Favorite Facebook scolded the Drug Enforcement Administration this week after learning that a narcotics agent had impersonated a user named Sondra Arquiett on the social network in order to communicate and gather intelligence on suspects. In a strongly worded letter to DEA head Michele Leonhart, Facebook’s Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan reiterated that not only…
Two Reports About FBI’s Use of National Security Letters Reissued
Favorite Even the reports that are supposed to provide transparency about the FBI’s use of national security lettters (NSLs) are secret—or at least a couple dozen pages of them are. NSLs are nonjudicial orders that allow the FBI to obtain information from companies, without a warrant, about their customers’ use of services. They almost always…
Automated Mass Surveillance is Unconstitutional, EFF Explains in Jewel v. NSA
Favorite Today EFF filed our latest brief in Jewel v. NSA, our longstanding case on behalf of AT&T customers aimed at ending the NSA’s dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans’ communications. The brief specifically argues that the Fourth Amendment is violated when the government taps into the Internet backbone at places like the AT&T…
Frustrated CIA Blames Torture Report Delays on Senators Who Want It To Be Intelligible
Favorite The CIA today hotly denied that it is intentionally holding up the release of a Senate report on its role in torturing detainees, charging instead that Senator Dianne Feinstein’s intelligence committee is responsible for dragging out the negotiations. “The suggestion that CIA is delaying or obstructing the negotiations over redactions is patently false,” agency…
All the NSA Will Say About Its Alarmingly Entrepreneurial Top Spy Is That She’s Resigning
Favorite Teresa O’Shea used to be the National Security Agency’s director of signals intelligence, plus the wife of an executive in the business of selling things to agencies like hers, plus the host of a home-based signals intelligence business, plus the owner, via yet another business, of a six-seat airplane and resort-town condo. She’s going…
UN Report Finds Mass Surveillance Violates International Treaties and Privacy Rights
Favorite The United Nations’ top official for counter-terrorism and human rights (known as the “Special Rapporteur”) issued a formal report to the U.N. General Assembly today that condemns mass electronic surveillance as a clear violation of core privacy rights guaranteed by multiple treaties and conventions. “The hard truth is that the use of mass surveillance technology effectively…
Revisionist History 101: Bush Was Right About Iraq WMD!
Favorite Perhaps the most movingly pitiful exercise in American politics is the periodic attempt by Iraq War advocates to grasp at new developments that might somehow vindicate their disastrous, criminal support of that endeavor. The latest attempt came yesterday, when The New York Times published an explosive new story on American soldiers who were wounded while handling corroded munitions…
Obama Knew Arming Rebels Was Useless, But Did It Anyway
Favorite What’s worse: Launching a disastrous military campaign under false pretenses to achieve goals you wrongly believe are attainable? Or launching a disastrous military campaign you know is doomed in order to help your party win an election? I ask in light of today’s New York Times story about how President Obama asked the CIA…
Local Cops Say Your Driving History Is Public — Unless You Want a Copy
Favorite What’s public for me is private for thee. At least that’s what Monroe County, N.Y. believes when it comes to where you drive your car. Monroe police have been using high-speed cameras to capture license plates in order to log vehicle whereabouts. As of July, the County’s database contained 3.7 million records, with the…
Black Op Turns To Bedlam As Navy Silencer Scandal Unfolds
Favorite A former Navy intelligence officer is slated to go on trial in federal court next week on charges he conspired with a California auto mechanic to manufacture untraceable silencers for automatic rifles, ship them cross-country, and defraud the feds of nearly $1.7 million in the process. The strange and soap operatic tale of Pentagon-centered…