“The undersigned companies believe that it is time for the world’s governments to address the practices and laws regulating government surveillance of individuals and access to their information. While the undersigned companies understand that governments need to take action to protect their citizens’ safety and security, we strongly believe that current laws and practices need to… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Patriot Act
Rolling Stone – Snowden and Greenwald: The Men Who Leaked the Secrets
Snowden and Greenwald: The Men Who Leaked the Secrets by Janet Reitman, December 4, 2013. This story is from the December 19th, 2013 – January 2nd, 2014 issue of Rolling Stone. “Early one morning last December, Glenn Greenwald opened his laptop, scanned through his e-mail, and made a decision that almost cost him the story of his life. A… Continue Reading
New Revelations – NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show
Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani – Washington Post: “The National Security Agency is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world, according to top-secret documents and interviews with U.S. intelligence officials, enabling the agency to track the movements of individuals — and map their relationships — in ways that would have been… Continue Reading
EFF Introducing a Compendium of the Released NSA Spying Documents
EFF – “The ongoing NSA leaks, Freedom of Information Act lawsuits and government declassification continue to bring vital information to the public about the the ongoing efforts of the NSA and its allies to spy on millions of innocent people. What started out as news detailing the agency’s collections of users’ calling records, phone calls,… Continue Reading
Report on the findings by EU Co-chairs of ad hoc EU-US Working Group on Data Protection
Report on the findings by the EU Co-chairs of the ad hoc EU-US Working Group on Data Protection. Council of the European Union, Brussels, 27 November 2013. “Under US law, a number of legal bases allow large-scale collection and processing, for foreign intelligence purposes, including counter-terrorism, of personal data that has been transferred to the US… Continue Reading
EPIC Files Lawsuit to Determine Legal Authority For PRISM Program
“EPIC has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel for the secret legal analyses that justifies the use of the NSA PRISM program. PRISM is a program that allows the FBI and NSA to collect information – including the contents of internet users’ communications – directly from internet… Continue Reading
NYT – N.S.A. Report Outlined Goals for More Power
N.S.A. Report Outlined Goals for More Power By JAMES RISEN and LAURA POITRAS “Officials at the National Security Agency, intent on maintaining its dominance in intelligence collection, pledged last year to push to expand its surveillance powers, according to a top-secret strategy document. In a February 2012 paper laying out the four-year strategy for the N.S.A.’s… Continue Reading
Civil Society Groups and Tech Companies Call for Significant Reform to U.S. Surveillance Practices
“On November 21, 2013, the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), on behalf of a broad coalition of civil society groups, trade associations, companies and investors, delivered this letter to Congressional leadership that called on Congress to reform U.S. intelligence surveillance practices. Signatories urged Congress to limit the scope of surveillance practices, reject bulk collection,… Continue Reading
Guardian – Fisa court documents reveal extent of NSA disregard for privacy restrictions
Spencer Ackerman, UK Guardian article – “Newly declassified court documents indicate that the National Security Agency shared its trove of American bulk email and internet data with other government agencies in violation of specific court-ordered procedures to protect Americans’ privacy. The dissemination of the sensitive data transgressed both the NSA’s affirmations to the secret surveillance court about the… Continue Reading
Recently declassified Section 501 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act documents
“The recently declassified Section 501 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) documents have been posted on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence site (ODNI). These documents include: orders and opinions of the Foreign Surveillance Court; reports to Congress; other reports; training slides and other internal documents. More information about this as well as links to… Continue Reading
Cryptographer and Harvard Scholar – NSA broke Internet’s security for everyone
Sean Gallagher, Ars Technica: “To say that there are a lot of people who are angry with the National Security Agency (NSA) right now would be an understatement. But the things that are getting the most political attention right now—such as the invasion of the privacy of American citizens and spying on the leaders of American… Continue Reading
Government to Release More NSA Documents and FISA Court Opinions in Response to EFF Lawsuit
“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
