Free Republic

The Biden administration is reportedly worried a 2008 spy law permitting warrantless wiretaps will not be renewed by Congress, as lawmakers on both the left and right have expressed privacy concerns. With the law set to expire at the end of 2023, the administration “is so worried” about renewing the legislation that “it has begun the push to lobby for reauthorization 10 months before the law sunsets,” the Washington Post reported. “Its value cannot be overstated,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said Tuesday at the Brookings Institution. “Without 702, we will lose indispensable intelligence for our decision-makers and warfighters, as...

French lawmakers on Wednesday (1 April) discussed an intelligence bill that aims to give sweeping surveillance powers to internal security agencies and the prime minister’s office. Announced a day after the museum terrorist attacks in Tunis, the bill allows agencies attached to the economy, defense and interior ministries to spy on people by hacking their computers or mobile phones without the need for a warrant.Anyone suspected of terrorism or terrorism links, even incidentally, could be a target. Prime minister Manuel Valls has said the bill is needed to detect possible terrorist activities in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre...

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time. The highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before. Its establishment in 2007 and six years of exponential growth took place beneath the surface of a roiling debate over the boundaries of surveillance and privacy. Even late last year, when critics of the foreign intelligence statute argued for changes, the only members of Congress who know...