more on Who they're spying on (one answer to Hiawatha)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Peter Swire <pswire () law gwu edu>
Date: June 8, 2006 2:36:36 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: [IP] more on Who they're spying on (one answer to Hiawatha)
Reply-To: peter () peterswire net

Dave:

        For IP if you think it's helpful.

        I think Hiawatha is entirely correct that the U.S. will face
dangerous attacks from terrorists, no matter which party or person is
holding office.

        I have written an article on "Privacy and Information Sharing in the
War Against Terrorism."  It tries to do what Hiawatha asks, to "treat  
the
matter seriously" -- work toward civil liberties and security.

        The article proposes a due diligence checklist for considering new
surveillance and information sharing proposals.

        It is coming out shortly in a symposium of the Villanova Law Review,
and can be downloaded now from http://ssrn.com/abstract=899626.

        Peter
        

Peter P. Swire
C. William O'Neill Professor of Law
Moritz College of Law of
   the Ohio State University
(240) 994-4142, www.peterswire.net

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 12:57 PM
To: ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: [IP] more on Who they're spying on



Begin forwarded message:

From: h_bray () globe com
Date: June 8, 2006 12:51:52 PM EDT
To: Tom Fairlie <tfairlie () frontiernet net>, dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Who they're spying on

Some members of this list seem more eager to engage in bitter
denunciation
of the present administration, than to offer ideas about how best to
reconcile the conflicting interests of freedom and security.

It doesn't make the slightest difference who's in the White House, or
who's
in control of Congress.  Fanatic Islamic terrorists will keep right on
trying to kill us, as they are trying to murder Canadians, Indonesians,
Frenchmen, Filipinos, Spaniards, Sudanese, Somalis, and pretty much
anyone
else who rejects their vision of the world.  The Clinton era gave us a
series of brutal islamic terror attacks on US interests, including the
first WTC bombing.  And when Bush is gone, Muslim fanatics will continue
trying to kill Americans.  No matter who you vote for, the problem isn't
going away.  So we'd better think seriously about the best ways to
defend
our country.

We're up against murderers who use sophisticated covert tactics,
designed
to let them hide their activities and intentions until they strike.
They
rely upon the free institutions of liberal societies to help them in
this.
Therefore, many of their activities cannot be prevented by
traditional law
enforcement techniques, which are rightly constrained by rules that set
firm limits on police power.

Fighting such people, therefore, requires the use of new tactics beyond
those normally used by police organizations.  Yet these tactics can also
erode the liberty and privacy rights which we take for granted.  How
do we
strike the right balance?

I'd have thought that a listserv like this one, crammed with serious
thinkers, might address the matter seriously.  If the members believe
that
the current approach is all wrong, they could do us all a lot of good by
laying out an alternative plan.  I hoped my post would inspire just
such a
discussion.

Guess not.

Hiawatha Bray




              "Tom Fairlie"
              <tfairlie@frontie

rnet.net>                                                  To
                                        <dave () farber net>
              06/07/2006
11:45                                           cc
              PM                        <h_bray () globe com>

Subject
                                        Re: [IP] more on Who they're
spying
                                        on










Rubber meets the road? How about we just
stop pissing on or at the rest of the world and
diminish and/or remove the motivations that a
"bad guy" would have in the first place. It's oh
so simple if your goal was actually and honestly
world peace, liberal democracy, liberty, etc.

However, when your policy is global domination
and you put a bunch of cowboys in charge who
challenge the "bad guys" to "bring it on" then
you get what ask for.

I'm never going to vote for, suggest, approve, justify,
or otherwise accept a policy that diminishes my
freedoms, my rights, or my liberties because of
some narrow-minded vision that the "boogie man"
is out there gunning for me. I live in peace and
make no enemies. You can too! Try it.

Tom Fairlie

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Farber" <dave () farber net>
To: <ip () v2 listbox com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 12:17 PM
Subject: [IP] more on Who they're spying on




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>

   To
               06/07/2006 12:32          ip () v2 listbox com

PM                                                         cc


Subject
               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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