Free Republic

A federal court should not permit five leading Internet companies to reveal how often they are ordered to turn over information about their customers in national security investigations, the government argued in papers released Wednesday. In a filing with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the government said that allowing the companies to release such detailed information “would be invaluable to our adversaries,” providing a clear picture of where the government’s surveillance efforts are directed and how its surveillance activities change over time, the court papers stated. Companies seeking to release the information about the orders received are Google Inc., Microsoft...

MIT Technology Review: Bruce Schneier – NSA Spying is Making Us Less Safe Prominent cryptographer and security expert Bruce Schneier, who has been working with The Guardian on the disclosures of NSA surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden, gave an interview detailing what the disclosures have truly revealed, how the actions have made Americans less safe, that more huge revelations "might" be coming, and that the average person interested in privacy should advocate for political change. Also, the New York Times' editorial board has reacted to recent disclosures showing that the NSA weakened software encryption standards and apparently can decrypt anything. The...

1. Transparency uber alles. One of the main reasons that Barack Obama's approval ratings are in the crapper is because of his epic failure to live up to his promise to run what he guaranteed would be the most transparent administration EVAH. That's especially true when it comes to national security issues. Even the most hardened anti-terror hawks have been shocked by revelations of widespread secret drone strikes, extra-judicial kill lists, a war on leakers and journalists, and ubiquitous snooping on Americans.... 2. Legal authority is not optional. Whether we're discussing the use of drones, metadata dragnets, or anything else...

The government on Tuesday authorized establishment of a committee that will examine ways to eliminate cash from the Israeli economy—the better to prevent citizens from cheating on their taxes. The committee will be chaired by Harel Locker, director of the Prime Minister’s Office. Cash is easily passed from individual to individual, and transactions using cash can take place without the tax man’s supervision. Not so electronic transactions; with modern computers, banks can keep tabs on how much people deposit into their accounts and how much they withdraw, while credit card companies have an up-to-the-second record of how much people spend....

Facebook Inc is considering incorporating most of its 1 billion-plus members’ profile photos into its growing facial recognition database, expanding the scope of the social network’s controversial technology. The possible move, which Facebook revealed in an update to its data use policy on Thursday, is intended to improve the performance of its “Tag Suggest” feature. The feature uses facial recognition technology to speed up the process of labeling or “tagging” friends and acquaintances who appear in photos posted on the network. … The changes would come at a time when Facebook and other Internet companies’ privacy practices are under scrutiny,...

WASHINGTON—The National Security Agency—which possesses only limited legal authority to spy on U.S. citizens—has built a surveillance network that covers more Americans' Internet communications than officials have publicly disclosed, current and former officials say. The system has the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic in the hunt for foreign intelligence, including a wide array of communications by foreigners and Americans. In some cases, it retains the written content of emails sent between citizens within the U.S. and also filters domestic phone calls made with Internet technology, these people say. Details of these surveillance programs were gathered...

On Aug. 9, the Obama administration released a previously secret legal interpretation of the Patriot Act that it used to justify the bulk collection of every American's phone records. The strained reasoning in the 22-page memo won't survive long in public light, which is itself one of the strongest arguments for transparency in government. As the late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants." Recent revelations by the Washington Post emphasize the need for greater transparency. The National Security Agency failed to report privacy violations that are serious infringements of constitutional rights....

A pair of civil-liberties Democrats whom the White House tried to appease in a closed-door meeting warned today that fresh reports of thousands of privacy violations by the National Security Agency are just the “tip of a larger iceberg.” On Thursday, the Washington Post published its report of a May 2012 audit leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden that found 2,776 violations over the previous year of executive orders and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provisions governing spying on Americans or foreign targets in the U.S. These included both computer and operator errors. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.)...

Apple Inc.'s AAPL +1.27%e-book problem is spilling over into its other media businesses. After winning last month an e-books antitrust suit against Apple, the Justice Department on Friday asked a federal judge to limit Apple's influence in the publishing market and give the government oversight of the iTunes Store and App Store. . The government proposals, if accepted, could give music, television-show and content owners more leverage in negotiations with a company that has been an aggressive bargainer in opening up traditional media to digital distribution

In the “credit where credit is due” department, one thing you can say for Lindsey Graham is that he clearly doesn’t care all that much about politics or future elections. The Senator was trotted out on CNN this morning for a chat with Candy Crowley where they discussed the current terror threat and embassy closings. An important topic to be sure, but Graham couldn’t help himself, it seems, and had to weave some comments on sequestration into the larger story with a side helping of praise for the NSA and the White House. (Hat tip to Andrew Johnson at The...

Google may not shield the identity of an anonymous blogger who claimed a Manhattan lawyer was a “crooked” and “shady” attorney, a judge ruled.

A former U.S. official told The Journal that some of the technology allows the FBI to remotely activate the microphones in phones running on Google Inc.'s Android software to record conversations.

CNET has learned the FBI has developed custom "port reader" software to intercept Internet metadata in real time. And, in some cases, it wants to force Internet providers to use the software. The U.S. government is quietly pressuring telecommunications providers to install eavesdropping technology deep inside companies' internal networks to facilitate surveillance efforts. FBI officials have been sparring with carriers, a process that has on occasion included threats of contempt of court, in a bid to deploy government-provided software capable of intercepting and analyzing entire communications streams. The FBI's legal position during these discussions is that the software's real-time interception...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Wednesday released formerly classified documents outlining a once-secret program of the National Security Agency that is collecting records of all domestic phone calls in the United States, as top officials testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. As the hearing began, The Guardian newspaper published another document from the archives of Top Secret surveillance matters leaked to it by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden. It was a 32-page presentation describing the N.S.A.´s XKeyscore program, by which N.S.A. analysts can mine vast databases of phone and Internet information the agency has vacuumed up.

“Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live. Where was the judge he had never seen? Where was the High Court he had never reached? He raised his hands and spread out all his fingers. But the hands of one of the men closed round his throat, just as the other drove the knife deep into his heart and turned it twice.” – Franz Kafka, The Trial In a bizarre and ludicrous attempt at “transparency,” the Obama administration has announced that it asked a secret court to approve a secret order to...

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney spent eight years choking personal privacy to within an inch of its life. After they were done, Barack Obama showed up, expressed heartfelt sympathy and stood on its throat. But despite their efforts, it isn't quite dead. Last week, it showed definite signs of life. That happened thanks to the combined efforts of people in Congress on the right and the left who assembled under a figurative banner reading, "They're liars and we don't trust them." Appalled by the mass collection of phone records by the National Security Agency, they proposed that such surveillance...

In 1975: 1.You could buy an airline ticket and fly without ever showing an ID. 2.You could buy cough syrup without showing an ID. 3.You could buy and sell gold coins without showing an ID 4.You could buy a gun without showing an ID 5.You could pull as much cash out of your bank account without the bank filing a report with the government. 6.You could get a job without having to prove you were an American. 7.You could buy cigarettes without showing an ID 8.You could have a phone conversation without the government knowing who you called and who...

The director of the National Intelligence says an effort in the House to rein in the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance program would dismantle a critical tool in the fight against terrorism. James Clapper issued the statement just hours ahead of a House vote on an amendment by Republican Rep. Justin Amash that would end the statutory authority under the USA PATRIOT Act for the NSA to collect hundreds of millions of phone records. …

The U.S. government’s growing surveillance of Americans has transformed the nation into an “electronic concentration camp,” top civil-liberties attorney John W. Whitehead says. “It’s moving so rapidly you have to feel creepy because you're being watched. Everybody has a file if you do anything electronically,” Whitehead, author the new book “A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State,” told Newsmax TV. … Whitehead—who founded the Rutherford Institute in Virginia, which helps promote civil liberties and human rights—has been researching the growth of the National Security Agency since the 1980s. The agency has been under fire for its collection of...

From Barack Obama to Karl Rove, the ruling class is in unison: The NSA’s collection of data on virtually all Americans is essential to preventing you from “being blown to smithereens on your morning commute” – as the Wall Street Journal editorial put it. In the words of General Keith Alexander, director of NSA, this surveillance has “helped to prevent” “dozens of terrorist events.” Later, the tally rose to “over fifty.” Project Constant Informant, which tracks essentially all American phone calls, allows matching the account holder’s identity with each call’s precise location in time and place. Another, PRISM, gives access...