Ellen Nakashima reports: After the Department of Homeland Security canceled a plan for broad law enforcement access to a national license-plate tracking system in February, officials established a policy that required similar plans be vetted by department privacy officers to ensure they do not violate Americans’ civil liberties. Two months later, however, officials with DHS’s Immigration and…
Category: Govt
FBI demands new powers to hack into computers and carry out surveillance
Ed Pilkington writes: The FBI is attempting to persuade an obscure regulatory body in Washington to change its rules of engagement in order to seize significant new powers to hack into and carry out surveillance of computers throughout the US and around the world. Civil liberties groups warn that the proposed rule change amounts to a power…
Report Reveals Wider Tracking of Mail in U.S.
Ron Nixon reports: In a rare public accounting of its mass surveillance program, the United States Postal Service reported that it approved nearly 50,000 requests last year from law enforcement agencies and its own internal inspection unit to secretly monitor the mail of Americans for use in criminal and national security investigations. The number of requests,…
Seattle Times ‘Outraged’ at FBI Using Its Name to Infect Computer
June Williams reports: The FBI used a fake Seattle Times article and Internet link to infect a high school bomb-threat suspect’s computer with spyware, an ACLU technologist said Monday. Documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation show the FBI made up a news story about the threats, used an AP byline and emailed a link…