http://www.theregister.co.uk/…

The government is pressing ahead with plans to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on a massive central silo for all UK communications data, The Register has learned.

Home Office civil servants are working on plans for the database under the banner of the Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP). The team has recently been expanded and a director-level official appointed to run the project, which is not yet official policy in public.

The project has been pushed hard at Whitehall by the intelligence agencies MI6 and GCHQ. One ISP source described their demands as “science fiction”. It’s envisaged that the one-stop-shop database will retain details of all calls, texts, emails, instant messenger conversations and websites accessed in the UK for up to two years.

Others have countered in Communications Data Bill discussions that a central, searchable database will not “maintain capability”, but grant investigators unprecedented power to cross-reference data sources (including location data from mobile phone triangulation), go on “fishing trips”, and infringe privacy.

The Information Commissioner’s Office voiced such opposition when early details of the IMP were reported in May. But according to our sources, public resistance to the überdatabase has so far had no significant impact on policy.

I reported on this in May. Doesn’t look like much has really changed but it seems that there has been some outrage over it. As expected the government doesn’t care what the subjects say and are continuing more or less full steam (as inefficiently as that is).

I think that if I were over in the UK I’d work to start a movement to fill the database. Generate huge amounts of bogus data. Modify email servers to throw in randomly sized file attachments from /dev/urandom into every message sent and the receive end can remove it. Either the government starts filtering everything which would increase necessary cpu power, they’d start dropping messages, or they log lots of completely bogus data. I think each scenario is a win. Push TOR and other anonymous/encrypted forms of communication and you render their efforts mute.

http://arstechnica.com/…

The government has appealed a September federal court ruling that struck down the National Security Letter (NSL) provision of the PATRIOT Act. The NSL provision, which can be used without probable cause or judicial oversight, gives the FBI the ability to secretly demand access to the private records of libraries, Internet service providers, and other organizations. National Security Letters also impose gag restrictions on recipients, which forbid them from disclosing that they have received the letter.

In a strongly-worded ruling issued earlier this year in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of an anonymous Internet service provider, federal court judge Victor Marrero wrote that the NSL provision of the PATRIOT Act represents an unconstitutional deprivation of First Amendment rights and threatens to undermine the Separation of Powers doctrine by expanding the executive branch’s authority to the detriment of governmental accountability. The government has now appealed Marerro’s ruling and will continue to fight for the preservation of the PATRIOT Act in court.

In a statement issued yesterday by the American Civil Liberties Union, a representative of an ISP voiced concerns about the National Security Letter gag orders and expressed frustration at being unable to testify during recent Congressional inquiry regarding the involvement of telecommunications companies in the NSA wiretap program. As a result of the gag order, the speaker is forced to remain anonymous and cannot disclose specific details regarding the National Security Letters that his company has received.

National Security Letters have been around for a long time. The PATRIOT Act has made them the government’s favorite new tool. The idea goes back to the times before our revolution when British soldiers did the same kind of warrant on the spot deal. There are actual reasons for that 4th Amendment. This thing really need to get put down. The ridiculousness of this story should be enough to convince the average person that these on the fly warrant/gag orders are a very dangerous and unnecessary tool to have.

http://hosted.ap.org/…

A federal judge struck down parts of the revised USA Patriot Act on Thursday, saying investigators must have a court’s approval before they can order Internet providers to turn over records without telling customers.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero said the government orders must be subject to meaningful judicial review and that the recently rewritten Patriot Act “offends the fundamental constitutional principles of checks and balances and separation of powers.”

In 2004, ruling on the initial version of the Patriot Act, the judge said the letters violate the Constitution because they amounted to unreasonable search and seizure. He found that the nondisclosure requirement - under which an Internet service provider, for instance, would not be allowed to tell customers that it was turning over their records to the government - violated free speech.

This is good but it could be overturned in appeal. This was one of the more egregious unconstitutional parts of the PATRIOT Act. An FBI agent could issue an NSL, created out of thin air without anyones authority but his own, written on the back of a matchbook, and then decide if the recipient could even talk about what was going on. No OK from the Attorney General or a judge. Just instant search warrant and gag order. Now we need the rest of the Act struck down. Like the part that allows the government, with an order from a judge, to break into your home when you’re out, steal your things, place bugs in our bedroom and make it look like your house was broken into without telling you or the police. It also allows the government to withhold for up to six months that its agents where the ones that did it.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/…

I affirm, I really was going to drop this Ron Paul rant I pursued in my earlier post.

But some facts in this morning’s post by my highly respected Washington, D.C.-centric colleague Declan McCullagh entitled Ron Paul: The Internet’s Favorite Candidate” made me realize there are some lessons that still need to be taught to all you Libertarian-leaning fans of the Republican Presidential candidate.

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