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+16 +4
Queen's Speech: New monitoring powers 'to tackle terrorism'
New laws to give police and spies greater powers to monitor internet and phone use are in the Queen's Speech. Downing Street said that measures in the Investigatory Powers Bill would provide the authorities "with the tools to keep you and your family safe". It will "address gaps" in intelligence gathering and access to communications data which is putting "lives at risk".
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+11 +5
Wide-ranging snooper’s charter to extend powers of security services
Trade union funding also to be curbed by ‘opt in’ system whereby union members are to chose to pay rather than chose not to pay political levy
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+9 +5
Inside NSA, Officials Privately Criticize “Collect It All” Surveillance
As Congress struggles over renewal of Patriot Act, NSA documents show intelligence experts warning...
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+13 +2
Shepard Fairey: Obama Didn't Live Up to the 'Hope' Poster
Street artist Shepard Fairey and the Viacom-owned MTV, home to teen moms and teen wolves, are the Felix and Oscar of American culture wars. That they found common ground is something of a triumph. Their web series, Rebel Music, now in its second season, spotlights creative teenagers who express themselves in a dismissive world. From Iranian metal heads to Native American DJ environmentalists, Rebel Music encompasses the punk art gamut.
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+12 +4
Reality Checks in Debate Over Surveillance Laws
There is little evidence in the history of the expiring Patriot Act powers to bolster the arguments that either supporters or opponents are making. By Charlie Savage.
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+9 +4
Who Needs Edward Snowden?
The fact that it took thirteen years and a whistle-blower to expose a program that is conclusively ineffective and possibly illegal points to a problem much larger than any one program.
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+5 +2
Mysterious low-flying plane over Twin Cities raises questions of surveillance
The small aircraft circled Minneapolis, the Mall of America and Southdale for hours late at night.
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+14 +1
Emptywheel: Richard Burr Wants to Label People Who Make Threats and Carry Guns “Terrorists”
The bill Senate Intelligence Chair Richard Burr released last Friday is bad enough for the way it expanded the existing illegal dragnet. I argued here Burr’s bill would give the Intelligence Community everything they lost in 2009 and 2011.
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+18 +2
Proposal to Massively Expand FBI's Legal Hacking Abilities Moves Forward
Oh, good. A Department of Justice-proposed rule change that would make it way easier for FBI agents to obtain warrants to hack a computer from basically anywhere was just approved by a US Court committee. Which is to say, we’re one step closer to having our digital privacy rights eviscerated in the name of federal investigations.
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+17 +3
Patriot Act That Dennis Hastert Passed Led To His Indictment
On Oct. 24, 2001, then-House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) shepherded the Patriot Act through the House of Representatives. It passed 357 to 66, advancing to the Senate...
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+2 +1
FCC Has A New Robocall Ruling, And It Doesn't Look Pretty for Business
A Reed Smith partner sizes up the FCC's new rules on robocalling and says consumers and class-action lawyers win and businesses lose.
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+2 +1
Julian Assange: Despite Congressional Standoff, NSA Has Secret Authority to Continue Spying Unabated
The Obama administration’s authority to collect Americans’ phone records in bulk will likely expire next week after senators from both parties rejected attempts to extend it. First, the Republican-led Senate rejected a House-passed measure to curb bulk spying by keeping the records with phone companies instead of the government. The Senate then rejected a bid by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to extend the current bulk spying program for two months. The Senate adjourned and will reconvene May 31, the day before the program expires. In an exclusive interview from his place of refuge inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange weighs in on the NSA standoff.
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+2 +1
UK police requests to access phone calls or emails are granted 93% of the time
Campaigners call for a curb on the scale of police access to private communications data as the Tories prepare to expand surveillance powers
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+14 +1
Google makes it easier to control privacy and security settings
Taking a leaf out of Facebook's, er, book, Google today unveils a revamped privacy checkup page. Google and privacy are not words that belong in the same sentence for many people, but the search giant wants to change that. Users are invited to answer a series of simple questions to control how their data is stored, collected, and shared.
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+13 +3
Mitch McConnell Proved Rand Paul Right on the Patriot Act
The Senate Majority Leader seems to have thought that fear alone would force the renewal of the Patriot Act that he wanted.
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+13 +2
Fears NSA will seek to undermine surveillance reform
Privacy advocates fear the National Security Agency will attempt to weaken new restrictions on the bulk collection of Americans’ phone and email records with a barrage of creative legal wrangles, as the first major reform of US surveillance powers in a generation looked likely to be a foregone conclusion on Monday.
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+12 +2
Don’t Underestimate the National-Security State
The sunset of Patriot Act provisions is a symbolic victory, but an inadequate response to post-9/11 surveillance policy. By Conor Friedersdorf.
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+17 +1
The Agency
From a nondescript office building in St. Petersburg, Russia, an army of well-paid “trolls” has tried to wreak havoc all around the Internet — and in real-life American communities. At around 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 11 last year, Duval Arthur, director of the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness for St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, got a call from a resident who had just received a disturbing text message.
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+18 +4
TSA fails internal test, lets fake bombs through
The agency reportedly failed 67 of 70 internally conducted exams.
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+14 +3
White House stands firm on Snowden prosecution
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