Mozilla joins fight in support of AT&T hackerThe group responsible for the immensely popular Firefox Web browser has put their weight behind imprisoned security researcher Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer. The Mozilla Foundation has filed a legal brief asking for the hacker’s conviction to be overturned.
Yahoo wants Fisa objections revealedYahoo has called on Fisa, the secretive US surveillance court, to let it publish its legal argument against a case that gave the government “powerful leverage” in persuading tech companies to co-operate with a controversial data-gathering program.
US must fix secret Fisa courts, says top judge who granted surveillance ordersA former federal judge who granted government surveillance requests has broken ranks to criticise the system of secret courts as unfit for purpose in the wake of recent revelations by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Surprising Lack of Evidence Against Manning Confirms Over-ProsecutionOn February 28, 2013, Pfc. Bradley Manning pled guilty to ten lesser offenses that could have put him in jail for up to 20 years, taking responsibility for releasing classified documents to WikiLeaks as an act of conscience.
State Department’s Watergate? Office of high-profile whistleblower lawyer burglarizedThe Dallas law office representing a State Department whistleblower was broken into and robbed during the first weekend of July. Three computers were stolen and the firm’s file cabinets had been searched, but valuables were left untouched. “It’s a crazy, strange and suspicious situation,” attorney Cary Schulman of the Schulman & Mathias law office told Foreign Policy Magazine’s The Cable.
Daily Kos: NSA Rejecting Every FOIA Request Made by U.S. CitizensOriginally published at Tikkun Daily | Clayton Seymour, a 36-year-old IT specialist from Hilliard, Ohio, recently sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the NSA, curious as to whether …
“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”: The new warrior cop is out of controlSal Culosi is dead because he bet on a football game – but it wasn’t a bookie or a loan shark who killed him. His local government killed him, ostensibly to protect him from his gambling habit. Several months earlier at a local bar, Fairfax County, Virginia, detective David Baucum overheard the thirty-eight-year-old optometrist and some friends wagering on a college football game.
In Secret, Court Vastly Broadens Powers of N.S.A.WASHINGTON – In more than a dozen classified rulings, the nation’s surveillance court has created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans while pursuing not only terrorism suspects, but also people possibly involved in nuclear proliferation, espionage and cyberattacks, officials say.
NYC cases show crooked cops’ abuse of FBI databaseNEW YORK (AP) – It’s billed by the FBI as “the lifeline of law enforcement” – a federal database used to catch criminals, recover stolen property and even identify terrorism suspects. But authorities say Edwin Vargas logged onto the restricted system and ran names for reasons that had nothing to do with his duties as a New York Police Department detective.
Hinkle: Commit any felonies lately?Daly understandably panicked. With her roommate in the passenger seat yelling “Go, go, go!” Daly drove off, hoping to reach the nearest police station. The women dialed 911. Then a vehicle with lights and sirens pulled them over, and the situation clarified: The people who had swarmed Daly’s vehicle were plainclothes agents of the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law EnforcementWASHINGTON – Leslie James Pickering noticed something odd in his mail last September: a handwritten card, apparently delivered by mistake, with instructions for postal workers to pay special attention to the letters and packages sent to his home. “Show all mail to supv” – supervisor – “for copying prior to going out on the street,” read the card.
Lawmakers Question White House Account of an Internet Surveillance ProgramWASHINGTON – When the existence of a vast Internet surveillance program run by the National Security Agency was disclosed last month, Obama administration officials quickly took credit for having shuttered the effort in 2011.
Appeal Filed to Free Andrew ‘Weev’ AuernheimerSan Francisco – A team of computer-crime legal experts on Monday filed an appeal of the federal felony conviction and lengthy prison sentence handed down to Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer, a computer researcher who revealed a massive security flaw in AT&T’s website and was subsequently prosecuted under the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act (CFAA).
How Barrett Brown shone light on the murky world of security contractorsAny attempt to rein in the vast US surveillance apparatus exposed by Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing will be for naught unless government and corporations alike are subject to greater oversight. The case of journalist and activist Barrett Brown is a case in point.
License-plate readers let police collect millions of records on driversLicense-plate readers let police collect millions of records on drivers
DEA Agent in Ohio tries to Snatch Camera from Man’s Hand, Claiming it was for Man’s SafetyA Drug Enforcement Administration agent tried to snatch a man’s camera from his hand after warning him that he was “liable to get shot” if he continued hanging around with his camera. The DEA agent then tried to play it off as if he was only watching out for Virgil VÄduva’s safety early this afternoon in Jefforsonville.
NSA collected US email records in bulk for more than two years under ObamaThe Obama administration for more than two years permitted the National Security Agency to continue collecting vast amounts of records detailing the email and internet usage of Americans, according to secret documents obtained by the Guardian.
California man faces 13 years in jail for scribbling anti-bank messages in chalkJeff Olson, the 40-year-old man who is being prosecuted for scrawling anti-megabank messages on sidewalks in water-soluble chalk last year now faces a 13-year jail sentence. A judge has barred his attorney from mentioning freedom of speech during trial.