Reports of the FBI and NSA using foreign surveillance programs to watch Muslim-Americans are “sadly reminiscent of government surveillance of civil rights activists and anti-war protesters in the 1960s and 70s,” said Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Staff Attorney Mark Rumold in a Wednesday blog post (http://bit.ly/1neAUtC). The Intercept reported Tuesday that documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden showed the U.S. government was using its surveillance programs intended to target foreigners to covertly monitor the emails of prominent Muslim-Americans, including attorneys, professors, a civil rights advocate and a former government official (http://bit.ly/1k43Vn7). The government has previously acknowledged its Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702-authorized surveillance programs incidentally sweep in information about American residents, and a recent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) said the government’s minimization procedures were mostly sufficient to protect the constitutional rights of Americans (CD July 3 p5). The new revelations show this isn’t the case, EFF’s Rumold said. “The government’s surveillance of prominent Muslim activists based on constitutionally protected activity fails the test of a democratic society that values freedom of expression, religious freedom, and adherence to the rule of law.” EFF represents the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the founder of which, Nihad Awad, was one of those the government is reportedly monitoring. This type of surveillance is a “stain on our nation,” said Rumold, saying the revelations emphasize the need for legislation to alter the government’s surveillance programs. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Department of Justice said jointly Wednesday that it’s “entirely false that U.S. intelligence agencies conduct electronic surveillance of political, religious or activist figures solely because they disagree with public policies or criticize the government, or for exercising constitutional rights.” Without addressing any of the individuals mentioned in the report, the agencies said that “with limited exceptions (for example, in an emergency), our intelligence agencies must have a court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to target any U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident for electronic surveillance.” If the court finds an individual “is an agent of a foreign power under this rigorous standard,” that person “is not exempted just because of his or her occupation,” the agencies said.
The recent financial crisis increases the need to reauthorize the Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank in a timely fashion because traditional institutions no longer deal in export finance, said National Foreign Trade Council President Bill Reinsch in a July 8 post for the Wilson Center's America’s Trade Policy blog. “When this happens, government is doing exactly what it is supposed to do -- filling the gap when there is a market failure,” said Reinsch. “Widespread use of similar institutions by our competitors, both developed countries and increasingly the emerging economies like China, has turned virtue into necessity. We are in a cut-throat competitive economy.” The bank’s charter runs out on Sept. 30, and lawmakers are hotly debating reauthorization (see 14070212). Expiration will pave the way for foreign competitors to secure projects that U.S. companies could access through Ex-Im lending.
Reports of the FBI and NSA using foreign surveillance programs to watch Muslim-Americans are “sadly reminiscent of government surveillance of civil rights activists and anti-war protesters in the 1960s and 70s,” said Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Staff Attorney Mark Rumold in a Wednesday blog post (http://bit.ly/1neAUtC). The Intercept reported Tuesday that documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden showed the U.S. government was using its surveillance programs intended to target foreigners to covertly monitor the emails of prominent Muslim-Americans, including attorneys, professors, a civil rights advocate and a former government official (http://bit.ly/1k43Vn7). The government has previously acknowledged its Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702-authorized surveillance programs incidentally sweep in information about American residents, and a recent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) said the government’s minimization procedures were mostly sufficient to protect the constitutional rights of Americans (WID July 3 p1). The new revelations show this isn’t the case, EFF’s Rumold said. “The government’s surveillance of prominent Muslim activists based on constitutionally protected activity fails the test of a democratic society that values freedom of expression, religious freedom, and adherence to the rule of law.” EFF represents the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the founder of which, Nihad Awad, was one of those the government is reportedly monitoring. This type of surveillance is a “stain on our nation,” said Rumold, saying the revelations emphasize the need for legislation to alter the government’s surveillance programs. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Department of Justice said jointly Wednesday that it’s “entirely false that U.S. intelligence agencies conduct electronic surveillance of political, religious or activist figures solely because they disagree with public policies or criticize the government, or for exercising constitutional rights.” Without addressing any of the individuals mentioned in the report, the agencies said that “with limited exceptions (for example, in an emergency), our intelligence agencies must have a court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to target any U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident for electronic surveillance.” If the court finds an individual “is an agent of a foreign power under this rigorous standard,” that person “is not exempted just because of his or her occupation,” the agencies said.
Reductions in intercarrier compensation rates for originating intrastate toll VoIP traffic should be paused, effective June 30, 2014, until full implementation of the Phase II Connect America Fund, in the case of price-cap telcos, said NTCA and several other groups in an emergency petition for a waiver of FCC rules (http://bit.ly/1mvpDo8) posted Monday in docket 10-90. For rural, rate of return-regulated carriers, the waiver was sought until the implementation of a tailored CAF mechanism for the rural LECs. The reductions would cost Frontier Communications and Windstream $14.5 million total annually, the petition said. The Eastern Rural Telecom Association, Frontier, IITA, National Exchange Carrier Association, WTA and Windstream joined in the waiver request.
Reductions in intercarrier compensation rates for originating intrastate toll VoIP traffic should be paused, effective June 30, 2014, until full implementation of the Phase II Connect America Fund, in the case of price-cap telcos, said NTCA and several other groups in an emergency petition for a waiver of FCC rules (http://bit.ly/1mvpDo8) posted Monday in docket 10-90. For rural, rate of return-regulated carriers, the waiver was sought until the implementation of a tailored CAF mechanism for the rural LECs. The reductions would cost Frontier Communications and Windstream $14.5 million total annually, the petition said. The Eastern Rural Telecom Association, Frontier, IITA, National Exchange Carrier Association, WTA and Windstream joined in the waiver request.
Public safety answering points (PSAPs) and Washington state officials were not notified by CenturyLink or its contractor, Intrado, about the April 10 outage of 911 calls, said the Washington State E9-1-l Coordinator’s Office in a comment (http://bit.ly/1sYbuoN) posted in FCC docket 14-72 on Tuesday. About 770 911 calls were delivered to the PSAPs, while about 4,500 911 calls failed during the outage, the filing said. “Due to the sudden increase in the volume of trouble calls, the nation-wide CenturyLink 9-1-1 Repair Center quickly became overloaded. Consequently, most of the calls to the Repair Center went unanswered, or were put on hold for extended periods -- some of those hold-times measured in hours.” Neither CenturyLink nor Intrado provided any instructions to PSAPs on how to mitigate the impact. “The PSAPs were left on their own to try to figure out how to provide some level of service to the public,” the filing said. The comments were similar to those filed by the King County’s E-911 Program Office in (http://bit.ly/1nPAgBZ) in June. The FCC Public Safety Bureau began an investigation into the outage May 19 (CD May 20 p18). The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission has also opened a state investigation. “Intrado is also fully committed to the Commission’s goal of reliable and resilient emergency communications networks,” the company said in a filing Tuesday (http://bit.ly/TDEhys). “The root cause of the technical failure has been corrected; enhanced alarming with routine manual checks have been implemented; training and procedures have been enhanced to achieve more effective monitoring and problem detection.” A feature of the Intrado architecture’s legacy redundancy and compatibility, involving the PSAP trunk manager (PTM) functionality, was the root cause of the outage, said that company. “When developing any new technology, every single possible contingency cannot be identified or tested in advance of deployment. And, to try to do so before deploying new technology would frustrate the Commission’s goals and the purpose of 911 innovation.” Intrado said “issues will occur and not all contingencies can be known or addressed in advance.” CenturyLink and Intrado were not immediately available for further comment.
"To gain access to documents showing how intelligence agencies choose whether to disclose software security flaws known as ‘zero days,'” the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (http://bit.ly/1xd6US0) seeking injunctive relief against the National Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), said an EFF blog post (http://bit.ly/1qkG4p8) Tuesday. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, “seeks transparency on one of the least understood elements of the U.S. intelligence community’s toolset: security vulnerabilities,” said Andrew Crocker, EFF legal fellow, in the post. “A thriving market has emerged for these zero days; in some cases governments -- including the United States -- will purchase these vulnerabilities, which they can use to gain access to targets’ computers,” said the blog post. EFF filed a related FOIA request May 6, but hadn’t received any documents, “despite ODNI agreeing to expedite the request,” it said.
"To gain access to documents showing how intelligence agencies choose whether to disclose software security flaws known as ‘zero days,'” the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (http://bit.ly/1xd6US0) seeking injunctive relief against the National Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), said an EFF blog post (http://bit.ly/1qkG4p8) Tuesday. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, “seeks transparency on one of the least understood elements of the U.S. intelligence community’s toolset: security vulnerabilities,” said Andrew Crocker, EFF legal fellow, in the post. “A thriving market has emerged for these zero days; in some cases governments -- including the United States -- will purchase these vulnerabilities, which they can use to gain access to targets’ computers,” said the blog post. EFF filed a related FOIA request May 6, but hadn’t received any documents, “despite ODNI agreeing to expedite the request,” it said.
The Obama administration is expanding public interest group representation on the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee, which was created under President George W. Bush to improve management of the airwaves. Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld will join Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Project at the New America Foundation, as public interest members of the group. Both have been strong advocates of unlicensed spectrum. Feld had sought to become a member in the past but had been turned down.
The Obama administration is expanding public interest group representation on the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee, which was created under President George W. Bush to improve management of the airwaves. Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld will join longtime member Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Project at the New America Foundation, as a public interest member of the group. Both have been strong advocates of unlicensed spectrum. Feld had sought to become a member in the past but had been turned down.