Ryan Singel reports: A fast-growing FBI data-mining system billed as a tool for hunting terrorists is being used in hacker and domestic criminal investigations, and now contains tens of thousands of records from private corporate databases, including car-rental companies, large hotel chains and at least one national department store, declassified documents obtained by Wired.com show….
Category: Surveillance
Leahy introduces legislation to reauthorize expiring PATRIOT Act provisions
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Tuesday introduced legislation to address expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, which are slated to sunset on December 31. The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act on Wednesday, September 23. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the chair of…
Judge rules for Harkat over search
Andrew Duffy reports: Canada’s border agency engaged in an unauthorized intelligence-gathering exercise, rather than a legitimate search, when it raided the home of Ottawa terror suspect Mohamed Harkat, a Federal Court judge has ruled. Judge Simon Noël said Harkat’s constitutional right to privacy was seriously breached in last month’s raid, which featured 16 law enforcement…
TSA needs privacy IT tools, IG says
Alice Lipowicz reports: The Transportation Security Administration should deploy automated tools to test and monitor the effectiveness of privacy safeguards in its programs, according to a new report from Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner. In a report issued Sept. 18, Skinner recommended that TSA’s Office of the Chief Information Officer implement such tools, and…