New Crypto-Fascist Laws for “Our Own Good”

The initiative “Sunshine in Government” has sent a letter to various senators manning the “Select Committee on Intelligence”, pointing out to them that the proposed CISA Act (the full Orwellian name of which is “Cybersecurity in Information Sharing Act 2014”) is apt to destroy what little is left of the “free press” (i.e., it seems the corporate media are apparently still given the benefit of the doubt by some).

It would probably be better to name it the “Anti Snowden Act”, as its purpose appears mainly to protect the government and prevent it from losing face in the future by having its shenanigans exposed. The full letter can be downloaded via a link at the end of this post. Here are two passages from it:

“We appreciate that the Act’s main goal is to encourage private companies, through significant limitations on liability, to share information voluntarily with the federal government (and each other) to help combat cyber threats.

However, we are concerned that the discussion draft released last week would threaten the flow of accurate news and information to the public and policymakers by creating a substantial chilling effect among journalists and their confidential sources, which are sometimes necessary to inform the public about matters that have nothing to do with securing computer networks. CISA as proposed would grant the federal government virtually unlimited authority to thwart news gathering and the use of confidential sources by removing meaningful judicial oversight and placing the balancing of vital democratic interests in the hands of the executive branch and private industry.  

The bill implicates the First and Fourth Amendments, and would permit the government to entirely bypass existing legal standards and prior notice requirements, including those currently found in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). The legislation is also diametrically opposed to the carefully crafted language of the federal shield bill, which tasks federal judges with balancing the right to a free press and the needs of law enforcement.

Specifically, CISA would authorize any department or agency of the federal government to obtain from private companies – without a warrant or other traditional legal process – “cyber threat indicators” and use that information for a “cybersecurity purpose” or for “the purpose of preventing, investigating, or prosecuting” crimes under the Espionage Act (Title 18, Chapter 37).Notwithstanding the express mention of the Espionage Act, the terms “cyber threat indicator” and “cybersecurity purpose” (and the additional terms that further define these terms) are exceedingly overbroad.

Reading the interconnected definitions together, CISA would grant the federal government the authority to engage in the warrantless collection of journalists’ communications records – including content and transactional metadata – if the government deems the journalists, or the confidential sources they work with, “security vulnerabilities” or “cybersecurity threats” potentially “adversely impacting” the confidentiality of information stored on government computers.

This kind of unbridled federal government authority – to classify journalists and their confidential sources as “security vulnerabilities” or “cybersecurity threats,” and obtain their communications records without meaningful judicial oversight, legal standards or prior notice – would create a significant chilling effect that would harm newsgathering and the ability of the press to inform the public.

The bill’s practical impact would be felt hardest by national security reporters who often inform the public with stories based on unauthorized disclosures of government information. We understand that unauthorized disclosures are disfavored by the government, but they also serve valuable purposes including exposing government malfeasance or outright illegal conduct. In fact, like other committees in both the Senate and House, this Committee’s oversight activities regularly depend upon and benefit from news reporting based on unauthorized disclosures.

Yet a national security reporter may fall squarely within the extremely broad definitions of CISA, be deemed a “procedural” or “operational” threat to the continued secrecy of government information, and be subject to government surveillance – either in the form of real-time monitoring or access to stored records – without the specific protections of the Fourth Amendment, ECPA, or even the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Or, if a story has already been published based on a leak, the federal government could obtain from private companies communications records about the journalist for the express purpose of investigating or prosecuting the leaker under the Espionage Act.”

[…]

In sum, CISA would enable the federal government to do an end-run around the Constitution and existing privacy laws. Absent the protections found in strong judicial oversight, legal standards and prior notice requirements, federal investigators and prosecutors could easily obtain the communications records of journalists and their confidential sources, thereby creating an impermissible chilling effect on news gathering and irreversibly harming the flow of accurate news and information to the public and policymakers.”

As far as we can tell, the government has evinced precisely zero problems in “doing end-runs around the constitution” ever since 9/11.  If one cares to look back a bit further into history, it certainly wasn't the first time that an “emergency” situation was used by government to make as if that piece of patient paper (i.e., the constitution) didn't exist.

The method employed is always the same: first, government officials break laws, by e.g. torturing detainees, engaging in warrantless wire-tapping of innocent citizens, killing people by remote control with not a shred of due process, “disappearing” or “rendering” people to torture chambers in far-away lands in secret, throwing out habeas corpus, etc., etc. -  all those little transgressions a democracy must sadly engage in it it wants to “protect our cherished liberties”.

By instituting numerous crypto-fascist laws (such as the PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act, the NDAA, or this latest abomination) all of these activities are then retroactively put on a formal legal basis. The main aim of this is to cover the behinds of government officials. Should anyone care to challenge the constitutionality of any of the laws, they are given short shrift by declaring that they “have no standing”.

If the people with the Sunshine in Government (SiG) initiative believe that sending this politely worded letter is going to alter or slow down our steady march toward fascism, they suffer under what we term the “democracy delusion” – the irrational belief that the citizenry has any influence whatsoever on these events. There are occasional exceptions when citizens engage in very conspicuous protests. In such cases, the disputed measures are temporarily withdrawn, and simply implemented later.  The procedure is usually repeated as necessary, until it “sticks” (many examples for this can be found in the implementation of the “European Project”. The constant attempts to introduce internet censorship by various back-doors are another example). Maybe we are too cynical and the SiG Initiative will actually achieve something – we certainly hope it will. But we sure wouldn't bet on it.

In light of the CISA Act, we ask again: what have Edward Snowden's revelations actually done for us? By “us”, we mean the average citizen.

Here is what they have achieved so far: a) not even a single thing about ubiquitous surveillance has changed, b)  the aim of intimidating the citizenry has been accomplished and c) they are beginning to aid in the production of new laws that are tightening the government's grip on information and making it more impervious to potential challenges.

It should be noted that apart from the details and the incontrovertible proof included in Snowden's revelations, nothing of what he said wasn't known before. Other whistleblowers (such as William Binney and Russel Tice) had come forward long before Snowden – the main difference was that they didn't arouse the attention of the lamestream media for some reason.

Just trust us …

(Cartoon by Jeff Parker)

What Do $75 Billion in Annual Spending on “Homeland Security”  Actually Accomplish?

Not only has the constitution been shredded since the start of the  “global war on terrorism”, but one of the costliest bureaucracies ever has been created as well. Its spending includes countless truly bizarre items (a very small list can be found here, including e.g. $750,000 for an "anti-terrorism fence" built around a VA hospital near Asheville, N.C.).

As is usual when a big amount of slop is accumulating in a government trough, all sorts of absurdities suddenly get funded, as political cronies from across the landscape descend on the loot like a swarm of locusts. Meanwhile, the ability of this apparatus to actually catch real terrorists is, let us say, unlikely to be very well developed. “Foiled plots” most of the time involve the ensnaring of mental midgets and/or drunks by agents provocateurs. Their indictment and prosecution is best seen as a kind of Darwin Award ceremony. It may not make the world outside of the prison system any safer, but it probably makes it slightly less stupid on average.

The NSA's “collection of everything” meanwhile has “perhaps” foiled “one or two” terrorist plots.

A friend of ours recently pointed a video on Reuters out to us, which discusses how “ISIS” (or “ISIL”) has become one of the richest terrorist organizations in the world (see: “How Did ISIL Get so Rich?”). It is fair to say that ISIS has all the trappings of a State: it collects taxes, it runs its own oil production facilities and sells the oil, it has a slick media/propaganda arm, it has its own (highly effective) army and so forth. The organization has overrun and conquered Northern Iraq in just 10 days. As our friend remarked to this in a heartfelt missive:

“So with all of our constitutional freedoms imperiled and invaded by our own government in the name of protecting us….  why the f*** did they not know about this?   If this is protection vs. the bill of rights………  gimme my money back motherf*****s.  From my bank account to my phone calls and email, and they couldn't uncover this, and now half of the Middle East is under their control in ten f*****g days?    What kind of utter s**t crap have we been fed, and what kind of utter s**t crap are we in any part of the West living in?   WHAT A F***ING CIRCUS.”

He also pointed out, not unreasonably we think, that the citizenry is simply being “played”. The idea that Western governments are in any way surprised by the existence of ISIS and the extent of its power is surely laughable, not least as the West has supported the rebels fighting Assad in Syria. And who exactly are the rebels fighting Assad? As far as we can tell, they consist mainly of ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front (another Al Qaeda off-shoot), two organizations that have just decided to let bygones be bygones and have become allies (see “ISIS and Al-Nusra Merge at Syria-Iraq Border Town”). This is incidentally seriously blunting Assad's “divide et impera” stratagems in Syria, which have thus far helped him to remain in the saddle.

Al-Qaeda’s Syrian offshoot has issued a loyalty pledge to Isis at a remote town on the Iraqi border, a monitor said. The merger is significant as it opens the way for Isis to take control of both sides of the border at Albu Kamal in Syria and al-Qaim in Iraq, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Isis – which aspires to create an Islamic state that straddles Iraq and Syria – has spearheaded an lightening jihadist offensive that has captured swathes of territory north and west of Baghdad this month.

After months of clashes between the two sides, al-Qaeda’s official Syrian arm the al-Nusra Front “pledged loyalty to Isis” in Albu Kamal, said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman. “The pledge comes amid advances by Isis in Deir Ezzor province” in eastern Syria on the Iraqi border, Abdel Rahman told AFP.

An Egyptian Al-Nusra Front representative and an ISIS leader from Chechnya shake hands on their new alliance.

(Photo via telegraph.co.uk)

Meanwhile, Darth Vader is ominously declaring that another mass casualty producing terrorist event on US soil is a near certainty (see: “Dick Cheney Predicts Another 9/11 in This Decade”).  According to Cheney:

“I think there will be another attack and the next time I think it’s likely to be far deadlier than the last one. You can just imagine what would happen if somebody could smuggle a nuclear device, put it in a shipping container, and drive it down the beltway outside Washington D.C.”

He didn't care to mention what would happen in the wake of such an event to whatever is by then left of the constitution or our vaunted freedoms.

Dick and Liz, via Dojo Rat

We won't accuse Darth Vader of giving terrorists ideas, since the type of attack he mentions has already been discussed far and wide in the past. There are however two reasons why his prediction is actually plausible:

For one thing, “we” continue to meddle in the affairs of Middle Eastern countries. On the one hand, brutal dictatorships are supported and kept in place (see e.g. Egypt, the new rulers of which have just publicly humiliated John Kerry because they feel secure in the knowledge that the West cannot “afford” letting Islamists rule Egypt), on the other hand, total instability is created in numerous areas, with jihadist groups growing across the region like never before and evidently becoming more powerful than ever.

The other reason is that the $75 billion spent on “homeland security” as well as the NSA's ubiquitous surveillance activities are both ineffective in stopping actual terrorists (the really dangerous ones are likely too smart to get caught). It is anyway highly questionable whether catching terrorists is really the main goal of all these activities. That seems largely a pretext, so as to institute a system of control and surveillance the scope of which astonishes even former STASI officers:

SPIEGEL: Did the revelations from Edward Snowden surprise you?

Eichner: The NSA's approach didn't surprise me. Intelligence agencies want to know everything. But the vast scope of NSA surveillance surprised me.”

Meanwhile, across the US, the police are transformed into a paramilitary organization. Even the Economist Magazine, which is normally a reliable supporter of statism and militarism in all its forms, is expressing worries about this development.

Here is a recent Guardian article on the same topic.  

"Swat teams were a late 1960s invention that emerged out of the Los Angeles police department. Initially, they were designed to help officers react to perilous situations such as riots, hostage taking and where an active shooter was barricaded into a house.

But they have developed into something entirely different. The ACLU survey found that 62% of Swat team call-outs were for drug searches. Some 79% involved raids on private homes, and a similar proportion were done on the back of warrants authorizing searches. By contrast, only about 7% fell into those categories for which the technique was originally intended, such as hostage situations or barricades.

“Law enforcement agencies are increasingly using paramilitary squads to search people’s homes for drugs,” the ACLU writes. It adds: “Neighbourhoods are not war zones and our police officers should not be treating us like wartime enemies.”

Nothing to worry about, citizen. We'll protect the s**t out of you.

(Image source unknown)

Conclusion

Most people are of course far too busy to spend time worrying about any of this. They have to earn a living, look after their family, pay their bills, etc. This is a major reason why the State is getting away with these things. It seems clear though that the situation continues to deteriorate. The proposed CISA Act is just one more in what is by now a long list of increasingly authoritarian measures.

Download Link: The Letter of the “Sunshine in Government” Initiative to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding the CISA Act.

A picture of what used to be the police

(Photo credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)