David Kravets reports: Five years after Congress authorized warrantless electronic spying, the Obama administration has never divulged to a single defendant that they were the target of this type of phone or email surveillance — despite lawmakers’ claims the snooping has stopped terrorist plots and resulted in arrests. The reason federal prosecutors are keeping mum,…
Category: Govt
Challenge to NSA Surveillance Won’t Bend to Federal Shutdown
Courthouse News reports: The ongoing shutdown of the U.S. government cannot delay the lawsuit over the constitutionality of a secret surveillance program on Americans, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden had brought the alleged dragnet to light by leaking a secret court order showing that the NSA had forced Verizon…
What the Government Does with Americans’ Data
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…
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…