The VonFrederick

Tempus  

March 2006 Volume 3 Issue 3

  Feature Article:

   Echelon, Omnivore, Carnivore: How Far Should Government Go To Monitor Domestic Threats?

By Eric Chevreuil, Retired Captain, French Military  

Sometimes, observing the US political soap opera, the French in me truly wonders if the politicians and the people are just plain innocent, or if the whole country suffers from attention disorder.

It took an article by the New York Times on Friday December 16th, to start a media feeding frenzy. A campaign of fear orchestrated by almost everybody that wants to keep the people down below, where they pay and shut up. The piece of news was that the Bush administration had allegedly secretly shattered a quarter of a century worth of regulations on "spying” on American citizens! At least this is what was being reported and echoed, echoed, and echoed again.

The facts appear to be slightly different and it looks like the administration only authorized the eavesdropping on INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS of suspected US citizens. The eavesdropping had been done with the blessing of the Attorney General and the knowledge of the members of the congress who were supposed to know. Sadly, the latter were apparently not shocked by the information until it became public and put them in the spotlight. Only then did they start to run for cover and seek excuses for their passivity and inaction.

Indeed, with the fourth amendment that protects US citizens from illegal domestic seizures, the secret of any "correspondence" is preserved and cannot be broken without a legal process and a warrant. And sure enough, there is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in charge of granting these warrants after a review of the cases.

Liberals omitted the fact that President Carter authorized warrantless surveillance when he signed Executive Order 12139; May 23, 1979, 44 F.R. 30311, which stated in part; By the authority vested in me as President, by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, in order to provide the authorization of electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes, it is hereby ordered as follows: the Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order.

For those out there who pay attention, our domestic "privacy" has been gone for a while now. Just think of it! Most of the businesses are monitoring our shopping habits, health condition, Internet surfing, types of phone calls, banking, eating, driving habits.... in order to better target us and mold us into perfect little shopping machines. This happens every single day and we don't care! Proud to be American, we drive around with our names on our license plates, chain forward emails, fill out tons of rebate coupons, provide our credit card info to machines on the web, gamble online, give our zip code to gasoline pumps, visit chat rooms, smile at cameras at the drive-up ATM machines, take phone surveys, "use" computers but cannot spell spyware, make sure the cell phone has the GPS on... our entire life and lifestyle is already out there, digitized, FOR SALE! And on top of that, our "Ritalined" society DOES NOT PAY ATTENTION!

One day in 2000, "Omnivore" came along, quickly followed by its more efficient brother "Carnivore".

Should we have paid attention when Earthlink sued the FBI (and lost), to avoid installing the email traffic-monitoring tool on its servers in July 2000. Should we have noted that in the name of the almighty national security, this tool that is running at the Internet Service Provider level to mine data on a targeted individual was also exposed for its collecting of all the rest of the traffic? Should we have thought about it and about the implications for the future?

Should we have noticed, in 1998, when a preliminary report by the European Parliament (covered by the New York Times) exposed a massive US led spy technology network called Echelon that was intensively used to monitor world phone, fax, email, and radio transmissions for economic and political gain, mainly outside but also inside the US.

Should we have given it a second thought when the Europeans showed up in Washington to get some answers and were gently ignored by the whole Congress, while the US government was publicly denying such a thing as the (well documented) system ECHELON? Should we have noticed the Australian confession to belonging to such an organization?

Should we wonder why, mostly in Europe, there is a "Jam Echelon Day" during which "Internauts" are invited to flood cyberspace with emails containing all the search words used by the spying system, words such as "bomb", "terrorism"... (There are even a couple of word generators available for the lazy "emailers")?

Should we be aware of systems such as ECHELON, OMNIVORE, CARNIVORE, ALTVORE, OASIS, FLUENT, STEEPLEBUSH, RUNWAY, PUSHER, MOONPENNY, KNOBSTICKS, GT-6, or SILKWORTH?

Finally, the most important clue we should have noticed was when in 1997 British worried over the discovery that the US based Lockheed company constructed and managed SILKWORTH system had been used to continuously monitor 100,000 simultaneous British calls since 1975 - showing to the world how the so called post WWII "UK/USA" agreement was “ab-used” to bypass national laws.

Basically, the UK/USA agreement involves the USA, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The five Anglo-Saxon countries run about 50 high-tech 24/7 listening stations spread out across the world and primarily focused on US based Internet hubs, underwater repeaters of communication cables, and communication satellites. Originally designed to monitor the Russian communist empire during the Cold War, the COMINT (Communication Intelligence) network has been extensively used for political and economic gains by its members since 1989.

Spying is fair game, and eavesdropping on non-UK/USA countries makes political sense. But a darker side of the alliance has also been disclosed by ex-spies and operatives, politicians and journalists-turned-book-writers and describing how the various governments involved in the alliance have often resorted to each other to "spy" on their own citizens in order to circumvent domestic laws on domestic spying!

Here they are, finally on your laps, the real reasons for hysteria and paranoia! They are called "check and balance", "oversight", "transparency", and “control". If we do need to be able to monitor the domestic communications of suspected domestic "bad guys", we also need to understand how it is done, what tools we are using, and who is preserving the "check and balance" of these top secret systems that don't even officially exist and cannot be talked about. (God knows where I am going to end up with my Green card for such an open source and generic paper on really well documented COMINT systems).

Obviously, our Congress is in the dark because it has not paid more attention to the issues than the average Joe, despite a history of cases involving the exposed snooping on some of their members. Obviously, the government knows some and uses the various systems LEGALLY, if not ethically.... but shouldn’t everything go in the name of National interest and security?

What is worrisome, besides the utopian concept of entitlement of some privacy from our government that we might still have, is the development and use of these spying tools by private corporations contracted by "unofficial" federal agencies to do all the hyper-classified jobs. Who is monitoring whom in this spying game and to what extent should Lockheed, TRW, Boeing, Hughes and the like be trusted to abide the laws and not fall into a lucrative and self-interest-based spying game? What started as a “noble” tool against the Red Army and the communist coalition of Eastern Europe, has now been given a broader mandate against the free populations of the world. The successive governments comprising the UK/USA alliance have obviously used these tools to go around their own laws, perverting the intent and the letter of this text designed to preserve their citizens from abuses. Furthermore, the fact that ECHELON has been used to spy on the same elected officials that are supposed to protect and represent us, sho ws that nobody really controls the agencies in charge and that the "beast" is kind of running by itself.

The US congress, according to all the recent interviews, reactions and reports, seems unaware of the US spying capability, and worse of all, unaware of its use. One must wonder why they are still being paid! The European Parliament has been on top of the problem for almost ten years now, and trying to figure out how to deal with that disturbing issue of the Anglo Saxon "Big Brother”. Maybe in the name of future generations the US congress, along with England and its minions, should join the European Parliament in figuring out what is definitely bad in the way the system works or is being used. The movie "1984" comes back to mind reading this paper! We are getting there, asleep at the helm!

Some twenty years ago during the Watergate hearings, Senator Frank Church warned the American people when he claimed that he saw how easily America could become a tyranny if the technology that was available at the time were to be handled by unsupervised agencies.

The examples above, and the recent over-blown "scandal", only show that some of our laws have to be revisited and revised because of the passing of time and the technological evolution of our society. This is needed to prevent the unethical but legal interpretation of their intent and letter our armies of lawyers are so fond of, and to avoid any of the tempting possible circumvention that bypass the “check and balance” process our democratic governments are founded upon.

Should the government be allowed to monitor domestic threats? Definitely yes, but the government should not be in the business of trying to trick the system and should leave it to “shyster” lawyers! Should the people pay attention to what is going on outside suburbia? You bet. Should we trust our elected officials not to fall asleep while on constitutional guard duty? Get real!

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The Complexity of  a Most Complex Problem

By Dr. Lionel C.M. VonFrederick Rawlins, President & CEO, The VonFrederick Group  

Nothing is as simple as it first appears. This aphorism applies in spades to the way we try to cope with drugs in the United States and elsewhere. The extreme complexity of the drug problem must be recognized before one can come to a workable idea of what can be done to reduce the harms that illicit drugs and their surrounding set of rules and policies inflict on society.

What is your perspective? As a parent, you may feel concern lest your children choose alcohol or an illegal drug over other, more wholesome forms of recreation. If you are an economist, you might worry about the dollars that are committed to dealing with the drug problem and therefore not available for other uses. If you are a politician, you might worry about your career should you publicly say or do something that suggests being “soft on drugs and crime,” whatever your personal views might be.

As a social worker, you will anguish over the number of families damaged by drugs and by the drug trade’s enticement to high income and high risk for young people. Law enforcement officers may wish for duty that is safe from the turf wars of drug-dealing gangs. If you are in the drug testing business, you will expect to profit from the spreading practice of testing workers for drug use. As a teacher or principle in an inner-city high school, you will hope the day ends without police having to disrupt the school while tracking a youthful drug dealer.

As a defense attorney, you will make a good living defending people against charges of serious or trivial offenses against myriad drug laws. If you are a prosecuting attorney, you can make political hay by seeking heavy sentences for major drug dealers or even first offenders carrying a few ounces of marijuana for personal use. As a building contractor, you may love the prospect of creating more prisons in which to house people convicted of drug-law violations. As the mayor of a city, you will worry about the decline of the inner-city tax base as drug dealing and violent competition for market shares reduce property values and cause people to seek suburban asylum.

If you are a civil libertarian, you will chafe at news of warrantless searches or arrests of people committing what you see as relatively harmless crimes of mutual consent like trading money for cocaine. A member of a drug-law enforcement agency can rejoice in the prospect of career advancement in the pursuit of a worthy cause as prosecution becomes even more vigorous. A Mafioso or lesser practitioner of organized crime will enjoy the likelihood of continuing prosperity so long as certain drugs are illegal. If you are a terrorist, you will rejoice in the knowledge that naive people around the world do not comprehend your ability to finance, manufacture, and transport drugs as part of an ideology to kill Westerners, regardless of race, religion, or nationality. And if you are just a plain old taxpayer, you will wish for the most efficient use of tax dollars toward whatever you define as the public good.

This list of perspectives could go on, illustrating in greater detail the complexity of the problem and the inescapable fact that there are winners and losers throughout society no matter what is done, or not done, about it. There are thousands of law-abiding citizens who make legitimate livings on the drug problem, as well as many more lawbreakers. There are no simple solutions to this most complicated problem, and it is important to recognize that any proposed solution will have to contend with a big set of trade offs. Some aspects of the problem might be driven away, but there will be consequences to any solution that will evoke cries of alarm from some quarter. A much bigger problem is the growing relationship between terrorism and the drug trade. My industry calls it narco-terrorism. What is your perspective?

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Kenneth Star will appear in the spotlight once again for assisting in a lawsuit directed towards the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. A free-market advocacy group and a small accounting firm are poised to sue against the Sarbanes-Oxley Act due to the Appointment Clause. Ken Star and Michael Carvin will be taking the lawsuit stating the Act violates the Appointment Clause and the separation of power of the Act with regard to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). In simple terms, they are stating the SEC cannot hire the PCAOB to monitor the Act, and this committee needs to be appointed by Congress and the President. There is no severability of the Act, so if the lawsuit is deemed worthy, the entire Act will go down, not one simple section.

Considering the Act has cost publicly traded companies over 35 billion dollars to comply with to date, would it be more reasonable to try to rectify the sections of the Act that are of concern instead of wasting more money in a kangaroo court to foolishly try to make the Act “go away”? Three important studies recently conducted by the NASDAQ Issuer Survey, SEC findings produced by A.R.C. Morgan and Global Commerce and Compliance show a general consensus that the Act is viewed upon in a positive fashion and should remain with some minor adjustments. 

NASDAQ Issuer Survey
The primary purpose of these three studies was to learn more about the impact Sarbanes-Oxley was immediately having on the issuers listed on NASDAQ. Overall, seventy percent of the respondents were either the CEO or CFO of their respective companies, and the surveys were designed to gain knowledge as to the regulations of SOX implementation within NASDAQ issued organizations. The findings of these studies, which had 454, 321 and 20 respondents respectively, were forwarded to NASDAQ traded companies and legislators for further review.

Results of the three studies found that over 74% of the participants believed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was needed and necessary. Issuers were confused as to what exactly the law requires, and would like a more in-depth explanation on definition and scope. The companies who complied in the initial stages paved the way for others, but at a drastically higher price. Fifty-eight percent of the participants in the NASDAQ issuer survey study believe that audit controls will improve from Sarbanes-Oxley implementation and find it a positive movement, which will improve investor confidence. Costs of implementation appeared to be the biggest burden in the report including auditing, legal, compliance, opportunity and consulting. Opportunity costs were also listed as a main obstacle. Corporate executives found implementing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was far more time consuming than expected, and became a major distraction to priorities and other responsibilities.

SEC findings produced by A.R.C. Morgan
A.R.C. Morgan analyzed approximately 280 companies through the Securities and Exchange Commissions filings and public announcements related to costs. Their analysis indicated that many companies waited as long as possible before implementation due to costs and misunderstandings of the correct legal procedures. Testing controls was a more lengthy process, and the costs more than doubled over what was expected in the initial stages in some cases. Andrew Bailey, Deputy Chief Accountant for the Securities and Exchange Commission stated, “We are all incurring the costs of lost public trust, a trust that cost nothing to lose, but requires significant expenditures of time, talent, and money to reclaim” (A.R.C. Morgan, 2005, p. 7).

Global Commerce and Compliance (GC&C)
This study surveyed the perceptions of the executive leadership of 20 publicly traded U.S. corporations, with a market capitalization of $250 million and under, as to the possible affects of specific sections of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on their respective organizations. The sample was representative of approximately 4.5% of the small cap publicly traded companies (SCPTC’s) population, but responses were limited due to the change of compliance dates and the completion of the Act’s requirements by many of the executive leaders of the SCPTC’s surveyed which extended into the 2007 accounting year. Findings showed little adverse effects on the perception of executive leadership in small to medium sized organizations, with the exception of costs of implementation and the time allocated by corporate leadership to comply with section 404. Little variance between the expected and achieved results complying with SOX from the respondents was found, in which 80% stated there was none, and 15% of the participants stated it changed their organization’s leadership mind-set in a positive fashion. Some participants are still speculating on exactly what is required by the Act, and 50% are still working on the process.

The Act has been scrutinized by many as being a burdensome costly problem for publicly traded companies and their corporate executives. However, there is data stating it has been a positive step toward reducing fraudulent activity. As one participant in the GC&C study stated “It’s a fairly easy Act to implement if your company had efficient controls in place and was complying with government guidelines and regulations prior to the Enron scandal”.

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The War on Terror is the most serious issue facing Americans since the War Between the States. Think about it. The “Civil War” was fought to dissolve the union created among the states after winning independence from England. If the Confederacy had won it would have redefined America and forever changed American society. Wars since, while important, were fought over geographical dominance. With the exception of the Indian Wars and wars with Mexico the enemy did not create a major threat against the U.S. mainland.

With the current War on Terror, this feeling of security due to the battle being waged in far-away lands is obsolete. The enemy are radical Islamic Fundamentalists who have proclaimed a “Universal Jihad” to destroy America and the Western way of life. While there are several score of Islamic terrorist organizations, the predominant enemy is Al-Qaida led by Osama Bin Laden. Steven Simon (2003) reported that Al-Qaida spokesman, Suleiman Abu Ghaith, said there could be no truce until the group has killed four million Americans, whereupon the rest can convert to Islam.

Americans need to recognize this is not an idle threat. This is the same terrorist organization that masterminded the destruction of the World Trade Center and killed three thousand civilians, more American deaths than were suffered at Pearl Harbor, on December 7th, 1941.

For example, what could be more beneficial to the Al-Qaida cause than Senator Durbin comparing interrogators and military personnel in uniform to Pol Pot's thugs, Soviet gulag operators, and Nazi soldiers? Or Senators John Kerry, Durbin and Kennedy claiming that the way the U.S. was running Abu Ghraib prison is no different than Saddam Hussein and was basically only a change of management. Or Senator John Kerry going on “Face the Nation” and accusing “young American soldiers of going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, women and breaking the historical customs and religious customs”. Or DNC Chairman Howard Dean declaring the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong."

The most reprehensible examples of liberal obstruction of the war effort and supporting the enemy cause can be found in the anti-American speeches given by former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore on foreign soil. Clinton gave an anti-American speech to students at the American University of Dubai, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. On Nov. 16, 2005, he told Arab students the U.S. made a "big mistake" when it invaded Iraq and offered praise for Saddam's lieutenants and their underlings, saying they were mostly "good" and "decent" people who were making the best out of a very bad situation. Then on Feb. 12, 2006, former V.P. Al Gore spoke before the Jiddah Economic Forum and told the Saudi audience that the U.S. had committed "terrible atrocities" against Arabs after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and Arabs had been "indiscriminately rounded up" and detained in "unforgivable conditions” and concluded, "There have been terrible abuses, and it's wrong.”

These fabrications support the enemy war effort, not ours. There should be consequences for this kind of behavior during a time of war. The detrimental effect these so-called “loyal opposition” leaders have on our war effort is significant. As expressed by General Douglas MacArthur, “I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within”. Liberal conduct is an illustration of these insidious forces. Liberals criticize without offering any plan to defend our country. During his State of the Union address, President George Bush challenged the liberal criticism with this comment, “hindsight is not wisdom and 2nd guessing is not a strategy.” How true. We have not suffered another attack since 9-11. We are combating Islamic terrorists on the battlefield in Iraq. If you objectively examine President Bush’s execution of the war and compare it to liberal conduct, ask yourself, do you really want liberal democrats leading this country at this time in our history?

Simon, S. (Winter 2003). The new terrorism. The Brookings Review. 21(1), 18-25

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• That Mali was formerly known as the Sudanese Republic as well as the French Sudan

• That when someone said they would “knock you all the way to Timbuktu”, they were referring to a once wealthy city located in modern day Mali 

• That Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world

• That though the country is 90% Muslim, most of the cliff-dwelling Dogon people in the south of Mali practice an Animist religion

• That the life expectancy in Mali is just over 46 ½ years of age

The Malian flag consists of three equal vertical stripes of green (hoist side), gold (yellow), and red. These three colors are common and traditional colors for flags of African nations, the combination originated with Ethiopia which remained an independent country during the colonial era in Africa.  

Cesare Beccaria

  Cesare Bonesana Marchese di Beccaria

1738 - 1794

Born into an aristocratic family in Italy, Cesare Beccaria is known as one of the fathers of the utilitarian school of thought in criminology. In 1758 he received a law degree and in 1764 he published a book on his position on the practices of the criminal justice system, “On Crimes and Punishments”. He believed the government should do the greatest good for the greatest number of people and that the criminal justice system of his day did no such thing. He is also considered the first ‘modern’ writer to publicly denounce the use of the death penalty.   

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How To Control A Runaway Camel

1) Hang on to the reins- but do not pull them back hard in an attempt to stop the camel.

A camel’s head, unlike that of a wayward horse, cannot always be pulled to the side to slow it down. Camels are usually harnessed with a head halter or nose reins, and pulling on the nose reins can tear the camel’s nose- or break the reins.

2) If the camel has sturdy reins and a head halter, pull the reins to one side to make the camel run in a circle.

Do not fight the camel; pull the reins in the direction the camel attempts to turn its head. The camel may change direction several times during the incident- let it do so.

3) If the camel has nose reins, just hang on tight.

Use the reins for balance, and grip with your legs. If there is a saddle, hold on to the horn.

4) Hold on until the camel stops.

Whether the camel is running in circles or in a straight path, it will not run very far. The camel will sit down when it grows tired.

5) When the camel sits, jump off.

Hold on to the reins to keep it from running off.

(Piven and Borgenicht)

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The VonFrederick Group

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Fax:     (916) 488-7531
Email:

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Dr. Melissa Kimberly Luke
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George A. Torres, MBA
George@VonFrederick.com

Eric Chevreuil
Eric@VonFrederick.com

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