1) Read THIS.
2) Think.

ABSTRACT:

This paper attempts to set out some general parameters for coming to grips with a central homeland security concern: the effort to make potential targets invulnerable, or at least notably less vulnerable, to terrorist attack. It argues that protection makes sense only when protection is feasible for an entire class of potential targets and when the destruction of something in that target set would have quite large physical, economic, psychological, and/or political consequences. There are a very large number of potential targets where protection is essentially a waste of resources and a much more limited one where it may be effective.

Bruce Schneier points us to another classic example of how fear/stupidity mongers are allowing terrorists to achieve their ultimate goal of getting us to disrupt our own lives for them.

Go here. Watch the video. Think.

The National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC) posted a press release Friday. It seems Russell Tice, former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst has been subpoenaed to testify in front of a federal grand jury. Here is short excerpt from the complete press release.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE- July 28, 2006
NSA WHISTLEBLOWER TO TESTIFY BEFORE FEDERAL GRAND JURY

Government Begins its Witch Hunt Targeting Whistleblowers

On Wednesday, July 26, Russell Tice, former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst and a member of National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), was approached outside his home by two FBI agents who served him with a subpoena to testify in front of a federal grand jury. NSWBC has obtained a copy of the subpoena issued for Mr. Tice’s testimony and is releasing it to the public for the first time. The subpoena directs Mr. Tice to appear before the jury on August 2, 2006 at 1:00 p.m. in the Eastern District of Virginia. Mr. Tice “will be asked to testify and answer questions concerning possible violations of federal criminal law.� [To view the subpoena click here].

In response to the subpoena, Mr. Tice issued the following statement: “This latest action by the government is designed only for one purpose: to ensure that people who witness criminal action being committed by the government are intimidated into remaining silent.� He continued: “To this date I have pursued all the appropriate channels to report unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted [by the government] while I served as an intelligence officer with the NSA and DIA. It was with my oath as a US intelligence officer to protect and preserve the U.S. Constitution weighing heavy on my mind that I reported acts that I know to be unlawful and unconstitutional. The freedom of the American people cannot be protected when our constitutional liberties are ignored and our nation has decayed into a police state.�

On December 22, 2005, the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition made public a request by Tice to report to Congress probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts by the government while he was an intelligence officer with NSA and DIA. In a press release, NSWBC urged the congress to hold hearings and let Mr. Tice testify. Mr. Tice, a responsible veteran intelligence officer, tried to use the so-called appropriate channels, including the United States Congress, to responsibly and lawfully disclose government wrongdoing. [To read the release click here].

Contact: Sibel Edmonds, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, sedmonds@nswbc.org

The Northwest Florida Daily News is reporting that fans can no longer be "patted down" before being allowed to enter the Bucs Stadium in Tampa.

U.S. District Judge James D. Whittemore issued an order siding with season-ticket holder Gordon Johnson and the ACLU of Florida who had sued to stop the fan searches that began last season.

Johnson and the ACLU sued the Tampa Sports Authority, which operates the stadium, to stop officials from conducting the "suspicionless" searches.

Whittemore said the Tampa Sports Authority failed to establish that the risks outweigh the need to protect the public from unreasonable searches.

Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said Whittemore’s decision could turn out to be significant.

"It’s obviously not going to govern what’s happening around the country, but it’s certainly going to be an influential precedent," Simon said. "Other courts may look at it."

Simon said he thinks the decision shows that courts are "pushing back" at governmental attempts to violate citizens’ civil rights on the basis of a perceived threat of terrorism or crime.

Dave Winer is pointing to a post by Todd Cochrane at Geek News Central regarding Podshow. The folks over at Podshow are in the midst of launching their service and it seems a few things may need to be explained, Primarily why is Podshow re-processing the RSS feeds of podcasts that are not part of the Podshow network? The copyright information in Morning Coffee Notes feed [link to RSS] is being removed from the Podshow version [link to RSS]. Why are they not just redirecting their feed URI or just linking to the original podcast’s feed?

There were also complaints that it was difficult to get to the original homepage via the Podshow listing , but I found my way out with little trouble.

Podshow is in the middle of the launch, coming online in bits and pieces and I’m sure they will iron out many issues in the coming days/weeks. But the RSS feed processing seems pretty ingrained into their service and I think that an explanation to the Blog/Podosphere is in order.

Wired has an article showing a traceroute output claiming they can see the NSA wiretap in San Francisco. I did the same traceroute to nsa.gov from New York City and have a strangely similar line in my output.

From the Wired post:

If you’re a Windows user, fire up an MS-DOS command prompt. Now type tracert followed by the domain name of the website, e-mail host, VoIP switch, or whatever destination you’re interested in. Watch as the program spits out your route, line by line.

C:\> tracert nsa.gov

1 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms [12.110.110.204]
[...]
7 11 ms 14 ms 10 ms as-0-0.bbr2.SanJose1.Level3.net [64.159.0.218]
8 13 12 19 ms ae-23-56.car3.SanJose1.Level3.net [4.68.123.173]
9 18 ms 16 ms 16 ms [192.205.33.17]
10 88 ms 92 ms 91 ms tbr2-p012201.sffca.ip.att.net [12.123.13.186]
11 88 ms 90 ms 88 ms tbr1-cl2.sl9mo.ip.att.net [12.122.10.41]
12 89 ms 97 ms 89 ms tbr1-cl4.wswdc.ip.att.net [12.122.10.29]
13 89 ms 88 ms 88 ms ar2-a3120s6.wswdc.ip.att.net [12.123.8.65]
14 102 ms 93 ms 112 ms [12.127.209.214]
15 94 ms 94 ms 93 ms [12.110.110.13]
16 * * *
17 * * *
18 * *

In the above example, my traffic is jumping from Level 3 Communications to AT&T’s network in San Francisco, presumably over the OC-48 circuit that AT&T tapped on February 20th, 2003, according to the Klein docs.

The magic string you’re looking for is sffca.ip.att.net. If it’s present immediately above or below a non-att.net entry, then — by Klein’s allegations — your packets are being copied into room 641A, and from there, illegally, to the NSA.

Now here is MY output from NYC:

PB-G4-17:~ patrick$ sudo traceroute whitehouse.gov
traceroute to nsa.gov (63.161.169.137), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets

1 * * *
[...]
5 pos3-0.nycmnyg-rtr1.nyc.rr.com (24.29.101.201)
6 pos0 (24.29.98.5)
7 24.29.97.25 (24.29.97.25)
8 so-7-1.car2.weehawken1.level3.net (63.208.104.41)
9 ge-7-0-0.mp1.weehawken1.level3.net (4.68.125.137)
10 so-4-2-0.bbr1.newyork1.level3.net (64.159.1.65)
11 ae-13-55.car3.newyork1.level3.net (4.68.97.146)
12 192.205.33.93 (192.205.33.93)
13 tbr2-p032301.n54ny.ip.att.net (12.123.3.110)
14 gbr5-p40.n54ny.ip.att.net (12.122.11.26)
15 12.123.214.57 (12.123.214.57)
16 12.126.221.90 (12.126.221.90)
17 12.110.110.132 (12.110.110.132)
18 * * *
19 * * *
20 * * *

Is this actually evidence of the NSA tapping the internet?

I guess it really comes down to the fact that these are traceroutes to nsa.gov and we may just be seeing the routing to that network. I don’t see this node when I traceroute any other address.
Here is my traceroute to whitehouse.gov:

PB-G4-17:~ patrick$ sudo traceroute whitehouse.gov
traceroute to whitehouse.gov (63.161.169.137), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets

1 * * *
[...]
5 pos3-0.nycmnyg-rtr1.nyc.rr.com (24.29.101.201)
6 pos0 (24.29.98.5)
7 24.29.97.25 (24.29.97.25)
8 so-7-1.car2.weehawken1.level3.net (63.208.104.41)
9 ge-7-0-0.mp1.weehawken1.level3.net (4.68.125.137)
10 so-4-2-0.bbr1.newyork1.level3.net (64.159.1.65)
11 ge-6-0-0-55.gar3.newyork1.level3.net (4.68.97.132)
12 4.68.110.70 (4.68.110.70)
13 sl-bb23-pen-4-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.20.123)
14 sl-bb22-pen-14-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.8.178)
15 sl-bb21-pen-15-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.16.29)
16 sl-bb23-rly-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.20.32)
17 sl-gw19-rly-10-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.14.42)
18 sl-fema-1-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.184.78)
19 205.160.212.222 (205.160.212.222)

I certainly don’t profess to be an internet routing guru so you’ll have to decide for yourself.

Tom Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, had a great op-ed piece in the LA Times yesterday.

In “The Lie Behind The Secrets� Blanton questions the U.S. Governments accelerating use of the “National Security� excuse from judicial inquiry.

From the Article:

President Reagan’s executive secretary at the National Security Council, career Navy officer Rodney McDaniel, told a blue-ribbon commission looking at classification in 1997 that only 10% of the secrecy stamps were for “legitimate protection of secrets.â€?

Read the article and let me know what you think.

Tags: Blanton, LA Times, McDaniel, National Security, Reagan, secrecy