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+2 +1
Michigan Pushes For Drug Testing Of Welfare Recipients
If approved, the program would require adult welfare recipients to submit to drug testing.
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+18 +4
CIA torture report: The doctors who were the unlikely architects of the CIA's programme
They are the most unlikely architects of the CIA’s programme of torture. Two psychologists who swore to heal not harm. Now it has been revealed that two doctors, identified by the pseudonyms Dr Grayson Swigert and Dr Hammond Dunbar, were paid $81 million by the CIA to help develop and implement a seven-year programme that included "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding, placing detainees in stress positions and sleep deprivation.
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+3 +1
Leaked email reveals secret anti-piracy meeting between Google, Sony, and Homeland Security
Hollywood studios have struggled with Google over piracy issues before, but a new leak suggests the companies may be patching up their differences with some unexpected help from Homeland Security. A leaked email sent to Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton on March 19, 2012, provides a new look at how Google fits into anti-piracy efforts, in Hollywood and beyond. The email describes a small, secret group assembled by Homeland Security's John Morton...
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+14 +6
How Congress Secretly Just Legitimized Questionable NSA Mass Surveillance Tool
We recently noted that, despite it passing overwhelmingly, Congress quietly deleted a key bit of NSA reform that would have blocked the agency from using backdoors for surveillance. But this week something even more nefarious happened, and it likely would have gone almost entirely unnoticed if Rep. Justin Amash's staffers hadn't caught the details of a new provision quietly slipped into the Intelligence Authorization Act...
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+14 +2
How have attitudes to privacy changed post-Snowden?
A recent survey reports 43% of users avoid certain websites and applications and 39% change their passwords regularly since the Snowden revelations. Is that number low, or is it an encouraging sign...
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+17 +1
The FBI Used the Web's Favorite Hacking Tool to Unmask Tor Users
The FBI relied on Flash code from an abandoned Metasploit project called "Decloak" to identify suspects hiding behind the Tor anonymity network.
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+16 +2
Billion Dollar Surveillance Blimp to Launch over Maryland
In just a few days, the Army will launch the first of two massive blimps over Maryland, the last gasp of an 18-year-long $2.8-billion Army project intended to use giant airships to defend against cruise missiles. And while the blimps may never stave off a barrage of enemy missiles, their ability to spot and track cars, trucks and boats hundreds of miles away is raising serious privacy concerns.
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+16 +2
Police around state gain military firepower; critics see danger
As law-enforcement agencies around the state make use of assault rifles, armored vehicles and a windfall of other surplus tactical equipment from the military, some fear community policing will give way to a “militarized” mindset.
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+16 +5
Leaked CIA docs teach operatives how to infiltrate EU
Wikileaks has released two classified documents instructing CIA operatives how best to circumvent global security systems in international airports, including those of the EU, while on undercover missions.
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+17 +4
Leaked CIA Manual Shows How Operatives Get Through Airport Security Without Blowing Their Cover
A 2011 internal CIA manual that instructs operatives on how to get through some of the world's toughest airport security screenings without blowing their cover was released by Wikileaks this week.
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+24 +8
Julian Assange: Why I Founded Wikileaks
I looked at something that I had seen going on with the world, which is that I thought there were too many unjust acts. And I wanted there to be more just acts, and fewer unjust acts. And one can ask, “What are your philosophical axioms for this?” And I say, “I do not need to consider them. This is simply my temperament. And it is an axiom because it is that way.” That avoids getting into further unhelpful philosophical discussion about why I want to do something. It is enough that I do.
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+12 +1
The NSA Dumped Its Spying Violations While You Were Waiting on Santa
The U.S. government has released proof that it repeatedly spied on American citizens without being allowed to... and you probably missed it. The National Security Administration finally dumped a heap of redacted documents revealing the surveillance violations made over the last decade. Hooray for transparency! Of course, it released them midday on Christmas Eve...
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+19 +7
China Adds New Barrier to Gmail
The Chinese government appears to have blocked the ability of people in China to gain access to Google’s email service through third-party email services like Apple Mail or Microsoft Outlook, which many Chinese and foreigners had been relying on to use their Gmail accounts after an earlier blocking effort by officials, according to Internet analysts and users in China.
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+17 +3
NSA has VPNs in Vulcan death grip—no, really, that’s what they call it
VPN traffic repositories used to find keys, crack encryption of target traffic.
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+12 +2
Newly published NSA documents show agency could grab all Skype traffic
A National Security Agency document published this week by the German news magazine Der Spiegel from the trove provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden shows that the agency had full access to voice, video, text messaging, and file sharing from targeted individuals over Microsoft’s Skype service.
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+15 +2
Media Blacks Out New Snowden Interview The Government Doesn’t Want You to See
This past Sunday evening former NSA contractor Edward Snowden sat down for an interview with German television network ARD. The interview has been intentionally blocked from the US public, with virtually no major broadcast news outlets covering this story. In addition, the video has been taken down almost immediately every time it’s posted on YouTube.
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+31 +3
The MPAA has a new plan to stop copyright violations at the border
Hollywood’s war on piracy has reached a strange impasse. While the MPAA and others have launched lawsuits against US-based infringers, reaching offshore torrent sites like Isohunt and The Pirate Bay is still a slow process, and whenever a site is taken down, others quickly pop up to fill its place.
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+19 +7
Al-Qaeda terrorist suspect dies days before his trial in New York
A suspected al-Qaeda terrorist died Friday night, just days before he was slated to go on trial in federal court in New York on charges of helping to plan the 1998 bombings outside the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya that killed 224 people, his lawyer said. Among those killed in the bombings were 12 Americans, including two CIA employees. Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai was diagnosed with advanced liver cancer after U.S. commandos and FBI agents captured him...
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+17 +5
New Oklahoma amendment would essentially outlaw hoodies, prohibit people from covering their faces in public
It could soon be illegal for folks in Oklahoma to wear clothing that covers their faces, including hooded sweatshirts, a.k.a. "hoodies." It's already illegal to wear such clothing during the commission of a crime. But a Republican state senator has introduced an amendment to ban people from hiding their identity in public in general.
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+5 +1
Writers Say They Feel Censored by Surveillance
A survey of writers around the world by the PEN American Center has found that a significant majority said they were deeply concerned with government surveillance, with many reporting that they have avoided, or have considered avoiding, controversial topics in their work or in personal communications as a result. The findings show that writers consider freedom of expression to be under significant threat around the world in democratic and nondemocratic countries.
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