NSA Scandal: If Your Data Are Encrypted, They are Being Collected

If you secure any data you send over the internet encrypting them, you probably have a backup copy somewhere at the NSA.  From Tech Dirt:

There's been plenty of commentary concerning the latest NSA leak concerning its FISA court-approved "rules" for when it can keep data, and when it needs to delete it. As many of you pointed out in the comments to that piece -- and many others are now exploring -- the rules seem to clearly say that if your data is encrypted, the NSA can keep it.  Specifically, the minimization procedures say that the NSA has to destroy the communication it receives once it's determined as domestic unless they can demonstrate a few facts about it.

Firefox Will Offer Better Internet Privacy and Anti-Tracking Tools

From the Washington Post:

The maker of the popular Firefox browser is moving ahead with plans to block the most common forms of Internet tracking, allowing hundreds of millions of users to eventually limit who watches their movements across the Web, company officials said Wednesday.

Firefox’s developers made the decision despite intense resistance from advertising groups, which have argued that tracking is essential to delivering well-targeted, lucrative ads that pay for many popular Internet services.

Widespread release of the blocking technology remains months away. But officials at Mozilla, the nonprofit group that makes Firefox, spoke confidently Wednesday about the growing sophistication of tools they are building to limit the placement of “cookies” in users’ browsers. . . .

Google Files Suit Against FISA and NSA Gag Orders

From the Washington Post:

Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests the court makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it is forced to give the government.

The legal filing, which invokes the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about broad National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic.

Texas Becomes First State to Require a Warrant for Email Searches

If you naively believed your email is protected from unreasonable and unwarranted search and seizure by the government, you could perhaps be forgiven, since most people likely consider their email to be the kind of "papers and effects" that would be explicitly covered by Fourth Amendment protections.  But nothing is further from the truth.  Rather, law enforcement agencies are more likely to consider a person's email to be akin to a public, and publicly accessible record or document.  This is, in fact, the basis for many spying and snooping programs.  Texas has now become the first state to pass a law requiring a warrant for email searches.  Of course, citizens in Texas are still not safe from the Federal Government, which still considers everyone's email fair game.  The new Texas law should, of course, be unnecessary, since email and all other electronic documentation should be automatically considered part of an individual's "papers and effects", but we live under the rule of the Democratic and Republican parties, where one cannot take anything for granted, even the constitution.  From Ars Technica:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has signed a bill giving Texans more privacy over their inboxes than anywhere else in the United States.  On Friday, Perry signed HB 2268, effective immediately. The law shields residents of the Lone Star State from snooping by state and local law enforcement without a warrant. The bill's e-mail amendment was written by Jonathan Stickland, a 29-year-old Republican who represents an area between Dallas and Ft. Worth.

Under the much-maligned 1986-era Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), federal law enforcement agencies are only required to get a warrant to access recent e-mails before they are opened by the recipient.  As we've noted many times before, there are no such provisions in federal law once the e-mail has been opened or if it has sat in an inbox, unopened, for 180 days. In March 2013, the Department of Justice (DOJ) acknowledged in a Congressional hearing that this distinction no longer makes sense and the DOJ would support revisions to ECPA.

Apple Reveals Government Data Requests

Following on the heels of other big tech companies, Apple has released information regarding requests for data by government agencies.  From the BBC:

The firm said it received requests for information linked to between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices between December and the end of May.  It said the demands included "national security matters" among other information. Microsoft and Facebook published similar numbers last week.  But Google and Twitter have said that such disclosures are not helpful.

NSA Admits to Widespread Warrantless Wiretapping

From CNET:

The National Security Agency has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls.  Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed this week that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed "simply based on an analyst deciding that."  If the NSA wants "to listen to the phone," an analyst's decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. "I was rather startled," said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee.

How the Courts are Undermining the Bill of Rights

The New York Times reports how a judge in a secret court forced Yahoo to hand over records to the government without a warrant. Excerpt:

In a secret court in Washington, Yahoo’s top lawyers made their case. The government had sought help in spying on certain foreign users, without a warrant, and Yahoo had refused, saying the broad requests were unconstitutional.

The judges disagreed. That left Yahoo two choices: Hand over the data or break the law.  So Yahoo became part of the National Security Agency’s secret Internet surveillance program, Prism, according to leaked N.S.A. documents, as did seven other Internet companies. 

The Fourth Amendment is not the only Constitutional protection that is under attack from all three branches of the government.  The First Amendment is also a favored target.  The Supreme Court has also just ruled that there is no freedom of assembly in the plaza in front of the Supreme Court's building.  Excerpt:

The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a new regulation barring most demonstrations on the plaza in front of the courthouse.  The regulation did not significantly alter the court’s longstanding restrictions on protests on its plaza. It appeared, rather, to be a reaction to a decision issued Tuesday by a federal judge, which narrowed the applicability of a 1949 federal law barring “processions or assemblages” or the display of “a flag, banner or device designed or adapted to bring into public notice a party, organization or movement” in the Supreme Court building or on its grounds.