Talking surveillance - What would Orwell say today?

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Big Brother: CCTV cameras chastize anti-social Brits

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Thursday, April 05, 2007

What would Orwell say today?

It is truly staggering, I think, the manner in which creeping surveillance and the infrastructure for a genuine Orwellian nightmare is so casually implemented by the Government. The news that the experiment of CCTV systems which have operators that can talk to you through speaker systems is coming to London from Middlesborough is such an example.

We are told by the politicians and Home Secretary that our fears about civil liberties are unfounded. That it is only people who have done things wrongs that should fear the move. This fallacy is now the standard line in fact from anyone in Government. Nothing to fear, nothing to hide.

The problem, as I have said before, is that the argument misrepresents the matter of civil liberties. The issue against these systems is actually about autonomy over ourselves. Where we are, and where we go, is something that we decide as individuals. Crucially though the state exists because of us, not despite of us. The widespread use of CCTV - which has made us the most watched country in the world - has shifted that relationship in a fundamental way.

The increase now of CCTV systems in which operators can talk to those they are watching with a booming voice on loud speakers, introduces another shift in our relationship with the state. More importantly it is another piece of technology pitched in the isolation of its supposed benefits without consideration of the total infrastructure we are building.

Democracy is a delicate thing, simply because we have managed to maintain it here does not mean that we cannot possibly become something else which is much darker in a moment. A piece of bad legislation, like the Regulatory Powers Act which was proposed a year or so ago could still be introduced which would provide some future - yet to be determined tyrant - with the ability to take over.

John Reid may say that these CCTV systems will help fight crime, but before we mess with our liberties we should make them always subject to the Stalin test. Would Stalin have liked the technology we are implementing? Would he have found it useful? If the answer is yes then to proceed anyway whilst saying "it could never happen here" is simply folly.

How long is it before we find ourselves being told that in order to tackle obesity we must all take part in physical exercise organised by those in CCTV control centres watching and counting our aerobics? When the reality starts to imitate the dystopian world of literature we should start to worry and be very vocal about it.

Israel spying in and on the United States

11. March 2007

It’s big news in the US that the FBI has overstepped its authority by spying on US citizens illegally. What hasn’t made it to the news - or should I say it did but was pulled after running as a story just once - is that while the FBI and other government agencies are spying on American citizens, a foreign country (and supposed US ally) is spying on the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.

Who is this ally? Well, it is a not secret that the best and biggest ally of U.S. is Israel. They are paid billions of dollars every year and Israel sucks these billions of dollars from U.S. budget to support the Zionist regime and its crimes. However, the irony of the story is that Americans are actually willingly (or should I say forced, if we talk about AIPAC?) paying Israel to betray their country and stab them in the back and use part of that money to spy on Americans.

Here a series of four parts investigation report by FOX news (the one which you trusted always for accurate news), which give us the details of Israel links and fact about their spying on YOU and Israel links to 9/11 and terrorism ties. Of course this is disappearing story that’s too hot to handle. Imagine that Israelis were caught but later shipped to Israel as “art students”. Not only that, believe it or not, they have records of all your phone calls. In fact, they have records about you which your government does not have. [Hat tip: Robin]

Enjoy the show:

Israeli 911 terrorism ties FOX news report now CLASSIFIED 1:

They may have known things they didn’t tell U.S. before September 11th. Continuation of more CLASSIFIED information on Israeli spying, ‘classified’ links to 911 and more.

Israeli 911 terrorism ties FOX news report now CLASSIFIED 2:

It’s virtually impossible to make a call in the US without Amdocs (an Israeli company) making a record of it!

Israeli 911 terrorism ties FOX news report now CLASSIFIED 3:

More hints of Israeli spying, criminality, terrorism and 911 links. “One Israeli company controls the US’s entire eavesdropping system.”

Israeli 911 terrorism ties FOX news report now CLASSIFIED 4:

Somehow the bad guys had the cops’ beepers, cell phones - even home phones - under surveillance.

Of course this is not the first time (or last) that Israelis are caught spying on U.S. not to mention previous stories about AIPAC espionage links!

Part of Haitham's adventure in USA, Israel, Terrorism, Video, Zionism, 911

Two FBI Whistleblowers Confirm Illegal Wiretapping of Government Officials and Misuse of FISA

National Security Whistleblowers Coalition

www.nswbc.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE- March 5, 2007

Contact: Sibel Edmonds, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, sedmonds@nswbc.org or William Weaver, wweaver@nswbc.org

Two FBI Whistleblowers Confirm Illegal Wiretapping of Government Officials and Misuse of FISA

State Secrets Privilege Was Used to Cover Up Corruption and Silence Whistleblowers

The National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC) has obtained a copy of an official complaint filed by a veteran FBI Special Agent, Gilbert Graham, with the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (DOJ-OIG). SA Graham’s protected disclosures report the violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in conducting electronic surveillance of high-profile U.S. public officials.

Before his retirement in 2002, SA Gilbert Graham worked for the FBI Washington Field Office (WFO) Squad NS-24. One of the main areas of Mr. Graham’s counterintelligence investigations involved espionage activities by Turkish officials and agents in the United States. On April 2, 2002, Graham filed with the DOJ-OIG a classified protected disclosure, which provided a detailed account of FISA violations involving misuse of FISA warrants to engage in domestic surveillance. In his unclassified report SA Graham states: “It is the complainant’s reasonable belief that the request for ELSUR [electronic surveillance] coverage was a subterfuge to collect evidentiary information concerning public corruption matters.” Graham blew the whistle on this illegal behavior, but the actions were covered up by the Department of Justice and the Attorney General’s office.

Click here to read the unclassified version of SA Graham’s Official Report.

The report filed by SA Graham bolsters another FBI whistleblower’s case that became public several months after Graham’s official filing with the Justice Department in 2002. Sibel Edmonds, former FBI Language Specialist, also worked for the FBI Washington Field Office (WFO), and her assignments included the translations of Turkish Counterintelligence documents and audiotapes, some of which were part of espionage investigations led by SA Graham. After she filed her complaint with the DOJ-OIG and Congress, she was retaliated against by the FBI and ultimately fired in March 2002. Court proceedings in Edmonds’ case were blocked by the assertion of the State Secrets Privilege by then Attorney General John Ashcroft, and the Congress gagged and prevented from investigating her case through retroactive re-classification of documents by DOJ. To read the timeline on Edmonds’ case Click here.

Edmonds’ complaint included allegations of illegal activities by Turkish organizations and their agents in the United States, and the involvement of certain elected and appointed U.S. officials in the Department of State, Pentagon, and the U.S. Congress in these activities. In its September 2005 issue, Vanity Fair ran a comprehensive piece on Edmonds’ case by reporter David Rose, in which several former and current congressional and Justice Department officials identified former House Speaker Dennis Hastert as being involved in illegal activities with the Turkish organizations and personnel targeted in FBI investigations. In addition, Rose reported: “…much of what Edmonds reportedly heard seemed to concern not state espionage but criminal activity. There was talk, she told investigators, of laundering the profits of large-scale drug deals and of selling classified military technologies to the highest bidder.” In January 2005, DOJ-OIG released an unclassified summary of its investigation into Edmonds' termination. The report concluded that Edmonds was fired for reporting serious security breaches and misconduct in the agency's translation program, and that many of her allegations were supported by convincing evidence.

Another Former Veteran FBI Counterintelligence and Espionage Specialist at FBI Headquarters in Washington DC also filed similar reports with DOJ-OIG and several congressional offices regarding violations of FISA implementation and the covering up of several espionage cases involving FBI Language Specialists and public corruption cases by the Bureau. The cases reported by this whistleblower corroborate those reported by SA Graham and Sibel Edmonds. In an interview with NSWBC investigators the former FBI Specialist, who wished to remain anonymous, stated: “…you are looking at covering up massive public corruption and espionage cases; to top that off you have major violations of FISA by the FBI Washington Field Office and HQ targeting these cases. Everyone involved has motive to cover up these reports and prevent investigation and public disclosure. No wonder they invoked the state secrets privilege in Edmonds’ case.”

William Weaver, NSWBC Senior Advisor noted that,”These abuses of power are precisely why we must pay attention to whistleblowers. Preservation of the balance of powers between the branches of government increasingly relies on information provided by whistleblowers, especially in the face of aggressive and expanding executive power. Through illegal surveillance members of Congress and other officials may be controlled by the executive branch, thereby dissolving the matrix of our democracy. The abuse of two powers of secrecy, FISA and the state secrets privilege, are working hand in hand to subvert the Constitution. In an abominably perverse arrangement, the abuse of FISA is being covered up by abuse of the state secrets privilege. Only whistleblowers and the congressional and judicial oversight their revelations spawn can bring our system back into balance.”

Several civil liberties and whistleblowers organizations have joined Edmonds and NSWBC in urging congress to hold public hearing on Edmonds’ case, including the supporting cases of SA Graham and other FBI witnesses, and the erroneous use of state secrets privilege by the executive branch to cover up its own illegal conduct. The petition endorsed by these groups is expected to be released to public in the next few days.

About National Security Whistleblowers Coalition

National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), founded in August 2004, is an independent and nonpartisan alliance of whistleblowers who have come forward to address our nation’s security weaknesses; to inform authorities of security vulnerabilities in our intelligence agencies, at nuclear power plants and weapon facilities, in airports, and at our nation’s borders and ports; to uncover government waste, fraud, abuse, and in some cases criminal conduct. The NSWBC is dedicated to aiding national security whistleblowers through a variety of methods, including advocacy of governmental and legal reform, educating the public concerning whistleblowing activity, provision of comfort and fellowship to national security whistleblowers suffering retaliation and other harms, and working with other public interest organizations to affect goals defined in the NSWBC mission statement. For more on NSWBC visit www.nswbc.org

© Copyright 2006, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Information in this release may be freely distributed and published provided that all such distributions make appropriate attribution to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.

Global Infrastructure of Mass Surveillance

Intenational Campaign Against Mass Surveillance (CAMS) - Mar 3, 2007 - Full Story
Global security and the "war on terror" now dominate the global political agenda. Driven largely by the United States, a growing web of anti-terrorism and security measures are being adopted by nations around the world. This new "security" paradigm is being used to roll back freedom and increase police powers in order to exercise increasing control over individuals and populations

A Feather of Force for Iraq

William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security

Sometime late last week, amidst more of the same in Iraq, amidst Congressional resolutions, new poll numbers, and anti-war protests, the Secretary of Defense woke up to realize that the surge is really a trickle.

Robert M. Gates told reporters on Friday that he was looking for ways of speeding up the arrival U.S. forces in Iraq.

Earlier in the week, the anti-Rumsfeld was saying that if all went well in Iraq, maybe we didn't even need to send all 21,500 troops programmed. If all went well, we might be able to bring some home by summer, Gates and the outgoing Iraq commander, Gen. George Casey said.

Regardless of politics and the Washington talk show, we are supposed to have confidence in this well thought out plan for Iraq when the Secretary is already making adjustments and changes?

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon on Friday, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said he was pressing the military services to find ways to speed up the deployment of more troops to Iraq.

"We are going to see if the timetable and the dispatch of the brigades can be accelerated," Gates said.

Let's see: We are in the fight of our lives, where failure isn't an option, and yet the prime architect of the new, new strategy is already admitting that he made a mistake in the design.

Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the incoming Iraq commander, told the Senate last week that he needs all the troops he can get. Hearing that message, and watching which way the wind was blowing, Gates now is contradicting himself this way and that.

"As long as he [Petraeus] feels he needs them, they're all going to flow" to Iraq, Gates told reporters on Friday.

That's definitive, as long, that is, as nothing different happens next week to change his mind.

Gates is already at odds with the true believers, inside and outside the military, who are concerned that the premature talk of withdrawing troops, perhaps by summer, undermines a winning strategy. Their argument is that additional deployments should be open-ended and that an 18-month window is needed to turn around the security situation. Their worry is that the insurgents and militias will just lay low if the surge is indeed shown to be a short term smoke screen, presenting a picture of stability and progress while just waiting to resume their activities once U.S. forces start leaving.

Meanwhile, writing in the Post this morning, national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley says that the surge isn't THE new strategy. The strategy, he says, is composed of the many steps that the United States and Iraq are taking to positively deal with the near anarchy - my words - on the ground, particularly in Baghdad.

Hadley reiterates what Americans haven't quite understood yet: "Training and supporting Iraqi troops will remain our military's essential and primary mission."

The surge is exposed for what it has always been, a political sledgehammer to beat Congress and the American people into submission, while on the ground it is a feather of force, a symbol of change.

Gates cites "logistical constraints" and personal turbulence as the major impediments to getting more soldiers and Marines into the fight.

That's it? We wouldn't want to disturb the family life of American forces in order to get the war over once and for all?

And meanwhile, Mr. Secretary Sensitive wants to abandon the Rumsfeld (and traditional) style of the formal news conference for more informal around-the-table meeting with reporters.

The messages here are all over the place: American sons and daughters are continuing to die, America is fighting wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and elsewhere in the shadows, and our Secretary of Defense chooses Oprah.

Note to readers: You might want to check out an appearance I made on the NPR show "On the Media" talking about the surge and the strange reporting of the same by the national media.

By William M. Arkin | January 29, 2007; 8:39 AM ET

A Feather of Force for Iraq

William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security

Sometime late last week, amidst more of the same in Iraq, amidst Congressional resolutions, new poll numbers, and anti-war protests, the Secretary of Defense woke up to realize that the surge is really a trickle.

Robert M. Gates told reporters on Friday that he was looking for ways of speeding up the arrival U.S. forces in Iraq.

Earlier in the week, the anti-Rumsfeld was saying that if all went well in Iraq, maybe we didn't even need to send all 21,500 troops programmed. If all went well, we might be able to bring some home by summer, Gates and the outgoing Iraq commander, Gen. George Casey said.

Regardless of politics and the Washington talk show, we are supposed to have confidence in this well thought out plan for Iraq when the Secretary is already making adjustments and changes?

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon on Friday, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said he was pressing the military services to find ways to speed up the deployment of more troops to Iraq.

"We are going to see if the timetable and the dispatch of the brigades can be accelerated," Gates said.

Let's see: We are in the fight of our lives, where failure isn't an option, and yet the prime architect of the new, new strategy is already admitting that he made a mistake in the design.

Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the incoming Iraq commander, told the Senate last week that he needs all the troops he can get. Hearing that message, and watching which way the wind was blowing, Gates now is contradicting himself this way and that.

"As long as he [Petraeus] feels he needs them, they're all going to flow" to Iraq, Gates told reporters on Friday.

That's definitive, as long, that is, as nothing different happens next week to change his mind.

Gates is already at odds with the true believers, inside and outside the military, who are concerned that the premature talk of withdrawing troops, perhaps by summer, undermines a winning strategy. Their argument is that additional deployments should be open-ended and that an 18-month window is needed to turn around the security situation. Their worry is that the insurgents and militias will just lay low if the surge is indeed shown to be a short term smoke screen, presenting a picture of stability and progress while just waiting to resume their activities once U.S. forces start leaving.

Meanwhile, writing in the Post this morning, national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley says that the surge isn't THE new strategy. The strategy, he says, is composed of the many steps that the United States and Iraq are taking to positively deal with the near anarchy - my words - on the ground, particularly in Baghdad.

Hadley reiterates what Americans haven't quite understood yet: "Training and supporting Iraqi troops will remain our military's essential and primary mission."

The surge is exposed for what it has always been, a political sledgehammer to beat Congress and the American people into submission, while on the ground it is a feather of force, a symbol of change.

Gates cites "logistical constraints" and personal turbulence as the major impediments to getting more soldiers and Marines into the fight.

That's it? We wouldn't want to disturb the family life of American forces in order to get the war over once and for all?

And meanwhile, Mr. Secretary Sensitive wants to abandon the Rumsfeld (and traditional) style of the formal news conference for more informal around-the-table meeting with reporters.

The messages here are all over the place: American sons and daughters are continuing to die, America is fighting wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and elsewhere in the shadows, and our Secretary of Defense chooses Oprah.

Note to readers: You might want to check out an appearance I made on the NPR show "On the Media" talking about the surge and the strange reporting of the same by the national media.

By William M. Arkin | January 29, 2007; 8:39 AM ET

Targeted Populations & Those Who Watch Them

December 4, 2006

Again & Again Americans find themselves in the crosshairs of a government that chooses to spend trillions to spy, record and stalk ordinary Americans while at the same time utterly failing to do anything about millions of people who are here illegally-to enhance the profits of a huge number of employers. Actually, this government has proposed spending billions to build an electronic fence along the border, while claiming that "government" cannot keep track of any of the twelve to fourteen million people who are here without papers. What's wrong with this equation?

911 produced a negative income stream of trillions of dollars in costs to the economy of the United States; costs that continue to soar daily. Yet trillions are simultaneously continuing to be spent to block law-abiding citizens from their right to be different, to think independently from dictators, or to travel - yet this same government cannot even keep lawful track of those "others" who are here without papers? The reason the undocumented workers are not trackable is because those who employ them, whose responsibility it is to provide that information-simply don't. Now add to this insult-the Secret Plan of ATS-the latest outrage against Americans!

"Without their knowledge, millions of Americans and foreigners crossing U.S. borders in the past four years have been assigned scores generated by U.S. government computers rating the risk that the travelers are terrorists or criminals. The travelers are not allowed to see or directly challenge these risk assessments, which the government intends to keep on file for 40 years.

The government calls the system critical to national security following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Some privacy advocates call it one of the most intrusive and risky schemes yet mounted in the name of anti-terrorism efforts. Virtually every person entering and leaving the United States by air, sea or land is scored by the Homeland Security Department's Automated Targeting System, or ATS. The scores are based on ATS' analysis of their travel records and other data, including items such as where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered.

The use of the program on travelers was quietly disclosed earlier this month when the department put a notice detailing ATS in the Federal Register, a fine-print compendium of federal rules." (1)

The current U.S. Government is doing everything it can to destroy any certainty that might remain for Americans in any area of their lives. We have been wiretapped, spied upon, harassed, audited, challenged and threatened at every curve in the road. These government programs are also "jobs programs" that create more negative income streams for a failed government that can't evaluate the difference between real threats (bankruptcy, retirement, medical uncertainty, and governmental lies) aided and abetted in every aspect, by the subservient media that willfully avoids asking even the most basic questions about anything that this government does "to-its-people."

Using double-speak to destroy any meaning in government agencies-the US has turned our representative government, from protecting and serving those who pay for it-into something that spies, plots and schemes against its formerly legal citizens. The result has been a police state under secret martial law, a state that prosecutes and intimidates anyone that challenges this contrived authority to censor and silence any and all criticism.

However, when the Bandits laid out these plans they overlooked several key points that once guaranteed their semi-military powers over the lives of the people. Police carry life and death on their hips, in the form of tasers and guns. The use of these instruments is supposed to be governed by rationality and a measured response to those circumstances that may appear to be life threatening. This is largely disappearing in major cities, as police have begun to shoot first and ask questions later!

Civilian police were granted their authority by those they were hired to protect, and to insure that this privilege was not abused, there was something called Posse Comitatus that did NOT allow the military to be used against the citizens of this country. The Decider has now asked for and received the elimination of Posse Comitatus - supposedly to protect Americans from "terrorists." Over this curse of the last six years, during which the congress totally vacated their oversight, the public has become road-kill for those trigger-happy and often power driven people in uniform who seem to think that they are working the streets of Baghdad. To insure that this practice can be expanded-two different US Attorney Generals have overseen sweeps of "10,000 of the most wanted fugitives." This: just to familiarize local law enforcement with what it is like to "federalized." Perhaps the third such "sweep" will not be against actual fugitives, but will instead be directed at their critics throughout this society?

In the latest case in New York where undercover officers murdered a 23-year-old man who was celebrating with friends on the eve of his marriage-until the future groom became the target of 50 bullets fired by five undercover "cops" who went on a shooting spree. The "officials" muttered about investigations and the difficulty of preventing these "unfortunate incidents" from continuing to happen. The Police Commissioner of NY failed to mention that his officers were in plain clothes and were driving unmarked vehicles. The solution to this crime is not a mystery. If those who participated in this murder, that night, were immediately arrested and charged for what they did-every man or woman in uniform would begin to pay attention to circumstances and to legal "just cause" in every case-not just in those cases that might be examined. Good law enforcement was not the goal here: because Terror-of-the-Police has become yet another part of the New World Order, in the growing national-security police-state that parts of America are trying to perfect! (2)

The unspoken rules here, that have been shattered, have to do with the compact between government and its people. There are too few police to truly control any city in America, because Americans are expected to be law-abiding citizens that will be protected from the government and the police, by the laws of the nation. When laws no longer protect most people, then people may begin to challenge the authority that daily begins to act more and more like the real enemies of those that employ them. The Laws of a nation hold society together; and while these constructs are not perfect they tend to keep anarchy in check. When people begin to see that "our laws" only protect the rich and persecute the poor and unconnected, within this two-tiered system, then instead of being valued public servants the police may soon become the targets that they seem to fear they could be seen to be.

The "law" is and always has been a two-way street-those who pervert the laws for private profit and ultimate power-will one day have to face the consequences. Our laws under the Just-US-Criminal-System are a long way from perfection, but what the Decider is continuing to do hastens the day when answers must be found for this criminal impasse.

Why does the government continue to seek these draconian methods when they deal with public, and not just the flying public-but the general population-which government increasingly tends to try and hold hostage as potentially dangerous enemies of "the state"? This government, and the several before that, have outlawed public political discourse, blocked demonstrations that do not agree with their policies, and rendered the entire political process nothing but idle gestures. The longer the public turns a deaf ear and a blind eye to these people that flaunt their self-appointed powers, while continuing to openly subjugate the same people they're supposed to serve-is to court disaster for the nation and for the world that will have to deal with our policies in the real world. If this continues, then the death and dying that too many Americans chose not to know will come here with a vengeance that shall not spare the innocent.

The politicians and lobbyists here have relied on the negative to enforce their self-appointed plans. "NO," "STOP," "ZERO-TOLERANCE" - the list is very long and it's meant to grant safety and security to this very fear-filled nation! Yet: For every freedom we surrender, for every idea we refuse to ponder, there is a price that each of us will pay in blood and treasure-whether anyone ever notices or not.

"For every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction." That's a law of nature that cannot be negotiated or avoided. Consign the secret ATS targeting of passengers to the trash heap along with all those who tried to slip it past the public's awareness. But also deal forcefully with those in civilian uniforms that want to live out their unbridled fantasies that are not legal!

Jim Kirwan

NOTES:


NOTES:
1) U.S. Rates Travelers for Terror Riskhttp://sfgate.com/
back to text
2) Outrage in New Yorkwww.ibctoday.com/News/ (video)
back to text
BACKGROUND:
Few Notice - even fewer seem to carewww.prisonplanet.com/

FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool

http://www.news.com/
By Declan McCullagh

Story last modified Fri Dec 01 18:46:27 PST 2006

The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

Nextel cell phones owned by two alleged mobsters, John Ardito and his attorney Peter Peluso, were used by the FBI to listen in on nearby conversations. The FBI views Ardito as one of the most powerful men in the Genovese family, a major part of the national Mafia.

The surveillance technique came to light in an opinion published this week by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He ruled that the "roving bug" was legal because federal wiretapping law is broad enough to permit eavesdropping even of conversations that take place near a suspect's cell phone.

Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.

While the Genovese crime family prosecution appears to be the first time a remote-eavesdropping mechanism has been used in a criminal case, the technique has been discussed in security circles for years.

The U.S. Commerce Department's security office warns that "a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone." An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call."

Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies. "They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time," he said. "You can do that without having physical access to the phone."

Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI and activate the microphone--all without the owner knowing it happened. (The FBI declined to comment on Friday.)

"If a phone has in fact been modified to act as a bug, the only way to counteract that is to either have a bugsweeper follow you around 24-7, which is not practical, or to peel the battery off the phone," Atkinson said. Security-conscious corporate executives routinely remove the batteries from their cell phones, he added.

FBI's physical bugs discovered
The FBI's Joint Organized Crime Task Force, which includes members of the New York police department, had little luck with conventional surveillance of the Genovese family. They did have a confidential source who reported the suspects met at restaurants including Brunello Trattoria in New Rochelle, N.Y., which the FBI then bugged.

But in July 2003, Ardito and his crew discovered bugs in three restaurants, and the FBI quietly removed the rest. Conversations recounted in FBI affidavits show the men were also highly suspicious of being tailed by police and avoided conversations on cell phones whenever possible.

That led the FBI to resort to "roving bugs," first of Ardito's Nextel handset and then of Peluso's. U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones approved them in a series of orders in 2003 and 2004, and said she expected to "be advised of the locations" of the suspects when their conversations were recorded.

Details of how the Nextel bugs worked are sketchy. Court documents, including an affidavit (p1) and (p2) prepared by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Kolodner in September 2003, refer to them as a "listening device placed in the cellular telephone." That phrase could refer to software or hardware.

One private investigator interviewed by CNET News.com, Skipp Porteous of Sherlock Investigations in New York, said he believed the FBI planted a physical bug somewhere in the Nextel handset and did not remotely activate the microphone.

"They had to have physical possession of the phone to do it," Porteous said. "There are several ways that they could have gotten physical possession. Then they monitored the bug from fairly near by."

But other experts thought microphone activation is the more likely scenario, mostly because the battery in a tiny bug would not have lasted a year and because court documents say the bug works anywhere "within the United States"--in other words, outside the range of a nearby FBI agent armed with a radio receiver.

In addition, a paranoid Mafioso likely would be suspicious of any ploy to get him to hand over a cell phone so a bug could be planted. And Kolodner's affidavit seeking a court order lists Ardito's phone number, his 15-digit International Mobile Subscriber Identifier, and lists Nextel Communications as the service provider, all of which would be unnecessary if a physical bug were being planted.

A BBC article from 2004 reported that intelligence agencies routinely employ the remote-activiation method. "A mobile sitting on the desk of a politician or businessman can act as a powerful, undetectable bug," the article said, "enabling them to be activated at a later date to pick up sounds even when the receiver is down."

For its part, Nextel said through spokesman Travis Sowders: "We're not aware of this investigation, and we weren't asked to participate."

Other mobile providers were reluctant to talk about this kind of surveillance. Verizon Wireless said only that it "works closely with law enforcement and public safety officials. When presented with legally authorized orders, we assist law enforcement in every way possible."

A Motorola representative said that "your best source in this case would be the FBI itself." Cingular, T-Mobile, and the CTIA trade association did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mobsters: The surveillance vanguard
This isn't the first time the federal government has pushed at the limits of electronic surveillance when investigating reputed mobsters.

In one case involving Nicodemo S. Scarfo, the alleged mastermind of a loan shark operation in New Jersey, the FBI found itself thwarted when Scarfo used Pretty Good Privacy software (PGP) to encode confidential business data.

So with a judge's approval, FBI agents repeatedly snuck into Scarfo's business to plant a keystroke logger and monitor its output.

Like Ardito's lawyers, Scarfo's defense attorneys argued that the then-novel technique was not legal and that the information gleaned through it could not be used. Also like Ardito, Scarfo's lawyers lost when a judge ruled in January 2002 that the evidence was admissible.

This week, Judge Kaplan in the southern district of New York concluded that the "roving bugs" were legally permitted to capture hundreds of hours of conversations because the FBI had obtained a court order and alternatives probably wouldn't work.

The FBI's "applications made a sufficient case for electronic surveillance," Kaplan wrote. "They indicated that alternative methods of investigation either had failed or were unlikely to produce results, in part because the subjects deliberately avoided government surveillance."

Bill Stollhans, president of the Private Investigators Association of Virginia, said such a technique would be legally reserved for police armed with court orders, not private investigators.

There is "no law that would allow me as a private investigator to use that type of technique," he said. "That is exclusively for law enforcement. It is not allowable or not legal in the private sector. No client of mine can ask me to overhear telephone or strictly oral conversations."

Surreptitious activation of built-in microphones by the FBI has been done before. A 2003 lawsuit revealed that the FBI was able to surreptitiously turn on the built-in microphones in automotive systems like General Motors' OnStar to snoop on passengers' conversations.

When FBI agents remotely activated the system and were listening in, passengers in the vehicle could not tell that their conversations were being monitored.

Malicious hackers have followed suit. A report last year said Spanish authorities had detained a man who write a Trojan horse that secretly activated a computer's video camera and forwarded him the recordings.

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Firms must save all e-mail, chats

New rules compel firms to track e-mails

2 hours, 41 minutes ago

U.S. companies will need to keep track of all the e-mails, instant messages and other electronic documents generated by their employees thanks to new federal rules that go into effect Friday, legal experts say.

The rules, approved by the Supreme Court in April, require companies and other entities involved in federal litigation to produce "electronically stored information" as part of the discovery process, when evidence is shared by both sides before a trial.

The change makes it more important for companies to know what electronic information they have and where. Under the new rules, an information technology employee who routinely copies over a backup computer tape could be committing the equivalent of "virtual shredding," said Alvin F. Lindsay, a partner at Hogan & Hartson LLP and expert on technology and litigation.

James Wright, director of electronic discovery at Halliburton Co., said that large companies are likely to face higher costs from organizing their data to comply with the rules. In addition to e-mail, companies will need to know about things more difficult to track, like digital photos of work sites on employee cell phones and information on removable memory cards, he said.

Both federal and state courts have increasingly been requiring the production of relevant electronic documents during discovery, but the new rules codify the practice, legal experts said.

The rules also require that lawyers provide information about where their clients' electronic data is stored and how accessible it is much earlier in a lawsuit than was previously the case.

There are hundreds of "e-discovery vendors" and these businesses raked in approximately $1.6 billion in 2006, Wright said. That figure could double in 2007, he added.

Another expense will likely stem from the additional time lawyers will have to spend reviewing electronic documents before turning them over to the other side. While the amount of data will be narrowed by electronic searches, some high-paid lawyers will still have to sift through casual e-mails about subjects like "office birthday parties in the pantry" in order to find information relevant to a particular case.

Martha Dawson, a partner at the Seattle-based law firm of Preston Gates & Ellis LLP who specializes in electronic discovery, said the burden of the new rules won't be that great.

Companies will not have to alter how they retain their electronic documents, she said, but will have to do an "inventory of their IT system" in order to know better where the documents are.

The new rules also provide better guidance on how electronic evidence is to be handled in federal litigation, including guidelines on how companies can seek exemptions from providing data that isn't "reasonably accessible," she said. This could actually reduce the burden of electronic discovery, she said.