4] Industry Groups Urge Pervasive Crypto Implementation [5] IRS Issues "Correction' Notice on Compliance 2000 [6] Caller ID Study Finds FCC Out of Step [7] Wiretap Watch: FBI Issues Wiretap Notice, Questionnaire [8] Upcoming Conferences and Events
Omnibus Counterterrorism Bill S. 390 and H.R. 896 New FBI Charter to Investigate Political Groups February 10, 1995 the Omnibus Counterterrorism Bill was introduced as S. 390 into the Senate and as H.R. 896 in the House. It was initiated by the FBI, and passed on by the Justice Department and the White House. Senators Biden (D-DE) and Specter (R- PA) initiated it in the Senate, Rep. Schumer (D-NY) and Dicks (D-WA) in the House. It has bipartisan support and could get expedited.
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