Who Watches The Watchers

French president announces ‘fake news’ law

"French President Emmanuel Macron has announced plans for a new law to combat so-called fake news. He said that during elections social media would face tougher rules over the content that they put online. Speaking at a new year reception for the media, Mr Macron said it was possible now at a cost of just a few thousand euros to propagate untruths over social media. In response, he proposed imposing tougher rules on social media about revealing the sources of apparent news content."

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New German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

"A German satirical magazine’s Twitter account was blocked after it parodied anti-Muslim comments, the publication said on Wednesday, in what the national journalists association said showed the downside of a new law against online hate speech. Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms are scrambling to adapt to the law, and its implementation is being closely watched after warnings that the threat of fines could prompt websites to block more content than necessary."

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Facebook Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the U.S. and Israeli Governments

"As is always true of censorship, there is one, and only one, principle driving all of this: power. Facebook will submit to and obey the censorship demands of governments and officials who actually wield power over it, while ignoring those who do not. That’s why declared enemies of the U.S. and Israeli governments are vulnerable to censorship measures by Facebook, whereas U.S and Israeli officials (and their most tyrannical and repressive allies) are not."

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Privacy Complaints Mount Over Phone Searches at U.S. Border Since 2011

"Smartphones and other personal electronics contain vastly more private information than suitcases. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have filed a lawsuit in Boston arguing that a warrant should be required to search such devices at the border. Last week, the Trump administration asked a judge to dismiss the case. The lawsuit comes amid a surge in agents looking through — and sometimes copying data from — cellphones and laptops. Midway through fiscal year 2017, Customs and Border Protection was on pace to search 30,000 travelers’ electronics — more than tripling the annual number by that agency since 2015."

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The Deep State’s Christmas Present to America: Surveillance That Never Ends

"The Trump Administration has been actively lobbying Congress to reauthorize Section 702 in its entirety. Now, according to The Intercept, Trump is actively considering a proposal to establish his own global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies and answer directly to the White House. If approved, this would be yet another secret government agency carrying out secret surveillance and counterintelligence, funded by a secret black ops budget that by its very nature does away with transparency, bypasses accountability and completely eludes any form of constitutionality."

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The FBI Is an Enemy of Freedom

"For its entire existence the FBI has served as the strong arm of the federal government. Beginning in 1909 as the Bureau of Investigation, no one’s life, liberty, or property has been safe since. Ostensibly created to investigate anarchists, bootleggers, kidnappers, bank robbers, crimes on federal property, and later, the KKK, the FBI would soon find its true calling: political repression, personal destruction, and terror."

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Arizona Citizens Tracked In REAL ID Facial Recognition Database

"But the use of the system to prevent identity theft isn’t what people are worried about; the problem is the lack of oversight in government programs that allows anyone with access to look into the database. As such, state-run facial recognition databases are dangerous and can lead down a slippery slope to allow other operations the technology wasn’t intended for."

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White House Planning Private Spies to Counter “Deep State” Enemies

"The Trump administration is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials and others familiar with the proposals."

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