Viked from lupabitch, a link to one of her own articles:

http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usor&c=words&id=12693

http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/justbecause.shtml

Stolen from dolmena to bookmark for those days, like today, when I need to be reminded of this.

7/8708

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Today's mission: Declutter plastic food storage containers.

Did you do it?

I've been doing some more research on the situation with FISA, the NSA and the Telecoms, and found that there are actually two separate issues involved in the matter, but because most of the players are the same in each case, they generally get lumped into a single issue.

The primary difference between the issues is that one involves completely indiscriminate and warrantless interception and analyziation of domestic communications via the Internet or telephone system (both landline and mobile.) The other is warrantless wiretapping that is supposed to be targeted only at foreign communications coming in to the US. The issues regarding FISA I covered in my post about it a couple days ago, but I wanted to specifically address the issue of domestic surveillance, because that's the one that impacts all of us who use the Internet, send IMs, use mobile phones or pretty much any other form of electronic communications technology.

There's been a lot of discussion about the idea that the government needs to be able to spy on whomever in order to protect us from possible terrorist attacks. The justification for this violation of our rights has constantly been that we can't afford another 9/11. The thing is, court papers filed in regards to a lawsuit show that the NSA began intercepting and analysing domestic communications 7 months PRIOR to 9/11 - putting the start of the surveillance at about 6 weeks after the Bush admin took office. Obviously, violating our rights didn't do a damn thing to protect us from the attacks then, yet we're constantly being told that that's exactly what this and the FISA warrantless wiretaps will do.

In November, a recently retired AT&T employee was interviewed by the Washington Post and presented them with documents (most likely the same ones referred to in the court papers mentioned above) showing the scope of the operation [Emphasis mine]:

His first inkling that something was amiss came in summer 2002 when he opened the door to admit a visitor from the National Security Agency to an office of AT&T in San Francisco.

"What the heck is the NSA doing here?" Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician, said he asked himself.

A year or so later, he stumbled upon documents that, he said, nearly caused him to fall out of his chair. The documents, he said, show that the NSA gained access to massive amounts of e-mail and search and other Internet records of more than a dozen global and regional telecommunications providers. AT&T allowed the agency to hook into its network at a facility in San Francisco and, according to Klein, many of the other telecom companies probably knew nothing about it.

[...]

The plain-spoken, bespectacled Klein, 62, said he may be the only person in the country in a position to discuss firsthand knowledge of an important aspect of the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program. He is retired, so he isn't worried about losing his job. He did not have security clearance, and the documents in his possession were not classified, he said. He has no qualms about "turning in," as he put it, the company where he worked for 22 years until he retired in 2004.

"If they've done something massively illegal and unconstitutional -- well, they should suffer the consequences," Klein said. "It's not my place to feel bad for them. They made their bed, they have to lie in it. The ones who did [anything wrong], you can be sure, are high up in the company. Not the average Joes, who I enjoyed working with."

In an interview yesterday, he alleged that the NSA set up a system that vacuumed up Internet and phone-call data from ordinary Americans with the cooperation of AT&T . Contrary to the government's depiction of its surveillance program as aimed at overseas terrorists, Klein said, much of the data sent through AT&T to the NSA was purely domestic. Klein said he believes that the NSA was analyzing the records for usage patterns as well as for content.

He said the NSA built a special room to receive data streamed through an AT&T Internet room containing "peering links," or major connections to other telecom providers. The largest of the links delivered 2.5 gigabits of data -- the equivalent of one-quarter of the Encyclopedia Britannica's text -- per second, said Klein, whose documents and eyewitness account form the basis of one of the first lawsuits filed against the telecom giants after the government's warrantless-surveillance program was reported in the New York Times in December 2005.

[...]

In summer 2002, Klein was working in an office responsible for Internet equipment when an NSA representative arrived to interview a management-level technician for a special job whose details were secret.

"That's when my antennas started to go up," he said. He knew that the NSA was supposed to work on overseas signals intelligence.

The job entailed building a "secret room" in an AT&T office 10 blocks away, he said. By coincidence, in October 2003, Klein was transferred to that office and assigned to the Internet room. He asked a technician there about the secret room on the 6th floor, and the technician told him it was connected to the Internet room a floor above. The technician, who was about to retire, handed him some wiring diagrams.

"That was my 'aha!' moment," Klein said. "They're sending the entire Internet to the secret room."

The diagram showed splitters, glass prisms that split signals from each network into two identical copies. One fed into the secret room, the other proceeded to its destination, he said.

"This splitter was sweeping up everything, vacuum-cleaner-style," he said. "The NSA is getting everything. These are major pipes that carry not just AT&T's customers but everybody's."

One of Klein's documents listed links to 16 entities, including Global Crossing, a large provider of voice and data services in the United States and abroad; UUNet, a large Internet provider in Northern Virginia now owned by Verizon; Level 3 Communications, which provides local, long-distance and data transmission in the United States and overseas; and more familiar names such as Sprint and Qwest. It also included data exchanges MAE-West and PAIX, or Palo Alto Internet Exchange, facilities where telecom carriers hand off Internet traffic to each other.

"I flipped out," he said. "They're copying the whole Internet. There's no selection going on here. Maybe they select out later, but at the point of handoff to the government, they get everything."

Regrettably, with Congress on the verge of passing the new FISA bill - with it's provision that gives both retroactive and future immunity to the telecoms for any civil action arising out of their assisting the government in these spying program (and as I understand it, it would grant them this immunization for any situation, not just the foreign wiretapping,) it's unlikely we'll ever find out much more about what was - or is - being done. One thing we do know, however is that AT&T has, in court, authenticated the documents Klein has, meaning that we *know for a fact* that they have actually been doing this. It's not a hypothetical.

What really gets me is that I've been trying to keep up on this issue, and it's only now that I've stumbled across a few scattered news stories that I'm getting a clearer understanding of the extent of the program and the fact that it started prior to the 9/11 attacks. People who *aren't* paying attention, will only hear the demands that the government *must* have this ability to listen in to what we're saying, copy all of our phone and internet traffic and send it to computers to analyze it for patterns and possible reasons for suspicion to save us from 9/11 - and they'll never know that 9/11 had absolutely NOTHING to do with it. They just wanted to be able to know what everyone is saying.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the lead counsel on the lawsuits currently in the courts (the ones the new FISA legislation is intended to quash) and they have a lot of very good, solid information on what's happening. This is a summary of key points from a .pdf flyer that details the government's arguments as to why this retroactive immunity is needed, and points out how each point is either false, misleading or can be addressed through legislation that would not violate our rights.

1) The illegal spying that AT&T seeks immunity for is massive, ongoing, and includes domestic communications and their content in violation of multiple statutes.

Non-classified information brought forward by a whistleblower with first-hand knowledge, and authenticated in court by AT&T itself, makes clear that for years on end every e-mail, every text message, and every phone call carried over the massive fiber optic links of sixteen separate companies routed through AT&T’s Internet hub in San Francisco — hundreds of millions of private, domestic communications — have been illegally copied in their entirety by AT&T and knowingly diverted wholesale into a secret room controlled by the NSA. The same evidence makes clear that the secret room in San Francisco — one of a half-dozen in numerous locations documented by the whistleblower — was stocked with immensely powerful computer equipment capable of reviewing every word of every message, and even of identifying individual voices in real time. This wholesale copying of domestic customer communications to the NSA was and is unequivocally illegal and has been so for decades under FISA, the Wiretap Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the Communications Act, as well as under the Fourth Amendment. Congress is now being asked, in effect, to gut these laws and, with them, the privacy of millions of Americans.

2) Solidly adverse federal court rulings to date have given AT&T and other major phone companies powerful incentives to ask Congress to end the pending lawsuits.

Here’s what Judge Walker has already ruled in Hepting v. AT&T:

“The compromise between liberty and security remains a difficult one. But dismissing this case at the outset would sacrifice liberty for no apparent enhancement
of security.” (rejecting the Government’s argument that the case should be dismissed because the very subject matter of the case is a state secret) “AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal.” (rejecting AT&T’s argument that it should be immune from prosecution because it reasonably believed that the wholesale diversion to the NSA of millions of domestic communications was lawful)

3) As the detailed chart on the reverse makes plain, every argument for blanket retroactive amnesty that has been advanced is either groundless, or can be addressed through appropriately tailored legislation. Congress can and must strike such a balance.

Most significantly, neither public safety, the nation’s future intelligence needs, the magnitude of potential company liability, nor the ability of telephone companies to fully defend themselves require Congress to strip Federal courts of the privacy protection responsibilities expressly entrusted to them by Congress in at least four major telecommunications privacy statutes (FISA, and the Communications, Wiretap, and Electronic Communications Privacy Acts).

They also point out [Emphasis mine]:

Reporting from every major American media outlet and undisputed whistleblower evidence show that AT&T and other phone companies were complicit in the NSA's warrantless surveillance. This included the records and full content of the private domestic communications of millions of ordinary Americans. The President and the phone companies hid this information from Congress and the American people for at least six years.

These actions violated at least four major privacy laws that have protected Americans' privacy for over 30 years. The laws deliberately and specifically require telephone companies to safeguard the privacy of their customers communications, especially when the government seeks to access them. The violation of these laws is at the core of almost forty pending lawsuits against AT&T, Verizon, MCI, Sprint and other telephone companies. These lawsuits have been consolidated before Judge Vaughn Walker in California.

At the EFF site, you can also read the testimony of Mark Klein, the former AT&T technician who obtained the documents, and of expert witness J. Scott Marcus, a former Senior Advisor for Internet Technology at the FCC. The complete declaration of Mark Klein is available at http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/SER_klein_decl.pdf. The declaration of J. Scott Marcus is available at http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/SER_marcus_decl.pdf.

...who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.

How do you know that she is a witch?

We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune we take it in turns to act as a sort of an executive officer of the week, but all acts of that executive must be ratified at a biweekly committee...

I'm French, why else do you think I have this outrageous accent?...

Now go away or I shall taunt you for a second time!

Wot? Held under the dorsal guiding feathers?

Why not?

Wednesday marks the start of Neos Alexandria's weekly devotional ritual. Basically, our members will be coming together and doing ritual to honor our gods each Wednesday. Additionally, we'll be offering prayers on behalf of the community and anyone else who asks. If you'd like to participate along with us, we've provided two ritual templates (here and here) which can be adapted, or you could just do your own thing on this date, but add in some prayers on behalf of the community. If you would like to be added to my list of prayers, drop me a line before Wednesday. (Write to me privately: I can't gurantee I'll be checking the comments here in time.)

This makes me just furious! I written a number of posts about Elizabeth Fritzl, the Austrian woman who's father held her captive. I has assumed that because so much information was being given out - some of it which pretty obviously had to come from doctors and therapists, and some from the police - that she'd given consent for people to discuss what had happened to her. As such, I saw no problem in writing and commenting on the situation myself.

Apparently, that's not the case:

Fritzl incest victim may sue over media reports
Published Date: 07 July 2008

By Allan Hall in Berlin

CELLAR incest victim Elisabeth Fritzl is threatening legal action against the police and her own doctors after learning at the weekend of the media reports about her plight.

She wrote a letter to authorities stating: "I require that no data or discussions about what took place in the cellar are passed on to any media.

"It must be the task of the state to prevent exposing that which the Fritzls endured. I want to live in freedom with my children."

Isolated from the media storm which broke when she and three of six children she had by her own father in a cellar dungeon underneath his home were freed in April, Elisabeth, 42, now realises the extent of the interest her case has drawn. The authorities have offered new identities to Elisabeth and her children.

Josef Fritzl, 74, is now in jail awaiting trial on numerous unspecified charges.

Eva Platz, her lawyer, said Elisabeth is "horrified" that police and other authorities have released so many details about her ordeal which contravenes Austria's Draconian personal privacy laws.

She said she will take "judicial steps" to prevent any more information about her plight being published.

I don't even know what to say. This family is just starting to get to know each other, and to a great extent who they are - and now, because these people in whom she had put her trust thought everyone needed to know their business, they're likely going to have to start all over again, and try to figure out how to live in such a way that people won't be able to figure out their new identity. To me, it seems almost like going back into a prison - not a physical one, obviously, but a prison that will be built on lies: New names, an invented background story, having to teach your children to lie everyday about who they are and where they came from. Honestly, I hope she does sue and is able to win enough to relocate maybe to an entirely different country - IF that's what she wants or feels is best - so that she and her children can live out their lives in peace.

Unfortunately, it may not always work. I've read about people who are now trying to discover the new identities of the two boys who had brutally killed Jamie Bolger, as they're not out of prison (ugh!) and there was a case in Australia many years ago where two friends had killed one of the girls' mother - the movie "Heavenly Creatures" was based on it - and they were given new identities when they left prison. Many years later, people decided to try and track them down, and actually revealed that one had gone on to become a mystery writer and the other a teacher. I have to admit, I don't feel too sorry for any of them - they're murderers, and I just don't have any pity to waste on them. But it shows that even decades after an incident has occurred, if something happens to bring it back into public attention (much as Natasha, the Austrian girl who had been kidnapped by a man and held in his dungeon for 8 years, has had her case thrust back into the spotlight because of the Fritzl situation,) then people will want to go out and find out "whatever happened to...."

I can't unwrite what I've already written, but I am going to make those posts private and this will be the last thing I have to say on the case. I hope the same will hold true for the doctors, therapists and other authorities that have been putting out informatoin as well.

Link to FLYLady

Today's mission: Scrub the kitchen countertops back to front.

Did you do it?

Link to FLYLady

This week's official FLYLady zone is The Kitchen.

Are you working this zone or, if you have your own custom zone, where are you working this week?

If you get a moment, take a look around and think about what you might need to accomplish. Regardless of what else you do or don't do, is there something in that area that needs taking care of, clearing off, decluttering, some kind of attention?

Got goals?

Roman Moronie rules!

I love Johnie Dangerously

Frankly, I have never considered myself a good candidate for them anyways. The dietary changes have been being made, and are continuing to be made (I have severely limited the amounts and frequency of carbohydrates, and have also made other changes in my dietary choices - the one thing I have to work on MORE is actually remembering to eat more than 1 meal per day - since a major part of things is that my body is used to only eating once per day, and therefore has a "starvation metabolism" process).

I exercise, but I know I need to add further exercises to the bunch - including some more low impact aerobic exercises.

However, I keep having these people push the different bariatric surgeries on me - because they think that anyone who is fat would lose the weight if they just "ate less" - honey, if I ate less, I wouldn't eat at all.

But, starting with finding out that Jared (of Subway fame) died at 31, not of heart disease or other problems, but from complications from the bariatric surgery that he underwent in order to LOSE the weight, I have been looking a little bit further into it. Even though I found out recently that this was actually a HOAX - the issues in regards to the surgeries are not.

And this post, simply underscores my lack of interest in committing myself to going under the knife like this.

Talk to me after the 5 year "honeymoon" - most weight loss regimens have a horrible tendency to be only short term, with a large percentage of those who have lost weight regaining anywhere from most of the lost weight to MORE than the lost weight. And it doesn't have to do with them not changing their lifestyle, or not having the willpower.

So, frankly, leave me alone about the bariatric surgeries - I'm not interested. Offering me free (or barter) qi gong or tai chi classes? That might work. Offering me free swimming at an Olympic sized pool that actually has a "deep end" - I'll damned near run you over getting there. Just quit trying to push the damn surgeries on me. You want to offer me surgery? Offer me plastic surgery for certain body parts that tend to not lose the weight, or are harder to "tone" if you have been large all your life (things like the double chin or the "upper arm wings").

Some might disagree but I found Seaquest DSV to be a pleasure to watch. And while I'm not a Roy Scheider fan, per se (don't dislike him, just don't go fangirly over him) but this was a Ted Raimi show, too, and who doesn't love Ted Raimi, huh? And it was created by Rockne O'Banon and I'll just let you read his credits at IMDB to understand why that's impressive. And was produced by Steven Spielberg. And lasted for three seasons. And I can't find affordable DVDs anywhere.

I also can't find UFO anywhere. But that one I don't expect to find DVDs anywhere. It's from the seventies? sixties? It's old. But it was great fun.

Still searching for "Space: 1999" on DVD.

And on that note, I think I need to go do something productive today....

but it does require that you have already seen the "Doctor Who" season four finale. Which is why it's not on Live Journal but only on Teaspoon. Go ahead, if you aren't going to be spoilered. Read it. You know you want to.