“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
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Category Archives: Patriot Act
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
WaPo – Obama administration had restrictions on NSA reversed in 2011
Ellen Nakashima: “The Obama administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans’ communications in its massive databases, according to interviews with government officials and recently declassified material. In addition, the court extended… Continue Reading
Guardian – US and UK spy agencies defeat privacy and security on the internet
James Ball, Julian Borger and Glenn Greenwald – NSA and GCHQ unlock encryption used to protect emails, banking and medical records: “US and British intelligence agencies have successfully cracked much of the online encryption relied upon by hundreds of millions of people to protect the privacy of their personal data, online transactions and emails, according to top-secret documents revealed by former contractor Edward… Continue Reading
New leaked NSA documents hightlight extensive US cyber-ops
Washington Post: U.S. spy agencies mounted 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011, documents show, By Barton Gellman and Ellen Nakashima “U.S. intelligence services carried out 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011, the leading edge of a clandestine campaign that embraces the Internet as a theater of spying, sabotage and war, according to top-secret documents obtained by The… Continue Reading
New Leaked Documents Reveal $52B National Intelligence Program Budget
Washington Post – By Barton Gellman and Greg Miller: “U.S. spy agencies have built an intelligence-gathering colossus since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but remain unable to provide critical information to the president on a range of national security threats, according to the government’s top-secret budget. The $52.6 billion “black budget” for fiscal 2013, obtained by The Washington Post… Continue Reading
NBC Reports – “How Snowden did it”
Richard Esposito and Matthew Cole, NBC News: “When Edward Snowden stole the crown jewels of the National Security Agency, he didn’t need to use any sophisticated devices or software or go around any computer firewall. All he needed, said multiple intelligence community sources, was a few thumb drives and the willingness to exploit a gaping… Continue Reading
Facebook Global Government Requests Report
“Transparency and trust are core values at Facebook. We strive to embody them in all aspects of our services, including our approach to responding to government data requests. We want to make sure that the people who use our service understand the nature and extent of the requests we receive and the strict policies and… Continue Reading
ACLU to Court: Government Spying Invades Privacy of Each and Every American
ACLU: “[On August 26, 2013], we filed the opening brief in our lawsuit challenging the NSA’s ongoing collection of the call records of virtually everyone in the United States, including the ACLU’s. We’re asking the court for a preliminary injunction ordering the government to stop collecting our data and to bar any use of the… Continue Reading
Der Spiegel – New leaked NSA documents outline NSA surveillance at UN
Spiegel Online International, Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark: “The NSA documents seen by SPIEGEL also show that the US intelligence agency has managed to penetrate deeply into the UN. In June of last year, a report notes that the NSA had gained access to the UN’s internal teleconferencing system.” Continue Reading
Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of PATRIOT Act
U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act (as required by Section 1001(3) of Public Law 107-56), August 2013. “Between January 1, 2013 and June 30, 2013, the period covered by this report, the OIG processed 515 new civil rights or… Continue Reading
Guardian – NSA paid millions to cover Prism compliance costs for tech companies
Ewen MacAskill in New York, The Guardian, Thursday 22 August 2013: “The National Security Agency paid millions of dollars to cover the costs of major internet companies involved in the Prism surveillance program after a court ruled that some of the agency’s activities were unconstitutional, according to top-secret material passed to the Guardian. The technology companies, which the NSA says includes Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook, incurred… Continue Reading
