Senate bill rewrite lets feds read your e-mail without warrants

[August]

Here's some more of what the Democrats mean by "Forward"...

A Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans' e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law.

CNET has learned that Patrick Leahy, the influential Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, has dramatically reshaped his legislation in response to law enforcement concerns. A vote on his bill, which now authorizes warrantless access to Americans' e-mail, is scheduled for next week.

Leahy's rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies -- including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission -- to access Americans' e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge. (CNET obtained the revised draft from a source involved in the negotiations with Leahy.)

http://news.yahoo.com/senate-bill-rewrite-lets-feds-read-your-e-mail-without-warrants-191930756.html

[Jimbuna]

http://kenfrost.0catch.com/bigbrother.JPG

[Sailor Steve]

Hey, as long as it's only the SEC and the FCC, what's the problem? Oh wait...22 agencies? And I was joking. The government has no rights, and this is evil.

Mail is mail, and no one but you has a right to read yours. :nope:

[yubba]

No surprise, the 53 percent of us that didn't vote for Santa Claus, are now the enemy. So what's next,,, they are already trashing the First Amendment what comes after one.???????:hmmm:

[Takeda Shingen]

53 percent

Um, you mean 48%.


http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Add-New-Post-%E2%80%B9-The-New-Civil-Rights-Movement-%E2%80%94-WordPress.jpg

[Tribesman]

what comes after one.???????
Twelvty:yep:
I can does numbers too like you

[Buddahaid]

No surprise, the 53 percent of us that didn't vote for Santa Claus, are now the enemy. So what's next,,, they are already trashing the First Amendment what comes after one.???????:hmmm:

Bull! That game ended with The Patriot Act during the Bush years and a Republican Congress. Besides I don't think this is a partisan issue for Congress.

[Skybird]

Well, US services track and record practically all email traffic worldwide, without asking any other state, judge or foreign citizen for permission. It's just fair that Americans now get the benefit of being serviced the same way. Else they would feel like being discriminated.

:O:

[mookiemookie]

Leahy has dropped his support of this bill.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57552687-38/leahy-scuttles-his-warrantless-e-mail-surveillance-bill/

[Takeda Shingen]

He did, but it will unfortunately still go up for vote next week. Still, I don't expect it to pass after this firestorm from both the left and right.

[Catfish]

"It didn't take but probably a week or so after 9/11 that they decided to start spying on the U.S. domestically, on all U.S. citizens they could get."

William Binney, former NSA employee


But it is miltary eavesdropping, does not this automatically makes it all legal and good ?

And "the democrats" signed that ?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57552687-38/leahy-scuttles-his-warrantless-e-mail-surveillance-bill/

This is not about democrats or republicans, politicians are there for 4 years and cannot be trusted anyway.
Who do you think planned and built a 10-year project ?

"National Security Agency chief Gen. Keith Alexander [...] said that the NSA did not have the capability to monitor, inside the United States."
:rotfl2:

Hey the NSA needs something to do with their billions dollars toys.

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/03/22/nsa-spy-hub
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_nsa10.htm

Of course, if you ask what it reall costed, and what it is supposed to do, it is all secret. So much for demcracy and transparency :03:

[vienna]

What's really interesting is the fact the general US population gets up in arms over congressional actions, yet seems to pay little attention to activities such as Eschelon, etc. While a warrant of some kind in most cases is needed to access personal communications (phone, email, etc.) in the US, agencies like the NSA, CIA and their counterparts in the British Commonwealth and other "client" nations routinely scan each other personal comms and gather information, passing it back and forth among each other in a "trade" situation. As long as the NSA, for example, is not actively scanning domestic comms, they benefit from the "outsider" scanning operations who report back to NSA on their "findings", all the while maintaining the illusion they are not tacitly involved in the scans and therefore not violating US laws and Constitutional rights...

<O>

[the_tyrant]

The only way to prevent spying on emails is to either host it yourself, or get a trusted friend to do it.


For example, we can all pitch in, and get @subsim.com emails. I personally own an @istolethis.info email

[AVGWarhawk]

Things like this stem from issues such as the Patraeus scandal where many emails went back and forth. Feds want a open book on emails without getting red tape with warrants.

[vienna]

Petraeus's position(s) in the government put him in a position where he waives, either by direct consent or by the terms of his employment, any expectation his communications are to be considered "private" and beyond monitoring...

As far as self hosting is concerned, the moment you send an email and it hits any server on its way to the recipient, the email may actually be retained on any and, maybe, all the servers for an undetermined amount of time. Also consider the situation in which you send a "confidential" email on your own selfhost only to have the response sent back to you "quoting" your original email. Anyone monitoring the recipient's email account on a non-selfhosted account now has both sides of the comms. I can't even begin to count the number of times when I have come across loose data and/or information I really shouldn't have seen just because it was "quoted" as part of a long form email. I once particpated in a merger team of two very large utility companies and had to point out I was being "cc"-ed by a person on the joint human resources group who was leaving all previous message from day one as "quotes" in their emails. The two original persons in the comms were leaving somewhat delicate and confidential information in this long stream of "message/response/message response.." and I, and any one else they "cc"-ed could read the data. I always trim away any previous data in emails to which I make a response...

<O>

[Red Brow]

The very first Email I ever wrote was in the winter of 1992-93. Back then it was much like the Wild West. Clear up till 1998 most police forces didn't view the Cyber world as anything real. But I never viewed Email as secure for things I wouldn't want made public.

[Madox58]

The only way to prevent spying on emails is to either host it yourself, or get a trusted friend to do it.


For example, we can all pitch in, and get @subsim.com emails. I personally own an @istolethis.info email


Nope. NSA can intercept and check all things going over the Internet.
It does not matter where you Host or send from.
If it's domestic?
They watch.
If it's off shore?
They watch harder.

Don't quote the Laws of the U.S.A. about this.
The NSA is above those laws and have been for years.

[Gerald]

^True words,:yep:

[Platapus]

I just read the 25 page proposed bill and I am not seeing any place where the government is being authorized to access contents of private E-mail without a warrant.

www.leahy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/BillText-ElectronicCommunicationsPrivacyActAmendmentsAct.pd f

Could someone please cite the page and line number where this proposed bill authorizes the government to read your E-mail without a warrant?

I think that before any logical discussion can ensue (like that would happen here on GT) people should know what the bill actually says and not just rely on what a news commentator says about the bill.

I could be wrong, I might have missed it. But that's why such proposed bills have page and line numbers so that clear citations can be made concerning it.

[the_tyrant]

Nope. NSA can intercept and check all things going over the Internet.
It does not matter where you Host or send from.
If it's domestic?
They watch.
If it's off shore?
They watch harder.

Don't quote the Laws of the U.S.A. about this.
The NSA is above those laws and have been for years.

If you really want to keep everything a secret, protect the server side, than encrypt the message itself. Pretty good privacy works pretty good. Works 99.9% of the time.

Of course, if you are REALLY a wanted man, you can't really avoid anything can you? As outlined here:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/security.png

[Gerald]

If the authorities want to listen or read the mail, so they do that,all logged per automatic, and that applies in most Western countries.

[August]

If the authorities want to listen or read the mail, so they do that,all logged per automatic, and that applies in most Western countries.

You know that might be true but that doesn't mean we shouldn't squawk as loudly and forcefully as possible every time issues like this comes up.

To ignore it is to give the government the green light to take that and more.

[Gerald]

I agree,:yep:

[the_tyrant]

If the authorities want to listen or read the mail, so they do that,all logged per automatic, and that applies in most Western countries.


You know what, people often believe that the government has some top secret techniques that allow them to read everything.

However, I'll just say it like this, when done right, not even the government can break many common forms of encryption.

[Gerald]

All is not relevant, and in the case of encryption is a common citizens adequately protected and safety conscious, not included in the authorities' searches, this is determined by the normal filters in the recordings, which is added to the Internet via specific keys.