For years, the national security establishment has been telling us, “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” Ergo, the feds ought to be provided complete access to all of our emails, cell calls, internet browsing records, location, private in-home conversations, banking records, credit card transactions, etc., etc., etc., held forever,...
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Editor: Today is the publication date of the Independent Institute’s newest book, American Surveillance: Intelligence, Privacy, and the Fourth Amendment, by Anthony Gregory (Research Fellow, Independent Institute). Published for Independent by the University of Wisconsin Press, this widely acclaimed new book traces the history of government surveillance in the U.S. that transcends party divides,...
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The Washington Post recently ran an article titled, “Surprise! NSA data will soon routinely be used for domestic policing that has nothing to do with terrorism.” In the article, journalist Radley Balko explains that provisions in the Patriot Act have allowed the National Security Agency to share information with a variety of other agencies,...
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The pro-surveillance state narrative says that 9/11 resulted from U.S. security agencies’ “Failure to connect the dots.” Apparently this “failure” stemmed from there being too few agencies and/or their having too-limited powers, because its “correction” necessitated the creation of the new Department of Homeland Security (is the purpose of the Defense Department—which failed to...
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President Obama held a much-publicized White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection at Stanford last Friday, culminating with his signing onstage a new executive order calling for “collaboration” between government and technology companies to fight cyber crime. Tech executives from Google, Yahoo, and Facebook to their credit declined invitations to attend, while Apple...
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Top stories in world news last week: New Snowden Documents Reveal that the NSA is Preparing for Cyber War According to top secret documents from the archive of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden seen exclusively by SPIEGEL, they are planning for wars of the future in which the Internet will play a critical role, with...
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The Cloud is not secure. This not-surprising news is among the revelations from further exploration of the Snowden archives in an article posted at Spiegel. Among the investigation’s conclusions: the U.S. government and its allies—the so-called Five Eyes alliance, made up of the secret services of Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United...
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Responding to their customers’ increasing demand for privacy in the aftermath of revelations by whistle-blowers that the government is capturing and indefinitely storing every conversation, email, location, online transaction, and more, Apple, Google, WhattsApp, and others are developing new encrypted phones and services to thwart this now-universal warrantless spying. Simultaneously, a bill that would...
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The National Security Agency has come under intense scrutiny over the past several years for its warrantless wiretapping and other surveillance tactics. Members of the public have been the subjects of surveillance, as well as a over 120 world leaders, including close U.S. allies like German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Knowing this, the backlash against...
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In the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s, and numerous other credible whistleblowers‘ irrefutable revelations that the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies are capturing and indefinitely storing millions of innocent Americans’ phone calls, emails, internet transactions, and even movements and whereabouts at any given time—Apple and other tech companies are rightfully responding to...
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