Civil Liberities

[Ruellit]

Electronic Frontier Foundation ACTION ALERT

http://www.eff.org/alerts/20010921_eff_wiretap_alert.html

ALERT: Surveillance Legislation Continues to Threaten Privacy
Act Today to Call for More Careful Consideration and Moderation
(Issued: Friday, September 21, 2001 / Deadline: Monday, September 24, 2001)
Introduction:
San Francisco, California - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urges continued activism against the "Anti-Terrorism Act" (ATA) [a.k.a. "Mobilization Against Terrorism Act" (MATA)], proposed by the US Department of Justice, and related legislation (presently 3 bills), because many provisions of the bills would dramatically alter the civil liberties landscape through unnecessarily broad restrictions on free speech and privacy rights in the United States and abroad. Your urgent action is needed TODAY.

EFF again urges Congress to act with deliberation in approving only measures that are effective in preventing terrorism while protecting the freedoms of Americans.

EFF believes this broad legislation would radically tip the United States system of checks and balances, giving the government unprecedented authority to surveil American citizens with little judicial or other oversight.

Ashcroft's proposed legislation (distributed Sep. 19) comes in the wake of the Senate's hasty passage of the "Combating Terrorism Act" (CTA) on the evening of Sep. 13 with less than 30 minutes of consideration on the Senate floor. On Sep. 20, Rep. Lamar Smith circulated a draft bill very similar to CTA, called the Public Safety and Cyber Security Enhancement Act (PSCSEA)

The ATA/MATA is currently a draft bill, subject to a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and briefing on Mon., Sep. 24. The CTA is presently a Senate-passed amendment to a House appropriations bill. It is expected to be voted on in joint conference committee early next week. The only real pressure point on the CTA is the conference committee; whatever emerges will almost certainly pass both houses near-unanimously. PSCSEA's future is uncertain at this point, as is that of Leahy's (presently unavailble) draft.

What YOU Can Do Now:
Contact your own legislators about the ATA/MATA, the CTA, and the PSCSEA AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Call them, and fax and/or e-mail the EFF letter below today. For best effect, the messages you send should be sent the morning of Mon. Sep. 24 or this weekend if possible. Postal mail will be too slow on this issue. Feel free to use this letter verbatim, or modify it as you wish. Let them know that you do not believe liberty must be sacrified for security. Please be polite and concise, but firm. For information on how to contact your legislators and other government officials, see EFF's "Contacting Congress and Other Policymakers" guide at:
http://www.eff.org/congress.html
and see also the links below.
Contact the conference committee members about the CTA AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. A similar sample letter for this purpose, plus contact information, is provided below.
Join EFF! For membership information see:
http://www.eff.org/support/
Sample Letters:
NEW: Easier committee contacts! All of the committee members' e-mail addresses (other than Hollings who only provides a web form, and several Represenatives who can only be e-mailed through the WriteRep form) are available as a copy-pasteable block of addresses you can simply paste into the "To:" header in your e-mail program to mail them all at once. Acting on this alert should only take a few minutes. Aren't your civil liberties worth that much time?

There are two sample letters below, one to your own legislators, and one to the conference committee members.

Use this sample letter to YOUR legislators or modify it, and send to their Washington fax and e-mail, which you can get this from Project Vote Smart:
http://www.vote-smart.org/vote-smart/data.phtml?dtype=C&style=
or the House:
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html
and Senate:
http://www.senate.gov/senators/index.cfm
websites. You can also look up your Representative with this form:

Enter your Zip Code and State in the fields below and click on Submit.
ZIP +4 (if required) State Choose OneAlabamaAlaskaAmerican SamoaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareDistrict of ColumbiaFloridaGeorgiaGuamHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaPuerto RicoRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirgin IslandsVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming

Dear Sen./Rep. [Surname]

I write as a constituent to express my gravest concern over aspects of the Congressional response to the tragedies of September 11. While I share your grief and anger in no uncertain terms, I do not believe that sacrificing essential liberties in a vain hope of improving security is good for America or the world. Security can be improved without privacy invasion, and we cannot win an attack on freedom by attacking that freedom ourselves.

I urge you to vote AGAINST H.R. 2500 should it emerge from conference committee with amendment S.A. 1562, the Combating Terrorism Act, attached, and to vote against the forthcoming Mobilization Against Terrorism Act a.k.a. Anti-Terrorism Act, the draft Public Safety and Cyber Security Enhancement Act (PSCSEA), and any similar legislation expanding wiretap powers, online monitoring, warrantless pen register or trap and trace authority, censorship, or restrictions on encryption.

The United States should not take steps toward becoming a police state, or otherwise undermine our own freedom in the name of defending that freedom from terrorist attack, or the terrorists have already won. This is a time for careful consideration, not for passing legislation without debate or careful consideration of the consequences.

I specifically object to S.A. 1562 sections 816, 832, 833, and 834, and any similar measures, such as those proposed by Attorney General Ashcroft and Rep. Lamar Smith, as well as recent calls for measures that would thwart Americans' use of secure encryption. I also object to provisions being passed in response to terrorism but which have nothing to do with terrorism, such as "emergency" wiretaps against simple computer crime incidents and the abuse of grand juries as tools for intelligence agencies.

Sincerely,

[Your name & address]

(Be sure to correct the salutation - use EITHER Sen. or Rep., and use the correct name.)

Use this sample letter below to conference committee members or modify it, and send to all of the following:

Representatives:
Name (State), Phone (202-225-####), Fax (202-22#-####), E-mail
Frank Wolf (VA), 5136, 5-0437, none
Hal Rogers (KY), 4601, 5-0940, [e-mail]
Jim Kolbe (AZ), 2542, 5-0378, none
Charles Taylor (NC), 6401, none, [e-mail]
Ralph Regula (OH), 3876, 5-3059, [e-mail]
Tom Latham (IA), 5476, 5-3301, [e-mail]
Dan Miller (FL), 5015, 6-0828, none
David Vitter (LA), 3015, 5-0739, [e-mail]
JosŽ Serrano (NY), 4361, 5-6001, [e-mail]
Alan Mollohan (WV), 4172, 5-7564, none
Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA), 1766, 6-0350, none
Robert Cramer (AL), 4801, 5-4392, [e-mail]
Patrick Kennedy (RI), 4911, 5-3290, [e-mail]

For Representatives that don't provide a direct e-mail address, use this form ("WriteRep"):
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
It will ask you for state and ZIP. Use VA, 22601 for Wolf; AZ, 85712 for Kolbe; FL, 34236 for Miller; WV, 26003 for Mollohan; and CA, 90013 for Roybal-Allard. On the mail form that follows this page, you should probably put your real city.

Senators:
Name (State), Phone (202-224-####), Fax (202-224-####), E-mail
Robert Byrd (WV), 3954, 228-0002, [e-mail]
Patrick Leahy (VT), 4242, 3479, [e-mail]
Ted Stevens (AK), 3004, 2354, see below Mitch McConnell (KY), 2541, 2499, [e-mail]
Ernest Hollings (SC), 6121, 4293, see below
Daniel Inouye (HI), 3934, 6747, [e-mail]
Barbara Mikulski (MD), 4654, 8858, [e-mail]
Herb Kohl (WI), 5653, 9787, [e-mail]
Patty Murray (WA), 2621, 0238, [e-mail]
Jack Reed (RI), 4642, 4680, [e-mail]
Judd Gregg (NH), 3324, 4952, [e-mail]
Pete Domenici (NM), 6621, none, [e-mail]
Kay Hutchison (TX), 5922, 0776, [e-mail]
Ben Campbell (CO), 5852, 1933, [e-mail]
Thad Cochran (MS), 5054, 9450, [e-mail]

Sen. Hollings can be e-mailed via the Web at:
http://www.senate.gov/~hollings/webform.html
Sen. Stevens can be e-mailed via the Web at:
http://www.senate.gov/~stevens/webform.html

HTML version with clickable e-mail address hotlinks:
http://www.eff.org/alerts/20010919_eff_wiretap_alert.html#cong

Or just paste this block of addresses into your e-mail program's "To:" line:

[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]


Then visit WriteRep (as mentioned above) to send to the Representatives with no public e-mail address, and Hollings's and Stevens's Web forms to mail them. If you have time send faxes and make phone calls too. This is potentially one of the most dangerous times for privacy in American history.

Dear H.R. 2500 Conference Committee Member:

I write to express my gravest concern over aspects of the Congressional response to the tragedies of September 11. While I share your grief and anger in no uncertain terms, I do not believe that sacrificing essential liberties in a vain hope of improving security is good for America or the world. Security can be improved without privacy invasion, and we cannot win an attack on freedom by attacking that freedom ourselves.

I specifically object to H.R. 2500 amendment S.A. 1562, the Combating Terrorism Act, sections 816, 832, 833, and 834, and any similar measures, such as the Mobilization Against Terrorism Act a.k.a. Anti-Terrorism Act proposed by Attorney General Ashcroft, and the draft Public Safety and Cyber Security Enhancement Act (PSCSEA), as well as recent calls for measures that would thwart Americans' use of secure encryption. I also object to provisions being passed in response to terrorism but which have nothing to do with terrorism, such as "emergency" wiretaps against simple computer crime incidents and the abuse of grand juries as tools for intelligence agencies.

I urge you to vote AGAINST incorporating the above-mentioned sections of S.A. 1562 into the final version of H.R. 2500, and to vote against any similar amendments expanding wiretap powers, online monitoring, warrantless pen register or trap and trace authority, censorship, or restrictions on encryption. This matter above all should be subject to careful and deliberate scrutiny in Congressional hearings, not voted on by a fraction of Congress in haste.

The United States should not take steps toward becoming a police state, or otherwise undermine our own freedom in the name of defending that freedom from terrorist attack, or the terrorists have already won. This is a time for careful consideration, not for passing legislation without debate or careful consideration of the consequences.

Sincerely,

[Your name & address]

(Be sure to correct the salutation - use EITHER Sen. or Rep., and use the correct name.) If one of the conference committee members if your Rep. or Sen., mention that you are a constituent, as in the first letter.)

Non-US Activists
Non-US readers can probably have little impact on the US Congress's votes on these matters, and could even affect them negatively. Your best course of action is to contact your own legislators/parliamentarians and urge them to avoid similar policies in your own country.

Privacy Campaign:
This drive to contact your legislators about unprecedented wiretap power expansion is part of a larger campaign to highlight how extensively companies and governmental agencies subject us to surveillance and share and use personal information online & offline, and what you can do about it.

Check the EFF Privacy Now! Campaign website regularly for additional alerts and news:
http://www.eff.org/privnow/

Background:
Attorney General John Ashcroft distributed the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act/Mobilization Against Terrorism Act to members of Congress after Monday's press conference at which he indicated that, among other measures, he would ask Congress to expand the ability of law enforcement officers to perform wiretaps in response to the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Ashcroft asked Congress to pass anti-terrorism legislation including "expanded electronic surveillance" by the end of this week. The PSCSEA bill appears to be a "backup plan" for S.A. 1562; if it does not pass as part of H.R. 2500, it can be reintroduced separately in slightly different form as a new bill. Sen. Patrick Leahy is also expected to introduce a more moderate proposal sometime early next week.

One particularly egregious section of the DOJ's analysis of its proposed legislation (ATA/MATA) says that "United States prosecutors may use against American citizens information collected by a foreign government even if the collection would have violated the Fourth Amendment."

"Operating from abroad, foreign governments will do the dirty work of spying on the communications of Americans worldwide. US protections against unreasonable search and seizure won't matter," commented EFF Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien.

Additional provisions of the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA)/Mobilization Against Terrorism Act (MATA) (whatever the final name will be) include measures which:

make it possible to obtain e-mail message header information and Internet user web browsing patterns without a wiretap order;
eviscerate controls on roving wiretaps;
permit law enforcement to disclose information obtained through wiretaps to any employee of the Executive branch;
reduce restrictions on domestic investigations under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA);
permit grand juries to provide information to the US intelligence community;
permit the President to designate any "foreign-directed individual, group, or entity," including any United States citizen or organization, as a target for FISA surveillance;
prevent people from even talking about terrorist acts;
establish a DNA database for every person convicted of any felony or certain sex offenses, almost all of which are entirely unrelated to terrorism;
EFF Executive Director Shari Steele emphasized, "While it is obviously of vital national importance to respond effectively to terrorism, this bill recalls the McCarthy era in the power it would give the government to scrutinize the private lives of American citizens."

During the Congressional session considering the Combating Terrorism Act, which was introduced as amendment S.A. 1562 to an omnibus appropriations bill, H.R. 2500, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) expressed concern that he was asked to vote so rapidly on such important legislation within minutes of receiving it and without conducting hearings in the Intelligence, Armed Services and Judiciary committees:

Maybe the Senate wants to just go ahead and adopt new abilities to wiretap our citizens. Maybe they want to adopt new abilities to go into people's computers. Maybe that will make us feel safer. Maybe. And maybe what the terrorists have done made us a little bit less safe. Maybe they have increased Big Brother in this country.

If that is what the Senate wants, we can vote for it. But do we really show respect to the American people by slapping something together, something that nobody on the floor can explain, and say we are changing the duties of the Attorney General, the Director of the CIA, the U.S. attorneys, we are going to change your rights as Americans, your rights to privacy? We are going to do it with no hearings, no debate. We are going to do it with numbers on a page that nobody can understand.

EFF shares Senator Leahy's concerns in this time of national crisis. EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn commented, "These proposals significantly impact the civil liberties of Americans. We urge legislators to please slow down and consider the long-term consequences of your votes."

"I believe that deep in their souls, Americans understand that the reason this country is so great--is so worth defending--is because it is free," explained EFF Executive Director Shari Steele. "We should be very careful to make sure that any legislation that passes is truly needed to address national security concerns."

During World War I, the US Congress hastily passed the Espionage Act which was notorious for decreasing freedoms without improving the security of the American public, under which Congress granted the Postmaster General (who delegated it to 55,000 local postmasters) the authority to read any mail and remove any material that might "embarrass" the government in conducting the war effort.

For bill texts and analyses, see the EFF Surveillance Archive:
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/

Senator Leahy's testimony on the Combating Terrorism Act:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2001/s091301.html

Why "backdoor" encryption requirements reduce security:
http://www.crypto.com/papers/escrowrisks98.pdf

About EFF:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties organization working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to support free expression, privacy, and openness in the information society. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the most linked-to Web sites in the world:
http://www.eff.org

Contact:
Shari Steele, EFF Executive Director
[e-mail]
[phone] x103
Lee Tien, EFF Senior First Amendment Attorney
[e-mail]
[phone] x102


Ron