A program that allows drug agents to obtain a pool of billions of call records from AT&T is “still active,” according to a watchdog report. The report, published Thursday by the Justice Department inspector general, confirmed the program — named in the report only as Project C — continues to provide access to “billions” of […]
View More DEA says AT&T still provides access to billions of phone recordsCategory: Edward Snowden
Cloudflare expands its government warrant canaries
When the government comes for your data, tech companies can’t always tell you. But thanks to a legal loophole, companies can say if they haven’t had a visit yet That’s opened up an interesting clause that allows companies to silently warn customers when the government turns up to secretly raid its stash of customer data […]
View More Cloudflare expands its government warrant canariesHuawei: “The US security accusation of our 5G has no evidence. Nothing.”
Huawei’s rotating chairman Guo Ping kicked off a keynote speech this morning at the world’s biggest mobile industry tradeshow with a wry joke. “There has never been more interest in Huawei,” he told delegates at Mobile World Congress. “We must be doing something right!” The Chinese company is seeking to dispel suspicion around the security […]
View More Huawei: “The US security accusation of our 5G has no evidence. Nothing.”Europe’s highest human rights court to hear challenge to UK’s bulk surveillance regime
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has agreed to hear a legal challenge to the use of bulk data collection surveillance powers by UK intelligence agencies. Last September a lower chamber of the ECHR ruled that UK surveillance practices violated human rights law but did not find bulk collection itself […]
View More Europe’s highest human rights court to hear challenge to UK’s bulk surveillance regimeTor pulls in record donations as it lessens reliance on US government grants
Tor, the open source initiative which provides a more secure way to access the internet, is continuing to diversify its funding away from its long-standing reliance on U.S. government grants. The Tor Foundation — the organization behind the service which stands for ‘The Onion Router’ — announced this week that it brought in a record […]
View More Tor pulls in record donations as it lessens reliance on US government grantsEurope issues a deadline for US’ Privacy Shield compliance
The European Commission has finally given the U.S. a deadline related to the much criticized data transfer mechanism known as the EU-US Privacy Shield . But it’s only asking for the U.S. to nominate a permanent ombudsperson — to handle any EU citizens’ complaints — by February 28, 2019. If a permanent ombudsperson is not […]
View More Europe issues a deadline for US’ Privacy Shield complianceIn a court filing, Edward Snowden says a report critical to an NSA lawsuit is authentic
An unexpected declaration by whistleblower Edward Snowden filed in court this week adds a new twist in a long-running lawsuit against the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. The case, filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation a decade ago, seeks to challenge the government’s alleged illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of Americans, who are largely covered under […]
View More In a court filing, Edward Snowden says a report critical to an NSA lawsuit is authenticKhashoggi’s fate shows the flip side of the surveillance state
It’s been over five years since NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden lifted the lid on government mass surveillance programs, revealing, in unprecedented detail, quite how deep the rabbit hole goes thanks to the spread of commercial software and connectivity enabling a bottomless intelligence-gathering philosophy of ‘bag it all’. Yet technology’s onward march has hardly broken its stride. […]
View More Khashoggi’s fate shows the flip side of the surveillance stateUK’s mass surveillance regime violated human rights law, finds ECHR
In another blow to the UK government’s record on bulk data handling for intelligence purposes the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that state surveillance practices violated human rights law. Arguments against the UK intelligence agencies’ bulk collection and data sharing practices were heard by the court in November last year. In today’s […]
View More UK’s mass surveillance regime violated human rights law, finds ECHR‘Five Eyes’ governments call on tech giants to build encryption backdoors — or else
A pact of five nation states dedicated to a global “collect it all” surveillance mission has issued a memo calling on their governments to demand tech companies build backdoor access to their users’ encrypted data — or face measures to force companies to comply. The international pact — the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New […]
View More ‘Five Eyes’ governments call on tech giants to build encryption backdoors — or elsePrivacy groups ask senators to confirm US surveillance oversight nominees
A coalition of privacy groups are calling on lawmakers to fill the vacant positions on the government’s surveillance oversight board, which hasn’t fully functioned in almost two years. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, known as PCLOB, is a little-known but important group that helps to ensure that intelligence agencies and executive branch policies […]
View More Privacy groups ask senators to confirm US surveillance oversight nomineesFacebook gets leave to appeal to Ireland’s Supreme Court after failing to block data transfer referral to CJEU
Facebook has been given the go ahead to appeal to Ireland’s Supreme Court against an earlier High Court decision to refer key questions relating to the validity of EU-US data flows to Europe’s top court, the Irish Times reports. The eventual outcome of what is already years of legal to-ing and fro-ing — in a […]
View More Facebook gets leave to appeal to Ireland’s Supreme Court after failing to block data transfer referral to CJEU