Privacy

NSA Targeted ‘The Two Leading’ Encryption Chips

January 9, 2016 Glenn Greenwald, www.theintercept.com Resist! Encryption, Glenn Greenwald, Internet, NSA, Privacy, Surveillance

By Glenn Greenwald for The Intercept - On September 5, 2013, The Guardian, the New York Times and ProPublica jointly reported — based on documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden — that the National Security Agency had compromised some of the encryption that is most commonly used to secure internet transactions. The NYT explained that NSA “has circumvented or cracked much of the encryption, or digital scrambling, that guards global commerce and banking systems, protects sensitive data like trade secrets and medical records, and automatically secures the emails, web searches, internet chats and phone calls of Americans and others around the world.”

Creepy Online Tracking Companies Fizzle In Face Of Privacy Badger

December 25, 2015 Cooper Quintin, www.eff.org Educate! Online data, Privacy

By Cooper Quintin for EFF. On August 3, EFF, Disconnect and a coalition of four (now five) other partners announced an implementation of “Do Not Track” (DNT) for Web browsing—this new policy standard, coupled with privacy software, will better protect users against sites that try to secretly follow and record their Internet activity. Trackers are blocked, while sites that adopt the DNT policy and respect users' privacy have their ads unblocked. This combination of deterrent and reward provides an incentive for advertisers and data collection companies to respect a user’s choice not to be tracked online, and encourages them to develop advertising technologies that do the same. The EFF and Disconnect’s partners in this launch are the innovative publishing site Medium, major analytics service Mixpanel, popular ad- and tracker-blocking extension AdBlock, and private search engine DuckDuckGo. Since the launch, the ad-tech company Adzerk has also joined. New partners have already signed up and will be announced in early 2016.

Finally! DOJ Reverses Course & Requires Warrants For Stingrays!

September 5, 2015 Nate Cardozo, www.eff.org Educate! Privacy, Surveillance, Technology

By Nate Cardozo in The Electronic Frontier Foundation - At long last, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced a slew of much-needed policy changes regarding the use of cell-site simulators. Most importantly, starting today all federal law enforcement agencies—and all state and local agencies working with the federal government—will be required to obtain a search warrant supported by probable cause before they are allowed to use cell-site simulators. EFF welcomes these policy changes as long overdue. Colloquially known as “Stingrays” after Harris Corporation’s brand name for a common model,cell-site simulators masquerade as legitimate cell phone towers, tricking phones nearby into connecting to them. This allows agents to learn the unique identifying number for each phone in the area of the device and to track a phone’s location in real time.

The Dream Of Internet Freedom Doesn’t Have To Die

August 7, 2015 Jennifer Granick, www.justsecurity.org Resist! Cybersecurity, Internet Freedom, Privacy, Surveillance

By Jennifer Granick for Just Security - Today, the dream of Internet Freedom that brought me to my first Def Con is dying. The dream is dying because, for better or for worse, we’ve prioritized things like security, online civility, user interface, and intellectual property interests above freedom and openness. As a result, the Internet is less open and more centralized. It’s more regulated. And increasingly it’s less global, and more divided. These trends: centralization, regulation, and globalization are accelerating. And they will define the future of our communications network, unless something dramatic changes. Let’s take a quick look at just a few of the things likely to happen if these trends continue.

Senate Fails On CISA Before Recess; Grassroots Opposition Grows

August 6, 2015 Staff, http://tumblr.fightforthefuture.org Resist! Cyber Security, Internet, Internet Freedom, Privacy, Surveillance

By Staff for Fight For The Future - Senate leadership had intended to move CISA to a cloture vote yesterday afternoon, but failed to strike a deal as more and more members raised concerns with the bill in the wake of two weeks of intense grassroots action that flooded Senate offices with more than 6.2 million faxes in addition to tens of thousands of emails, phone calls, and tweets. Most of the action came through FaxBigBrother.com a viral web page launched by Fight for the Future with a broad coalition of privacy and civil liberties groups. Senate leadership had intended to move CISA to a cloture vote yesterday afternoon, but failed to strike a deal as more and more members raised concerns with the bill in the wake of two weeks of intense grassroots action that flooded Senate offices with more than 6.2 million faxes in addition to tens of thousands of emails, phone calls, and tweets. Most of the action came through FaxBigBrother.com a viral web page launched by Fight for the Future with a broad coalition of privacy and civil liberties groups. Senate leadership had intended to move CISA to a cloture vote yesterday afternoon, but failed to strike a deal as more and more members raised concerns with the bill in the wake of two weeks of intense grassroots action that flooded Senate offices with more than 6.2 million faxes in addition to tens of thousands of emails, phone calls, and tweets. Most of the action came through FaxBigBrother.com a viral web page launched by Fight for the Future with a broad coalition of privacy and civil liberties groups. “The delay is good news, but Internet users are outraged that Congress is even considering this dangerous and unpopular legislation, and even more outraged at the Web companies who stand to benefit financially from CISA’s sweeping legal immunity who have remained silent, putting all of their users’ privacy at risk,” said Evan Greer, Fight for the Future’s campaign director.

Laura Poitras Sues US Government For Repeated Border Stops

July 15, 2015 Jenna McLaughlin, www.firstlook.org Resist! Law, NSA, Privacy, Surveillance

By Jenna McLaughlin in The Intercept - Over six years, filmmaker Laura Poitras was searched, interrogated and detained more than 50 times at U.S. and foreign airports. When she asked why, U.S. agencies wouldn’t say. Now, after receiving no response to her Freedom of Information Act requests for documents pertaining to her systemic targeting, Poitras is suing the U.S. government. In a complaint filed on Monday afternoon, Poitras demanded that the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence release any and all documentation pertaining to her tracking, targeting and questioning while traveling between 2006 and 2012. “I’m filing this lawsuit because the government uses the U.S. border to bypass the rule of law,” Poitras said in a statement. Poitras co-founded The Intercept with Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill.

What Happens When Policy Is Made By Corporations?

July 12, 2015 Evgeny Morozov, www.theguardian.com Educate! Privacy, Trade, TTIP

By Evgeny Morozov for the Guardian - One overlooked aspect of the emerging legal architecture that they enact is that, barring a Greece-like rebellion from the citizens, Europe will eventually sacrifice its strong and much-cherished commitment to data protection. This protectionist stance – aimed, above all, at protecting citizens from excessive corporate and state intrusion – is increasingly at odds with the “grab everything” mentality of contemporary capitalism. A recent op-ed penned by Carl Bildt, the perennial hawk of Swedish politics and now also chair of the Global Commission on Internet Governance, a thinktank, captures that neoliberal mentality quite accurately. According to Bildt: “Barriers against the free flow of data are, in effect, barriers against trade.” By the same token, building fences around your house is also an offence against capitalism. Who knows what kinds of advertising deals could be made with your data?

6 Tips For Protecting Your Communications From Prying Eyes

June 21, 2015 Julia Angwin, www.propublica.org Educate! Media, Privacy, Surveillance

By Julia Angwin in ProPublica. It's easy to feel hopeless about privacy these days. In the post-Snowden era, we have learned that nearly every form of communication-from emails, phone calls, to text messages – can leave a digital trace that can and likely will be analyzed by commercial data-gatherers and governments. Here are some ways to keep those communications private. While these tips were designed for journalists and confidential sources, they're just as useful for protecting any private communications, such as a conversation between family members, or a confidential business dealing. Some tactics are more difficult than others, but the good news is that not all of them require technical skills. The key is to figure out your communication strategy.

Google Handed Over Journalist’s Data To Wikileaks Grand Jury

June 21, 2015 Kevin Gosztola, www.firedoglake.com Educate! Google, Privacy, Surveillance, Wikileaks

By Kevin Gosztola in FireDogLake. United States - Google released another legal disclosure notice related to the United States government’s ongoing grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks. It informed journalist and technologist Jacob Appelbaum, who previously worked with WikiLeaks, that Google was ordered to provide data from his account. The disclosure suggests the grand jury investigation may have sought Appelbaum’s data because the US government believed data would contain details on WikiLeaks’ publication of State Department cables. Appelbaum has been under investigation because of his connection to WikiLeaks for four to five years.

Newsletter – No Justice, No Peace

June 20, 2015 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Arctic drilling, Asian Pivot, BXE, Climate Justice, Criminal Justice and Prisons, fast track, Freedom of Speech, Gas, Housing, Inequality, Net Neutrality, New York City (NYC), Pipelines, Police violence, Pope Francis, Privacy, Racial Discrimination, Racism, Rikers, Shell Oil, sHellNo!, South Carolina, Terrorism, TPP, Wars and Militarism

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese for Popular Resistance. Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report writes that “No justice, no peace” is “a vow by the movement to transform the crisis that is inflicted on Black people into a generalized crisis for the larger society, and for those who currently rule.” In reality, given the violence being inflicted upon people, particularly people of color, whether directly or indirectly through rising poverty, unemployment, homelessness, lack of access to health care and more, and the government’s failures to address these crises and listen to the people, disruption is a necessary element of political change. In 1968 the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke outside a prison in California where people were being held for protesting the Vietnam War. In the speech he drew the connections between the Civil Rights movement and the peace movement against the Vietnam War. Today we see the links between racism, inequality, imperialism, militarism and ecocide and his comment on that day continues to ring true: "There can be no justice without peace. And there can be no peace without justice."

UK Police Scan More Than 100,000 Faces At Music Festival

June 17, 2015 Joe Zadeh, www.noisey.vice.com Educate! Music, Privacy, Surveillance

By Joe Zadeh in Vice - This weekend’s Download Festival will be subjected to strategic facial recognition technology by Leicestershire Police, making those 100,000 plus attendees the first music fans to ever be monitored to this extent at a UK music festival, according to UK police news and information website Police Oracle. Globally, it’s not the first time festival attendees have been heavily surveilled at a music festival, usually without their prior knowledge. After the Boston Marathon bombing of April 2013, the subsequent Boston Calling festival was subject to heavy but discreet forms of facial recognition surveillance (as covered here by Noisey US).

Congress Did Not Pass An Anti-Surveillance Law

June 5, 2015 Kevin Gosztola, www.firedoglake.com Educate! NSA, Privacy, Surveillance, Wars and Militarism

By Kevin Gosztola in Firedoglake - When President Barack Obama signed the USA Freedom Act, it did not end bulk data collection or mass surveillance programs. It did not address many of the policies, practices or programs of the NSA, which NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed. It did not sharply limit surveillance nor was it an anti-surveillance law. The USA Freedom Act renewed Patriot Act provisions, which had sunset days ago. However, it is difficult to disagree with Snowden’s generally optimistic assessment. During an Amnesty International UK event, as the Senate was about to pass the law, Snowden declared, “For the first time in forty years of US history, since the intelligence community was reformed in the ’70s, we found that facts have become more persuasive than fear.”

Oakland Adopts A Privacy Policy To Prevent Law Enforcement Abuse

June 4, 2015 Occupy Oakland, www.occupyoakland.org Create! Oakland, police brutality, Privacy

By Occupy Oakland - Almost two years after the Domain Awareness Center first crept onto the radar of Bay Area activists… it will be allowed to power up. Two years past it was a system spec’ed to spy over all of Oakland, incorporating traffic cameras, Shotspotter, school cameras, license plate readers and social media, with no controls on information sharing with other agencies like the FBI or ICE. Now, it is a system confined to take input from the Port of Oakland (at least without Council approval of further expansion). It may not use new technologies such as facial recognition without Council approval, it may not transfer data to other agencies without Council approval, and its use, at least conceptually, is restricted by the newly enacted Privacy Policy the City Council passed at 3:00 AM on June 3rd, 2015.

USA Freedom Act Passes: Celebrate, Mourn, & Moving Forward

June 3, 2015 Cindy Cohn and Mark Jaycox, www.eff.org Resist! Internet, Law, Privacy, Reform, Surveillance

By Cindy Cohn and Mark Jaycox from EFF - The Senate passed the USA Freedom Act today by 67-32, marking the first time in over thirty years that both houses of Congress have approved a bill placing real restrictions and oversighton the National Security Agency’s surveillance powers. The weakening amendments to the legislation proposed by NSA defender Senate Majority Mitch McConnell were defeated, and we have every reason to believe that President Obama will sign USA Freedom into law. Technology users everywhere should celebrate, knowing that the NSA will be a little more hampered in its surveillance overreach, and both the NSA and the FISA court will be more transparent and accountable than it was before the USA Freedom Act.

Ellsberg Urges Snowden Receive Nobel Peace Prize

June 3, 2015 Ewen MacAskill, Dan Roberts, and Ben Jacobs, www.theguardian.com Resist! Law, Privacy, Surveillance

By Ewen MacAskill, Dan Roberts, and Ben Jacobs in the Guardian - NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden should be thanked for sparking the debate that forced Congress to change US surveillance law, Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers, said Monday. Other prominent US whistleblowers also gave Snowden credit and argued that the curbs in the NSA’s surveillance powers by Congress – combined with a federal court ruling last month that bulk phone record collection is illegal – should open the way for him to be allowed to return to the US, although they conceded this was unlikely. Ellsberg, the former US military analyst who risked jail in 1971 by leaking Pentagon papers showing the White House lied about the Vietnam war, welcomed the concessions made by the Senate, limited as they are.

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