Paul Lewis reports: Congress will hear testimony from critics of the National Security Agency’s surveillance practices for the first time since the whistleblower Edward Snowden’s explosive leaks were made public. Democrat congressman Alan Grayson, who is leading a bipartisan group of congressman organising the hearing, told the Guardian it would serve to counter the “constant…
Category: Govt
Six Ways Congress May Reform NSA Snooping
by Kara Brandeisky ProPublica, July 25, 2013, 4:39 p.m. Although the House defeated a measure that would have defunded the bulk phone metadata collection program, the narrow 205-217 vote showed that there is significant support in Congress to reform NSA surveillance programs. Here are six other legislative proposals on the table. 1) Raise the standard…
Is the Department of Homeland Security following you on Twitter?
Joe Cadillic sends along this information from Public Intelligence, who compiled a 5-page list of Twitter accounts followed by the Dept. of Homeland Security National Operations Center (@DHSNOCMMC1). They note that “in accordance with DHS Privacy direction, DHS NOC MMC follows only authorized accounts and never follows accounts of private individuals.” You can download the…
NSA Says It Can’t Search Its Own Emails
By Justin Elliott ProPublica, July 23, 2013, 12:39 p.m. The NSA is a “supercomputing powerhouse” with machines so powerful their speed is measured in thousands of trillions of operations per second. The agency turns its giant machine brains to the task of sifting through unimaginably large troves of data its surveillance programs capture. But ask…