Friday, May 29, 2009

Cedillo's California Real ID Act Heads to Full Senate Vote

Act Aligned with Federal 2011 Implementation

By Christy Wolfe

SACRAMENTO (OBSNews.com) – SB 60, the California Real ID Act, authored by Sen. Gilbert Cedillo (D- Los Angeles) will head to a full Senate vote next week. The bill would bring California in compliance with the federal implementation deadline of 2011 and authorize California Department of Motor Vehicles to issue Real ID driver’s licenses which meet or exceed the minimum security standards set by the Department of Homeland Security.

The federal schedule for Real ID roll-out would have states begin to issue the new licenses to all new applicants beginning January 1, 2011. Drivers with existing licenses would receive the new version in phases upon renewal – drivers born before December 1964 will receive the new license upon renewal beginning in 2014 and drivers born after December 1964 upon renewal beginning 2017.

SB 60 will bring the state of California into compliance with the federal Real ID Act which calls for standardizing the process for issuing and appearance of driver’s licenses. Federal Real ID allows for a second tier, non-Real ID, license to be issued for those who are unable or unwilling to meet the identification requirements. Undocumented drivers or drivers opting out of Real ID would be issued a driving-only license with a clear mark on the front of the license indicating it is a non-Real ID license. The California proposal will not change the immigration status of applicants receiving the driving-only license.

“SB 60 is a pragmatic policy that will ensure all drivers are trained and licensed making our roads and highways safer. It’s also a national security tool for our law enforcement agencies,” remarked Cedillo. “The CA Real ID is supported by public safety, law enforcement and community stakeholders as a practical way to license all drivers.”

Christy Wolfe is the Director of Communications in the office of California State Senator Gilbert Cedillo (D – Los Angeles)

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

HAL TURNER ON FCC-DHS CORROBORATION

 "Emergency communications" is another reason for disaster mongers to cut your mic or cell phone.   While this is infinitely annoying and intrusive; privacy, technology and  A/V nerds are not without recourse.

FEAR NOT because obscure basement hogging ham radio operators have suddenly become a challenge to DHS, as "opposition" if they so much as cough without an FCC license.  This reminds me of when DHS decided that Mule skinners needed port of entry TWIC cards in tourist traps.  Only in America, land of WAYYY more force than is necessary.

At least HAM-talk Live! Arkansas might be more eventful while DHS stacks paperclips and figures out the cheapest way to get drunk after work.

The Turner Radio Network has obtained the complete radio interoperability guide for the Department of Homeland Security, issued by the DHS office of emergency communications. The guide, issued just days ago, includes updates for the entire nation through March 10, 2009. [We're way late, but you should still read it.]

This 76 page guide lists the radio frequencies, repeater input / output / talk-around frequencies, trunked radio network details including CTCSS codes for "private line" carrier squelching, satellite communications codes, radio programming instructions and more!

In the event of a national emergency, - or the round-up of "dissident" citizens -- this is how the various agencies of the federal government will communicate with each other AND with various agencies of the state and local governments.

Thanks to this guide, we'll know what to tune-in, so as to monitor what they've begun doing and, if need be, be able to plan in advance to jam those frequencies if the government tries to attack the citizenry or round-up "dissidents."
DOWNLOAD THIS NOW 

Interior Botches Officials' Passports, Report Finds


The Interior Department's inspector general has found widespread mishandling and erratic tracking of special passports issued to department officials traveling overseas, alleging that in numerous instances employees violated federal privacy laws by improperly securing passports and passport application forms.
::COMPLETE ARTICLE::

Sunday, May 24, 2009

FCC Assumes NSA Position Over WiFi

c/o Wired Magazine's THREAT LEVEL

You may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it.

That’s the upshot of the rules the agency has followed for years to monitor licensed television and radio stations, and to crack down on pirate radio broadcasters. And the commission maintains the same policy applies to any licensed or unlicensed radio-frequency device.

“Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference,” says FCC spokesman David Fiske. That includes devices like Wi-Fi routers that use unlicensed spectrum, Fiske says.

The FCC claims it derives its warrantless search power from the Communications Act of 1934, though the constitutionality of the claim has gone untested in the courts. That’s largely because the FCC had little to do with average citizens for most of the last 75 years, when home transmitters were largely reserved to ham-radio operators and CB-radio aficionados. But in 2009, nearly every household in the United States has multiple devices that use radio waves and fall under the FCC’s purview, making the commission’s claimed authority ripe for a court challenge.

“It is a major stretch beyond case law to assert that authority with respect to a private home, which is at the heart of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure,” says Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Lee Tien. “When it is a private home and when you are talking about an over-powered Wi-Fi antenna — the idea they could just go in is honestly quite bizarre.”

George Washington University professor Orin Kerr, a constitutional law expert, also questions the legalilty of the policy.

“The Supreme Court has said that the government can’t make warrantless entries into homes for administrative inspections,” Kerr said via e-mail, refering to a 1967 Supreme Court ruling that housing inspectors needed warrants to force their way into private residences. The FCC’s online FAQ doesn’t explain how the agency gets around that ruling, Kerr adds.

The rules came to attention this month when an FCC agent investigating a pirate radio station in Boulder, Colorado, left a copy of a 2005 FCC inspection policy on the door of a residence hosting the unlicensed 100-watt transmitter. “Whether you operate an amateur station or any other radio device, your authorization from the Commission comes with the obligation to allow inspection,” the statement says.


The notice spooked those running “Boulder Free Radio,” who thought it was just tough talk intended to scare them into shutting down, according to one of the station’s leaders, who spoke to Wired.com on condition of anonymity. “This is an intimidation thing,” he said. “Most people aren’t that dedicated to the cause. I’m not going to let them into my house.”

But refusing the FCC admittance can carry a harsh financial penalty. In a 2007 case, a Corpus Christi, Texas, man got a visit from the FCC’s direction-finders after rebroadcasting an AM radio station through a CB radio in his home. An FCC agent tracked the signal to his house and asked to see the equipment; Donald Winton refused to let him in, but did turn off the radio. Winton was later fined $7,000 for refusing entry to the officer. The fine was reduced to $225 after he proved he had little income.

Administrative search powers are not rare, at least as directed against businesses — fire-safety, food and workplace-safety regulators generally don’t need warrants to enter a business. And despite the broad power, the FCC agents aren’t cops, says Fiske. “The only right they have is to inspect the equipment,” Fiske says. “If they want to seize, they have to work with the U.S. Attorney’s office.”

But if inspectors should notice evidence of unrelated criminal behavior — say, a marijuana plant or stolen property — a Supreme Court decision suggests the search can be used against the resident. In the 1987 case New York v. Burger, two police officers performed a warrantless, administrative search of one Joseph Burger’s automobile junkyard. When he couldn’t produce the proper paperwork, the officers searched the grounds and found stolen vehicles, which they used to prosecute him. The Supreme Court held the search to be legal.

In the meantime, pirate radio stations are adapting to the FCC’s warrantless search power by dividing up a station’s operations. For instance, Boulder Free Radio consists of an online radio station operated by DJs from a remote studio. Miles away, a small computer streams the online station and feeds it to the transmitter. Once the FCC comes and leaves a notice on the door, the transmitter is moved to another location before the agent returns.

Measuring up to Privacy : EFF on Govt. Web Intrusion

from EFFector online

The Center for Democracy and Technology and EFF are releasing "Open Recommendations for the Use of Web Measurement Tools on Federal Government Web Sites." (Press ReleasePDF.) The document recommends repairs to the federal guidelines that regulate the use of cookies and other "persistent tracking technologies" on government websites.

Today, these regulations are problematic: They're both too harshly bureaucratic in some cases and too relaxed in others. They're too harsh because ordinary government webmasters are prohibited from performing even basic traffic analysis without acquiring personal approval from their agency's head — something they say is an insurmountable bureaucratic obstacle in many federal agencies. They're too relaxed because they don’t reach many of the tracking technologies that are in use today. In addition, in the event that the agency head does provide this sign-off, it allows a loophole which can enable the agency to use tracking technologies with almost no oversight or accountability. EFF has recently had first hand experience with this loophole since the White House has still refused to give any explanation, much less provide the actual waiver it recently issued for use of cookies on whitehouse.gov.

As an alternative, CDT and EFF are recommending a sensible way forward: Government webmasters ought to be permitted to use modern analytics tools without agency-head approval, so long as the use of those tools is carefully overseen and meets with specific strict safeguards and requirements.

Many of these safeguards will be familiar to folks who've read EFF's Best Practices For Online Service Providers: Visitor data must be speedily anonymized, and it may not be used for purposes other than traffic analysis. Visitors should be given a clear option allowing them to opt-out of tracking, and agency privacy officers must carefully review and audit the processes. And, importantly, no "agency-head approval" will be sufficient to waive these requirements.

In addition to being smart policy, the adoption of these guidelines would foster smart technology. Current web anaytics systems are notorious for hoarding data irregardless of privacy concerns. The prevailing approach is to collect as much information as possible and store it for as long as possible. To make matters worse, most systems (including the popular Google Analytics) store the data on servers that the web-manager does not own or control, increasing the likelihood that the data will be captured, leaked or misused. Adoption of these recommendations would encourage analytics providers to consider safer and smarter approaches.

The Obama Administration is expected to begin revising federal website policies soon, as part of its "Open Government" initiatives. We hope these recommendations will be incorporated. The result would be a win, both for webmasters seeking data and for citizens seeking privacy.