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video of the event: video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1903467361828816441
The panel was joined by Washington State Senator Eric Oemig, who has sponsored a bill (SMJ 8016) calling for an investigation of the grounds for impeaching President Bush. See Oemig Video.
from left: Senator Eric Oemig, Dave Lindorff, Ray McGovern, and Elizabeth de la Vega
[update february 2008:
text of SJM 8016 2008 substitute bill: apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=8016&year=...
S-4418.1 _____________________________________________
SUBSTITUTE SENATE JOINT MEMORIAL 8016
_____________________________________________
State of Washington 60th Legislature 2008 Regular Session
By Senate Government Operations & Elections (originally sponsored by
Senators Oemig, Regala, Kohl-Welles, Kline, Spanel, Fairley,
Kauffman, Fraser, and Prentice)
READ FIRST TIME 01/22/08.
1 TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF
2 REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
3 UNITED STATES, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED:
4 We, your Memorialists, the Senate and House of Representatives of
5 the State of Washington, in legislative session assembled, respectfully
6 represent and petition as follows:
7 WHEREAS, The citizens of Washington State expect and require their
8 highest elected officials be subject to the laws of the land, like any
9 citizen, and uphold the constitutional oath taken by them upon assuming
10 office; and
11 WHEREAS, In 2001, the President signed a secret executive order
12 authorizing warrantless surveillance of American citizens in direct
13 conflict with the United States Constitution and United States law; and
14 WHEREAS, The President both demonstrated knowledge of the law he
15 was breaking, and lied about breaking the law by stating on April 20,
16 2004, ". . . a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by
17 the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're
18 talking about getting a court order before we do so."; and
19 WHEREAS, The President again demonstrated knowledge of the law he
20 was breaking and again lied about his lawlessness by stating on July
p. 1 SSJM 8016
1 20, 2005, "Law enforcement officers need a federal judge's permission
2 to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, or to track his calls, or to
3 search his property. Officers must meet strict standards to use any of
4 the tools we're talking about."; and
5 WHEREAS, This unwarranted and unlawful, and seemingly
6 unconstitutional surveillance program is still being used to spy on
7 American citizens; and
8 WHEREAS, The President's authorization and subsequent lies about an
9 unwarranted, unlawful, and apparently unconstitutional surveillance
10 program would seem to constitute an impeachable offense; and
11 WHEREAS, United States and International law forbid invading a
12 foreign country without provocation; and
13 WHEREAS, On September 16, 2004, the Secretary General of the United
14 Nations Kofi Annan, commented on the United States invasion of Iraq by
15 stating: "It was not in conformity with the United Nations charter.
16 From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was
17 illegal."; and
18 WHEREAS, In October 2002, Congress authorized the President to use
19 his discretion to decide whether or not to use force against Iraq; and
20 WHEREAS, The President and Vice President misled Congress and the
21 American people about the potential threat of Iraq; and
22 WHEREAS, The President and Vice President were either deliberately
23 deceitful or willfully ignorant about the potential threat of Iraq; and
24 WHEREAS, On March 19, 2003, the President, acting on his sole
25 discretion, ordered the illegal invasion of Iraq, according to his
26 letter to Congress dated March 21, 2003, stating "I directed United
27 States Armed Forces, operating with other coalition forces, to commence
28 combat operations on March 19, 2003, against Iraq."; and
29 WHEREAS, Misleading the Congress and the American people to justify
30 invading another country in direct violation of International and
31 United States laws would seem to constitute an impeachable act; and
32 WHEREAS, The President, acting with the support of the Vice
33 President and the former Attorney General who resigned under threat of
34 impeachment, authorized the abusive treatment of prisoners; and
35 WHEREAS, When Congress sought to reaffirm the United States
36 prohibition on torture by passing a 2005 antitorture law, the President
37 signed the law with a signing statement that effectively states that
38 the President has the right to torture at his discretion because, "The
SSJM 8016 p. 2
1 executive branch shall construe . . . the Act, relating to detainees,
2 in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the
3 President to supervise the unitary executive branch . . ."; and
4 WHEREAS, The abusive techniques authorized by the President were
5 committed during an armed conflict; and
6 WHEREAS, The abusive techniques authorized by the President have
7 previously been classified as torture and prosecuted as a war crime by
8 the United States; and
9 WHEREAS, International law defines torture during an armed conflict
10 as a war crime; and
11 WHEREAS, In 1947 the United States charged a Japanese officer,
12 Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a United States
13 civilian; and
14 WHEREAS, International law defines that a commander involved in
15 ordering, allowing, or insufficiently preventing and prosecuting a war
16 crime is criminally liable under the Command Responsibility doctrine;
17 and
18 WHEREAS, The President appears to be guilty of war crimes by simple
19 application of the Command Responsibility doctrine to the publicly
20 known facts; and
21 WHEREAS, Illegally authorizing torture in violation of United
22 States and International laws, and committing war crimes would seem to
23 constitute an impeachable offense; and
24 WHEREAS, Based on the overwhelming evidence that has been presented
25 to the American people as established in this resolution, numerous
26 grounds for impeachment appear to exist; and
27 WHEREAS, Such offenses, if committed, are subversive of
28 constitutional government to the great prejudice of the cause of law
29 and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of Washington
30 state and of the United States of America; and
31 WHEREAS, Petitions from the country at large may be presented by
32 the Speaker of the House of Representatives according to Clause 3 of
33 House Rule XII; and
34 WHEREAS, Jefferson's Manual section LIII, 603, states that
35 impeachment may be set in motion by charges transmitted from the
36 legislature of a state; and
37 WHEREAS, Impeachment is a process defined in the United States
p. 3 SSJM 8016
1 Constitution by which charges are brought against a President or Vice
2 President or civil officers of the United States in the House of
3 Representatives; and
4 WHEREAS, The filing of these charges is followed by a trial in the
5 United States Senate that determines guilt or innocence; and
6 WHEREAS, If the President or Vice President committed such
7 offenses, ignoring these offenses would undermine core American values
8 of truth and justice; and
9 WHEREAS, Failing to impeach the President and Vice President if
10 they have committed such offenses would signal tacit approval of these
11 activities and sanction their use by future administrations; and
12 WHEREAS, Failing to impeach the President and Vice President simply
13 because they are serving their second term would signal future
14 administrations that any high crime or misdemeanor, if committed or
15 covered up until their second term, will be tolerated until an upcoming
16 election; and
17 WHEREAS, Freedom and liberty, and the laws and the Constitution of
18 the United States of America can only be protected by Americans; and
19 WHEREAS, America has only until January 20, 2009, to signal to
20 history that America will not sanction torture, America will not
21 sanction unprovoked war, and America will not sanction illegal spying;
22 and
23 WHEREAS, America will defend herself from all enemies foreign and
24 domestic; and
25 WHEREAS, America will protect the integrity of the Constitution and
26 the Executive branch; and
27 WHEREAS, We, your Memorialists, have each sworn an oath to protect
28 the United States Constitution;
29 NOW, THEREFORE, Your Memorialists exhort our Representatives in the
30 United States Congress to charge President George W. Bush and Vice
31 President Richard B. Cheney with the above offenses and commence a full
32 investigation and trial in the United States Senate; and
33 BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately
34 transmitted to the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker
35 of the House of Representatives, and each member of Congress.
--- END ---
SSJM 8016 p. 4
Room with a View
Awesome view of Mill Mountain out of these corner windows. I want to turn this building into condos. Seems like such a waste.
Undisclosed warehouse
Roanoke, Virginia
2007
Rally and March in Washington DC Against Mass Surveillance, October 26, 2013. Dennis Kucinich speaking.
THE NEW NORMAL brings together thirteen recent artworks that use private information as raw material and subject matter. The concept of privacy, though widely invoked, is difficult to define. The private sphere encompasses domestic spaces, bodies, thoughts, communications, and behaviors—contexts that are usually rendered inaccessible to the public eye by legal, social, and physical boundaries. The practices that demarcate the private sphere are so much a part of the fabric of everyday life—wearing clothing, politely pretending not to overhear a cell-phone conversation— that they only become noticeable when they shift, making the private sphere visible to the public eye. Privacy, to put it bluntly, captures our attention only when it is under threat.
In the wake of 9/11, the specter of terrorism was used to justify increased collection and sharing of personal data by governments around the world. This time of heightened surveillance, characterized by luggage searches, Internet monitoring, and wiretaps, was dubbed “the new normal” by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.
The spread of social technology has affected privacy no less profoundly. With the rise of online commerce, many banks and retailers have developed sophisticated methods of tracking and studying the behavior of consumers, while increased use of the Internet has created new platforms for voluntary self-disclosure, from blogs to MySpace. Private information has never been less private, as evinced by Kota Ezawa’s Home Video II, made from “leaked” video files of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s honeymoon,widely available on the Web. Each of the works in The New Normal—video, Web sites, sculpture, artist’s books, found objects, and photographs—grants access to the private sphere of the artists themselves, of strangers, and of public officials. Overall, the exhibition creates a sense that access to private information is a kind of currency, the exchange of which is growing and evolving in bewildering ways. We may find it frightening or fascinating, but we are all inescapably complicit in it.
The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue co-published with Artists Space, New York, and Huarte Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Huarte, Spain, with essays by guest curator Michael Connor, Clay Shirky and Marisa Olson.
Residential building on Kudrinskaya square (Building on Uprising square) - a high-rise building in Moscow, one of the «Stalin's skyscrapers» («Seven Sisters»)
Built in 1948-1954 years. designed by architects MV Posokhin, AA Mndoyants and designer MN Vohomskogo.
The building consists of a central (24 floors, the height of the tower and spire - 156 meters) and side buildings (18 residential floors) constituting a single structural array, based on the total ground floor.
On the first and ground floors of the building were originally shops and a cinema "Flame" (currently not working), in the basement - underground garages.
Skyscraper popularly called the «House of aviators», because the apartment was given to the workers the aviation industry (in particular, employees of the Tupolev design Bureau) and the test pilot, but, of course, among the tenants there were many party activists.
Said that, when opened near the US Embassy, the top two floors were settled. There KGB installed equipment for wiretapping, and from there to "watch" for Americans.
Sculptures on the facade of the building symbolize creativity, defense, and labor of the Soviet citizens.
I had the privilege to see and hear Senator Rand Paul today at Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Newbury Park, California
Frost/Nixon - Alternative Movie Poster
Original illustration - posters, prints and many other products available at:
ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA. Sorry Virgi, the honeymoon is over! Either wake-up and smell the cappuccino & the cornetto or resign. The Romans are feed up: with the streets filled with trash, potholes, the rats, the incompetence and corruption. ANSA (18/04/2019).
ROMA - Raggi shd [should] quit if wiretaps true - Confession of serious crime, admission of inability to govern. ANSA (18/04/2019).
(ANSA) - Rome, April 18 - Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi should quit if the content of new published wiretaps turns out to be true, League Minister for Regional Affairs Erika Stefani said Thursday. Stefani said that, if true, the wiretaps would amount to "the confession of a serious crime and a clear admission of a flagrant inability to govern".
"In line with the rules of her 5-Star Movement we expect her immediate resignation". In wiretaps published by L'Espresso weekly, Raggi allegedly leans on the former CEO of Rome waste company AMA, Lorenzo Bagnacani, to push the firm's accounts into the red.
Fonte | source:
-- ANSA (18/04/2019).
www.ansa.it/english/news/politics/2019/04/18/raggi-shd-qu...
Foto | fonte | source:
-- edoardo baraldi. “UN AMORE DI PREMIER.” FLICKR (Sept. 09, 2016).
www.flickr.com/photos/edoardobaraldi/29485476251/
S.v.,
-- ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA. DEGRADO - Mayor Raggi: "The Romans look out and see shit” - Vacanze pasquali, ecco cosa vede il turista che sbarca a Roma. Corriere Della Sera (21/04/2019); S.v., The Guardian, U.K. (19/04/2019) & La Repubblica (13/12/2018). S.v., L’Espresso (18/04/2019) & Virginia Raggi | Facebook (18/04/2019). wp.me/pPRv6-4Y5
-- ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA. Mayor Virginia Raggi: "The Romans look out and see shit” & "Rome is out of control.” L’Espresso (18/04/2019) & Virginia Raggi | Facebook (18/04/2019). wp.me/pPRv6-4XV
Residential building on Kudrinskaya square (Building on Uprising square) - a high-rise building in Moscow, one of the «Stalin's skyscrapers» («Seven Sisters»)
Built in 1948-1954 years. designed by architects MV Posokhin, AA Mndoyants and designer MN Vohomskogo.
The building consists of a central (24 floors, the height of the tower and spire - 156 meters) and side buildings (18 residential floors) constituting a single structural array, based on the total ground floor.
On the first and ground floors of the building were originally shops and a cinema "Flame" (currently not working), in the basement - underground garages.
Skyscraper popularly called the «House of aviators», because the apartment was given to the workers the aviation industry (in particular, employees of the Tupolev design Bureau) and the test pilot, but, of course, among the tenants there were many party activists.
Said that, when opened near the US Embassy, the top two floors were settled. There KGB installed equipment for wiretapping, and from there to "watch" for Americans.
Sculptures on the facade of the building symbolize creativity, defense, and labor of the Soviet citizens.
I was already making more macros of printed circuit boards. This has in the past always worked quite well, but as close as here I am never approached due to the then low depth of field, it lacked the viewer just a lot of information about the board.
In these images, I've done two things differently:
Setup as shown us by Tilo Gockel (Thanks Tilo, cool idea!) Supplemented with slight brightening by a flash with blue gel. So I wanted to make the PCB a bit upbeat.
Then 15-20 photos made with migratory sharpness, which were afterwards rendered with a Stacking software into a single image.
So beautiful can electronic waste be
I find especially the blurry photos quite aesthetically.
Here's some examples (with making-of).
If you want to take a look to my spin doctor, voila: www.flickr.com/photos/galllo/14347373239
A screenshot of my main desktop from May, 2005, featuring a photo of Duran Duran from their recent UK press junket, with minor editing/fancying-up by me.
(No not all of my desktops are/will be Duran related. I'm just in a mood.)
In this video we discuss with you our The DPL-TATD offers more levels of protection than any other device of it's kind. Six levels of protection deactivate, neutralize, monitor, and alert you to eavesdropping attempts. Both "on hook" and "off hook" line voltages are constantly displayed, alerting you to any type of equipment or "bug" that has been added to your phone line.
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www.dpl-surveillance-equipment.com/811114889.html
Also, join us on Twitter: twitter.com/dplsurve (DPLSURVE)
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Buy, rent or lease the same state-of-the-art surveillance and security equipment Detectives, PI's, the CIA and FBI use. Take back control!
"Not all new tactics in combating terrorism in the United States were based on existing laws. “In electronic surveillance, you did have a big change,” said John C. Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who became known for his aggressive legal advice and expansive view of executive power as a Justice Department official in the Bush administration.
In 2002, for instance, a special federal appeals court, the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, granted the Justice Department broad new powers to use wiretaps obtained for intelligence operations in criminal cases. “This revolutionizes our ability to investigate terrorists and prosecute terrorist acts,” Mr. Ashcroft said at the time.
After revelations concerning the warrantless wiretapping of international communications, Congress largely endorsed the program. Those legal changes, joined with striking advances in technology, have allowed the government broad ability to gather information.
“The Fourth Amendment has been seriously diluted,” said Professor Herman, who teaches at Brooklyn Law School. She added that she was struck by “the amount of surveillance that’s been unleashed with less and less judicial review and less and less individualized suspicion.”
Both the Bush and Obama administrations have been criticized by liberals as employing excessive secrecy and, in particular, for invoking the state secrets privilege to shut down civil litigation challenging things like rendition and surveillance programs. By international standards, though, the public has learned a great deal about secret government activities.
“That so many of the abuses committed by the executive in the wake of 9/11 have come to light is another sign of American exceptionalism,” Professor Roach wrote, “as manifested by the activities of a free press that is unrestrained by official secrets acts found in most other democracies.”
Opinions vary about whether efforts to fight terrorism in the United States have inflicted collateral damage on political dissent, religious liberty and the freedom of association.
“If you look at it historically,” said Professor Yoo, “you might say, ‘I can’t believe we’re at war,’ when you see how much speech is going on. Civil liberties are far more protected than what we’ve seen in past wars.”
Professor Cole was less sanguine.
“Since 9/11, the criminal law has expanded, ensnaring as ‘terrorists’ people who have done no more than provide humanitarian aid to needy families, while privacy and political freedoms have contracted, especially for those in Muslim communities,” he said. “On the one hand, the past 10 years have shown that criminal law can be used effectively to fight terrorism; on the other, it has also demonstrated that the demand for prevention can all too quickly lead to the abuse of innocents.”
- www.nytimes.com/2011/09/07/us/sept-11-reckoning/civil.htm...
Obama controls the Illusion of Freedom in his Zero Matrix by
NSA and “Illegal Wiretaps We Can Belieive In”
SOPA/PIPA, H.R. 3261/S.968 died in 2012 after the Internet Blackout of Jan 18th yet, Obama wants to make streaming of copyrighted works a felony - Government Control of Free Speech by Blocking Websites.
SOPA's evil twin, ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), was signed October 1st, 2011. The International Treaty bypasses the sovereign laws of participating nations in effort to protect intellectual property rights by threatening access to the internet and free speech on the internet.
On June 7, 2011, President Barack Obama appointed Dr. Azizah Yahia Muhammad Toufiq al-Hibri, Founder and Chair of KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights, to a two-year term on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
Azizah Al-Hibri, Obama's Bridge to Islam, boldly stated “Islamic (Sharia) Law is deeper and better than Western (American) codes of law.”
Stimulus: Banksters reward Tim 'Turbotax' Geithner for helping his Bankster Buddies recover from the financial crisis they created and the Federal Reserve will buy $85 billion a month in bonds until January 2014 when they will reduce the Stimulus to $75 billion a month.
Frost/Nixon - Alternative Movie Poster
Original illustration - posters, prints and many other products available at:
(Photo Illustration: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t)
This image was paired with the story:
Senate Panel Extends Controversial Patriot Act Provisions
by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | Report
Adapted from:
*The Generative Adversarial Network* is a series of products that pay homage to the gadgets that we all buy, own and love: the latest smartphone, wearable, IoT enabled home-automating wiretap.
Credit: tom mesic
Residential building on Kudrinskaya square (Building on Uprising square) - a high-rise building in Moscow, one of the «Stalin's skyscrapers» («Seven Sisters»)
Built in 1948-1954 years. designed by architects MV Posokhin, AA Mndoyants and designer MN Vohomskogo.
The building consists of a central (24 floors, the height of the tower and spire - 156 meters) and side buildings (18 residential floors) constituting a single structural array, based on the total ground floor.
On the first and ground floors of the building were originally shops and a cinema "Flame" (currently not working), in the basement - underground garages.
Skyscraper popularly called the «House of aviators», because the apartment was given to the workers the aviation industry (in particular, employees of the Tupolev design Bureau) and the test pilot, but, of course, among the tenants there were many party activists.
Said that, when opened near the US Embassy, the top two floors were settled. There KGB installed equipment for wiretapping, and from there to "watch" for Americans.
Sculptures on the facade of the building symbolize creativity, defense, and labor of the Soviet citizens.
Photo by Gail Johnson
I spent 5 hours on the Campus of the Washington State Capitol today lobbying for the passage of a memorial bill that would pressure the US Congress to begin investigations into impeachable offenses allegedly committed by members of the Bush Administration.
Thank you to all of the courageous legislators, especially lead sponsors Senator Eric Oemig (SJM 8016) and Representative Maralyn Chase (HJM 4027), who have worked hard on this issue and who support an initiative on impeachment investigations in the Washington State Legislature.
This is not a partisan issue; this is about the rule of law. It is about doing the right thing. The right thing to do is to hold our officials accountable when there is specific, substantial and credible evidence of serious misconduct.
Wiretapping without warrants (unauthorized search and seizure), conspiracy to defraud the USA in re: going to war under false pretenses (military aggression), condoning waterboarding of prisoners (torture): These are some, amongst many, reasons to investigate members of the Bush Administration for impeachable offenses.
This is a grave issue; it is the most grave issue. Millions of people are suffering because of an unjustified invasion, an act of aggression. Justice on this matter is necessary and most deserving.
I plan to have more information about today's effort posted later (stay tuned for an update). Today was interesting, informative, educational, and fun.
We need to hold our elected officials accountable to the rule of law. Why? Because the quality of our lives, and so many others depends on it.
If you're interested in reading more about the reasoning behind impeachment please read this excellent article by former House Judiciary Committee Member (during the Nixon Impeachment) Elizabeth Holtzman: www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/20080127_Judiciary_Commi...
I also had a letter to the editor published in the February 6th, 2008 edition of The Olympian: www.theolympian.com/letters/story/349953-p3.html
(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: autowitch, photophonic, rogergordon )
Image paired with the story:
Obama Pressed to Release Identity of Telecom Lobbyists
www.truthout.org/obama-pressed-release-identity-telecom-l...
Adapted from:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/autowitch/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/photophonic/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/roger_gordon/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
http://www.sunicamarkovic.com/news.html
Yahoo, Verizon: Our Spy Capabilities Would ‘Shock’, ‘Confuse’ Consumers
By Kim Zetter December 1, 2009 | 3:30 pm | Categories: Cover-Ups, Surveillance, privacy
Want to know how much phone companies and internet service providers charge to funnel your private communications or records to U.S. law enforcement and spy agencies?
That’s the question muckraker and Indiana University graduate student Christopher Soghoian asked all agencies within the Department of Justice, under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed a few months ago. But before the agencies could provide the data, Verizon and Yahoo intervened and filed an objection on grounds that, among other things, they would be ridiculed and publicly shamed were their surveillance price sheets made public.
Yahoo writes in its 12-page objection letter (.pdf), that if its pricing information were disclosed to Soghoian, he would use it “to ’shame’ Yahoo! and other companies — and to ’shock’ their customers.”
“Therefore, release of Yahoo!’s information is reasonably likely to lead to impairment of its reputation for protection of user privacy and security, which is a competitive disadvantage for technology companies,” the company writes.
Verizon took a different stance. It objected to the release (.pdf) of its Law Enforcement Legal Compliance Guide because it might “confuse” customers and lead them to think that records and surveillance capabilities available only to law enforcement would be available to them as well — resulting in a flood of customer calls to the company asking for trap and trace orders.
“Customers may see a listing of records, information or assistance that is available only to law enforcement,” Verizon writes in its letter, “but call in to Verizon and seek those same services. Such calls would stretch limited resources, especially those that are reserved only for law enforcement emergencies.”
Other customers, upon seeing the types of surveillance law enforcement can do, might “become unnecessarily afraid that their lines have been tapped or call Verizon to ask if their lines are tapped (a question we cannot answer).”
Verizon does disclose a little tidbit in its letter, saying that the company receives “tens of thousands” of requests annually for customer records and information from law enforcement agencies.
Soghoian filed his records request to discover how much law enforcement agencies — and thus U.S. taxpayers — are paying for spy documents and surveillance services with the aim of trying to deduce from this how often such requests are being made. Soghoian explained his theory on his blog, Slight Paranoia:
In the summer of 2009, I decided to try and follow the money trail in order to determine how often Internet firms were disclosing their customers’ private information to the government. I theorized that if I could obtain the price lists of each ISP, detailing the price for each kind of service, and invoices paid by the various parts of the Federal government, then I might be able to reverse engineer some approximate statistics. In order to obtain these documents, I filed Freedom of Information Act requests with every part of the Department of Justice that I could think of.
The first DoJ agency to respond to his request was the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), which indicated that it had price lists available for Cox Communications, Comcast, Yahoo and Verizon. But because the companies voluntarily provided the price lists to the government, the FOIA allows the companies an opportunity to object to the disclosure of their data under various exemptions. Comcast and Cox were fine with the disclosure, Soghoian reported.
He found that Cox Communications charges $2,500 to fulfill a pen register/trap-and-trace order for 60 days, and $2,000 for each additional 60-day-interval. It charges $3,500 for the first 30 days of a wiretap, and $2,500 for each additional 30 days. Thirty days worth of a customer’s call detail records costs $40.
Comcast’s pricing list, which was already leaked to the internet in 2007, indicated that it charges at least $1,000 for the first month of a wiretap, and $750 per month thereafter.
But Verizon and Yahoo took offense at the request.
Yahoo objected on grounds that its pricing constituted “confidential commercial information” and cited Exemption 4 of the Freedom of Information Act and the Trade Secrets Act.
Exemption 4 of the FOIA refers to the disclosure of commercial or financial information that could result in a competitive disadvantage to the company if it were publicly disclosed. The company claims its pricing is derived from labor rates for employees and overhead and, therefore, disclosing the information would provide clues to its operating costs — regardless of whether these same clues are already available in public records, such as those the company files with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company also claims that since Soghoian is trying to determine the actual amounts the Marshals Service paid Yahoo for responding to requests, the price lists are irrelevant, since “there are no standard prices for these transactions.”
But equally important to Yahoo’s objections was the potential for “criticism” and ridicule. Yahoo quoted Soghoian on his blog writing that his aim was to “use this blog to shame the corporations that continue to do harm to user online privacy.”
Yahoo also objected to the disclosure of its letter objecting to the disclosure of pricing information saying that “release of this letter would likely cause substantial competitive harm” to the company. The company added, in a veiled threat, that if the Marshals Service were to show anyone its letter objecting to the disclosure of pricing information, it could “impair the government’s ability to obtain information necessary for making appropriate decisions with regard to future FOIA requests.”
If anyone out there has a copy of Verizon or Yahoo’s law enforcement pricing list and wants to share it, feel free to use our anonymous tip address.