Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

There's an in-flight provider called GoGo. Any telecommunications provider (in the US) has to comply with a law called CALEA, which basically says that they have to assist law enforcement with wiretaps on specific lines when they have search warrants. Turns out that GoGo goes far beyond and above what CALEA requires, and people are not happy.

While I am personally not concerned about this as there's no way that I'd pay the ruinous rates for services like this, and if I did, I'd have a VPN provider contracted to strongly encrypt everything that I do, still, this really sucks.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/at-feds-request-gogo-in-flight-wi-fi-service-added-more-spying-capabilities/

According to Wired, GoGo "...provides inflight Wi-Fi and digital entertainment to Delta, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Virgin America, US Airways and others...".

http://www.wired.com/2014/04/gogo-collaboration-feds/

This should only affect flights in US airspace, I have no idea if GoGo operates terrestrial stations anywhere else, if they do, then they'd have to comply with that country's wiretap laws.

Not terribly surprised. People in the NSA and the Executive Branch violated the NSA charter and the U.S. Constitution, and they don't care. It's probable that a lot of American tech secrets are going straight in to competing Israeli tech companies.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/04/shady-companies-nsa/all/1


I listened to a repeat of an interview with the late Senator Robert Byrd, and he was talking about the time shortly after 9/11 when he did a scathing speech on the floor of the Senate lambasting his fellow Senators for cow-towing to Bush for fear of being branded un-Patriotic. Then Bush creates a shadow government without consulting the Senate. where Byrd was #3 in the line of succession to the Presidency, then goes on to create the Department of Homeland Security with zero input from the Senate.

Our freedoms are a far cry from what we had 15 years ago.

A retired AT&T technician has filed in support of the EFF's lawsuit regarding wholesale transfer of data from AT&T to the NSA, this describes how it was done... I think the last paragraph is particularly telling.

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70621-0.html

Wiretap Whistleblower's Statement

Former AT&T technician Mark Klein has come forward to support the EFF's lawsuit against AT&T for its alleged complicity in the NSA's electronic surveillance. Here, Wired News publishes Klein's public statement in its entirety.

Statement: Mark Klein, April 6, 2006
My background:

For 22 and 1/2 years I worked as an AT&T technician, first in New York and then in California.
What I observed first-hand:

In 2002, when I was working in an AT&T office in San Francisco, the site manager told me to expect a visit from a National Security Agency agent, who was to interview a management-level technician for a special job. The agent came, and by chance I met him and directed him to the appropriate people.

In January 2003, I, along with others, toured the AT&T central office on Folsom Street in San Francisco -- actually three floors of an SBC building. There I saw a new room being built adjacent to the 4ESS switch room where the public's phone calls are routed. I learned that the person whom the NSA interviewed for the secret job was the person working to install equipment in this room. The regular technician work force was not allowed in the room.
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