Orwellian

NSA admits: Our analysts ‘willfully violated’ rules of surveillance system

"'NSA takes very seriously allegations of misconduct, and co-operates fully with any investigations – responding as appropriate,' the NSA said in a statement. 'NSA has zero tolerance for willful violations of the agency’s authorities.' It said none of the abuses involved violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or the Patriot Act – violations of which have been highlighted by the Guardian based on documents leaked by the whistleblower Edward Snowden. Instead, the abuses were related to misuse of the 1981 Executive Order 12333, which governs how US intelligence operations are used." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNSA admits: Our analysts ‘willfully violated’ rules of surveillance system

NSA inspector general admits to ‘willful violations’ of agency’s authority

"US intelligence analysts have deliberately broken rules designed to prevent them from spying on Americans, according to an admission by the National Security Agency that undermines fresh insistences from Barack Obama on Friday that all breaches were inadvertent. A report by the NSA’s inspector general is understood to have uncovered a number of examples of analysts choosing to ignore so-called 'minimisation procedures' aimed at protecting privacy, according to officials speaking to Bloomberg. These cases flatly contradict assurances given by President Obama that the NSA was only ever acting in good faith." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNSA inspector general admits to ‘willful violations’ of agency’s authority

Retiring FBI director warns ‘the threat is still here’

"He took the reins of the FBI a week before the attacks of September 11, 2001. Twelve years later, Robert Mueller is retiring, convinced that 'the threat is still here.' At the time, 2,000 out of 11,000 special agents were immediately transferred from fighting crime to combatting Al-Qaeda. Since then, the number of intelligence analysts at the FBI has more than tripled. Telephone and Internet surveillance programs are 'tremendously important,' Mueller explained. He was in the top FBI post for the second longest period after J. Edgar Hoover, who held it for 48 years until his death." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingRetiring FBI director warns ‘the threat is still here’

Don’t Fly During Ramadan

"No matter how I’ve tried to rationalize this in the last week and a half, nothing can block out the memory of the chilling sensation I felt that first morning, lying on my air mattress, trying to forget the image of large, uniformed men invading the sanctuary of my home in my absence, wondering when they had done it, wondering why they had done it. In all my life, I have only felt that same chilling terror once before - on one cold night in September twelve years ago, when I huddled in bed and tried to forget the terrible events in the news that day, wondering why they they had happened, wondering whether everything would be okay ever again." Continue reading →

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Bar Shares Scanned ID Card Data with Cops

"Across the country, citizens are surprised and sometimes outraged by increasing demands by businesses and government to submit to the instant capture and downloading of all of the data contained on their driver’s licenses and ID cards as a condition for access. You might wonder what your data is being used for after it is taken. The article below gives one example of how your once lowly driver’s license that is now empowered with machine readable technology (RFID or 2D barcodes) and your facial biometrics, is performing exactly as designed. These technologies are designed to make you easier to track, monitor and control." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBar Shares Scanned ID Card Data with Cops

One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Big Data

"In 2012, the Senseable City Lab, part of MIT, conducted an experiment called Trash Track to see just what happens when someone takes out the trash. By attaching transmitters to over 3,000 pieces of rubbish they were able to track where that item went, whether they went to the correct recycling facility or not, and how far they traveled. Now move to the story in the papers last week about the Renew bins in London. It came to light that a dozen of London’s recycling bins fitted with digital screens were tracking each smartphone and device that connected to them with WiFi. It allowed advertisers to deduce whether the same phone — although not necessarily the same person — is passing by" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingOne Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Big Data

‘Data is the new oil’: Tech giants may be huge, but nothing matches big data

"'Data is the new oil,' declared Clive Humby, a Sheffield mathematician who with his wife, Edwina Dunn, made £90m helping Tesco with its Clubcard system. Though he said it in 2006, the realisation that there is a lot of money to be made – and lost – through the careful or careless marshalling of 'big data' has only begun to dawn on many business people. About 90% of all the data in the world has been generated in the past two years (a statistic that is holding roughly true even as time passes). There are about 2.7 zettabytes of data in the digital universe, where 1ZB of data is a billion terabytes (a typical computer hard drive these days can hold about 0.5TB, or 500 gigabytes)." Continue reading →

Continue Reading‘Data is the new oil’: Tech giants may be huge, but nothing matches big data

The Real, Terrifying Reason Why British Authorities Detained David Miranda

"Those in power were angry and impulsively acted on that anger. They're lashing out: sending a message and demonstrating that they're not to be messed with -- that the normal rules of polite conduct don't apply to people who screw with them. That's probably the scariest explanation of all. Both the U.S. and U.K. intelligence apparatuses have enormous money and power, and they have already demonstrated that they are willing to ignore their own laws. Once they start wielding that power unthinkingly, it could get really bad for everyone." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Real, Terrifying Reason Why British Authorities Detained David Miranda

NSA’s surveillance “most serious attacks on free speech we’ve ever seen.”

"The chilling of free speech isn’t just a consequence of surveillance. It’s also a motive. We adopt the art of self-censorship, closing down blogs, watching what we say on Facebook, forgoing 'private' email for fear that any errant word may come back to haunt us in one, five or fifteen 15 years. 'The mind's tendency to still feel observed when alone... can be inhibiting,' writes Janna Malamud Smith. Indeed. Peggy Noonan, describing a conversation with longtime civil liberties advocate Nat Hentoff, writes that 'the inevitable end of surveillance is self-censorship.' Hentoff stressed that privacy invasions of this magnitude are 'attempts to try to change who we are as Americans.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNSA’s surveillance “most serious attacks on free speech we’ve ever seen.”

Banish the trolls, but web debate still needs anonymity

"So the proprietor of the Huffington Post has decided to ban anonymous commenting from the site. It seems like common sense [that people will behave better]. Whether it is supported by evidence is uncertain. The most striking study I’ve come across is the experiment conducted by the (South) Korea Communications Commission from July 2007. From that month onwards, anyone wanting to comment on any of the 146 Korean websites with more than 100,000 members was required by law to submit resident registration or credit card details. The hypothesis behind the requirement was that people would behave better online if they were easily identifiable. But it didn’t turn out that way. Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBanish the trolls, but web debate still needs anonymity