Those privacy-hating Chinese communist tyrants (and US Teleco Immunity)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: Robert J. Berger [rberger () ibd com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 4:19 PM
To: Dewayne Hendricks; David Farber
Subject: Those privacy-hating Chinese communist tyrants (and US Teleco Immunity)

Those privacy-hating Chinese communist tyrants
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/30/china/index.html

Associated Press, yesterday:
----------------------------
Foreign-owned hotels in China face the prospect of "severe
retaliation" if they refuse to install government software that can
spy on Internet use by hotel guests coming to watch the summer Olympic
games, a U.S. lawmaker said Tuesday.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., produced a translated version of a
document from China's Public Security Bureau that requires hotels to
use the monitoring equipment. . . . .

Brownback said several international hotel chains confirmed receiving
the order from China's Public Security Bureau. The hotels are in a
bind, he said, because they don't want to comply with the order, but
also don't want to jeopardize their investment of millions of dollars
to expand their businesses in China.


Rocky Mountain News, October 11, 2007:
---------------------------------------
The National Security Agency and other government agencies retaliated
against Qwest because the Denver telco refused to go along with a
phone spying program, documents released Wednesday suggest. . . .
The secret contracts -- worth hundreds of millions of dollars -- made
[Qwest CEO Joseph] Nacchio optimistic about Qwest's future, even as
his staff was warning him the company might not make its numbers,
Nacchio's defense attorneys have maintained. . . .

Nacchio planned to demonstrate at trial that he had a meeting on Feb.
27, 2001, at NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Md., to discuss a $100
million project. According to the documents, another topic also was
discussed at that meeting, one with which Nacchio refused to comply.

The topic itself is redacted each time it appears in the hundreds of
pages of documents, but there is mention of Nacchio believing the
request was both inappropriate and illegal, and repeatedly refusing to
go along with it.

The NSA contract was awarded in July 2001 to companies other than Qwest.

USA Today reported in May 2006 that Qwest, unlike AT&T and Verizon,
balked at helping the NSA track phone calling patterns that may have
indicated terrorist organizational activities. Nacchio's attorney,
Herbert Stern, confirmed that Nacchio refused to turn over customer
telephone records because he didn't think the NSA program had legal
standing.

In the documents, Nacchio also asserts Qwest was in line to build a $2
billion private government network called GovNet and do other
government business, including a network between the U.S. and South
America.

<snip>

That's the same Sen. Sam Brownback who voted last year to enact the
Protect America Act, which"allow[ed] for massive, untargeted
collection of international communications without court order or
meaningful oversight by either Congress or the courts. It contain[ed]
virtually no protections for the U.S. end of the phone call or email,
leaving decisions about the collection, mining and use of Americans'
private communications up to this administration."

And it's the same Sen. Brownback who also voted for this year's FISA
Amendments Act, which empowers the U.S. Government to tap directly
into the U.S. telecommunications systems in order to monitor
international emails and telephone calls with no individual warrant
required.

The idea that the U.S. can exert meaningful leverage on China's
surveillance behavior is laughable forreasons wholly independent of
what the U.S. Government itself does with regard to spying on its own
citizens.

Nonetheless, to watch U.S. Senators like Sam Brownback actually
maintain a straight face while protesting China's warrantless spying
on the email and telephone communications of foreigners, and lamenting
that private companies feel unfairly pressured to cooperate with
China's government spying out of fear of losing lucrative business
opportunities, is so surreal that it's actually hard to believe one is
seeing it.

How many days do we have to wait before we get to read a righteous
Fred Hiatt Editorial condemning China's Communist tyrants for their
outrageous spying intrusions? Maybe Jay Rockefeller can co-sponsor
Brownback's Senate Resolution condemning China's surveillance
activities and demanding that they stop it at once.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
Voice: 408-838-8896 eFax: +1-408-490-2868
http://www.ibd.com




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