“A major insight into human behavior from pre-internet era studies of communication is the tendency of people not to speak up about policy issues in public—or among their family, friends, and work colleagues—when they believe their own point of view is not widely shared. This tendency is called the “spiral of silence.” Some social media creators… Continue Reading
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Search Results for: Snowden
Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity
New America Foundation – “It has been over a year since The Guardian reported the first story on the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs based on the leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, yet the national conversation remains largely mired in a simplistic debate over the tradeoffs between national security and individual privacy. It is time… Continue Reading
How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law and American Democracy
With Liberty to Monitor All – How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy. Human Rights Watch / ACLU, July 2014. “The United States government today is implementing a wide variety of surveillance programs that, thanks to developments in its technological capacity, allow it to scoop up personal information and the content of… Continue Reading
UK Independent – NSA reportedly tracking any internet users who research privacy software online
James Vincent – “Any internet users who use or even read about privacy services online will be targeted for surveillance by the NSA, according to a new report from German broadcaster ARD. According to leaked source-code of the US spy agency’s ‘XKeyscore’ software, individuals who search for information about anonymising services such as Tor have their IP… Continue Reading
Former State Dept Exec Calls Executive Order 12333 a “Legal Loophole” for Spying on Americans
EFF – “What kind of data is the NSA collecting on millions, or hundreds of millions, of Americans?” That’s the question John Napier Tye, a former StateDepartment section chief for Internet freedom, calls on the government to answer in his powerful op-ed published today by the Washington Post. In it, Tye calls the NSA’s surveillance operations abroad, conducted under Executive… Continue Reading
GCHQ leak lists UK cyber-spies’ hacking tools – BBC
Leo Kelion, BBC News Technology – “A document that appears to list a wide variety of GCHQ’s cyber-spy tools and techniques has been leaked online. It indicates the agency worked on ways to alter the outcome of online polls, find private Facebook photos, and send spoof emails that appeared to be from Blackberry users, among other things. The… Continue Reading
Government Surveillance and Internet Search Behavior
Marthews, Alex and Tucker, Catherine, Government Surveillance and Internet Search Behavior (March 24, 2014). Available or download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2412564 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2412564 “This paper uses data from Google Trends on search terms from before and after the surveillance revelations of June 2013 to analyze whether Google users’ search behavior shifted as a result of an exogenous shock in… Continue Reading
Court gave NSA broad leeway in surveillance, documents show – WaPo
Washington Post, Ellen Nakashima and Barton Gellman: “Virtually no foreign government is off-limits for the National Security Agency, which has been authorized to intercept information “concerning” all but four countries, according to top-secret documents. The United States has long had broad no-spying arrangements with those four countries — Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — in a group… Continue Reading
U.S. Says It Spied on 89,000 Targets Last Year, But the Number Is Deceptive – Wired
Follow up to previous posting – ODNI and DOJ – Declassification of Renewal of Collection Under Section 501 of FISA – this commentary from Wired: “About 89,000 foreigners or organizations were targeted for spying under a U.S. surveillance order last year, according to a new transparency report. The report was released for the first time Friday by… Continue Reading
Internet Giants Erect Barriers to Spy Agencies – NYT
DAVID E. SANGER and NICOLE PERLROTH – Google is encrypting more data as it moves between servers “Internet companies like Google and Facebook are working to keep governments and especially their spy agencies out of their servers after revelations from Edward J. Snowden that they had been invaded…As fast as it can, Google is sealing… Continue Reading
E-Mail Self Defense
“Bulk surveillance violates our fundamental rights and makes free speech risky. This guide will teach you a basic surveillance self-defense skill: email encryption. Once you’ve finished, you’ll be able to send and receive emails that are coded to make sure that a surveillance agent or thief can’t intercept your email and read it. Even if you… Continue Reading
NYT – N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images
By JAMES RISEN and LAURA POITRAS “The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents. The spy agency’s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly over the last four years as the agency has turned to new… Continue Reading
