“Take back the streets” Repression and criminalization of protest around the world, October 2013 “The nine organizations (which cooperate as the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations (INCLO)) that have contributed to this publication work to defend basic democratic rights and freedoms in nine countries spread over four continents. Across the regions where our organizations… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Free Speech
What the Government Does with Americans’ Data
What the Government Does with Americans’ Data, by Rachel Levinson-Waldman, October 8, 2013. “After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the government’s authority to collect, keep, and share information about Americans with little or no basis to suspect wrongdoing dramatically expanded. While the risks and benefits of this approach are the subject of intense debate,… Continue Reading
Freedom on the Net 2013
“Freedom on the Net 2013 is the fourth report in a series of comprehensive studies of internet freedom around the globe and covers developments in 60 countries that occurred between May 2012 and April 2013. Over 60 researchers, nearly all based in the countries they analyzed, contributed to the project by researching laws and practices… Continue Reading
Excerpt from forthcoming report – The Obama Administration and the Press
“Leonard Downie, a former executive editor of The Washington Post, is the Weil family professor of journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. This article is based on his report The Obama Administration and the Press, forthcoming Thursday from the Committee to Protect Journalists. “With the passage of the Patriot… Continue Reading
DOJ opposes tech company requests to publish surveillance statistics
“The U.S. Department of Justice has opposed requests by Facebook, Google, Microsoft and other companies to publish the number of surveillance requests they receive from the National Security Agency and other agencies. Requests from five Internet companies, also including Yahoo and LinkedIn, would hurt the NSA’s ability to conduct surveillance on “particular” Internet communications, the… Continue Reading
Microsoft’s Law Enforcement Requests Report for first six months of 2013
What does the data show? “Microsoft (including Skype) received 37,196 requests from law enforcement agencies potentially impacting 66,539 accounts in the first six months of this year. This compares to 75,378 requests and 137,424 potential accounts in the whole of 2012. Approximately 77 percent of requests resulted in the disclosure of “non-content data”. No data… Continue Reading
Commentary – What Does the Zapruder Film Really Tell Us?
What Does the Zapruder Film Really Tell Us? Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris deconstructs the most famous 26 seconds in film history. Ron Rosenbaum – Smithsonian magazine, October 2013, “It’s been called the most important 26 seconds of film in history: The 486 frames of 8-millimeter Bell + Howell home movie footage shot in the midday sun of Dallas on November… Continue Reading
Commentary – The ‘Legalization’ of China’s Internet Crackdown
Stanley Lubman – “Internet usage – especially microblogging on Sina Weibo, China’s largest Twitter-like social media site – is presenting new challenges and new attempts to meet them from a government determined to maintain control. In recent months Beijing has launched a multi-pronged offensive against online criticism of current policies and institutions that includes a… Continue Reading
Declassified FISA Court Opinion Released – Addresses Legality of Phone Metadata Collection
Ellen Nakashima – Washington Post: “A federal surveillance court on Tuesday released a declassified opinion upholding the constitutionality of the National Security Agency’s sweeping collection of billions of Americans’ phone records for counterterrorism purposes. The gathering of “all call detail records” from phone companies is justified as long as the government can show that it… Continue Reading
Spiegel Online – NSA Can Spy on Smart Phone Data
“The United States’ National Security Agency intelligence-gathering operation is capable of accessing user data from smart phones from all leading manufacturers. Top secret NSA documents that SPIEGEL has seen explicitly note that the NSA can tap into such information on Apple iPhones, BlackBerry devices and Google’s Android mobile operating system. The documents state that it… Continue Reading
Yahoo’s first transparency report cites more than 12,000 US data requests
IDG News Service – “Yahoo received 12,444 requests from the U.S. government for user data in the first half of this year, resulting in 11,402 instances of data disclosure, it said Friday in its first transparency report. For nearly 7,000 of the U.S. requests between Jan. 1 and June 30, only non-content data was disclosed,… Continue Reading
NYT – Drug Agents Use Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing N.S.A.’s
Scott Shane and Colin Moynihan: “For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counternarcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans’ phone calls — parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency’s hotly disputed collection of phone… Continue Reading
