Tag Archives: EFF

Taiwanese Fight Back Against Internet Censorship and Win!

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Great update here from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), of the outcome from government attempts to censor the internet in Taiwan in a similar manner to what was proposed in the U.S. with SOPA/PIPA. Just goes to show that we can stop these authoritarians if we stand up for ourselves.  From the EFF:  

Taiwan’s intellectual property office proposed a new Internet blacklist law that would have targeted websites for their alleged use in copyright infringement. The initiative would have forced Internet Service Providers to block a list of domains or IP addresses connected to websites and services found to enable “illegal” file sharing. In the face of massive online opposition and a planned Internet blackout, the IP office has now backed down and abandoned support for the law.

Taiwanese users were going to stage an Internet black out on Tuesday June 4th. Several websites, including Wikipedia Taiwan and Mozilla Taiwan pledged to go dark in order to raise awareness. At the time this was written, more than 45,000 people had shown their commitment to protest the bill.

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Google Finally Sheds Some Light on National Security Letters (NSLs)

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For those that aren’t aware, National Security Letters (NSLs) are these shady Orwellian instruments used by the FBI to spy on citizens without a warrant.  The really creepy part about them is that you aren’t permitted to know if there is one out on you.  It’s all one giant secret, you know, to get those terrorists.  Well, Google has finally come out and given us some color on NSLs.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) gives us the scoop: 

Of all the dangerous government surveillance powers that were expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act, the National Security Letter (NSL) power provided by five statutory provisions is one of the most frightening and invasive. These letters–the type served on communications service providers such as phone companies and ISPs and are authorized by 18 U.S.C. 2709–allow the FBI to secretly demand data about ordinary American citizens’ private communications and Internet activity without any prior judicial review. To make matters worse, recipients of NSLs are subject to gag orders that forbid them from ever revealing the letters’ existence to anyone.

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Stop CISPA: The Internet Spying Bill is Back in Congress

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If at first you don’t succeed in implementing total state surveillance on your citizenry, try and try again.  These guys are just unbelievable.  From the EFF:

It’s official: The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act was reintroduced in the House of Representatives yesterday. CISPA is the contentious bill civil liberties advocates fought last year, which would provide a poorly-defined “cybersecurity” exception to existing privacy law. CISPA offers broad immunities to companies who choose to share data with government agencies (including the private communications of users) in the name of cybersecurity. It also creates avenues for companies to share data with any federal agencies, including military intelligence agencies like the National Security Agency (NSA).

As others have noted, “CISPA is deeply flawed. Under a broad cybersecurity umbrella, it permits companies to share user communications directly with the super secret NSA and permits the NSA to use that information for non-cybersecurity reasons. This risks turning the cybersecurity program into a back door intelligence surveillance program run by a military entity with little transparency or public accountability.”

The EFF sums up its most pressing concerns in the following bullet points:

1) Companies have new rights to monitor user actions and share data—including potentially sensitive user data—with the government without a warrant.

2) CISPA overrides existing privacy law, and grants broad immunities to participating companies.

3) CISPA also raises major transparency and accountability issues.

4) Users probably won’t know if their private data is compromised under CISPA, and will have little recourse.

In honor of Aaron Swartz, let’s please stop CISPA.

For more detail on the above concerns click here.

In Liberty,
Mike

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Meet Stingray Surveillance: The “Unconstitutional, All-You-Can-Eat Data Buffet”

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It’s getting impossible to keep track of all the new spy tools being rolled out by the police state in the name of “fighting terrorism”, aka spying on innocent American citizens unconstitutionally.  I thought that I had my hands full the other day with ARGUS: The World’s Highest Resolution Video Surveillance Platform, but this “Stingray” system is already being deployed illegally in cities throughout the United States.  As the EFF states: “The Stingray is the digital equivalent of the pre-revolutionary British soldier.”  From the EFF:

The device, which acts as a fake cell phone tower, essentially allows the government to electronically search large areas for a particular cell phone’s signal—sucking down data on potentially thousands of innocent people along the way. At the same time, law enforcement has attempted use them while avoiding many of the traditional limitations set forth in the Constitution, like individualized warrants. This is why we called the tool “an unconstitutional, all-you-can-eat data buffet.”

Recently, LA Weekly reported the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) got a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant in 2006 to buy a stingray. The original grant request said it would be used for “regional terrorism investigations.” Instead LAPD has been using it for just about any investigation imaginable.

Of course, we’ve seen this pattern over and over and over. The government uses “terrorism” as a catalyst to gain some powerful new surveillance tool or ability, and then turns around and uses it on ordinary citizens, severely infringing on their civil liberties in the process.

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An Open Letter to Skype

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I’ve known about security concerns related to Skype for quite some time, but I never really understood the details.  Thanks to this letter, signed by a large number of organizations and individuals, I now know quite a bit more.  For those as ignorant as me on this topic, here is some background:

In June 2008, Skype stated it could not eavesdrop on user conversations due to its peer-to-peer architecture and encryption techniques. Additionally, Skype claimed it was not required to comply with expanded CALEA rules on lawful interception as long as it was based in Europe. As a result of the service being acquired by Microsoft in 2011, it may now be required to comply with CALEA due to the company being headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Furthermore, as a US-based communication provider, Skype would therefore be required to comply with the secretive practice of National Security Letters.

Since Skype was acquired by Microsoft, both entities have refused to answer questions about exactly what kinds of user data can be intercepted, what user data is retained, or whether eavesdropping on Skype conversations may take place.  In 2012, the FBI stated that it had issued a warrant for chats going back to 2007, and that it had utilized those chats as evidence as the basis for criminal charges. This contradicts Skype’s own policy stating that chats are retained for a maximum of 30 days.

The letter begins as follows:

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Google Transparency Report: Government Surveillance Requests Up 33% in 2012

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Don’t worry I’m sure the increase is certainly related to finding Al Qaeda in the U.S., as opposed to targeting domestic civil rights activists.  I wonder how many of these requests were related to Aaron Swartz, the computer genius that federal prosecutors drove to suicide because they were still bitter about the role played in destroying SOPA.  Or are the requests aimed at “far right” extremists, folks that can be identified according to West Point by their defense of “civil activism, individual freedoms and self-government.”

Once again, the EFF deserves our highest praise for bringing this info to us.  From the EFF:

This morning, Google released their semi-annual transparency report, and once again, it revealed a troubling trend: Internet surveillance around the world continues to rise, with the United States leading the way in demands for user data.

Google received over 21,000 requests for data on over 33,000 users in the last six months from governments around the world, a 70% increase since Google started releasing numbers in 2010. The United States accounted for almost 40% the total requests (8,438) and the number of users (14,791). The total numbers in the US for 2012 amounted to a 33% increase from 2011. And while Google only complied with two-thirds of the total requests globally, they complied with 88% of the requests in the United States.

And the most troubling part?

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In San Francisco, the DA Wants to Looks Through Your Twitter

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This article is a prime example of what law enforcement and intelligence agencies will do to you if they think they can get away with it.  This is precisely why we need to hold their feet to the fire every step of the way and defend the Bill of Rights at all costs.  The more you look under the surface, the more it becomes clear that our government considers anyone that protests the oligarchy to be their enemy.  This was made clear when we discovered that The FBI Classifies Peaceful American Protestors as “Terrorists.”

From the always excellent EFF:

Last month the San Francisco District Attorney’s office went on a fishing expedition.  After EFF and ACLU got involved, the DA wisely cut bait.

The fishing expedition cut short by the DA last week consisted of a pair of subpoenas issued to Twitter, seeking tweets, photos, and a trove of other information related to the accounts of two activists, Robert Donohoe and Lauren Smith, whom the SF DA has charged with a number of offenses stemming from a Columbus Day anti-capitalist protest.

Not only did the subpoenas to Twitter violate federal law (the Stored Communications Act makes clear that the government cannot use a subpoena to gain access to the content of communications), but they violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution as well.  Government surveillance of what we say—even in public—has a chilling effect on speech.  That is why courts have held that any effort to compel the disclosure of a person’s communications or associations must be narrowly tailored.

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Drones in America? They are Already Here…

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is one of the most important organizations we have in America today.  While most of the country lays fast asleep to the dangers of the encroaching surveillance state, the EFF is always vigilantly at work on the front lines.  In their latest article, they show that military drones are already flying all over these United States and, using information received from a FOIA lawsuit they provide important details on what is flying and where.  You may be shocked at some of their conclusions.  From the EFF:

These records, received as a result of EFF’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), come from state and local law enforcement agencies, universities and—for the first time—three branches of the U.S. military: the Air Force, Marine Corps, and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

The records show that the Air Force has been testing out a bunch of different drone types, from the smaller, hand-launched Raven, Puma and Wasp drones designed by Aerovironment in Southern California, to the much larger Predator and Reaper drones responsible for civilian and foreign military deaths abroad. The Marine Corps is also testing drones, though it chose to redact so much of the text from its records that we still don’t know much about its programs.

Perhaps the scariest is the technology carried by a Reaper drone the Air Force is flying near Lincoln, Nevada and in areas of California and Utah. This drone uses “Gorgon Stare” technology, which Wikipedia defines as “a spherical array of nine cameras attached to an aerial drone . . . capable of capturing motion imagery of an entire city.” This imagery “can then be analyzed by humans or an artificial intelligence, such as the Mind’s Eye project” being developed by DARPA. If true, this technology takes surveillance to a whole new level.

While LIDAR can be used to create high-resolution images of the earth’s surface, it is also used in high tech police speed guns—begging the question of whether drones will soon be used for minor traffic violations.

However, once again, the records do not show that the FAA had any concerns about drone flights’ impact on privacy and civil liberties. This is especially problematic when drone programs like Otter Tail’s appear on first glance to be benign but later turn out to support the same problematic law enforcement uses that EFF has been increasingly concerned about.

It’s been over a year and a half since we first filed our FOIA request with the FAA, and we’re still waiting for more than half of the agency’s drone records. This is unacceptable.

Like with any new technology, drones can be put to good use or to evil use.  Just like nuclear power can harness energy or destroy humanity altogether, drones could do a lot of good, but the problem is that the government is clearly moving more and more towards a surveillance state so we must be extra careful.  Stay vigilant.

Full article here.

In Liberty,
Mike

The FBI is “Going Dark” in its New Spy Program

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Well, well isn’t this article from CNET just lovely!  Apparently every agency in our government is competing to be the America Stasi.

The information collection is part of the FBI’s controversial effort, known internally as “Going Dark,” aimed in part at convincing Congress to rewrite federal wiretapping law to require Internet companies including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo to build in back doors for government surveillance. CNET reported in May that the FBI has asked tech companies not to oppose the plan.

The Homeland Security report, made public this afternoon, was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is enmeshed in a lawsuit against the FBI after many of the documents it requested were withheld. CNET reported last week that a federal judge ruled that the government did not adequately respond to EFF’s request.

In an unusual twist, Homeland Security provided the partially redacted report (PDF) to the EFF under open government laws — but then turned around and demanded the document’s return, which the EFF refused to do.

A spokesman for the FBI declined to comment on the documents.

In other news, most Americans are more concerned about what Justin Bieber ate for dinner last night.

Full CNET article here.

In Liberty,
Mike

Sandy Didn’t Shut Down the Supreme Court: Two Very Important Cases to Know About

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While much of the Northeastern United States remains in a state of virtual paralysis, the Supreme Court has stayed open, and two very important cases went before it yesterday.  Americans should be well aware of both of them.  The first revolves around warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens.  The second has to do with whether or not you can resell stuff that you own without the permission of the corporation that originally manufactured it.  The most pathetic part of both of these cases is that they are legitimate cases to begin with, but in post 9/11 America, where the sheeple have been forced to give up their rights in order to save their rights, I suppose nothing should surprise me.

The New York Times published an excellent editorial yesterday on the first case.  Here are some excerpts:

President Obama’s solicitor general, Donald Verrilli Jr., will be calling on the court to toss out the case based on a particularly cynical Catch-22: Because the wiretaps are secret and no one can say for certain that their calls have been or will be monitored, no one has standing to bring suit over the surveillance.

The measure (the 2008 amendment to FISA ) gave the government broad and unprecedented power to intercept the communications of Americans without individualized warrants based on probable cause or any administrative finding of a terrorism connection. It lowered the burden of proof for government wiretapping of suspects, weakened judicial supervision, and failed to set adequate limits on retention and dissemination of acquired information. The statute discarded traditional constitutional protections for the privacy of innocent people, and chilled the exercise of the core democratic rights of free speech and association.

Think about what you just read above.  The Department of Justice claims that Americans cannot sue regarding warrantless wiretapping because they cannot prove they are being monitored.  They cannot prove they are being monitored because the information is kept secret!

For some commentary on the second case, I look to the EFF (the electronic frontier foundation):

The Supreme Court today heard oral arguments in Kirtsaeng v. Wiley & Sons Company, a case that could further undermine the “first sale doctrine.” First sale, described in section 109 of the US Copyright Act, gives people the right to resell, lend, or give away the works that they’ve bought, even if those works contain copyrighted elements.

The effects of such a dubious interpretation could be far-reaching for American consumers, and it appears several Supreme Court Justices were appropriately concerned about the implications of Wiley’s proposed geographic limit on first sale. Of course, it’s unwise to predict how the Court will decide a case based solely on comments during the oral arguments, but they can provide insight into what factors the Justices are considering. Today the Court mirrored our concerns about the right of Americans to resell the goods that they’ve legally acquired — from books to smartphones to cars — just because those goods happen to contain copyrighted materials and were manufactured overseas.

The Court also appropriately persisted in asking questions about the perverse incentive that Wiley’s interpretation would provide to manufacturers in moving their production overseas.

Let’s make sure these cases go the right way.

Full New York Times article here.

Full EFF article here.

In Liberty,
Mike