“On Monday, the US Department of Justice will release to the public hundreds of additional pages of government documents concerning its use of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the provision of law the NSA relies on to collect the call records of millions of Americans. The disclosures will follow closely on the heels of yesterday’s reports in… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Patriot Act
Commentary on Google’s latest transparency report – what is missing that they cannot reveal
Rebecca J. Rosen – The Atlantic: “Today brings the release of the first Transparency Report since the Snowden revelations about widespread government surveillance, and Google’s tone has changed dramatically. In contrast with the warm glow of corporate benevolence Google has tended to exude in these moments, today’s Google Blog post announcing the new Report is a touch surly,… Continue Reading
Report – Telecoms plan shielded European Internet
Via Deutsche Welle: “Deutsche Telekom says the scandal over US and British eavesdropping has prompted German providers to contemplate an inner-German or inner-European Internet. Data would no longer be routed and stored via other continents. Germany’s state-backed Telekom confirmed on Sunday that German providers were discussing an Internet confined within Europe’s “Schengen” countries. One project code-named… Continue Reading
Introducing a Public Advocate into the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s Courts
Introducing a Public Advocate into the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s Courts: – Select Legal Issues. Andrew Nolan , Legislative Attorney; Richard M. Thompson II , Legislative Attorney; Vivian S. Chu, Legislative Attorney, October 25, 2013. “Recent revelations about the size and scope of government foreign surveillance efforts have prompted some to criticize the level of scrutiny that the courts – established under the… Continue Reading
Oversight Board Adopts EPIC’s Recommendations in New FOIA Rule
“In response to extensive comments submitted by EPIC, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has issued a final rule that will govern its Freedom of Information Act, Privacy Act, and Sunshine Act practices. The Board’s initial draft of the rule allowed the agency to encourage other agencies to classify information, reserved the Board’s right to terminate public participation in Board meetings “at… Continue Reading
UK Guardian – Google and Facebook may be our best defenders against Big Brother
The big online companies are calling for urgent reforms to protect us from having data intercepted – Jemima Kiss “Surveillance is the undercurrent in every tech conversation now, a lens for understanding our vulnerability and exposure to every part of the online world. This is not a choice between catching terrorists and what David Cameron astonishingly… Continue Reading
Senate Intelligence Committee Approves FISA Improvements Act
Increases privacy protections, oversight, transparency of critical intelligence programs: The Senate Intelligence Committee [October 31, 2013] approved the FISA Improvements Act by a vote of 11-4. The bipartisan legislation increases privacy protections and public transparency of the National Security Agency call-records program in several ways, while preserving the operational effectiveness and flexibility of this vital… Continue Reading
Report of National Commission for Review of Research and Development Programs of the United States Intelligence Community, Unclassified Version
Report of the National Commission for the Review of the Research and Development Programs of the United States Intelligence Community, Unclassified Version, released November 2013 “The global spread of scientific and technical knowledge challenges U.S. national security. It threatens to erode essential capabilities of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) and the strength of the U.S.… Continue Reading
Apple Reports to Customers on Government Information Requests
Report on Government Information Requests: “We believe that our customers have a right to understand how their personal information is handled, and we consider it our responsibility to provide them with the best privacy protections available. Apple has prepared this report on the requests we receive from governments seeking information about individual users or devices in the… Continue Reading
NYT – No Morsel Too Minuscule for All-Consuming N.S.A.
Via Scott Shane this investigative report – “From thousands of classified documents, the National Security Agency emerges as an electronic omnivore of staggering capabilities, eavesdropping and hacking its way around the world to strip governments and other targets of their secrets, all the while enforcing the utmost secrecy about its own operations. It spies routinely on friends as well as… Continue Reading
UK Guardian’s interactive interviews, charts open the debate on NSA surveillance
NSA Files Decoded – Edward Snowden’s surveillance revelations explained – By EWEN MACASKILL and GABRIEL DANCE – Produced by FEILDING CAGE and GREG CHEN “When Edward Snowden met journalists in his cramped room in Hong Kong’s Mira hotel in June, his mission was ambitious. Amid the clutter of laundry, meal trays and his four laptops,… Continue Reading
WaPo – NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide
Snowden documents how NSA and GCHQ are copying entire data flows across fiber-optic cables that carry information between the data centers of the Silicon Valley giants – by Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani “The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world,… Continue Reading
