A little-noticed letter from Yahoo! to the US Marshals Service offers troubling insight into the surveillance policies of one of the Internet's largest email providers.In other words: authoritarianism + corporate complicity = fascism.In response to a Freedom of Information Act request seeking details of Yahoo's! policies allowing the Justice Department to request wiretaps of its users and the amount they charge US taxpayers per wiretap -- the search engine leviathan declared in a 12-page letter that they couldn't provide information on their approach because their pricing scheme would "shock" customers. The news was first reported by Kim Zetter at Wired.
"It is reasonable to assume from these comments that the [pricing] information, if disclosed, would be used to "shame" Yahoo! and other companies -- and to "shock" their customers," a lawyer for the company writes. "Therefore, release of Yahoo!'s information is reasonably likely to lead to impairment of its reputation for protection of user privacy and security, which is a competitive disadvantage for technology companies."
Yahoo! also argues that because their price sheet for wiretaps was "voluntarily submitted" to the US Marshals Service, it is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act law.
Verizon, meanwhile, says (letter PDF) they can't provide details on how much they charge for wiretaps because it would be "confusing."
“Customers may see a listing of records, information or assistance that is available only to law enforcement,” Verizon writes, “but call in to Verizon and seek those same services. Such calls would stretch limited resources, especially those that are reserved only for law enforcement emergencies.”
Consumers might “become unnecessarily afraid that their lines have been tapped or call Verizon to ask if their lines are tapped (a question we cannot answer),” the telecom giant adds.
Verizon also revealed it "receives tens of thousands of requests for customer records, or other customer information from law enforcement."
The Freedom of Information request was filed by muckraker Christopher Soghoian.
"Assuming a conservative estimate of 20,000 requests per year, Verizon alone receives more requests from law enforcement per year than can be explained by any published surveillance statistics," Soghoian responds. "That doesn't mean the published stats are necessarily incorrect -- merely that most types of surveillance are not reported.
"In the summer of 2009, I decided to try and follow the money trail in order to determine how often Internet firms were disclosing their customers’ private information to the government," he adds later. "I theorized that if I could obtain the price lists of each ISP, detailing the price for each kind of service, and invoices paid by the various parts of the Federal government, then I might be able to reverse engineer some approximate statistics. In order to obtain these documents, I filed Freedom of Information Act requests with every part of the Department of Justice that I could think of."
Cox Communications, meanwhile, says they charge "$2,500 to fulfill a pen register/trap-and-trace order for 60 days, and $2,000 for each additional 60-day-interval," Zetter notes. "It charges $3,500 for the first 30 days of a wiretap, and $2,500 for each additional 30 days. Thirty days worth of a customer’s call detail records costs $40."
"Comcast’s pricing list," she adds, "which was already leaked to the internet in 2007, indicated that it charges at least $1,000 for the first month of a wiretap, and $750 per month thereafter."
Whenever a civilian government either outsources its responsibilities in matters domestic and/or foreign affairs, whether to corporations, security agencies and/or the military, then it is safe to say that it is the beginning of the end of democratic governance - ultimately leading to authoritarian corporatocracy, security state and/or military junta ... or all of the above, also known as fascism.Marching straight toward authoritarianism?
In addition to the overwhelming assaults on the U.S./Canadian constitution's civil rights and human rights (i.e. military commissions, indiscriminate domestic spying, security sweep pre-emptive arrests, renditions, indefinite detentions, torture, etc.), including outsourcing of security and war efforts (Blackwater/Xe, anyone?), the U.S. government is now letting go of some of its people-empowered roles in diplomacy and foreign affairs.
(...) "It's about separation of power and having the military subordinate to civilian policymakers rather than the other way around" - Cernig is spot on with this reminder.
However, I would amend this truism to include security agencies alongside the military.
(...) All the necessary tools are already on hand.
As the saying goes - one must remember and understand history in order not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
It remains to be established whether we, Americans and Canadians alike, will stand up for our constitutions, our democracy-based societies, or let fear and paranoia sweep them away in lieu of authoritarianism - as we keep allowing our elected representatives to defer their entrusted powers and responsibilities to security agencies and the military.
We better wake up before it is too little, too late ...
For the USA: the cost of the war in Afghanistan so far amounts to approximatively $235.9 billion (about $57,077.60/minute). The running tab on the Iraq war stands now at about $716 billion. The combined cost of both wars is now almost at $1 trillion. Military spending (excluding the costs of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars) has increased from $404 billion in 2001 to $626 billion in 2007, and then to $636 billion by the end of 2009. $23 billion have been spent on reconstruction and development contracts in Afghanistan since 2002. Another $53 billion have been likewise spent in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. In between, the TSA's budget went from $6.5 billion in 2003 to almost $8 billion in 2009. The number of body scanners in airports will more than triple, going from the 40 already in use to 150 (@ $150,000-$190,000 a piece). Meanwhile, the budget for the DHS has reached $55 billion for the 2010 fiscal year (pdf here). And for 2009 alone, the estimated (i.e. classified) budget for the National Intelligence Program (which includes the CIA, FBI, NSA and various military intelligence branches) stood between $55 billion and $66.5 billion.
I am reminded of the infamous words of one Osama bin Laden (emphasis added): "We, alongside the mujahideen, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat ... So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy."
Incidentally - Canada's accumulated deficit stood at about $55.9 billion for 2009 (a record), whereas that of the USA now stands at about $12.3 trillion (another record).
And never you mind that Canadians and Americans are now essentially living in Corporatocracy-run National Security and Surveillance States - all for nothing.
But do you know what's even worst? All those people on the right who keep screaming, yelling, crying, asking, demanding, insisting, promulgating, encouraging, preaching, enabling, pushing that we continue further surrendering to the terrorists - all the while lying about terrorism in order to score political/ideological points, if not actually advancing themselves politically.
It has worked before - why should it not work still?
All of the above constitute proof again that the ever-expanding and wasteful, so-called Global War on Terror is only about scaring people, not protecting them.
All of the above furthermore constitute proof again that we are the real problem with terrorism.
And that is why the terrorists keep on winning.
Any questions?
(Cross-posted from APOV)