[AusNOG] Fwd: Crikey: Telstra's deal with the devil: FBI access to its undersea cables

[Narelle]

[From today’s Crikey..]



Telstra was compelled to strike a secret 2001 deal with the FBI and the US
Department of Justice to give them surveillance access to the undersea
cables owned by its subsidiary Reach, a new document released online and
provided to Crikey reveals.

The document shows Telstra, at that stage majority-owned by the Howard
government, and its partner Pacific Century Cyber Works (now PCCW), then
controlled by Hong Kong businessman Richard Li, agreed to provide the FBI
with around-the-clock access to Reach's cables to spy on communications
going into and out of the United States. It is signed by Telstra's
then-company secretary Douglas Gration, then-deputy assistant US
attorney-general John G. Malcolm, Alex Arena of PCCW, Alistair Grieve of
Reach and Larry R. Parkinson of the FBI.



Reach, headquartered in Hong Kong, is said to control more than 40 major
telecommunications cables going into and out of the Asia-Pacific, including
cables into and from China and Australia.

Claiming that "US communications systems are essential to the ability of
the US government to fulfill its responsibilities to the public to preserve
the national security of the United States, to enforce the laws, and to
maintain the safety of the public", the agreement places a number of
requirements on Reach, Telstra and PCCW:

•             All customer billing data to be stored for two years;

•             Ability to provide to agencies any stored telecommunications
or internet communications and comply with preservation requests;

•             Ability to provide any stored meta-data, billing data or
subscriber information about US customers;

•             They are not to comply with any foreign privacy laws that
might lead to mandatory destruction of stored data;

•             Plans and infrastructure to demonstrate other states cannot
spy on US customers;

•             They are not to comply with information requests from other
countries without DoJ permission;

•             A requirement to:

"... designate points of contact within the United States with the
authority and responsibility for accepting and overseeing the carrying out
of Lawful US Process to conduct Electronic Surveillance of or relating to
Domestic Communications carried by or through Domestic Communications
Infrastructure; or relating to customers or subscribers of Domestic
Communications Companies. The points of contact shall be assigned to
Domestic Communications Companies security office(s) in the United States,
shall be available twenty-four (24) hours per day, seven (7) days per week
and shall be responsible for accepting service and maintaining the security
of Classified Information and any Lawful US Process for Electronic
Surveillance ... The Points of contact shall be resident US citizens who
are eligible for US security clearances...";

•             A requirement to keep such surveillance confidential, and to
use US citizens "who meet high standards of trustworthiness for maintaining
the confidentiality of Sensitive Information" to handle requests;

•             A right for the FBI and the DoJ to conduct inspection visits
of the companies' infrastructure and offices; and

•             An annual compliance report, to be protected from Freedom of
Information requests.

The US is able to impose the agreements even on offshore companies because
of Federal Communications Commission licensing requirements for the
provision of telecommunications services into and out of the US, which can
be made subject to conditions relating to national security and law
enforcement.

It's important to note that "Domestic Communications" in the agreement
means the "US portion" of communications that originate or terminate in the
United States, although "portion" isn't defined and could extend to all
communication on infrastructure physically located in the US, which would
in practice mean all communication going into or out of or through the US.
Moreover, surveillance can also be conducted "relating" to customers or
subscribers, regardless of where the relevant communication is.

A Telstra spokesman told Crikey "this Agreement, at that time 12 years ago,
reflected Reach's operating obligations in the US that require carriers to
comply with US domestic law."

The existence of such agreements with cable owners was revealed by The
Washington Post last weekend in the wake of revelations about the extent of
FBI, National Security Agency and other US government internet and phone
surveillance. On Tuesday, a long list of such agreements, complete with the
documents, was published by the Public Intelligence website, covering the
period from 1999 through to 2011 and a variety of cable owners from Europe,
the Americas and Asia. The web of agreements ensures agencies such as the
FBI can access all internet and telephone communications going into and out
of the US for surveillance purposes.



-- 


Narelle
narellec at gmail.com
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