Sunday, April 15, 2012
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
REDUX: Domestic surveillance a key legacy of 9/11
"Thanks to new laws and technologies, authorities track and eavesdrop on Americans as they never could before, hauling in billions of bank records, travel receipts and other information. In several cases, they have wiretapped conversations between lawyers and defendants, challenging the long-established legal principle that attorney-client communication is inviolate.":::MORE HERE:::
Here is second life for news that matters.
- Children 'should be taught data rights'
- 10 Ways the government watches you
- Appeals court may let NSA lawsuits proceed
- A flurry of federal data security and data breach notification bills introduced into Congress
- EPIC Files for Rehearing in Airport Body Scanner Case
- Network analysis can uncover your personal details even if you choose to hide them
- Maine Voter Data Breached
- USCIS hears suggestions and feedback on I-9 Central
- Flickr Nails Photo Privacy With New Geofence Feature
- Govt Will Not Declassify 2001 Opinion on Surveillance
- Gaddafi Hired International Firms to Spy on Libya Uprising
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
NSTIC blueprint for online national ID profile goes live Friday
BTC - It's called National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace or NSTIC. It is a policy "blueprint" for the incorporation of a national online identity number. NSTIC will be available for public evaluation Friday via WhiteHouse.gov. Public comments concerning the new centralized identity number will be taken for 3 weeks. Interaction is expected to take place online using Open Government crowdsourcing tools from IdeaScale.
According to Electronic Frontier Foundation identity counsel, Lee Tien, concerning the number, "[It's] very much an issue in the US as part of the Cyber Security effort."
White House considerations of a comprehensive identity number system for internet users became more transparent in public discussions over Cyber Security with Civil Liberty and National Security staffer, Tim Edgar last week in San Jose, Calif during the CFP 2010 conference.
International concerns over right of dissent and current uses of a nationalized internet identity number were raised by the British Columbia Freedom of Information and Privacy Association and UK identity and privacy advocates, NO2ID. Amid concerns were that integrating every users online data into one hub could destroy a persons identity if it were hacked, stolen or compromised in a way where identity was mistaken or misappropriated. It was also communicated that a priority of newly elected coalition government was to repeal all current motions towards centralizing identity data and consolidating public records of the individual into one card.
The United Kingdom is not the only country in the world which could mandate an online identity number registry. Egypt is working to try a nationalized online payment system which requires a national identity number.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
EFF updates on Amendment 1 Gizmodo case & "Panoptoclick" Papers
EFF UNVEILED RESULTS FROM THE "PANOPTICLICK" BROWSERPRIVACY PROJECT, which demonstrated that more than 8 in 10 people use browsers with unique, trackable signatures. Having a distinct browser signature means your individual movements on the web may be easier to track, and several companies are already selling products that claim to use browser fingerprinting to help websites
identify users and their online activities. :::MORE HERE:::
SEE ALSO: Gizmodo iPhone Warrant Affidavit Released, Impropriety of Search Confirmed
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Waking Up Orwell: the lost & desert island episodes
BTC - Our weekly online radio digest, Waking Up Orwell (WUO) has overcome many mishaps to reach the remote location it is at today. What no one really realized was how many hits we were actually getting on podOmatic.Thursday, March 25, 2010
Waking Up Orwell program pre-empted by aggressive online hack
"This was by far, the most obvious outside attempt to maliciously pre-empt us in the program's history. Based on where our program was rerouted it appears politically motivated by those entertained by neo-conservative talk." - WakingUpOrwell
Friday, February 26, 2010
Military Monitored Planned Parenthood, Supremacists
The U.S. military monitored Planned Parenthood and a white supremacist group as part of the government’s security preparations for the 2002 Olympics in Utah, according to new documents released by the Department of Defense.
The U.S. Joint Forces Command liaison collected and disseminated information on U.S. citizens who were members of Planned Parenthood and the white supremacist group National Alliance regarding their involvement in protests and distributing literature, according to an intelligence-oversight report released by the Pentagon. The documents indicate that the JFC liaison was working with the FBI’s Olympic Intelligence Center at the time.
This and other intelligence-activity disclosures appear in heavily redacted documents that were released to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They came in response to an ongoing Freedom of Information Act project the organization is conducting to obtain oversight information from intelligence agencies.
EFF received more than 800 pages from intelligence oversight reports created by the Defense Department inspector general that examine actions, conducted by various branches of the department, that are believed to be illegal.
The reports cover the years 2001 to 2008 and were submitted to the Intelligence Oversight Board and cover the U.S. Army, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other military entities. The board is composed of private citizens with security clearances who are supposed to submit to the office of the president any reports describing activities that are believed to be illegal.
The reports provide little context for the information that’s disclosed, leaving the public to wonder about the nature and extent of the information and surveillance revealed in them.
Pertaining to the Planned Parenthood members, for example, the oversight report provides no explanation about how the information was collected. Nor does it indicate why the information was collected and notes only that military intelligence is not allowed to collect and disseminate information on U.S. persons unless the information constitutes “foreign intelligence.” The report indicates that the collection was therefore “clearly outside the purview of military intelligence” and should have been handled by law enforcement. ::MORE HERE::
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
SAY YES!! EFF Push's for telecomm exposure
San Francisco - Today a federal appeals court rejected a government claim of "lobbyist privacy" to hide the identities of individuals who pressured Congress to grant immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in the government's warrantless electronic surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been seeking records detailing the telecoms' campaign for retroactive legal immunity under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Telecom immunity was enacted as part of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008.
"Today's ruling is an important one for government and corporate accountability," said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. "The court recognized that paid lobbyists trying to influence the government to advance their clients' interests can't hide behind privacy claims to keep their efforts secret."
This decision is the latest setback for the government in its long-running attempt to delay disclosure of the documents EFF seeks. So far, EFF has obtained thousands of pages of records through this litigation.
"AT&T, Verizon and Sprint expended millions of dollars to lobby the government and get an unconstitutional grant of retroactive immunity for their illegal spying on American citizens," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. "The public deserves to know how our rights were sold out by and for telecom lobbyists."
The appeals court sent part of the case back down to the district court for further consideration, including whether disclosure of the lobbyists' identities would reveal intelligence sources and methods and whether communications between the agencies and the White House can be withheld under the presidential communications privilege or other grounds.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
FLOGGER: REAL ID Retreats Yet Again
National ID Bashing with Cato's, In May of 2008, with many states outright rejecting this national surveillance mandate, the DHS issued blanket waivers and set a new deadline of December 31, 2009 by which states were supposed to meet several compliance goals.
They have not, and the threat that the DHS/Transportation Security Administration would prevent Americans from traveling has quieted to a whimper.
The reason why? The federal government would be blamed for it. As Neala Schwartzberg writes in her review of the push and pull over REAL ID:
If I was a betting person (and I am from time to time) I’d bet the backed-up-down-the-corridor traveler who is then turned away after presenting his or her state-issued, official complete with hologram ID will blame Homeland Security.
Does the ongoing collapse of REAL ID leave us vulnerable?
Richard Esguerra of the Electronic Frontier Foundation says in this Wired article that REAL ID “threatens citizens’ personal privacy without actually justifying its impact or improving security.”
REAL ID remains a dead letter. All that remains is for Congress to declare it so. And it may be dawning on Congress that passing it a second time under the name “PASS ID” will not work.
Monday, November 9, 2009
PATRIOT/State Secrets Reform bill passes House
by Kevin Bankston
Even better, the Committee kept going after it was finished with PATRIOT to consider Representative Nadler's State Secret Protection Act (HR 984), which would reform the state secrets privilege that the government has repeatedly used to try and throw EFF's warrantless wiretapping cases out of court. After an impassioned defense by Mr. Nadler, who described how the government has used the privilege like a "magic incantation" to cover-up wrongdoing and warned that state secrecy "is the greatest threat to liberty at present," the bill passed with even better numbers than the PATRIOT bill, 18 to 12!
It was, to say the least, a busy couple of days in the House Judiciary Committee. If you want the entire blow-by-blow of both day's meetings, check out our Twitter stream at @EFF.
Admittedly, the PATRIOT bill isn't all we had hoped for — as we described yesterday, it's been weakened in a number of ways due to quiet pressure from the Obama Administration — but it passed through the Committee with most of its major reforms intact, and it is a substantial improvement over the PATRIOT bill approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last month. Meanwhile, the state secrets reform bill made it through the committee without being watered down at all, with only a few technical changes. Thanks and congratulations to the representatives and activists that worked so hard to make that happen.
Eyes now turn to the Senate, where the Senate Judiciary Committee's PATRIOT Bill (S. 1692) will soon land on the floor, and to the House Intelligence Committee, which will soon be marking-up its own competing PATRIOT bill with much fewer reforms (HR 3969). So, the war is far from over. But two important battles were won today.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Julian Sanchez fact checks FOX on PATRIOT ACT renewal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAlcPH9KcxM
Obama Sides with Republicans; PATRIOT Act Renewal Bill Passes Senate
Judiciary Committee Minus Critical Civil Liberties Reforms
It looks like most of the Senators on the Judiciary Committee weren't swayed by last week's New York Times editorial, which suggested they consider USA PATRIOT Act renewal a "critical chance to add missing civil liberties and privacy protections, address known abuses and trim excesses that contribute nothing to making America safer."
Instead, the Committee passed a bill to renew all of the PATRIOT powers that were set to expire at the end of the year, with only a handful of the original reforms that were first proposed by Senators Feingold and Durbin's JUSTICE Act and Committee Chairman Leahy's original PATRIOT renewal bill.
No, rather than adding more protections to the bill, the Committee voted to accept seven Republican amendments to the USA PATRIOT Act Sunset Extension Act to remove the few civil liberties protections left in the bill after it was already watered down at the previous Committee meeting. Surprisingly and disappointingly, most of those amendments were recommended to their Republican sponsors by the Obama Administration.
As Senator Feingold so elegantly stated in his post-vote blog post on Daily Kos: "In the end...Democrats have to decide if they are going to stand up for the rights of the American people or allow the FBI to write our laws."
TAKE ACTION NOW!
Tell your Senators to support PATRIOT reforms like those in the JUSTICE Act!
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
EFF Wins Release of Telecom Lobbying Records
San Francisco - A judge ordered the government Thursday to release more records about the lobbying campaign to provide immunity to the telecommunications giants that participated in the NSA's warrantless surveillance program. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White ordered the records be provided to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) by October 9, 2009.
The decision is part of EFF's long-running battle to gather information about telecommunications lobbying conducted as Congress considered granting immunity to companies that participated in illegal government electronic surveillance. Telecom immunity was eventually passed as part of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) of 2008, but a bill that would repeal the immunity -- called the JUSTICE Act -- was introduced in the Senate last week.
"Today's ruling is a major victory for government transparency," said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. "As the court recognized, it was unlawful for the government to deny Americans access to this information in the midst of the debate over telecom immunity last year. We're pleased these records will now be available to the public as Congress considers the JUSTICE Act."
EFF has been seeking information about the telecom lobbying campaign under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) since 2007, as news reports detailed an extensive and expensive lobbying campaign seeking immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in unlawful surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans. Officials at the Bush Administration's Department of Justice (DOJ) and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were vocal supporters of the immunity proposals, working closely with telecoms. Using the FOIA, EFF asked the DOJ and the ODNI for any communications between the agencies, members of Congress, and telecom companies related to lobbying for telecom immunity.
The DOJ and ODNI argued that the records requested by EFF were protected by FOIA exemptions covering agency deliberations and other privileged communications. But in today's order, the judge ruled that as the communications were with Congress and lobbyists, the exemptions did not apply. The judge also found that the identities of telecom representatives who lobbied for immunity could not be kept from the public on privacy grounds.
"Today's ruling shows that aggressive use of the Freedom of Information Act is necessary to challenge government secrecy," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. "We cannot allow the government to drag its feet in making relevant information available to the American public."
EFF also represents the plaintiffs in Hepting v. AT&T, a class-action lawsuit brought by AT&T customers accusing the telecom of violating their rights by illegally assisting in widespread domestic surveillance. In June of 2009, a federal judge dismissed Hepting and dozens of other lawsuits against telecoms, ruling that the companies had immunity from liability under the FAA. EFF is appealing the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, primarily arguing that the FAA's immunity provision is unconstitutional in granting the president broad discretion to block the courts from considering the core constitutional privacy claims of millions of Americans.
For the full order:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/foia_C0705278/OrderGrantSJ-Sep09.pdf
For more on the litigation:
http://www.eff.org/issues/foia/cases/C-07-05278
For more on the JUSTICE Act:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/09/eff-supports-justice
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
EFF endorses the JUSTICE Bill
EFF Supports JUSTICE Bill to Reform the USA PATRIOT Act and Repeal Telecom Immunity
Legislative Analysis by Kevin BankstonOn December 31, three provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act that broadly expanded government surveillance authority in the wake of 9/11 are set to expire.1 The Obama Administration made clear in a letter this week to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy that although the Justice Department supports reauthorization of those provisions, it is also open to discussing modifications to the law “to provide additional protection for the privacy of law abiding Americans.”
Today, Senators Russ Feingold and Dick Durbin — along with eight other Senators — have taken the Administration up on its offer by introducing the JUSTICE Act, which would rein in the worst excesses of PATRIOT and last year’s FISA Amendments Act (FAA). The announcement of the bill’s introduction, along with a fact sheet outlining the bill's details, is here; the text of the JUSTICE Act is here (the “JUSTICE”, if you’re wondering, stands for Judiciously Using Surveillance Tools In Counterterrorism Efforts”).
The JUSTICE Act would renew two of the three expiring PATRIOT provisions, PATRIOT sections206 (John Doe roving wiretaps) and 215 (FISA orders for any tangible thing), but would also add strong new checks and balances to those provisions and to the PATRIOT Act in general, especially those provisions dealing with the government’s authority to issue National SecurityLetters. If passed, the bill would also establish critically important protections for Americans against surveillance authorized under the FAA. Of particular importance to EFF's clients in theHepting v. AT&T case and to the preservation of the rule of law, JUSTICE would completely repeal the FAA provision intended to legally immunize telecoms like AT&T that illegally assisted in the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program. Last summer when Congress passed the FAA, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stated his intention to revisit that law as part of the PATRIOT renewal debate, and we're very glad that Senators Feingold and Durbin have kick-started that process.
We'll be blogging more about the JUSTICE Act and other PATRIOT-related proposals in anticipation of the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing next week on PATRIOT reauthorization, and we'll alert you when the time is ripe for you to contact Congress through our Action Centerand voice your support for PATRIOT reform. In the meantime, EFF applauds Senators Feingold and Durbin, as well as cosponsoring Senators Akaka, Bingaman, Menendez, Merkley, Sanders, Tester, Udall, and Wyden, for their continuing hard work to protect Americans' civil liberties. EFF would prefer that none of the expiring PATRIOT provisions be renewed, but if they are, they absolutely must be accompanied by meaningful new checks and balances like those introduced today. It's time that JUSTICE was restored.
- 1.Actually, although the three expiring provisions are commonly referred to in the press as being PATRIOT provisions, one of the expiring provisions — the so-called "lone wolf" wiretapping provision allowing the government to target for foreign intelligence surveillance individuals that have no link to any foreign power or terrorist organization — was actually passed as part of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.
Friday, August 21, 2009
EFF: PASS ID another "impotent" attempt on identity
The PASS ID Act (S. 1261) seeks to make many of the same ineffectual, dangerous changes the REAL ID Act attempted to impose. Fundamentally, PASS ID operates on the same flawed premise of REAL ID -- that requiring various "identity documents" (and storing that information in databases for later access) will magically make state drivers' licenses more legitimate, which will in turn improve national security.
Proponents seem to be blind to the systemic impotence of such an identification card scheme. Individuals originally motivated to obtain and use fake IDs will instead use fake identity documents to procure "real" drivers' licenses. PASS ID creates new risks -- it calls for the scanning and storage of copies of applicants' identity documents (birth certificates, visas, etc.). These documents will be stored in databases that will become leaky honeypots of sensitive personal data, prime targets for malicious identity thieves or otherwise accessible by individuals authorized to obtain documents from the database. Despite some alterations to the scheme, PASS ID is still bad for privacy in many of the same ways the REAL ID was. And proponents of the national ID effort seem blissfully unaware of the creepy implications of a "papers please" mentality that may grow from the issuance of mandatory federal identification cards. Despite token provisions that claim to give states the freedom to issue non-federal identification cards, the card will be mandatory for most -- the PASS ID Act seeks to require everyone to show the federally recognized ID for "any official purpose," including boarding a plane or entering a federal building.
At the moment, health care reform is commanding tremendous attention and effort on the hill, so the PASS ID Act seems to be on the backburner for now. But after the August recess, anything can happen. So stay tuned for more about PASS ID and critical opportunities to flag your opposition to this flawed national ID scheme.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
EFF Releases Interim Report on the Automated Targeting System
EFF today released an Interim Report on the Automated Targeting System (ATS) through which the Department of Homeland Security monitors and assigns risk assessment scores to Americans and others who cross into or out of the United States. The data reviewed under the ATS system includes seven large government databases, plus the Passenger Name Record data from the airlines (which includes data like whether you've ordered a Muslim or Hindu or Jewish special meal). Effectively, if you travel internationally, ATS creates an instant, personal and detailed dossier on you that CBP officers use to decide whether you get to enter the country, or will be subject to an enhanced (and potentially invasive) search. EFF's report details what we've learned about the ATS program from the over 2,000 pages released by the government so far. We note that because of government's very heavy redacting and refusal to release key information Americans remain in dark about how this powerful system is used on travelers. EFF's Interim report was written by Shana Dines.
DHS has continued to release documents to EFF so we'll update the report as additional useful information comes out.
FOIA Litigation for Accountable Government, Travel Screening
Friday, July 10, 2009
EFF's Wish List Doesn't Include PASS Act/Real ID
With an upcoming hearing in Washington to evaluate the Real ID Act next week, Lee Tien articulates the standard for acceptable identity in America. Here's a hint: the Real ID Act is not part of the plan.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Measuring up to Privacy : EFF on Govt. Web Intrusion
The Center for Democracy and Technology and EFF are releasing "Open Recommendations for the Use of Web Measurement Tools on Federal Government Web Sites." (Press Release. PDF.) The document recommends repairs to the federal guidelines that regulate the use of cookies and other "persistent tracking technologies" on government websites.
Today, these regulations are problematic: They're both too harshly bureaucratic in some cases and too relaxed in others. They're too harsh because ordinary government webmasters are prohibited from performing even basic traffic analysis without acquiring personal approval from their agency's head — something they say is an insurmountable bureaucratic obstacle in many federal agencies. They're too relaxed because they don’t reach many of the tracking technologies that are in use today. In addition, in the event that the agency head does provide this sign-off, it allows a loophole which can enable the agency to use tracking technologies with almost no oversight or accountability. EFF has recently had first hand experience with this loophole since the White House has still refused to give any explanation, much less provide the actual waiver it recently issued for use of cookies on whitehouse.gov.
As an alternative, CDT and EFF are recommending a sensible way forward: Government webmasters ought to be permitted to use modern analytics tools without agency-head approval, so long as the use of those tools is carefully overseen and meets with specific strict safeguards and requirements.
Many of these safeguards will be familiar to folks who've read EFF's Best Practices For Online Service Providers: Visitor data must be speedily anonymized, and it may not be used for purposes other than traffic analysis. Visitors should be given a clear option allowing them to opt-out of tracking, and agency privacy officers must carefully review and audit the processes. And, importantly, no "agency-head approval" will be sufficient to waive these requirements.
In addition to being smart policy, the adoption of these guidelines would foster smart technology. Current web anaytics systems are notorious for hoarding data irregardless of privacy concerns. The prevailing approach is to collect as much information as possible and store it for as long as possible. To make matters worse, most systems (including the popular Google Analytics) store the data on servers that the web-manager does not own or control, increasing the likelihood that the data will be captured, leaked or misused. Adoption of these recommendations would encourage analytics providers to consider safer and smarter approaches.
The Obama Administration is expected to begin revising federal website policies soon, as part of its "Open Government" initiatives. We hope these recommendations will be incorporated. The result would be a win, both for webmasters seeking data and for citizens seeking privacy.