In a clear victory for transparency, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White today ordered the government to release more records about the lobbying campaign to provide immunity to the telecommunications firms that participated in the National Security Agency (NSA)’s warrantless surveillance program. The government has been ordered to provide the records to the Electronic Frontier…
Category: Govt
DHS issues annual privacy report to Congress
The Department of Homeland Security Privacy Office has released its privacy report [pdf] for the period July 2008 – June 2009. As summarized in the report, the DHS Privacy Office: is the first statutorily mandated privacy office in the federal government. Its mission is to minimize the impact on an individual’s privacy, particularly an individual’s…
Bush’s wiretapping goes to court in S.F.
Bob Egelko reports: After years of wrangling over legal procedures, the lawyer for a defunct Islamic charity laid out his case Wednesday that former President George W. Bush’s secret wiretapping program was illegal – an argument that an Obama administration attorney refused to discuss. “May the president of the United States break the law in…
‘Sneak-and-peek’ searches being used for regular crimes
Raw Story reports: The Justice Department made 763 requests for “sneak-and-peek” warrants in 2008, but only three of those had to with terrorism investigations, Sen. Russ Feingold told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. “Sneak-and-peek” warrants allow law enforcement officials to break into homes and businesses and search the premises without the investigated party…