The Privacy Implications Of NSA Searches Should Not Be Minimized. The Obama administration on Sunday attempted to downplay the damning revelations made in the Washington Post about the NSA’s broad data sweeps under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Service Act (FISA).
In response, officials told the New York Times that “the agency routinely filters out the communications of Americans and information that is of no intelligence value.” The administration’s response quickly jumping to the NSA’s defense is in line with its previous pattern of standing in front of the agency whenever damaging news leaked about its practices. Soon after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s first revelations were published last year, President Barack Obama staunchly supported the surveillance programs.
His stance softened as public outcry grew, and he suggested reforms including an overhaul of the collection of telephony metadata program in January. 'Gutted' NSA reform bill passes the House, but sheds supporters. It's not exactly what privacy advocates and most tech companies wanted, but it's something.
Alex Marthews Sees the Police State Being Forged and Does Not Like It. This essay ( Quit Throwing 9/11 In Our Faces ) is quite something.
Like me, Alex Marthews prefers not to drop the f-bomb …but there are times that try men's souls, and our ongoing slide into an actual honest-to-God yes-it-can-happen-here police state is one of them, and it's pushed both of us into it recently. Hayden Says They Did Surveillance In A 'Madisonian' Way. By now you probably know the name Michael Hayden.
Former NSA and CIA Director Hayden now seems to focus all his time on pimping the security state to the American public. He steadfastly claims that all negative impact and lawlessness on the part of the spy agencies is fiction, and that state secrets and your privacy are ironically equal. Slobberknockered - POLITICO Magazine. Suspend U.S. cloud data deal, European Parliament’s civil liberties committee says. Europe should suspend the Safe Harbor agreement with the U.S. that allows American cloud firms to handle the data of EU citizens, the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee has said in a set of draft recommendations.
The committee has for months been hearing evidence about surveillance of Europeans by the NSA and EU countries’ own governments. The inquiry is now on a holiday break, but on Wednesday Claude Moraes – the MEP leading the committee – presented draft conclusions that, if all goes well, will be up for a parliamentary vote in late February. One of the biggest recommendations is for the Safe Harbor to be suspended. Under the current agreement, U.S. firms can self-certify to say they comply with EU-strength data protection standards, even if their country’s laws do not. However, NSA leaker Edward Snowden has shown that EU citizens’ data is far from protected when traveling through U.S. firms’ systems, and German privacy officials have already called for its suspension. Intelligence officials defend surveillance tactics in Congressional hearing - live. Welcome to our hub for all Edward Snowden, NSA and GCHQ-related developments around the world, as controversy over revelations leaked by the whistleblower continue to make headlines.
As arguments rage over how much of our day to day life should be monitored in the name of security, we'll be tracking the growing global debate about privacy in the digital age. We'd like to know what you think about the whole NSA story, what you're worried about – and any new areas you'd like to read more about. Read Snowden’s Appeal For Political Asylum To Fight The NSA From Brazil. Notorious National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden wants to move to the land of sunny beaches and micro-bikinis.
In an open letter in the Brazilian newspaper Floha de Sao Paulo, Snowden argues that “permanent political asylum” would enable him to help the Brazilian government investigate unwanted spying from foreign governments. “If a mother in Porto Alegre calls her son to wish him luck on his university exam, NSA can keep that call log for five years or more,” he wrote. “They even keep track of who is having an affair or looking at pornography, in case they need to damage their target’s reputation.”
Right now, Snowden has agreed to stop all whistleblower activities in exchange for the warm political embrace of the Russian government. 60 Minutes Offers Thoroughly One-Sided Look at NSA Scandal. Guess Which Side. Judge Says NSA Bulk Metadata Collection Likely Unconstitutional, Issues Injunction. Well, this is big, big news.
Judge Richard Leon, a judge in the DC district court, has ruled that the NSA's bulk metadata collection should be stopped as violating the 4th Amendment, though he's put the ruling on hold, knowing that it will be appealed. This is the first major court ruling concerning the program, and the judge is pretty clear that it's a 4th Amendment violation even though the FISA court approved it. Ryan Lizza: Why Won’t Obama Rein in the N.S.A.? On March 12, 2013, James R.
Clapper appeared before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to discuss the threats facing America. Clapper, who is seventy-two, is a retired Air Force general and Barack Obama’s director of National Intelligence, in charge of overseeing the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and fourteen other U.S. spy agencies. My Drive. Without NSA spying changes, Europe will stop sharing commercial and security data with the U.S. Shockingly, people seem to get upset when you spy on them.
The European Commissioner for justice and rights, Viviane Reding, is threatening to freeze existing data-sharing agreements between the U.S. and Europe, including swaps of terrorist-fighting information, data that European companies and U.S. companies trade each other for, and data on airline passengers crossing the Atlantic. Above: Viviane Reding Image Credit: Wikipedia That’s not only because European citizens are being spied upon without their consent, Reding says, but also because they have no legal means of redress to correct any infringement of their rights.
Americans actually have that right in Europe, if they choose to exercise it. Supreme Court Rejects NSA Case Without Explanation. NSA reportedly tapped into Google, Yahoo data centers worldwide without telling either company. NSA Infiltrates Google And Yahoo Networks, Report Says. The National Security Agency has secretly taped the networks of Google and Yahoo to monitor real-time communication, according to newly revealed documents from whistleblower, Edward Snowden [PDF]. “The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials,” according to The Washington Post, which obtained the hand-scribbled documents. Stop Watching Us: The Video. N.S.A. Plan to Log Calls Is Renewed by Court.