Welcome to Freedom2008.com, the website for Lance Brown’s campaign for president. The 2008 campaign has been suspended; please see below for more information.
Please feel free to explore the 2000 or so archived entries on the site.
Some companies helped the NSA, but which? | Tech News on ZDNet
Even after the recent scrutiny of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance project approved by President Bush, an intriguing question remains unanswered: Which corporations cooperated with the spy agency?…
United Press International - Security & Terrorism - Whistleblower says NSA violations bigger
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 (UPI) — A former NSA employee said Tuesday there is another ongoing top-secret surveillance program that might have violated millions of Americans’ Constitutional rights.
Russell D. Tice told the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations he has concerns about a “special access” electronic surveillance program that he characterized as far more wide-ranging than the warrentless wiretapping recently exposed by the New York Times but he is forbidden from discussing the program with Congress. …
From the First Amendment Center (via RRND):
VA nurse’s letter to newspaper prompts sedition probe
By The Associated Press
02.08.06
Sen. Jeff Bingaman asked Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson for a thorough inquiry into his agency’s investigation of whether a VA nurse’s letter criticizing the Bush administration amounted to “sedition.”
The agency’s human resources office ultimately cleared her of any wrongdoing, but Bingaman, D-N.M., said yesterday he was concerned that the VA investigated Laura Berg of Albuquerque in the first place.
Merely opposing government policies and expressing a desire to change course “does not provide reason to believe that a person is involved in illegal subversive activity,” he said.
Such investigations raise “a very real possibility of chilling legitimate political speech,” Bingaman said.
“In a democracy, expressing disagreement with the government’s actions does not amount to sedition or insurrection,” he wrote. “It is, and must remain, protected speech….
U.S. Plans to “Fight the Net” Revealed
A newly declassified document gives a fascinating glimpse into the US military’s plans for “information operations” - from psychological operations, to attacks on hostile computer networks.
Bloggers beware.
As the world turns networked, the Pentagon is calculating the military opportunities that computer networks, wireless technologies and the modern media offer.
From influencing public opinion through new media to designing “computer network attack” weapons, the US military is learning to fight an electronic war.
The declassified document is called “Information Operations Roadmap”. It was obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University using the Freedom of Information Act.
Officials in the Pentagon wrote it in 2003. The Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed it….
Reason: Habeas Corpses: Torturing people to death is not a serious way to wage war on terrorism
Julian Sanchez
The man with graying hair had “blunt force injuries complicated by compromised respiration,” the result of a synthetic hood placed over his head during interrogation by Navy Seals and “Other Government Agency,” which typically means the CIA. The obese 56-year-old died of “asphyxia due to smothering and chest compression”; the circumstances surrounding his death are classified. The 47-year-old died gagged and shackled to a door frame; his autopsy revealed numerous rib fractures and lung contusions.
These are a few of the findings from 44 reports of autopsies on U.S. detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) last month under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Eight of the 21 deaths classed as homicides, the ACLU concluded, appeared to have resulted from abusive interrogation tactics, with strangulation, asphyxiation, and blunt force injuries listed as causes of death. Because the documents sought by the ACLU are trickling out slowly, month by month, it is unclear how many more such reports remain to be uncovered.
This much we know about interrogations at the government’s acknowledged prisons. But not even Congress, let alone the ACLU, seems to know a great deal about what sort of tactics are deployed at the Central Intelligence Agency’s numerous black sites, secret prisons that, the Washington Post revealed earlier this month, are used to house “high level” terror suspects in Afghanistan and Eastern Europe.
We have at least a hint of the unholy provenance of the tactics that might be deployed there, however. …
Congress May Curb Some Patriot Act Powers: Top News Stories at Officer.com
…
Under the agreement, for the first time since the act became law, judges would get the authority to reject national security letters giving the government secret access to people’s phone and e-mail records, financial data and favorite Internet sites.
Holders of such information - such as banks and Internet providers - could challenge the letters in court for the first time, said congressional aides involved in merging separate, earlier-passed House and Senate bills reauthorizing the expiring Patriot Act. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity because the panel has not begun deliberations.
Since passage of the 2001 law, the FBI reportedly has been issuing about 30,000 national security letters annually, a hundred-fold increase since they first came into existence.
…
Both the House and Senate versions of a Patriot Act extension, debated over the summer, proposed giving the judiciary a more explicit role in national security letters. “The court may quash or modify a request if compliance would be unreasonable or oppressive,” according to a summary by the Congressional Research Service. The Senate added more conditions: “or violate any constitutional or other legal right or privilege.”
Some version of those curbs is expected to be passed as part of the compromise bill….