Showing posts with label NSA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NSA. Show all posts

Ron Hart: The Court Vindicates Edward Snowden

Who watches the watchers?      “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” -Ben Franklin, 1759.  Those of us who defended Edward Snowden in his efforts to expose our government’s illegal data collection activities were vindicated last week, as was Mr. Snowden. In essence,     ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: 2 Cases That Illustrate Warrantless Snooping Goes Far Beyond The NSA's Phone-Record Dragnet

If only the Fourth Amendment had teeth.     Last week a federal appeals court said police do not need a warrant to look at cellphone records that reveal everywhere you've been. Two days later, another appeals court said the National Security Agency (NSA) is breaking the law by indiscriminately collecting telephone records that show    ... MORE

Rand Paul Threatens To Filibuster Patriot Act Renewal

by Nick Morpus.          Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who energized conservatives, independents and even many progressives in 2013 with his 13-hour drone filibuster, has now threatened to do the same if the Senate attempts to reauthorize the National Security Agency’s mass data collection programs. The New Hampshire Union Leader reports:  ... MORE

Of Snowden And The NSA, Only One Has Acted Unlawfully

by James Ball.    And it's not Snowden. On 6 June 2013, the Guardian published a secret US court order against the phone company Verizon, ordering it on an “ongoing, daily basis” to hand over the call records of its millions of US customers to the NSA – just one of numerous orders enabling the government’s highly secret domestic mass surveillance      ... MORE

Lawmakers Move To End Warrantless Domestic Surveillance

by Grant Gross.    If only we had a Fourth Amendment, this wouldn't be necessary. A new bill in Congress would require law enforcement agencies to get court-ordered warrants before targeting U.S. residents in searches of electronic communications collected by the National Security Agency. The End Warrantless Surveillance of Americans Act, introduced   ... MORE

Patriot Act Faces Revisions Backed by Both Parties

by Jonathan Weisman and Jennifer Steinhauser.   Maybe NSA will just ignore the law again. After more than a decade of wrenching national debate over the intrusiveness of government intelligence agencies, a bipartisan wave of support has gathered to sharply limit the federal government’s sweeps of phone and Internet records.  ... MORE

The Time To Limit NSA Snooping Is Now

by Jacob Sullum.      Reauthorizing unamended PATRIOT Act would be reckless. When Congress passed the PATRIOT Act in 2001, it did not intend to authorize the indiscriminate collection of personal information about every American. But that is what Congress will be doing if it renews the law next month without changes aimed at protecting our privacy  ... MORE

NSA Spreads Its Message By Producing Coloring Books

Conditioning kids to the police state.      By the time I found the National Security Agency booth on the expo floor at last week’s RSA Conference, all the best shwag was gone. The most prized giveaway was a faux-leather Post-it Note kit bearing the agency’s seal. “We can’t print enough of those,” the agency rep manning the booth told me.   ... MORE

Jeb Bush Agrees With Obama On Secretive, Warrantless, Privacy-Violating Mass Surveillance Program On Citizens

Just like bro.  It’s reasonably rare for potential Republican presidential candidates to compliment the Obama administration, so any time they do, it ends up being fairly revealing. For example, when former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush—who is currently in the process of “actively exploring” a presidential run—was asked yesterday for his thoughts on “the ... MORE

Rand Paul Vows End Of NSA Spying 'On Day 1' Of Presidency

by Robby Soave.    Taking back America. Rand Paul's campaign kickoff just concluded with a rousing speech by the libertarian-leaning U.S. senator from Kentucky in which he promised that his first act as president would be to stop the NSA's illegal spying on American citizens.  He vowed to win the White House while clutching the Bill of Rights in one ... MORE

U.S. Secretly Tracked Billions Of Calls For Decades

by Brad Heath.   The U.S. government started keeping secret records of Americans' international telephone calls nearly a decade before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, harvesting billions of calls in a program that provided a blueprint for the far broader National Security Agency surveillance that followed. For more than two decades, the Justice Department   ...  MORE

Ian Hanchett: Jeb Bush Is 'Nervous' About NSA Criticism

Hostility to the Fourth Amendment.  Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush stated that he is “nervous” about criticism of the NSA and that he wished the president would do a better job defending government surveillance systems on Monday’s “Hugh Hewitt Show.” Bush said that lone wolf terrorism “is a serious threat in a world where we’re so   ... MORE

Andrew Napolitano: Amendment By Consent

WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE?   Here is a short pop quiz. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Congress earlier this month about the parameters of the secret negotiations between the United States and Iran over nuclear weapons and economic sanctions, how did he know what the negotiators were considering? Israel is not a party to    ... MORE

House Effort Would Restore Privacy & Kill The Patriot Act

Pushing back against terrorism's victories.       A pair of House lawmakers wants to completely repeal the Patriot Act and other legal provisions to dramatically rein in American spying. Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) on Tuesday unveiled their Surveillance State Repeal Act, which would overhaul American spying powers  ... MORE

NSA Doesn’t Need To Spy Your Calls To Learn Your Secrets

by Bruce Schneier.   Governments and corporations gather, store, and analyze the tremendous amount of data we chuff out as we move through our digitized lives. Often this is without our knowledge, and typically without our consent. Based on this data, they draw conclusions about us that we might disagree with or object to, and that can impact    ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: The Wolf Is Guarding The Hen House

The government’s war on cyberterrorism. Nothing you write, say, text, tweet or share via phone or computer is private anymore. This is the new normal in America today. A process which started shortly after 9/11 has grown into a full-fledged campaign of warrantless surveillance, electronic tracking and data mining, carried out by federal agents who have been given carte blanche access to the vast majority of electronic communications in America. Their methods completely undermine constitution safeguards, and yet no federal agency, president, court or legislature has stepped up to halt this assault on our rights. 
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