Court limits in-car FBI spying
By Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus, The Register

An appeals court this week put the brakes on an FBI surveillance technique that turns an automobile driver’s on-board vehicle navigation system into a covert eavesdropping device….

The feature, designed to listen-in on car thieves as they cruise around in a stolen auto, turns on a dashboard microphone and pipes conversations out over a cellphone connection — normally to the company’s response center, but in this case to an FBI listening post. …

Under federal law, the FBI can obtain court orders compelling telecommunications companies, ISPs, landlords and others to assist the Bureau in spying on customers. …

Despite the reversal, David Sobel, an attorney with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, says the ruling is not a victory for privacy. “Although the bottom line is that the surveillance order was rejected, the real effect of it is that this kind of monitoring is permissible as long it does not interfere with the service,” says Sobel. “It underscores the fact that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to escape the reach of surveillance capabilities.”

sacbee.com — Opinion — Editorial: Spend now, pay when?

Once upon a time, if a Democrat told a Republican that the federal government needed to institute a big new spending program to deal with some pressing social problem, the response would be a steely glare and a pointed question: And how exactly do you propose to pay for that, Mr. Liberal?

No more. On the evidence of the expensive energy and Medicare prescription drug bills that Republicans have written and are poised, with President Bush’s enthusiastic support, to push through Congress, the Republican Party has gone through the political equivalent of a sex change operation. Donning the garb of the Democrats they once berated, Republicans have become the party of spend now, pay someday. …

There used to be a political party that would stand against such shortsighted action. It advanced the wisdom that wanting something carried with it the moral obligation to pay for it.

Too bad for America’s future that we don’t have such a party today.

U.S. News: John Leo on a surprising jog to the right(11/24/03)

[T]he conservative media world is now good at gang tackling. From Matt Drudge’s Drudge Report (which framed the issue of the miniseries) to Fox, the bloggers, talk radio hosts, and the columnists, everybody piles on. New York Times columnist David Brooks touched on this point some time ago, writing that the new conservative media have ”cohered to form a dazzlingly efficient ideology delivery system that swamps liberal efforts to get their ideas out.” For liberals, this is an ominous development. …

Conventional liberalism is the old, rigid establishment. The antiliberals are brash, funny, and cool. Who would have thought?

Note this is arch-conservitive John Leo writing. He’s not warning us, he’s crowing. mjh

The following email quote is one of many taken from Diebold, maker of electronic voting machines. It appears in a rather long article on the vital issue. Electronic voting is not secure. mjh

Electronic Voting Debacle
By Scott Granneman, SecurityFocus, The Register

“Right now you can open GEMS’ .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its contents. That includes the audit log. This isn’t anything new. … Now, where the perception comes in is that its right now very *easy* to change the contents. Double click the .mdb file. … It is possible to put a secret password on the .mdb file to prevent Metamor [a consulting company] from opening it with Access. Being able to end-run the database has admittedly got people out of a bind though. Jane (I think it was Jane) did some fancy footwork on the .mdb file in Gaston recently. I know our dealers do it. King County is famous for it. That’s why we’ve never put a password on the file before.” (Source: “RE: alteration of Audit Log in Access”, support.w3archive/200110/msg00122.html, dated 18 October 2001)
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See also mjh’s weBlog: Can we trust electronic voting machines? November 03, 2003

‘Enemy Combatant’ Sham (NYTimes Editorial)

The Bush administration insists that it can hold American citizens in secret as long as it wants, without access to lawyers, simply by calling them ”enemy combatants.” … The administration’s position makes a mockery of the Constitution and puts every American’s liberty at risk. It is important that the court strike it down….

Of all the post-Sept. 11 denials of civil liberties, the enemy combatant doctrine is among the worst. It gives the president untrammeled authority to lock up Americans merely by asserting that they are part of a terrorist plot. …

The framers of the Constitution knew that if the government was allowed to act on those impulses (to detain in secret), the result would be tyranny. That is why they built into this nation’s founding document the very rights the Bush administration is intent on taking away.

Mourning in America By JOHN B. ROBERTS II, NYTimes

As a fellow Republican, I would also offer Karl Rove some friendly political advice. … With an election approaching, presenting the picture of a president who has time for fundraisers but not for military funerals would be an egregious mistake.

[T]here is an asymmetry to the administration’s use of the military in presidential events. It is wrong to bask publicly in glory on the deck of an aircraft carrier unless you are also willing to grieve openly for fallen soldiers. You can’t wrap yourself in the flag while avoiding flag-draped coffins.

Update 4-23-04

See also:

mjh’s Dump Bush weBlog: Flag-draped Coffins, I (Russ Kick)

mjh’s Dump Bush weBlog: Flag-draped Coffins, II (Tami Silicio)

colorado environmental coalition

What’s at stake

The Domenici-Tauzin energy bill spells disaster for America’s energy future and the farmers, ranchers, wildlife, recreationists, and rural residents of the West. Oil and gas provisions in the Domenici-Tauzin energy bill are a radical departure from the approach by Congress to managing our public lands in the West over the last 50 years.

The bill seeks to entrench oil and gas development as the dominant use of America’s western public and private “split estate” lands — at the expense of rural communities, wildlife, water quality, private property rights, recreationists, and family farms and ranches.

At the same time, the bill unnecessarily increases subsidies to the oil and gas industry — to the tune of billions of dollars — all the while shifting liability for clean-up of abandoned oil and gas fields from energy companies to taxpayers.

In the meantime, speeding up drilling in the West won’t make America energy independent.