Supreme Court Rules Fifth Amendment Has to Actually Be Invoked

"In a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court ruled today that a potential defendant’s silence canbe used against him if he is being interviewed by police but is not arrested (and read his Miranda rights) and has not verbally invoked the protection of the Fifth Amendment. The case was intended to be about whether prosecutors during a trial could cast aspersions on a defendant’s silence during questioning that took place prior to arrest — prior to the defendent being told he had the right to remain silent. Instead, the Supreme Court determined that they wouldn’t need to rule on the matter because the defendant had never invoked the Fifth Amendment’s protection." Continue reading

Continue ReadingSupreme Court Rules Fifth Amendment Has to Actually Be Invoked

How the Patriot Act debate became about library records instead of phone records

"Civil liberties advocates said in interviews there is a simple reason for the disconnect: In the period immediately after the Patriot Act passed, few if any observers believed Section 215 could authorize any kind of ongoing, large-scale collection of phone data. They argue that only a radical and incorrect interpretation of the law allows the mass surveillance program the NSA has erected on the foundation of Section 215. The ACLU contends in a lawsuit filed last week that Section 215 does not legitimately authorize the metadata program." Continue reading

Continue ReadingHow the Patriot Act debate became about library records instead of phone records

Cost to Store All US Phonecalls Made in a Year in Cloud Storage so it could be Datamined

"Because of recent news reports, I wanted to cross check the cost feasibility of the NSA’s recording all of the US phonecalls and processing them. These estimates show only $27M in capital cost, and $2M in electricity and take less than 5,000 square feet of space to store and process all US phonecalls made in a year. The NSA seems to be spending $1.7 billion on a 100k square foot datacenter that could easily handle this and much much more. Therefore, money and technology would not hold back such a project– it would be held back if someone did not have the opportunity or will." Continue reading

Continue ReadingCost to Store All US Phonecalls Made in a Year in Cloud Storage so it could be Datamined

The Massive Facial Recognition Database That’s Hiding in Plain Sight

"The database isn't limited to just criminals, and it's completely searchable thanks to facial recognition tech. Generally, there's no need for a court order or warrant to make a search, just 'law enforcement purposes,' which is about as vague as it gets. As for reach, 42 states are involved with the system. The State department has its own little database, consisting of some 230 million faces belonging to visa-holding foreigners and passport-holding citizens alike. As video-surveillance becomes more and more common, it's easy to see how this becomes a modern-day fingerprint index of not just criminals but of anyone with an ID." Continue reading

Continue ReadingThe Massive Facial Recognition Database That’s Hiding in Plain Sight

Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Compares NSA Spying to Soviet Russia

"'When I was brought up my dad taught me, for example, [that when] other countries got prisoners in a war, they tortured them. But we, Americans, didn’t torture them. And now I find out it’s just the opposite. And all these things we talk about in the Constitution, that made us so good as a people, they all dissolved with the Patriot Act. I was taught that communist Russia were the ones that were going to kill us, and bomb our country. Communist Russia was so bad because they followed their people, they snooped on them, they arrested them, they put them in secret prisons, they disappeared them. Nowadays, we’re getting more and more like that.'" Continue reading

Continue ReadingApple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Compares NSA Spying to Soviet Russia

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

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

Report: Obama Spends $180K Per Day Undermining State Medical Marijuana Laws

"In 2011 and 2012, the DEA spent four percent of its budget on the medical marijuana crackdown. Having conducted at least 270 paramilitary-style raids during the past four years, Obama's DEA spent approximately $8 million to carry them out. However, the amount of taxpayer dollars spent on raids was dwarfed by the amount spent on investigative efforts preceding raids, indictments, and lawsuits, which has totaled more than $200 million. Over the past two years alone, the DOJ has effectively shuttered more than 500 dispensaries by sending letters to landlords, threatening criminal prosecution and seizure of their property." Continue reading

Continue ReadingReport: Obama Spends $180K Per Day Undermining State Medical Marijuana Laws

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