I get the dichotomy from my general expectations guided by other precedents. It has been found that a crook who did his conversations by portable phone that were overheard as a result, didn't have an expectation of privacy.

My understanding is that the NSA picks up all international communication and is supposed to delete those involving US citizens. I would expect that if the person at the other end of the line were of interest, the call would be used for national security purposes only. I wouldn't expect it to be used for general law enforcement purposes.

My criticisms of the Gorelick/Clinton wall preventing law enforcement from sharing information with intelligence agencies are offered in the context of admitting that there is some justification for some limitations in some cases.

It will probably come out that the NSA was picking up these communications anyway, and the monitoring was just a decision to not throw them away.

I don't know what the precedent in this specific case is, or even if there is one. I am just stating that I wouldn't expect privacy in this context.

Anyone with a high gain antenna can track many active and passive RFID chips from a distance of many miles. If you shop at Walmart a person with such a device can tell what is in your fridge, how many pairs of clean underwear you have in your drawer, and what movies you rented from Blockbuster.

Starting next year all new US passports will have RFID chips.

---

----------------------------------------------------------
"A society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy."
John Sawhill

Ok, now suppose person A receives international call from a questionable country. Assuming for a second that monitoring international phone calls to/from domestice sources is ok. Person A then phones Person B in a purely domestic phone call, but Person A is now under scrutiny from the prior international call. Are you really going to tell me that they will stop monitoring those calls simply because it's domestic?

Further, what is the difference between an expectation of privacy if I call a family member in New York or if I call that same person in Europe?

---

f/k/a mclamb6

You have a really creative way of reading Brick - here's what the article said

"A complaint from Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the federal judge who oversees the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, helped spur the suspension, officials said. The judge questioned whether information obtained under the N.S.A. program was being improperly used as the basis for F.I.S.A. wiretap warrant requests from the Justice Department, according to senior government officials. While not knowing all the details of the exchange, several government lawyers said there appeared to be concerns that the Justice Department, by trying to shield the existence of the N.S.A. program, was in danger of misleading the court about the origins of the information cited to justify the warrants.

One official familiar with the episode said the judge insisted to Justice Department lawyers at one point that any material gathered under the special N.S.A. program not be used in seeking wiretap warrants from her court. Judge Kollar-Kotelly did not return calls for comment."

---

_______________________________________________

When Clinton was President, the FBI deployed two online detection software programs called Omnivore and Carnivore they're called 'packer sniffers' and they allowed the FBI to monitor all of an individuals online activity:

Which Web sites you visit

What you look at on the site

Whom you send e-mail to

What's in the e-mail you send

What you download from a site

What streaming events you use, such as audio, video and

Who visits your site (if you have a Web site)

These programs were the 'Black Box' attached to ISP's.

Clinton authorized the FBI to use these tools for the sole purpose of spying on American citizens.

Clinton did it, Bush is doing it........I'm not saying I agree......but to pretend that spying on American citizens is something that only George Bush has done is pretty lame.

---

**All of these words finding themselves together were greatly astonished and delighted for assuredly, they had never met before**

Anyone with a high gain antenna can track many active and passive RFID chips from a distance of many miles.

No, they really can't track RFID chips from many miles away. I don't care how high gain the receiving antenna is.

---

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

packet sniffers - are used to decode TCP/IP packets on a network

packer sniffers - an odd fetish for smelling Green Bay fans after a game

Sorry, I couln't resist. I use the PHLAK sniffer on my network and they give a lot more information than what you listed. The Omnivore and Carnivore programs were also smart enough to decode the packets and look for key words and phrases. Something to be said for high strength encryption and encrypted proxy services.

It was only the international call that was monitored under this program. It could certainly be that call triggers a warrant for futher monitoring, but a warrant would certainly be required, at least in the case of a US citizen.

Again, keep in mind the NSA is only set up to pick up calls internationally. They pick them all up as SOP, as I understand. This program probably didn't have anyone creeping around installing bugs or anything. It just had them pulling out calls from targets of interest using whatever technology they already had.

Put yourself in POTUS's shoes. You have all this information gathered as a matter of course anyway. Do you actually decide to go ahead and continue to throw it away even for persons of interest? I am thinking not.

The answer may be that you legally have the same expectation regardless of the international nature of the call. I only ask the question and offer my opinion.

Gee, I thought I asked about your domestic vs. international dichotomy. Silly me, to expect an actual answer to my actual question. What was I thinking?

---

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

From Wikipeda

Another privacy issue is due to RFID's support for a singulation (anti-collision) protocol. This is the means by which a reader enumerates all the tags responding to it without them mutually interfering. The structure of the most common version of this protocol is such that all but the last bit of each tag's serial number can be deduced by passively eavesdropping on just the reader's part of the protocol. Because of this, whenever RFID tags are near to readers, the distance at which a tag's signal can be eavesdropped is irrelevant; what counts is the distance at which the much more powerful reader can be received. Just how far this can be depends on the type of the reader, but in the extreme case some readers have a maximum power output (4 W) that could be received from tens of kilometres away.

---

----------------------------------------------------------
"A society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy."
John Sawhill

JHC,

The article contains the following passage:

Administration officials are confident that existing safeguards are sufficient to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, the officials say. In some cases, they said, the Justice Department eventually seeks warrants if it wants to expand the eavesdropping to include communications confined within the United States. The officials said the administration had briefed Congressional leaders about the program and notified the judge in charge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret Washington court that deals with national security issues.

I think that clearly says the FISA court was notified of the program.

Funny how Congressional leaders are up in arms about this, Republicans and Democrats alike all calling for hearings.

Maybe they weren't notified and perhaps FISA wasn't either....does that mean the President is lying to us???

---

----------------------------------------------------------
"A society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy."
John Sawhill

You're misunderstanding what that says.

What it means if that if an rfid chip is close enough to a reader, you can gain information about that rfid chip by picking up the reader's transmission from a significant distance. You cannot pick up the transmission of the actual rfid chip from any distance of more than a few meters.

In other words, you go to Walmart and buy a pack of underwear. The underwear has an RFID chip. When you get to the checkout counter, a reader sends out a signal to the RFID chip, and receives a response. Someone could be a few miles from the Walmart, and could be picking up the transmission of the reader- not the RFID chip.

Once you get out to your car, neither the reader nor anyone else can track the RFID chip.

---

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

You're right - I missed that.. sorry. But if you take that with the passage I quoted, she may have been informed but certainly didn't go along with it.

What we have here is an Executive Branch, which authorizes itself to break US law, and then unceremoniously announces to a few people it's going to do this, and somehow it's supposed to be accepted as legitimate?

---

_______________________________________________

Matt,

I believe that both Pelosi and Rockefeller have admitted that they were notified of the program. No one from the FISA court has denied being advised of the program. The Judge in charge of the FISA court appears to have known because she challenged whether information obtained from the program could be used to justify FISA warrants. It looks like she knew there might be a fruit of the poisonous tree argument if a warrant issued based on such surveillance. I have seen no reports where someone who the administration claims to have told has denied being so advised. Can you identify such a person? I think the procedure needs to be evaluated and we need either a decision or a consensus on (1) whether it is constitutional and (2) if so, is it advisable. As I mentioned earlier, the putative outrage seems contrived to me.

This might be the oddest intertwining of threads that I have seen in recent memory in the LR.

---

f/k/a mclamb6

Ahhhh I see.

But the Active GPS chips still give those with nefarious intentions the ability to track our movements...they aren't RFIDs I know, but most people these days either carry one around with them in their phone or drive around with one in their car.

---

----------------------------------------------------------
"A society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy."
John Sawhill

Sorry, Ken. You asked me a question, and I admitted I didn't know the final legal answer. I realize according to LR rules I am supposed to fake it, but I didn't think you would bash me that hard for telling the truth.

Tough crowd.

the Active GPS chips still give those with nefarious intentions the ability to track our movements...they aren't RFIDs I know, but most people these days either carry one around with them in their phone or drive around with one in their car.

That's true, but like I said, you can simply disable that function on your phone. It isn't really an "active" gps system. Your phone has a gps receiver, and can transmit the coordinates it reads to your service provider. It isn't like there are gps satellites picking up your phone's location reading it's coordinates.

---

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

If that was an answer, it got lost in the Gorelick/Clinton reference that somehow managed to appear in the middle.

---

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

Brick,

Nancy Pelosi says that she was notified of the wire taps after the fact. The fact remains that the President instigated a program of illegal spying on US citizens and it doesn't really matter who he notifies....its still illegal.

If the President drives his car drunk off his ass and tells Nancy Pelosi about it does that make it legal?

---

----------------------------------------------------------
"A society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy."
John Sawhill

But if you take that with the passage I quoted, she may have been informed but certainly didn't go along with it.

Correct. I never said the court or the congressional leaders approved of the change in procedure but they were aware of it. The court appears to have had some reservations and the program was suspended for a time to address those. My point is directed at the putative outrage expressed by some on both sides of the aisle.

What we have here is an Executive Branch, which authorizes itself to break US law, and then unceremoniously announces to a few people it's going to do this, and somehow it's supposed to be accepted as legitimate?

Not at all. You know more than I if you can so definitively state that US law has been broken. After 9/11 the country was in a significant threat scenario. The administration took a serious step to address it. If they advised the people they said they advised and if the program was evaluated every 45 days as has been reported, then I think they were acting reasonably under the circumstances. Was the law broken or the Constitution violated? I don't know. The Constitution prevents unreasonable searches. Warrants are used to establish reasonableness. Warrantless searches are reasonable and constitutional under certain circumstances. Does the practice the administration used concern me? Yes. Am I outraged? No. If it is determined to be in violation of the law or the Constitution then it should stop or the law or the Constitution should be changed. The outrage that has surfaced seems to me to be politically motivated and somewhat irresponsible.

Nancy Pelosi says that she was notified of the wire taps after the fact.

The reports indicated that congressional leaders were told of the program. I don't know whether after the fact means after the decision to start the program or after the program started. The reports also indicated that congressional leaders were told of the program as they rotated into certain positions that warranted their notification. Do you know for how long Ms. Pelosi knew of the program? I don't think it really matters but I am curious.

The fact remains that the President instigated a program of illegal spying on US citizens and it doesn't really matter who he notifies....its still illegal.

I do not know that this is as clear as you contend. Time will tell. If the program was illegal then advising others about it does not make it legal. I never contended such. My point continues to be that I think the putative outrage expressed over the program is less than genuine.

My point continues to be that I think the putative outrage expressed over the program is less than genuine.

I can assure you that my outrage is genuine. I am appalled that it is not universaaly shared.

---

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Ask oneself this question:

If this had been implemented two months after 9/11 and found out 4 months later, would it be a big deal?

I'd submit the answer is no. The problem is, too many people living as if it were 9/10.