more on Who they're spying on

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: h_bray () globe com
Date: June 7, 2006 1:00:21 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Who they're spying on


Well, yes.  But here's where rubber meets road.  It'd be darn near
impossible to investigate this kind of network if you had to get  
probable
cause-based warrants at every turn.  Often, you have no idea why  
somebody
is calling someone else, or being called by them.  So you can't tell a
judge what you expect to find.  But if you can check who's calling
who--even if you don't know what they're saying--you can extract pattern
data that'll give you some serious clues.

This is what the government's been doing, and catching hell for.  And
although the story doesn't say so, it's a good bet that this technique
helped them roll up these thugs.  So do we really want the government  
to be
barred from doing this?  Or if we want to put it under more intensive
oversight, how do we manage that without crippling the operation?

It just seems to me that the debate over this issue has mostly  
consisted of
hand-wringing about our loss of liberties.  It's a legitimate  
concern, but
there's something else at stake too, and this story reminds us what  
it is.


Hiawatha Bray




             David Farber
             <dave () farber net>
                                                                        
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             Please respond to         [IP] more on  Who they're  
spying on
              dave () farber net











Begin forwarded message:

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb () cs columbia edu>
Date: June 7, 2006 12:20:42 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: h_bray () globe com
Subject: Re: [IP] Who they're spying on

On Wed, 7 Jun 2006 11:53:48 -0400, David Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:

> In all the fuss about the NSA spying issue, it's sometimes forgotten
> that there are real bad guys out there, who badly need to be spied on.
> Here's a story that makes the point, from today's London Times.
The issue has never been whether or not there are bad guys or even
whether
or not there should be spying.  The issue is the authorization to do so,
and the checks and balances on surveillance requests.

The Fourth Amendment recognized this, more than 200 years ago.  It
doesn't
outlaw searches; it does, however, require an outside check on what
is to
be searched and why.  Without such checks, we're open to arbitrary
abuses
of executive power.  We've already seen the claim that the government is
using the phone call databases to track down leakers.  Is this
legal?  I'm
hard-put to think that it is, since they're using the very sort of broad
spectrum fishing that is specifically barred by the Fourth
Amendment.  (By
the way, don't make the mistake of thinking that traffic analysis is
new,
and hence unanticipatable by the framers of the Bill of Rights.  I
recently stumbled on a report of a spy, noting who was meeting, how
frequently, and how many messages were sent out following such meetings.
This was in 1603.)


                         --Steven M. Bellovin,
http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb


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