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Privacy group to file Supreme Court petition against NSA surveillance program

“The Domestic Surveillance Project division of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) announced Thursday that it plans to file a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to vacate the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Court (FISC) ruling which authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect metadata on domestic phone calls. Domestic Surveillance Project Director Amie Stepanovich made the announcement at a Restore the Fourth rally in Washington on Thursday, one of several rallies across the country dedicated to protesting the NSA’s sweeping spying programs and invoke the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Continue reading →

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales threatens to close U.S. embassy

“Bolivia’s president threatened to close the US embassy as leftist Latin American leaders joined him in blasting Europe and the United States after his plane was rerouted amid suspicions US fugitive Edward Snowden was aboard. President Evo Morales, who has suggested the United States pressured European nations to deny him their airspace, warned he would ‘study, if necessary, closing the US embassy in Bolivia.’ ‘We don’t need a US embassy in Bolivia,’ he said. ‘My hand would not shake to close the US embassy. We have dignity, sovereignty. Without the United States, we are better politically, democratically.'” Continue reading →

Delay in Obamacare requirement puts onus on the honor system

“Delaying the ’employer mandate’ already means the government is giving up potential revenue next year, as businesses whose employees buy subsidized coverage on an Obamacare exchange would be fined $3,000 per person. In addition, without the reporting requirements of the employer mandate in 2014, ‘the exchanges and the IRS will not be able to verify whether someone’s coverage is unaffordable’ and thus whether the person is eligible for subsidies, said law professor Timothy Jost of Washington and Lee School of Law in Lexington, Virginia. That leaves it up to individual consumers to be honest about what they do, or do not, qualify for.” Continue reading →

Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere

“I have been asked by my superiors to give a brief demonstration of the surprising effectiveness of even the simplest techniques of the new-fangled Social Networke Analysis in the pursuit of those who would seek to undermine the liberty enjoyed by His Majesty’s subjects. This is in connection with the discussion of the role of ‘metadata’ in certain recent events and the assurances of various respectable parties that the government was merely ‘sifting through this so-called metadata’. I will show how we can use this ‘metadata’ to find key persons involved in terrorist groups operating within the Colonies at the present time.” Continue reading →

Estonia tells European Union to rely less on U.S.-based ‘cloud’ storage

“IT hub Estonia on Wednesday urged the European Union to rely less on US firms for ‘cloud’ data storage, amid tensions over claims of US spying and data surveillance. ‘Recent months have proven once again that it’s very important for Europe to have its own data clouds that operate strictly under European legislation,’ Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said in a statement. Dubbed E-stonia, the tiny state of just 1.3 million people is known for being a trailblazer in technology and is one of the most connected countries in the world. Tallinn is also home to the NATO cyber-defence centre.” Continue reading →

France revealed to be spying on its citizens’ phone calls, email and social media

“France’s external intelligence agency spies on the French public’s phone calls, emails and social media activity in France and abroad. It said the DGSE intercepted signals from computers and telephones in France, and between France and other countries, although not the content of phone calls, to create a map of ‘who is talking to whom’. It said the activity was illegal. ‘All of our communications are spied on,’ wrote Le Monde, which based its report on unnamed intelligence sources as well as remarks made publicly by intelligence officials. ‘Emails, text messages, telephone records, access to Facebook and Twitter are then stored for years,’ it said.” Continue reading →

Douglas Engelbart, inventor of computer mouse, dies at 88

“Engelbart arrived at his crowning moment relatively early in his career, on a winter afternoon in 1968, when he delivered an hour-long presentation containing so many far-reaching ideas that it would be referred to decades later as the ‘mother of all demos.’ Speaking before an audience of 1,000 leading technologists in San Francisco, Engelbart, a computer scientist at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), showed off a cubic device with two rolling discs called an ‘X-Y position indicator for a display system.’ It was the mouse’s public debut. He never received any royalties for the mouse, which SRI patented and later licensed to Apple.” Continue reading →

How close are we to getting superpowers?

“Next month, at a technology conference in Hong Kong, Dina Katabi, an MIT professor, will present her ‘Wi-Vi’ device, which uses a low-power wi-fi signal to track people moving behind walls. Last month, it was reported that scientists in Singapore have created a rudimentary invisibility cloak, which they illustrated with a video clearly designed to appeal to muggles as much as wizards – it showed a fluffy kitten entering the ‘cloak’ and disappearing so conclusively that a butterfly could be seen fluttering behind it. Essentially, if there’s a superpower you can think of, someone’s probably trying to develop it. Just remember: with great power comes great responsibility.” Continue reading →