Tom Hays reports: It’s billed by the FBI as “the lifeline of law enforcement” — a federal database used to catch criminals, recover stolen property and even identify terrorism suspects. But authorities say Edwin Vargas logged onto the restricted system and ran names for reasons that had nothing to do with his duties as a…
Category: Govt
Commentary: Don’t let the FBI wiretap your smartphone apps
John Backus, managing partner at New Atlantic Ventures (a venture capital firm) writes: As the White House mulls it over, quietly winding its way through the interagency review process in Washington is a nondescript proposal known as CALEA II. This dangerous proposed set of new rules, designed by the FBI, will thwart technology innovation and compromise…
Agreements with private companies protect U.S. access to cables’ data for surveillance
Craig Timberg and Ellen Nakashima report: The U.S. government had a problem: Spying in the digital age required access to the fiber-optic cables traversing the world’s oceans, carrying torrents of data at the speed of light. And one of the biggest operators of those cables was being sold to an Asian firm, potentially complicating American…
Chris Hoofnagle Analyzes Implications of NSA Surveillance
Andrew Cohen gets Chris Hoofnagle’s thoughts on the ACLU’s lawsuit against the NSA: The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the NSA in June, claiming that PRISM’s call-tracking program violates the constitutional rights of free speech, association, and privacy—and that it constitutes “dragnet” surveillance, which violates the First and Fourth Amendments. Hoofnagle, co-chair of the…