Free Republic

Do you ever feel like you're being watched? In the past, you could chalk it up to paranoia, close the curtains and get on with your life. Thanks to technology, it's not just your imagination. You really are being watched in your home, at work and everywhere in between. From online advertisers and hackers to the NSA and other government agencies, everyone is trying to keep tabs on you. And things keep getting worse. If you think you know every gadget and organization that's a danger, think again. Here are three things spying on you that you probably didn't know...

First, this is VERY important to read and understand. I’m doing my best to look out for all the Facebook Users who aren’t as tech savvy as their kids or friends. I’m trying to help explain what’s happening because if I don’t…nobody else will! If you’re anything like your neighbor…you probably use Facebook on your phone WAY more than you use it on a computer. You’ve been sending messages from the Facebook app and it probably always asks you if you want to install the Facebook Messenger App. It’s always been OPTIONAL but coming soon to your Facebook experience….it won’t...

With the escape route of deniability closed, CIA Director John Brennan grudgingly apologized to Senate intelligence committee leaders for his Agency’s covert perusal of their correspondence. “Yeah, we’re sorry,” Brennan growled. “But I still don’t see what the big deal is. We spy on everyone. Why should Senators be exempt from our efforts to protect national security? Are they somehow better than the average Americans they supposedly represent?” “Is it really implausible that Senators having access to classified information might pose a significant security risk?” Brennan continued. “I could argue that the need to keep an eye on what they...

It’s a bad idea when governments demand information on your bank accounts and investments so they can impose economically destructive double taxation. It’s a worse idea when they also demand the right to tax economic activity in other jurisdictions (otherwise known as “worldwide taxation“). And it’s the worst possible development when governments decide that they should impose a global network of data collection and dissemination as part of a scheme of worldwide double taxation. Yet that’s exactly what’s happening. High-tax nations, working through the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, want to impose a one-size-fits-all system of “automatic information...

Note: This is explicitly posted in my private blog rather than the Adblock Plus blog. This post represents my own opinion only. It is likely unwise to rant about a competing project but I just don’t want to keep my findings to myself. If you are here for Adblock Plus bashing and don’t care enough to read the post, please make sure to read the edit at the bottom nevertheless. On Chrome, two popular ad blockers are currently available: AdBlock and Adblock Plus. Despite the confusingly similar names, they are completely unrelated projects. I am in charge of the latter,...

The Newborn Screening Saves Lives Reauthorization Act is waiting in the US Senate for a vote. Last week, before the House voted on it, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann went to the floor of the House and said parent consent should be required. But it passed without consent requirements. Now, the U.S. Senate is planning to vote on the Houseʼs newborn screening bill and send it to the President. The Senate wants to hotline it, but we want to stop it unless it has written informed parent consent for the government storage, use, analysis, and sharing of newborn DNA. Call your Senators...

There's triple trouble with electronic health records: patient safety, medical privacy, and data security. And there are at least eight hazards. But much taxpayer money has been thrown at the highly speculative, untested EHR for political and profit purposes. And there are at least eight hazards. But much taxpayer money has been thrown at the highly speculative, untested EHR for political and profit purposes. England has already tried and failed. The National Health Service, which serves a population of 53 million, began building a national EHR system in 2002. By 2007, it missed key deadlines. In 2011, the $20 billion...

Since 2013, complaints to the Department of Health and Human Services have risen regarding Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act violations. The number of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) violation complaints received by the Department of Health and Human Services spiraled upward in 2013. Complaints are on a similar high-speed trajectory for 2014, according to analysis by TrueVault. "The number of complaints through May 2014 is up 20.6% over the number received through May in 2013, so we believe that we will continue to see complaints surge through 2014," Morgan Brown, vice president of growth at TrueVault, said...

It used to be that what transpires between a doctor and patient was considered confidential. Under the Affordable Care Act the Government has now been added as a participant in observing communications between doctor and patient. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell justified the expansion of those in the know as "only prudent. The Affordable Care Act has made the federal government responsible for the health of everyone in America. We can't adequately do that job if information on anyone's condition is withheld from us." "Unenlightened individuals may think that their health is their own concern," Burwell said. "They...

(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected Google Inc's bid to dismiss a lawsuit accusing it of violating federal wiretap law when it accidentally collected emails and other personal data while building its popular Street View program. The justices left intact a September 2013 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which refused to exempt Google from liability under the federal Wiretap Act for having inadvertently intercepted emails, user names, passwords and other data from private Wi-Fi networks to create Street View, which provides panoramic views of city streets. The lawsuit arose soon after the Mountain...

Can cops simply take your cell phone and browse through it to their hearts’ content after they arrest you? Today, in Riley v. California, a unanimous Supreme Court answered that question with a resounding “no.” It’s not only a victory for digital privacy, but an example of the kind of judicial engagement that we desperately need to protect our liberties from unreasonable government interference. In Riley, the Court addressed the question of whether the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement applies to cell phone searches. In two separate cases, individuals were arrested and searched by police. The police took their cell phones...

Sunday, when people had other things to do and weren’t supposed to pay attention, PayPal sent its holders an innocuous-sounding email with the artfully bland title, “Notice of Policy Updates.” PayPal didn’t want people to read it – lest they come away thinking that the NSA, which runs the most expansive spying dragnet in history, is by comparison a group of choirboys. The email started with corporate blah-blah on privacy, that PayPal was “constantly” changing things “to give you more of what you want and improve your experience using us.” Got it. This is going to be for your own...

By now we know that every purchase a consumer makes is added to a list detailing one’s spending and life-style habit, which is used to target people for marketing campaigns and other services. But how would you feel if that information was used by your doctors to keep tabs on your health? A new report from Bloomberg details how hospitals are using our habits such as buying cigarettes or skipping the gym to create patient profiles in order to identify those who are most likely to get sick.

When the General Services Administration (GSA), the agency in charge of supplying products and communications for US government offices, chose Google Apps for email and calendaring functions back in 2011, fear was no doubt struck into the heart of Microsoft. After all, the Microsoft MSFT -0.71% Office franchise has been the number one pick of Government agencies for decades. That the GSA would chose an upstart like Google GOOGL -0.35% was something of a shock. Well, the stress in Redmond continues with news today that the GSA has selected Smartsheet to be its online collaborative project management tool. This is,...

(Regarding Cellphones) The Supreme Court has handed down a unanimous decision in Riley v. California, and it's good news for digital privacy advocates. The Court decided that once someone is arrested, the police may not search the person's phone without a warrant. The ruling stated that "the term 'cell phone' is often misleading in shorthand; many of these devices are in fact miniature computers that also happen to have the capacity to be used as a telephone. They could just as easily be called cameras, video players, rolodexes, calendars, tape recorders, libraries, diaries, albums, televisions, maps, or newspapers." Before just...

The United States will enact legislation giving European Union citizens the right to sue in the United States if they think their private data was released or misused, the U.S attorney general said on Wednesday. "The Obama administration is committed to seeking legislation that would ensure that ... EU citizens would have the same right to seek judicial redress for intentional or wilful disclosures of protected information and for refusal to grant access or to rectify any errors in that information, as would a U.S citizen," Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters. "This commitment - which has long been sought...

<p>In a major statement on privacy rights in the digital age, the Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously ruled that the police need warrants to search the cellphones of people they arrest.</p> <p>Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the court, said the vast amount of data contained on modern cellphones must be protected from routine inspection.</p>

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that police cannot go snooping through people’s cell phones without a warrant, in a unanimous decision that amounts to a major statement in favor of privacy rights. Police agencies had argued that searching through the data on cell phones was no different than asking someone to turn out his pockets, but the justices rejected that, saying a cell phone is more fundamental. The ruling amounts to a 21st century update to legal understanding of privacy rights. “The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the...

ProtonMail is a new email service that is developed by a team of scientists working at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. Our goal is simple: we want to protect people around the world from the mass surveillance that is currently being perpetrated by governments and corporations around the world. We believe that privacy is a fundamental human right that must be protected at any cost. The advent of the internet has now made all of us more vulnerable to mass surveillance than at any other point in human history. The disappearance of online privacy is...

Is it time for you to delete your Facebook account permanently? This guy thinks so, and his arguments may just convince you. You should take a moment to hear what he has to say and then decide for yourself.