[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
[infowar.de] Lecture Series: Balancing National Security and Civil Liberties
Infowar.de, http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~bendrath/liste.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
Lecture Series: Balancing National Security and Civil
Liberties in an Age of Networked Terrorism
Wednesday, September 26, 2001
http://www.forumsondemand.com/carnegie/20010926/networkterrorism.ram
Jerry Berman,
Dorothy Denning
and Martin Libicki
discuss our current
national security
crisis.
(Real | Windows
Media)
About the speakers (L to R): Dorothy E. Denning is Professor of
Computer
Science at Georgetown University and Director of the Georgetown
Institute
for Information Assurance. She has published widely on such topics as
information warfare, cyber-crime and cyber-terrorism, encryption and
privacy
policies, and the impact of technology on society. Her books include
Information Warfare and Security, Internet Besieged: Countering
Cyberspace
Scofflaws, and Rights and Responsibilities of Participants in
Networked
Communities. Dr. Denning has testified before the U.S. Congress and
has
advised the U.S. government on these issues. Martin Libicki is Senior
Policy
Analyst at RAND, where he specializes in the relationship between
information
technology and national security. Dr. Libicki has written extensively
on such
topics as technology and warfare, the revolution in military affairs,
dominant
battle space knowledge and standards policy for the digital economy.
Among
his publications are the monographs, "Illuminating Tomorrow's War"
and "The
Mesh and the Net: Speculations on National Security in an Age of Free
Silicon." Prior to joining RAND, he spent twelve years at the
National Defense
University. Jerry Berman is the founder and Executive Director of the
Center
for Democracy and Technology, a leading Internet public policy
organization.
He is also President of the Internet Education Foundation and head of
the 150
organization Advisory Committee to the Congressional Internet Caucus.
Mr.
Berman has played a pivotal role in the enactment of landmark privacy
and
freedom of information legislation, and coordinated the First
Amendment
challenge to the Communications Decency Act at the US Supreme Court.
Rapporteur's Report
On September 26, 2001, the Project on the Information Revolution and
World
Politics convened a panel discussion on balancing national security
and civil
liberties in an age of networked terrorism. The panel's moderator,
William
Drake, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment, introduced the
topic by
placing the current national security crisis in the context of the
two
interrelated meta-trends of interest to the project---the information
revolution,
and globalization. Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda and other terrorist
organizations have at their disposal the same technological tools
that have
empowered businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and other
non-state
actors to organize their activities and advance their objectives more
effectively
than ever before. And like these other actors, they are able to
operate on a
global scale by moving and coordinating people, money, information
and other
assets across increasingly permeable national borders. Drake pointed
out that
"we are at war not with a nation, but with a network" that includes
connected
but semi-autonomous cells in multiple countries. Tracking and
eliminating this
sort of enemy presents challenges that are radically different from
those
encountered in traditional forms of warfare.
Drake raised four broad questions that merit consideration. First,
given the
conflicting reports on this score, what do we really know about how
terrorists
use information and communication technologies (ICTs)---e.g. data and
voice
communications, encryption, videotape recorders, broadcast radio---to
organize their activities and promote their message, and what threats
do these
uses pose for our national security? Second, what actions should the
United
States government take in response to such threats? For example, the
September 11 attack has reignited and given new urgency to
long-standing
debates about surveillance efforts such as the Carnivore and Echelon
programs, as well as to U.S. policies concerning encryption, privacy
protection, and related issues. Third, and of particular interest for
this panel
discussion, how should we balance the need to strengthen our national
security and intelligence capabilities with the need to preserve our
constitutionally protected freedoms? The question is critical today
because the
U.S. Congress is moving to adopt the Bush administration's new
anti-terrorist
legislation which, civil libertarians argue, goes too far in
expanding
government surveillance powers within the United States. And finally,
given
the globally networked nature of some terrorist organizations,
national actions
will at times be insufficient. In what cases, then, will we need to
develop and
enforce strong multilateral agreements, and what are the challenges
involved in
such an effort?
The first panel speaker, Dorothy Denning, described the various ways
terrorists have used ICTs in the past and speculated about how they
may use
them in the future. She began by presenting a website assembled by
Robert
Cromwell. The site contains links to separatist, para-military,
military,
intelligence, and aid organizations, and it illustrates how
terrorists and their
sympathizers have been using the Internet. She referred the audience
in
particular to the sites of the Taliban, Hamas and Hezbollah groups,
supporters
of Osama bin Laden, and sites in countries believed to be harboring
elements
of terrorist networks.
Denning then pointed out some examples of terrorists' use of ICTs..
She
noted that Ramzi Yousef, as associate of bin Laden who was convicted
of the
1993 World Trade Center bombing, used encryption technology to hide
information stored on his computer. Police found a laptop computer in
Yousef's safe house in Manila that contained encrypted files with
information
about his plans to take down 11 commercial airliners and to
assassinate the
Pope. She also cited a USA Today article stating that U.S. officials
believe that
Osama bin Laden's network and other Muslim extremists have been
posting
encrypted messages in pornographic photographs and on message boards
to
help plan terrorist actions against the United States.
Denning expressed concern that incidents of information
warfare will grow in number in the years ahead, and that
terrorist organizations could become more centrally
involved in such activity.
Denning then turned to recent incidents involving terrorists and
hacktivists
conducting cyber attacks, such as Internet viruses, worms, and
web-defacements. One of the first reported incidents involved an
offshoot of
the Tamil Tigers, the Internet Black Tigers, who launched a
denial-of-service
attack against the Sri Lankan Embassy. With automated tools, they
e-mailed
roughly 800 messages per day to the embassy over a two week period.
The
escalating cyber conflicts between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East
provided further examples. With hackers on both sides attacking one
another's
websites, the activities have proven "extremely destructive to
companies and
Internet service providers such as Netvision in Israel," said
Denning. Relating
these incidents to the United States' current investigation, Denning
called
attention to a January 2001 iDefense report stating that a
pro-Palestinian group
of Internet crackers called Unity had some connections with
Hezbollah, while
another group, al-Muhajiroun, had ties to bin Laden's network.
Denning
expressed concern that incidents of information warfare will grow in
number
in the years ahead, and that terrorist organizations could become
more
centrally involved in such activity.
Against this backdrop, Jerry Berman focused on the problem of
balancing
national security and civil liberties, most immediately in the
pending
anti-terrorist legislation. While acknowledging that the current
crisis calls for
immediate action, he cautioned against the hasty adoption of overly
sweeping
limitations on personal freedoms. The Anti-Terrorism Act proposed in
the
wake of the September 11 attack requires careful consideration
because it
covers a wide range of complex issues concerning the investigative
authority
of government agencies and the conduct of surveillance and
intelligence
gathering intelligence.
"We want to solve our national security crisis, but we do
not want to have a great deal of collateral damage to our
Constitution."
Berman recalled that in 1978, as Chief Legislative Counsel at the
American
Civil Liberties Union, he worked with the national security
establishment and
policy makers to find a balance between national security and civil
liberties.
The resulting Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)
established
classified and public guidelines for the surveillance efforts of the
Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA). The
FISA gives these agencies wide-ranging authority to conduct
electronic
surveillance against both foreign powers and their agents and
terrorist
organizations at home and abroad, including U.S. persons who aid and
abet
such activities. However, it draws a bright line between electronic
surveillance
for law enforcement purposes and surveillance for intelligence
purposes. The
law sets a lower standard for collecting intelligence information
than does Title
III and the Electronic Communications and Privacy Act, which is used
in
domestic criminal law cases. For example, under FISA, the government
can
obtain a warrant for intelligence gathering even if there is "less
than probable
cause" to believe that an individual-including an American-is working
with or
is aiding and abetting terrorists. In sum, Berman recalled that "we
wanted to
build a wall to separate the government from using intelligence
investigations
that focus on crime to target domestic political dissent."
Berman's concern today is that the pending anti-terrorist legislation
needlessly
breaks down that wall. Since surveillance is secret and never
disclosed under
FISA, the primary purpose of surveillance is intelligence collection,
as
opposed to criminal investigation. Berman explained that supporters
of the
new bill propose to make intelligence gathering one of several
purposes of
surveillance, with criminal investigation among them. This "serious
change in
the law" would then allow criminal investigations to be conducted
under a
statute designed for intelligence gathering under less than probable
cause.
In addition, the new proposal allows roving wiretaps for domestic
intelligence
gathering. Such taps "may follow any device, any computer they use,
it may
follow them into this room for electronic surveillance," he noted. In
his
opinion, this change also requires careful attention because
supporters intend
to apply FISA's low standards of "may be engaged in international
terrorist
activity" to new technologies and potentially use their findings for
criminal
investigation.
In addition, Berman pointed out that the proposed legislation weakens
the
requirement for judicial supervision of surveillance activities.
Under FISA,
investigators are required to produce business records relevant to
the
investigation; now, subpoenas would be sufficient for carrying out
surveillance. Also, proponents of the administration's bill would
like to allow
searches and wire taps under FISA to continue for one year, rather
than
subject them to frequent reviews. Since September 11, 150 new
wiretaps
have been issued, Berman noted.
Berman also said that the legislation would allow any information
that has
national security or intelligence value, collected under any wiretap,
to be
turned over to law enforcement officials and the administration. "It
allows the
use of wire tap information collected under surveillance illegally
abroad-and
one can imagine what it would be to be illegal abroad-where there's
no
Constitution or fourth amendment in criminal prosecutions," he
explained.
This appeases members of the law enforcement community who feel that
current laws restrict them from sharing information gathered in a
criminal
investigation with an intelligence agency, but it has risks as well.
Moreover,
changing the primary purpose test for wiretaps under FISA may nullify
the
statute on Constitutional grounds. If this occurs, both national
security and
civil liberties are threatened; further, if the statutes are found
unconstitutional,
criminal prosecution would suffer.
In short, Berman worried that the rushed passage of the law in its
current
form could have serious unintended consequences. Accordingly, he
argued
that more time is needed so that interested parties and the public
can seriously
debate the proposed legislation. If time can be found, the
administration and
the Congress can strike a better balance between national security
and civil
liberties. Some elements of a new approach might be to modify
statutes
perceived as restricting law enforcement officials to make exceptions
solely
for terrorist investigations, and to determine how best to share a
narrow class
of information relating to terrorist activities with the intelligence
community
without broad changes of current standards.
The final speaker, Martin Libicki, also focused on the question of
balance, but
did so from the standpoint of guiding design concepts rather the
current
anti-terrorist legislation. He began by drawing a parallel between
our
surveillance problems and the differences between carnivores and
herbivores.
Carnivores are very specific in their pursuit of food and convert a
high
percentage of what they eat into protein. In contrast, herbivores are
less
specific and have to eat a very large amount of food to get enough
protein to
survive. To date we have acted like carnivores by targeting
surveillance on
known people for specific private information which we, in turn,
intend to
make public to law enforcement. Alas, the perpetrators of the
September 11
went undetected, suggesting that this may no longer be the correct
template to
follow. Instead, we may want to collect a lot of information that is
not private
to begin with and try to make sense out of what we collect.
Libicki said that for present purposes, there are three types of
information:
private, local and global. Private information is undisclosed or
disclosed only
to people close to you, e.g. family members. Local information is
readily
accessible to relatively small number of physically proximate
strangers, e.g.
whether or not one hangs a flag outside of her home. Global
information can
be collectible and knowable without restriction. Much of our privacy
debates
have concerned the transition between private and public, which is
very well
protected in the Constitution by rules regarding search and seizure
and search
warrants; and the transition from local to global, which the
Constitution does
not strongly protect. The controversy of Amazon.com's creation and
distribution of customer profiles exemplifies this latter notion.
The challenges of implementing an enhanced surveillance
system include determining which organizations are
universally recognized as competent authorities to
provide identifications and pinpointing the kinds of
places and purposes that require identification.
Libicki proceeded to weigh the pros and cons of an enhanced
surveillance
system that turns local information into global information in order
to facilitate
the tracking of certain activities. To frame his discussion, he
defined hard
identification as the coupling of an electronic record with biometric
identification such as photographs, signatures, fingerprints, or DNA.
The
challenges of implementing this type of enhanced surveillance system
include
determining which organizations are universally recognized as
competent
authorities to provide identifications, and pinpointing the kinds of
places and
purposes that require identification. In this context, he also
revisited the
controversial question of whether a national identification card
would be
desirable.
Certain situations and places, such as airplanes, dictate the need
for identifying
people. Yet, Libicki wondered if the government should also collect
information to identify people engaged in "intrinsically hazardous
activities
[such as] flight schools, crop dusters [and] truck rentals" or those
who use
credit cards. Asking for identifications at specific and predictable
times and
places, he speculated, proves less useful for police work than
seeking it "at
random times in random places." But police officers' ability to ask
for
identification in this manner is the defining characteristic of a
police state, he
reminded the audience. Finally, Libicki tackled the very
controversial issue of
targeting populations based not only on their activities but also on
their
characteristics. The challenge lies in attempting to monitor target
populations,
including non-US citizens and people that are in institutional care,
while
avoiding everyone else.
Libicki identified two primary advantages of surveillance in the form
of an
extensive network of checkpoints. First, surveillance may inhibit or
prevent
people who do not want to be identified from carrying out their
intentions.
Second, it may provide security officials with a warning-provided
that they
have a template to follow, which seems uncertain at this point.
During the subsequent question and answer period, the discussion
ranged
from technical to philosophical considerations. Several audience
members
raised questions about the efficacy of restrictive encryption
policies, given that
the technology is already widely available all over the world.
Denning
answered that the administration's proposed antiterrorist act does
not intend to
change encryption policy. She also mentioned her work on the
President's
Export Council Subcommittee on Encryption to liberalize export
controls,
stating that she did not expect changes.
Another attendee asked about the ability of the National Security
Agency and
other intelligence agencies to handle the information load received
from
satellites and fiber optic cables. Berman said that the Attorney
General raised
this very issue in the morning. Lacking a sufficient number of
analysts and
translators to process information gathered from abroad, the
administration
must address these needs quickly, Berman opined. Berman added that
the
intelligence agencies' over-reliance on signal intelligence has
created an
unwieldy amount of information.
The next question directed to Berman elicited his opinion on the
implementation of a government identification card, in light of
Libicki's
remarks. Berman replied that terrorists probably would evade such
controls,
and noted that a mandatory program would be very controversial.
Nevertheless, a voluntary opt-in approach might be desirable if it
increased
convenience and citizens had faith that the information involved
would not be
abused.
One audience member asked about the role of business in the balancing
national security and civil liberties. Berman pointed to the
coalition of
businesses and civil libertarians who passed the Electronic
Communications
Privacy Act, worked on the redesign of the telephone network in 1994
and on
the more recent encryption policy. He believes that the business
community's
strong interest in protecting privacy guarantees adequate debate for
these
controversial issues.
A question concerning targeting non-American citizens, directed to
Libicki,
resulted in extensive comments from the panel. Given that citizens of
the
European Union member countries do not have to have a Visa to stay in
the
United States for three to four months, an audience member asked,
"Are we
going to just identify those that come from the so called Third
World? Are we
going after the usual suspects, the Arab countries?" Libicki
responded to the
question by claiming that he does not advocate targeting non-American
citizens. He went on to mention problems inherent in the view that
people with
"norms" similar to those of the United States belong on the inside of
a
figurative border and those who do not share those norms belong on
the
outside.
The current crisis introduces many sovereignty issues. In Libicki's
view, the
United States is "starting to come close to saying that you cannot
hide people
that are wanted from our laws," urging countries to have similar
notions of
crime and justice. A further paradox is "that a would-be terrorist is
safer in the
United States where he would have to be proven to be a terrorist than
he
would be in other countries, if we could lean on them to pick up
suspected
terrorists."
Berman also offered his opinions in response to the question of
targeting
non-Americans. "We live together. The next sleeper might be an
American.
You cannot profile on the basis of ethnic and racial background. [If
you do], it
will reverberate around the world and the President's coalition would
fall apart.
We're all in this together. We're talking about a relatively small
number of very
very crazy people and I just don't think you can target whole
populations,"
Berman said.
--
Olivier Minkwitz___________________________________________
Dipl. Pol., wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
HSFK Hessische Stiftung für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung
PRIF Peace Research Institute Frankfurt
Leimenrode 29 60322 Frankfurt a/M Germany
Tel +49 (0)69 9591 0422 Fax +49 (0)69 5584 81
Mobil 0172 3196 006
http://www.hsfk.de
minkwitz -!
- hsfk -
de___________________________________________
---------------------------------------------------------------
Liste verlassen:
Mail an infowar -
de-request -!
- infopeace -
de mit "unsubscribe" im Text.