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(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...

Those concerned about state surveillance and intervention should direct their sights less to CIA bunkers, than to Edinburgh, and specifically to the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act. This act – one of the most significant of the past decade – will mean the state appointment of a ‘named person’ for every child, from birth to the age of 18. These have been dubbed ‘state guardians’, which is not a bad description of their role. They are not practicing a particular profession or service, such as education or healthcare, but instead will have a general interest in the ‘wellbeing’ of...

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...

http://live.scotusblog.com/Event/Live_Blog_of_opinions__June_25_2014

SEATTLE (AP) — Seattle Police are investigating a report of a drone peeping into a woman’s apartment window. Police were called to the downtown Seattle apartment complex on Sunday morning after she spied an unmanned aerial vehicle hovering outside the building. The woman said she was concerned the drone was looking into her apartment. After calling police, an employee of her apartment building says he went outside and saw two men piloting the drone. They packed up their gear, which included a video camera, and drove off before police arrived. Authorities say they are checking for surveillance video that may...

Think the National Security Agency is doing enough snooping in “The Homeland?” A federal spying coalition aims to drill deeper under the Orwellian title, Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee. “Call it massive surveillance of the U.S. population,” said John Whitehead, president of the civil libertarian Rutherford Institute. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder soft-pedaled DTEC earlier this month. He said the committee — whose members are not yet known — would “coordinate closely with U.S. attorneys and other key public safety officials across the country to promote information-sharing and ensure an effective, responsive and organized joint effort.” Whitehead and other skeptics are...

Pressed to supply information in response to lawsuits charging that its widespread surveillance of US citizens is illegal, NSA Deputy Director Richard Ledgett contends that his agency cannot comply because “we’ve lost control over our computer system. We couldn’t retrieve the subpoenaed information if we wanted to. It’s like some kind of ‘Skynet’–alien and artificial intelligence has blocked access to all our data.” Ledgett told US District for the Northern District of California Judge Jeffrey White “we’re as scared about this as anyone. We don’t know who’s side the computer is on. We’d like to think that since we programmed...

U.S. pushing local cops to stay mum on cellular surveillance Thu, 06/12/2014 Sun-Times wires WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has been quietly advising local police not to disclose details about surveillance technology they are using to sweep up basic cellphone data from entire neighborhoods, The Associated Press has learned. Citing security reasons, the U.S. has intervened in routine state public records cases and criminal trials regarding use of the technology. This has resulted in police departments withholding materials or heavily censoring documents in rare instances when they disclose any about the purchase and use of such powerful surveillance equipment. Federal...

Vodafone, one of the world's largest mobile phone groups, has revealed the existence of secret wires that allow government agencies to listen to all conversations on its networks, saying they are widely used in some of the 29 countries in which it operates in Europe and beyond. The company has broken its silence on government surveillance in order to push back against the increasingly widespread use of phone and broadband networks to spy on citizens, and will publish its first Law Enforcement Disclosure Report on Friday. At 40,000 words, it is the most comprehensive survey yet of how governments monitor...

The new director of the National Security Agency on Tuesday acknowledged that the agency uses facial-recognition tools but said the intent is primarily to identify terrorists and help prevent attacks — adding that such technologies are not broadly directed against Americans. “We do not do this on some unilateral basis against U.S. citizens,” said Adm. Michael S. Rogers, in some of his first public remarks since taking the helm of the embattled spy agency two months ago. A year after the first leaks emerged about the scope of NSA surveillance programs, Rogers is seeking to reframe the public debate that...

The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents. The spy agency’s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly over the last four years as the agency has turned to new software to exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences and other communications, the N.S.A. documents reveal. Agency officials believe that technological advances could revolutionize the way that the N.S.A. finds intelligence targets around the world, the documents show....

Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who helped NSA leaker Edward Snowden expose state secrets to the world, is set to make his “biggest” disclosure yet — the names of Americans the government spied on, he told The Sunday Times.Greenwald added that Snowden’s legacy will be “shaped in large part” by this “finishing piece,” which is based on information obtained in the nearly 2 million documents the former NSA contractor secretly stole from the government.

Will Israel be the first cashless society on the entire planet? A committee chaired by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff has come up with a three phase plan to “all but do away with cash transactions in Israel”. According to a study conducted by MasterCard, approximately 80 percent of all consumer transactions in the United States are now cashless. If a government can track all of your transactions, it will essentially be able to monitor everywhere you go and pretty much keep track of virtually everything that you do.

It hardly gets more Orwellian than this. New technology would allow cable companies to peer directly into television watchers’ homes and monitor viewing habits and reactions to product advertisements. The technology would come via the cable box, and at least one lawmaker on Capitol Hill is standing in opposition.

The federal government is piecing together a sweeping national “biosurveillance” system that will give bureaucrats near real-time access to Americans’ private medical information in the name of national security, according to Twila Brase, a public health nurse and co-founder of the Citizens Council for Health Freedom. The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response is currently seeking public comment on a 52-page draft of the proposed “National Health Security Strategy 2015-2018” (NHSS). The deadline for comment is 5 pm EST on May 21st. (See Draft National Health Security Strategy 2015-2018.pdf) “Health...

The head of the FBI says he understands why people worry about the scope of the government's powers, and in fact, he agrees with them. “I believe people should be suspicious of government power. I am,” Director James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning. “I think this country was founded by people who were worried about government power so they divided it among three branches,” he added. In the months since Edward Snowden leaked documents detailing the country’s intelligence programs, Comey said that “it’s hard for me, sometimes, to find the space and time to talk about...

I hope there are people who love the feature and post more," says Facebook's product manager excitedly about the new feature they just added. We suspect people will not... As The WSJ reports, starting Wednesday, the app has the ability to recognize music and television shows playing in the vicinity of users. Read that again... 'in the vicinity of users'. In other words, Facebook is unveiling its own NSA-style eavesdropping feature (on you and all your friends). Don't worry though... even if users decide not to share what they’re hearing or watching, Facebook will hold onto the data in anonymous...

A tech industry group that has Facebook and Google as participants has rejected the latest draft of a U.S. legislation that aims to put curbs on surveillance by the National Security Agency.The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday said it supported swift passage of the USA Freedom Act by the U.S. House of Representatives, and urged the Senate to follow suit."Overall, the bill's significant reforms would provide the public greater confidence in our programs and the checks and balances in the system," the White House said in a statement.But the tech companies, which also include Yahoo, AOL, Apple,...

Full Title: The slightly disturbing ‘joke’ made by Valerie Jarrett on online privacy in a college commencement speech During her commencement speech at Pomona College, a leading liberal arts institution located in Claremont, California, President Obama’s senior advisor Valerie Jarrett made remarks about the president’s focus on the so-called “pay gap” between men and women (repeating the dubious claim that women make 77% of what men make), Obamacare and other administration agenda items. But it was when Jarrett deviated to talking more generally about political service that she let loose a joke that some might find a bit unsettling (though...

“There can be no aspect of your daily life that’s removed from politics,” Jim Treacher writes at the Daily Caller, “Now you will be monitored by your own children for expressing unapproved opinions. You’d better watch what you say at the dinner table, Mom and Dad.” Jim links to this post at The Blaze: First lady Michelle Obama is encouraging students to monitor their older relatives, friends and co-workers for any racially insensitive comments they might make, and to challenge those comments whenever they’re made. The first lady spoke on Friday to graduating high school students in Topeka, Kansas,...