Download malware? The feds may use that as an excuse to infiltrate your computer as well.
The team-up that helped force the sunset of one of the domestic surveillance authorizations of the PATRIOT Act is back together for a new fight. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is joining Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to try to halt the implementation of a new federal rule that has the potential to launch a new form of far-reaching, high-tech surveillance.
What they're trying to stop is an update to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. This update, approved by the Supreme Court in April, would authorize federal judges to issue warrants that would allow remote hacking into large numbers of computers in any jurisdiction. At the moment, the rules allow judges to authorize these warrants only in their own jurisdictions. But crimes involving computer and internet communications are hardly confined to a single jurisdiction. The example prosecutors use here is child pornography, their go-to when they can't use terrorism to justify an expansion of government power.
Wyden spoke out against the rule change early on, saying it would "have significant consequences of Americans' privacy and the scope of government's powers to conduct remote surveillance of searches of electronic devices." He has promised legislation to reverse the implementation of the rule. Paul has now joined him as a co-sponsor to make it a bipartisan push.
So what is the potential for harm here, given that prosecutors will still have to get a warrant? Rainey Reitman at the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes how innocent people could get swept up in all of this. All that needs to happen is for a computer user to inadvertently have some sort of malware installed that is being used by some hacker to participate in or conceal the roots of criminal online behavior:
It would grant authorization to a judge to issue a search warrant for hacking, seizing, or otherwise infiltrating computers that may be part of a botnet. This means victims of malware could find themselves doubly infiltrated: their computers infected with malware and used to contribute to a botnet, and then government agents given free rein to remotely access their computers as part of the investigation. Even with the best of intentions, a government agent could well cause as much or even more harm to a computer through remote access than the malware that originally infected the computer. Malicious actors may even be able to hijack the malware the government uses to infiltrate botnets, because the government often doesn't design its malware securely. Government access to the computers of botnet victims also raises serious privacy concerns, as a wide range of sensitive, unrelated personal data could well be accessed during the investigation. This is a dangerous expansion of powers, and not something to be granted without any public debate on the topic.
Make no mistake: the Rule 41 proposal implicates people well beyond U.S. borders. This update expands the jurisdiction of judges to cover any computer user in the world who is using technology to protect their location privacy or is unwittingly part of a botnet. People both inside and outside of the United States should be equally concerned about this proposal.
The change to Rule 41 isn't merely a procedural update. It significantly expands the hacking capabilities of the United States government without any discussion or public debate by elected officials. If members of the intelligence community believe these tools are necessary to advancing their investigations, then this is not the path forward. Only elected members of Congress should be writing laws, and they should be doing so in a matter that considers the privacy, security, and civil liberties of people impacted.
A lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union worried about the broadness of the rule in a story at the Los Angeles Times. Why couldn't the rule have been more specific?
"The department has been less than forthcoming about the extent of its hacking, which raises concerns about the proposal ," said Neema Guliani, a lawyer for the ACLU. "They are saying they have a problem in cases where they don't know where the computer is, or think someone is trying to hide it. But the rule change is a lot broader than that. If they wanted to just address that issue, they could have narrowed the rule by saying they could conduct the search only to locate the computer."
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] After months when the story of the 2016 presidential campaign focused on divided Republicans, Democrats are now showcasing divisions in their ranks.
Simmering tensions between Bernie Sanders ...The only openly Socialist member of the U.S. Senate. Sanders was Representative-for-Life from Vermont until moving to the Senate for the rest of his life in 2006, assuming the seat vacated by Jim Jeffords... backers and other Democrats, including party leaders, burst into the open following an ugly fracas at the Nevada Democratic Party convention over the weekend instigated by Sanders’ supporters. When top Democratic Party leaders pressured Sanders to denounce the night of chair throwing and alleged death threats he responded with defiance, terming some complaints "nonsense" and reminding the party: "Millions of Americans are outraged at establishment politics."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The Donks to gain an electorate majority for so long, sold their liberal souls to the hard Left. Now they're reaping the consequences. Pass the popcorn.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] US presidential hopeful Donald Trump called Thursday’s deadly EgyptAir plane crash "another terrorist attack," on his Twitter account.
His comments came after the flight from Gay Paree to Cairo carrying 66 people on board crashed in the Mediterranean sea early on Thursday morning.
Egyptian and Greek Sherlocks are scrambling to locate debris and find out the causes of the crash.
The de-facto Republican nominee, referring to the plane crash, wrote: "Looks like yet another terrorist attack. Airplane departed from Gay Paree. When will we get tough, smart and vigilant? Great hate and sickness!"
Egypt’s minister of civil aviation said Cairo would not rule out the possibility of a terrorist attack behind the missing plane. Around the same time, Russia’s domestic intelligence chief said that "apparently, it is a terrorist attack."
It is not the first time the Republican frontrunner has linked a tragedy to terrorism. After the mass shooting in Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, in December, which killed 14 people, Trump blamed "radical Islamic terrorism" and called for temporary ban on Muslims entering the US.
In a press statement at the time, the tycoon-turned-politician called "for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on."
Former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a Republican who served in Democratic President Barack Obama teachable moment... ’s administration, said Trump’s tweet came too soon before officials had a chance to discover what happened.
"It prejudges the outcome," Gates told MSNBC. "It’s always better to wait until you act - know what the facts are before you open up. I realize that’s a very unusual thing in American politics, but it ought to be tried occasionally."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
"Looks like yet another terrorist attack. Airplane departed from Gay Paree. When will we get tough, smart and vigilant?
"Looks like".... indeed it does. Fault him if you will, but "Looks like" is hardly an out-of-the-box preliminary deduction.
#2
Trump states the obvious and the PC, "Religion of Peace", crowd gets the vapors. One of the reasons to like him
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/20/2016 8:41 Comments ||
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#3
The swerves the plane took before crashing point to a struggle in the cockpit.
This could be terrorist interference, but the Germanwings disaster proves that other reasons may apply.
We can speculate all we like, but presidents and candidates should show more restraint until facts are known.
You don't want a president who reacts without knowing any facts. That's a recipe for disaster.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
05/20/2016 11:16 Comments ||
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#4
You don't want a president who reacts without knowing any facts. That's a recipe for disaster.
No, but you want a candidate who knows how to get elected. He has learned that he can use Twitter to get free publicity from the media. They don't have to like him, all they have to do is spell his name right.
#8
Need more time to rule out obscure YouTube video release for the early arrival of the jet at a non scheduled landing strip 180 ft under the Mediterranean Sea.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
05/20/2016 20:23 Comments ||
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#13
@tw
I'm surprised that Hillary doesn't blame a movie...
Posted by: European Conservative ||
05/20/2016 20:24 Comments ||
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#14
What Besoeker posted:
On May 20th 2016 The Aviation Herald received information from three independent channels, that ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) messages with following content were received from the aircraft:
00:26Z 3044 ANTI ICE R WINDOW
00:26Z 561200 R SLIDING WINDOW SENSOR
00:26Z 2600 SMOKE LAVATORY SMOKE
00:27Z 2600 AVIONICS SMOKE
00:28Z 561100 R FIXED WINDOW SENSOR
00:29Z 2200 AUTO FLT FCU 2 FAULT
00:29Z 2700 F/CTL SEC 3 FAULT
no further ACARS messages were received
That would indeed point to an electrical failure, not a terrorist act.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
05/20/2016 20:28 Comments ||
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#15
EC,
Sensors triggered over a 3 minute period while a crisis is rolling out needs forensics... jets falling out of the sky without Maydays is pretty rare...but it was an Airbus, so perhaps Brussels standards need to be considered . :-)
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Download malware? The feds may use that as an excuse to infiltrate your computer as well.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] US presidential hopeful Donald Trump called Thursday’s deadly EgyptAir plane crash "another terrorist attack," on his Twitter account.
