From newpisgah.keene.edu!mozz.unh.edu!noc.near.net!bigboote.WPI.EDU!news.mathworks.com!udel!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!feustel Tue Nov 8 00:31:25 1994 Newsgroups: alt.culture.usenet,alt.culture.internet,alt.2600,news.admin.policy,alt.usenet.kooks,misc.legal,alt.fan.joel-furr Path: newpisgah.keene.edu!mozz.unh.edu!noc.near.net!bigboote.WPI.EDU!news.mathworks.com!udel!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!feustel From: feustel@netcom.com (David Feustel) Subject: Re: Wiretap passes! (Digital telephony bill and privacy) Message-ID: Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) References: <3939pk$h5a@rcp6.elan.af.mil> <1994Nov1.173859.18197@emba.uvm.edu> <398alp$bm0@news.duke.edu> <398s0q$83@buchanan07.res.iastate.edu> Date: Wed, 2 Nov 1994 23:55:50 GMT Lines: 125 Xref: newpisgah.keene.edu alt.culture.usenet:1208 alt.2600:12980 news.admin.policy:3243 misc.legal:9285 Unanimous Nod For Wiretap Bill [from Technology & Liberty] [By Clark Matthews ] [in The Spotlight November 7th, 1994] The so-called Wiretap Access Bill, S. 2375, passed at 10:30 PM. on Friday, October 7th,1994, with "the unanimous consent" of the U.S. Senate. It is likely to be signed by President Clinton by the time you read this. Two days previously, on October 5th, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the identical bill, H.R. 4922, by an overwhelming margin. There was no floor debate on the bill in either house. There was no reading of the bill. In fact, the final Senate vote happened so quickly that observers watching C-SPAN actually missed it. Nevertheless, a Senate vote unanimously passing the "Wiretap Access Bill" is recorded as having occurred at 10:30 PM, October 7,1994. MANUFACTURING 'CONSENT' FBI Director Louis Freeh personally visited every U.S. senator to lobby for the bill. I've even heard reports that Janet Reno accompanied Freeh for some of these little chats. Nevertheless, several senators positioned themselves to stop the vote on the bill, notably Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). All of them placed "holds" on the bill in the days before the final vote. These "holds" permitted any of them to prevent a vote and stop the bill in its tracks. But none of them did. Each of these senators received a personal visit from FBI Director Louis Freeh in the days before the senate recessed for the fall elections. and none of them exercised their right to stop the bill. So there were no objections at 10:30 pm on Friday, October 7th, only "unanimous consent." No one in the Senate voted for the Wiretap Accesa Bill (or against it). No one left any fmgerprints. Ask your senators and they'll tell you no one's responsible. We shall see. In the end, this unstoppable bill slithered silently onto the books in the contemptible tradition of the 16th Amendment, the Federal Reserve Act and many other landmark frauds and fixes that have dearly cost our country's liberty, treasury and sovereignty. Late at night and out of sight, no one was responsible for passing the bill. And no one is to blame. A few days after this grubby victory, FBI Director Louis Freeh spoke at the annual A1 Smith dinner in New York City. Flush with his success with the Wiretap bill-and with the amazing silence of key congressmen and senators after Freeh's personal visits-Clinton's FBI director compared himself favorably with J. Edgar Hoover. The audience gave up a big laugh for America's "reinvented" Hoover sans perfume, ponies, peignoirs and roommate Clyde, of course. DIGITAL TYRANNY The Wiretap Access Bill, as critics call it, was uroposed by the FBI and Janet Reno's Justice Department as the "Digital Telephony and Privacy Improvement Act" of 1994. The bill took its language from the computerized features of automatic, remote-controlled surveillance and eavesdropping equipment that is now being built into America's new telephone networks to spy on citizens. Freeh's and Reno's "Privacy Improvement Act" had nothing whatever to do with improving people's privacy. Instead, it aimed at eliminating people's privacy by effectively converting citizens' telephones into remote-activated listening devices and call-tracing systems. The Wiretap Access Bill simply legalizes these surveillance devices that are already in use in large parts of our country. It also forces taxpayers to pay $500 million for them. The Wiretap Access Bill effectively eliminates the bothersome Constitutional requirement that the FBI obtain court authorization to tap your phone or bug your house through your telephones. That's because your local telephone company can't tell what the devices are doing and, therefore, can't know whether the surveillance is legal or not. AUTOMATIC GESTAPO You see, the new equipment is remote-activated and it's designed to be installed on the telephone network (not in phone company offices). It gathers much of the same information about your calls that your phone company does-but the FBI (or whoever) clearly doesn't want your tele- phone company to know what information it's gathering. Or how much it's gathering. So the devices run "encrypted" to conceal what they're doing from telco employees, some of whom might become alarmed by the extent of federal surveillance or start asking troublesome questions about court orders and warrants. Even if your friends at the phone company were interested in safeguarding your rights, they will probably soon discover the same fundamental truth learned by citizens in places like the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany: It's not a good idea to ask questions about court orders when it comes to secret police surveillance operations. The question of court orders for surveillance is further subverted by the bill's requirement that your local phone company provide instantaneous, contemporaneous wiretapping capabilities to the FBI. It seems our rapidly "reinvented" government wants instant gratification-it has no time for trivialities like presenting court orders. The monitoring equipment doesn't ask for a warrant before tapping your calls or bugging your office (or your bedroom). Someone thousands of miles away simply presses a few keys and the equipment just does it. They can always find a court order somewhere if they need one. Either way, no one will know what they're up to. For that matter, the equipment can do this for whomever has the "key codes" that turn on one of these devices. It doesn't even have to be the FBI. 'BLACKMAIL CENTRAL' A few weeks ago I lapsed into histrionics on these pages on the subject of our country's new Wiretap Access Law. At the time, I asked rhetorically what kind of Congress, judges, courts and journalists we could egpect if Bill Clinton's administration succeeded in legalizing this frightful, untraceable surveillance equipment. In my opinion, this equipment poses a clear danger of transforming federal law-enforcement agencies into Blackmail Central. Or worse. I wouldn't be the least surprised to learn it has happened already-after all, these devices were designed years ago and widely installed and tested in 1992, according to reports. So I ask again now, how will we shield congress, the courts and our citizens from politically motivated blackmail and retribution now that we tagpayers are paying for undetectable, automatic federal surveillance as the law of the land? Why, we'll have a contemptible, craven and silent bunch like we had this year, of course. When your senator comes around looking for your vote this fall, remember the "unanimous consent" that passed the Wiretap Access Bill. Why not ask him or her why they liked the bill, S. 2375, so much? If they don't remember why, ask them if Louis Freeh is as funny in person as he was at the A1 Smith dinner. -- Dave Feustel N9MYI Internet: 219-483-1857 Compuserve:<73532,1747> Every American citizen is involved in an abusive relationship. Liberals are codependents in that relationship (with the U.S. Government, in case you didn't figure it out).