Nick DiVito reports: The federal government wants more time to defend its massive domestic surveillance program against the ACLU’s claims that it is an unconstitutional “dragnet” on the phone records of every American. A brief opposing the ACLU’s demands for a preliminary injunction was due Thursday, but the government said in a letter that night to U.S….
Category: Govt
After NSA Court Hearing, Government Must Unseal Documents by December 20
Mark Jaycox writes a welcome government transparency smackdown by the courts: A federal judge ordered the government to unseal more documents concerning the NSA spying programs by December 20, 2013. The judge issued the ruling in EFF’s lawsuit, Jewel v. NSA, which began in 2008 over the NSA spying program initiated by the Bush Administration, which…
FBI Drones Flew Since 2006, Audit Says
Adam Klasfeld reports: The FBI has been deploying unmanned aircraft for domestic surveillance for seven years, though the agency first acknowledged their use in July, the Justice Department’s inspector general reported Thursday. FBI Director Robert Mueller revealed the program’s existence during congressional testimony. The inspector general’s first audit of the program reveals that it did…
Close ties between White House, NSA spying review
Related to the previous post about Raul’s OpEd and whether anyone the government appoints could be trusted to be a genuine privacy advocate, consider this news story by Stephen Braun of the Associated Press last week: Stung by public unease about new details of spying by the National Security Agency, President Barack Obama selected a…