Orwellian

Associated Press CEO: Sources will no longer speak to us because of phone monitoring

"The US government’s secret seizure of Associated Press phone records had a 'chilling effect' on newsgathering by the agency and other news organizations, AP’s top executive said Wednesday. 'Some longtime trusted sources have become nervous and anxious about talking with us,' AP president and chief executive Gary Pruitt said in a speech to the National Press Club. 'In some cases, government employees we once checked in with regularly will no longer speak to us by phone. Others are reluctant to meet in person … Journalists from other news organizations have personally told me that it has intimidated both official and nonofficial sources from speaking to them as well.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingAssociated Press CEO: Sources will no longer speak to us because of phone monitoring

WikiLeaks: Journalist Michael Hastings Under FBI Investigation Before Death

"The document-leaking organization WikiLeaks says journalist Michael Hastings called the organization's attorney hours before his death Tuesday in a fiery one-car crash in Los Angeles. Hastings, 33, was known as a hard-charging reporter who caused Gen. Stanley McChrystal to lose his job as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan with an explosive 2010 story in Rolling Stone, in which he quoted McChrystal offering unsavory commentary about the Obama administration. In his final article, Hastings wrote of revelations that the NSA was harvesting large quantities of phone and Internet information. The FBI declined to say if Hastings was under investigation." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWikiLeaks: Journalist Michael Hastings Under FBI Investigation Before Death

Michael Hastings’ Final Article Before Car Explosion: ‘Why Democrats Love To Spy On Americans’

"For most bigwig Democrats in Washington, D.C., the last 48 hours has delivered news of the worst kind — a flood of new information that has washed away any lingering doubts about where President Obama and his party stand on civil liberties, full stop. Glenn Greenwald’s exposure of the NSA’s massive domestic spy program has revealed the entire caste of current Democratic leaders as a gang of civil liberty opportunists, whose true passion, it seems, was in trolling George W. Bush for eight years on matters of national security. 'Everyone should just calm down,' Senator Harry Reid said yesterday, inhaling slowly. That’s right: don’t panic." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMichael Hastings’ Final Article Before Car Explosion: ‘Why Democrats Love To Spy On Americans’

Ron Paul: NSA head ‘fudged the figures’

"The Texas Republican was referencing the House Intelligence Committee hearing Tuesday where National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander said communication surveillance programs have thwarted more than 50 'potential terrorist events'. Paul also wasn’t amused by the NSA trying to pass the intrusions off as an attempt to save Americans and the American way of life. 'It’s sort of like the old story about you have to burn the village to save the village. They want to burn the Constitution to save the Constitution,' he said. 'And even today, [James] Cole, the Deputy Attorney General says, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply to this.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingRon Paul: NSA head ‘fudged the figures’

Ex-NSA official Thomas Drake on Snowden and the U.S. spy leviathan

"Thomas Drake, who was prosecuted for allegedly disclosing National Security Agency secrets years before Edward Snowden surfaced, says the U.S. government has an 'industrial-scale' surveillance system that 'the Stasi in East Germany would have drooled over.' Drake speaks with Reuters defense correspondent Andrea Shalal-Esa." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEx-NSA official Thomas Drake on Snowden and the U.S. spy leviathan

Google Challenges FISA Gag Orders on Free Speech Grounds

"Google filed a legal challenge today against gag orders that come with the FISA court orders it receives from the FBI and NSA, on grounds that the silence orders impinge on the company’s First Amendment rights to speak freely about the data requests it receives for user data. Google is seeking permission to publish the number of requests for data (.pdf) that it receives from the government, as well as the number of user accounts affect by the requests, according to the motion it filed in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in Washington, D.C." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGoogle Challenges FISA Gag Orders on Free Speech Grounds

FBI director admits domestic use of drones for surveillance

"The FBI uses drones for domestic surveillance purposes, the head of the agency told Congress. Robert Mueller confirmed to lawmakers that the FBI owns several unmanned aerial vehicles, but has not adopted any strict policies or guidelines yet to govern the use of the controversial aircraft. Mueller said the FBI has and will continue to weigh the possibility of publishing more information about its spy habits, but warned that doing such would be to the advantage of America’s enemies. 'There is a price to be paid for that transparency,' Mueller said. 'I certainly think it would be educating our adversaries as to what our capabilities are.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFBI director admits domestic use of drones for surveillance

How Dozens of Companies Know You’re Reading About Those NSA Leaks

"As news websites around the globe are publishing story after story about dragnet surveillance, these news sites all have one thing in common: when you visit these websites, your personal information is broadcast to dozens of companies, many of which have the ability to track your surfing habits, and many of which are subject to government data requests. It takes very little information about your web browser to build a unique fingerprint of it. See EFF's Panopticlick website to see how unique and trackable your web browser is even without the use of tracking cookies. You can read more in our Primer on Information Theory and Privacy." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHow Dozens of Companies Know You’re Reading About Those NSA Leaks

3 NSA veterans speak out on whistle-blower: We told you so

"When a National Security Agency contractor revealed top-secret details this month on the government's collection of Americans' phone and Internet records, one select group of intelligence veterans breathed a sigh of relief. Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe belong to a select fraternity: the NSA officials who paved the way. For years, the three whistle-blowers had told anyone who would listen that the NSA collects huge swaths of communications data from U.S. citizens. They had spent decades in the top ranks of the agency, designing and managing the very data-collection systems they say have been turned against Americans." Continue reading →

Continue Reading3 NSA veterans speak out on whistle-blower: We told you so