domestic surveillance

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NSA Official: Phone-Snooping Foiled a Lone Plot

Surveillance orders declassified

(Newser) - Skeptical senators from both parties yesterday quizzed top intelligence officials about the NSA's sweeping domestic call surveillance at a testy Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Ahead of the hearing, the Obama administration declassified and released documents outlining the rules for accessing information from the surveillance program and listing multiple violations...

Snowden Reveals NSA's 'Widest Reaching System'

X-Keyscore allows analysts to search 'nearly everything a typical user does on the Internet' without warrant

(Newser) - Edward Snowden dropped maybe his biggest bombshell yet today, by pulling back the curtain on the NSA's XKeyscore system, which the agency's training documents boast can collect "nearly everything a typical user does on the Internet." That includes everything from the contents of emails and Facebook...

Court: Feds Can Track Your Location Without a Warrant

But in another case, government says it must admit NSA spying to defendants

(Newser) - The federal government can grab GPS data indicating where you've been directly from your phone carrier without a warrant, the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday, saying that the practice was "not per se unconstitutional." Technically, that data is a "business record," meaning...

NSA Can Keep Snooping After Close House Vote

Amendment would have stopped the collection of phone records

(Newser) - The NSA can keep collecting the phone records of Americans, but the surveillance program just barely survived a bipartisan effort to rein it in, reports the Hill . An amendment by Michigan Republican Justin Amash would have prevented the agency from gathering data under the program revealed by Edward Snowden, but...

NSA Chief's Attitude: Forget Needle, Collect Haystack

WaPo profiles chief Keith Alexander, finds origins of strategy in Iraq

(Newser) - Those looking to track the origins of the NSA's sweeping surveillance programs would do well to check out a 2005 program in Iraq called the Real Time Regional Gateway. As the Washington Post explains, it was put into place by NSA chief Gen. Keith Alexander to collect data on...

NSA Spying Came About Thanks to One Word

America's 'secret supreme court' changed what 'relevant' means

(Newser) - The controversial spying programs that Edward Snowden has revealed can trace their existence to the FISA court's redefinition of one word: "relevant." The Patriot Act allows the FBI to demand records as long as they are believed to be "relevant to an authorized investigation." But...

France Spies On Its People, Too
 France Spies On Its People, Too 
Report
Jul 4, 2013 9:25 AM CDT

France Spies On Its People, Too

Newspaper alleges that DGSE keeps massive database of 'who is talking to whom'

(Newser) - Looks like America isn't the only country with a massive surveillance hobby . France is monitoring its people's phone calls, emails and social media activity as well, the Le Monde newspaper reported today, according to Reuters . France's external intelligence agency, the DGSE, intercepts signals from phones and computers...

4 CIA Agents Were in NYPD for Years After 9/11: Report

One was involved in domestic surveillance

(Newser) - Questions over the CIA's involvement with the NYPD, bound up with domestic surveillance concerns, have been a hot topic for years . A new report from the CIA inspector general is adding more fuel to that fire, saying four CIA officers were embedded in the police department for years following...

FBI Chief: We Use Surveillance Drones in US

But Robert Mueller insists the agency does so rarely

(Newser) - FBI chief Robert Mueller's testimony on Capitol Hill today is drawing headlines mostly for his acknowledgement that the agency uses drones for surveillance on US soil. Mueller, however, emphasized that the practice is rare, reports the Hill . "Our footprint is very small," he told senators. "We...

Google Fighting Gag Order on Surveillance Data

Company wants secret FISA court to let it disclose more details

(Newser) - Google is going to court to try to bring more transparency to the government's surveillance program—and maybe to beef up its public image on privacy along the way. The company will file a petition with the top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court demanding that it be allowed to provide...

Snowden: I&#39;m No Spy
 Snowden: I'm No Spy 
Q&A Session
Jun 17, 2013 11:53 AM CDT

Snowden: I'm No Spy

'I could be in China petting a Phoenix by now'

(Newser) - Edward Snowden held an online Q&A today over at the Guardian , to answer the public's burning questions about his NSA leaks. Here are some of the highlights that caught our eye:
  • Are you a Chinese spy ? "If I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I
...

NSA Chief: Surveillance Stopped 'Dozens' of Plots

Gen. Keith Alexander defends data mining

(Newser) - The head of the NSA told a Senate panel today that his agency's controversial surveillance had helped prevent "dozens of terrorist events," reports the Wall Street Journal . Gen. Keith Alexander said he couldn't go into specifics but was working to declassify some of the details. He...

As Snowden Vanishes, Russia Reaches Out to Him

NSA whistleblower drops out of sight in Hong Kong

(Newser) - Edward Snowden checked out of his hotel in Hong Kong yesterday and has essentially disappeared. And while he is believed to still be in the territory, Russia has suggested it might welcome the man who exposed the NSA's secret surveillance, the Wall Street Journal reports. If a request for...

David Simon of The Wire: Calm Down on Surveillance

This is a 'faux scandal' driven by people who don't have a clue

(Newser) - David Simon created The Wire and presumably knows a thing or two about surveillance. One thing he's sure of: All this noise about the feds snooping on Americans is a "faux scandal," he writes at his website . The column opens with a question: "Is it just...

Obama: 'Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls'

President defends the government's surveillance programs

(Newser) - President Obama tried to defuse the growing surveillance controversies during a speech in San Jose today, reiterating that anything the government does is limited in scope and necessary to keep the country safe, reports the Washington Post . (Pretty much the argument that the New York Times bashed him about.)...

NSA Accesses Servers of Internet Firms: Reports

Guardian, Washington Post have scoop: Feds tapping in via secret 'PRISM' program

(Newser) - Charges that we live in a surveillance state are about to get much louder. The Guardian and the Washington Post are separately reporting about a previously unknown program known as PRISM that gives the federal government access to the servers of all the big Internet companies, including Facebook, Google, Yahoo,...

New York Times: Obama Has 'Lost All Credibility'

Scathing editorial calls out White House over phone records

(Newser) - Well, the White House did say it welcomes debate about the revelation that the NSA was grabbing phone records of Verizon customers in the name of national security. Cue the New York Times , which posted a scathing editorial this afternoon declaring that "the administration has lost all credibility."...

NSA's Verizon Monitoring Has Gone on for 7 Years: Senators

It's 'nothing new,' and has been successful

(Newser) - The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee today downplayed the revelation that the NSA is collecting millions of phone records from Verizon, Politico and CNN report:
  • "As far as I know, this is the exact three-month renewal of what has been in place for the past seven years,"
...

NSA Is Seizing Millions of Verizon Phone Records

White House defends 'ongoing, daily' surveillance as a 'critical tool'

(Newser) - A new report in the Guardian suggests the Obama administration isn't so different from its predecessor when it comes to domestic phone surveillance: The National Security Agency has been gathering the phone records of millions of US Verizon users thanks to a secret court order . The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance...

We Don&#39;t Need More Security Cameras
 We Don't Need More 
 Security Cameras 
OPINION
Apr 22, 2013 1:34 PM CDT

We Don't Need More Security Cameras

Timothy Carney argues that more surveillance isn't the answer

(Newser) - In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, many are calling for more security cameras and surveillance, which is pretty predictable, because every terrorist attack has Americans scrambling to sacrifice civil liberties on the altar of public safety, observes Timothy Carney at the Washington Examiner . "But the story of...

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