"Ben Swann takes a look at HHS navigators and the massive amounts of private and personal information they will collect and store in the Federal Data Hub under Obamacare. Plus, we ask the question, does private information even exist anymore?" Continue reading →
"You may recall that one of the things that came out in the big HBGary Federal data dump was that the US government had put out a request (that HBGary was thinking of bidding on) for software that would let the government manage a bunch of social networking profiles at once, in order to create a series of different online personas on different social networks that could all be easily controlled by one person. Well, HBGary Federal didn't get the account... but someone else did. A company called Ntrepid has scored the contract and the US military is getting ready to roll out these 'sock puppet' online personas. Of course, it insists that all of this is targeting foreign individuals, not anyone in the US." Continue reading →
"Alan Rusbridger keeps a memento of the most bizarre thing that’s happened to him during his journalism career. The Guardian editor carries a piece of the smashed MacBook circuit board destroyed at the order of British intelligence agents during their investigation into the newspaper’s reporting on the U.S government’s massive worldwide spying operations. 'I think it’s a rather sinister reminder of the intersection of states and journalism,' Rusbridger told Democracy Now on Monday." Continue reading →
"Ohio allows thousands of police officers and court employees to access driver’s license images online without oversight, by far the nation’s most permissive system. A recent Cincinnati Enquirer/Gannett Ohio investigation found the state permits 30,000 law enforcement officers and others to search the image database, which Attorney General Mike DeWine admitted last month had been uploaded in June without telling the public or reviewing security protocols. The Republican attorney general said similar technology was used by law enforcement in more than half the U.S., but the Enquirer’s report showed the technology is far more limited elsewhere." Continue reading →
"The scene at the apple store just before the phones release was also a sight i'd never experienced. Beyond excitement it was closer to hysteria. Encouraged by hundreds of equally hysterical employees in blue shirts. At the peak of that hysteria i stopped and reminded myself what the impetus was for all of this; a new phone. That warranted a head shake and an eye roll." Continue reading →
"The iPhone 5S reportedly stores fingerprint data locally 'on the chip' and in an encrypted format. It also blocks third-party apps from accessing Touch ID. Yet important questions remain about how this technology works, Apple's future plans for this technology, and the legal protections that Apple will afford it. I should add that regardless of how carefully Apple implements fingerprint technology, this decision will surely pave the way for its peers and smaller competitors to adopt biometric technology, with varying protections for privacy. I respectfully request that Apple provide answers to the following questions." Continue reading →
"'Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, has launched a blistering attack on US espionage at the UN general assembly, accusing the NSA of violating international law by its indiscriminate collection of personal information of Brazilian citizens and economic espionage targeted on the country’s strategic industries.' Dilma is furious because the NSA spied on her personally as well as on Brazil’s 'state oil corporation.' Her solution to the NSA’s snooping? The United Nuts should 'oversee a new global legal system to govern the internet.' Whoa! Just when you thought the panopticon couldn’t possibly get any worse, this dingaling manages to conjure an even more frightening scenario." Continue reading →
"The ongoing Snowden revelations about the NSA's indiscriminate spying on private communications over the internet make the role particularly challenging. Anyone applying for the role would do well to familiarise themselves with the Electronic Frontier Foundation's handy guide to decoding NSA doublespeak. When senior NSA officials maintain that keeping track of phone conversations, for example, doesn't count as surveillance, then any privacy officer is going to have a difficult job. In fact, we can think of few more difficult jobs since the post of Staff Rabbi to the Spanish Inquisition." Continue reading →
"Revelations about the breathtaking scope of government spying are coming so fast that it’s time for an updated roundup." Continue reading →
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