From: "Kari Laine" <buster@klaine.pp.fi>
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 95 05:03:23 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Whitehouse "dissident" and net monitoring
Message-ID: <199509131202.AA15294@personal.eunet.fi>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> From:          lindat@iquest.net (Linda Thompson, American Justice Federation)

> >    The  National  Security   Agency   presumably   can   monitor
> >subversive  communication  on  the  Internet  without leaving any
> >trace  by  "sniffing  packets"  at  traffic  nodes. 

Well they are just doing what their charter says they
should be doing - gathering information.

> >    It turns out that computers from inside the White House  have
> >kept  pretty  good  tabs  on information available on Whitewater,
> >Vince Foster, and Mena at a few key repositories  on  the  World-
> >Wide Web, a subset of the Internet.

I think that's because White House workers has access to 
net and of course they are surfing like all the rest of us
- they are just people you know :-) If that would be 
part of something hard level information gathering
I assure you they would not leave so clear traces.

> >Office  of the President between August 28 and August 31.  If the
> >White House is showing a similar interest in other sites  on  the
> >World  Wide  Web,  that would amount to a monitoring operation of
> >considerable magnitude. 

So are you saying White House by itself checked out those places
or are you saying that *people* working inside the White House
happened to be interested issues available on those sites and 
accessed them. And so what it is public information when it
is on the WWW - isn't it?


> >    In light of this information, I have the following questions:
My guesses are

> >(1) Does this constitute "casual browsing" by White House staff, or
> >    is it, in light of the considerable time and effort spent during 
> >    regular business hours, part of a monitoring or intelligence operation?

Probably both 

> >(2) For what purpose is the information transferred to the White House used?

Probably to read it and maybe learn something from it :-)

> >(3) Does the White House keep information from these web sites on file,
> >    and does the White House keep a file on the persons responsible for
> >    these web sites?

Hell I am keeping my own records and on the other hand I am in the
process to get/buy/snatch/built a system where I could automatically
scan all the newsgroups with some kind of AI system and to keep
an eye on certain FTP, GOPHER,WAIS, WWW and so on to keep
me bether informed. This partly because this information from 
interne is getting out of proportion AND quite a big part of it
is just rubbish and wasting your time. 

> >(4) Is the April 9 statement by David Lytel of the White House Office of
> >    Science and Technology to Amy Bauer of Copley News Service that the
> >    administration does not monitor anti-Clinton activity on the web still
> >    operative?

Probably they do and they really should. If I was Mr. Clinton (which 
I luckily am not) I would want my adjudats to prepare a report for
me each morning summing up all the possible comments round 
subject Clinton and The USA from NET: That would be very precisious
source of feedback to finetune your acts. And that information 
is real time.

Totally another thing which somehow belongs to this subject
should intelligence bodies watch for the net.

I am middle reading Spycatcher book. Btw I don't understand
all the hype rouund it and I would say in that book there is
not enough substance to ban it's printing in certain countries.

Anyway again in that book it becomes clear that the most
riskiest part of the agent and therefore on of the best way
to unweil them is to concentrate on their communications
with the coordinators in that particular country or on 
the communication directed to country behind the operation.

So clearly to make agents more succesfull their coummication
is the one needing new techniques - how about internet?
It is accessible almost everywhere and you can get an 
account without giving your real identity. By using certain
sites you just call in from telephone box give few information
or in some places none and you are ready for almost 
totally untraceable communication. I bet they are using
it already a lot to replace clumsy readio communication.

Don't get me wrong I vote for freedom of speech(whitch is 
getting slimmer), privacy (witch there is not much left), 
no regulation on encryption (which is not going to be)
but I don't like these things used against my country's
security and steal our intellectual property.

Based on this I tend to think every self respecting 
intelligence organization must have those taps 
otherwise they are not doing their job properly.

> "When even one American -- who has done nothing wrong -- is forced by fear
> to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril."
> Harry Truman

Truman might have been one of the best presidents US ever had
but talk is talk and deeds are deeds.


Comments and reasoning is totally my own imagination 
my employer would propably disabprove them and
certainly not they don't represent my employers 
opinions.

Be carefull out there ...

Best Regards
Kari Laine
Kari Laine          buster@klaine.pp.fi
LAN Vision Oy       Tel. +358-0-502 1947
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