NSA Sent Home Talking Points for Employees to Use in Conversations with Family & Friends During Holidays Link: A sheet of talking points for employees of the National Security Agency and Central Security Services, was sent out ahead of Thanksgiving to help guide conversations with family and friends during the holiday season.
NSA Tracking Cellphone Locations Worldwide, Snowden Documents Show Link: The National Security Agency is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world, according to top-secret documents and interviews with U.S. intelligence officials, enabling the agency to track the movements of individuals — and map their relationships — in ways that would have been previously unimaginable.
Bush-Era NSA Whistleblower Link: Russ Tice, a former intelligence analyst and Bush-era NSA whistleblower, claimed Wednesday that the intelligence community has ordered surveillance on a wide range of groups and individuals, including high-ranking military officials, lawmakers and diplomats.
Company Admits New ‘Smart’ Street Lights Can Analyze Voices, Track People Link: The company behind a new ‘smart’ street lighting system which is being rolled out in major cities like Las Vegas admits that the technology has the capability of analyzing voices and tracking people, features that will aid the Department of Homeland Security in “protecting its citizens.”
Americans’ Personal Data Shared With CIA, IRS, Others In Security Probe Link: U.S. agencies collected and shared the personal information of thousands of Americans in an attempt to root out untrustworthy federal workers that ended up scrutinizing people who had no direct ties to the U.S. government and simply had purchased certain books.
GCHQ and European Spy Agencies Worked Together On Mass Surveillance Link: The German, French, Spanish and Swedish intelligence services have all developed methods of mass surveillance of internet and phone traffic over the past five years in close partnership with Britain’s GCHQeavesdropping agency.
Ten Steps You Can Take Right Now Against Internet Surveillance Link: One of the trends we’ve seen is how, as the word of the NSA’s spying has spread, more and more ordinary people want to know how (or if) they can defend themselves from surveillance online. But where to start?
The Single Best Overview of What the Surveillance State Does With Our Private Data Link: The U.S. surveillance debate is constantly distorted by the fact that national-security officials hide, obscure, and distort so much of what they do. Occasionally a journalist is able to expand the store of publicly available information, most recently thanks to Edward Snowden’s indispensable NSA leaks. But even public information about government surveillance and data retention is difficult to convey to a mass audience. It involves multiple federal agencies with overlapping roles.
Obamacare Marketplace: Personal Data Can Be Used For ‘Law Enforcement and Audit Activities’ Link: The policy states that all information to help in applying for coverage and even for making a payment will be kept strictly confidential and only be used to carry out the function of the marketplace. There is, however, an exception: “[W]e may share information provided in your application with the appropriate authorities for law enforcement and audit activities.”
The Battle For Power On The Internet: Bruce Schneier at TEDxCam Link: Bruce Schneier gives us a glimpse of the future of the internet, and shares some of the context we should keep in mind, and the insights we need to understand, as we prepare for it.
NSA and GCHQ Target Tor Network That Protects Anonymity of Web Users Link: The National Security Agency has made repeated attempts to develop attacks against people using Tor, a popular tool designed to protect online anonymity, despite the fact the software is primarily funded and promoted by the US government itself.
New NSA Revelations To Be Released About Super-Secret ‘U.S. Assassination Program’ Link: Two American journalists are working together to expose the role of the US National Security Agency in what they described as a “US assassination program.”
The NSA Has Been Creating Maps of American Citizens’ Social Networks Similar To How The FBI Links Organized Crime Families Together Link: The NSA has been graphing American’s social networks and plotting them as they do organized crime since at least 2010, according to the latest published Edward Snowden leak. The highly secretive intelligence agency has been mapping out American citizens’ social connections – identifying associates, determining locations, and logging who they talk to – by taking advantage of loosened rules previously meant to restrict surveillance actions.
Senators Push to Preserve N.S.A. Phone Surveillance Link: The Senate Intelligence Committee appears to be moving toward swift passage of a bill that would “change but preserve” the once-secret National Security Agency program that is keeping logs of every American’s phone calls, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who leads the panel, said Thursday.
Verizon’s Outrageous Plot to Crack Up the Internet Link: The company is trying to overturn the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet Order, which prevents Internet service providers from blocking, throttling or otherwise discriminating against online content.
Nine Household Items That Could Be Spying On You Link: For Americans concerned about their privacy, the NSA data grabs are daunting, but what about the data grabs happening inside your own home, perpetrated not by the government, but by your coffee machine?
Former Microsoft Privacy Chief Says He No Longer Trusts The Company Link: Microsoft’s onetime Chief Privacy Advisor, Caspar Bowden, has come out with a vote of no-confidence in the company’s long-term privacy measures and ability or interest to secure user data in the wake of the NSA’s PRISM program.
Our Data Is Our Digital Identity – And We Need To Reclaim Control Link: Everything in our digital lives now comes with this legally binding contract, a contract designed to take away fundamental rights. And with 30 or more pages of undecipherable legalese at many sites, how is anyone supposed to understand the nature of the trade for digital services?
FBI Admits It Controlled Tor Servers Behind Mass Malware Attack Link: It wasn’t ever seriously in doubt, but the FBI yesterday acknowledged that it secretly took control of Freedom Hosting last July, days before the servers of the largest provider of ultra-anonymous hosting were found to be serving custom malware designed to identify visitors.
IETF proposal to Prism-proof the Internet Link: A new draft proposal at the Internet Engineering Task Force by Phillip Hallam-Baker sets out a work program to harden the Internet against Prism-style surveillance.
NSA Broke Privacy Rules Thousands of Times per Year, Audit Finds Link: The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.
Report: FBI Can Turn On Your Smart Phone Mic Link: The U.S. government is expanding its suspect-surveillance programs to include tactic developed and more commonly associated with some of the world’s most sophisticated and criminal-minded experts – computer hackers.
Turning The Tables? Group Challenges Domestic Surveillance By Tracking Obama Link: In response to what some consider over-reaching surveillance programs conducted by U.S. intelligence agencies, which have been shown to collect thousands of communications with no terror connection, a group decrying the privacy implications of these programs is turning the tables on the president.
Gmail Users or People Who Email them Should NOT Expect Privacy, Google Claims in a Stunning Admission Link: Google has stated that people should not expect privacy when they send messages to a Gmail account. This is according to a brief that was filed last month in a U.S. federal court and recently picked up by Consumer Watchdog. The company claims ‘all users of email must necessarily expect that their emails will be subject to automated processing.’
Lawmakers Introduce New Bill to Compel Gov’t to Declassify Secret Court Opinions Link: In the wake of two newly published orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) by The Guardian, two American legislators have introduced a bill that would require the government to declassify FISC opinions that describe how the secret court has interpreted Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act and Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
