DOJ seeking information concerning anti-Trump Facebook users.

Courtesy of Law Newz:  

The ACLU-DC is trying to stop three search warrants that’d let the Department of Justice snoop around protesters’ Facebook accounts over Inauguration Day protests. They filed in D.C. Superior Court on Thursday, saying the government’s demands violate the Fourth Amendment because they are so broad, and threatening First Amendment speech. These warrants ask for too much information not directly relevant to the federal probe, argues the ACLU. This includes information on the plaintiffs’ friends, associates, and the approximately 6000 individuals who just “liked” an anti-Donald Trump Facebook page. 

Requested data would go back to Nov. 1, 2016, a week before the presidential election. “The warrants make no provision for avoiding or minimizing invasions into personal and associational/expression information, for preventing such information from being shared widely within the government, or for destroying irrelevant material when the investigation is concluded,” said the ACLU filing. In other words, this might chill First Amendment speech by giving the government means to observe anyone who were simply linked to anti-Trump protesters. 

This fight stems from arrests made Jan. 20. Demonstrators came to Washington D.C. to protest President Donald Trump‘s inauguration, and over 200 ended up getting charged with felony rioting. In investigating the alleged criminality, the federal government later got three search warrants from the D.C. Superior Court against three Facebook accounts: the disruptj20 page (now known as Resist This) owned by Emmelia Talarico, and personal accounts owned by Lacy MacAuley, and Legba Carrefour. According to the ACLU, these people didn’t initially know about warrants because of a gag order. Facebook fought this gag order, which was later dropped by the government shortly before the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled on it. Talarico, MacAuley, and Carrefour hadn’t even been charged with Inauguration Day-related arrested by the US Attorney, said the ACLU. 

The DOJ declined to comment.

Well on the plus side the Trump Administration seems to finally be recognizing "domestic terrorism," but on the negative side they seem to think that domestic terrorism includes people who "like" a page that says mean things about Orange Hitler.

At this point I am afraid that the outcome of all this attention being paid to Russia's use of social media to impact our election will be that the Trump Department of Justice can then use it to make Facebook and Twitter hand over user information that can then be used to go after critics of the administration.

As much as I want something to be done to protect our democracy from hostile foreign governments using social media to alter the outcome of elections, I have absolutely no confidence that Trump and his lackeys will not use any governmental control provided to them for their own nefarious plans.

After all the greatest threat to the future of this country does not reside in the Kremlin, it resides in the White House.

EPA is spending almost $25,000 to build a soundproof booth so that Scott Pruitt can communicate privately.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

The Environmental Protection Agency is spending nearly $25,000 to construct a secure, soundproof communications booth in the office of Administrator Scott Pruitt, according to government contracting records. 

The agency signed a $24,570 contract earlier this summer with Acoustical Solutions, a Richmond-based company, for a “privacy booth for the administrator.” The company sells and installs an array of sound-dampening and privacy products, from ceiling baffles to full-scale enclosures like the one purchased by the EPA. The project’s scheduled completion date is Oct. 9, according to the contract. 

Typically, such soundproof booths are used to conduct hearing tests. But the EPA sought a customized version — one that eventually would cost several times more than a typical model — that Pruitt can use to communicate privately.

The agency is arguing that they need this for the sake of privacy but they already have a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) on site, just like other agencies, so the reason for this extra level of security is somewhat puzzling.

It kind of makes you wonder just what Pruitt is saying that he is so desperate to keep quiet.

And of course who he is saying it to.

During interview with Reuters Donald Trump laments the loss of his old life, claims he thought being president would be easy, and hands out copies of electoral map to impress reporters.

Courtesy of Reuters:  

He misses driving, feels as if he is in a cocoon, and is surprised how hard his new job is. 

President Donald Trump on Thursday reflected on his first 100 days in office with a wistful look at his life before the White House. 

"I loved my previous life. I had so many things going," Trump told Reuters in an interview. "This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier."

Yes, who didn't assume that being president would be a piece of cake?

You know, besides everybody.

At one point during the interview Trump got so depressed he suddenly started handing out evidence of his last victory.

here's a pic from reuters of Trump with the electoral maps he showed to reporters yesterday pic.twitter.com/1X3edpeJDQ

— Gideon Resnick (@GideonResnick) April 28, 2017

More than five months after his victory and two days shy of the 100-day mark of his presidency, the election is still on Trump's mind. Midway through a discussion about Chinese President Xi Jinping, the president paused to hand out copies of what he said were the latest figures from the 2016 electoral map. 

"Here, you can take that, that's the final map of the numbers," the Republican president said from his desk in the Oval Office, handing out maps of the United States with areas he won marked in red. "It’s pretty good, right? The red is obviously us.

"He had copies for each of the three Reuters reporters in the room. 

Then Trump continued to lament how isolated he has been since winning that election.

Trump, who said he was accustomed to not having privacy in his "old life," expressed surprise at how little he had now. And he made clear he was still getting used to having 24-hour Secret Service protection and its accompanying constraints. 

"You're really into your own little cocoon, because you have such massive protection that you really can't go anywhere," he said.

You know I am not one to offer Donald Trump any assistance, but if he is so miserable at this job he could also just quit.

After all I know that would do much to increase his popularity.

And do you know who would NOT find the job of being president harder than they anticipated, or think that it was too isolating, Hillary Clinton.

Just a thought.

So Russia just signed massive new surveillance measures into law. Wait, didn't those already exist?

Courtesy of The Washington Times:

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed legislation Thursday compelling telephone companies and internet providers to save and store the private communications of its customers, notwithstanding concerns raised by human rights advocates and big business alike. 

Included within a package of amendments proposed as antiterrorism measures, the law will require telecoms to collect and keep copies of customers’ phone calls, text messages and emails for six months, as well as maintain metadata concerning those communications for up to three years. 

Other provisions effectively outlaw the use of digital encryption within Russia and introduce new penalties for individuals accused of inciting terrorism through social media.

Wondering how Edward Snowden is handling this news? Not very well actually.

#Putin has signed a repressive new law that violates not only human rights, but common sense. Dark day for #Russia. https://t.co/J4I2SQ9VCe

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) July 7, 2016

Signing the #BigBrother law must be condemned. Beyond political and constitution consequences, it is also a $33b+ tax on Russia's internet.

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) July 7, 2016

Personally I think that most of these measures have already been in place for quite some time, and for whatever reason Putin just now decided to make it public.

After all the idea that Russia has a less intrusive domestic spying program than the United States is simply ridiculous.

While we're on the subject is anybody else essentially no longer worrying about privacy and government surveillance in light of the number of terror attacks that have occurred here and in other places around the world?

It just seems to me that every time there is an attack everybody complains that law enforcement did not keep close enough tabs on the suspect, and rarely do I hear anybody challenging the idea of the government keeping tabs on people.

Or maybe it just seems that way to me.

Anti-choice activists are dumpster diving in order to find the personal records of women using abortion services. WTF?

Courtesy of Think Progress:

Abortion opponents are sifting through public records — including 911 calls, autopsy reports, and state health department documents — in order to glean medical information about women who have had abortions, according to a report from the Washington Post and ProPublica. 

The report also states that some activists dig through the trash at abortion clinics to look for patient records in dumpsters. If they find these documents, they use them to file complaints that providers are violating privacy laws by making their patients’ information too easily accessible. 

The anti-abortion activists who seek this type of medical information — many of whom publish their findings online — say they’re not trying to identify patients’ identities or breach women’s privacy. Instead, they want to make sure that abortion doctors aren’t breaking the law.

Oh yeah these folks are not creepy stalkers invading the privacy of women making an incredibly personal and private decision, they are simply doing this because they care about women and want to make sure that their privacy is not being invaded.

You know by creepily stalking them and invading their privacy.

Makes perfect sense.

This is just for my male IM visitors.

Yeah we've all been there.

I actually got jumped in a bathroom when I was in elementary school (The very first time I ever used my new martial arts skills in a fight) and to THIS DAY if somebody walks up behind me my bladder shuts down like somebody just flipped a switch.

My second wife used to like to have conversations with me while I was using the restroom, I would try to wait politely, but she wouldn't take the hint. So eventually I would get frustrated, at which point I would yell "there will be no peeing until the talking had come to an end!"

NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:

The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents. 

Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by statute and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls. 

The documents, provided earlier this summer to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, include a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance. 

In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. In one instance, the NSA decided that it need not report the unintended surveillance of Americans. A notable example in 2008 was the interception of a “large number” of calls placed from Washington when a programming error confused the U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt, according to a “quality assurance” review that was not distributed to the NSA’s oversight staff.

These are more disturbing facts that we would not even know about unless Edward Snowden had stolen them, and then disseminated them to journalists. And it cannot be argued that knowing this is NOT important to the American people, or that without Snowden we ever WOULD have known about it.

However, as I have mentioned before, Snowden abdicated his right to be called a heroic whistle blower when he fled to, first China, and then Russia.

It also appears that the relationship between Wiki-leaks, Russia, and Snoweden is convoluted and suspicious at best. 

This from Business Insider: 

Ever since the 30-year-old ex-Booz Allen contractor got on a flight from Hong Kong to Moscow, Russia and WikiLeaks have been working parallel to each other. 

On June 23, after the U.S. voided Snowden's passport while he was in Hong Kong, WikiLeaks tweeted that the organization "assisted Mr. Snowden's political asylum in a democratic country, travel papers ans [sic] safe exit from Hong Kong." 

That was followed by the update that "Mr. Snowden is currently over Russian airspace accompanied by WikiLeaks legal advisors." 

It turned out that Assange convinced Ecuador's consul in London to provide a travel document requesting that authorities allow Snowden to travel to Ecuador "for the purpose of political asylum." The country's president subsequently said the document was "completely invalid." 

When Snowden arrived in Moscow with void travel papers, all signs suggest that Russia's domestic intelligence service (i.e. FSB) took control of him. 

That day a radio host in Moscow "saw about 20 Russian officials, supposedly FSB agents, in suits, crowding around somebody in a restricted area of the airport," according to Anna Nemtsova of Foreign Policy. 

WikiLeaks, meanwhile, insisted that Snowden was "not being 'debriefed' by the FSB." 

Nevertheless, Snowden's FSB-linked Moscow lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, has been speaking for Snowden ever since Snowden accepted all offers for support and asylum on July 12.

You know Snowden COULD have been a real national symbol for privacy concerns in this country. He could have actually been the hero that so many want to believe that he is. 

He could have been those things, but no more.

Bill Maher's final New Rule from last night: "If Ben Franklin writes something smart, but Sarah Palin tweets it twice and puts it on Facebook, THAT cancels it out!"

He makes some very good, and humorous, points.

By the way, you can see the entire program by clicking here.

Protestors use Fourth of July holiday to voice their concerns over domestic spying by NSA. Update!

Courtesy of CNET:

About 500 people met in Union Square to listen to a number of privacy advocates and civil liberties groups discuss Fourth Amendment rights as they stand today, in light of recent revelations about the U.S. government's spying capability. 

According to the organizers, Independence Day is a poignant day to protest in support of citizens' constitutional rights for protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, which they claim have been eroded under both the Bush and Obama administrations.

You know I have been against this whole program since the Bush administration first pushed through the Patriot Act after 9/11.

However I have to say that as much as it bothers me to know that my e-mails and phone records are being cataloged by the government for use against me should I do something that for some reason makes me a "person of interest," the fact that the same types of programs are being used around the world puts things in a somewhat different perspective for me.

Recently we learned that France has its own massive data gathering program as well, just like many of its European neighbors.

So living with that reality I am not sure how America could NOT be carefully monitoring communications coming in and out of the country.

And in fact that appears to be the attitude of most Americans:

One month after the Guardian’s first story, which revealed an order from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorizing the NSA to collect the phone records of every Verizon customer, there has been no public movement in Washington to stop the court from issuing another such order. Congress has no intelligence reform bill that would rein in the phone-tracking, or Internet monitoring, or cyberattack-planning, or any of the other secret government workings that Snowden’s disclosures have revealed. 

And as for the protests which inspired this post? Well I am not so sure how serious they are about  this issue either.

And of course my favorite.

Somehow I think that both his privacy and his penis are safe.

As of right now I have to admit that I am less concerned about what information the government is gathering, and MORE concerned about the information contained on those laptops (or hard drives if you prefer) that Snowden spirited out of the country with him.

I would like to see him back here in America, along with that stolen information, so that the government can start doing some damage assessments (Since we KNOW that both China and Russia have every bit of data that Snowden brought to their countries) and putting in safeguards to make sure another security leak like this does not happen in the future.

(Photos courtesy of Buzzfeed.)

Update: By the way, if you re concerned with what information the government has  gathered about you specifically, there is a way for you to find out.

Perhaps even worse than having it confirmed that our government is stomping all over our privacy, is the revelation that amateurs are in charge of doing it.

Courtesy of Slate:  

According to the Guardian, Snowden is a 29-year-old high school dropout who trained for the Army Special Forces before an injury forced him to leave the military. His IT credentials are apparently limited to a few “computer” classes he took at a community college in order to get his high school equivalency degree—courses that he did not complete. His first job at the NSA was as a security guard. Then, amazingly, he moved up the ranks of the United States’ national security infrastructure: The CIA gave him a job in IT security. He was given diplomatic cover in Geneva. He was hired by Booz Allen Hamilton, the government contractor, which paid him $200,000 a year to work on the NSA’s computer systems. 

Let’s note what Snowden is not: He isn’t a seasoned FBI or CIA investigator. He isn’t a State Department analyst. He’s not an attorney with a specialty in national security or privacy law. 

Instead, he’s the IT guy, and not a very accomplished, experienced one at that. If Snowden had sent his résumé to any of the tech companies that are providing data to the NSA’s PRISM program, I doubt he’d have even gotten an interview. Yes, he could be a computing savant anyway—many well-known techies dropped out of school. But he was given access way beyond what even a supergeek should have gotten. As he tells the Guardian, the NSA let him see “everything.” He was accorded the NSA’s top security clearance, which allowed him to see and to download the agency’s most sensitive documents. But he didn’t just know about the NSA’s surveillance systems—he says he had the ability to use them. “I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities [sic] to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if I had a personal email,” he says in a video interview with the paper. 

Snowden’s leak is thus doubly damaging. The scandal isn’t just that the government is spying on us. It’s also that it’s giving guys like Snowden keys to the spying program. It suggests the worst combination of overreach and amateurishness, of power leveraged by incompetence. The Keystone Cops are listening to us all.

I heard just today that Booz Allen Hamilton has fired Snowden (Gee really?) but there is no indication that any of their other employees are any more trustworthy or qualified.

And to me at least the idea that there are rooms full of poorly screened, low level techs with access to our private e-mails and phone records is chilling.

However according to a recent Pew poll it appears that the majority of Americans simply do not care that the government is gathering their data which indicates that my prediction that this would be a scandal that could hurt the President was premature, and ultimately false.

I am not yet sure how I feel about that as I certainly feel we SHOULD be upset, yet I'm also gratified that yet another Right Wing attack against the President has run out of ammunition.

If ever I could have been described as conflicted, now would be that time.

Sarah Palin suddenly VERY concerned about data gathering, now that a black man is in charge of it.

"Look there's a bandwagon I can jump onto to get some attention."

Courtesy of the Tin-hatted Twit's Facebook page:

Boot-stomping govt claims citizen spying never happened then pouts Congress knew all along; Congress denies. Our obtuseness = their strength... 

Palin then links to a page on Breitbart which discusses the upcoming opening of the new Utah Data Center, and refers to it as "Obama's Bat Cave."

You can read about it, without the hyperbole, here.

As I have mentioned before I am none too happy about all of this data gathering either, however I resent like hell idiots and Right Wingers (Is there a difference?) like Sarah Palin jumping onto this issue now, when they were completely silent about it when George Bush started rounding up our data in the first place.

In fact Palin's running mate, John McCain, reversed his initial discomfort with the program back in May of 2008, and gave the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act his wholehearted endorsement.

I don't remember VP candidate Palin bitching about our privacy back then, Does anybody else?

To be clear these Right Wing hypocrites, of which Sarah Palin may be the best example, do not give a shit about our privacy, or domestic spying, or the NSA. All that they care about is that this is another opportunity to attack the President and conveniently ignore the fact that he only inherited a program that one of their own secretly put into place back in 2002.

Let's face it, if these facts were coming out during a second McCain term, or (Heaven forbid) a Sarah Palin term in office, or even a Mitt Romney first term, there would not be ONE Right wing conservative Republican that would say a damn thing about it. Not one!

If anybody should be upset right now it is those of us on the Left who hoped that by electing Barack Obama we would see an end to some of these programs, not the Right who were all for phone taps and data mining. You know back when they thought a white guy was going to be doing it.

It looks like CISPA is dead. For now.

Courtesy of US News:  

CISPA is all but dead, again. 

The controversial cybersecurity bill known as the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act, which passed the House of Representatives last week, will almost certainly be shelved by the Senate, according to a representative of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. 

The bill would have allowed the federal government to share classified "cyber threat" information with companies, but it also provided provisions that would have allowed companies to share information about specific users with the government. Privacy advocates also worried that the National Security Administration would have gotten involved. 

"We're not taking [CISPA] up," the committee representative says. "Staff and senators are divvying up the issues and the key provisions everyone agrees would need to be handled if we're going to strengthen cybersecurity. They'll be drafting separate bills." 

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., chairman of the committee, said the passage of CISPA was "important," but said the bill's "privacy protections are insufficient."

I somehow do not believe that this attempt to control free speech on the internet will go away anytime soon, but I think as long as we remain vigilant and  are willing to express our displeasure en masse, we might be able to block attempts to pass anything at all, or ensure that whatever is passed will NOT take away our rights to communicate freely or strip us of our privacy rights.

Clearly traumatized by how the media has treated her and her family Sarah Palin goes into hiding. Just kidding! The attention whore is everywhere!

So last night I am lying in my bed after a long day of blogging about Sarah Palin just waiting for one of my favorite shows, the Colbert Report, to come on and trying to put that woman out of my mind for a good six hours or more, when suddenly I hear that voice.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Lt. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr.
http://www.colbertnation.com/
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Stephen Colbert in Iraq

Oh come on! I can't even watch Stephen Colbert without my Governor popping up to scare the living hell out of me? I was trying to relax and get some sleep.

Do you have any idea the kinds of dreams you have when Sarah Palin turns up unexpectedly on you TV right when you are getting ready to sleep? Not good ones I will tell you that!

I swear this psycho broad would lie about being a hundred years old if she thought Willard Scott would let her give a speech to the Today Show audience.

She would gladly try out for that show "I'm a Celebrity get me out of here!", if she thought they would allow her to bring her hot red slut shoes and keep that crazy ass weave in her hair.

My point is that Sarah Palin wants the attention! She LOVES the attention! She NEEDS the attention! So when you see her on some news show complaining about how she or her family are being mistreated, don't buy it! She is absolutely doing that to keep herself in the limelight.

And do you know what? As much as she hates my ass, and fears that I may be her undoing, she is secretly thrilled that I am writing this and that she gets even MORE attention.

Right now she is probably combing through the blogs, looking to see who is talking about her, and when she gets here (Oh and she WILL get here, believe you me) she will have a secret little smile on her face when she yells out "That asshole Gryphen is doing it again".

So don't be fooled folks, it is all an act. (Oh and good morning Governor.)

Have you ever had the feeling that somebody is watching you? Well that is because you are crazy, but not for much longer.

Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, gave the Department of Homeland Security expanded authority to use spy satellites to monitor images on borders within the United States, officials tell CNN.

Charles Allen, chief intelligence officer with the Department of Homeland Security, said the move will also help with security during natural disasters. Spy satellites were used for Hurricane Katrina efforts and have monitored the World Series, presidential inaugurals and the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. They mapped out damage at the World Trade Center, too.

"This is a development all Americans should have great pride in, because it expands and uses the national technical systems that we've built for tens of billions of dollars over many decades," Allen said.

"Now we're going to use it to help us protect the homeland and also help the homeland respond and recover in case of hurricanes, earthquakes, natural disasters or man-made attacks upon the United States."

So do you kids remember the rule about when the government tells us something? If they say it it is a what? That's right a LIE. Very good.

In my opinion this is the future we are all headed for anyhow. I think it will not be that much further into the future when we will be paying for thins with thumbprints or microchips and we will each be fitted with our own personal GPS. (Hell if you have a cell phone you may already have that capability.)

So posting about our personal liberties being eroded is probably an exercise in futility. But that is not my concern.

If this were a President Obama administration, or Edwards, or even Clinton, I would not be upset. But it is a George Bush administration, and if you believe that this technology will not be misused then let me welcome you back after your long stint in a comatose state.

We know for a fact that this will not be used for the things that they are saying, it will be used for political and unethical reasons. You can bet the farm on that.