For months, government agencies have been warning that popular antivirus software could be giving Russian intelligence agencies a back door into American computers and secrets. Now a new report says not only that it could happen, but that it already has, at least once. [More]
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The NSA Collected 151 Million Phone Records In 2016
By 5.3.17
The National Security Agency (NSA) became a target for ire after the public learned in 2013 that it had been scooping up millions of Americans’ phone records without warrants or disclosure, and holding on to all of them. A change in the law in 2015 significantly changed the way and volume in which the NSA is legally authorized to scoop up data… but the net it casts is still pretty broad, pulling in 151 million phone records last year. [More]
Researchers Figure Out How To Put Invisible Backdoor In Common Internet Encryption
By 10.11.16
Even consumers who aren’t necessarily very technically-minded have at least a vague sense that an encrypted site is safer to use than one that isn’t. But encryption, alas, is never a permanent cure-all. And that’s why it’s troubling that new research has found it’s easier than anyone thought to put a backdoor into internet encryption that could let any big, surveillaince-minded entity (good morning, NSA) have a listen. [More]
Yahoo Reportedly Built Tool To Snoop On All Its Emails For U.S. Government
By 10.4.16 — Updated: 10.5.16
It’s one thing to comply with a court order from law enforcement seeking access to a user’s email account; it’s another to build a tool specifically to help U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies eavesdrop on those online discussions. A new report claims that Yahoo did just that last year by creating a program that allowed the company to scour all of its messages on behalf of the government. [More]
Senators Introduce Bipartisan Bill To Limit Law Enforcement’s Rights To Hack Stuff
By 5.19.16
A group of Senators has announced today that they are introducing a new bill into the Senate designed to prevent mass hacking of Americans’ digital devices. But the lawmakers aren’t targeting shadowy collectives or foreign nationals with their proposed legislation; they’re seeking to limit the scope of actual Federal agencies’ powers. [More]
Secretive U.S. Spy Court Approved All 1,457 Surveillance Requests In 2015
By 5.2.16
The federal court set up to review government requests for surveillance involving issues of national security is either rubber-stamping everything that it sees, or the FBI and the National Security Agency are incredibly good at filing these requests. A new report claims that the court approved every single one of the 1,457 requests it received last year. [More]
Privacy Advocates Concerned As Senate Approves Controversial Cybersecurity Bill
By 10.28.15
Despite previous failures, Congress just keeps on churning through bills that propose to enhance digital security at the cost of digital privacy. The latest in the series sailed through the Senate with wide approval this week, kicking off another wave of privacy concerns. [More]
Court Rules NSA Phone Data Collection That Is Now Changing Anyway Is Still Legal
By 8.28.15
After several years of back-and-forth rulings, an appeals court in Washington, D.C. has ruled today that the NSA’s controversial bulk phone data collection program can indeed continue… at least until November, when it gets shut down anyway because Congress changed the law in June. [More]
Leaked NSA Documents: AT&T “Highly Collaborative” With NSA Spying, Has “Extreme Willingness” To Help
By 8.17.15
The NSA’s spying operations on regular Americans are the unwanted, terrible gift that just keeps on giving. Although most telecom and internet companies have cooperated with the surveillance efforts to one degree or another, at least some of them have the decency to act mildly chagrined about it. But not AT&T. [More]
Oscar-Winning Director Of Snowden Documentary Trying To Find Out Why She’s Been Detained At Airports So Much
By 7.13.15
Laura Poitras recently won the Academy Award for CITIZENFOUR, her documentary on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, but the director claims that she’s long been hassled by U.S. federal authorities for years, resulting in multiple unmerited airport detentions. Now she’s suing the government to find out exactly why. [More]
Privacy Advocates Abandon Facial Recognition Policy Talks In Protest
By 6.16.15
Facial recognition still kind of sounds like science fiction, but is a tech reality. It is, however, still a fairly new and unregulated reality — nobody quite knows how to handle it. So the Commerce Department brought together privacy advocates and industry representatives to hammer out a new code of conduct… and it is not going well. In fact, several of the advocates claim, the process is so broken that it can’t be fixed, and they are walking out. [More]
Judge Says USA FREEDOM Act May Scuttle Twitter’s Transparency Lawsuit
By 6.12.15
Last October, Twitter sued the Justice Department, the U.S. Attorney General, the FBI, and FBI Director James Comey, because the social media platform believed it has a First Amendment right to be fully transparent with its users about the number and nature of national security requests it receives from the government. But with the recent passing of the USA FREEDOM Act, the judge in the case says there may be no need for the lawsuit to move forward. [More]
Senate Passes USA Freedom Act, Ushering In A Kindler, Gentler Era Of NSA Snooping
By 6.2.15
As expected following the June 1 expiration of one of the PATRIOT Act’s most controversial privacy-invading provisions, the Senate today passed a substitute bill, the USA FREEDOM Act (or rather, deep breath… the Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring Act of 2015) that prohibits the sort of mass data collection the National Security Agency enjoyed under the recently sunset Patriot provisions, but still leaves in place many concerns for privacy advocates. [More]
Patriot Act’s NSA Phone-Snooping Program Expires (For Now)
By 6.1.15
As lawmakers in D.C. flipped over their calendars from May to June last night, the sun set — at least temporarily — on the National Security Agency’s ability to collect mass amounts of information from telephone companies about their customers’ calls. [More]
Court: NSA Bulk Phone Data Collection Program Is Illegal
By 5.7.15
A federal appeals court has ruled this morning that the NSA’s controversial bulk phone data collection program is in violation of federal law. [More]
Congress Has One Month Left To Change Or Renew Controversial Bulk Phone Data Surveillance Program
By 4.29.15
It’s been two years since we found out that the NSA has been quietly scooping up basically everyone’s phone records, willy-nilly, without warrants. The revelations of widespread surveillance freaked plenty of people out, but under existing law, the agency has acted legally. To get change, then, you’d need to change the law… and Congress has 33 days remaining in which to do exactly that. [More]
DEA Sued Over Secret Mass Surveillance Of Phone Calls
By 4.8.15
The backlash against the federal government’s surveillance programs continues. This time, the folks at Human Rights Watch have filed suit against the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, alleging that the DEA’s bulk collection of data related to certain phone calls made by the organization runs afoul of basic protections afforded by the Constitution. [More]
John Oliver Gets Edward Snowden To Explain Government Snooping In Terms Of Penis Photos
By 4.6.15
By June 1, Congress must decide whether or not to reauthorize certain sections of the controversial USA Patriot Act (aka the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act), but even though it’s been nearly two years since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed the NSA’s massive and far-reaching data collection programs, many Americans either are only vaguely aware or don’t understand because it’s not easy to immediately see how things like PRISM and MYSTIC affect your daily existence. That’s why John Oliver not only went straight to Snowden for an explanation of these programs, but to have him put the snooping in terms many Internet-era perverts can understand: penis photos. [More]
