Surveillance & Technology

NSA Inspector General Facing Termination For Whistleblower Retaliation…

“This is a man, who runs an office that is supposed to protect whistleblowers, yet he described them as manic thieves and other such terminology and was quite hostile and intimidating”…

December 20, 2016 at 12:45 pm

FacebookTwitterGoogle Sued by Orlando Shooting Victims Families…

Facebook, Google and Twitter are being sued by the families of three victims slain in the mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub for allegedly providing “material support” to the Islamic State. The lawsuit is the latest to target popular Internet services for making it too easy for the Islamic State to spread its message…

December 20, 2016 at 11:56 am

Federal Agencies Can Spy on Phones with 400 Cell-Site Simulators…

The Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department have spent collectively more than $95 million on secret cellphone tracking technology and own more than 400 cell-site simulators that can be used to zero in covertly on the locations of cellphones…

December 20, 2016 at 11:56 am

Ray McGovern on the CIA Led-Media Blitz & McCarthy-Type Fake News Lists (AUDIO)…

The late Michael Ratner’s colleague attorneys who host the radio talk show Law and Disorder, Heidi Boghosian and Michael Steven Smith, interview Ray Dec. 14 regarding the CIA-led media blitz in Washington…

December 16, 2016 at 3:45 pm

Kentucky and West Virginia Confirm Suspected Cyberattacks Sourced to Dept of Homeland Security…

The two states reporting the suspected cyberattacks were West Virginia and Kentucky. “We need somebody to dig down into this story and figure out exactly what happened,” said Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp…

December 16, 2016 at 3:20 pm

The Five Guiding Principles for Facebook’s ‘Fake News Censorship’ Project…

The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) drafted a code of five principles for news websites to accept, and Facebook yesterday announced it will work with “third-party fact checking organizations” that are signatories to the code of principles…

December 16, 2016 at 2:05 pm

‘Furious’ German Spies Frozen Out by UK Intelligence after ‘Leaking to WikiLeaks’…

British spies are refusing to share secret information with their German counterparts because they believe Berlin’s leaky data servers have provided rich pickings for WikiLeaks. Politicians in Berlin are said to be furious about the intelligence blockade, which has seen German spy agency BND cut off from US and British secret data…

December 15, 2016 at 4:15 pm

Trump Tells Tech Leaders ‘There’s nobody like you in the world’…

Ringed by tech’s elite, President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday promised to do “anything we can do” to help the industry he often baited during the presidential campaign. “This is truly an amazing group of people,” Trump said at Trump Tower to kick off a meeting with Silicon Valley’s top leaders. “I want to add that […]

December 15, 2016 at 3:48 pm

Former Disney IT Workers’ File Lawsuit Based on Discrimination in Favor of Foreign Workers…

Former IT workers at Disney have filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming that American workers are being discriminated against in favour of hiring H-1B visa workers from overseas…

December 14, 2016 at 5:31 pm

150 Filmmakers Ask Nikon and Canon to Sell Encrypted Cameras…

In the summer of 2013, when documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras was shooting a still-secret NSA leaker named Edward Snowden in a Hong Kong hotel room, she took security seriously. She’d periodically transfer her footage to encrypted hard drives, and would later go so far as to destroy the SD cards onto which her camera recorded…

December 14, 2016 at 5:30 pm

Three Years Later Yahoo! Account Subscribers Learn More Than One-Billion Accounts Were Hacked…

Yahoo! says it believes hackers stole data from more than one billion user accounts in August 2013. The Sunnyvale, California, company says it’s a different breach from the one it disclosed in September, when it said 500 million accounts were exposed…

December 13, 2016 at 4:16 pm

They Have, Right Now, Another You…

A few months ago The Washington Post reported that Facebook collects ninety-eight data points on each of its nearly two billion users. Among this ninety-eight are ethnicity, income, net worth, home value, if you are a mom, if you are a soccer mom, if you are married, the number of lines of credit you have, […]

December 13, 2016 at 4:16 pm

Google Publishes Eight Secret FBI Requests…

Google revealed in October it had been freed from a gag order preventing it from talking about a secret FBI request for customer data made in 2015. The internet search company chose at the time not to publish the actual subpoena, but it is now releasing redacted versions of that letter and seven others…

December 13, 2016 at 1:24 pm

Net Neutrality Debate Takes Center Stage Ahead of Trump Presidency…

One day it could cost you more money to watch a YouTube video than to check your email. That’s what could happen if the United States ends net neutrality. Proponents of net neutrality — which prevents internet providers from blocking content, intentionally slowing load times for certain websites or…

December 12, 2016 at 6:41 pm

Florida Court Denies Protection for iPhone Passcode…

A man suspected of voyeurism can be compelled to tell police his four-digit iPhone passcode so they can search it for incriminating photos, a Florida appeals court ruled. Aaron Stahl was arrested after a woman who was shopping in a store saw him crouch down and extend an illuminated cellphone under her skirt…

December 12, 2016 at 5:22 pm

The U.S. Is Going to Get It’s Very Own ‘Ministry of Truth’…Senate Quietly Passes the “Countering Disinformation And Propaganda Act”…

Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act has passed the Senate as part of the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Conference Report. The bill will establish “an interagency center housed at the State Department to coordinate and synchronize counter-propaganda efforts throughout the U.S. government.”

December 12, 2016 at 4:59 pm