Free Republic

Iran's Revolutionary Guard successfully carried out a surveillance flight over a US aircraft carrier, Tasnim reported. The drone flew over a US warship in the Persian Gulf, as well as over the USS Dwight...

(WASHINGTON DC) The National Security Agency has recommended that the White House abandon a U.S. surveillance program that collects information about Americans’ phone calls and text messages, saying the logistical and legal burdens of keeping it outweigh its intelligence benefits, according to people familiar with the matter. The recommendation against seeking the renewal of the once-secret spying program amounts to an about-face by the agency, which had long argued in public and to congressional overseers that the program was vital to the task of finding and disrupting terrorism plots against the U.S. The latest view is rooted in a growing...

In an exclusive report based on anonymous sources, Dustin Voltz and Warren P. Strobel of the Wall Street Journal (non-paywall version here) write: The National Security Agency has recommended that the White House abandon a surveillance program that collects information about U.S. phone calls and text messages, saying the logistical and legal burdens of keeping it outweigh its intelligence benefits, according to people familiar with the matter. The recommendation against seeking the renewal of the once-secret spying program amounts to an about-face by the agency, which had long argued in public and to congressional overseers that the program was...

If you read the Weissmann/Mueller report carefully one aspect stands out strongly; the Mueller investigation was fully committed to The Steele Dossier. An inordinate amount of the report is focused on justifying their investigative validity and purpose in looking at the claims within the Steele Dossier. Repeatedly, the investigative unit references their mandate based around the Steele Dossier, and the mid-summer 2016 origin of the FBI counterintelligence operation. Why? Why was/is Crossfire Hurricane (July ’16) and the Steele Dossier (Oct. ’16) so important to the principle intelligence apparatus, and the Mueller team (’17, ’18, ’19)? I believe former NSA Director...

When detectives in a Phoenix suburb arrested a warehouse worker in a murder investigation last December, they credited a new technique with breaking open the case after other leads went cold. The police told the suspect, Jorge Molina, they had data tracking his phone to the site where a man was shot nine months earlier. They had made the discovery after obtaining a search warrant that required Google to provide information on all devices it recorded near the killing, potentially capturing the whereabouts of anyone in the area. Investigators also had other circumstantial evidence, including security video of someone firing...

... A Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court-ordered electronic surveillance allows the FBI leeway to intercept more than telephone and computer communications. It allows the clandestine microphone and camera capture of the target at all times and in all places, even the most intimate, of his daily life. It is more intrusive than even a Title III criminal wiretap of a drug dealer or mob boss. So, in a way, Comey is right. FISA court-ordered electronic surveillance is different than spying. It is the epitome of government power over an individual’s privacy. It is the nuclear option in the world...

Former FBI Director James Comey said Thursday ... "With respect to Barr's comments, I really don't know what he's talking about when he talks about spying on the campaign," Comey said. "It's very concerning because the FBI, the Department of Justice conduct court-ordered electronic surveillance. I have never thought of that as spying."

A secret memo granted broad rights to the FBI to share information gathered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act with foreign officials. Two-way exchange of information with foreign officials could allow the politicized targeting of Americans, since foreign nations aren’t obligated to uphold the U.S. Constitution. The efforts by the Justice Department to gather information on Trump aides repeatedly involved figures associated with foreign agencies. Foreign allies strongly opposed President Donald Trump declassifying information illuminating the investigation into Russian collusion. A 2012 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court motion contained a little-noticed provision expanding the FBI’s ability to share information with foreign...

<p>GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — Great Falls hosted a Russian surveillance plane taking aerial photos of military activities in the western U.S. as part of an international treaty.</p> <p>Great Falls International Airport Director John Faulkner tells the Great Falls Tribune the plane used the airport as its base from last Tuesday to Sunday.</p>

Detectives monitored the video on flat-screen TVs inside a secure room in the sheriff’s office.

...home assistants could soon report their owners to the police for breaking the law based on a “Moral A.I.” system, if the ideas of academics in Europe are implemented. ...academics at the University of Bergen in Norway discussed the idea of a “moral A.I.” for smart home assistants, like the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod, during a conference. Moral A.I. would reportedly make home assistants have to “decide whether to report their owners for breaking the law,” or whether to stay silent. “This would let them to weigh-up whether to report illegal activity to the police, effectively putting...

The National Security Agency has quietly shut down a system that analyzes logs of Americans’ domestic calls and texts, according to a senior Republican congressional aide, halting a program that has touched off disputes about privacy and the rule of law since the Sept. 11 attacks. The agency has not used the system in months, and the Trump administration might not ask Congress to renew its legal authority, which is set to expire at the end of the year, according to the aide, Luke Murry, the House minority leader’s national security adviser. “Technical irregularities” had contaminated the agency’s database with...

The National Security Agency has quietly shut down a system that analyzes logs of Americans’ domestic calls and texts, according to a senior Republican congressional aide, halting a program that has touched off disputes about privacy and the rule of law since the Sept. 11 attacks. The agency has not used the system in months, and the Trump administration might not ask Congress to renew its legal authority, which is set to expire at the end of the year, according to the aide, Luke Murry, the House minority leader’s national security adviser. “Technical irregularities” had contaminated the agency’s database with...

Millions of smartphone users confess their most intimate secrets to apps, including when they want to work on their belly fat or the price of the house they checked out last weekend. Other apps know users’ body weight, blood pressure, menstrual cycles or pregnancy status. Unbeknown to most people, in many cases that data is being shared with someone else: Facebook Inc. The social-media giant collects intensely personal information from many popular smartphone apps just seconds after users enter it, even if the user has no connection to Facebook, according to testing done by The Wall Street Journal. The apps...

It was a crowded primary field and Tony Evers, running for governor, was eager to win the support of officials gathered at a Wisconsin state Democratic Party meeting, so the candidate did all the usual things: He read the room, he shook hands, he networked. Then he put an electronic fence around everyone there. The digital fence enabled Evers’ team to push ads onto the iPhones and Androids of all those attending the meeting. Not only that, but because the technology pulled the unique identification numbers off the phones, a data broker could also use the digital signatures to follow...

In early February, Google announced that its home security and alarm system Nest Secure would be getting an update. Users, the company said, could now enable its virtual-assistant technology, Google Assistant. The problem: Nest users didn't know a microphone existed on their security device to begin with. The existence of a microphone on the Nest Guard, which is the alarm, keypad, and motion-sensor component in the Nest Secure offering, was never disclosed in any of the product material for the device.

Sidney Powell is one of a very few people who tenaciously keep reminding media pundits about the origin of the political surveillance efforts in the 2016 election: the FBI and NSA FISA-702(16)(17) abuse scandal. In this report broadcast by Sharyl Attkisson and Full Measure News, Ms. Powell reminds everyone of the 2017 published FISA court review by Judge Rosemary Collyer that lies at the origin of the political surveillance deployed by hidden FBI contractors. The suspicion has always been that Fusion-GPS was one of the FBI contractors with access to the FBI/NSA database; and was using their access to conduct...

Full tile: Jeff Bezos Protests the Invasion of His Privacy, as Amazon Builds a Sprawling Surveillance State for Everyone Else IF BEZOS WERE the political victim of surveillance state abuses, it would be scandalous and dangerous. It would also be deeply ironic. That’s because Amazon, the company that has made Bezos the planet’s richest human being, is a critical partner for the U.S. Government in building an ever-more invasive, militarized and sprawling surveillance state. Indeed, one of the largest components of Amazon’s business, and thus one of the most important sources of Bezos’ vast wealth and power, is working with...

A bug in FaceTime lets you listen in to the audio if you try to call someone -- even if they don't pick up. You first video call someone then try to add yourself to the group call. The FaceTime bug seems to be a huge privacy problem.

CNBC tested it and verified that it's a real bug. I tried placing a video call to my editor from my iPhone using Apple's FaceTime app. Then, before he picked up, I used the menu option to add somebody else to the call and, as 9to5Mac's directions state, I added myself to the call. Suddenly, I could hear my editor, even though he never picked up. We continued having a conversation while his phone only gave him the option to answer. There was no indication that the call had already gone through. The Verge reports that, if the person you're...