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How Feinstein’s Fake NSA Reform Bill Could Actually Make It Easier For NSA To Record Your Phone Calls

No! NSA surveillance hasn’t foiled a single terror plot

By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | November 1, 2013

We already pointed out that Dianne Feinstein’s fake NSA reform bill is being positioned by her as real reform, when all it really does is codify the (probably currently illegal) status quo. Even worse, Feinstein is using highly misleading language to pretend that the bill “bans” the very things that it clearly allows. It’s about as dishonest a statement about a bill as you can imagine.

We had noted in our original post that the talk about how the bill would prohibit the collection of “content of communications under Section 215” was a red herring. One of the NSA’s go-to talking points is that there’s “no surveillance” on the Section 215 collections because it’s “just metadata.” They keep repeating this claim over and over again that the leaked programs do not involve collecting the “content” of calls, pretending that this is what everyone’s been complaining about. That statement alone is disingenuous. Most people following this know that the Section 215 collections don’t involve the content of communications. What we’re complaining about is the metadata collection, because that’s very revealing. Separately, while the NSA may not collect contents “under this program,” they absolutely do under other programs.

But, the actual language here may be even worse. It may be so misleading that the language being held up to “prohibit” the collection of actual call content is worded in a way that actually will allow for greater content collection. As Julian Sanchez notes at that link, the ban on content collection is only for “bulk data collection,” which could be interpreted to mean it’s okay for non-bulk collections, which most people believe 215 isn’t regularly used for today.

The problem is, under canons of judicial interpretation, a narrow and explicit prohibition on getting content under bulk orders for communications records could easily be read to imply that content can be acquired via non-bulk orders, or even via bulk orders for other types of records. At present, it is not clear whether the statute allows for the acquisition of contents under 215, but there are strong arguments it does not—though, of course, I’d argue the Constitution would forbid this even if the statute didn’t. Under this law, though, a clever Justice Department lawyer could plausibly argue that a prohibition on content collection under one very specific type of 215 order would be senseless and redundant unless Congress intended for content to be accessible under 215 orders generally—and Courts generally have to interpret the law in a way that avoids making any provision redundant.

And, as Sanchez further points out, this isn’t a theoretical concept. The Justice Department has already used exactly this type of argument to allow for the bulk data collection in the first place:

This is not at all a hypothetical concern. In 2006, Congress amended Section 215 to add special “protections” for educational and medical records. What Congress didn’t know is that, because those records are already protected under other federal laws, and 215 contained no language explicitly overriding those statutes, the Justice Department had determined that 215 simply could not be used to access those types of records—an interpretation that was reversed after the “protections” were added. Congress, in other words, inadvertently expanded the scope of 215 while trying to limit it—a fact that was discovered only later, when a report by the Inspector General revealed the unintended consequences of the amendment.

This is yet another example of the really evil word games the NSA and its defenders will use to increase spying, while pretending they’re doing the opposite. Now would be a good time to reach out to your Senator to let them know that the Feinstein bill is absolutely unacceptable.

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November 1, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Snowden ready to testify in Merkel tapping case – German lawmaker

RT | October 31, 2013

Whistleblower Edward Snowden has met with a German MP in Moscow. He passed a letter addressed to the German government and federal public prosecutor where he allegedly said he is ready to testify over Washington’s probable wiretapping of Merkel’s phone.

During the meeting, Snowden made it “clear that he knows a lot,” Greens lawmaker Hans-Christian Stroebele told ARD channel.

“He expressed his principle readiness to help clarify the situation. Basis for this is what we must create. That’s what we discussed for a long time and from all angles,” the MP said. “He is essentially prepared to come to Germany and give testimony, but the conditions must be discussed.” 

Stroebele, 74, is a member of the German parliament’s control committee which is responsible for monitoring the work of intelligence agencies.

Snowden wouldn’t be able to travel to Germany to give evidence, as that would effectively see his refugee status lifted. If that were to happen, it would be possible for him to be extradited to the US, Interfax news agency quoted an unknown source as saying.

“At the same time, the German General Prosecutor’s Office could in principle send its representatives to Russia or pass its written questions on to Edward Snowden,” the same source said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has dispatched the country’s top foreign affairs and intelligence advisers to Washington this week to further investigate the allegations that her cell phone was tapped by the NSA, the report which caused fierce outrage in Germany.

The scandal initially broke when journalists working with Snowden’s leaked documents contacted the German government for clarification. German politicians subsequently suggested involving Snowden as a witness in the wiretapping case.

The German Federal Prosecutor’s Office may summon Snowden to be a witness in the case, German justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger told Deutschlandfunk radio on Sunday.

“If our suspicions prove correct and a case is opened, the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office will have to consider the possibility of interrogating Snowden as a witness,” she said.

If Snowden were to come to Germany for the case, the EU country could breach US’ requests for extradition, the minister added.

Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger also said that the phone tapping is illegal and constitutes a crime,    therefore those responsible should be held accountable.

A parliamentary session will be held on November 18 to discuss the phone tapping. The Greens, along with the far-left Die Linke party, previously asked for a public inquiry into the matter. They were the ones to call on witnesses, including Snowden.

In June, Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor who disclosed secret US surveillance programs, fled to Hong Kong and then to Russia.

President Vladimir Putin rejected US demands to extradite Snowden to face charges including espionage.

In early August, Snowden was granted temporary asylum, which can be extended annually.

November 1, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

A Sea Change for Climate Science?

By David Stockwell | Quadrant Online | November 1, 2013

As CO2 climate models falter and even the IPCC backs off its estimates, it just may be that a radical shift in thinking is looming. Wouldn’t it be funny if it was the sun all along?

Remember Thomas Kuhn and his paradigm shift?  According to his Structure of Scientific Revolutions, theories change only when anomalous observations stress the ”dominant paradigm” to the point that it becomes untenable. Until then, failure of a result to conform to the prevailing paradigm is not seen as refuting the dominant theory, but explained away as a mistake of the researchers, errors in the data, within the range of uncertainty, and so on. Only at the point of crisis does science become open to a new paradigm.  So, does Kuhn inform the current climate debate, help identify important information or an alternative paradigm?

Climate models can be seen as encapsulating the dominant theory, even though they are composed of many different theories regarding land, the ocean and atmosphere.  Despite their differences they are also similar in many ways, sharing terminology such as the ‘radiative kernel’. Lets agree, for the purpose of argument, that the dominant AGW paradigm is of global temperature’s high sensitivity to CO2 doubling, resulting in an increase of around 3°C, which appears to be about the central estimate of the climate models. 

Does the 15-year ‘pause’ in global temperatures stress this theory? Certainly to some, the stress has already reached a ‘crisis’; while to others the divergence can be explained away by natural variation, uncertainty, and errors in the data.

Do failed models and their predictions of increasing extreme events, like hurricanes, droughts and floods, stress the climate models?  Possibly not.  From a physical perspective, these phenomena lie at the boundaries of the theory. Hurricanes, droughts and floods are ‘higher order’ statistics — extremes not climate averages. Surface temperature is only a part of the greater global climate system. Because anomalous behavior at the margins can be discarded without sacrificing the main theory, their power to confirm or reject the dominant paradigm is somewhat limited.

Ocean heat content, however, is in a unique position.  The world’s oceans store over 90% of the heat in the climate system. Arguably, therefore, increases in ocean heat determine overall global warming. Ocean heat represents the physical bulk of the global heat store, and so should carry the most weight in our assessment of the status of AGW. Observations of ocean heat uptake represent the crucial experiment  — observations capable of decisively dismantling a theory despite its widespread acceptance in the scientific community. The ARGO project to monitor ocean heat with thousands of drifting buoys is the crucial experiment of the AGW stable.

A number of climate bloggers have remarked on the very low rate of ocean heat uptake (here, and here, and here), much lower than predicted by the models (here, here, and here).  The last link is about Nic Lewis, a coauthor on Otto et al. 2013, who feels that recent findings of low climate sensitivity, many based on ocean heat content, have led a number of prominent IPCC authors to abandon the higher estimates of climate sensitivity. That may not be a ‘catastrophe’ for the dominant AGW paradigm, but it is certainly a lurch by insiders towards the lower ends of risk and urgency. … continue reading at Quadrant Online

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November 1, 2013 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

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