Mozilla (Firefox) attacks Congress; denounce CISPA

RT - Published: 02 May, 2012

Silicon Valley’s Mozilla Corporation has tasked themselves with extinguishing a fire, and no, it’s not what you have in mind.

Mozilla, the Mountain View, California-based developers responsible for creating the hugely successful Firefox Web browser, has issued a statement publicly condemning the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA. In a memo sent to Forbes’ data security department on late Tuesday, Mozilla’s privacy and public policy official explains that its newly-publicized stance is not one that encourages online cyber attacks, but merely establishes that the company is in favor of protecting the rights of its users.

“While we wholeheartedly support a more secure Internet, CISPA has a broad and alarming reach that goes far beyond Internet security,” reads the statement. “The bill infringes on our privacy, includes vague definitions of cybersecurity, and grants immunities to companies and government that are too broad around information misuse. We hope the Senate takes the time to fully and openly consider these issues with stakeholder input before moving forward with this legislation.”

Mozilla’s issues with CISPA mirror opposition that was voiced last week on Capitol Hill during debates over the legislation. Rep Jan Schakowsky (D Illinois) said the cybersecurity bill “still fails to adequately safeguard the privacy of Americans” and that the government needs to be able to “combat the serious threat of cyber attacks and still insure that we are protecting our computer systems and the civil liberties of Americans.”

Jared Polis, a Democratic rep for Colorado, issued similar concerns, stating, “CISPA represents a massive government overreach in the name of security” and that “Any America that values his or her privacy should be concerned.”

At this point, however, the US Senate is now the only Washington entity that stands between CISPA and the desk of President Barack Obama. In a hurried vote last Thursday, the US House of Representatives passed the bill in its current form much to the chagrin of lawmakers like Schakowsky and Polis, essentially leaving approval from the other side of Congress the only thing that the bill needs to be brought to the White House.

Advisers for President Obama have issued a statement on their own part insisting that the administration will recommend that the commander-in-chief vetoes the bill if it is brought to the Oval Office, although critics have already come out to call the move another example of election year pandering. The White House issued a similar statement last year regarding the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, or the NDAA. Originally the Obama administration said that the president had issues over the bill’s provisions regarding the indefinite detention of American citizens, although Obama eventually inked his name to the paper on New Year’s Eve.

This time around, condemnation is indeed present in regards to CISPA’s future, but Mozilla’s just-released memorandum could be a catalyst in bringing more critics out of the woodwork. Although opponents of CISPA have certainly come out against the bill for weeks now, Mozilla’s statement is among one of the first released by a major Internet entity. Other Silicon Valley giants such as IBM, Facebook and Microsoft still stand in favor of the bill. In recent days, it was reported that Microsoft switched stances and would formally oppose CISPA. This week, however, Digital Journal reports that a spokesperson for the company now confirms that the official Microsoft stance on CISPA is “unchanged,” returning Bill Gates’ billion-dollar corporation to the supportive side of CISPA.

That isn’t to say, of course, that widespread opposition of CISPA is far from rampant. In the recent days since CISPA’s passing, critics have continued to speak up against the act. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, presidential hopeful Ron Paul and the American Civil Liberties Union have all taken an anti-CISPA stance, as well as the popular web forum Reddit.

House Wrestles Over War-on-Terror Measure

Thursday, May 26, 2011 by Politico.com
by Josh Gerstein and Charles Hoskinson

House Republican leaders will attempt Thursday to beat back an effort by Democrats and at least a few GOP lawmakers to defeat a legislative proposal that critics contend will expand and indefinitely extend the war on terror.

The update to the Authorization for Use of Military Force — passed three days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 — is part of the annual defense policy bill that the House Armed Services Committee approved 60-1 earlier this month.

The fate of the new use-of-force provision could signal whether the U.S. intends to press on with a largely military approach to the war on terror in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death, or whether lawmakers are prepared to gradually rein in the conflict.

Democrats on the panel didn’t put up much of a fight in committee, but since then they have introduced a series of amendments aimed at nixing both the updated use-of-force authorization, which they argue is too broad and open-ended, and other language that limits President Barack Obama’s power to release Guantanamo prisoners abroad or bring war-on-terror prisoners to the U.S. for trial.

GOP lawmakers who drafted the use-of-force update say it’s a needed revision and affirmation as the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks approaches, since the connection between those strikes and the terrorists the United States is now fighting is becoming less obvious.

“I don’t think anyone can legitimately argue it does not need to be updated,” Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) said in an interview Tuesday. “What this language does is make clear the authority for what we are doing right now.”

The language in the defense bill also explicitly endorses the president’s right to take prisoners and hold them “until the termination of hostilities.” It could also support military action against terrorists not directly related to Sept. 11.

But a coalition of civil liberties and human rights groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union opposes the revamped measure.

“This monumental legislation — with a large-scale and practically irrevocable delegation of war power from Congress to the President — could commit the United States to a worldwide war without clear enemies, without any geographical boundaries (the use of military force within the United States could be permitted), and without any boundary relating to time or specific objective to be achieved,” the coalition wrote Wednesday in a letter to House members.

Opponents got a boost Tuesday when the White House threatened to veto the defense bill if it clears Congress with provisions that “challenge critical executive branch authority.” A statement of administration policy identified those provisions as the ones that relate to detainees. The administration’s official position paper said it “strongly” opposes the reauthorization because it would “effectively recharacterize [the conflict’s] scope and would risk creating confusion regarding applicable standards.”

Advocates said Tuesday’s statement was the first official veto threat by the administration against legislation that would limit its authority to handle detainees.

It was not entirely clear from the White House statement whether the veto threat applies to the use-of-force provision or solely to the detainee-related language. A White House spokesman said Tuesday he is not permitted to expand on or clarify the written statement.

However, one administration official familiar with the deliberations said officials are concerned that the proposed language could have unforeseen implications.

“The bill was rushed through,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. It “sounds reasonable, but when you look at the consequences that emerge, the more you look, the worse it gets.”

The official said the proposal could be read to authorize military action against any country or individual who supported Al Qaeda or affiliated groups in any way. “Who does it end up with?” the official asked, noting that even when the U.S. was at war in Korea and Vietnam, America did not declare war against all communist governments and sympathizers worldwide.

An amendment to strip out the measure passed the House on a preliminary voice vote Wednesday night, but a formal roll call vote on the issue is expected as soon as Thursday morning.

The chief sponsor of the amendment, freshman Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), warned that the bill’s language amounts to “perhaps the broadest authority for the use of military force Congress has ever considered.”

Amash said it would permit military action not just against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, but an undefined category of “associated forces [that] don’t need to be connected to 9/11, associated forces don’t need to have fought against the United States and associated forces may even include American citizens.”

But House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said the bill’s definition of which entities the U.S. is engaged in armed conflict with came directly from one the Obama administration has advocated in court.

“This section does not alter the way the war on terror is currently being fought,” McKeon said during a floor debate Wednesday night. “While the courts have accepted the administration’s position, that could change any day. I’m not willing to take that chance.”

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), the only lawmaker to vote against the measure in 2001, said the language in the new defense bill “goes even beyond that original authorization and amounts to a declaration of war without end anywhere in the world.” She called it “an entire checkbook of blank checks.”

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), who like Amash is a tea party favorite, spoke out against stripping the provision from the bill. “If we allow an amendment such as this to go forward, it would have precluded us from going in and killing the world’s No. 1 terrorist, Osama bin Laden. If this amendment passes, we will not be able to go after [Anwar] Al-Awlaki,” said West, referring to a leader of the Yemen-based Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula who has reportedly been the focus of U.S. drone attacks.

Amash countered that bin Laden was killed when the original, narrower language was in effect.

The top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, said Congress should update the measure but that the implications of the GOP language could be significant. “When you put in ‘associated forces’ and you don’t have any end date, it does confer on the president the potential for a great deal of power over a long period of time,” Smith said.

One expert said the administration’s 42-word official explanation of its opposition is confusing because the language in the bill is so similar to what lawyers for the administration have argued in court.

“They cannot possibly be strongly opposed to writing their litigating positions into law. To the extent they are strongly opposed to that, they risk grossly undermining their litigating positions,” said Benjamin Wittes of the Brookings Institution.

Wittes said the administration opposition might be a tactical decision to increase the president’s chances of removing other provisions he objects to in the bill, such as continuing limits on transferring prisoners from Guantanamo to the United States for trial or detention.

He said the administration should negotiate with McKeon to craft mutually acceptable language. “They have a real allergy to dealing with the Hill on these issues. … Their mistrust of the Hill is legion and they take it too far, though they have good reason to be suspicious,” Wittes said.

The administration source acknowledged that the veto threat is undermined somewhat by Obama’s decision last year to sign legislation that limited his ability to release detainees abroad and to bring them to the U.S. for trial.

“We should have picked this fight last December but, okay, we can pick it now,” the official said. “It’s fair to hit the Obama administration for not speaking out earlier, but you’ve got to give us credit for speaking out now.”

Two other detainee-related amendments were debated Wednesday and are expected to receive roll call votes Thursday. Smith put forward language that would restore Obama’s ability to bring detainees to the United States for trial in criminal courts. And Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) offered an amendment that would make military commissions the only trial option for all foreigners who allegedly engage in terrorist acts in the United States or against U.S. personnel abroad.

Thornberry predicted that “you will see at the end of the day a pretty big bipartisan majority to pass the bill. I hope there’s not a pressure from [the Democrats’] leadership to make it otherwise.”

Protecting agencies from oversight, Obama threatens to veto intelligence funding

Is Obama a long lost Bush relative?

Protecting agencies from oversight, Obama threatens to veto intelligence funding

By Stephen C. Webster
Monday, March 15th, 2010

The White House is threatening to veto a key intelligence funding bill over what it considers to be a dangerous amount of oversight on covert agencies, according to published reports.

The 2010 Intelligence Budget has gone through a number of key changes over the past few months, with House Democrats and the Obama administration butting heads over a number of provisions. Key among them for the latest White House veto threat is a provision that would allow the Government Accountability Office to investigate intelligence agencies.

"Current law exempts intelligence and counterintelligence activities from GAO review, leaving oversight to the inspectors general at the various intelligence community agencies," Politico reported.

In a letter to the House and Senate intelligence committees, Office of Management and Budget chief Peter Orszag highlighted several areas of the bill that have intelligence officials worried, including the GAO oversight provision.

Orszag's letter also claims that proposed reforms to how Congress is notified of covert activities poses a "serious" threat that intelligence agencies object to.

Strangely, Orszag additionally called out an effort to re-investigate the 2001 anthrax attacks, which have since been blamed on the deceased government scientist Bruce Ivins. An unnamed Obama administration official told Bloomberg News that if the 2010 Intelligence Budget demands another look at the FBI's conclusions, the bill would be vetoed.

The FBI's probe has been heavily criticized by members of Obama's own party for "numerous" mistakes made by the FBI during the lengthy inquiry. Joseph Michael, a scientist at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, also noted a key difference in "chemical fingerprints" between a flask linked to Ivins and the anthrax that was sent to government offices around the country.

At the FBI’s request, the National Academy of Sciences convened a 15-member panel to review the scientific soundness of the eight-year investigation. According to Elie Dolgin at Nature magazine, the FBI believes the scientific review of its own investigation to be “unprecedented,” but at least one member of Congress, Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), thinks the case deserves another look, suggesting that the FBI's investigators themselves be investigated.

Ivins, 62, a biodefense researcher who spent years working on a better anthrax vaccine, overdosed on Tylenol and Codiene in 2008, after learning that the FBI was preparing to indict him on murder charges.

In its' present form, the 2010 Intelligence Budget would also significantly revise the "Gang of Eight" requirement, under which the president informs key members of Congress about ongoing covert activities.

As a reaction to the Bush administration's secrecy over its' massive electronic spying program, Congress last year approved the revisions that would allow House and Senate intelligence committees to write their own rules on who is told what. President Obama objected.

Other revisions House Democrats made to the bill, noted by The Washington Post earlier in March, include:

On Thursday, the House, as part of the fiscal 2010 intelligence authorization bill, approved a new plan that had been negotiated with the administration. Under it, the president would have to notify both committees that there has been a Gang of Eight disclosure and provide the other members with "general information on the content of the finding or notice." He would continue to be required to find it "essential to limit access . . . to meet extraordinary circumstances affecting vital interests of the United States."

Another added element would permit any one of the Gang of Eight to break his or her silence and register opposition to the proposed intelligence operation with the director of national intelligence. That action would have to take place within 48 hours. The DNI would then report in writing to the president his response to the objection. A copy would also go to the lawmaker.

A further modification is directly related to last year's controversy over what was disclosed in September 2002 about the waterboarding of the al-Qaeda terrorist known as Abu Zubaida to Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), then the ranking minority member of the House intelligence panel. Pelosi, now the speaker of the House, denied she was told of the torture-like process. Under the proposed law, the president would be required to record the date of a Gang of Eight briefing. After 30 days, the president would also be required to provide that information in writing to the committee of the lawmaker who was briefed.

President Obama issued his first veto threat against the bill in late February, reacting to a provision that would have mandated prison sentences for intelligence operatives that employ "cruel, inhuman and degrading" interrogation techniques. As one of his first orders of business, President Obama banned the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" that hallmarked the Bush years, requiring all interrogators to abide by guidelines in the Army Field Manual.

"The torture provision, introduced by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., defined cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees and provided a penalty of up to 15 years in prison for using such techniques during an interrogation," the Associated Press noted. "It also said medical professionals who enable the use of improper treatment could face up to five years in prison."

In another reaction to Bush-era abuses of power, the bill would also prohibit private contractors from engaging in prisoner interrogations; a far cry from the prior administration, under which interrogators from U.S. IT firm CACI allegedly participated in torture through conspiracy, according to a lawsuit filed by four Iraqi men imprisoned in Abu Ghraib and later released without charge.