HoW To PrOtEct YOUR DaTa DuRiNg U.S. BoRdEr SeArCheS

Orginal Link Here: Article in (PDF) Here: Related Article The Berlin Wall Here:

The mandatory stop at the U.S. Customs counter when returning from an international trip usually just involves answering a few questions and getting a stamp on your passport.

But recently, we've seen incidents of computer security experts with ties to WikiLeaks and white hat hackers being stopped by government agents and having their laptops and phones thoroughly inspected.

Unless you work in computer research, or if you have ties to whistleblowers or cybersecurity journalists, the chance is very, very slim that your electronics will be searched. But even if you don't think you're up to anything that would arouse the suspicion of the Feds, you should still take precautions. Also, the threat of theft or snooping is something you should pay attention to, no matter how far from home you wander.

Note that these rights extend only to U.S. citizens. Any foreign visitor can be refused entry to the country by border officials on almost any grounds, even if you have a visa.

If you're flying internationally, be prepared for a search and protect yourself before you travel.

Some of this information is elementary, but many readers may not be aware of even their simplest options for personal digital security. Furthermore, this article is part of a wiki anyone can edit. If you have advice to add, please log in and contribute.

KNOW THE LAW

Under the "border search exception" of United States criminal law, international travelers entering the United States can be searched without a warrant by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. CBP is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Under the Obama administration, law enforcement agents have aggressively used this power to search travelers' laptops, sometimes copying the hard drive before returning the computer to its owner. Courts have ruled that such laptop searches can take place even in the absence of any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.

If you are asked to surrender your computer, phone, USB drives and any other electronic devices for inspection, you must comply. CPB officers have the legal authority to inspect anything you carry into the country, including your electronics. You should agree to these inspections or else face detention.

If the CBP officers inspect your computer or phones, be aware of the possibility that they could be installing firmware or software to monitor your activity. They are probably also going to copy as much information as they can off your hardware before returning the items. In the end, they may decide to keep them indefinitely.

However, it is well within your rights to secure your data using passwords and encryption, and to keep your passwords and keys secret. You also have the right to remain silent under questioning. You should consider invoking that right for even questions as seemingly innocuous as "Were you traveling for business or pleasure?" Lying to the Feds is a federal offense.

Something to note about this "right to remain silent" issue: It has never been decided by the courts whether these border searches are civil or criminal. You have the right not to be a witness against yourself in a criminal matter. It is possible that this right does not extend to what is essentially a civil, not criminal, search of your laptop. Of course, if you might be incriminated by your answer, the right is clearly yours. But do consider this gray area before invoking a right that may not exist given your specific facts.

Either way, if you are a U.S. citizen who is not considered a suspect in a criminal matter, you will most likely be released after the search. The Feds may keep your laptop and your phone, but you will most likely walk even if you remain silent the entire time.

PASSWORD PROTECT YOUR LAPTOP

Password-protect your laptop. You most likely have already done this elementary step, but if you haven't, here are instructions for Windows and Mac OS X. Also, you can lock down a Linux laptop using grub 3.

Set a pass phrase on your phone. Each mobile operating system is different, but the option is usually available in your phone's settings.

For iPhones, go to Settings > General, and turn on the passcode lock. Turn off the "Simple Passcode" option, which will allow you to use a longer, more secure passcode. Also, enable the "Erase Data" option, which will zap everything on your phone after 10 failed passcode attempts. We have some additional tips in our "Secure Your iPhone" article.

For Android phones, go to Settings > Location and Security. Set an unlock pattern and make it required. From the Location and Security screen, you can also set an additional password to use your SIM card, and set an additional password to access stored credentials.

Note: If asked to surrender your passwords, you can refuse. Even if the passwords are bypassed, you can add a second layer of protection by encrypting all of your data.

ENCRYPT EVERYTHING [Superior Encryption Here]

One of the most popular pieces of software for encrypting your hard drive is also free and open source. It's called TrueCrypt, and it's available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It provides on-the-fly encryption for all of the contents of your hard drive. TrueCrypt Howto Here

TrueCrypt can be used to encrypt any disk volume, so you can use it to protect your USB sticks and external hard drives, too. After installing TrueCrypt on one of these devices, set it to Autorun. Then, you just enter a password when you plug in your drive, and you can use it like you normally would.

It also has some additional protections in place if you're forced to reveal your passwords.

There's another popular system called FreeOTFE. It's free software and has many of the same features.

Apple offers full encryption of all user data by activating FileVault on Mac OS X.

Additionally, you should encrypt your passwords, contacts and saved e-mails using a "data vault" app. Keeper is popular (free to $30) since it works on all major desktop and mobile OSes, and it can keep your data in sync between your desktop and phone.

If you have an Android Phone, you can encrypt all of your chat messages and phone communications using simple apps from WhisperSystems. Additionally, because some encryption keys can be fetched from memory, consider not using hibernation.

Netizens should be aware, however, that encryption is often used as a presumption of guilt. What, you don’t have anything to hide?

CLOUD SERVICES ARE YOUR FRIEND

When it comes to storing sensitive documents or lists of contacts, your laptop may be the most convenient place to keep your data, but it's hardly the safest.

Before traveling, store your sensitive documents using a cloud storage service. You can access them from anywhere with an internet connection, and if your laptop ends up getting seized, searched or stolen, just download your secure documents.

Dropbox is a popular service with both free and paid plans, and it allows you to encrypt your cloud-based storage volume with TrueCrypt. The Dropbox wiki has some thorough instructions. Another option would be CloudSafe, an encrypted cloud storage provider outside the US where you do not need a specific client software.

For an extra layer of security, group together any sensitive documents and zip them up in an encrypted archive before uploading them.

On Macs, you can use the Disk Utility to create a new disk image, and then protect it with 128-bit AES encryption.

On Windows or Linux PCs, use the free software tool PeaZip to create an archive protected with AES encryption.

SHIP AHEAD

What better way to foil CBP than by giving them nothing to look at? Remove the hard drive from your computer and mail it to your destination ahead of your arrival. Just be sure to send it with tracking!

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References: EFF's Guide to Protecting Electronic Devices and Data at the U.S. Border

Canada negotiating perimeter security deal with U.S. Thanks For This Senator :)

Digital Weapons Help Dissidents

How To Increase Your Privacy Drop Box

Protect Your Data During U.S. Border Search

GoOgLeCiAN$Ahole$ ChArGe$ $25 A PeRsoN FoR $uRVeiLlAnCe

By Cade Metz - Microspy Supplies Surveillance for Free :)

Microsoft does not charge for government surveillance of its users, whereas Google charges $25 per user, according to a US Drug Enforcement Admission document turned up by security and privacy guru Christopher Soghoian.

With a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Soghoian has exposed four years of DEA spending on wiretaps and pen registers. A wiretap grabs actual telephone or Internet conversations, whereas a pen register merely grabs numbers and addresses that show who's doing the communicating.

In 2010, the document shows, the DEA paid ISPs, telcos, and other communication providers $6.7 million for pen registers and $6.5 million for wiretaps. Pen register payments more than tripled over the past three years and nearly doubled over the past two. Wiretap payments stayed roughly the same.

The documents confirm that Microsoft does not charge for surveillance. "There are no current costs for information requested with subpoenas, search warrants, pen registers, or Title II collection [wiretaps] for Microsoft Corporation," they say. But they show that Google charges $25 and Yahoo! $29.

As Soghoain points out, Google and Yahoo! may make more money from surveillance than they get directly from their email users. Basic Google and Yahoo! email accounts are free. Department of Justice documents (PDF) show that telcos may charge as much as $2,000 for a pen register.

On the one hand, MicrosoftNSA could be LOL-commended-LOL for choosing not to make a single penny from government surveillance. But on the other, Soghoian says, the company should at least charge that penny, as that would create a paper trail. "You don't like companies to make money spying on their customers, they should charge something," Soghoian tells us. "You can't FOIA Microsoft's invoices, because they don't send any invoices."

Most wiretap orders in the US involve narcotics cases, so DEA spending likely accounts for a majority of wiretap spending.

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References:

Implementation of The CALE Act

FOIA Funding Schedule

Analysis of Wiretap Stats

Google: We Didn't Help The NSA (Or Did We) tempus omnia revelat

The Public and the Private @ U.S. Border with Cyberspace

Certified Lies: Detecting and Defeating Government Interception Attacks Against SSL

RePoRt: U.S. InTeLlIgEnCe AgEnCiEs GaVe NAzI's SaFe HaVeN

By ERIC LICHTBLAU - Published: November 13, 2010 [Leaked Report]

National Security Archive Update, November 15, 2010 - [Thanks for this NSARCHIVE]

Justice Department Censors Nazi-Hunting History [[[[[[ DOJ IDIOTs Exposed ]]]]]]

Complete Unredacted Report (PDF - 30MB)

National Archives Update, December 10, 2010: Issues New Report on Nazi War Crimes

Complete Report: Hitler’s Shadow: Nazi War Criminals, U.S. Intelligence (PDF - 30MB)

WASHINGTON — A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad.

The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades.

It describes the government’s posthumous pursuit of Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death at Auschwitz, part of whose scalp was kept in a Justice Department official’s drawer; the vigilante killing of a former Waffen SS soldier in New Jersey; and the government’s mistaken identification of the Treblinka concentration camp guard known as Ivan the Terrible.

The report catalogs both the successes and failures of the band of lawyers, historians and investigators at the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, which was created in 1979 to deport Nazis.

Perhaps the report’s most damning disclosures come in assessing the Central Intelligence Agency’s involvement with Nazi émigrés. Scholars and previous government reports had acknowledged the C.I.A.’s use of Nazis for postwar intelligence purposes. But this report goes further in documenting the level of American complicity and deception in such operations.

The Justice Department report, describing what it calls “the government’s collaboration with persecutors,” says that O.S.I investigators learned that some of the Nazis “were indeed knowingly granted entry” to the United States, even though government officials were aware of their pasts. “America, which prided itself on being a safe haven for the persecuted, became — in some small measure — a safe haven for persecutors as well,” it said.

The report also documents divisions within the government over the effort and the legal pitfalls in relying on testimony from Holocaust survivors that was decades old. The report also concluded that the number of Nazis who made it into the United States was almost certainly much smaller than 10,000, the figure widely cited by government officials.

The Justice Department has resisted making the report public since 2006. Under the threat of a lawsuit, it turned over a heavily redacted version last month to a private research group, the National Security Archive, but even then many of the most legally and diplomatically sensitive portions were omitted. A complete version was obtained by The New York Times.

The Justice Department said the report, the product of six years of work, was never formally completed and did not represent its official findings. It cited “numerous factual errors and omissions,” but declined to say what they were.

More than 300 Nazi persecutors have been deported, stripped of citizenship or blocked from entering the United States since the creation of the O.S.I., which was merged with another unit this year.

In chronicling the cases of Nazis who were aided by American intelligence officials, the report cites help that C.I.A. officials provided in 1954 to Otto Von Bolschwing, an associate of Adolph Eichmann who had helped develop the initial plans “to purge Germany of the Jews” and who later worked for the C.I.A. in the United States. In a chain of memos, C.I.A. officials debated what to do if Von Bolschwing were confronted about his past — whether to deny any Nazi affiliation or “explain it away on the basis of extenuating circumstances,” the report said.

The Justice Department, after learning of Von Bolschwing’s Nazi ties, sought to deport him in 1981. He died that year at age 72.

The report also examines the case of Arthur L. Rudolph, a Nazi scientist who ran the Mittelwerk munitions factory. He was brought to the United States in 1945 for his rocket-making expertise under Operation Paperclip, an American program that recruited scientists who had worked in Nazi Germany. (Rudolph has been honored by NASA and is credited as the father of the Saturn V rocket.)

The report cites a 1949 memo from the Justice Department’s No. 2 official urging immigration officers to let Rudolph back in the country after a stay in Mexico, saying that a failure to do so “would be to the detriment of the national interest.”

Justice Department investigators later found evidence that Rudolph was much more actively involved in exploiting slave laborers at Mittelwerk than he or American intelligence officials had acknowledged, the report says.

Some intelligence officials objected when the Justice Department sought to deport him in 1983, but the O.S.I. considered the deportation of someone of Rudolph’s prominence as an affirmation of “the depth of the government’s commitment to the Nazi prosecution program,” according to internal memos.

The Justice Department itself sometimes concealed what American officials knew about Nazis in this country, the report found.

In 1980, prosecutors filed a motion that “misstated the facts” in asserting that checks of C.I.A. and F.B.I. records revealed no information on the Nazi past of Tscherim Soobzokov, a former Waffen SS soldier. In fact, the report said, the Justice Department “knew that Soobzokov had advised the C.I.A. of his SS connection after he arrived in the United States.”

(After the case was dismissed, radical Jewish groups urged violence against Mr. Soobzokov, and he was killed in 1985 by a bomb at his home in Paterson, N.J. )

The secrecy surrounding the Justice Department’s handling of the report could pose a political dilemma for President Obama because of his pledge to run the most transparent administration in history. Mr. Obama chose the Justice Department to coordinate the opening of government records.

The Nazi-hunting report was the brainchild of Mark Richard, a senior Justice Department lawyer. In 1999, he persuaded Attorney General Janet Reno to begin a detailed look at what he saw as a critical piece of history, and he assigned a career prosecutor, Judith Feigin, to the job. After Mr. Richard edited the final version in 2006, he urged senior officials to make it public but was rebuffed, colleagues said.

When Mr. Richard became ill with cancer, he told a gathering of friends and family that the report’s publication was one of three things he hoped to see before he died, the colleagues said. He died in June 2009, and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. spoke at his funeral.

“I spoke to him the week before he died, and he was still trying to get it released,” Ms. Feigin said. “It broke his heart.”

After Mr. Richard’s death, David Sobel, a Washington lawyer, and the National Security Archive sued for the report’s release under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Justice Department initially fought the lawsuit, but finally gave Mr. Sobel a partial copy — with more than 1,000 passages and references deleted based on exemptions for privacy and internal deliberations.

Laura Sweeney, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said the department is committed to transparency, and that redactions are made by experienced lawyers.

The full report disclosed that the Justice Department found “a smoking gun” in 1997 establishing with “definitive proof” that Switzerland had bought gold from the Nazis that had been taken from Jewish victims of the Holocaust. But these references are deleted, as are disputes between the Justice and State Departments over Switzerland’s culpability in the months leading up to a major report on the issue.

Another section describes as “a hideous failure” a series of meetings in 2000 that United States officials held with Latvian officials to pressure them to pursue suspected Nazis. That passage is also deleted.

So too are references to macabre but little-known bits of history, including how a director of the O.S.I. kept a piece of scalp that was thought to belong to Dr. Mengele in his desk in hopes that it would help establish whether he was dead.

The chapter on Dr. Mengele, one of the most notorious Nazis to escape prosecution, details the O.S.I.’s elaborate efforts in the mid-1980s to determine whether he had fled to the United States and might still be alive.

It describes how investigators used letters and diaries apparently written by Dr. Mengele in the 1970s, along with German dental records and Munich phone books, to follow his trail.

After the development of DNA tests, the piece of scalp, which had been turned over by the Brazilian authorities, proved to be a critical piece of evidence in establishing that Dr. Mengele had fled to Brazil and had died there in about 1979 without ever entering the United States, the report said. The edited report deletes references to Dr. Mengele’s scalp on privacy grounds.

Even documents that have long been available to the public are omitted, including court decisions, Congressional testimony and front-page newspaper articles from the 1970s.

A chapter on the O.S.I.’s most publicized failure — the case against John Demjanjuk, a retired American autoworker who was mistakenly identified as Treblinka’s Ivan the Terrible — deletes dozens of details, including part of a 1993 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that raised ethics accusations against Justice Department officials.

That section also omits a passage disclosing that Latvian émigrés sympathetic to Mr. Demjanjuk secretly arranged for the O.S.I.’s trash to be delivered to them each day from 1985 to 1987. The émigrés rifled through the garbage to find classified documents that could help Mr. Demjanjuk, who is currently standing trial in Munich on separate war crimes charges.

Ms. Feigin said she was baffled by the Justice Department’s attempt to keep a central part of its history secret for so long. “It’s an amazing story,” she said, “that needs to be told.”

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References:

The OSI Report

In Hunt for Nazis, an Incomplete History

Office of Special Investigations

C.I.A's Involvement

C.I.A. Created 'Safe Haven" for Nazis

C.I.A's Support Nazi War criminal Investigations [Operation Mocking Bird @ it's Best]

Operation Paperclip

U.S. Report on Mengele Reaffirms His Death

PeNtAcOn'$ CyBeR CoMmAnD $eEk$ AuThOrItY tO ExPaNd

Saturday, November 6, 2010 - [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ More National Security Theater! ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

U.S. Government's 'Damage Control' in full effect: More PR Bullshit

Interesting since publishing this post concerning SIPRNET there have been several post across the World Wide Web tying in SIPRNET with Wikileaks leaking of classified documents.

Here's the latest: Military Bans Disks, Threatens Courts-Martial to Stop New Leaks

By Ellen Nakashima - Washington Post Staff Writer

The Pentagon's new Cyber Command is seeking authority to carry out computer network attacks around the globe to protect U.S. interests, drawing objections from administration lawyers uncertain about the legality of offensive operations.

Cyber Command's chief, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, who also heads the National Security Agency, wants sufficient maneuvering room for his new command to mount what he has called "the full spectrum" of operations in cyberspace.

Offensive actions could include shutting down part of an opponent's computer network to preempt a cyber-attack against a U.S. target or changing a line of code in an adversary's computer to render malicious software harmless. They are operations that destroy, disrupt or degrade targeted computers or networks.

But current and former officials say that senior policymakers and administration lawyers want to limit the military's offensive computer operations to war zones such as Afghanistan, in part because the CIA argues that covert operations outside the battle zone are its responsibility and the State Department is concerned about diplomatic backlash.

The administration debate is part of a larger effort to craft a coherent strategy to guide the government in defending the United States against attacks on computer and information systems that officials say could damage power grids, corrupt financial transactions or disable an Internet provider.

[ Authors Special Note: Government "Cyber Operations" are not conducted on public networks and have their own secure networks that are not piped over a public lan: See DODs SIPERNET - DISA

Although the SIPRNET uses the same communications procedures as the Internet, it has dedicated and encrypted lines that are separate from all other communications systems. It is the classified counterpart of the Unclassified but Sensitive Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNET), which provides seamless interoperability for unclassified combat support applications and controlled access to the Internet.

Access to the SIPRNET requires a SECRET level clearance or higher and a need to have information that is available only on the SIPRNET.

Linking a computer with access to the SIPRNET to the Internet or to any other computer or media storage device that has not been approved for use with SECRET information is a serious security violation.]

The effort is fraught because of the unpredictability of some cyber-operations. An action against a target in one country could unintentionally disrupt servers in another, as happened when a cyber-warfare unit under Alexander's command disabled a jihadist Web site in 2008. Policymakers are also struggling to delineate Cyber Command's role in defending critical domestic networks in a way that does not violate Americans' privacy.

The policy wrangle predates the Obama administration but was renewed last year as Obama declared cyber-security a matter of national and economic security. The Pentagon has said it will release a national defense cyber-security strategy by year's end.

Cyber Command's mission is to defend military networks at home and abroad and, when requested, to help the Department of Homeland Security protect critical private-sector networks in the United States. It works closely with the NSA, the intelligence agency that conducts electronic eavesdropping on foreign targets, which has its headquarters at Fort Meade on the same floor as NSA Director Alexander's office.

In a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in June, Alexander said that Cyber Command "must recruit, educate, train, invest in and retain a cadre of cyber experts who will be conducting seamlessly interoperability . . . across the full spectrum of network operations."

"We have to have offensive capabilities, to, in real time, shut down somebody trying to attack us," Alexander told a cyber convention in August.

And in testimony to Congress in September, Alexander warned that Cyber Command could not currently defend the country against cyber-attack because it "is not my mission to defend today the entire nation." If an adversary attacked power grids, he added, a defensive effort would "rely heavily on commercial industry."

"The issue . . . is what happens when an attacker comes in with an unknown capability," he said.

To counter that, he added, "we need to come up with a more . . . dynamic or active defense."

Alexander has described active defense as "hunting" inside a computer network for malicious software, which some experts say is difficult to do in open networks and would raise privacy concerns if the government were to do it in the private sector.

SIPERNET IS NOT AN OPEN NETWORK!

[ Authors Special Note: Government "Cyber Operations" are not conducted on public networks and have their own secure networks that are not piped over a public lan: See DODs SIPERNET - DISA

Although the SIPRNET uses the same communications procedures as the Internet, it has dedicated and encrypted lines that are separate from all other communications systems. It is the classified counterpart of the Unclassified but Sensitive Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNET), which provides seamless interoperability for unclassified combat support applications and controlled access to the Internet.

Access to the SIPRNET requires a SECRET level clearance or higher and a need to have information that is available only on the SIPRNET.

Linking a computer with access to the SIPRNET to the Internet or to any other computer or media storage device that has not been approved for use with SECRET information is a serious security violation.]

A senior defense official has described it as the ability to push "out as far as we can" beyond the network perimeter to "where the threat is coming from" in order to eliminate it.

But, the official said, "we need to wait until we get some resolution on just how far we can go with regards to marrying the technology and operational concepts with law and the interagency process."

The sort of threats that Alexander and other officials worry about include the computer worm Stuxnet, which experts say was meant to sabotage industrial systems - though exactly whose system and what type of sabotage was intended is unclear.

NSA experts "have looked at it," Alexander told reporters in September. "They see it as essentially very sophisticated."

Officials have not resolved what constitutes an offensive action or which agency should be responsible for carrying out attacks. The CIA has argued that such action is covert, which is traditionally its turf. Defense officials have argued that offensive operations are the province of the military and are part of its mission to counter terrorism, especially when, as one official put it, "al-Qaeda is everywhere."

"This infuriating business about who's in charge and who gets to call the shots is just making us muscle-bound," said retired Adm. Dennis C. Blair, who resigned in May as the director of national intelligence after a tenure marred by spy agencies' failures to preempt terrorist plots and political missteps that eroded the White House's confidence in him.

Blair decried an "over-legalistic" approach to the issue. "The precedents and the laws on the books are just hopelessly inadequate for the complexity of the global information network," he said.

The Just_US Department Idiot's Office of Legal Counsel, whose opinions are binding on the executive branch, prepared a draft opinion in the spring that avoided a conclusive determination on whether computer network attacks outside battle zones were covert or not, according to several officials familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak for the record.

Instead, it said that permission for specific operations would be granted based on whether an operation could be, for instance, guaranteed to take place within an area of hostility. Operations outside a war zone would require the permission of countries whose servers or networks might be implicated.

The real issue, said another U.S. official, is defining the battlefield. "Operations in the cyber-world can't be likened to Yorktown, Iwo Jima or the Inchon landing," he said. "Defining the battlefield too broadly could lead to undesired consequences, so you have to manage the potential risks. Getting to the enemy could mean touching friends along the way."

[Author's Special Note: Nice example of transference e.g. Americans are and will continued to be attacked by the NSA and other government agencies/contractors and not just for the purpose of shutting down their computer networks, but, also the mind using the electronic mind torture matrix.]

Senior defense officials are now inclined to "stay conservative" in line with the draft opinion, one senior military official said. He said it is probable that policymakers will have Cyber Command propose specific operations in order to test the boundary lines.

But Alexander, a 58-year-old career intelligence officer, is not conservative by nature. He rose through the Army ranks by pushing to make intelligence available on the front lines . As NSA director during the Iraq war, he developed ways to allow soldiers to read useful data culled almost in real time from insurgents' communications.

Although he told reporters that he would prefer to have Cyber Command's authority clarified rapidly, he also acknowledged that to "race out and get authorities" only to be told, "Stop, stop, stop, you can't do it," makes no sense.

Stewart A. Baker, a former NSA general counsel, said calling cyber-operations, such as dismantling terrorist Web sites, "covert action" incorrectly implies they carry the same risks.

"There are lots of hackers in lots of countries who regularly break into computers, regularly disguise their identities," he said. "No one would think that discovering the U.S. had done that would lead to a scandal comparable to . . . the funding of Nicaraguan contras with secret Iranian arms sales, which are the kind of activities the covert action law was written for."

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References: SIPRNET 1 SIPRNET 2 12.05.10

The Ominous Parallels

The Ominous Parallels

The Ominous Parallels

FrOm ProTeStEr To SeNaToR; ThE FbI TrAcKed PaUl WeLlStoNe

By Madeleine Baran - Minnesota Public Radio - Thanks goes out to the Senator for this link :) 

October 25, 2010

It started with a fingerprint of a 25-year-old college professor who opposed the Vietnam War and ended with a search for his remains, 32 years later, in a wooded area near Eveleth, Minn.

The FBI's files on Paul and Sheila Wellstone, many of which are being made public for the first time, shed new light on the extent of the relationship between the FBI and the political activist who would go on to become a U.S. senator from Minnesota.

Some of the information uncovered in the 219 pages was new to one of his closest confidantes, former Wellstone campaign manager and state director Jeff Blodgett.

The files show that although the FBI initially took interest in Wellstone as part of the broader surveillance of the American left, the agency later served as his protector, investigating death threats the freshman senator received for his views on the first Gulf War, and, in the end, helping sift through the wreckage of the fatal plane crash that killed Wellstone and seven others eight years ago.

Wellstone's surviving sons declined to comment on the documents, which were obtained in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by MPR News.

The U.S. Department of Justice released 88 of the 125 pages in Sen. Wellstone's FBI file, and 131 of the 227 pages in his wife's file. All of the documents included in Sheila Wellstone's file are related to the plane crash that killed the couple and their daughter Marcia.

The FBI did not include 76 pages related to the National Transportation Safety Board, the agency that investigated the crash. A request for those records is pending.

DEATH THREATS

Wellstone traveled to Washington, D.C. in January 1991 on the green school bus that became famous in his underdog fight against incumbent Republican Sen. Rudy Boschwitz.

He arrived in the middle of a tense debate over the Persian Gulf conflict and, nine days after being sworn in, voted against a resolution authorizing U.S. military force against Iraq.

Within the first two weeks of his term, Wellstone began receiving death threats for his views on the war. The FBI files provide a detailed description of the angry and sometimes violent calls the Democratic senator received. One man called Wellstone's office and threatened to "throttle" him. A caller from Faribault said, "If I had a gun, I'd come after you, you SOB." Another caller said that if his son dies during his military service in the Persian Gulf, "then Wellstone will die."

The threats alarmed Wellstone's staff, and led the senator's state director, Jeff Blodgett, to contact the FBI and other authorities. An FBI agent recommended that a "trap and trace" be placed on Wellstone's St. Paul office phone line to locate the callers, and Blodgett agreed.

"We were shocked and surprised by these kinds of calls," Blodgett said in an interview last week. "We certainly didn't expect that death threats would be part of the job of being a U.S. senator or taking death threats would be part of the job of Senate staff."

Blodgett said Wellstone was saddened by the threats "and as surprised as everyone else was." In his memoir, "Conscience of a Liberal," Wellstone said his fledging political career was spiraling downward within a few short weeks, as he attracted opposition for his views on the Gulf War and for his decision to hold an anti-war press conference next to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

"There were threats on my life," Wellstone wrote. "I wished I had never been elected." The FBI files indicate that the agency took the threats seriously. Investigators tried to track down the threatening callers and kept detailed information about their efforts.

The documents show that an FBI agent traveled to "Marine," (sic) Minn. on January 29 to meet with the man who threatened to "throttle" Wellstone. The man, whose name has been redacted from the documents, admitted that he called the office and said that he wanted to wring Wellstone's neck and throttle him.

The man told the FBI agent that the receptionist was "snotty" and hung up on him. He said he called back and spoke to a "polite receptionist." He told her, "Tell Senator Wellstone that Saddam Hussein appreciates what he's doing."

Federal prosecutors declined to file charges against the caller, and the FBI was unable to locate the other callers. Wellstone continued to receive threats, including a call from a man in February 1995 who said, "I'm watching you senator and I'm going to kill you within the week." Wellstone was assigned a protective detail for the week of the threat.

FBI spokesman Steve Warfield declined to comment on the Wellstone files, but Warfield and former FBI agents said that threats against members of Congress are relatively common.

"I would say as active as (Wellstone) was and as liberal as he was and as much as he was against the war, I'd say that's a relatively small number" of threats, said Nick O'Hara, who served as the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Minneapolis office from 1991 to 1994.

O'Hara added that although the number of threats Wellstone received might not have been unusual, it likely took a psychological toll on the junior senator.

"Somebody's who's been in office and is aware of the crank calls that come in might not be as upset as a first-time senator who gets that first call and he starts thinking about his wife and his family," he said.

EYEING AN ACTIVIST

Wellstone did not pursue a traditional path to the U.S. Senate. He formed his political opinions while active in the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s, and wrote a doctoral dissertation on "Black Militants in the Ghetto: Why They Believe in Violence." In 1969, he moved to Northfield, Minn. to teach political science at Carleton College.

The FBI took note of the bushy-haired college professor when he was arrested on May 7, 1970 at a protest against the Vietnam War at the Federal Office Building in downtown Minneapolis. Wellstone and 87 others were arrested for disturbing and obstructing access to a federal building.

Most of the names in the 1970 documents have been redacted, making it impossible to separate Wellstone out from the other defendants. One defendant pled guilty, another had the charges dismissed, and another was acquitted. The documents state that the rest of the defendants were found guilty during a jury trial in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis and received fines of either $35 or five days in jail.

Neither the FBI files nor available court records indicate how Wellstone's case was resolved.

In a document sent to FBI headquarters, the head of the FBI's Minneapolis office said the case warranted "considerable investigation." The document notes that U.S. Attorney Robert Renner "could foresee the potential blockage of federal buildings throughout the country" if the anti-war protesters were acquitted.

The FBI obtained a copy of Wellstone's fingerprint card from the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office and sent it to FBI headquarters to keep on file. A related FBI document notes that Paul David Wellstone, age 25, weighed 150 pounds, stood 5'6," and had brown hair and brown eyes.

O'Hara, the former head of the FBI's Minneapolis office, said that the FBI used to routinely investigate protests that occurred on federal property.

"There were sit-ins. There were break-ins. There was blood spilled over Selective Service files," he said. "There were a number of minor federal crimes committed. And back then, there maybe wasn't the patience that there might be now." O'Hara joined the FBI as a special agent in 1963, but did not work in Minnesota until he was transferred to the Minneapolis office in 1991. He said he was not familiar with the arrests.

Coleen Rowley, the 9/11 whistleblower and former chief legal advisor in the FBI's Minneapolis office, said the documents from 1970 shed light on the FBI's far-reaching efforts to quash political dissent.

"I think this really is valuable … because it's basically history repeating what we have right now," she said, noting the recent FBI raids at the homes of several anti-war organizers in Minneapolis. Wellstone's arrest occurred less than a year before the official end of Cointelpro, a series of secret domestic surveillance programs created by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to monitor and disrupt groups deemed to be a threat to national security.

When the operation got underway in the 1950s it focused on suspected communists, but by the 1960s it had expanded to include broader groups, including civil rights organizers and anti-war protesters. Hoover ordered an end to Cointelpro operations in April of 1971, after news of the programs started to leak. "So '70 would've hit you right in the midst of this," Rowley said. "In fact, that probably was the peak of the time when this was going on."

As for Wellstone, Blodgett said the senator "would've probably chuckled at it because he was exercising his free speech rights as an American and would've thought it was funny that the FBI would've taken notice of that and put it into a file somewhere." Blodgett added, "You would think they'd have better things to do with their time."

Wellstone's fingerprint card remained on file, and his activism continued. In the two decades leading up to his Senate race, he helped organize poor families and farmers in rural Minnesota, and was once arrested for trespassing during a foreclosure protest at a bank in 1984. None of these activities are mentioned in the FBI files released by the Department of Justice.

A FINAL INVESTIGATION

When a plane carrying Wellstone, his wife, daughter, and three staffers crashed near Eveleth, Minn. on October 25, 2002, the FBI was among the first agencies to respond.

The plane crash occurred 11 days before the end of a tight Senate race between Wellstone and his Republican opponent Norm Coleman, spurring a flurry of conspiracy theories that the crash was not an accident.

The NTSB would later find that the crash was caused by pilot error, but the FBI pursued several criminal leads in the first two days of the investigation, according to the documents obtained by MPR News.

The plane crashed at 10:21 a.m. The documents indicate two agents from the FBI's satellite office in Duluth "immediately responded to the crash site," but don't specify what time they arrived. The agents assisted local authorities, who had already secured the area after determining there were no survivors, and waited for the NTSB team to arrive.

The FBI files recount how agents from Bemidji and a group of 11 officials from Minneapolis arrived at the scene later that day. One of the Duluth agents jotted down the names of the deceased, and took notes on potential problems with de-icing equipment. The agent's handwritten pages span four days and provide an inside look into the investigation. The agent notes that the initial search found "no cockpit voice recorder" and "no bullet holes."

Eight members of an FBI evidence response team spent two days searching the wreckage. They assisted with an initial search for aircraft parts and the flight data recorder, and then helped retrieve human remains and personal items - watches, rings, campaign buttons, keys, and coins.

The FBI files reveal, for the first time, the specific criminal leads pursued by
investigators.

FBI agents investigated the claims of a caller from Jacksonville, Florida, who said that members of the American Trucking Association had planned to disconnect the plane's de-icers. The man said that Wellstone had been trying to schedule Senate hearings to expose organized crime in the trucking industry. In response to the call, a Wellstone staff member asked a Labor Committee member and a legislative director "who both indicated that they were not aware of any Senate hearing being scheduled to discuss this topic." The rest of the document has been redacted.

Agents also obtained a threatening postcard sent to Wellstone's St. Paul office the day before the plane crash. The handwritten postcard said, in part, "We need to gut (sic) the word out for the snipper (sic) to go after people like you, not real Americans … This voter fraud you propose will get you dead."

An FBI agent noted that the handwriting and stamp were similar to those sent to two members of the U.S. House of Representatives who, along with Wellstone, voted against the October 2002 resolution authorizing the Iraq War.

FBI agents also interviewed a former employee of Executive Aviation, the company that employed the pilots who died in the crash. A heavily redacted report describes a conversation between an FBI agent and the former employee regarding a November 2000 incident at the company's airplane hangar.

At a closed meeting the night of the crash, the NTSB directed the investigation, with assistance from the FBI and law enforcement agencies. During the initial investigation, NTSB investigators noted several problems that the agency would later identify as key factors in the crash, including the plane's low speed, unusual sharp left turn, and the lack of any apparent problems with the plane's equipment.

FBI agents met with the lead investigator for the NTSB the following day and handed over the results of its investigation. The NTSB investigator said the agency would continue to examine the wreckage for any sign of damage to the plane, including the deicing equipment, and would interview local witnesses and investigate any previous issues with Executive Aviation.

The NTSB said it would "advise the FBI if its investigation revealed any indication that the crash was due to anything other than accidental causes."

The Duluth FBI agents and the Evidence Recovery Team left the crash site on October 28, and the FBI files do not refer to any subsequent investigations.

Blodgett said that he was unaware of the FBI's investigation, but said he was not surprised.

"It's actually heartening to hear that they were extremely thorough in following every lead to make sure it was tied up," he said.

The FBI received the NTSB's final report on the plane crash in April 2004. The report brought the FBI's decades-long relationship with Wellstone to an end.

The final document states, "Inasmuch as no indication of criminal activity was indicated after exhaustive examination and analysis by the NTSB which warrants further FBI investigation, this case is considered CLOSED at Minneapolis."

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References: When The FBI Spies On First Amendment Activity

Angry Callers Threathen To Kill Wellstone

FBI Taps Wellstone Phone in Wake of Threats

Wellstone's Office Gets Shooting Threat

Wellstone Gets Threating Calls

FBI Investigates More Death Threats