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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'>Is there any doubt at all in anyone’s mind that we are living in a
Police State? Is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that Barack Obama is a
stinking fascist? We are living in a fascist nation, people. If you think
voting Democrat is going to change anything you are dead wrong. You will be
contributing DIRECTLY to the continuation of fascism, and I’m talking
about on a local, state and national election. It’s way past time to wake
up and realize a coup has taken place in this country. STOP perpetuating the
sham that we live in some sort of democracy or representative republic. We have
neither. <o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'>Kris<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'><a href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/wire-s28.shtml">http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/wire-s28.shtml</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<h2><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>Big
Brother Obama: US to spy on Internet messaging<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h2>
<h4><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Regulations
to target Skype, Facebook, Blackberry<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h4>
<h5><b><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>By
Patrick Martin <br>
28 September 2010<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h5>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The Obama
White House is backing new regulations that would compel popular Internet
messaging services like Facebook, Skype and Blackberry to open up their systems
to FBI surveillance, the <em><i><font face="Times New Roman">New York Times</font></i></em>
reported Monday, citing federal law enforcement and national security
officials.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
threat to democratic rights goes far beyond anything envisioned by the Bush
administration. The goal is to make all forms of electronic communication that
use the Internet subject to wiretapping and interception by federal police
agencies.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>In the
past few years there has been a large-scale shift from conventional telephone
communication to Internet-based messaging, which is both cheaper and more
secure.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>“Investigators
have been concerned for years that changing communications technology could
damage their ability to conduct surveillance,” the <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">Times</font></i></em> reported. “In recent months,
officials from the FBI, the Justice Department, the National Security Agency,
the White House and other agencies have been meeting to develop a proposed
solution.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>This
would include drafting new statutory language to bring providers like Research
in Motion, the Canadian-based company that makes Blackberry devices, under
legal controls similar to those established by the 1994 Communications
Assistance to Law Enforcement Act.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>That
legislation required telecommunications companies to make their call-processing
systems accessible to federal government spying, whether the calls pass through
conventional phone lines or cell phone relay towers.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>One of
the biggest issues will be a government demand that communications service
providers change the structure of their hardware and software, providing a
“back door” for the use of intelligence agencies and ensuring that
government agents can break any encryption applied to messages either by the
service provider or the customer.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">Times </font></i></em>article did not raise any alarm
over the prospect of government snooping on the private communications of
hundreds of millions of people, whether in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> or in other
countries. Nor did it quote any objection to the proposal from civil liberties
groups, although the American Civil Liberties Union quickly issued a statement
calling the plan “a huge privacy invasion” that was “one more
step toward conducting easy dragnet collection of Americans’ most private
communications.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The only
downside suggested by the <em><i><font face="Times New Roman">Times</font></i></em>
account was the existence of technical problems that might prove expensive and
cumbersome for the corporations that would have to comply with the new rules,
and that the new security procedures might create new opportunities for
hackers.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>FBI
General Counsel Valerie Caproni, who discussed the issue with the newspaper,
said that there was a consensus among police and intelligence agencies that
companies which provide encrypted communications would have to retain the key
to any encryption, rather than allowing their customers to devise and hold
their own.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>“No
one should be promising their customers that they will thumb their nose at a <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> court
order,” she told the <em><i><font face="Times New Roman">Times</font></i></em>.
“They can promise strong encryption. They just need to figure out how
they can provide us plain text.” In other words, encryption would protect
the privacy of communications, except when the government says otherwise.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>This is
the same stance taken by dictatorial governments from <st1:country-region
w:st="on">China</st1:country-region> to the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place>.
The governments of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region>
and the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United Arab Emirates</st1:place></st1:country-region>
only last month threatened to bar Blackberry services in their countries
because Research in Motion refused to allow the local intelligence services to
monitor and intercept messaging.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">Times</font></i></em> article gave two examples of
government efforts to intercept encrypted or peer-to-peer communications that
ran into technical obstacles, one involving a drug cartel, the other related to
the failed Times Square bombing earlier this year. These examples were chosen
to support the claim by the Obama administration that the buildup of
surveillance is part of a struggle against crime and “terrorism.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>However,
the Obama administration has defined “terrorism” so widely that the
term now covers a vast array of constitutionally protected forms of political
opposition to the policies of the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> government, including speaking,
writing, political demonstrations, even the filing of legal briefs.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">Times</font></i></em> report comes only three days after
FBI raids on antiwar political activists in Minneapolis and Chicago, who could
face charges of providing “material support” for terrorist
organizations because they have spoken and written in opposition to US foreign
policy in the Middle East and in Colombia.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=red face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
color:red'>According to an attorney for one of those targeted, the dragnet was
so all-encompassing that FBI agents seized “any documents containing the
word <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Palestine</st1:place></st1:City>.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=red face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
color:red'>By the same logic, any data packet passing through the Internet with
the word “<st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Palestine</st1:place></st1:City>”
could be subject to interception, decryption, and storage in a federal database
where both the person sending the message and the person receiving it would be
permanently recorded as under suspicion of links to terrorism. Other words
suggest themselves as likely targets: socialism, class struggle, imperialism,
revolution, Marxism, Trotskyism.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place>
national security apparatus seeks the power not only to spy on the Internet,
but to seize or shut it down entirely when that might seem advantageous. Former
CIA director Michael Hayden, interviewed by Reuters at a cyber-security
conference in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">San Antonio</st1:City>, <st1:State
w:st="on">Texas</st1:State></st1:place> on Sunday, called for giving President
Obama, or any president, the power to shut down the Internet. “It is
probably wise to legislate some authority to the president to take emergency
measures for limited periods of time, with clear reporting to Congress, when he
feels as if he has to,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Hayden
was echoing a view that is increasingly widespread in official <st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:State>. In June, a
Senate subcommittee approved a bill, introduced by Joseph Lieberman, the
right-wing Democrat from <st1:State w:st="on">Connecticut</st1:State>,
declaring the entire World Wide Web a “national asset” of the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>
and giving the president the power to seize control of the Internet or order
its complete shutdown “for national security reasons.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
197-page bill is entitled “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset
Act,” or PCNAA. It has the backing of another top Senate Democrat, Jay
Rockefeller of <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">West Virginia</st1:place></st1:State>.
Big software companies and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are supporting the
bill because it grants them immunity against civil lawsuits for any damage
caused by a shutdown or government takeover.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Also on
Monday, the US Treasury Department issued proposed new regulations that would
require American banks to report all electronic money transfers into and out of
the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
regardless of the amount. Up to now, transfers of $10,000 or more had to be
reported.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The new
regulations were issued under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention
Act, passed in 2004, which gave the treasury secretary authority to require
such reports to “combat terrorist financing.” The new rules would
require banks to pump information on 750 million transfers a year into a huge
new database that could be mined by police, intelligence and regulatory
agencies.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
information accompanying a wire transfer usually includes the name, address and
account number of sender and recipient, as well as identification such as a
driver’s license or passport number if required by the money service.
Banks would have to provide Social Security numbers for senders and recipients
on an annual basis.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>These
actions demonstrate that a turning point has been reached in the erosion of
democratic rights in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United
States</st1:place></st1:country-region>. A full decade ago, at the time of
the stolen presidential election of 2000 and the Supreme Court’s
anti-democratic decision in Bush v. Gore, the Socialist Equality Party and the <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">World Socialist Web Site</font></i></em> warned that
there was no longer any constituency for the defense of democratic rights
within the American ruling class.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>For a
decade since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, first under Bush, now under Obama, the
American ruling class has erected the framework for a police state. At no stage
in this process has there been any significant opposition from any section of
the political establishment.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Now the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>
stands on the brink of major social struggles, with tens of millions of working
people seeking the means to fight to defend jobs, living standards and public
services. The American ruling class has long understood that the real threat to
its vast wealth and privilege comes not from foreign “terrorists,”
but from below, from the working people who constitute the vast majority of the
population.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Working
people must be equally clear-eyed: millions will now come into conflict with
the vast military/intelligence apparatus of the federal government. What is
posed now is a turn to political struggle, to the independent political
mobilization of the working class against the two official parties of big
business, the Democrats and Republicans, and against the capitalist state
itself.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
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