Category Archives: Surveillance

The many ways the government is watching us with an emphasis on digital spying

Press Room, Surveillance

86 Organizations Petition Congress To Counter Unconstitutional Surveillance

 

June 11, 2013

For Immediate Release

Contact: Tracy Rosenberg, Executive Director, Email: tracy@media-alliance.org, Cell (510) 684-6853

86 Organizations Petition Congress to Counter Unconstitutional Surveillance
Letter Demands Patriot Act Reform of Section 215, Congressional Hearings and Accountability

A letter signed by 86 public interest and civil liberties organizations was delivered to Congress this morning, in the wake of a week of explosive reports in the UK Guardian and the Washington Post from former Booz Allen NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The reports detailed several government programs, including one that provides access to metadata for telephone calls and another that provides warrantless access to online activities culled from the servers of nine leading Internet companies, including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook.  Continue reading 86 Organizations Petition Congress To Counter Unconstitutional Surveillance →

Surveillance

The Constitution? Fuggedaboutit. Guardian Breaks Multiple Stories on Widespread Warrantless Surveillance

 

Glenn Greenwald and Ewan Mcaskill break huge stories about NSA surveillance of American phone calls and virtually unlimited access by NSA to every major computer server in the US.

There are no words for this. Months of hints from some Democratic legislators on various intelligence committees that unprecedented levels of surveillance were being implemented cracked wide open with this week’s scoops by Greenwald and Mcaskill in the London Guardian newspaper of NSA paperwork revealing agreements with Verizon to turn over wireless meta data and every major computer company including Google, Apple, Yahoo, Facebook and Microsoft to permit National Security Agency access to their data servers. Continue reading The Constitution? Fuggedaboutit. Guardian Breaks Multiple Stories on Widespread Warrantless Surveillance →

Surveillance

Strange Bedfellows: Bush Security Apparatus Letter to Congress

 

This letter, signed by a who’s who of Bush-era military politicos was sent to Congress before the Amash/Conyers vote.

Signatories include Alberto Gonzalez, John Negroponte, Stephen Hadley, Porter Goss and Michael Chertoff.

The Amash/Conyers vote (the amendment to defund the telephone metadata spying program was defeated 217-205) was a bizarre vote by even DC standards. Continue reading Strange Bedfellows: Bush Security Apparatus Letter to Congress →

Surveillance

Fixing Congressional Oversight of National Security

 

From Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)

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Members of Congress talk a lot about improving oversight of national security, but most do not do much to make it better. Just recently, the former chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller, gave a speech where he said something remarkable. He spoke about the struggle Congress had with gathering information from the CIA for a report on its use of torture. “This study is … the story of the breakdown in our system of governance…. One of the profound ways that breakdown happened was through the active subversion of meaningful congressional oversight.” Continue reading Fixing Congressional Oversight of National Security →

Surveillance

Your Privacy On-Line: Why Should You Care?

 

Posted by Active Voice/NAMAC on August 12th, 2013

What’s the cost of the so-called “free” services we use online every day? What do you gain and what do you give up when you accept the Terms and Conditions of your favorite app? And why should you care?

In this online discussion: documentary filmmakers, media activists and tech workers talk about what we give up and why it matters.

Brought to you by Active Voice and NAMAC.