“That’s not nice, and it’s not a good norm,” says Schneider. She says that much of the US government’s slow approach to cyberattacks stems from its care to ensure it avoids unintentionally hitting civilians as well as breaking international law or triggering dangerous blowback. Still, Schneider concedes that Caceres and Angus have a point: The … Read more
A bill introduced by senators Dick Durbin and Mike Lee to reauthorize the Section 702 surveillance program is the fifth introduced in the US Congress this winter. The authority is threatening to expire in a month, disrupting a global wiretapping program said to inform a third of articles in the President’s Daily Briefing—a morning “tour … Read more
Johnson, notably, previously voted in favor of legislation that would have drastically reformed the 702 program with a slew of privacy protections. Despite the uncommon bipartisan support for reforming Section 702, sources familiar with the negotiations say pro-privacy amendments have a history of dying in backroom deals. An amendment proposed last summer to ban the … Read more
The National Security Agency (NSA) is purchasing Americans’ internet records, according to government documents made public on Friday. U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, wrote a letter claiming the NSA goes through backchannel avenues to purchase your browsing records and location data, which government agencies typically require a search warrant to obtain. Alex … Read more
United States officials fought to conceal details of arrangements between US spy agencies and private companies tracking the whereabouts of Americans via their cell phones. Obtaining location data from US phones normally requires a warrant, but police and intelligence agencies routinely pay companies instead for the data, effectively circumventing the courts. Ron Wyden, the US … Read more
The U.S. National Security Agency is buying vast amounts of commercially available web browsing data on Americans without a warrant, according to the agency’s outgoing director. NSA director Gen. Paul Nakasone disclosed the practice in a letter to Sen. Ron Wyden, a privacy hawk and senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Wyden published the … Read more
The PLEWSA likewise exited the House Judiciary Committee last week with broad bipartisan support from both Jordan, the Republican chair, and Jerrold Nadler, its ranking Democrat. Section 702 surveillance begins with monitoring the communications of foreigners believed to be located outside of the United States. Under these conditions, the US government can ignore most constitutional … Read more
United States lawmakers are receiving a flood of warnings from across civil society not to be bend to the efforts by some members of Congress to derail a highly sought debate over the future of a powerful but polarizing US surveillance program. House and Senate party leaders are preparing to unveil legislation on Wednesday directing … Read more
The DAS program echoes multiple dragnet surveillance programs dating back decades, including a Drug Enforcement Agency program launched in 1992 that forced phone companies to surrender records of virtually all calls going to and from over 100 other countries; the National Security Agency’s bulk metadata collection program, which the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals … Read more
Dozens of prominent Asian American groups are asking United States lawmakers this morning to hold fast in the face of an anticipated campaign by congressional leaders to extend the Section 702 surveillance program by securing it, like a rider, to another “must pass” bill. Sixty-three groups across the country representing and allied with Asian American … Read more