Close Windows, Open Doors

FBI's 'National Security Letters' Demands Ruled Unconstitutional

[caption id="attachment_2109" align="aligncenter" width="650"] The Digital Surveillance Culture[/caption]
Via NPR by EYDER PERALTA

A federal judge in California ruled today that the FBI cannot secretly demand data from banks and phone companies in national security cases. The judge said orders that keep those requests secret violate the First Amendment.

NPR's Carrie Johnson filed this report for our Newscast unit:

"The demands known as 'national security letters' became a quick and popular tool for the FBI to gather information without a judge's pre-approval in the years after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"The letters give counter terrorism agents the power to get information without notifying the targets of their investigations.
"But U.S. District Judge Susan Illston says those gag orders run afoul of the freedom of speech and the separation of powers.
"The judge stayed her ruling to give the Justice Department time to appeal.
"A Justice spokesman said the department is reviewing the decision."

The Wall Street Journal has a bit more background:

"National security letters date back to the 1980s and were strengthened under the USA Patriot Act, the counterterrorism law put into place after Sept. 11. The letters allow the FBI to get data on phone, financial and electronic records without a judge or grand jury, as long as the head of an FBI field office certifies that the records would be relevant to a counterterrorism investigation. They typically come with strict secrecy orders, barring the recipient from acknowledging the case to anyone but attorneys."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represented the unnamed telecommunications company that challenged the national security letters statute, said they were "pleased that the court recognized the fatal constitutional shortcomings of the NSL statute."

EFF's Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman added: "The government's gags have truncated the public debate on these controversial surveillance tools. Our client looks forward to the day when it can publicly discuss its experience."

Wired explains that when the EFF first brought the suit representing the telecom company, "the Justice Department took its own extraordinary measure and sued the company, arguing in court documents that the company was violating the law by challenging its authority."

Wired frames the decision as a "stunning defeat for the Obama administration's surveillance practices." They report:

"Illston found that although the government made a strong argument for prohibiting the recipients of NSLs from disclosing to the target of an investigation or the public the specific information being sought by an NSL, the government did not provide compelling argument that the mere fact of receiving an NSL served national security interests.

"A blanket prohibition on disclosure, she found, "creates too large a danger that speech is being unnecessarily restricted."
"She noted that 97 percent of the more than 200,000 NSLs that have been issued by the government were issued with nondisclosure orders."

CNET - Seattle Dive Bar Becomes First To Ban Google Glass

Google Glass won't be available to consumers for months, but there's at least one Seattle bar where the eyewear will not be welcome.
The 5 Point, a self-described dive bar in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood, posted a notice to its Facebook page this week telling Glass Explorers looking to grab a pint that they will need to remove their $1,500 spectacles. The story was noted today on GeekWire.
"For the record, The 5 Point is the first Seattle business to ban in advance Google Glasses," the post reads. "And ass kickings will be encouraged for violators."

"I'm a thought leader," deadpanned Dave Meinert, the bar's owner, in an interview on Seattle's KIRO-FM. "First you have to understand the culture of the 5 Point, which is a sometimes seedy, maybe notorious place. People want to go there and be not known...and definitely don't want to be secretly filmed or videotaped and immediately put on the Internet."

Full Article at CNET

CISPA Infographic

Cannot believe this is being reconsidered

Anonymous Posts Over 4000 US Bank Executive Credentials

Following attacks on U.S. government websites last weekend, Anonymous seems to have made a new "Operation Last Resort" .gov website strike Sunday night.


Anonymous appears to have published login and private information from over 4,000 American bank executive accounts in the name of its new Operation Last Resort campaign, demanding U.S. computer crime law reform.


A spreadsheet has been published on a .gov website allegedly containing login information and credentials, IP addresses, and contact information of American bank executives.


If true, it could be that Anonymous has released banker information that could be connected to Federal Reserve computers, including contact information and cell phone numbers for U.S. bank Presidents, Vice Presidents, COO's Branch Managers, VP's and more.


The website used in this attack belongs to the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center (ACJIC). The page extension URL is titled, "oops-we-did-it-again."

Full Article at ZDNet

They posted the dox on acjic.alabama.gov originally but when I checked it, the entire site was down.

@oplastresort Document is now down, mirror please?

— Satori Tindalos (@SatoriTindalos) February 4, 2013

A few short tweets later, another post on another government website, this one up with the questions demanded regarding the treatment of Aaron Swartz

And Yes 2day is DDay 4th Feb tic Toc on the Holder clock! We Want Answers oversight.house.gov/wp-content/upl… #oplastresort #floodthecourt Feb 6th

— OpLastResort (@OpLastResort) February 4, 2013

And then another post of the dox, this one still up, on yet another government server.

@oplastresort huh, how long will THAT last? ;)

— Kyle Maxwell (@kylemaxwell) February 4, 2013

The hack seems to be a follow up to the attack on the DoJ website last week, here's the full press release from Anonymous thats been circuilating on YouTube
http://youtu.be/qShtKUheVC0

Police Raid Supposed Meth Lab And Burn 12yo Girl With Flash Grenade - Intel Was Wrong

Excessive Force In Action

Billings, Montana police say the 6 am raid they conducted in October 2012 was part of an investigation into a suspected meth lab. But there was no meth lab. And the 12-year-old daughter of Jackie Fasching suffered severe burns after the SWAT team used a broomstick to drop a flash grenade through a window into a bedroom where the girl and her sister were sleeping.


Police Chief Rich St. John told the paper, “It was totally unforeseen, totally unplanned and extremely regrettable. We certainly did not want a juvenile, or anyone else for that matter, to get injured.”


Fasching wasn’t satisfied with that explanation. “A simple knock on the door and I would’ve let them in,” she said. “They said their intel told them there was a meth lab at our house. If they would’ve checked, they would’ve known there’s not.” Fasching’s husband, who suffers from congenital heart disease and liver failure, was in fact attempting to open the door to let the cops in just as they knocked it down.

Full Article at Huff Post

---

Flash Grenade A Meth Lab? - Cops Know Meth Labs Explode Right?

St. John said investigators did plenty of homework on the residence before deciding to launch the raid but didn't know children were inside.




"The information that we had did not have any juveniles in the house and did not have any juveniles in the room," he said. "We generally do not introduce these disorienting devices when they're present."


The decision to use a SWAT team was based on a detailed checklist the department uses when serving warrants.


Investigators consider dozens of items such as residents' past criminal convictions, other criminal history, mental illness and previous interactions with law enforcement.


Each item is assigned a point value and if the total exceeds a certain threshold, SWAT is requested. Then a commander approves or rejects the request.


In Tuesday's raid, the points exceeded the threshold and investigators called in SWAT.


"Every bit of information and intelligence that we have comes together and we determine what kind of risk is there," St. John said. "The warrant was based on some hard evidence and everything we knew at the time."

Full Article at Missoulian

Congressmen Demand 7 Answers From Aaron Swartz's Prosecutors

1: What factors influenced the decision to prosecute Mr. Swartz for the crimes alleged in the indictment, including the decisions regarding what crimes to charge and the filing of the superseding indictment?


2: Was Mr. Swartz's opposition to SOPA or his association with any advocacy groups considered?


3: What specific plea offers were made to Mr. Swartz, and what factors influenced the decisions by prosecutors regarding plea offers made to Mr. Swartz?


4: How did the criminal charges, penalties sought, and plea offers in this case compare to those of other cases that have been prosecuted or considered for prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?


5: Did the federal investigation of Mr. Swartz reveal evidence that he had committed other hacking violations?


6: What factors influenced the Department's decisions regarding sentencing proposals?


7: Why was a superseding indictment necessary?

Full Article at Ars Technica

http://youtu.be/gJxSDlfWp_g

Firefox OS - A New Alternative To The Android / Windows / iOS Mobile OS Market

Firefox OS (project name: Boot to Gecko also known as B2G) is an Linux-based open source operating system for smartphones and tablet computers being developed by Mozilla. It is designed to allow HTML5 applications to integrate directly with the device's hardware using JavaScript. It has been demonstrated on Android-compatible smartphones, and the Raspberry Pi.
The first smartphones running Firefox OS is slated to be released in the first half of 2013. It will first be released in South America, and will later come to Asian and European markets. ZTE confirmed at CES 2013 that they will ship a smartphone with the OS.

Firefox OS Wiki Entry

Mozilla Firefox OS Landing Page

Firefox OS Screenshots

Kim Dotcom Interview - Encrypt Half The Internet, Government Spying Out Of Control

http://youtu.be/mphBRtr030s

Unlocking Your Phone Now Carries 10 Year Sentence And $1M Fine - DMCA At Its Finest

ADVISORY

BY DECREE OF THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS

IT SHALL HENCEFORCE BE ORDERED THAT AMERICANS SHALL NOT UNLOCK THEIR OWN SMARTPHONES.

PENALTY: In some situations, first time offenders may be fined up to $500,000, imprisoned for five years, or both. For repeat offenders, the maximum penalty increases to a fine of $1,000,000, imprisonment for up to ten years, or both.*


That's right, starting this weekend it is illegal to unlock new phones to make them available on other carriers.

NEW ABSURD CRIME

When did we decide that we wanted a law that could make unlocking your smartphone a criminal offense?

The answer is that we never really decided. Instead, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998 to outlaw technologies that bypass copyright protections. This sounds like a great idea, but in practice it has terrible, and widely acknowledged, negative consequences that affect consumers and new innovation. The DMCA leaves it up to the Librarian of Congress (LOC) to issue exemptions from the law, exceptions that were recognized to be necessary given the broad language of the statute that swept a number of ordinary acts and technologies as potential DMCA circumvention violations.

Every three years groups like the American Foundation for the Blind have to lobby [warning:PDF download] Congress to protect an exception for the blind allowing for books to be read aloud. Can you imagine a more ridiculous regulation than one that requires a lobby group for the blind to come to Capitol Hill every three years to explain that the blind still can't read books on their own and therefore need this exception?

Full Article on The Atlantic

You can check out the government document here.
Library of Congress - Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies

The Backlash On YouTube Has Already Begun

http://youtu.be/iQbhBC4SJvo
http://youtu.be/nxlBxjURaOg
http://youtu.be/win-mjqgUjg
http://youtu.be/cnw20YcKSDA
http://youtu.be/kIKBY1pfH30

Anonymous Threatens Massive WikiLeaks-Style Exposure, Announced On Hacked Gov Site

Hacktivist organization, Anonymous, is threatening perhaps their biggest play ever: a massive WikiLeaks-style exposure of sensitive U.S. government secrets.

As proof of their power, they announced details of the plan on hacked government website, the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC.gov). Citing the recent death of free information activist Aaron Swartz, they explain, "With Aaron’s death we can wait no longer. The time has come to show the United States Department of Justice and its affiliates the true meaning of infiltration."


Swartz was facing up to 50+ years in prison and a $4 million fine after releasing pay-walled academic articles from the popular JSTOR database. Some legal scholars have argued that releasing copyrighted material, or breaking the “terms of service” of a website, should not carry such harsh penalties. Anonymous is demanding that legislation be passed to no longer consider such violations a felony–a law that Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (CrunchGov Grade: A) has already introduced.

If legal reforms are not enacted, Anonymous has threatened to activate files containing embarrassing or incriminating secrets.

Full Article on Tech Crunch

http://youtu.be/WaPni5O2YyI

CAMOVER - Real Life Game To Destroy Surveillance Cameras

Activists in Berlin are teaming up to trash surveillance cameras. Points are given, with bonus scores for the most innovative modes of destruction

The rules of Camover are simple: mobilise a crew and think of a name that starts with "command", "brigade" or "cell", followed by the moniker of a historical figure (Van der Lubbe, a Dutch bricklayer convicted of setting fire to the Reichstag in 1933, is one name being used). Then destroy as many CCTV cameras as you can. Concealing your identity, while not essential, is recommended. Finally, video your trail of destruction and post it on the game's website – although even keeping track of the homepage can be a challenge in itself, as it is continually being shut down...


For those who oppose CCTV, petitions and letters only go so far in the German capital. A group of 40 protesters walked the streets of Berlin for 1984 Action Day (protests against CCTV cameras and other surveillance, named after the novel by George Orwell) in June and pressure group Control Berlin has screened short films documenting CCTV's rise. But Camover's direct-action approach revolves around a small but committed group who call themselves "workless people – we are shoplifters, graffiti sprayers, homeless and squatters". They claim to have snuffed out as many as 50 cameras since the game began a few weeks ago.

Full Article on The Guardian

You can try to check out the site mentioned in the article, but it looks like the German government may be blocking it

http://youtu.be/9GCsd2TJKjQ

Assange - Wikilieaks Movie By Dreamworks Is Mass Propaganda Against Wikileaks And Iran

Dreamworks is following the lead of Columbia Pictures' Zero Dark Thirty, making entertaining yet skewed films that seem to only distract the public from the real facts. I guess it's working seeing as how the average American will argue their beliefs with facts they've gleaned from films. Journalism in America is an absolute joke and it doesn't help that the major film producers are playing into the sensationalism around these topics instead of giving unbiased facts.

http://youtu.be/quGToHOOIcA

Assange last night said WikiLeaks had managed to get hold of a copy of the script of the DreamWorks movie.


And he doesn't like what he's read.


"It is a mass propaganda attack against WikiLeaks the organisation," the 41-year-old Australian told students in Oxford via a video-link from the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
But it is not just an attack against us - it is an attack against Iran.
It fans the flames to start a war with Iran."

Full Article at Herald Sun

TSA - Overreaching, Ineffective And Coming To A Train Station Near You

[caption id="attachment_1307" align="aligncenter" width="545"] Are you in?[/caption]

Early Adopter Of TSA Oversight Seen This Wednesday In California

People are used to seeing TSA inspectors at airports but on Wednesday, a specialized team made their presence known at the Amtrak station in Emeryville. Train stations are difficult to secure because they're so wide open but on Wednesday, the TSA showed up unannounced to let the public, especially potential troublemakers, know that they are keeping an eye on the rails.


Amtrak passenger Vera Molina said she noticed all the black-clad TSA inspectors right away and it's a presence she appreciates. Asked if she would like to see them more often she said, "I would, can't hurt, just in case you never know." As part of their nationwide "Viper Team" effort, the Transportation Safety Administration put about a dozen agents at the station to see and be seen, although some of the inspectors also work undercover.

Full Article on ABC

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TSA Is Ineffective

I almost cannot believe the reaction from people over this. The whole "just in case" story is starting to get a little old and yet we keep chasing the boogeyman on the issue. What really bothers me with this TSA expansion isn't even the concerns with invasion of privacy, it's that their efficacy in catching terrorists is nonexistent. Statistics gleaned from Representative Jason Chaffetz's hearings on TSA Oversight show that out of 25,000 recorded security breaches caught by TSA 0 (that's ZERO) were terrorists. So we are paying more and more for a service that is proven it's incompetent at it's main stated goal? Peter Greenberg speaks on the matter on his blog:

---

A security breach is broadly defined as anything from a misplaced checked bag to someone caught in the act of breaching security.


TSA spokesperson Greg Soule responded with the statement that “[the TSA] takes every security breach incident seriously and take[s] appropriate action accordingly which is why the TSA keeps close track of all the ‘breaches.’ Many of these instances were thwarted or discovered in the act.”


These inquiries into the TSA come after several high-profile lapses and public outrage over TSA security practices.

Among the latest outrages: TSA Says It Acted Appropriately In Demanding Removal of Terminally-Ill 95-Year-Old’s Adult Diaper.

---

Full Article - TSA: 25,000+ Security Breaches, 0 Terrorists Caught

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PDFTribute.net PDF Link Scraper - Command Line PHP Tool

[sourcecode language="php"]
function unshorten_url($url) {
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt_array($ch, array(
CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => TRUE,
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => TRUE,
CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST => FALSE,
CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER => FALSE,
));
curl_exec($ch);
$url = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_EFFECTIVE_URL);
curl_close($ch);
return $url;
}

$target_url = "http://pdftribute.net/"; // Simply add page number for a specific page ie pdftribute.net/3
$userAgent = 'Googlebot/2.1 (http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)';

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $userAgent);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$target_url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FAILONERROR, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 10);
$html= curl_exec($ch);

$dom = new DOMDocument();
@$dom->loadHTML($html);
$xpath = new DOMXPath($dom);
$hrefs = $xpath->evaluate("/html/body//a");
$urls = array();
$pdfs = array();

for ($i = 0; $i < $hrefs->length; $i++) {
$href = $hrefs->item($i);
$url = $href->getAttribute('href');
$urls[] = $url;
}

foreach ($urls as $url)
if (substr(unshorten_url($url), -3, 3) == 'pdf') $pdfs[] = unshorten_url($url);

print_r($pdfs);
[/sourcecode]

Facing 30 Years Prosecutors Turn Down Internet Activist Aaron Swartz's Plea Deal 2 Days Before His Suicide

• Internet activist Swartz, 26, committed suicide on January 11 at his Brooklyn home as he faced 30 years in jail



• Prosecutors turned down Swartz's lawyer over plea deal on January 9



• U.S. attorneys file to dismiss case in court today after Swartz's death



• Internet activist faced decades in prison over hacking charges for allegedly downloading more than four million academic journals



• Hundreds of academics post copyright-protected journals for free in tribute to Swartz



• Hacker group Anonymous crash MIT website over prosecution of Swartz, described as a 'grotesque miscarriage of justice'

Full Article on Dailymail.co.uk

F2C2012: Aaron Swartz keynote - "How we stopped SOPA"

http://youtu.be/Fgh2dFngFsg

Huffington Post - Anonymous Hacks MIT, U.S. Department Of Justice In Aaron Swartz Tribute

Internet activists with the group Anonymous claimed credit for hacking the Massachusetts Institute of Technology website Sunday, in memoriam of the Aaron Swartz, the Reddit co-founder who recently committed suicide.


Reddit users reported the entire mit.edu domain was down, including their school email service. The backup emergency site, emergency.mit.net, was reportedly down too. MIT's website was restored Sunday evening, as Anonymous admitted they were behind the attack.


"Whether or not the government contributed to his suicide, the government's prosecution of Swartz was a grotesque miscarriage of justice, a distorted and perverse shadow of the justice that Aaron died fighting for — freeing the publicly-funded scientific literature from a publishing system that makes it inaccessible to most of those who paid for it — enabling the collective betterment of the world through the facilitation of sharing — an ideal that we should all support," Anonymous' said in a statement, which replaced MIT's website.

Full Article on Huffington Post

ISP Walks Out of Piracy Talks: “We’re Not The Internet Police”

A leading Australian Internet service provider has pulled out of negotiations to create a warning notice scheme aimed at reducing online piracy. iiNet, the ISP that was sued by Hollywood after refusing to help chase down alleged infringers, said that it can’t make any progress with righthsolders if they don’t make their content freely available at a reasonable price. The ISP adds that holding extra data on customers’ habits is inappropriate and not their responsibility.

Full Article

No Agreement Made At ITU

Score 1 for internet freedom! Fuck yeah!
Full Article

The move seems to safeguard the role of the internet as an unregulated, international service that runs on top of telecoms systems free of direct interference by national governments.

Timcast - Weev Convicted For Accessing Public AT&T Server

http://youtu.be/vb-W3_6NmEk