From 52dcb53b8ad4de971df2150a87ff8a2192ce4401 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Silvio Rhatto Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2016 12:35:04 -0200 Subject: Books --- books/puzzle-palace.mdwn | 47 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 47 insertions(+) create mode 100644 books/puzzle-palace.mdwn (limited to 'books/puzzle-palace.mdwn') diff --git a/books/puzzle-palace.mdwn b/books/puzzle-palace.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c59d943 --- /dev/null +++ b/books/puzzle-palace.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,47 @@ +[[!meta title="Puzzle Palace"]] + + The key to the legislation could have been dreamed up by Franz Kafka: the + establishment of a supersecret federal court. Sealed away behind a + cipher-locked door in a windowless room on the top floor of the Justice + Department building, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is most + certainly the strangest creation in the history of the federal Judiciary. Its + establishment was the product of compromises between legislators who wanted the + NSA and FBI, the only agencies affected by the FISA, to follow the standard + procedure of obtaining a court order re- quired in criminal investigations, and + legislators who felt the agencies should have no regulation whatsoever in their + foreign intelligence surveillances. + + [...] + + Almost unheard of outside the inner sanctum of the intelligence + establishment, the court is like no other. It sits in secret session, holds no + adversary hearings, and issues almost no public opinions or reports. It is + listed in neither the Government Organization Manual nor the United States + Court Directory and has even tried to keep its precise location a secret. "On + its face," said one legal authority familiar with the court, "it is an affront + to the traditional American concept of justice." + + -- page 453 + + [...] + + Then there is the last, and possibly most intriguing, part of the definition, + which stipulates that NSA has not "acquired" anything until the communication + has been processed "into an intelligible form intended for human inspection." + NSA is there- fore free to intercept all communications, domestic as well as + foreign, without ever coming under the law. Only when it selects the "contents" + of a particular communication for further "proc- essing" does the FISA take + effect. + + -- page 458 + + Like most things in Britain, the practice of eavesdropping is + deeply rooted in tradition and probably dates back at least to + 1653. In that year Lord Thurloe created what was known as + "The Secret Office," which specialized in clandestinely opening + and copying international correspondence. That custom later + carried over to telegrams and finally the telephone shortly after + it was first introduced in England in 1879. + + -- page 487 + -- cgit v1.2.3