July 4, 10am: Restore The Fourth MA!

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Over 150 people are already coming to the rally to Restore the Fourth tomorrow in Boston. Thousands more will be rallying across the country. But this is Massachusetts. We invented the Fourth Amendment, and people will be watching Boston more than any other city tomorrow. Come with us and let the government know that we don’t need their fearmongering, and will not allow them to take our liberties.

Schedule
09:00 – 10:00: Gathering outside the Old State House in preparation for the day.
10:00 – 11:00: Listening reverently to the Declaration of Independence. Be respectful: save the protesting for after.
11:00 – 12:00: Talking with the crowds that gathered for the reading, followed by a peaceful “Cease and Desist” action at mobile stores to protest at their cooperation with the NSA. Then to Boston Common.
12:00 – 13:00: We’ll be demonstrating on the Common, as well as gathering signatures against the upcoming MA wiretapping bill. This bill aims to expand the Commonwealth’s use of electronic surveillance against its residents.
13:00 – 14:00: Make our way to Dewey Square.
14:30 – 17:00: March throughout Boston including Faneuil Hall and the Esplanade.

What to bring
Water (in clear plastic containers)
Fliers if you can print them (don’t print too many, they’ll likely get thrown away)
SIGNS. Lots of signs. Here are some ideas we came up with for some slogans.
Restore the Fourth!
No Warrant, No Search
Repeal the Patriot Act / NDAA
Don’t Spy on Me
Abolish DHS
No “Random” Searches
Save Edward Snowden
No Secret Courts

#MassWiretap Campaign Breaks 3,000 Signatures After Just 7 Days

The #MassWiretap campaign to prevent passage of a bill that would greatly loosen Massachusetts’ wiretapping laws has reached over 3,000 signatures after only seven days. And today, our partners at Demand Progress, the advocacy group founded by Aaron Swartz, have launched their part of the petition campaign. David Segal, Demand Progress’s Executive Director, had this to say:

“For this to happen less than a month after the revelations of NSA spying is an outrage. To make matters worse, the bill they’re considering wouldn’t just expand wiretapping – it also gets rid of a clause that makes privacy a crucial constraint on lawmaking. That tells us that our lawmakers know this expansion is a grave danger to our privacy, but that they don’t think that’s important anymore. Right now, Massachusetts has some of the strongest privacy protections on wiretapping. Let’s keep it that way.”

A-men!

[UPDATE] 600 new signatures from Demand Progress in the first hour of their petition!
[UPDATE x 2] Another 510 signatures by 6pm from Demand Progress and now BORDC too, takes us over 3,000!

NSA To Lawmakers: We Own You And Your Secrets

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Are you a lawmaker? Maybe, a lawmaker with aspirations for higher office? Maybe you’d like to be President someday? Do you think the NSA spying programs are just peachy because Terrorism? Well, why don’t you just punch yourself in the face right now?

Let’s you and I have a little talk about those aspirations you have, with close reference to this week’s revelations from NSA whistleblower Russ Tice, shall we?

Continue reading NSA To Lawmakers: We Own You And Your Secrets

#MassWiretap: The AG’s Office Responds

After I posted an article giving Digital Fourth’s view on the wiretapping law on Blue Mass Group, Massachusetts’ largest Democratic blog, we got some attention from Mr. Brad Puffer, Director of Communications for the Mass Attorney General’s office. They seem put out. Maybe they didn’t like the lede, “Coakley Channeling the NSA?” 🙂

The above blog post includes inaccuracies that are highly misleading about the changes our office has proposed to the currently outdated Massachusetts wiretap law. Updating the wiretap law is a critical tool to combatting gang violence, gun violence, human trafficking, and many other violent crimes that undermine public safety in our communities. And equally important to what it does, is what it does not do. One thing it does not do is alter in any way the many safeguards already put in place under the current wiretap statute to protect against abuse.

I will explain some of the benefits of this new law further below, but first want to correct some of the inaccuracies in this blog post:
1) The proposed update to the wiretap law does not legalize mass interception of telecommunication switching stations. Each wiretap must be applied for and authorized individually by a Superior Court judge.
2) Marijuana possession is not eligible for a wiretap. Only serious designated felonies in the statute would be covered. According to federal law, only crimes with a minimum one year prison sentence are eligible for a wiretap.

The current wiretap law has not been updated since 1968, back when criminal activity and technology was vastly different. In 1968, the law was focused on “organized crime.” A 2011 SJC decision that upheld the suppression of statements obtained by a wire interception during a murder investigation stated very clearly that the investigation and prosecution of some of today’s most destructive crimes, including street violence, are hampered by this antiquated statute. The SJC urged an update to the law.

The updates we seek are common-sense and concise, including:

• Bringing the law up to date with technology: The legislation acknowledges that today communication is largely electronic and wireless. By updating the definition of “wire communication,” the bill makes explicit the law’s application to cellular and text technology without tailoring the definition so narrowly as to foreclose future technological developments.
• Removing the organized crime requirement: Currently, criminal activity that is the subject of a wiretap must have a connection to organized crime. The majority of street violence and gun crimes today, though often tied to looser organizations, nevertheless lack the traditional hallmarks of organized crime.
• Including additional violent or egregious crimes as designated offenses: Prior to seeking a warrant for a wiretap, law enforcement must establish probable cause that a “designated offense,” as defined in the statute, has been committed. The current list of designated offenses does not include some of the most violent and egregious crimes that law enforcement must investigate and prosecute today—and that the Legislature has correctly passed since the law’s inception— including human trafficking; firearms offenses; and child pornography offenses.

The law also maintains extensive safeguards that already exist under current law. First, any wiretap must be requested and signed by either the elected Attorney General or District Attorney and then authorized by a Superior Court judge. The judge can only authorize a wiretap for serious felonies where there is probable cause that a designated offense has been committed, and after all other investigative techniques have been exhausted or will not be successful. There are additional safeguards that ensure that only the conversations with direct correlation to the alleged crime are recorded and then permissible in any legal action.

For all of these reasons, these updates are supported by district attorneys, police, mayors, and many other community leaders who know that the only way that we will be able to better keep our communities safe is to give our investigators effective tools, with proper safeguards, to take the most dangerous criminals off the streets.

You can find more information about the proposed bill here:
http://www.mass.gov/ago/news-and-updates/press-releases/2013/2013-01-28-wiretap-legislation.html

Sincerely,
Brad Puffer
Director of Communications
Office of Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley

Did we hit a nerve here?

Let’s take the assertions in the Puffer piece one by one.

Continue reading #MassWiretap: The AG’s Office Responds

#MassWiretap Press Release: NSA-Style Phone Tapping Coming to Massachusetts?

NSA-Style Phone Tapping Coming to Massachusetts? New alliance of civil liberties groups opposes massive expansion of Massachusetts wiretapping law

CONTACT:

Alex Marthews, President, Digital Fourth, 781 258-2936, alex@warrantless.org

The recent NSA spying scandals have rocked the DC establishment and shocked the public. However, that hasn’t stopped a new bill before the Mass. Legislature that actually loosens Massachusetts’ wiretapping laws (Mass. Gen. Laws. 272.99). Digital Fourth, a new group named in honor of the 4th Amendment, is leading a coalition of six civil liberties groups to oppose the bill, and is launching a petition campaign today.

The bill, called “An Act Updating The Wire Interception Law” (S. 654 / H. 3261), will come up for a hearing before the Judiciary Committee of the Massachusetts legislature on July 9. Its major provisions:

1) Remove the requirement that an electronic wiretapping warrant be connected with organized crime, or indeed with serious crimes more generally. Potentially, even minor crimes like marijuana possession could become eligible for wiretapping by state authorities.

2) Double the length of an authorized wiretap, from 15 to 30 days.

3) Legalize mass interception of communications at telecommunications switching stations, rather than through individual wiretaps on individual phone numbers.

Alex Marthews, founder of Digital Fourth, comments, “The mass interception provisions are especially worrying. Both the Fourth Amendment and our own state constitution’s Article XIV forbid ‘general warrants’ that tap entire streams of personal information without specifying ahead of time what’s being searched for and whose records are being searched. This bill undermines basic liberties that have served us well for over two hundred years.”

As this bill and other privacy legislation come before the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee, the nation’s eyes are on Massachusetts. Will our Legislature react to the recent terrorist attacks with panic, throwing away two centuries of our historic commitment to civil liberties? Will they allow state law enforcement the kind of Orwellian powers to track our phone calls that Congress unwisely gave to federal intelligence agencies? Or will they set an example for how Americans can roll back an increasingly intrusive surveillance state?

#MassWiretap Campaign Goes Live!

Our campaign to stop the disturbing new Massachusetts wiretapping bill launches today; sign the petition here!

If you’re interested in giving testimony to the Judiciary Committee on the bill, please contact Gavi Wolfe of the ACLU here.

Our thanks go to our partner organizations: the ACLU of Massachusetts, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Demand Progress, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, and our experts at Social Movement Technologies who put the petition together.

Restore The Fourth protest on July 4

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Angry at the NSA spying scandals? Believe that the government should actually follow the Constitution? Then come to a Restore The Fourth protest on Boston Common this July 4. This is being organized through Reddit and Facebook.

Ray of Light in Massachusetts: Supreme Judicial Court Rules in Commonwealth v. Rousseau that GPS Tracking Requires Probable Cause, Mere Fact of Surveillance Establishes Standing

In a week of devastating disclosures about government surveillance, here’s one ray of light.

The ACLU of Massachusetts reports the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court‘s verdict in Commonwealth v. Rousseau. In separate trials, John Rousseau and Michael Dreslinski were each convicted of four charges relating to a spree of burning and vandalizing properties. As part of their case, law enforcement had obtained a warrant to place a GPS tracker on Dreslinski’s truck for 15 days, which was then renewed twice. Two issues came up: whether GPS tracking needed a warrant anyway, and whether Rousseau had standing to challenge the warrant as he had no property interest in Dreslinski’s car.

Continue reading Ray of Light in Massachusetts: Supreme Judicial Court Rules in Commonwealth v. Rousseau that GPS Tracking Requires Probable Cause, Mere Fact of Surveillance Establishes Standing

Get Your Data Out Of The US Now: NSA’s “PRISM” System Reveals How Insecure Your Data Really Is

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As if yesterday’s explosive revelations about NSA’s ongoing interception of all of Americans’ phone calls weren’t enough, yesterday evening another top secret document was released (see here for screenshots), documenting for the first time that NSA had persuaded every major tech company with the exception (so far) of Twitter to allow them real-time access to their central data servers, and therefore to the private content of communications of the vast majority of Americans. It started in 2007 with Microsoft (surprise, surprise), and most recently enlisted Apple in 2012.

(Oh, it includes AOL too? Well, that’s thoughtful. Maybe they wanted to address the criticism that they weren’t focusing enough on the threat from the remote backwoods?)

So let’s take you through the PRISM scandal, and why it means that you should really shift your communications and company documents to being hosted outside of the US.

Continue reading Get Your Data Out Of The US Now: NSA’s “PRISM” System Reveals How Insecure Your Data Really Is

Can You Hear Us Now? Colonial-Style General Warrants Return To America

Glenn Greenwald in the British newspaper The Guardian has published a leaked Top Secret order dating from the day of the Boston Marathon bombings providing evidence of intrusive cellphone surveillance dating from at least 2007. In the order, the NSA directs Verizon to send to it daily the metadata on ALL CELLPHONE CALLS – the calling number, the receiving number, and the location and duration of each call.

Gone now are the pathetic pretences that the NSA “doesn’t target Americans”, or that warrantless wiretapping is just about foreign terrorists. Nobody can claim ignorance any longer. The NSA is spying on all of us, and has careened far out of the control of the Constitution.

The text of the Fourth Amendment reads:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Why was this important to the Founders? Because royal administrations in the early and mid-18th century would take out “writs of assistance” to suppress dissent. Writs of assistance imposed no limitations on law enforcement, and could cover a whole town. Colonial agents could ransack everyone’s houses, looking for evidence of any lawbreaking. Writs of assistance also effectively suppressed the political activity of people who had done nothing wrong. So when the time came to write state constitutions and then the federal constitution, the Founders were very anxious to make sure that nothing like this kind of general warrant would ever be allowed in the United States.

Today’s news proved that they failed. The Writ of Assistance has returned, and the airwaves are full of fearful authoritarians justifying it. Do we really love our chains that much?

The NSA order, justified under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, doesn’t even pretend to limit the order’s scope. There’s no particular target. There’s no limitation of place. Calls between two grandmothers in Peoria are covered just as much as calls between members of suspected terrorist cells. The NSA doesn’t care. They want everything, so that they can criminalize us via algorithm.

Do you think this order is the only one? Sucker. This is merely the tip of the iceberg. The NSA has prepared an enormous data center in Utah to hold precisely this kind of data on your communications. Why should we suppose that they limited these orders to Verizon Wireless in particular?

Stand up! Call your senators and representatives, and get involved with Digital Fourth. If not now, when?