Senate Passes Temporary Re-Authorization Of Patriot Act..."Sneak & Peek"

Senate Passes Short-Term Patriot Act Re-authorization


The Senate passed by voice vote Wednesday night legislation that would temporarily extend three Patriot Act provisions set to expire at the end of this month.

The bill would keep in place the Patriot Act’s “lone wolf,” business records and “roving wiretap” powers until Feb. 28, 2011. The House has yet to consider the measure.

Both the House and Senate had begun work on long-term renewals, but the bills contained major differences.

The Senate Patriot Act bill would reauthorize all of the authorities. The House version would renew the records and “roving wiretap” powers but not the “lone wolf” authority, which the government has never used. The bills also would include new oversight for the authorities.

The Senate bill was approved by the Judiciary Committee last October and is awaiting floor action. The House bill, which won Judiciary Committee approval last November, is also awaiting floor action.

“I would have preferred to add oversight and judicial review improvements to any extension of expiring provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act,” Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said in a statement Wednesday night.

Here is a summary of the provisions that are due to expire:

* Lone wolf: Allows the government to track a target without any discernible affiliation to a foreign power, such as an international terrorist group. The provision applies only to non-U.S. persons. The government has never used it.

* Business records: Allows Investigators to compel third parties, including financial services and travel and telephone companies, to provide them access to a suspect’s records without the suspect’s knowledge.

* Roving wiretaps: Allows the government to monitor phone lines or Internet accounts that a terrorism suspect may be using, regardless of whether others who are not suspects also regularly use them. The government must provide the FISA court with specific information showing the suspect is purposely switching means of communication to evade detection.






U.S. House Renews Patriot Act


The House of Representatives re-authorized the Patriot Act for one year Thursday.

The vote was 315-97 .

Many liberals in the House opposed the controversial act, saying it tramps Constitutional protections and civil liberties.

Congress adopted the Patriot Act shortly after September 11th.

Many lawmakers wanted to rewrite or even kill some of the most controversial provisions in the act. But Congressional leaders didn’t have the appetite for a major battle with the economy and health care reform swinging in the balance.

Many of the renewed provisions involve wiretaps and eavesdropping measures.

The Senate ok'd the package earlier this week. President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law.

Sources: Main Justice, Fox News, Wikipedia, Youtube

Google Buzz Violates Wire Tap Laws? EPIC Says Yes

EPIC: Google May Have Broken Wiretap Law


If Google wanted to create a quick buzz around its new social networking service, it's certainly accomplished that. Last week, when the Web giant automatically signed up millions of Gmail users for its new Buzz social network, much of the Internet was sent into a privacy tizzy.

Google announced serious modifications to the service later in the week, but that wasn’t enough for the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). On Tuesday, it filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, asking the regulator to order more changes. EPIC also accused Google of violating Federal Consumer Protection Law and suggested the firm may have broken wiretap laws, too.

While the details of the Buzz privacy dispute can seem esoteric, the main thrust of EPIC's complaint is simple: Google should never have pushed all 37 million U.S. Gmail users into a social networking service without asking, said EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg.

"E-mail is one area on the Internet where we have a well-understood expectation of privacy," Rotenberg said. "E-mail is for private messages. You sign up for social networking to communicate publicly with people, Google tried to turn e-mail into social networking, and that's where they ran into trouble."

The complaint lays out a series of alleged Google missteps that EPIC says constitute unfair or deceptive trade practices that violate the Federal Trade Commission Act. For starters, it says, all users who checked their Gmail account last week were suddenly signed up for Buzz. While Google offered users a chance to "check out" the service, it didn't give them the option to avoid it.

"Regardless of whether a user clicked the button labeled 'Sweet! Check out Buzz' or “Nah, go to my inbox,’ Google Buzz was activated," the complaint says.

Gmail account holders who then began using Buzz found their first public posting was essentially a list of their most frequent e-mail contacts. Buzz decided for itself who users e-mailed most often, then put those users on a list as "followers" and made that list public. Quickly, nightmare hypothetical scenarios were published -- workers who had recently e-mailed about job interviews had their job hunt exposed, for example. Cheating lovers or spouses were outed.

"Gmail contact lists routinely include deeply personal information, including the names and email addresses of estranged spouses, current lovers, attorneys and doctors," the EPIC complaint said. "Users were not explicitly warned that their lists would be automatically visible to the public. ... Anyone looking at a newly activated Buzz user’s following list would know that the list indicated which people that user communicated with most often."

In addition to causing potential embarrassment -- or worse – Google may have broken the law by disclosing e-mail contacts, EPIC said.

"Improper disclosure of even a limited amount of subscriber information by an e-mail service provider can be a violation of both state and federal law," it said. "An attempt by an e-mail service provider to attempt to convert the personal information of all of its customers into a separate service raises far-reaching concerns."

Google has already gone through two rounds of revisions with its service, and Buzz now tells new users that frequent e-mail partners will be “followers” unless the user prevents that. New users now see a list of potential followers -- checked by default -- when they sign up for the service.

But on Tuesday, Rotenberg said that Google still hadn't gone far enough to address privacy concerns. Buzz still ropes in Gmail users and their e-mail contacts by default, which can lead to unintended disclosure of personal information, he says.

Rotenberg said Buzz users should have to actively opt in before Buzz is activated, rather than opt out.

"It's always about the defaults," he said.

EPIC has called on the FTC to force Google to:

*make Buzz a fully opt-in service.
* force Google to cease using Gmail users’ private address book contacts to compile social networking lists.
*give Buzz users more control over their information.

For a company that has already dealt with plenty of privacy related issues, Google's misreading of public reaction to Buzz is a surprise, said Larry Ponemon, a privacy researcher who runs The Ponemon Institute.

"It is astonishing to me that a decision was made to release a product that the average person would see as a potential privacy snafu," he said. "Things like this seem to happen because people making decisions just aren't thinking about privacy. … Sometimes companies don't when they are about to release something they think is really cool."

Ponemon did say that he was impressed with Google's quick response to the controversy, taking only a few days to make changes to the service.

"They did take it seriously, you could tell they had all hands on deck," he said.

Rotenberg said Google was more worried about stiff competition in the social media world than privacy.

“Google tried to take advantage of its market position" by dragging all Gmail users into Buzz overnight, he said, thereby giving the service a running start in the uphill battle to catch Facebook and Twitter in the social networking space.

That's why he wants the FTC to be more proactively involved in privacy policy.

"The FTC has had a hands-off policy, leading to some bad business practices," he said.

Google said in an e-mail statement to msnbc.com that it was working hard to make adjustments to its service based on user feedback, and will keep "user transparency and control top of mind.

“We also welcome dialogue with EPIC and appreciate hearing directly from them about their concerns," the statement continued. "Our door is always open to organizations with suggestions about our products and services.”


Sources: MSNBC, First Read, Red Tape Chronicles, FTC

Will James O'Keefe's "Louisiana Watergate" Arrest Vindicate ACORN?

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Activist Filmmaker Arrested In Senator’s Office



A conservative filmmaker who posed as a pimp to target the liberal activist group ACORN was arrested with the son of a federal prosecutor and two other men and accused of plotting to tamper with the New Orleans offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.

Activist James O'Keefe, 25, recorded two of the other suspects with his cell phone as they walked into the office dressed like telephone repairmen and said they needed to fix problems with the phone system, according to an FBI affidavit.

In the affidavit, Special Agent Steven Rayes said O’Keefe was helping Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan, who were attempting to interfere with the office’s telephone system.

A federal law enforcement official said one of the suspects was picked up in a car a couple of blocks away with a listening device that could pick up transmissions. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not part of an FBI affidavit that described the circumstances of the case.

O'Keefe said, "The truth shall set me free," as he left a suburban jail Tuesday with Basel and suspect Stan Dai, both 24. All declined to comment. "There will be a time for that," Dai said.

The fourth suspect, Robert Flanagan, the son of Shreveport-based acting U.S. Attorney Bill Flanagan, was not with them. It was not immediately known if he had already been released on the $10,000 bail set for each suspect.

Bill Flanagan's office confirmed his son was among those arrested, but declined further comment.


Motive unclear

All four men were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.

It sounded like a Watergate-style operation, but federal officials have not yet said why the men wanted to interfere with Landrieu's phones, whether they were successful, or even if the goal was political espionage.

According to the FBI affidavit, Flanagan and Basel showed up at Landrieu's office Monday morning carrying white hard hats and dressed in jeans, blue work shirts, fluorescent green vests and toolbelts. They told an employee they were there to fix problems with the phone system. O'Keefe told an employee he was there waiting for someone.

The affidavit says Basel asked for access to a phone at the reception desk, then manipulated the handset and tried to call the phone with his cell phone, but said he could not get through. Flanagan tried to call as well, according to the affidavit.

They said they needed to work on the main system and asked where the telephone closet was. They were directed to another office in the building, where they again said they were telephone repairmen and an employee asked for their credentials. They said they had left them in their vehicle.

They were arrested later by U.S. marshals. Details of the arrest were not available. Dai was also arrested, but Letten's office said only that he assisted the others in planning, coordinating and preparing.

Landrieu, a moderate Democrat, said in a statement Tuesday, "I am as interested as everyone else about their motives and purpose, which I hope will become clear as the investigation moves forward."

Spokesman Aaron Saunders said Landrieu was in Washington when the men showed up Monday in New Orleans. Landrieu has been in the news recently because she negotiated an increase in Medicaid funds for her state before announcing her support for Senate health care legislation.

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Poor judgment

An FBI criminal complaint charging the men was unsealed Tuesday. None of the defendants, each wearing red prison jumpsuits, commented at a court hearing held in the afternoon. All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purpose of committing a felony, which could bring up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

"It was poor judgment," Robert Flanagan's lawyer, Garrison Jordan, said in a brief interview outside the courthouse. "I don't think there was any intent or motive to commit a crime."

Michael McHale, chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party, referred to the episode as "Louisiana Watergate" in a statement Tuesday and urged authorities to prosecute "any wrongdoers to the fullest extent of the law."

O'Keefe was the brains behind a series of undercover videos that have caused major problems for ACORN — the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now.

He managed to do what Republicans have been trying to for years — hurt the political affiliates of ACORN, which have registered hundreds of thousands of voters in urban and other poor areas of the country.

By producing undercover videos shot in ACORN offices, O'Keefe brought a firestorm of criticism that the group was helping its low-income clients break the law.

Using a hidden camera, O'Keefe, posing as a pimp and accompanied by a young woman posing as a prostitute, shot videos in ACORN offices where staffers appeared to offer illegal tax advice and to support the misuse of public funds and illegal trafficking in children.

Edited videos of those visits to ACORN offices were first posted on biggovernment.com, a site run by conservative Andrew Breitbart. In the past, Breitbart has said O'Keefe — now a paid contributor to biggovernment.com — is an independent filmmaker, not an employee.

In a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press, Breitbart said: "We have no knowledge about or connection to any alleged acts and events involving James O'Keefe at Senator Mary Landrieu's office. We only just learned about the alleged incident this afternoon. We have no information other than what has been reported publicly by the press. Accordingly, we simply are not in a position to make any further comment."

O'Keefe's biography on a Web site where he blogs says he works at VeritasVisuals.com, though that Web site does not currently work. O’Keefe was in New Orleans last week to give a speech at the Libertarian Pelican Institute.

O'Keefe has been sued in Pennsylvania and Maryland based on the ACORN videos; he does not have an attorney of record in either case.

ACORN calls itself the largest grass roots community organization of low- and moderate-income people in the country, claiming over 400,000 families, more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in about 75 cities.

Until the controversy last year over the videos at ACORN offices, 10 percent of ACORN's funds came from federal government grants. In September, Congress blocked previously approved funds from going to the group.

O'Keefe's arrest "is further evidence of his disregard for the law in pursuit of his extremist agenda," ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis said in a statement. The organization's Twitter feed commented on the news: "Couldn't have happened to a more deserving soul."



Sources: MSNBC

James O'Keefe Busted By Feds For Another ACORN Trick...Sen. Mary Landrieu

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James O'Keefe Charged With U.S. Senate Office Infiltration In New Orleans


Four men were charged Tuesday after attempting to illegally access and manipulate the phone system in a district office of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana, a local U.S. attorney's office said.

Joseph Basel, 24, Robert Flanagan, 24, James O'Keefe, 25, and Stan Dai, 24, were charged with entering Landrieu's New Orleans office, which is federal property, under "false pretenses for the purpose of committing a Felony," according to the attorney's office.

Law enforcement officials say they believe O'Keefe is the conservative activist of the same name who dressed up as a pimp last summer and visited an office of ACORN, a liberal community organizing group, in order to solicit advice on setting up a brothel, among other scenarios.

He secretly recorded the visits on video and posted them on the Web, leading to a media firestorm.

Flanagan is the son of William Flanagan, the acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, his office said.

Articles on conservative Web sites connect O'Keefe to a man named Joe Basel, describing them as conservative student activists and filmmakers.

According to the news release Tuesday and an affidavit by FBI Special Agent Steven Rayes, who is based in New Orleans, Basel and Flanagan attempted to gain access to Landrieu's office Monday while posing as telephone repairmen.

The two men were "each dressed in blue denim pants, a blue work shirt, a light green fluorescent vest, a tool belt and a construction-style hard hat when they entered the Hale Boggs Federal Building," the release said.

After they entered the building, the two men told a staffer in Landrieu's office they were telephone repairmen, according to the release and Rayes' affidavit. They then asked for, and were granted, access to the reception desk's phone system.

O'Keefe, who had been waiting in the office before the pair arrived, recorded their actions with a cell phone, Rayes' affidavit said.

Flanagan and Basel later requested access to a telephone closet, claiming they needed to perform work on the main phone system, the release and affidavit said.

According to Rayes' affidavit, the two men went to a U.S. General Services Administration office on another floor and requested access to the main phone system. A GSA employee then asked for their credentials, and the two men said they left them in their vehicle, the affidavit said.

All four men have admitted their roles in the operation to federal agents, Rayes' affidavit said.

If convicted, the four men would each face a fine of $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison, according to the news release.

"Because the details of yesterday's incident are part of an ongoing investigation by federal authorities, our office cannot comment at this time," Landrieu spokesman Aaron Saunders told CNN.

Articles posted January 14 on CampusReform.org and Political Vanguard, both conservative Web sites, quoted O'Keefe and a man identified as Joe Basel as conservative student activists and independent filmmakers.

"Don't just respond to news, but actually create your own headlines," O'Keefe is quoted as saying by CampusReform.org







ACORN Employee Sues Undercover Filmmakers



The civil lawsuit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia accuses the filmmakers of illegally recording their conversation with the worker.


An employee at a Philadelphia branch of ACORN, the national community organization under fire for allegations of wrongdoing, has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the two filmmakers who set off the controversy last fall with their undercover videos.

The civil lawsuit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia accuses the filmmakers, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, of illegally recording their conversation with the worker, Katherine Conway-Russell, and then publicizing the videos, which Conway-Russell says "caused emotional distress, harm and injury."

Conway-Russell is featured in one of several videos recorded by O'Keefe and Giles, who posed as a pimp and prostitute and visited ACORN offices around the country with a hidden camera. The videos, released initially through the conservative Web site BigGovernment.com, showed ACORN employees seeming to offer to help the couple skirt tax and housing laws while setting up a brothel.

Conway-Russell, an office director with ACORN Housing Corporation since March 2008, accuses O'Keefe and Giles of visiting the Philadelphia office July 24 to "entrap ... employees into engaging in inappropriate counseling," adding that she made clear to them that she could only offer assistance with "mortgage possibilities." The lawsuit doesn't go into details of the conversation.

It's hardly the first time ACORN or its employees have responded to the controversy over its operations by suing.

The organization filed a lawsuit in Baltimore in late September accusing the filmmakers and BigGovernment.com of illegally recording conversations at a Baltimore ACORN office and then posting them online.

And in November, representatives for ACORN sued the federal government in an attempt to regain the millions of dollars in funding the community organizing group lost after Congress responded to the undercover videos by voting to block the funding.

ACORN also has faced allegations of voter fraud during the 2008 presidential election.



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Sources: CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Google Maps

FBI Probes Another North Carolina DMV Corruption Case

The first video below focuses on another Federal probe into NC DMV Corruption regarding DMV employees issuing fake Drivers Licenses. That investigation was held in 2008.

However the following articles and additional videos below focus on recent allegations of DMV Agency Leaders illegally wiretapping employees without a warrant and...former Gov. Mike Easley's missing Travel records.

See I told you NC was one of the most Corrupt states in America.

Sad but true.







FBI Probe: Did DMV Execs Illegally Wiretap Workers?


Federal Authorities are investigating whether the former commissioner of the state Division of Motor Vehicles illegally wiretapped the phone calls of agency employees.

George Tatum, who resigned in 2007 amid a corruption scandal, had a special telephone in his office that allowed him to listen in on the calls of his subordinates without their knowledge, according to current DMV officials. Greg Lockamy, who retired unexpectedly last year after serving as the agency's internal affairs director, also had a phone set up for secret eavesdropping.

NC State law forbids intercepting phone calls without a warrant unless at least one person in the conversation is aware the monitoring is taking place.

Tatum, now the director of emergency management at Fayetteville State University, did not respond to repeated requests for comment this week.

Current DMV Commissioner Mike Robertson said any improper monitoring of employee phone calls ended before he took over the agency last year. Robertson confirmed, however, that FBI agents interviewed him about wiretapping that might have occurred at DMV before he arrived.

Other DMV officials had also been interviewed, he said. He declined to divulge details about what questions the Federal Agents asked.

"It's fairly common knowledge over here there were allegations about telephone eavesdropping," Robertson said.

Brent Parrish, a telephone technician at DMV, was subpoenaed to appear before the federal grand jury hearing evidence in a wide-ranging investigation of former Gov. Mike Easley. Parrish said Tuesday he testified Sept. 16 about the special features on Tatum's phone.

Parrish said he had no direct knowledge of whose calls Tatum might have listened to or why.

"I don't have any evidence he ever used it," Parrish said. "But I did have suspicions, and that's what I told the grand jury."

He declined to give reasons for those suspicions or say what further testimony he provided.

Link to N.C. State

Tatum, 57, might be of interest to the Federal Prosecutors investigating Easley because he dismissed a serious violation against an auto inspection station owned by McQueen Campbell, who resigned as a N.C. State University trustee last year. Campbell quit amid questions about his role in hiring the governor's wife for a high-paying job at the university.

Campbell, a pilot, was subpoenaed before the NC State Board of Elections in October to testify about flights provided to Easley in his private plane, and repairs he paid for at the governor's house.

Tatum, a former Cumberland County register of deeds and a close associate of former Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, was appointed to lead DMV by Easley in 2003. Tatum was forced to resign four years later after The News & Observer reported that he helped a friend get a vintage truck title for a vehicle that was actually a replica. The fraudulent move can save owners hundreds of dollars in taxes and boost potential resale value.

Tatum was seen in August entering the federal courthouse in Raleigh while the grand jury was in session, though it is not clear whether he testified.

Lockamy, 50, retired from the DMV June 1 and now works for the Johnston County Sheriff's Office. As DMV's former assistant director for professional standards, he declined to comment on whether he eavesdropped on employee calls. He also declined to say whether he had been subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury.

Monitoring Lines


Parrish, the Technician, said the DMV phone system allows managers supervising the agency's call center to monitor conversations with the public. Those calling the DMV with questions about license renewal and other issues hear a recorded disclaimer informing them their calls might be monitored for quality assurance.

Parrish said Tatum and Lockamy also had the function installed on their phones, allowing them to listen in on any phone line at DMV headquarters, including those of other high-ranking administrators.

The technician said the function allowed Tatum to program his phone so that a "busy light" would indicate when particular lines were in use. The commissioner could then pick up his phone and press a button to listen to the call, with his handset automatically muted. Those on the line would have no indication their call was monitored.

After Tatum left in 2007, Easley appointed former Superior Court Judge William Gore to lead the DMV. After Gore had been in office about a week, Parrish said, Gore called to ask about the special buttons on his phone. Gore immediately ordered that the feature be deactivated.

Gore said Wednesday he wanted the monitoring capabilities removed from his phone because he had no intention of listening to other people's conversations.

"Having been a judge and lawyer, I didn't want to be in the situation where the phone in my office was being used for some illegal or inappropriate purpose," Gore said.

Robertson, the current DMV commissioner, said only the supervisor for the agency's call center now has a phone set up for listening in on those she supervises. No other phones, including his, are set up to monitor other extensions.

"It ain't happening anymore," said Robertson, who was an agent at the State Bureau of Investigation and said he is well acquainted with the penalties for wiretapping without a warrant. "I know what the law is. I know it's a felony."










Easley Travel Record Still Missing; Panel Comes Up Empty


The outside panel investigating what happened to missing travel records that detailed former Gov. Mike Easley's travel in 2005 has found nothing.

N.C. Crime Control and Public Safety Secretary Reuben Young appointed the panel that included two former judges and a former U.S. Senator to investigate the disappearance of the records.

In sum, while we found minor inconsistencies in the stories about the records, we did not find the records themselves or any clear indication of wrongdoing in their disappearance or destruction. To the best of our knowledge, we have exhausted the possibilities but failed to produce definitive answers and bring closure to the matter.

The 10-page report was signed by Willis Whichard, a former state Supreme Court justice and former Campbell University law school dean; Robert Morgan, a former U.S. senator, former SBI director and former state attorney general; and Ralph Walker, a former superior and court of appeals judge and former director of the Administrative Office of the Courts.

Easley told the panel that he was not aware that the records were even kept. The panel found Easley's story credible.

"While it is, of course, possible that it is not true, we can point to nothing that would enable someone to prove it false," the panel wrote.

The panel began its investigation after a Highway Patrol secretary told The News & Observer that she was told to save space on her computer by deleting the records even though she didn't have a shortage of space on her machine.

Travel records for other years were key to N&O reports that showed Easley took free flights from supporters who had mutually beneficial relationships with Easley.



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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, Charlotte Observer, Newsobserver, Under The Dome, WCNC, Youtube, Google Maps