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Report on the Telephone Records Program Conducted under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and on the Operations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. January 23, 2014. “The PCLOB is an independent bipartisan agency within the executive branch established by the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007.6 The Board is comprised of …
“Today Verizon released its first transparency report, which detailed the number of government demands it received in 2013 for disclosure of customer data. The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) welcomes Verizon’s report and believes it should set a precedent for greater transparency in the industry. CDT released the following statement in response to the report: …
“EPIC has filed a Statement of the Issue Presented with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. EPIC is appealing a lower court decision that NSPD 54 — a Presidential Directive setting out the scope of the NSA’s authority over computer networks in the United States — is not subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. EPIC sought …
“A strong password is an important protection to help you have safer online transactions. Here are some steps to create a strong password. Consider using some or all to help protect yourself online: Length. Make your passwords at least eight (8) long. Complexity. Include a combination of at least three (3) upper and/or lowercase letters, punctuation, symbols, and …
News release: “Far more needs to be done to restore the faith of the American people and repair the damage done globally to the U.S. reputation as a defender of human rights on the Internet. We certainly welcome judicial review of metadata queries, the support for more transparency about surveillance, a voice for civil liberties …
Telework Obstacles and Opportunities, Prepared by: Kate Lister & Tom Harnish, CITRIX, August 2013. “Over the last several years telework has driven virtual collaboration and teleconferences which have replaced costly business travel, caused desk assignments to vanish and be replaced with “hoteling” policies, and at-home offices to replace time-consuming commutes. But, when it comes to Federal agencies, many …
Via Ashkan Soltani: “The Yale Law Journal Online (YLJO) just published an article that Ashkan Soltani co-authored with Kevin Bankston (first workshopped at the Privacy Law Scholars Conference last year) entitled Tiny Constables and the Cost of Surveillance: Making Cents Out of United States v. Jones. In it, we discuss the drastic reduction in the cost of tracking an individual’s location and show how technology has greatly …
“A data breach has exposed the usernames and partial phone numbers of 4.6 million users of Snapchat, a popular photo- and video-sharing app. The breach was accomplished by exploiting a flaw that was previously brought to company’s attention by security researchers. Last year, EPIC filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission regarding Snapchat’s deceptive claim that photos would “disappear forever” …
Foreign Policy – THE LEADING GLOBAL THINKERS OF 2013 THE SURVEILLANCE STATE DECISION-MAKERS CHALLENGERS NATURALS INNOVATORS ADVOCATES CHRONICLERS HEALERS ARTISTS MOGULS
“The NSA’s TAO hacking unit is considered to be the intelligence agency’s top secret weapon. It maintains its own covert network, infiltrates computers around the world and even intercepts shipping deliveries to plant back doors in electronics ordered by those it is targeting.” [TAO – Tailored Access Operations] “TAO specialists have directly accessed the protected networks …
ACLU: “A federal court issued an opinion and order in ACLU v. Clapper [American Civil Liberties Union v. Clapper, 13-cv-03994, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan)], the ACLU’s challenge to the constitutionality of the NSA’s mass call-tracking program, ruling that the government’s bulk collection of phone records is lawful under Section 215 of the Patriot Act and under …
by Jonathan Mayer, a grad student at Stanford – Co-authored with Patrick Mutchler – via the Web Policy Blog “MetaPhone is a crowdsourced study of phone metadata. If you own an Android smartphone, please consider participating. In earlier posts, we reported how automated analysis of call and text activity can reveal private relationships, as well as how phone subscribers are closely …
