private
Washington Post: NSA Spying Included Major Internet Giants:
2013/jun/6 - A report by the Washington Post Thursday night revealed that the government's data-mining operation expands far beyond tracking some phone metadata....
Top Secret FISA Order Requires Verizon to Deliver Millions of American Phone Records to NSA - MORE HERE
2013/jun/06 - “The (leaked) secret FISA document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk - regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.” - The Guardian, U. K., broke story June 5, 2013
The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)
2013/Jun/7 - Reprints, links, etc.! - Given the current abuse by the NSA and U. S. government in spying on most of the United States, monitoring phone calls and digital communications, Earthfiles is reprinting Linda Moulton Howe's March 30, 2012, interview with James Bamford, the only author to write three books about the National Security Agency (NSA) that was set up in secrecy on November 4, 1952, and outside Congressional oversight by the Harry Truman Administration...
What’s Wrong With the NSA Collecting Your Phone Records?
2013/Jun/7 - Far-right view (Lew Rockwell) Verizon is being forced by the government to disclose telephone records of all of its customers. Those of us who want our call records to be private are being forced to reveal them to the government. We can’t keep them private even if we want to. What is wrong with the government spying on us in this way?..
Government Surveillance of OccupyMovement - SourceWatch::
"Operation Tripwire": 2013/May The U.S. counter terrorism apparatus was used to monitor the Occupy Movement nationwide... On May 20, 2013, DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy released the results of a year-long investigation: "Dissent or Terror: How the Nation's Counter Terrorism Apparatus, In Partnership With Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street.” The report, a distillation of thousands of pages of records obtained from counter terrorism/law enforcement agencies, details how state/regional "fusion center" personnel monitored the Occupy Wall Street movement over the course of 2011 and 2012.
Govt: Followed all procedures in AP subpoena fight
2013-06-04 AP - The Justice Department has told Congress that the department acted properly and followed all legal procedures correctly in subpoenaing phone records of The Associated Press ... - (note: this subpoena stuff might have followed AP's breaking of a few 'delicate' stories... more later)
SUPREME COURT: Police Can Force Open Your Mouth And Swab Your DNA
2013/Jun/3 Business Insider - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that police don't need a search warrant before they open your mouth and take a swab of DNA if you've been arrested for a "serious crime."... The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that DNA swabs are a "legitimate police booking procedure" that is allowed under the Constitution just like fingerprinting and mugshots.
Government drops plan to allow passengers to carry small knives, bats, golf clubs on airplanes
2013/Jun Also on TWITTER. - (Note: I need to talk about this crafty little bit of reverse-psychology sometime later).
The whole IRS issue, (which has reached the Tonight Show), is a great topic for discussion - esp. on the dif takes by left vs right. Here are a FEW links, but really the whole issue needs a deeper post with many links, discussed...
IRS claims it can read your e-mail without a warrant
2013/April CNET - The Internal Revenue Service doesn’t believe it needs a search warrant to read your e-mail. Newly disclosed documents prepared by IRS lawyers say that Americans enjoy “generally no privacy” in their e-mail, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and similar online communications - meaning that they can be perused without obtaining a search warrant signed by a judge...
Washington launches four different investigations into IRS scandal
2013/05/27 Daily Caller - Capitol Hill aides spent their Memorial Day weekend scanning hundreds of pages of documents related to the IRS scandal in order to prepare their bosses for what will inevitably be a frantic month of June involving multiple simultaneous investigations into government wrongdoing. By the time lawmakers return to session next week, at least four different investigations will be underway...
IRS Directed to Lock Down All Agency Data
2013/Jun National Review - The Internal Revenue Service is in the process of locking down all computer data across the agency, a sign that investigations into the scandal-plagued agency may be taking a broader sweep than initially anticipated...
VIDEO: Larken Rose: Current IRS scandal is a joke
2013/Jun XRepublic.tv - {adult language} The recent "scandal" involving the IRS is completely trivial compared to injustices that are routinely committed across the country by the federal extortion racket. - Please note that madman101 is not able to view VIDEOS online at this time. So, if this video is crap or does not hold water, please let me know, and I shall remove it.
Obama’s Super Secret Treaty Which Will Push The Deindustrialization Of America Into Overdrive
2013/Jun/3 Econ Collapse Blog - Did you know that Barack Obama has been secretly negotiating the most important trade agreement since the formation of the World Trade Organization? Did you know that this agreement will impose very strict Internet copyright rules, ban all "Buy American" laws, give Wall Street banks much more freedom to trade risky derivatives and force even more domestic manufacturing offshore? If you have not heard about this treaty, don't feel bad. Obama has refused to even give Congress a copy of the draft agreement and he has banned members of Congress from attending the negotiations...
The FBI Is Collecting Everybody’s Emails
2012/Dec/5 Think Progress - Twelve years ago, William Binney resigned from his post as a technical director at the National Security Agency over its domestic surveillance program. “The reason I left the NSA was because they started spying on everybody in the country,” he said in August. In light of revelations from the scandal surrounding General David Petraeus that the FBI was reading the emails of Petraeus, General David Allen and several other suspected players, Binney is reiterating that the FBI is collecting everybody’s emails, and can use the information collected against anybody it wants. In an interview with RT, Binney says...
FBI Asks Google, Facebook, To Aid Wiretapping
2010/11/18? AlterNet, with links - Now that most Americans rarely ever use landlines but are instead occupied on the web and with their smartphones, the FBI is trying to step up its surveillance game to keep up with the times--to the detriment of our civil liberties... Last week, agency director Robert Mueller went to Sillicon Valley (much like Mark Zuckerberg in "The Social Network") with a somewhat frightening proposal: Facebook and Google should build "back doors" into their systems to allow ease for spying.
Judge orders Google to comply with FBI's secret NSL demands - (note: the whole idea that google has a "falling out" with the fbi is yet another reverse-psychology thing going on, imo)
2013/May/31 CNET - ... CNET has learned that U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco rejected Google's request to modify or throw out 19 so-called National Security Letters, a warrantless electronic data-gathering technique used by the FBI that does not need a judge's approval. Her ruling came after a pair of top FBI officials, including an assistant director, submitted classified affidavits...
Google's Motorola May Give You Tattoo or Vitamin Password - (note: g-mail already allows google to read your email).
2013/06/05 Forbes - Tattoos may become more than a body art statement in the near future. Last week at D11 by AllThingsD, Walter Mossberg interviewed Regina Dugan who heads special projects for Motorola (owned by Google Google). Ms. Dugan revealed a wearable tech tattoo on her forearm to replace entering your computer or smartphone password. The former DARPA head captivated the audience with her enthusiasm for innovation.
Google Caught Violating iPhone Privacy Which Apple Already Violated
2012/Feb/17 yahoo.com - Google may be catching all flack this morning for tracking iPhones, but Apple doesn't care about users' privacy either. In fact, the company already tracks users' every move. Google found a loophole in Safari, the most widely-used browser on iPhones, which enabled it to run its DoubleClick ad technology, giving it the ability to tracks users, ostensibly in order to serve them enhanced ads as The Wall Street Journal discovered.
I HATE GOOGLE! - i-hate-google
Yahoo Tells Users: Let Us Read Your Emails or -- Goodbye!
2013/May/30 startpage.com - As of June 1, all Yahoo email users are required to upgrade to the company's newest platform, which allows Yahoo to scan and analyze every email they write or receive. According to Yahoo's help page, all users who make the transition agree to let the company perform "content scanning and analyzing of your communications content" to target ads, offer products, and perform "abuse protection."..
2013/May Yahoo Mail New Version Reads Your Emails
In Texas, cops will soon need a warrant to search your email
2013/May/30 Computerworld - Texas is poised to become the first state in the U.S. to require law enforcement officers to get a search warrant based on probable cause before they access any electronic communications and customer data stored by a third-party service provider... The Texas legislature this week passed a bill (H.B. 2268) mandating the warrant. The measure now only needs a signature by Gov. Rick Perry to become law.
Internet giants rebel against UK 'snooper's charter'
2013/May/31 zdnet.com - Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo have dug in their heels and warned they will have no part in the U.K.'s proposed "snooper's charter." ... In a leaked letter, dated 18 April, addressed to home secretary Theresa May and obtained by The Guardian, the five tech giants say they will have no part in the U.K. government's plans to introduce a "snooper's charter," -- the proposed Communications Data Bill...
Sorry, folks: EU net neutrality plans won't kill website blocking
2013/Jun/6 zdnet.com - Plans by the European Union to prohibit Internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking or throttling customers' access under new net neutrality rules will not have any impact on website blocking at a member state level...
The Obama administration’s war on privacy - Salon.com
2010/Sep/27 salon.com - In early August, two dictatorial (and U.S.-allied) Gulf states - Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - announced a ban on the use of Blackberries because, as the BBC put it, “[b]oth nations are unhappy that they are unable to monitor such communications via the handsets.” Those two governments demand the power to intercept and monitor every single form of communication. No human interaction may take place beyond their prying ears. Since Blackberry communication data are sent directly to servers in Canada and the company which operates Blackberry - Research in Motion - refused to turn the data over to those governments, “authorities [] decided to ban Blackberry services rather than continue to allow an uncontrolled and unmonitored flow of electronic information within their borders.” That’s the core mindset of the Omnipotent Surveillance State: above all else, what is strictly prohibited is the ability of citizens to communicate in private; we can’t have any “uncontrolled and unmonitored flow of electronic information.”
Obama administration seeks Internet privacy bill
2011/3/16 Reuters.com - The Obama administration is backing legislation to protect the personal data of Internet users, toughening its stance from a call last year for voluntary codes of conduct for data companies and advertisers... "The administration is now at the point of recommending that this be dealt with in legislation," said Lawrence Strickling, an assistant secretary at the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration...
Meet Nicole Wong
2013/May/7 yahoo.com - President Obama has tapped a former Googler nicknamed "the Decider" to handle the administration's approach to Internet privacy... Nicole Wong, who's spent the last six months as Twitter's legal director, will report to White House Chief Technology Officer Todd Park, according to CNET. While she won't be the nation's chief privacy officer as CNET initially reported, she'll be considered a senior adviser, someone familiar with the matter told me...
2012/04 - CISPA PROTESTS
http://phys.org/news/2012-04-protest-cyber-intelligence-legislation.html
CISPA: Fascism Comes to the Internet
http://organicnewsnet.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/fascism-comes-to-the-internet-introducing-cispa/
2012/04/30 - Occupy Bilderberg 2012
http://theintelhub.com/2012/04/30/occupy-bilderberg-2012/
Intel Hub - The infamous and elusive Bilderberg club has decided to bring their annual meeting back to the United States... This year, May 31st through June 3rd they are returning to Chantilly, Virginia where they had their conference back in 2008. Even then a record number of people traveled from all over the world to protest this secretive meeting of aristocrats... The oil cartels, banking interests, heads of state and even a majority of the major corporations who are on board with CISPA will be represented at this meeting. If there was ever a chance to point out every head on the hydra in one protest, this is it.
Department of Justice secretly gave Internet service providers immunity when conducting surveillance
http://www.activistpost.com/2013/04/department-of-justice-secretly-gave.html
Activist Post - According to documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Department of Justice secretly authorized the interception of electronic communications on certain parts of AT&T and other Internet service providers’ networks.
FBI Seeks Real-Time Facebook, Google Wiretaps
http://www.informationweek.com/security/privacy/fbi-seeks-real-time-facebook-google-wire/240154011?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All
Government proposal would expand wiretap laws to cover not just service providers, but also the likes of Facebook and Google, backed by escalating fines for noncompliance.
Canada Bill provokes privacy fears
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Bill%2bprovokes%2bprivacy%2bfears/6142986/story.html
Police will get much easier access to the web-surfing habits and personal information of all Canadians.
Canada Digital Rights Watch
http://digitalrightswatch.org/?p=48732
OCCUPY CANADA:
http://www.facebook.com/OccupyCanada
Big brother now spies on journalists, keeps records of online activity
http://www.naturalnews.com/034865_Big_Brother_spies_journalists.html
(NaturalNews) - What began as a simple program to address safety and security issues at the 2010 Winter Olympics has become a massive online spying operation targeted at journalists and writers. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)'s Media Monitoring Initiative (MMI) has been expanded to collect and track information from online forums, blogs, public websites, message boards, and social networking sites, as well as gather "personally identifiable information" (PII) on journalists and media writers.
2012/02/06 - "Democrats to continue internet coup with new cyber bill"
http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/06/democrats-to-continue-internet-coup-with-new-cyber-bill/
Department of Homeland Security website hacked by Anonymous
http://rt.com/usa/news/homeland-security-website-anonymous-473/
RT - Only hours after two of its biggest releases ever, the online collective Anonymous is taking credit for crashing the website of the US Department of Homeland Security. Shortly before 4 p.m. EST Friday afternoon, the Homeland Security Department’s website, DHS.gov, was taken offline. It was announced on the Web by members of the loose-knit hacktivist collective Anonymous and some claiming allegiance to the group have have taken credit for the attack.
2012/02/10 - CIA website allegedly hacked by ‘Anonymous’
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/10/cia-website-reportedly-hacked-by-anonymous/
2011/06 - Scotus: Warrantless GPS Monitoring
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/warrantless-gps-monitoring-scotus/
2013/03 - Federal Judge Finds National Security Letters Unconstitutional, Bans Them
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/nsl-found-unconstitutional/
Ultra-secret national security letters that come with a gag order on the recipient are an unconstitutional impingement on free speech, a federal judge in California ruled in a decision released Friday.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ordered the government to stop issuing so-called NSLs across the board, in a stunning defeat for the Obama administration’s surveillance practices. She also ordered the government to cease enforcing the gag provision in any other cases. However, she stayed her order for 90 days to give the government a chance to appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“We are very pleased that the Court recognized the fatal constitutional shortcomings of the NSL statute,” said Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed a challenge to NSLs on behalf of an unknown telecom that received an NSL in 2011. “The government’s gags have truncated the public debate on these controversial surveillance tools. Our client looks forward to the day when it can publicly discuss its experience.”
2013/02 - Supreme Court Thwarts Challenge to Warrantless Surveillance
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/02/scotus-surveillance-challenge/
A divided Supreme Court halted a legal challenge Tuesday to a once-secret warrantless surveillance project that gobbles up Americans’ electronic communications, a program that Congress eventually legalized in 2008 and again in 2012. The 5-4 decision (.pdf) by Justice Samuel Alito was a clear victory for the President Barack Obama administration, which like its predecessor, argued that government wiretapping laws cannot be challenged in court. What’s more, the outcome marks the first time the Supreme Court decided any case touching...
(Find various good links at o_c_c_u_p_y, tsa_nightmares, wiki_truth, fascist_watch, and/or economic_sanity).
Electronic Privacy Information Center - http://EPIC.org
2013/jun/6 - A report by the Washington Post Thursday night revealed that the government's data-mining operation expands far beyond tracking some phone metadata....
Top Secret FISA Order Requires Verizon to Deliver Millions of American Phone Records to NSA - MORE HERE
2013/jun/06 - “The (leaked) secret FISA document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk - regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.” - The Guardian, U. K., broke story June 5, 2013
The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)
2013/Jun/7 - Reprints, links, etc.! - Given the current abuse by the NSA and U. S. government in spying on most of the United States, monitoring phone calls and digital communications, Earthfiles is reprinting Linda Moulton Howe's March 30, 2012, interview with James Bamford, the only author to write three books about the National Security Agency (NSA) that was set up in secrecy on November 4, 1952, and outside Congressional oversight by the Harry Truman Administration...
What’s Wrong With the NSA Collecting Your Phone Records?
2013/Jun/7 - Far-right view (Lew Rockwell) Verizon is being forced by the government to disclose telephone records of all of its customers. Those of us who want our call records to be private are being forced to reveal them to the government. We can’t keep them private even if we want to. What is wrong with the government spying on us in this way?..
Government Surveillance of OccupyMovement - SourceWatch::
"Operation Tripwire": 2013/May The U.S. counter terrorism apparatus was used to monitor the Occupy Movement nationwide... On May 20, 2013, DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy released the results of a year-long investigation: "Dissent or Terror: How the Nation's Counter Terrorism Apparatus, In Partnership With Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street.” The report, a distillation of thousands of pages of records obtained from counter terrorism/law enforcement agencies, details how state/regional "fusion center" personnel monitored the Occupy Wall Street movement over the course of 2011 and 2012.
Govt: Followed all procedures in AP subpoena fight
2013-06-04 AP - The Justice Department has told Congress that the department acted properly and followed all legal procedures correctly in subpoenaing phone records of The Associated Press ... - (note: this subpoena stuff might have followed AP's breaking of a few 'delicate' stories... more later)
SUPREME COURT: Police Can Force Open Your Mouth And Swab Your DNA
2013/Jun/3 Business Insider - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that police don't need a search warrant before they open your mouth and take a swab of DNA if you've been arrested for a "serious crime."... The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that DNA swabs are a "legitimate police booking procedure" that is allowed under the Constitution just like fingerprinting and mugshots.
Government drops plan to allow passengers to carry small knives, bats, golf clubs on airplanes
2013/Jun Also on TWITTER. - (Note: I need to talk about this crafty little bit of reverse-psychology sometime later).
The whole IRS issue, (which has reached the Tonight Show), is a great topic for discussion - esp. on the dif takes by left vs right. Here are a FEW links, but really the whole issue needs a deeper post with many links, discussed...
IRS claims it can read your e-mail without a warrant
2013/April CNET - The Internal Revenue Service doesn’t believe it needs a search warrant to read your e-mail. Newly disclosed documents prepared by IRS lawyers say that Americans enjoy “generally no privacy” in their e-mail, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and similar online communications - meaning that they can be perused without obtaining a search warrant signed by a judge...
Washington launches four different investigations into IRS scandal
2013/05/27 Daily Caller - Capitol Hill aides spent their Memorial Day weekend scanning hundreds of pages of documents related to the IRS scandal in order to prepare their bosses for what will inevitably be a frantic month of June involving multiple simultaneous investigations into government wrongdoing. By the time lawmakers return to session next week, at least four different investigations will be underway...
IRS Directed to Lock Down All Agency Data
2013/Jun National Review - The Internal Revenue Service is in the process of locking down all computer data across the agency, a sign that investigations into the scandal-plagued agency may be taking a broader sweep than initially anticipated...
VIDEO: Larken Rose: Current IRS scandal is a joke
2013/Jun XRepublic.tv - {adult language} The recent "scandal" involving the IRS is completely trivial compared to injustices that are routinely committed across the country by the federal extortion racket. - Please note that madman101 is not able to view VIDEOS online at this time. So, if this video is crap or does not hold water, please let me know, and I shall remove it.
Obama’s Super Secret Treaty Which Will Push The Deindustrialization Of America Into Overdrive
2013/Jun/3 Econ Collapse Blog - Did you know that Barack Obama has been secretly negotiating the most important trade agreement since the formation of the World Trade Organization? Did you know that this agreement will impose very strict Internet copyright rules, ban all "Buy American" laws, give Wall Street banks much more freedom to trade risky derivatives and force even more domestic manufacturing offshore? If you have not heard about this treaty, don't feel bad. Obama has refused to even give Congress a copy of the draft agreement and he has banned members of Congress from attending the negotiations...
The FBI Is Collecting Everybody’s Emails
2012/Dec/5 Think Progress - Twelve years ago, William Binney resigned from his post as a technical director at the National Security Agency over its domestic surveillance program. “The reason I left the NSA was because they started spying on everybody in the country,” he said in August. In light of revelations from the scandal surrounding General David Petraeus that the FBI was reading the emails of Petraeus, General David Allen and several other suspected players, Binney is reiterating that the FBI is collecting everybody’s emails, and can use the information collected against anybody it wants. In an interview with RT, Binney says...
FBI Asks Google, Facebook, To Aid Wiretapping
2010/11/18? AlterNet, with links - Now that most Americans rarely ever use landlines but are instead occupied on the web and with their smartphones, the FBI is trying to step up its surveillance game to keep up with the times--to the detriment of our civil liberties... Last week, agency director Robert Mueller went to Sillicon Valley (much like Mark Zuckerberg in "The Social Network") with a somewhat frightening proposal: Facebook and Google should build "back doors" into their systems to allow ease for spying.
Judge orders Google to comply with FBI's secret NSL demands - (note: the whole idea that google has a "falling out" with the fbi is yet another reverse-psychology thing going on, imo)
2013/May/31 CNET - ... CNET has learned that U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco rejected Google's request to modify or throw out 19 so-called National Security Letters, a warrantless electronic data-gathering technique used by the FBI that does not need a judge's approval. Her ruling came after a pair of top FBI officials, including an assistant director, submitted classified affidavits...
Google's Motorola May Give You Tattoo or Vitamin Password - (note: g-mail already allows google to read your email).
2013/06/05 Forbes - Tattoos may become more than a body art statement in the near future. Last week at D11 by AllThingsD, Walter Mossberg interviewed Regina Dugan who heads special projects for Motorola (owned by Google Google). Ms. Dugan revealed a wearable tech tattoo on her forearm to replace entering your computer or smartphone password. The former DARPA head captivated the audience with her enthusiasm for innovation.
Google Caught Violating iPhone Privacy Which Apple Already Violated
2012/Feb/17 yahoo.com - Google may be catching all flack this morning for tracking iPhones, but Apple doesn't care about users' privacy either. In fact, the company already tracks users' every move. Google found a loophole in Safari, the most widely-used browser on iPhones, which enabled it to run its DoubleClick ad technology, giving it the ability to tracks users, ostensibly in order to serve them enhanced ads as The Wall Street Journal discovered.
I HATE GOOGLE! - i-hate-google
Yahoo Tells Users: Let Us Read Your Emails or -- Goodbye!
2013/May/30 startpage.com - As of June 1, all Yahoo email users are required to upgrade to the company's newest platform, which allows Yahoo to scan and analyze every email they write or receive. According to Yahoo's help page, all users who make the transition agree to let the company perform "content scanning and analyzing of your communications content" to target ads, offer products, and perform "abuse protection."..
2013/May Yahoo Mail New Version Reads Your Emails
In Texas, cops will soon need a warrant to search your email
2013/May/30 Computerworld - Texas is poised to become the first state in the U.S. to require law enforcement officers to get a search warrant based on probable cause before they access any electronic communications and customer data stored by a third-party service provider... The Texas legislature this week passed a bill (H.B. 2268) mandating the warrant. The measure now only needs a signature by Gov. Rick Perry to become law.
Internet giants rebel against UK 'snooper's charter'
2013/May/31 zdnet.com - Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo have dug in their heels and warned they will have no part in the U.K.'s proposed "snooper's charter." ... In a leaked letter, dated 18 April, addressed to home secretary Theresa May and obtained by The Guardian, the five tech giants say they will have no part in the U.K. government's plans to introduce a "snooper's charter," -- the proposed Communications Data Bill...
Sorry, folks: EU net neutrality plans won't kill website blocking
2013/Jun/6 zdnet.com - Plans by the European Union to prohibit Internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking or throttling customers' access under new net neutrality rules will not have any impact on website blocking at a member state level...
The Obama administration’s war on privacy - Salon.com
2010/Sep/27 salon.com - In early August, two dictatorial (and U.S.-allied) Gulf states - Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - announced a ban on the use of Blackberries because, as the BBC put it, “[b]oth nations are unhappy that they are unable to monitor such communications via the handsets.” Those two governments demand the power to intercept and monitor every single form of communication. No human interaction may take place beyond their prying ears. Since Blackberry communication data are sent directly to servers in Canada and the company which operates Blackberry - Research in Motion - refused to turn the data over to those governments, “authorities [] decided to ban Blackberry services rather than continue to allow an uncontrolled and unmonitored flow of electronic information within their borders.” That’s the core mindset of the Omnipotent Surveillance State: above all else, what is strictly prohibited is the ability of citizens to communicate in private; we can’t have any “uncontrolled and unmonitored flow of electronic information.”
Obama administration seeks Internet privacy bill
2011/3/16 Reuters.com - The Obama administration is backing legislation to protect the personal data of Internet users, toughening its stance from a call last year for voluntary codes of conduct for data companies and advertisers... "The administration is now at the point of recommending that this be dealt with in legislation," said Lawrence Strickling, an assistant secretary at the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration...
Meet Nicole Wong
2013/May/7 yahoo.com - President Obama has tapped a former Googler nicknamed "the Decider" to handle the administration's approach to Internet privacy... Nicole Wong, who's spent the last six months as Twitter's legal director, will report to White House Chief Technology Officer Todd Park, according to CNET. While she won't be the nation's chief privacy officer as CNET initially reported, she'll be considered a senior adviser, someone familiar with the matter told me...
2012/04 - CISPA PROTESTS
http://phys.org/news/2012-04-protest-cyber-intelligence-legislation.html
CISPA: Fascism Comes to the Internet
http://organicnewsnet.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/fascism-comes-to-the-internet-introducing-cispa/
2012/04/30 - Occupy Bilderberg 2012
http://theintelhub.com/2012/04/30/occupy-bilderberg-2012/
Intel Hub - The infamous and elusive Bilderberg club has decided to bring their annual meeting back to the United States... This year, May 31st through June 3rd they are returning to Chantilly, Virginia where they had their conference back in 2008. Even then a record number of people traveled from all over the world to protest this secretive meeting of aristocrats... The oil cartels, banking interests, heads of state and even a majority of the major corporations who are on board with CISPA will be represented at this meeting. If there was ever a chance to point out every head on the hydra in one protest, this is it.
Department of Justice secretly gave Internet service providers immunity when conducting surveillance
http://www.activistpost.com/2013/04/department-of-justice-secretly-gave.html
Activist Post - According to documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Department of Justice secretly authorized the interception of electronic communications on certain parts of AT&T and other Internet service providers’ networks.
FBI Seeks Real-Time Facebook, Google Wiretaps
http://www.informationweek.com/security/privacy/fbi-seeks-real-time-facebook-google-wire/240154011?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All
Government proposal would expand wiretap laws to cover not just service providers, but also the likes of Facebook and Google, backed by escalating fines for noncompliance.
Canada Bill provokes privacy fears
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Bill%2bprovokes%2bprivacy%2bfears/6142986/story.html
Police will get much easier access to the web-surfing habits and personal information of all Canadians.
Canada Digital Rights Watch
http://digitalrightswatch.org/?p=48732
OCCUPY CANADA:
http://www.facebook.com/OccupyCanada
Big brother now spies on journalists, keeps records of online activity
http://www.naturalnews.com/034865_Big_Brother_spies_journalists.html
(NaturalNews) - What began as a simple program to address safety and security issues at the 2010 Winter Olympics has become a massive online spying operation targeted at journalists and writers. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)'s Media Monitoring Initiative (MMI) has been expanded to collect and track information from online forums, blogs, public websites, message boards, and social networking sites, as well as gather "personally identifiable information" (PII) on journalists and media writers.
2012/02/06 - "Democrats to continue internet coup with new cyber bill"
http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/06/democrats-to-continue-internet-coup-with-new-cyber-bill/
Department of Homeland Security website hacked by Anonymous
http://rt.com/usa/news/homeland-security-website-anonymous-473/
RT - Only hours after two of its biggest releases ever, the online collective Anonymous is taking credit for crashing the website of the US Department of Homeland Security. Shortly before 4 p.m. EST Friday afternoon, the Homeland Security Department’s website, DHS.gov, was taken offline. It was announced on the Web by members of the loose-knit hacktivist collective Anonymous and some claiming allegiance to the group have have taken credit for the attack.
2012/02/10 - CIA website allegedly hacked by ‘Anonymous’
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/10/cia-website-reportedly-hacked-by-anonymous/
2011/06 - Scotus: Warrantless GPS Monitoring
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/warrantless-gps-monitoring-scotus/
2013/03 - Federal Judge Finds National Security Letters Unconstitutional, Bans Them
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/nsl-found-unconstitutional/
Ultra-secret national security letters that come with a gag order on the recipient are an unconstitutional impingement on free speech, a federal judge in California ruled in a decision released Friday.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ordered the government to stop issuing so-called NSLs across the board, in a stunning defeat for the Obama administration’s surveillance practices. She also ordered the government to cease enforcing the gag provision in any other cases. However, she stayed her order for 90 days to give the government a chance to appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“We are very pleased that the Court recognized the fatal constitutional shortcomings of the NSL statute,” said Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed a challenge to NSLs on behalf of an unknown telecom that received an NSL in 2011. “The government’s gags have truncated the public debate on these controversial surveillance tools. Our client looks forward to the day when it can publicly discuss its experience.”
2013/02 - Supreme Court Thwarts Challenge to Warrantless Surveillance
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/02/scotus-surveillance-challenge/
A divided Supreme Court halted a legal challenge Tuesday to a once-secret warrantless surveillance project that gobbles up Americans’ electronic communications, a program that Congress eventually legalized in 2008 and again in 2012. The 5-4 decision (.pdf) by Justice Samuel Alito was a clear victory for the President Barack Obama administration, which like its predecessor, argued that government wiretapping laws cannot be challenged in court. What’s more, the outcome marks the first time the Supreme Court decided any case touching...
(Find various good links at o_c_c_u_p_y, tsa_nightmares, wiki_truth, fascist_watch, and/or economic_sanity).
Electronic Privacy Information Center - http://EPIC.org