The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released numerous reports of increased government spying on American citizens. Once upon an unhappy time, U.S. law enforcement agencies, from the FBI to local police, had a history of political spying during the Cold War. The ACLU said that the old political spying tendencies are running high again. Individuals and groups are being monitored and harassed for “little more than peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights.”

One ACLU report, Policing Free Speech: Police Surveillance and Obstruction of First Amendment-Protected Activity (.pdf), reveals that, in recent years, Americans have been put under surveillance or harassed by law enforcement agencies in 33 states plus the District of Columbia. What horrific acts did these Americans commit? Organizing, marching, protesting, supporting unusual viewpoints, and engaging in “normal, innocuous behaviors such as writing notes or taking photographs in public.”

The map below show states where the ACLU uncovered incidents of political spying:

In California, there were 22 reports of spying. One such example is the Los Angeles Police Department Reporting Policy which included 65 behaviors LAPD officers were required to report. “The list includes such innocuous, clearly subjective, and First Amendment-protected activities as, taking measurements, using binoculars, taking pictures or video footage ‘with no apparent esthetic value,’ drawing diagrams, taking notes, and espousing extremist views.”

13 incidents in Colorado were reported, including one when FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) agents opened “domestic terrorism” investigations after the Colorado American Indian Movement, peace groups, and environmental groups posted notices on websites. The announcements were of an anti-war protest in Colorado Springs and a protest against Columbus Day in Denver.

In Georgia, among seven spying reports the ACLU uncovered, a vegetarian activist was arrested for writing down the license plate of a Department of Homeland Security agent who had been photographing her and others during a peaceful protest outside a Honey Baked Ham store.

In Chicago, Illinois, the FBI JTTF conducted a three-day manhunt searching for a Muslim man due to him clicking a hand counter during a bus ride. The investigation revealed he was using the hand counter to keep track of his daily prayers.

In Maine, the FBI intercepted and stored e-mails planning peaceful protests. In Massachusetts, a “plain-clothes Harvard University detective was caught photographing people at a peaceful protest for ‘intelligence gathering’ purposes. Protesters who then photographed the officer were arrested.” In North Carolina, an honorably discharged U.S. Army woman, whose husband is on active duty, was put under Pentagon surveillance for participating in a protest at Fort Bragg.

Meanwhile, in Maryland, the “Maryland State Police spied on more than 30 activist groups, mostly peace groups and anti-death penalty advocates, and wrongly indentified 53 individual activists and about two dozen organizations as terrorists.” DHS further disseminated e-mails from one of the peace groups.

There are many such surveillance reports on a national level as well. An example is when a DHS contractor reported environmental groups like the Sierra Club, the Humane Society, and the Audubon Society as “mainstream organizations with known or possible links to eco-terrorism.”

An intelligence bulletin, from a DHS-supported North Central Texas Fusion System, was distributed to over 100 different agencies. It described a “purported conspiracy between Muslim civil rights organizations, lobbying groups, the anti-war movement, a former U.S. Congresswoman, the U.S. Treasury Department, and hip hop bands to spread tolerance in the U.S.”

Once you unfortunately land on some kind of watchlist, it’s unlikely you will ever have your name removed. One example was a Kentucky minister who had never been arrested, had never been charged with a crime, and had never participated in a protest. During a sightseeing trip, he was detained by Canadian border officials. The ministered learned he was under federal scrutiny because, immediately after September 11, he ordered books over the Internet about the Islamic religion, like the Koran, to help his congregation better understand that faith.

Does this make you sick or does it make you mad? Does this even slightly sound like America, the land of the free?

Source: Network World

“ACLU”

Today the government is spying on Americans in ways the founders of our country never could have imagined. The FBI, federal intelligence agencies, the military, state and local police, private companies, and even firemen and emergency medical technicians are gathering incredible amounts of personal information about ordinary Americans that can be used to construct vast dossiers that can be widely shared with a simple mouse-click through new institutions like Joint Terrorism Task Forces, fusion centers, and public-private partnerships. The fear of terrorism has led to a new era of overzealous police intelligence activity directed, as in the past, against political activists, racial and religious minorities, and immigrants.

This surveillance activity is not directed solely at suspected terrorists and criminals. It’s directed at all of us. Increasingly, the government is engaged in suspicionless surveillance that vacuums up and tracks sensitive information about innocent people. Even more disturbingly, as the government’s surveillance powers have grown more intrusive and more powerful, the restrictions on many of those powers have been weakened or eliminated. And this surveillance often takes place in secret, with little or no oversight by the courts, by legislatures, or by the public.

The erosion of reasonable restrictions on government’s power to collect people’s personal information is putting the privacy and free speech rights of all Americans at risk. The American Civil Liberties Union and its affiliates across the country have uncovered and reported on many aspects of this growing domestic surveillance activity over the last several years. Our updated Spy Files website combines the information we’ve collected from Freedom of Information Act requests, ACLU lawsuits and reports, and news accounts so that members of the public can begin to get a comprehensive view of how these networked intelligence activities threaten their civil liberities.

You can navigate the links to get updated information on spying conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the military, intelligence agencies, state and local police, and even private companies. Click here to read about specific spying platforms, such as fusion centers, Joint Terrorism Task Forces and Suspicious Activity Reporting programs.

IT LOOKS LIKE PROSECUTORS are not going to get involved in the bizarre case of the school which switched on laptops to spy on students while they were in their own bedrooms.

US Attorney Zane David Memeger told USA Today, investigators had found no evidence of criminal intent by Lower Merion School District employees who activated tracking software that took thousands of webcam and screenshot images on school-provided laptops.

A student and his family sued the district in February, claiming officials invaded his privacy by activating the software and the civil case is ongoing.

The school has admitted that it captured 56,000 screen shots and webcam images mostly so it could find missing student laptops. But in the case of this student the school appears to have been using the laptops to investigate home drug use.

By saying that the school was not “criminal” the prosecutors are not implying that the outfit was right. However it does mean that schools do not have to be worried about being locked up for spying on their students using this method.

It also says that breaches of privacy that are not carried out for “bad reasons” is OK in the United States. So if you are a company that wants to watch what its employees get up to in their home in case they might be taking corporate secrets, that is OK one imagines.

You could still be sued if the employee finds out, but it is not criminal. One wonders then if HP should ever have gone down for the pre-texting scandal or are schools allowed to do what they like?

Ten people have been arrested for allegedly serving as secret agents of the Russian government with the goal of penetrating U.S. government policymaking circles.

The Justice Department announced the arrests Monday.

According to court papers in the case, the U.S. government intercepted a message from Russian intelligence headquarters in Moscow to two of the defendants. The message states that their main mission is ”to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in US” and send intelligence reports.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ten people have been arrested for allegedly serving as secret agents of the Russian government in the United States, the Justice Department said Monday.

Eight of 10 were arrested Sunday for allegedly carrying out long-term, deep cover assignments in the United States on behalf of Russia.

Two others were arrested for allegedly participating in the same Russian intelligence program within the United States.

Their job, according to the court papers in the case, was ”to search and develop ties in policymaking circles” in the United States.

Each of the 10 was charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison on conviction.

The cases were filed in U.S. District Court for the southern district of New York.

Federal law prohibits individuals from acting as agents of foreign governments within the United States without notifying the U.S. attorney general.

Nine of the defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum 20 years in prison on conviction.

FBI agents arrested the defendants known as Richard Murphy and Cynthia Murphy at their residence in Montclair, N.J., and they were appearing Monday in federal court in Manhattan.

Three other defendants also were being taken to federal court in Manhattan — Vicky Pelaez and a defendant known as ”Juan Lazaro,” who were arrested at their residence in Yonkers, N.Y., and Anna Chapman, who was arrested in Manhattan on Sunday.

Two other defendants known as Michael Zottoli and Patricia Mills were arrested at their residence in Arlington, Va., and were appearing in federal court in Alexandria, Va., on Monday.

Also being taken to federal court in Alexandria was Mikhail Semenko, who was arrested Sunday at his residence in Arlington.

Two defendants known as Donald Howard Heathfield and Tracey Lee Ann Foley were arrested at their residence in Boston on Sunday and were appearing in federal court in Boston on Monday.

The Justice Department said that a defendant known as Christopher R. Metsos was not in custody.

The arrests were the result of a multiyear FBI investigation into an alleged network of U.S.-based agents who concealed all connections between themselves and Russia.

The U.S. government intercepted a message from Russian intelligence headquarters in Moscow to two of the defendants, Richard and Cynthia Murphy.

”You were sent to USA for long-term service trip,” the message from Moscow. ”Your education, bank accounts, car, house etc. — all these serve one goal: fulfill your main mission, i.e. to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in US and sent intels,” the message added.

Having battled Islamic extremists, Irish Republican terrorists and Russian spies, some of the veteran intelligence officers of MI5 are encountering a foe they cannot master: information technology.

Sean Connery as James Bond

The Security Service is launching an unprecedented round of redundancies to improve the overall level of computer skills among its staff.

Despite an expanding budget, MI5 is laying off employees in order to hire new intelligence officers and support staff with better command of information technology and other “deployable” skills.

The redundancy program has set tongues wagging in Whitehall, with civil servants in other departments joking about a “James Bond generation” of elderly spies being put out to pasture because they can’t use the internet and don’t understand the world of Twitter or Facebook.

The plan was disclosed by Jonathan Evans, the director-general of MI5.

He told a Parliamentary committee that he is concerned that his agency’s overall IT skills are not up to scratch, leading him to get rid of some employees.

“I think some of the staff perhaps aren’t quite the ones that we will want for the future,” Mr Evans told the Intelligence and Security Committee.

As a result, a program of “both voluntary and compulsory redundancies” is being introduced.

Whitehall officials said the MI5 redundancy program was aimed at altering the skills profile of the organisation and increasing the number of its staff that can be deployed on active operations.

Only a small proportion of the service’s staff will affected by the lay-offs, it is understood. But redundancies will be made across the organization and not confined to specialist IT staff.

MI5 currently has around 3,500 officers and is on course to have 4,100 by next year, double its size in 2001. Many of the new recruits are in their 20s and 30s attracted by high-profile advertising campaigns and – in part – the BBC drama Spooks.

All telecom companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited.

Despite widespread opposition to the increasing amount of surveillance in Britain, 653 public bodies will be given access to the information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors.

They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.

Ministers had originally wanted to store the information on a single government-run database, but chose not to because of privacy concerns.

However the Government announced yesterday it was pressing ahead with privately held “Big Brother” databases that opposition leaders said amounted to “state-spying” and a form of “covert surveillance” on the public.

It is doing so despite its own consultation showing that it has little public support.

The Home Office admitted that only one third of respondents to its six-month consultation on the issue supported its proposals, with 50 per cent fearing that the scheme lacked sufficient safeguards to protect the highly personal data from abuse.

The new law will increase the amount of personal data that can be obtained by officials through the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), which is supposed to be used for fighting terrorism.

Although most private firms already hold details of every customer’s private calls and emails for their own business purposes, most only do so on an ad hoc basis and only for a period of several months.

The new rules, known as the Intercept Modernisation Programme, will not only force communications companies to keep their records for longer, but to expand the type of data they keep to include details of every website their customers visit, effectively registering every online click.

While public authorities will not be able to view the contents of these emails or phone calls, they can see the internet addresses, dates, times and identify recipients of calls.

Firms involved in storing the data, including Orange, BT and Vodafone, will be reimbursed at a cost to the taxpayer of £2 billion over 10 years.

Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, said he had fears about the abuse of the data. He said: “The big danger in all of this is ‘mission creep’. This government keeps on introducing new powers to tackle terrorism and organised crime which end up being used for completely different purposes. We have to stop that from happening”.

David Davis, the former shadow home secretary, added: “Whilst this is no doubt necessary in pursuing terrorist suspects, the proposals are so intrusive that they should be subject to legal approval, and should not be available except in pursuit of the most serious crimes.”

The Information Commissioner’s Office also opposed the moves.

“The Information Commissioner believes that the case has yet to be made for the collection and processing of additional communications data for the population as a whole being relevant and not excessive,” a spokesman said.

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, has criticised the amount the scheme will cost for what he said is effectively “state spying”.

He added yesterday: “It is simply not that easy to separate the bare details of a call from its content. What if a leading business person is ringing Alcoholics Anonymous?”

Ministers said that they still have to work with the communications industry to find the correct way of framing the proposal in law — meaning it will not come before Parliament until after the general election. But the Home Office yesterday insisted it would push the legislation through. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, originally released a consultation paper in April.

Only 29 per cent of respondents supported the Government approach. Meanwhile the communications providers themselves questioned the cost of the scheme and whether it was even technically feasible.

John Yates, Britain’s head of anti-terrorism, has argued that the legislation is vital for his investigators.

David Hanson, the Home Office minister, said: “The consultation showed widespread recognition of the importance of communications data in protecting the public .. we will now work with communications service providers and others to develop these proposals, and aim to introduce necessary legislation as soon as possible.”