A curious development in 2015 related to Sussmann indictment and Alfa Bank saga

A story from September 2014 carried by ZDNet was recirculated on Twitter a few days ago.  The story, by Zack Whittaker for Zero Day, was about “Trusted Third Party” companies, which provide legal compliance services for Internet and communications service providers presented with surveillance subpoenas from law enforcement agencies.

The fundamental basis for this model of compliance operations goes back to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) of 1994.  CALEA was implemented before most instant communications over the Internet – things like text messaging and voice-over-IP – existed, and after 9/11 was updated (in 2004) to keep up with technology and the new imperative for security-focused surveillance.

There are a lot of details to master for a full understanding of what CALEA does, and I recommend starting with Whittaker’s article and perusing this summary and FAQ posted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

For our purposes, here’s a short summary of what matters.

TOC Ready Room 23 Oct 2021: A ‘domestic terrorism’ retraction, and an emerging plan in Burma

Tonight: a walk-back from the school board association on its claim of “terror” threats from concerned parents; and a military campaign being prepared in Myanmar/Burma.

Parents as “domestic terrorists”; or, Not So Much.  Possibly the most striking thing about this is that it was only yesterday (Thursday, 21 October) that I was in a rather extended exchange on Twitter on this topic.  (This Ready Room edition is actually going up on 23 October, but was started Friday evening.)

I was looking for details about the “threats” allegedly being made by parents to school board members across America, which the media assure us prompted the Department of Justice to issue the 4 October memo vowing DOJ attention to this growing problem of violence and domestic terrorism.

Football Follies 2021: NCAA week 8

Appalachian State already knocked off #14 Coastal Carolina on Wednesday, which is one of those schadenfreude type of thinger-doos.  We’re all, like, shucks, it was fun watching the Chanticleers go to town, but also like, Take that, CCU.  Hah.  Ain’t no bag of chips.

On a serious note, we have nothing against Coastal Carolina and continue to wish them well.  We just feel their crib in Conway, SC may be situated a little too close to Ketchup Town.

TOC Ready Room 19 Oct 2021; *UPDATE*

[Updates added at the bottom. – JED]

Greetings, readers.  This is the inaugural edition of the TOC Ready Room, which will be an open thread and drop-by briefing space in the spirit of the ready rooms used by military aviators.

My experience being with U.S. Navy ready rooms, the feature image is of a ready room on the carrier USS Constellation (CV64) used by a squadron from Carrier Air Wing 2.  The image is tagged as being from March 2003, when Constellation was on her final operational deployment supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.  (The CVW-2 patch is visible on one of the flight jackets, incidentally.)  Constellation was decommissioned only a few months later, in August 2003.

On a carrier, the ready room is used for planning and squadron briefings, but also serves as a gathering space subject to availability.  It’s the center of squadron life during underway periods and deployment.

The Ready Room posts will be added at least once a week,

Football Follies 2021: NCAA week 7

I think we’re about marveled out over the saga of Saban’s Retreat From College Station.  It got Texas A&M bumped all the way up to #21, so, you know.  CFBP+ and its early-season collusion squad do what they do.

The one we can’t get over quite yet is UMass finally getting within whites-of-their-eyes range and bagging a W.  Minutemen!

We are sorry to report that Navy has already succumbed to Memphis this week (Thursday night), which may have been foreseeable but is nevertheless sad.  It wasn’t a very good game for the Mids. 

Friday offers Clemson at Syracuse, for whoever’s still in that jeu d’orange, and a choice of Cal at #9 Oregon (-14) or #24 San Diego State (-10) at San Jose State in the nighttime slot.  (Update: Clemson’s up 17-14 with half of the 4Q remaining as this goes to post.)

The Ducks will be rocking cartel chic.