Rachel Levinson-Waldman writes: After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the government’s authority to collect, keep, and share information about Americans with little or no basis to suspect wrongdoing dramatically expanded. While the risks and benefits of this approach are the subject of intense debate, one thing is certain: it results in the accumulation of…
Category: Govt
How Snowden’s email provider will reshape the Internet privacy debate
Evan Hill reports: Ladar Levison, creator of the ultrasecure email service Lavabit, is an imperfect civil-liberties hero. He is not opposed to working with the government, and he set out to write code, not become an activist. But after being thrust into the public eye as email provider to former National Security Agency contractor and…
DOJ seeks dismissal of Jill Kelley’s lawsuit, claiming Kelley can’t prove records were covered by Privacy Act
Josh Crank reports: The Florida socialite whose FBI complaint led to the resignation of Gen. David Petraeus is suing the government for allegedly leaking her private emails to the press and tarnishing her reputation. But the Department of Justice is demanding that the suit be tossed on a technicality. […] Kelley’s lawsuit is based in…
Lavabit Files Opening Brief in Landmark Privacy Case
Kevin Poulsen reports: Secure e-mail provider Lavabit just filed the opening brief in its appeal of a court order demanding it turn over the private SSL keys that protected all web traffic to the site. The government proposed to examine and copy Lavabit’s most sensitive, closely guarded records–its private keys–despite the fact that those keys…