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USA Freedom Act Passes House, Codifying Bulk Collection For the First Time, Critics Say

USA Freedom Act Passes House, Codifying Bulk Collection For the First Time, Critics Say After only one hour of floor debate, and no allowed amendments, the House of Representatives today passed legislation that seeks to address the NSA’s controversial surveillance of American communications. However, opponents believe it may give brand new authorization to the U.S. government to conduct domestic dragnets. The […]

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Many of the NSA’s Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors

Many of the NSA’s Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors The debate over the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records has reached a critical point after a federal appeals court last week ruled the practice illegal, dramatically raising the stakes for pending Congressional legislation that would fully or partially reinstate the program. An army of pundits […]

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NSA Spying Ruled Illegal, But Will Congress Save the Program Anyway?

NSA Spying Ruled Illegal, But Will Congress Save the Program Anyway? This week the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the NSA’s metadata collection program was not authorized in US law. The PATRIOT Act, under which the program began, was too vague, the court found. But the truth is the Act was intended to […]

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The Computers Are Listening: Speech Recognition Is the NSA’s Best-Kept Open Secret

The Computers Are Listening: Speech Recognition Is the NSA’s Best-Kept Open Secret Second in a series. Part 1 here. Siri can understand what you say. Google can take dictation. Even your newsmart TV is taking verbal orders. So is there any doubt the National Security Agency has the ability to translate spoken words into text? But precisely when the […]

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How a Department of Homeland Security Fusion Center in Texas Targeted Animal Rights Activists

How a Department of Homeland Security Fusion Center in Texas Targeted Animal Rights Activists Last September, a Facebook event caught the eye of a counterrorism specialist within the Texas Department of Public Safety. The email was among those released by the Austin Regional Intelligence Center (ARIC) last month. This same release revealed that ARIC took stock of potential […]

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Will Appeals Court Ruling Really Stop NSA Bulk Phone Data Collection?

Will Appeals Court Ruling Really Stop NSA Bulk Phone Data Collection? Don’t Crack Open the Champagne Bottle Just Yet While congress ponders the merits of the USA Freedom Act of 2015, a bill which revises the business records provisions of the Patriot Act, a panel of judges in a federal appeals court has just thrown a clump of sand […]

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NSA’s Bulk Collection of Phone Records is Illegal, Appeals Court Says

NSA’S BULK COLLECTION OF PHONE RECORDS IS ILLEGAL, APPEALS COURT SAYS A federal appeals court panel ruled on Thursday that the NSA’s bulk collection of metadata of phone calls to and from Americans is not authorized by Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, throwing out the government’s legal justification for the surveillance program exposed by NSA […]

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The Computers Are Listening: How the NSA Converts Spoken Words Into Searchable Text

THE COMPUTERS ARE LISTENING: HOW THE NSA CONVERTS SPOKEN WORDS INTO SEARCHABLE TEXT Most people realize that emails and other digital communications they once considered private can now become part of their permanent record. But even as they increasingly use apps that understand what they say, most people don’t realize that the words they speak are […]

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The World of Philip K. Dick is Almost Here

The World of Philip K. Dick is Almost Here Holographic Computers and Self-Directing Bullets Philip K. Dick was long viewed as a mere genre hack, although his fans always knew better of course. He used the medium of science fiction originally because it was the only way for him to make money as an independent […]

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Angela Merkel’s NSA Nightmare Just Got A Lot Worse

Angela Merkel’s NSA Nightmare Just Got A Lot Worse Angela Merkel, Germany’s most successful and popular politician, could be in serious trouble, after revelations that Germany’s national intelligence agency, the BND, has been spying on key European assets on behalf of US intelligence. Those “assets” include top French officials, the EU’s headquarters, the European defense […]

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NEARLY TWO YEARS AFTER SNOWDEN, CONGRESS POISED TO DO SOMETHING — JUST NOT MUCH

NEARLY TWO YEARS AFTER SNOWDEN, CONGRESS POISED TO DO SOMETHING — JUST NOT MUCH Members of Congress appear ready to use a rare moment of leverage over the NSA to place modest limits on only one of the many mass surveillance programs exposed by Edward Snowden. The USA Freedom Act of 2015, a long-awaited compromise bill […]

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The End Is Near, Part 1: The “War On Cash”

The End Is Near, Part 1: The “War On Cash” As the saying goes, you can know a person by the quality of his or her enemies. This is also true of societies, where moral evolution can be traced by simply listing the things on which they declare war. Not so long ago, for instance, […]

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Congress is Attempting to Reauthorize Key Patriot Act Provisions by Sneaking it Into “USA Freedom Act”

Congress is Attempting to Reauthorize Key Patriot Act Provisions by Sneaking it Into “USA Freedom Act” Yet with Section 215’s lifespan now stretching to a matter of weeks, supporters of broad surveillance powers have yet to put forth a bill for their preservation – evidence, opponents believe, that the votes for reauthorization do not exist, particularly […]

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Inventor of Antivirus Sofware: The Government Is Planting Malicious Software On Your Phone So It Can Bypass Encryption and See What You’re Doing

Inventor of Antivirus Sofware: The Government Is Planting Malicious Software On Your Phone So It Can Bypass Encryption and See What You’re Doing Spy Agencies Are Intentionally Destroying Digital Security Top computer and internet experts say that NSA spying breaks the functionality of our computers and of the Internet. It reduces functionality and reduces security by […]

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Police asked telcos for client data in over 80% of criminal probes

Police asked telcos for client data in over 80% of criminal probes Ottawa also sought legal advice on telco’s transparency reports Canadian police seek online and phone data from telecommunications companies in almost every criminal investigation, according to a briefing note to the federal minister for public safety, obtained by CBC News. The scale of the practice […]

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