Spy Games: Inside the convoluted plot to bring down WikiLeaks

from Wired:

In November, when a major U.S. bank wanted a strategy for taking down WikiLeaks, [CEO of HBGary Federal Aaron] Barr immediately drafted a presentation in which he suggested “cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters. This would kill the project . . .”

Faking documents seemed like a good idea, too, documents which could later be “called out” so as to make WikiLeaks look unreliable.

And Barr wanted to go further, pushing on people like civil liberties Salon.com columnist Glenn Greenwald — apparently hoping to threaten their livelihoods. “These are established professionals that have a liberal bent, but ultimately most of them if pushed will choose professional preservation over cause, such is the mentality of most business professionals,” he wrote. “Without the support of people like Glenn WikiLeaks would fold.”

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Government contractors targeted Chamber of Commerce's critics

from the Los Angeles Times:

Reporting from Washington — Hoping to win a lucrative agreement with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, three data security contractors for federal defense and intelligence agencies developed a proposal to monitor and manipulate the chamber's left-leaning critics, according to recently released e-mail correspondence.

Employees of the firms compiled short dossiers on a few activists that included photographs, references to their families and charts of their relationships with other liberal and labor leaders.

The proposals were received by Hunton & Williams, a law firm that represents the chamber.

[. . .]

The firm, which also represents Bank of America, solicited a separate proposal from the security firms to help the bank deal with a threat by WikiLeaks, the international hacker organization, to release some of the bank's internal data.

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Firm targeting WikiLeaks cuts ties with HBGary - apologizes to reporter

from The Tech Herald: --

Dr. Alex Karp, the Co-Founder and CEO of Palantir Technologies, one of three data intelligence firms who worked to develop a systematic plan of attack against WikiLeaks and their supporters, has severed all ties with HBGary Federal and issued an apology to reporter Glenn Greenwald.

[...]

. . . The Tech Herald learned that Palantir Technologies, HBGary Federal, and Berico Technologies, worked together with law firm Hunton and Williams to develop a proposal for Bank of America in order to deal with the “WikiLeaks Threat.”

Hunton and Williams were recommended to Bank of America’s general counsel by the Department of Justice, according to the email chain viewed by The Tech Herald. The law firm was using the meeting to pitch Bank of America on retaining them for an internal investigation surrounding WikiLeaks.

[...]

Moreover, reporter Glenn Greenwald, who writes for Salon.com, was singled out in the proposal as a person offering a level of support to WikiLeaks that needed to be disrupted. This disruption would include making Greenwald, and others in similar situations, choose between professional preservation and cause.

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Personal privacy and the right to know

from a New York Tmes editorial: --

For 45 years, the Freedom of Information of Act has invigorated American democracy by obliging the executive branch to make public a splendid range of documents. It serves the people’s right to know, while leaving out data whose disclosure could be harmful.

The law’s “exemption 7,” about facts gathered for law enforcement, omits records whose release could be “an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” Until now courts have unanimously agreed its purpose is to protect individuals. Last month, the Supreme Court heard arguments about a case in which the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, decided “personal privacy” includes the privacy of corporations.

Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T addresses whether AT&T can prevent the F.C.C. from releasing documents about the company’s overbilling of the government. If the justices supported that interpretation, they would wreak havoc on the Freedom of Information Act. Fortunately, there’s little risk of that.

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Democrats call on House panel to narrow FOIA request

from FederalTimes.com --

House Democrats are calling on the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to pare back his request to dozens of agencies to divulge details of Freedom of Information Act requests from the last five years.

The committee's request "will encumber every agency with a work-stopping diversion" and have a chilling effect on the public's willingness to make use of FOIA, Rep. Peter Welch of Vermont wrote in a letter Tuesday to the committee chairman, Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

Last month, Issa asked dozens of agencies, ranging from the Justice Department to the Railroad Retirement Board, for their FOIA logs from the past five years, along with all communications with requesters and a rundown on how each request was handled.

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FBI, DOJ and DEA stall release of records on bid to expand surveillance laws

from Electronic Frontier Foundation --

EFF filed a reply brief in its FOIA lawsuit seeking records from the FBI, DOJ and DEA that would justify the Administration’s need to expand federal surveillance laws like the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). The proposed expansion would require communications providers like Skype, Facebook, Blackberry and Twitter to build wiretapping capabilities right into their systems, and although we know Congress intends to turn to this issue early this year, FBI, DEA and DOJ have argued they can’t give us all the documents we asked for until the summer of 2012. To force the government to turn over documents on a timeline that would actually allow them to influence the debate, we filed a motion for partial summary judgment, asking the court to order the agencies to produce documents within 10 days.

This lawsuit is based on two separate but related FOIA requests, one of which has now been pending with the FBI for almost two years. The earlier request seeks documents on the FBI’s “Going Dark Program,” a program intended to bolster the Bureau’s electronic communications intercept capabilities that could be strengthened by new legislation. The second request, now pending for four months, seeks materials related to a legislative expansion to CALEA, including evidence of any limitations of current surveillance technologies and records of communications between DOJ agencies and technology companies, trade organizations and Congress about potential legislation.

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Tech world stunned at Egypt's Internet shutdown

from SFGate.com:

The Egyptian government's unprecedented shutdown of Internet and mobile phone access Friday stunned the world's technology community, which questioned whether the country can quickly recover from cutting such a vital link for commerce and communication.

The government's surprising move came in the face of widespread civil unrest, but essentially wiped the country off the world's online maps, said Jim Cowie, chief technology officer and co-founder of Renesys, a New Hampshire firm that monitors how the Internet is operating.

"It is astonishing because Egypt has so much potentially to lose in terms of credibility with the Internet community and the economic world," Cowie said. "It will set Egypt back for years in terms of its hopes of becoming a regional Internet power."

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ACLU files FOIA request regarding VA Department of Transportation policies

from ACLU press release:

Winchester, VA - The ACLU of Virginia has filed a Freedom of Information Act Request with the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) seeking information about policies and practices affecting the destruction of the possessions of homeless persons who use land under the agency's control.

The ACLU's request comes in the wake of a January 5 incident in which a company under contract with VDOT destroyed a homeless encampment along Interstate 81 at Exit 315 near Winchester. According to news reports at least four homeless men had been using the property for months when road maintenance crews demolished the encampment.

The homeless men were not present at the time, but apparently lost tents, sleeping bags, camping gear, clothes, canned food and medication. At least one man lost his wallet, including his Social Security Card and birth certificate. The men received no advance notice that their property would be destroyed.

According to court precedents homeless persons, even while located on right-of-ways or other state property, have constitutional rights regarding their possessions.

"Federal courts have consistently ruled that homeless persons have an expectation of privacy that includes the right to be notified before their property can be seized or destroyed," said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis. "They may be homeless, but they are still entitled to the same constitutional protections that apply to the rest of us."

Read the rest here.

Republican congressman proposes tracking FOIA requests

from The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Representative Darrell Issa calls it a way to promote transparency: a request for the names of hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens, business executives, journalists and others who have requested copies of federal government documents in recent years.

Mr. Issa, a California Republican and the new chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, says he wants to make sure agencies respond in a timely fashion to Freedom of Information Act requests . . .

But his extraordinary request worries some civil libertarians. It “just seems sort of creepy that one person in the government could track who is looking into what and what kinds of questions they are asking,” said David Cuillier, a University of Arizona journalism professor and chairman of the Freedom of Information Committee at the Society of Professional Journalists. “It is an easy way to target people who he might think are up to no good.”

Read more here.

DHS releases FOIA report, but questions remain

from Electronic Privacy Information Center:

The Department of Homeland Security has released the Freedom of Information Act Report for 2010. The report analyzes the processing of FOIA requests made throughout the year by each DHS component, detailing the disposition of each request, response times, and the number of backlogged requests.

DHS is under scrutiny for their policy of referring FOIA requests to political appointees before processing. The release of over 1,000 agency documents revealed a persistent agency practice of flagging FOIA requests from EPIC and other watchdog organizations for referral.

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Knight FOI Fund case compels public records release in upstate NY

from NFOIC.org:

COLUMBIA, Mo. (January 27, 2011)—A New York judge, ruling in a case supported by a Knight FOI Fund grant, has ordered disclosure of records sought by a Web publisher and a community activist regarding a volunteer fire company.

But in the same 13-page ruling, Warren County (NY) Supreme Court Judge David B. Krogmann held that many of the meetings of the Chestertown Volunteer Fire Company are of a "social" or "private nature," and are not subject to the state's Open Meetings Law.

June Maxam, editor and publisher of The North Country Gazette, and Christine Hayes, a deputy zoning administrator and assistant assessor for the Town of Horicon, NY, who represented themselves in the lawsuit filed on September 15, indicated that they planned to appeal the ruling.

Noting that they had represented themselves and therefore had no attorney bills, Judge Krogmann also declined to award the two women reimbursement for their legal fees and expenses. As offset for the fee reimbursements Maxam and Hayes had sought, Krogmann ordered that copying charges for the records being sought be waived. Maxam disputes the judge’s finding that she and Hayes incurred no legal bills.

Open government advocates expressed dismay over portions of the ruling, although Maxam and Hayes will be getting the records that were at the heart of the legal case after Krogmann completes an in camera judicial review to allow redaction of exempt, personal or private information..

"If they choose to appeal as they say they will, I hope some member of the New York bar who believes in open government will step forward and aid these petitioners in their important legal battle," said Kenneth F. Bunting, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC).

"I know that finding volunteer legal representation is especially difficult when a judge has already ruled against granting fees and expenses. But there is much more at stake here than just a community squabble," Bunting added.

"It seems that the court did not thoroughly consider the breadth of the decision rendered by the state's highest court more than 30 years ago," said Robert J. Freeman, executive director of the New York State Committee on Open Government, a division of the Secretary of State's office that issues advisory opinions on open government matters.

Referring to a 1980 state Court of Appeals ruling in a case called Westchester Rockland Newspapers Inc. v. Kimball, Freeman added: "Based on that [Westchester] decision, it has been our view that meetings of volunteer fire companies are subject to the requirements of the Open Meetings Law."

Read the rest here.

Corporate secrecy at issue in Supreme Court case

from OMB Watch:

In August 2004, SBC Communications admitted improperly charging for services under an FCC program to subsidize phone and Internet access for schools and libraries. (In 2005, SBC merged with AT&T.) SBC returned the money and paid an additional $500,000 to the government under the terms of a consent decree adopted in December 2004, in exchange for the FCC closing its investigation into the matter.

In April 2005, Comptel, a trade association whose members include AT&T competitors such as Sprint and Verizon, submitted a FOIA request for the FCC's investigation file. SBC opposed the request on the grounds that the records were exempt from release under FOIA's "personal privacy" provision. In August 2005, the FCC decided to release the records because "generally, businesses do not possess 'personal privacy' interests." SBC appealed the agency’s decision.

[...]

In November and December 2010, the government and AT&T filed their briefs in the case, along with Comptel and several amici curiae. "The court of appeals' decision is itself a singular outlier in an otherwise uniform body of more than 35 years of decisional law and commentary," the government argued in its brief. "A corporation itself can no more be embarrassed, harassed, or stigmatized than a stone."

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SEC Inspector General reports of investigation

from Project on Government Oversight:

In recent years, investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Office of Inspector General (OIG) have exposed a wide range of serious misconduct, including the agency's failure to crack down on the Madoff and Stanford Ponzi schemes, retaliation against whistleblowers, conflicts of interest, revolving door abuses, the failure to take action against Bear Stearns, insider trading by SEC employees, and much more. Unfortunately, most of these reports are nowhere to be found on the SEC or OIG's website.

POGO has obtained many of the OIG's recent investigative reports through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and from other sources. We've made the reports searchable and are compiling them here as a resource to the public. Reports that have not been posted on the SEC or OIG's website are marked in red.

Read the rest here.

Horicon (NY) officials close door on open-government advocate's Town Hall visit

from PostStar.com:

The Horicon Town Board held what appeared to be an illegal meeting Wednesday to ban an event from Town Hall that was to feature the state's expert on the Freedom of Information and open meetings laws.

The "emergency" meeting was held by the board to rescind permission for local residents to host Robert Freeman, executive director of the state Committee on Open Government, for an open government discussion at Town Hall on Feb. 9.

The event has instead been moved to the Horicon fire station and will be held on the same date.

The controversy does not focus on Freeman, but rather on June Maxam, a Chester resident who helped organize the event. Maxam is publisher of the North Country Gazette, a website that is frequently critical of local government.

[...]

Freeman seemed taken aback Thursday at the developments, saying, "So what, who cares?" when told that Maxam's involvement was what prompted the Town Board to taken action.

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NBC: U.S. can't link accused Army private to Assange

from msnbc.com:

U.S. military officials tell NBC News that investigators have been unable to make any direct connection between a jailed army private suspected with leaking secret documents and Julian Assange, founder of the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

The officials say that while investigators have determined that Manning had allegedly unlawfully downloaded tens of thousands of documents onto his own computer and passed them to an unauthorized person, there is apparently no evidence he passed the files directly to Assange, or had any direct contact with the controversial WikiLeaks figure.

[...]

Assange told msnbc TV last month that WikiLeaks was unsure Army PFC Bradley Manning is the source for the classified documents appearing on his site.

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MnCOGI accepting nominations for 2011 John R. Finnegan FOI Award

from Minnesota Coalition on Government Information:

The Minnesota Coalition on Government Information is soliciting nominations for a person, group of people or organization that demonstrates a commitment to the power of information.

Past recipients include Colleen Coghlan, a college librarian outspoken on open access, the Urban Coalition, a Minneapolis organization that uses information to build a community, and Reed Anfinson, the publisher of a weekly Minnesota newspaper who keeps a constant vigil for open access in his hometown and across the nation. Information about past recipients can be found on the Finnegan FIO Award page.

MnCOGi presents the John R. Finnegan FOI Award each year. It´s named in honor of the former editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press whose lifelong commitment to open government and the public´s right to know exemplifies MnCOGI´s mission.

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"Right to know" fracking bill debated in Montana

from Montana Conservation Voters:

HELENA, Mont. - A debate on company secrets versus the public's right to know is set for today in the Montana Legislature. A hearing is being held on a proposal that would require oil and gas companies to provide a list of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing ("fracking"), in the interest of protecting residents and first-responders at accidents near fracking projects.

Sharon Sweeney Fee, a Livingston nurse, is testifying.

"We want something available, not unlike what we have available on train cars now, so when anybody needs to know - because there has been accident - they can look and see what these people have been exposed to."

Read the rest here.

Oregon, Washington consider public records overhaul

from Oregon Public Broadcasting:

The Attorneys General of Oregon and Washington are asking state lawmakers to make public documents more accessible.

A pair of bills in Salem and a hearing Thursday in Olympia come in response to critics who say obtaining government records is too expensive and takes too long.

Oregon Attorney General John Kroger wants to create strict deadlines for public agencies to respond to records requests.

His proposal would also cap the amount that agencies can charge, and it would reduce the types of information that are exempt from public disclosure requirements.

Read the rest here.

Open-government initiative marks two-year milestone

from nextgov:

Two years ago Friday, on his first day in office, President Obama issued a memo aimed at making government operations more transparent. While open government advocates have largely panned the effort over what they call toothless policies, a regulatory compliance initiative announced Tuesday is giving some of those critics new hope the administration's transparency objectives eventually might be realized.

[...]

To gather additional perspective on the future of Obama's open government effort, Nextgov interviewed Don Tapscott, co-author of the new book Macrowikinomics (Portfolio, 2010), a sequel to the 2006 best-seller Wikinomics. Macrowikinomics examines the way networked communities are transforming the way governments operate.

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High court hears argument in FOI corporate privacy case

from Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press:

It was a lesson in vocabulary during oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court held Wednesday morning, as the high court wrestled over the meaning of the word "personal." The case, FCC v. AT&T, concerned a federal Freedom of Information Act request for documents regarding a Federal Communications Commission investigation into AT&T's participation in a federal telecommunications build-out program. AT&T self-reported that it may have overcharged the government for its services.

The question before the Supreme Court on Wednesday was whether Exemption 7(c) of the FOIA recognizes and protects the "personal privacy" of corporate entities in the same manner as it does for individuals. Exemption 7(c) states "records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such law enforcement records or information . . . could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."

Read the rest here.

See more analysis here.