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Some Obama spy changes hampered by complications

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 21 Januari 2014 | 00.24

WASHINGTON — Several of the key surveillance reforms unveiled by President Barack Obama face complications that could muddy the proposals' lawfulness, slow their momentum in Congress and saddle the government with heavy costs and bureaucracy, legal experts warn.

Despite Obama's plans to shift the National Security Agency's mass storage of Americans' bulk phone records elsewhere, telephone companies do not want the responsibility. And the government could face privacy and structural hurdles in relying on any other entity to store the data.

Constitutional analysts also question the legal underpinning of Obama's commitment to setting up an advisory panel of privacy experts to intervene in some proceedings of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees the NSA's data mining operations. Obama has asked Congress to set up such a panel, but senior federal judges already oppose the move, citing practical and legal drawbacks.

The secret courts now operate with only the government making its case to a federal judge for examining someone's phone data. Civil libertarians have called for a voice in the room that might offer the judge an opposing view.

"The devil is in the details of how the government collects and retains phone records," said Anthony Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, "and I think we're going to see pretty quickly the lack of specificity behind some of the president's promises."

Obstacles to enacting Obama's plans are expected to mount quickly as administration officials and legislators grapple over what sort of entity will oversee the calling records swept up by the NSA. Obama ordered the Justice Department and intelligence officials to devise a plan within the next two months.

Privacy advocates also questioned the administration's silence on what it will do with hundreds of millions of phone records, at minimum, that are now kept on file in government inventories. Citing the NSA's plans to build a vast data storage facility in Utah, Romero said "there was nothing in the president's speech about what's already in the government's hands."

Obama's task force, the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, had recommended cutting the time that the NSA could retain private records from five to two years. But Obama's proposals do not address the issue of duration, leaving those records still in NSA control for the foreseeable future.

Who or what takes over the storage of private phone records is also at issue. Telephone company executives and their lawyers have bluntly told administration officials they do not want to become the NSA's data minders. Cellular industry executives prefer the NSA keep control over the surveillance program and would only accept changes if they were legally required and spelled out in legislation.

Even with broader legal protections to shield phone companies from liability, the corporations are wary of being forced to standardize their own data collection to conform to the NSA's needs. Phone companies already retain various forms of customer records, but the duration of their storage and the kinds of records they keep vary from less than two years, for companies including Verizon, US Cellular and Sprint, to seven to 10 years, for T-Mobile.

Shifting control of phone metadata from the NSA to cellular providers would cost the government in excess of $60 million, according to government estimates. But phone executives say the need to build new technical infrastructure and add more staff to contend with records demands would cost far more.

Legal experts say that hiring a private business or creating a new independent entity to store and oversee the NSA's phone records is an even greater hurdle. It is unclear whether the government could hire a private contractor or create a quasi-private data storage entity along the lines of the Federal National Mortgage Association, or Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored mortgage enterprise.

Hiring an outside private firm might not quell public mistrust, considering the recent widespread hacking into Target and other companies, experts said. Choosing a private contractor could backfire if the process mirrors the chaos of the government's health care website's early days. And relying on a quasi-government agency might also fail to bolster public confidence.

"Unless this is very carefully drafted, the public is going to pick this apart from Day One," said Stewart Baker, a national security law expert and former senior Bush administration official.

Obama's decision to ask Congress to authorize a panel of privacy advocates to weigh in at times during secret FISA court proceedings has triggered a roiling debate among constitutional lawyers, government counsels and privacy advocates. Legislators in the Senate and House have already drafted several rival bills creating similar independent advocates, but critics worry that none of the current proposals would pass constitutional scrutiny.

Government lawyers have been openly skeptical about the proposals and several former Bush administration attorneys who were involved in the FISA process have also raised a thicket of warnings. They question how the office of the public advocate would be set up and raise constitutional concerns about whom the advocates would represent and how they would obtain secret clearances to look at some of the government's most sensitive classified documents.

"This is very limited way of trying to build public trust," Baker said. "But the costs in terms of confusion and additional parties who would have to be given secret clearances would be very high."

The notion drew heavy fire from the federal judiciary. U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, the administrative judge of the U.S. court system and previously chief judge of the FISA court, said any outside advocate group could not effectively provide the court with independent factual investigations necessary for highly classified national security cases or create a truly adversarial process.

Congress' ongoing political paralysis could also threaten the chances for swift passage of the novel legal experiment, and Senate and House elections this fall could add to the hurdles facing legislators trying to carve out a realistic compromise.

"The question is whether there is the political willpower to do it," said American University law professor Stephen Vladeck, a proponent of the public advocate idea.


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Japan defends dolphin hunt after US criticism

TOKYO — A Japanese government spokesman defended an annual dolphin hunt Monday, after U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy tweeted that she was deeply concerned by the inhumanity of the practice.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference that dolphin fishing in Japan is carried out appropriately in accordance with the law.

"Dolphin fishing is a form of traditional fishing in our country," he said, responding to a question about Kennedy's criticism. "We will explain Japan's position to the American side."

Kennedy tweeted on Saturday, "Deeply concerned by inhumaneness of drive hunt dolphin killing." She added that the U.S. government opposes such fishing.

Drive hunt refers to the practice of herding the dolphins into a cove, where they are trapped and later killed.

The hunt in the fishing village of Taiji in western Japan has come under international criticism and was the subject of the Academy Award-winning 2009 film "The Cove."

The fishermen in Taiji say the hunt is part of their village tradition and call foreign critics who eat other kinds of meat hypocritical.


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German auto club under pressure in vote scandal

BERLIN — Germany's main automobile club apologized on Monday and conceded that its image as a trusted institution has taken a knock after a top official admitted to manipulating the figures in a poll on the nation's favorite car.

ADAC says it is Europe's biggest auto club with more than 18 million members, offering breakdown help, safety tests and many other services to a nation of car enthusiasts.

Last week, it angrily denied a report in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that voting in a poll of readers of its monthly magazine on Germany's favorite car was tampered with — before announcing over the weekend that communications chief Michael Ramstetter had admitted to the manipulation and quit.

It said the number of votes submitted was inflated, but the ranking itself wasn't changed. German automaker Volkswagen's Golf was the winner of the most recent vote.

Ramstetter "made a full confession to having, in an incredibly brazen way, manipulated upward the number of votes ... this year and, he says, in recent years too," ADAC general manager Karl Obermair said at a televised news conference in Munich. Obermair said the official took "sole and full responsibility" for what happened, but didn't say what Ramstetter's motive was.

ADAC did not specify how inflated the numbers were, but the Sueddeutsche Zeitung said they were exaggerated by ten times.

"We are sorry for this incident; it shakes the ADAC the core because we were viewed as one of the most trustworthy and serious organizations in Germany," Obermair said. "This reputation is certainly tarnished."

He pledged a full investigation, with help from outside experts.

Obermair's apology and pledge came amid mounting pressure, including from government officials. The Justice Ministry, which is also responsible for consumer protection, pressed it to clear up the matter.

"Anyone whose evaluations have an influence on people's buying habits has a special responsibility to consumers," Justice Minister Heiko Maas said, adding that ADAC "must now do justice to its responsibility."

Mechthild Heil, the consumer affairs spokeswoman in parliament for Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, said the affair raised questions as to whether ADAC "doesn't also tamper with statistics in other areas in its own interest." She called for a restructuring of the club to avoid conflicts of interest.


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Poland considering air transport holding company

WARSAW,Poland — The Polish government is considering creating a holding company that will own the troubled state-run LOT airline, the short-range carrier Eurolot, ground services and an airport.

Treasury Minister Wlodzimierz Karpinski told Polish agency PAP on Monday that the new company could be listed on Warsaw's stock exchange.

He said the plan under consideration was inspired by the success of a similar one by the Czech Republic.

Karpinski said the move is not intended to sort out the financial problems of LOT, which is restructuring.

LOT closed 2013 with a loss of some 20 million zlotys ($5 million). The European Commission is reviewing the restructuring plan to decide whether to allow some 100 million euros of government aid the airline received in 2012.

LOT is almost 93 percent state-owned.


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East Timor, Australia argue over oil treaty deal

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — East Timor asked the United Nations' highest court Monday to order Australia to turn over documents and data its agents seized from the impoverished nation's lawyer last month ahead of arbitration in a multibillion-dollar treaty dispute.

The International Court of Justice opened three days of hearings into East Timor's request for the U.N. panel to order Australia to immediately turn over the seized documents pending the outcome of a case challenging the legality of Australia's raid on the lawyer's office in Canberra.

Monday's hearing was the latest step in a high-stakes legal battle pitting resource-rich Australia against its tiny and impoverished northern neighbor over the oil and gas under the sea that divides them.

East Timor lawyer Elihu Lauterpacht urged judges to deliver "a clear, firm and severe condemnation of what Australia has done" and order Canberra to seal all the documents and data and turn them over to the court.

Australian Security Intelligence Organization agents last month raided the Canberra homes of lawyer Bernard Collaery and a former spy who intended to testify in hearings at the Permanent Court of Arbitration that Australia allegedly bugged the East Timorese Cabinet ahead of sensitive oil-and-gas revenue-sharing negotiations.

East Timorese Minister of State Agio Pereira said the Australian agents also seized the spy's passport, preventing him from traveling to The Hague to testify in the arbitration case. The spy cannot be identified for legal reasons.

Pereira said the documents relate to East Timor's challenge to the validity of a bilateral treaty struck with Australia in 2006 over sharing seabed oil and gas reserves worth billions of dollars.

East Timor argues that the 2006 treaty is invalid because Australia had illegally bugged government offices and listened to confidential discussions relating to the negotiations.

"It is simply unconscionable that one party to negotiations or litigation should be able to place itself by these means in such a position of advantage over the other," Lauterpacht told the court Monday.

Australian Attorney General George Brandis, who authorized the ASIO raids, would not comment on the case Monday because the dispute was before the court. Australia is presenting its case Tuesday.

Brandis had previously said he told ASIO that none of the seized information was to be shared with lawyers representing Australia in The Hague.

Australia negotiated the treaty after East Timor, an impoverished half-island nation, broke away from Indonesia in 1999. Indonesia had previously struck a similar agreement to share the seabed.

Rulings by the International Court of Justice are final and legally binding.

____

McGuirk reported from Canberra.


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Court to decide on child porn victim restitution

WASHINGTON — A woman whose childhood rapes by her uncle were captured on camera and widely traded on the Internet wants the Supreme Court to make it easier for victims of child pornography to collect money from people who view the brutal images on their computers.

The case being argued at the Supreme Court on Wednesday involves a Texas man who pleaded guilty to having images of children engaged in sex acts on his computer. Doyle Randall Paroline is appealing an order holding him responsible for the full amount of losses, nearly $3.4 million, suffered by the woman known as Amy. Of the several hundred incriminating images on Paroline's computer, just two were of Amy.

Advocates for child pornography victims say that holding defendants liable for the entire amount of losses better reflects the ongoing harm that victims suffer each time someone views the images online. The threat of a large financial judgment, coupled with a prison term, also might deter some people from looking at the images in the first place, the advocates say.

"The threat that a person in the child pornography market may well bear the entire cost of the harm done to the victim, even if they are a 'minor player,' is likely to be a large deterrent, especially when the harm done typically runs into the millions for a victim's lifetime of care," said Marci Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University. Hamilton wrote a brief in the case on behalf of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children.

The money is intended to cover the cost of her psychological care, lost income and attorneys' fees.

Thirty-four states, dozens of victims' rights and child advocacy groups, local prosecutors and members of Congress are urging the court to uphold the ruling against Paroline by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

No one has intervened on Paroline's behalf. But his lawyer, Stanley Schneider of Houston, said in court papers that there is no link between the restitution ordered by the appeals court and Paroline's conduct.

"An award of $3.4 million against an individual for possessing two images of child pornography is punitive and grossly disproportionate," Schneider said. The $3.4 million estimate on the damages to the victim was calculated by a psychologist working for James Marsh, an attorney for Amy.

The Obama administration is trying to steer a middle course. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. said the government agrees with Amy that her injury comes from the widespread viewing on the Internet of the assaults by her uncle.

"The real question is whether ... a court must impose all of Amy's aggregate losses on each defendant. On that issue, Amy and the government take different views," Verrilli told the court.

The administration said the correct answer is greater than zero and less than the entire amount and said trial judges should make the determination.

The issue centers on the interpretation of the federal law granting restitution to victims of sex crimes, including child pornography.

Regardless of the outcome of the court case, Congress could change the law. The U.S. Sentencing Commission recommended that lawmakers consider doing just that to eliminate confusion among federal judges about the right way to calculate restitution.

Amy's lawyers estimate that tens of thousands of people worldwide have collected and viewed Amy's images.

Since 2005, there have been about 2,000 prosecutions in federal court that, like Paroline's, included images of the rapes, for which Amy's uncle spent about 10 years in prison and paid a few thousand dollars for counseling sessions for Amy.

Marsh devised the idea of pursuing the people who were convicted of possessing Amy's images, among other child pornography. He identified a provision of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act directing judges to order defendants to pay victims the "full amount" of their losses.

The psychologist employed by Marsh to tally the losses began filing claims on Amy's behalf after she received notices from the Justice Department, under a separate law passed in 2004, telling her of people who had been arrested with her images on their computers.

Courts so far have awarded restitution in 182 cases and Amy has collected $1.6 million. Of that total, $1.2 million came from one man.

Typically, the court-ordered awards and the amounts collected have been much smaller, as little as $50 in one case, according to Justice Department records. Many judges have ordered no payments at all, Marsh said.

The restitution law does not allow Amy to receive more than the lifetime estimate of her losses, Marsh said. But until the 5th Circuit ruling, Marsh said, "She has been forced to go around the country endlessly seeking out defendants with assets. It's endless, and it takes a toll on the victim."

If upheld, the ruling would change the equation. Courts would not have to determine exactly how much harm any one defendant caused Amy. Instead, all defendants would be liable for the entire outstanding amount, raising the possibility that a few well-heeled people among those convicted might contribute most, if not all, of the remaining restitution.

Marsh said such an outcome would be just, and wealthy defendants could fight among themselves about who should pay what. "It's really about shifting the burden from the innocent victim to the people who are responsible," Marsh said.

The case is Paroline v. Amy Unknown and U.S., 12-8561.


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ABInBev repurchases Oriental Breweries

AMSTERDAM — Belgium's AB InBev, the maker of Budweiser, says it has agreed to repurchase South Korea's Oriental Breweries from private equity firms for $5.8 billion.

InBev never really wanted to part with the leading South Korean brewer, but decided to sell it in 2009 to KKR and Affinity Equity Partners for $1.8 billion, as part of a strategy to reduce debt during the financial crisis. The deal has proved highly lucrative for the private equity firms.

Oriental Breweries is known for the Cass brand, South Korea's biggest seller. InBev said Oriental Breweries had around $500 million in core operating profits in 2013.


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UN: more than 200 million jobless last year

GENEVA — The United Nations' labor agency says the number of unemployed people around the world rose above 200 million last year as job opportunities failed to grow at the same pace as the global workforce.

The International Labor Organization said Monday that an estimated 201.8 million people were unemployed in 2013. That's 4.9 million more than the previous year.

An annual ILO report points to an uneven global economic recovery and says East and South Asia together accounted for more than 45 percent of last year's increase.

The agency puts last year's global unemployment rate at 6 percent, unchanged from 2012. It says it expects little improvement this year, projecting that the jobless rate will edge up to 6.1 percent and the number of unemployed will rise another 4.2 million.


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SKorea credit card data theft highlights lapses

SEOUL, South Korea — A massive theft of customer data from three major credit card firms in South Korea has shown security lapses in the financial industry.

First revealed by prosecutors, the theft of information linked to 80 million credit cards such as salaries, monthly card usage, credit rating and card numbers has sparked widespread public concern. Cardholders are flocking to bank branches and overloading call centers and service websites to find out if their information was stolen.

Local media said the theft may have affected most credit card holders in a country of 50 million people. Prosecutors and the financial regulator said no financial losses have been reported.

Financial Services Commission Chairman Shin Je-yoon said in a statement Monday that the credit card companies had failed to ensure adequate security.

The chief financial regulator urged the companies to be vigilant about data theft not only by hackers but also by employees and contractors. South Korean financial firms, media companies and governments have fallen victim to cyberattacks in the past with local authorities blaming North Korea as a culprit in some cases.

But the latest data breach exposed how confidential customer data was poorly managed by financial firms.

Prosecutors said last week that an employee of Korea Credit Bureau, a contractor, stole the data beginning 2012 by copying data to a USB device.

Prosecutors said the worker, who was responsible for the development of new software to detect credit card fraud, sold the data to a loans company.

The stolen data from Lotte Card and the credit card units of KB Financial Group and NongHyup Bank was unencrypted, according to Cho Sung-mok, a director at the Financial Supervisory Service.

He said the companies were unaware of the theft until prosecutors began an investigation.

NongHyup Bank's card division did not notice the data breach for more than a year while KB was unaware for over six months.

Chiefs at credit card firms apologized and authorities have vowed to beef up security measures.


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Kraft Velveeta Cheesy Skillets recalled over soy

NEW YORK — A food maker is recalling some Kraft Velveeta pasta and ground beef products because some labels left off soy, an allergen, as an ingredient.

About 1.77 million pounds of Kraft Velveeta Cheesy Skillets Singles Ultimate Cheeseburger Mac are being recalled. They contain hydrolyzed soy protein and dried soy sauce. Those ingredients were not listed on some labels.

The products, made by Truitt Brothers Inc. in East Bernstadt, Ky., have expiration dates of March 2 to Oct. 23 on them. They were sent to Kraft Foods distribution centers and retailers worldwide between May 2013 and January.

No other Velveeta or Kraft products are affected. No illness has been reported. Consumers with questions can call the Kraft Foods consumer relations center at 1-800-396-5512.


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