The many ways the government is watching us with an emphasis on digital spying
Media Alliance joined 41 other civil rights groups to endorse the USA Rights Acts which was introduced today to meaningfully reform Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Continue reading 42 Civil Liberties Organizations Endorse USA Rights Act
On October 14, almost 4 dozen civil rights organizations (including Media Alliance) wrote to the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee Bob Goodlatte and John Conyers about pending reform to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Continue reading 4 Dozen Civil Rights Groups Demand Warrants for Section 702 Searches
The 2017 Bay Area UASI grants have been announced. The full PDF for the Bay Area is below. 44 total projects were funded.
Here are some particular grants of interest.
On July 18, Oakland’s City Council voted unanimously to terminate the Oakland Police Department’s federal law enforcement agreement with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), formerly known as ICE. The unanimous vote on CM Rebecca Kaplan’s resolution followed previous unanimous votes at the City’s Privacy Advisory Commission (OPAC) and the Council’s Public Safety Committee.
After the Trump Congress invoked rarely-used Congressional Review Authority (CRA) to revoke enormously popular broadband privacy rules that required opt-in consent for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to sell user search and browser data, revolt broke out.
Although writing to the Trumpian Congress is a pyrrhic pursuit at best, 22 civil rights groups wrote to the House Judiciary Committee in pursuit of reforms to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
The groups wrote: “Section 702 is a warrantless surveillance authority that allows monitoring of non-US persons abroad for broad foreign intelligence purposes, including these individuals’ communications with individuals in the United
States. This powerful tool—subject to far fewer checks than domestic surveillance—was passed to combat threats from hostile foreign powers and international terrorism, and was not intended for domestic law enforcement investigation of U.S. persons for matters unrelated to foreign intelligence.” Continue reading Section 702
Police body cameras are a double-edged sword. They provide the possibility of clear and convincing evidence of what police actually do in use of force incidents: and the handling and access to those videos is opening up a Pandora’s box of problems with policy and law lagging behind.
Cell phone interceptors are some of the most controversial types of surveillance equipment in existence. Long subject to nondisclosure agreements so onerous that prosecutors deliberately threw out criminal cases in order not to disclose the source of evidence derived from their use, the fake cell phone towers that sweep up cell phone traffic have been used without warrants and undercover all over the country.
Here in the Bay Area, Alameda’s “hailstorm”, a second generation stingray device precepitated the development of a use policy in 2015 followed by even stronger memorandums of understanding in place with Oakland’s police department and Fremont’s police department regarding their use of the device. Continue reading East Bay Stingray Use Restrictions
