Recent intercepts of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans are broader than previously acknowledged by the National Security agency. here

Data is increasingly flowing around the United States












Interception of foreign Internet communications is shifting Canadian and European traffic away from the United States. Internet traffic passing through the switching equipment of companies based in the United States is monitored by American intelligence agencies.
Since passage of the Patriot Act, many companies based outside of the United States have been reluctant to store client information in the U.S. There is an ongoing concern that U.S. intelligence agencies will gather this information without legal process. There is particular sensitivity about access to financial information as well as communications and Internet traffic that goes through U.S. switches. A climate of deteriorating respect for privacy and data protection has been created by US security measures to fight terrorism. This leads to odd routing arrangements, referred to as tromboning, in which traffic between two US-owned sites will flow through other nations.
]
China and India are making larger investments in next-generation Internet technology that is likely to be crucial in determining the future of the network. The Japanese “are on a rampage to build out across India and China. They won’t have to route through the U.S.”

“Whether it’s a good or a bad thing depends on where you stand,” said Vint Cerf, a computer scientist who is Google’s Internet evangelist and who, with Robert Kahn, devised the original Internet routing protocols in the early 1970s. “Suppose the Internet was entirely confined to the U.S., which it once was? That wasn’t helpful.”here here

Attorney General resigns
The departure of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could unlock the Bush administration's legal closet, bringing new details tumbling into the open about issues including the treatment of terrorism suspects, warrantless surveillance of Americans, and the administration's definition of official secrets.

here

Claimed source of power for warrantless wiretaps
The White House claims Congress granted it widespread powers to execute the war on terror after passing the joint resolution called the Authorization for the Use of Military Force. here Joint Resolution Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, 50 USC 1541, PUBLIC LAW 107–243 including warrantless wiretaps.

“It’s not academic when the president violates the law,” Mr. Romero said.


"An exorbitant and extreme theory of executive power that ended up weakening the presidency,” Harold Hongju Koh, the dean of Yale Law School and a critic of the administration’s legal theories, said the president’s strategy to wiretap without court approval, now reversed, might have provoked so strong a judicial and Congressional rebuff that it would ultimately accomplish the opposite of his goal. “I think historians will see it as an exorbitant and extreme theory of executive power that ended up weakening the presidency,” Mr. Koh said. here

A Justice Department official said the department would file a motion with the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, arguing that the court’s review of the issue in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union “is now moot” in light of this week’s developments.

The officials said the new approach was based on evolving legal interpretations of the foreign surveillance law by the Justice Department, changes in the foreign surveillance statute in recent years and precedents set by the FISA court in approving specific requests to conduct electronic monitoring.

Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the A.C.L.U., said the appellate court should still examine the legality of the program and whether the it had violated intelligence law for the last five years.

The Justice Department said it had worked out an “innovative” arrangement with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that provided the “necessary speed and agility” to provide court approval to monitor international communications of people inside the United States without jeopardizing national security.

The decision capped 13 months of bruising national debate over the reach of the president’s wartime authorities and his claims of executive power, and it came as the administration faced legal and political hurdles in its effort to continue the surveillance program. here

In August, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit ruled that the program was unconstitutional and should be halted. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the program to continue temporarily. here

WH unblocks Security Clearance for FISA investigation
Last December, an arm of the Justice Department, the Office of Professional Responsibility sought to examine ethical issues surrounding the roles played by Justice Department lawyers in the FISA eavesdropping program. But its review was blocked when Mr. Bush personally refused security clearances for its investigators. On Monday, DOJ's Glenn Fine informed members of Congress that he was opening an investigation after the White House had agreed to approve the necessary security clearances for members of his staff. here

S.4051 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Oversight and Resource Enhancement Act of 2006
Sen. Arlen Specter submitted another proposal that would require warrants for eavesdropping on communications coming out of, but not into, the United States, and would put the whole issue on a fast track to the Supreme Court. Its fate, like its predecessors’, is unclear. here Thomas