Peter Wallsten reports: The Obama administration points to checks and balances from Congress as a key rationale for supporting bulk collection of Americans’ telephone communications data, but several lawmakers responsible for overseeing the program in recent years say that they felt limited in their ability to challenge its scope and legality. Read more on Washington…
Category: Govt
Jennifer Hoelzer’s Insider’s View Of The Administration’s Response To NSA Surveillance Leaks
Former Deputy Chief of Staff for Senator Ron Wyden, Jennifer Hoelzer, has a post on TechDirt that makes clear how, despite his rhetoric yesterday, the administration and members of Congress did everything they could to actually stifle meaningful debate about NSA programs. Hoelzer raises some excellent points about why it is hard for Americans to…
LavaBit suspends operations over government demands concerning Snowden’s reported use of their service? (updated)
While he was in the airport, Edward Snowden reportedly sent invites to people to his press conference via LavaBit. Whether he ever used LavaBit before that time is unknown, but now LavaBit is suspending operations. The following notice now appears on their home page (h/t, BoingBoing): I have been forced to make a difficult decision:…
NYPD Agrees to Purge Stop-Frisk Databank
John Caher reports: The Bloomberg administration has agreed under a settlement announced on Wednesday to purge a New York City Police Department database containing personal information on individuals who were stopped by authorities, and also agreed to pay $10,000 to the lead plaintiff in a putative class action. Under the terms of the settlement, the city…