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

[David Bomba]

I love this mute button,

Thanks Angelo!


On 12 July 2013 15:14, Narelle <narellec at gmail.com> wrote:

> [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
>
> _______________________________________________
> AusNOG mailing list
> AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net
> http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ausnog.net/pipermail/ausnog/attachments/20130712/14c3573b/attachment.html>