Glenn Greenwald, TheGuardian.com: “A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its “widest-reaching”… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Patriot Act
Few See Adequate Limits on NSA Surveillance Program
Pew Survey -“A majority of Americans – 56% – say that federal courts fail to provide adequate limits on the telephone and internet data the government is collecting as part of its anti-terrorism efforts. An even larger percentage (70%) believes that the government uses this data for purposes other than investigating terrorism. And despite the… Continue Reading
How America’s Top Tech Companies Created the Surveillance State
National Journal – They’ve been helping the government spy on people for a very long time. The cozy relationships go back decades. By Michael Hirsh – July 25, 2013 “The saga of the private sector’s involvement in the NSA’s scheme for permanent mass surveillance is long, complex, and sometimes contentious. Often, in ways that appeared… Continue Reading
An Inquiry into the Dynamics of Government Secrecy
An Inquiry into the Dynamics of Government Secrecy, Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, Vol. 48, No. 2, Summer 2013. “This Article reviews selected aspects of secrecy policy in the Obama Administration to better comprehend the dynamics of official secrecy, particularly in the national security realm. An understanding emerges: secrecy policy is founded on a set of… Continue Reading
Defense Security Services: 2013 Targeting U.S. Technologies
2013 Targeting U.S. Technologies: A Trend Analysis of Reporting from Defense Industry “This report looks at the continuing rise in “attempts by foreign collectors to obtain illegal or unauthorized access to sensitive or classified information and technology resident in the U.S. cleared industrial base.” The report looks at collector affiliations, methods of operation and the… Continue Reading
UK Guardian – Secret court lets NSA extend its trawl of Verizon customers’ phone records
“The National Security Agency has been allowed to extend its dragnet of the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon through a court order issued by the secret court that oversees surveillance. In an unprecedented move prompted by the Guardian’s disclosure in June of the NSA‘s indiscriminate collection of Verizon metadata, the Office… Continue Reading
Microsoft – Responding to government legal demands for customer data
Posted by Brad Smith General Counsel & Executive Vice President, Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft “[July 16, 2013] we have asked the Attorney General of the United States to personally take action to permit Microsoft and other companies to share publicly more complete information about how we handle national security requests for customer information. We… Continue Reading
National Insider Threat Policy
Steven Aftergood: The National Insider Threat Policy directs agencies to “leverag[e] counterintelligence (CI), security, information assurance, and other relevant functions and resources to identify and counter the insider threat.” “Agency heads shall ensure personnel assigned to the insider threat program are fully trained in… counterintelligence and security fundamentals….” Agency heads are directed to grant insider… Continue Reading
Civil Society Letter to United States Senate on SEC Exception Proposal
CDT: “On July 12, 2013, civil society groups submitted a letter to the United States Senate expressing concern over a proposal that would grant federal regulatory agencies authority to require web-based email service providers, cloud service providers, and other Internet companies to disclose the contents of communications or documents on behalf of their customers.” Continue Reading
Coaltion of Good Government Groups Urge US Attorney General to Release Reports on Telephone Surveillance
“[On July 8, 2013] the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), along with 22 other good-government groups, sent a letter to the US Department of Justice urging Attorney General Eric Holder to make public any reports by Inspector General Michael Horowitz regarding the collection of Americans’ telephone records under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act.… Continue Reading
AP Report – Files on Bin Laden raid transferred from Pentagon to CIA?
Published July 08, 2013 – Associated Press, Bin Laden raid files reportedly purged from Pentagon computers, sent to CIA Continue Reading
UK Guardian: how Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages
“Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users’ communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company’s own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian. The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the… Continue Reading
