Tag Archives: privacy

Distractions

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Congressman Adam Schiff (D, CA), Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, wants them.  He’s so anxious to have them that he’s insisting that Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R, CA) to stop being Chairman.

Mr Nunes should step aside from any congressional investigation pertaining to Russia or to the “incidental” collection of intelligence information, like what Mr Nunes said occurred to Mr Trump’s transition team.

Mr Schiff said in a statement it was “not a recommendation I make lightly…. I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the president’s campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman.”

Never mind that his latest call was triggered by Nunes’ meeting with an official in a secure facility to review classified information regarding just that “incidental” collection against the Trump transition team by the Obama administration.

Never mind that Nunes has said through his spokesman, Jack Langer, that he

met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source.

And that Langer also said,

The chairman is extremely concerned by the possible improper unmasking of names of US citizens, and he began looking into this issue even before President Trump tweeted his assertion that Trump Tower had been wiretapped.

Why does Schiff keep trying to shift the subject away from that unmasking—and who authorized it, who did it, who leaked it—which unmasking is a felony, to focus solely on the method used to look at some information?

Why does Schiff want so badly to bury those questions and their answers?

Inadvertent Tapping and Leaks

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As House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R, CA) revealed the other day enroute to the White House, intelligence community personnel, in the course of surveilling the communications and other activities of foreign nationals (vis., Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak), also surveilled incidentally members of then-President-Elect Donald Trump’s campaign and transition teams, and perhaps Trump himself.  Wire tapping, indeed, if loosely and metaphorically.

Of larger import, though, is this, also from Nunes.

…the intelligence “ended up in reporting channels and was widely disseminated.”

It was previously reported that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was “unmasked” in this way; however, Nunes said “additional names” were unmasked as well.

Why was this classified material leaked to the press, and who leaked it?

Of nearly as large importance, too, is this: why is the NLMSM focusing on the admittedly unusual procedure of briefing the press, the President, and then the Intelligence Committee, in that order, instead of focusing on this cynical leak of classified information?

Honeypots

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In the cyber world, a honeypot

consists of data (for example, in a network site) that appears to be a legitimate part of the site but is actually isolated and monitored, and that seems to contain information or a resource of value to attackers, which are then blocked.

Of course, nothing prevents nefarious persons or entities from using honeypots to draw in honest folks for nefarious purposes.  Purposes like the following.

The trove of leaked Democratic National Committee emails posted to Wikileaks on July 22 has sparked concerns about malware as users access the vast trove of documents.
…
On the day of the leak, Google’s Transparency Report warned users of dangerous downloads from Wikileaks.org. Google has not revealed specifically what was detected….

Malware was detected in the Global Intelligence Files dumped last year by Wikileaks, too.  Further, Wikileaks actually could be a victim in this malware ploy, too: they do little of their own hacking, getting their stuff from other sources.  One of their sources already has been implicated in the recent hacks of Democratic Party IT facilities like the DNC, DNCC, and Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign email servers, along with Clinton’s official State Department business personal email server: Russia is suspected of conducting these particular hacks.

Are these guys—Russians, Chines, ordinary thieves—setting up other botnets?  Setting up sources for stealing personal financial data or data useful for blackmail or data useful for espionage, with these sources to be tapped at a time of convenience in the future?  Setting up something else?

The Feds Want to be in your Child’s School Bathroom

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…right along with anyone else confused about who should or should not be there.

The Obama administration will send a letter to every public school district in the country telling them to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their chosen gender identity, as opposed to their birth certificate.

President Barack Obama (D) threatened in his letter to withhold Federal funding for those school districts impertinent enough to not comply with his decree.  South Dakota v Dole might have an impact on his threat, but Obama has never let legitimacy get in the way of his edicts, and this is another lame duck/what’re-you-gonna-do-about-it-in-my-last-8-months example.

The Obama letter includes this gem:

As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students[.]

The class of students that consists of straight boys and girls don’t matter, though.  They need to check their privilege at the bathroom door.

Encryption and Safety

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Senators Richard Burr (R, NC) and Dianne Feinstein (C, CA), in their op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, demonstrated their lack of understanding of the relationship between security and safety.  Their piece’s title, Encryption Without Tears, illustrates their basic misunderstanding of the inherent tension between the two, here encryption and safety.

In an increasingly digital world, strong encryption of devices is needed to prevent criminal misuse of data.  But technological innovation must not mean placing individuals or companies above the law.

Neither can technological backdoors be allowed to place government above the law.

Over the past year the two of us have explored the challenges associated with criminal and terrorist use of encrypted communications.

But they’ve apparently spent not a red sou on exploring the challenges of a private citizens or private enterprises need for and use of encryption to protect themselves from criminal, and terrorist, and yes government misbehaviors.

Then they cited a couple of examples to illustrate their thesis; I’ll cite one of those below, because it so clearly illustrate the opposite and some interlinkage of the Left’s position on American safety (and disappointingly, Burr’s lack of thought).

…the Islamic State-inspired terrorist attack last year in Garland, Texas.  FBI Director Jim Comey said the attackers “exchanged 109 messages with an overseas terrorist” the morning of the shooting, but the FBI cannot access those messages to determine the exact role of Islamic State in the shooting and how to help prevent future attacks.

There’s no doubt that being able to read those messages would have been very useful.  However, Burr and Feinstein carefully neglect to mention that the Islamic State-inspired terrorist attack was stopped in its tracks and the terrorists killed on the spot by armed American citizens who were alert, on the scene, and unafraid to act.  The San Bernardino attack, for which Comey went to court to try to force Apple to break its own security algorithms (under the false claim that Apple’s efforts were absolutely necessary, mind you—until the FBI broke the algorithms with other means), occurred in a by-government-mandate gun-free zone, which ensured that only the terrorists had guns.  We’re left to speculate on how far the casualty list would have been reduced had the victim population been allowed to be armed themselves.  As the Left likes to say, though, “If it saves only one life….”

Yet Burr and Feinstein are “circulating” a draft bill:

The draft proposal requires a person or a company—when served with a court order—to provide law enforcement with information (in readable form) or appropriate technical assistance that is responsive to the judicial request.  This will enable law enforcement to conduct investigations using the communications involved in criminal and terrorist activities.

Our draft bill wouldn’t impose a one-size-fits-all solution on all covered entities….

The judicial request.  Carefully vague.  It may be the case, though, that their bill wouldn’t impose a one-size-fits-all solution.  No, it’ll just require an ex post back door to be created, one that’s usable for future “situations,” too, and the aggregation of which will allow government snooping.

It’s just this sort of Government arrogance, or even merely disingenuousness, against which we have such extensive protections against overreaching government men.  The government isn’t even pretending to act in good faith on this matter, as Comey’s behavior in that Apple case demonstrates.

Private encryption, with no backdoors, and an armed population.  That permits an optimum mix of security and safety and encryption with a minimum of tears.  Backdoors on Government demand permits the least mix of security and safety, broken encryption guaranteed to generate tears.