Facebook scolded the Drug Enforcement Administration this week after learning that a narcotics agent had impersonated a user named Sondra Arquiett on the social network in order to communicate and gather intelligence on suspects. In a strongly worded letter to… Read More ›
Archive for October 2014
Two Reports About FBI’s Use of National Security Letters Reissued
Even the reports that are supposed to provide transparency about the FBI’s use of national security lettters (NSLs) are secret—or at least a couple dozen pages of them are. NSLs are nonjudicial orders that allow the FBI to obtain information… Read More ›
Automated Mass Surveillance is Unconstitutional, EFF Explains in Jewel v. NSA
Today EFF filed our latest brief in Jewel v. NSA, our longstanding case on behalf of AT&T customers aimed at ending the NSA’s dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans’ communications. The brief specifically argues that the Fourth Amendment is… Read More ›
Frustrated CIA Blames Torture Report Delays on Senators Who Want It To Be Intelligible
The CIA today hotly denied that it is intentionally holding up the release of a Senate report on its role in torturing detainees, charging instead that Senator Dianne Feinstein’s intelligence committee is responsible for dragging out the negotiations. “The suggestion… Read More ›
All the NSA Will Say About Its Alarmingly Entrepreneurial Top Spy Is That She’s Resigning
Teresa O’Shea used to be the National Security Agency’s director of signals intelligence, plus the wife of an executive in the business of selling things to agencies like hers, plus the host of a home-based signals intelligence business, plus the… Read More ›
European Privacy in the Age of Snowden: We Need a Debate About What Intelligence Agencies Are Doing
As the movie “Citizenfour” about National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden opens in theaters in the United States, we look at the impact his leaks have had on the debate over online privacy in Europe. The Austrian newspaper Der Standard… Read More ›
Former Weapons Inspector in Iraq Questions Claims that Iran Hiding Nuclear Tests
We are broadcasting from Vienna, where the six world powers leading nuclear negotiations with Iran have set a November deadline to reach a deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for easing Western sanctions. Earlier this month, a report… Read More ›
Obama Promised a “World Without Nuclear Weapons,” But May Now Spend $1 Trillion on Upgrades
We are on the road in the historic city of Vienna, Austria, not far from the Czech Republic where President Obama gave a major address in 2009 that called for a nuclear-free world. His disarmament efforts were cited when he… Read More ›
Headlines for October 24, 2014
New York City, Mali Report First Cases of Ebola African Union Pledges 1,600 New Health Workers for Ebola Canada to Expand Surveillance, Detention Powers After Shooting U.S. “Coordinating Very Closely” with Canada After Attacks ISIS Claims Iraqi Village; Offensive by… Read More ›
UN Report Finds Mass Surveillance Violates International Treaties and Privacy Rights
The United Nations’ top official for counter-terrorism and human rights (known as the “Special Rapporteur”) issued a formal report to the U.N. General Assembly today that condemns mass electronic surveillance as a clear violation of core privacy rights guaranteed by… Read More ›