Thom Shanker and David Sanger:

There is simply no way, officials say, to effectively conduct computer operations without entering networks inside the United States.

The process could ultimately be accepted as the digital equivalent of customs inspections, in which passengers arriving from overseas consent to have their luggage opened for security, tax and health reasons.

Administration officials have begun to discuss whether laws or regulations must be changed to allow law enforcement, the military or intelligence agencies greater access to networks or Internet providers when significant evidence of a national security threat was found.

The complications are not limited to privacy concerns.

Frida Berrigan:

There is no front line anymore.

Decius on CBP:

Their basic point remains the same – customs has checked people’s items at the border for 200 years, so they can check your laptop.

From a CAP petition:

This is an affront to our progressive values of privacy and protection from unwarranted search and seizure.

Privacy May Be a Victim in Cyberdefense Plan

The 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza conflict featured a series of innovative approaches to communications intelligence, which included utilizing civilian telephone networks to achieve tactical and psychological objectives. The "cell war" between the IDF and Hamas is indicative of an ongoing global struggle between asymmetrical insurgents and state actors to control large-scale telecommunications structures. "Cell wars" have been taking place for quite some time in Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria, and several other nations, including inside the United States. Weapons in this hi-tech conflict include surveillance satellites, voice scramblers, encryption software and mobile phone cameras, among other technologies. Essentially, this war is being fought over the control over national and international telecommunications grids, and centers increasingly on telecommunications service providers -- companies such as Jawwal in Palestine, Roshan in Afghanistan, or Mobilink in Pakistan. These companies are rapidly becoming combat zones in a battle to control the channels of digital communications in 21st-century asymmetrical warfare.

See also, The Athens Affair:

How some extremely smart hackers pulled off the most audacious cell-network break-in ever

From the archive:

The phone is ringing! Answer it!

Can you hear me now?

NSA is said to be offering "billions" to any firm which can offer reliable eavesdropping on Skype IM and voice traffic.

Recently:

Silvio Berlusconi's government has drawn up a bill which would restrict police wiretaps to only the most serious crimes.

From three years ago:

According to the report, fugitive CEO Kobi Alexander was located after making a one-minute call via the online telephone Skype service. The call, made from the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, alerted intelligence agencies to his presence in the country.

Got questions? Get answers:

Which people in Kabul are using Skype?

Maltego is an open source intelligence and forensics application. It allows for the mining and gathering of information as well as the representation of this information in a meaningful way.

This is what you could call a Buy recommendation:

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

Cell Wars: The Changing Landscape of Communications Intelligence

Preston Gralla does his best to sell Greg Conti's book without mentioning it:

If you care about your privacy, your best bet is to find ways to hide your information from Google.

Decius, on the end of privacy:

In my view the combined effect of the third-party doctrine, which states that what you tell Google you've told the government, and the notion that machines cannot violate your privacy, will enable the rise of a total surveillance society in which everyone is watched by law enforcement all the time.

Noam Cohen's friend:

Privacy is serious. It is serious the moment the data gets collected, not the moment it is released.

Cyberwar's first casualty: Your privacy

David Barrett:

A European Union directive will require all internet service providers to retain information on email traffic, visits to web sites and telephone calls made over the internet, for 12 months.

Police and the security services will be able to access the information to combat crime and terrorism.

Hundreds of public bodies and quangos, including local councils, will also be able to access the data to investigate flytipping and other less serious crimes.

The taxpayer will reimburse internet service providers and telecoms companies for the costs associated with storing the billions of individual records.

Noam Cohen's friend:

Privacy is serious. It is serious the moment the data gets collected, not the moment it is released.

New Scientist:

The US Department of Homeland Security is developing a system designed to detect "hostile thoughts" in people walking through border posts, airports and public places ...

Internet records to be stored for a year

Eric Holder:

As a lifelong advocate for the protection of privacy rights, I agree that government should not have the ability to intrude unreasonably on an individual's privacy. But I also understand that law enforcement must have the technical tools to keep pace with the more sophisticated criminals we now must confront. The recent wiretap change is a relatively minor adjustment to an existing statute that serves to protect privacy rather than intrude upon it.

Noam Cohen's friend:

Privacy is serious. It is serious the moment the data gets collected, not the moment it is released.

Bush:

First of all, we have said that whatever we do ... will be legal.

Josh Dugan:

Despite what many are content to believe, the American experience with quartering may not be over. It might have just begun.

Clear and Roving Danger of Wiretaps

I remember a time - not so long ago - when a lot of people used to make fun of Japanese tourists, who'd get out of their tour buses and spend just enough time at any given place to take a photo. After all, what kind of experience was that if all you did was to take a photo? Fast forward to today, and there we are, with our digital cameras and/or cell phone cameras.

From last year's best-of:

So many things these days are made to look at later. Why not just have the experience and remember it?

From the 2006 Year in Ideas:

The reverse panopticon is now Sousveillance ...

A Bill:

Beginning 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, any mobile phone containing a digital camera that is manufactured for sale in the United States shall sound a tone or other sound audible within a reasonable radius of the phone whenever a photograph is taken with the camera in such phone. A mobile phone manufactured after such date shall not be equipped with a means of disabling or silencing such tone or sound.

The Air Is Full of Sound:

... the kind of music people would pay good money to be able to silence, if only there were a switch.

A guru said this?

To minimize the risk, the government technology gurus have made it impossible to forward e-mail messages from the president or to send him attachments, people informed about the precautions say. His address is likely to be changed regularly as well. And the president’s friends and staff members are being lectured about security.

Security first:

The man "made the off-hand comment, 'Hey everybody. It's Richard Simmons. Let's drop our bags and rock to the '50s,"' said Phoenix police Sgt. Tom Osborne. "Mr. Simmons took exception to it and walked over to the other passenger and apparently slapped him in the face.

At all times:

* Control all bags and personal items.
* Do not accept any items to carry onboard a flight from anyone unknown to you.
* Report any unattended items in the airport or on an aircraft to the nearest airport airline or security personnel.

(Cell Phone) Cameras Forever

From an Australian news outlet:

It has been described as the world's largest rubbish dump, or the Pacific plastic soup, and it is starting to alarm scientists.

It is a vast area of plastic debris and other flotsam drifting in the northern Pacific Ocean, held there by swirling ocean currents.

From Decius:

One must assume that all garbage is monitored by the state. Anything less would be a pre-911 mentality.

From the National Plan to Achieve Maritime Domain Awareness:

Maritime domain awareness is the effective understanding of anything associated with the global maritime domain that could impact the United States’ security, safety, economy, or environment.

Maritime domain awareness will be achieved by improving our ability to collect, fuse, analyze, display, and disseminate actionable information and intelligence to operational commanders and decision makers.

These capabilities must be fused in a common operating picture that is available to maritime operational commanders and accessible as appropriate throughout the US government. This dynamic, scalable, common operating picture will provide the appropriate types and level of information to the various agencies in a near-real time, customizable, network-centric virtual information grid.

There's been much talk of late about the loss of privacy, but equally calamitous is its corollary, the loss of solitude.

Privacy, to me, is not about keeping my personal life hidden from other people. It's about sparing me from the intrusion of other people's personal lives.

Minor drama is the lifeblood of suburbs.

The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation's most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon, rebuffing challenges by House Democrats over the idea's legal authority.

Unless there is some detail that I'm missing, this sounds positively Orwellian.

The larger point is that two parties are not in fact dividing over the issue of Executive power. Both parties seem to like more and more executive power just fine. They just have adopted different ways of achieving it. One can expect far more Congressional cooperation if a Democratic Congress is teamed with a Democratic President. The effective result may not be less Presidential power to run the National Surveillance State. It may be in fact be more.

How do you organize this in a way that protects an incredibly valuable asset in the United States but does it in a way that doesn't alarm reasonable people, and I underline reasonable people, in terms of civil liberties?

The question to ask is not, Are we safer? The question to ask is, Are we better off?

Focusing on the privacy of the average Joe in this way obscures the deeper threat that warrantless wiretaps pose to a democratic society.

I Could Tell You, But Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me.

Though some federal appellate courts do not appear to require any degree of suspicion to justify a search, one federal district court stated categorically that all laptop searches conducted at the border require at least reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.

Privacy may turn out to have become an anomaly.

Architecture matters a lot, and in subtle ways.

Surveillance and Privacy | Another Noteworthy Year

Tom Malone:

"Privacy may turn out to have become an anomaly."

You’re Leaving a Digital Trail. What About Privacy?

A key Congressional Committee is initiating an inquiry into the privacy concerns raised by the data collection practices of Internet network operators who tailor Internet advertising based on a consumer’s Web surfing activity. Leaders of the Committee on Energy and Commerce wrote today to top cable, phone and Internet companies asking that the companies provide information about their data collection practices.

The letter was signed by Reps. John D. Dingell (D-MI) and Joe Barton (R-TX), the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Reps. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Cliff Stearns (R-FL), the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee.

Earlier this month, Dingell and Markey wrote to Embarq Corporation regarding a test the company had performed to tailor advertising to consumers’ web browsing habits. On July 17, the Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee held a hearing on deep packet inspection and the privacy issues implicated by the technology.

From the archive:

Congressman Markey,

While I'm not one of your constituents, your statements and actions often have an impact that reaches beyond your district. Yesterday you were quoted in several news media outlets as having called for the arrest of Christopher Soghoian, a PHD candidate at the University of Indiana Bloomington, because he created a web page that generates phoney airline boarding passes. As you are likely aware, your call was answered by the FBI who reportedly broke into Soghoian's house last night and seized all of his computer equipment.

...

I strongly urge you to reconsider your position on this matter. The current course of action is not in the best interests of this country.

Energy and Commerce Committee Questions Data Practices of Network Operators