Orwellian

Judge Napolitano: The NSA Scandal Violates the Lessons of Our History and Our Constitution

"After 9/11, Congress enacted the Patriot Act. This permitted federal agents to write their own search warrants, as if to mimic the British soldiers in the 1760s. It was amended to permit the feds to go to the FISA court and get a search warrant for the electronic records of any American who might communicate with a foreign person. In 30 years, from 1979 to 2009, the legal standard for searching and seizing private communications was lowered by Congress from probable cause of crime to probable cause of being an agent of a foreign power to probable cause of being a foreign person to probable cause of communicating with a foreign person." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJudge Napolitano: The NSA Scandal Violates the Lessons of Our History and Our Constitution

GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians’ communications at G20 summits

"Foreign politicians and officials who took part in 2009 G20 summit meetings had their computers monitored and their phone calls intercepted on the instructions of their British government hosts. Some delegates were tricked into using internet cafes which had been set up by British intelligence agencies to read their email traffic. The disclosure raises new questions about GCHQ and the National Security Agency, whose access to phone records and internet data has been defended as necessary in the fight against terrorism and serious crime. The G20 spying appears to have been organised for the more mundane purpose of securing an advantage in meetings." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGCHQ intercepted foreign politicians’ communications at G20 summits

Obama doesn’t believe secret NSA surveillance violated privacy rights: chief of staff

"While he defended the surveillance, McDonough said 'the existence of these programs obviously have unnerved many people.' He said Obama 'welcomes a public debate on this question because he does say and he will say in the days ahead that we have to find the right balance, and we will not keep ourselves on a perpetual war footing.' Revelations of the NSA’s broad monitoring of phone and Internet data has drawn criticism that the Obama administration has extended, or even expanded, the security apparatus the George W. Bush administration built after the September 11, 2001, attacks." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama doesn’t believe secret NSA surveillance violated privacy rights: chief of staff

Effort to block NDAA indefinite detention fails in U.S. House

"Indefinite detention remains in effect, but this week an effort was made to fix the problem with the Smith-Gibson amendment to the 2014 NDAA act. This bi-partisan amendment, sponsored by Republican Chris Gibson of New York and Democrat Adam Smith of Washington, would have guaranteed any detainee a trial and prohibited the transfer of anyone arrested in the United States to military custody. As happened with the substantially similar Smith-Amash amendment last year, this effort failed by a close 226 to 200 vote on the floor of the House." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEffort to block NDAA indefinite detention fails in U.S. House

Microsoft Waits to Fix Your Software Bugs So the NSA Can Use Them First

"In a move as fiendishly clever as it is galling, Microsoft tells the U.S. government about bugs in its notoriously buggy software before it fixes them so that intelligence agencies can use the vulnerabilities for the purposes of cyberspying. 'That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes,' sources tell Bloomberg's Michael Riley. But still, the biggest software company on Earth is holding off on its blue-screen-of-death problems to turn them into real-life spy features, an impressive feat that will no doubt frustrate consumers." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMicrosoft Waits to Fix Your Software Bugs So the NSA Can Use Them First

NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants

"The National Security Agency has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed this week that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed 'simply based on an analyst deciding that.' If the NSA wants 'to listen to the phone,' an analyst's decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. The same legal standards that apply to phone calls also apply to e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants

Firefox plug-in warns users of NSA surveillance

"Justin Blinder released a plugin for the Web browser Firefox this week, and he’s already seeing a positive response in the press if not just based off of the idea alone. His 'The Dark Side of the Prism' browser extension alerts Web surfers of possible surveillance by starting up a different song from Pink Floyd’s 1973 classic 'The Dark Side of the Moon' each time a questionable site is crossed. Blinder told the Guardian that he built the program over the course of four hours with the hopes he could 'create some sort of ambient notification that you are on a site that is being surveiled by the NSA.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFirefox plug-in warns users of NSA surveillance

Secret Court Ruling Put Tech Companies in Data Bind

"In a secret court in Washington, Yahoo’s top lawyers made their case. The government had sought help in spying on certain foreign users, without a warrant, and Yahoo had refused, saying the broad requests were unconstitutional. The judges disagreed. That left Yahoo two choices: Hand over the data or break the law. So Yahoo became part of the National Security Agency’s secret Internet surveillance program, Prism, according to leaked N.S.A. documents, as did seven other Internet companies. Like almost all the actions of the secret court, the details of its disagreement with Yahoo were never made public beyond a heavily redacted court order." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSecret Court Ruling Put Tech Companies in Data Bind

Tech Companies Concede to NSA Surveillance Program

"When government officials came to Silicon Valley to demand easier ways for the world’s largest Internet companies to turn over user data as part of a secret surveillance program, the companies bristled. In the end, though, many cooperated at least a bit. The negotiations shed a light on how Internet companies, increasingly at the center of people’s personal lives, interact with the spy agencies that look to their vast trove of information — e-mails, videos, online chats, photos and search queries — for intelligence. They illustrate how intricately the government and tech companies work together, and the depth of their behind-the-scenes transactions." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTech Companies Concede to NSA Surveillance Program