{"id":387,"date":"2007-08-08T15:44:42","date_gmt":"2007-08-08T20:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/?p=387"},"modified":"2007-08-15T14:06:01","modified_gmt":"2007-08-15T19:06:01","slug":"defiling-our-liberty-and-our-security-overview-and-analysis-of-the-2007-protect-america-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/?p=387","title":{"rendered":"Defiling our Liberty and our Security: Overview and Analysis of the 2007 Protect America Act"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">Yesterday, the <a target=\"_blank\" onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/08\/05\/AR2007080501031_pf.html\">Associated Press<\/a> and other news organizations reported that President Bush signed a bill stampeded through the House and Senate that allows warrantless domestic electronic spying, called the 2007 Protect America Act (PAA 2007), by the National Security Agency to take place for up to 6 months. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">By itself, this news is frightening, but when one bothers to take a closer look at the law, there are several other eye-popping provisions to worry about. According to the <a target=\"_blank\" onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/nation\/washington\/articles\/2007\/08\/06\/new_law_expands_power_to_wiretap?mode=PF\">Boston Globe<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul type=\"disc\" style=\"margin-top: 0in\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">&#8220;<em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6the law requires telecommunications      companies to make their facilities available for government wiretaps, and      it grants them immunity from lawsuits for complying. Under the old      program, such companies participated only voluntarily\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul type=\"disc\" style=\"margin-top: 0in\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">&#8220;<em>Second, Bush has said his original      surveillance program was restricted to calls and e-mails involving a      suspected terrorist, but the new law has no such limit\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Instead, it allows      executive-branch agencies to conduct oversight-free surveillance of all      international calls and e-mails, including those with Americans on the      line, with the sole requirement that the intelligence-gathering is      &#8216;directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside the United      States.&#8217; There is no requirement that either caller be a suspected      terrorist, spy, or criminal.<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul type=\"disc\" style=\"margin-top: 0in\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">&#8220;<em>The law requires the government to      delete any American&#8217;s private information that it picks up, but it      contains an exception allowing agents to maintain files of information      about an American that has foreign intelligence value or that may be      evidence of a crime.<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul type=\"disc\" style=\"margin-top: 0in\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">&#8220;<em>As a check against abuse, the law      requires Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Michael McConnell, director      of national intelligence, to design procedures for the program and to      submit them for review by a secret national security court that normally      approves warrant applications for intelligence-related wiretapping on US      soil<\/em>.&#8221;<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">Furthermore, the <a target=\"_blank\" onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.baltimoresun.com\/news\/nation\/bal-te.surveillance06aug06,0,2626512,print.story?coll=bal_news_local_carroll_util\">Baltimore Sun<\/a> notes:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul type=\"disc\" style=\"margin-top: 0in\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">&#8220;<em>The conversation does not have to be      about terrorism, just a matter of foreign intelligence interest.<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul type=\"disc\" style=\"margin-top: 0in\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">&#8220;<em>The attorney general and the director      of national intelligence have four months to submit to the secret national      security court guidelines for determining what surveillance can take place      without a warrant. The court then has six months to approve those procedures      and cannot reject them unless it finds that the government has made a      clear error in drawing them up, a legal standard critics say will make it      nearly impossible for the executive branch to be denied. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 A      little-noticed provision in the new law also suggests that warrantless      physical searches of homes and businesses inside the United States may be      allowed if the investigation concerns a foreign target of an intelligence      investigation, a congressional aide said.<\/em>&#8220;<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">It&#8217;s hard to know where to start with what&#8217;s wrong with this picture, but my first observation is that clearly there are no provisions for protection against both electronic and physical search and seizure. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">Also, the accountability itself is non-existent. Yes, it&#8217;s true that calls being picked up by the NSA are supposed to be deleted, but that little provision about maintaining files of information that has &#8220;foreign intelligence value or crime&#8221; is crucial, especially since foreign intelligence value is a<span style=\"color: blue\"> <\/span>both broad and<span style=\"color: blue\"> <\/span>subjective measure. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">In 2002, a <a target=\"_blank\" onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/news\/washington\/2002-10-17-nsa-al-qaeda_x.htm\">USA Today<\/a> article discussed how Al-Qaeda was successfully able to elude the NSA&#8217;s surveillance methods largely because &#8220;the typical al-Qaeda intercept is that it lacks specific information, and what information is conveyed can be misinterpreted. A translator who picks up a message from a known al-Qaeda phone in Afghanistan that &#8216;the wedding party is tomorrow&#8217; may be onto a major terrorist operation \u00e2\u20ac\u201d or to an actual marriage. Telling the difference requires an understanding of idiom and inflection.&#8221; (In fact, McConnell himself explicitly acknowledged this problem in a <a target=\"_blank\" onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.foreignaffairs.org\/20070701faessay86404\/mike-mcconnell\/overhauling-intelligence.html?mode=print\">Foreign Affairs article<\/a>, shortly before the PAA 2007 was passed.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">Even worse, having AG Gonzales and Director of National Intelligence McConnell design the procedures for guarding against abuse is nothing short of having the fox guarding the henhouse. Given the <a target=\"_blank\" onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/07\/29\/AR2007072901327_pf.html\">former&#8217;s history of poor memory and misstatements<\/a> and latter&#8217;s institutional lack of interest in privacy and civil liberties (his job is find information about people, not protect it)\u00e2\u20ac\u201cperhaps evident in allegations over <a target=\"_blank\" onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.tpmmuckraker.com\/archives\/003883.php\">back peddling with Democrats to include better provisions to protect liberties in the PAA<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u201cthis is simply a disaster in the making.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">Though I am troubled that this law compromises our right to privacy and other liberties, I am also alarmed that the PAA 2007 will also worsen our national security. That&#8217;s right\u00e2\u20ac\u201cthe PAA 2007 makes us less free <em>and<\/em> less safe.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">The extent to which NSA wiretapping contributes to counterterrorism<span style=\"color: blue\"> <\/span>operations, may be overblown. As the <em><span style=\"font-style: normal\">USA<\/span> <\/em><em><span style=\"font-style: normal\">Today article<\/span><\/em> pointed out, even if you get the correct information, (only 1% of an estimated 48 million communications intercepted daily gets decoded and analyzed) it&#8217;s difficult for analysts to truly know if the conversations they are listening to are foreign intelligence value or not. Even so, the NSA is not suited to intercept Al-Qaeda&#8217;s other low-tech means of communication because they &#8220;learned to evade U.S. interception technology\u00e2\u20ac\u201c\u00e2\u20ac\u201cchiefly by using disposable cell phones or by avoiding phones altogether and substituting human messengers and face-to-face meetings to convey orders.&#8221; Finally, it&#8217;s important to emphasize that getting the proper intelligence is necessary, but analyzing it, investigating it and disseminating it to the right people are also imperative. Failing to do these other three steps were major factors that led to the <span style=\"color: blue\"><a target=\"_blank\" onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.lawrencewright.com\/WrightSoufan.pdf\">9\/11<\/a><\/span> [PDF] and <span style=\"color: blue\"><a target=\"_blank\" onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" href=\"http:\/\/techrepublic.com.com\/5208-11189-0.html?forumID=3&#038;threadID=194635&#038;messageID=2012983\">7\/7<\/a><\/span> attacks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">So far the NSA&#8217;s intelligence vacuum has sucked up a massive volume of useless information that led FBI officials <span style=\"color: blue\"><a target=\"_blank\" onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/01\/17\/politics\/17spy.html?ei=5090&#038;en=f3247cd88fa84898&#038;ex=1295154000&#038;pagewanted=print\">nowhere<\/a><\/span>, wasting limited resources and time. Furthermore, the domestic spy operations put an enormous technical strain on the NSA&#8217;s resources, forcing the agency to consume voracious amounts of electricity\u00e2\u20ac\u201con top of dealing with its <span style=\"color: blue\"><a target=\"_blank\" onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.schneier.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/05\/computer_proble.html\">current computer problems<\/a><\/span>\u00e2\u20ac\u201cto sustain its current operational capacity. This jeopardizes our national security by running the risk of another <span style=\"color: blue\"><a target=\"_blank\" onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.baltimoresun.com\/news\/nation\/bal-nsa0624,0,5263352.story?coll=bal_news_nation_util\">electrical overload<\/a><\/span>, similar to the one that paralyzed the agency <span style=\"color: blue\"><a target=\"_blank\" onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" href=\"http:\/\/archives.cnn.com\/2000\/US\/01\/29\/nsa.computer\/index.html\">seven years ago<\/a><\/span> and left our nation vulnerable for nearly three days. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">To boot, in May 2006, based on a 28-page internal NSA report, the <a target=\"_blank\" onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.topix.net\/content\/trb\/3511822399169898930333379437631263133794\">Baltimore Sun<\/a> revealed the massive spy agency is in a decrepit state due to massive management problems. These massive management problems, according to the report, led to failures to implement crucial technological upgrades, lack of trust between employees and their bosses, lack of common vision, and cost overruns.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">In light of all of this, we have to very seriously ask ourselves and our lawmakers: Do we really want to be giving this agency so much power with such little oversight? I think not. Allowing a disorganized agency whose intelligence contributions to counterterrorism operations are <a target=\"_blank\" onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theleftcoaster.com\/archives\/006455.php#5\">highly disputed<\/a> with an unclear mission to have enormous powers with little accountability or oversight is not only bad for our civil liberties, its bad (if not worse) for our national security. The American people must demand better from our lawmakers by pressuring them to repeal this odious law and demand real reform in our intelligence agencies that includes strong checks and oversight to protect American&#8217;s freedoms.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, the Associated Press and other news organizations reported that President Bush signed a bill stampeded through the House and Senate that allows warrantless domestic electronic spying, called the 2007 Protect America Act (PAA 2007), by the National Security Agency to take place for up to 6 months. By itself, this news is frightening, but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alejandros-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}