Reason.com: Governments Attempting To Control the Internet, Warns Inventor of the Web

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, has warned that the internet is facing a major threat from governments and companies who are seeking to “control it on the sly”.

Berners-Lee said the internet’s founding principles of openness and freedom of speech were at risk of being lost due to laws such as the US Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa), government surveillance and attempts by internet giants to profit from individuals’ private data.

“Unwarranted government surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society,” said Berners-Lee.

“I call on all web users to demand better legal protection and due process safeguards for the privacy of their online communications, including their right to be informed when someone requests or stores their data.

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Click below for the full article.

http://reason.com/24-7/2013/06/08/governments-attempting-to-control-the-in

EFF: 86 Civil Liberties Groups and Internet Companies Demand an End to NSA Spying

Today, a bipartisan coalition of 86 civil liberties organizations and Internet companies – including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, reddit, Mozilla, FreedomWorks, and the American Civil Liberties Union – are demanding swift action from Congress in light of the recent revelations about unchecked domestic surveillance.

In an open letter to lawmakers sent today, the groups call for a congressional investigatory committee, similar to the Church Committee of the 1970s. The letter also demands legal reforms to rein in domestic spying and demands that public officials responsible for this illegal surveillance are held accountable for their actions.

The letter denounces the NSA’s spying program as illegal, noting:

This type of blanket data collection by the government strikes at bedrock American values of freedom and privacy. This dragnet surveillance violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which protect citizens’ right to speak and associate anonymously and guard against unreasonable searches and seizures…

The letter was accompanied by the launch of StopWatching.us, a global petition calling on Congress to provide a public accounting of the United States’ domestic spying capabilites and to bring an end to illegal surveillance.

The groups call for a number of specific legal reforms, including reform to the controversial Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, the “business records” section which, through secret court orders, was misused to force Verizon to provide the NSA with detailed phone records of millions of customers. The groups also call on Congress to reform the FISA Amendment Act, the unconstitutional law that allows, nearly without restriction, the government to conduct mass surveillance on American and international communications. The letter and petition also demand that Congress amend the state secrets privilege, the legal tool that has expanded over the last 10 years to prevent the government from being held accountable for domestic surveillance.

As Mark Rumold, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who focuses on government transparency and national security, says, “Now is the time for Congress to act. We don’t need a narrow fix to one part of the PATRIOT Act; we need a full public accounting of how the United States is turning sophisticated spying technology on its own citizens, we need accountability from public officials, and we need an overhaul of the laws to ensure these abuses can never happen again.”

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https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/86-civil-liberties-groups-and-internet-companies-demand-end-nsa-spying

Wall Street Journal: Rand Paul Says He May Sue Over NSA Program

A Republican senator said Sunday that he plans to assemble a class action lawsuit against the federal government over a national security program that collects phone call data, saying he hopes the matter winds up before the Supreme Court.

Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), who is considering a run for the White House in 2016, said on “Fox News Sunday” that he is considering asking major U.S. telecommunications firms to ask their customers to join a lawsuit.

“If we get a million people in a class-action suit, things might change,” Mr. Paul said.

Mr. Paul didn’t elaborate on the plan, and a spokeswoman for the senator wasn’t immediately available to comment.

The program has become a focus of public attention since a court order was leaked to The Guardian newspaper last week that authorized the National Security Agency to collect data of phone calls made by customers of Verizon Communications Inc. Many lawmakers and President Barack Obama have defended the program as important to efforts to find and track terrorists, while others have said the national-security gains don’t justify the imposition on privacy.

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http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/06/09/rand-paul-says-he-may-sue-over-nsa-program/?mod=yahoo_hs

 

NY Daily News: ‘Star Wars’ actor’s light saber cane seized by airport security

Actor Peter Mayhew gets re-acquainted with his alter-ego, the lovable Chewbacca, at the Disney-MGM Studios in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, June 6, 2003. Mayhew was attending "Star Wars Weekends," the theme park's celebration of the famous Star Wars film saga.  It was recently announced by Lucasfilm Ltd. that Mayhew, who stands 7'3" tall, will again star as the giant Wookiee in the next installment of the Star Wars films. The film is expected to be released in 2005. Mayhew will appear at the Disney-MGM Studios through Sunday, June 8.  NO SALES   REUTERS/HO/Mark Ashman   Original Filename: 5555_345458_DISNEY.jpg

He may have helped pilot the Millennium Falcon, but Chewbacca still can’t get  a break from the TSA.

“Star Wars” star Peter  Mayhew, who played Han Solo’s furry companion in the sci-fi series, had his  light saber-shaped cane confiscated by security agents while attempting to catch  a flight from Denver to Dallas.

“Won’t allow me through the airport with my cane!” the 7 foot 2 inch actor tweeted. “Giant  man need giant cane. Small cane snap like toothpick. Besides, my light saber is  just cool. I’d miss it.”

Luckily, The Sun reports, Mayhew,69, harnessed the power of social  media to pressure agents into allowin him to fly with his space-aged  weapon-looking walking stick.

'Giant man need giant cane. Small cane snap like toothpick. Besides, my light saber is just cool. I'd miss it,' Mayhew tweeted, posting a picture of befuddled-looking security agents assessing his walking stick.

@TheWookieeRoars via Twitter

‘Giant man need giant cane. Small  cane snap like toothpick. Besides, my light saber is just cool. I’d miss it,’  Mayhew tweeted, posting a picture of befuddled-looking security agents assessing  his walking stick.

“American Airlines won’t let me through the airport with me cane!” he  informed his followers. “can I get a retweet?”

Apparently the Wookiee’s fans heard his plea.

“Magic words to TSA are not ‘please’ or ‘thank you,’ it’s ‘Twitter,” Mayhew  wrote. “Cane released to go home.”

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The Libert Report Take:  Why on earth would the TSA even CONSIDER taking a man’s light saber CANE?  Did they think it was real or dangerous?  As soon as it went viral over Twitter they “decided” to let him have it back…. hmmmm…….

Below is a link to the article and a photo of this hazardous cane.  Peter, may the force be with you.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/star-wars-actor-light-saber-cane-seized-airport-security-article-1.1366871

Peter Mayhew poses on the red carpet with Harrison Ford and his signature 'Star Wars' cane.

Washington Post: Everything you need to know about the NSA’s phone records scandal

On Wednesday, The Guardian released a classified court order requiring Verizon to turn over records of all domestic phone calls to the National Security Agency. The revelation has led to a renewed debate over the legality and policy merits of indiscriminate government surveillance of Americans.

So what has the government been doing? And how will the program affect ordinary Americans? Read on to find out.

So the government is listening in on all my phone calls?

No. At least, that’s not what the document obtained by The Guardian shows. The court order, issued by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court, only sought metadata — a fancy word for information like what numbers you called, what time you made the calls, and how long the calls were. The order does not seek the audio of calls.

Of course, it’s possible the NSA has other programs collecting the contents of calls. In 2006 a whistleblower reported the existence of a secret, NSA-controlled room in an AT&T switching facility in San Francisco. So it’s possible the NSA is using rooms like that to listen to everyone’s phone calls. But all we know for sure is that the NSA has been requesting information about our phone calls.

I’m not a Verizon customer. Does that mean I’m safe?

Probably not. We only have proof of spying on Verizon customers, but it’s hard to imagine the NSA limiting its surveillance program to one company. There are probably similar orders in effect for AT&T and CenturyLink, the other major telephone companies.

The order may only pertain to Verizon’s wired telephony business, as Verizon Wireless is technically a separate subsidiary. But the order includes hints that the NSA is also collecting information from cellular customers. In addition to phone numbers and call times, the order seeks information about the specific cell phone tower the customer used to connect to the network during each call.

It wouldn’t make much sense to request that information from a traditional wired telephone company. So its inclusion suggests either that the order includes Verizon Wireless, or that it’s boilerplate that is also being sent to wireless companies.

So the NSA is collecting information about my location as well as who I’ve called?

It appears so. Cellphones make calls using the closest tower. So if the NSA knows you made a call using a specific tower, they can safely assume you were near that tower at the time of the call. The accuracy of this information varies. In urban areas, tower information can pin down your location to a specific city block or even a specific building. In rural areas, it might only identify your location within a mile or two.

It’s hard to be sure since both the details of the program and legal rulings on it are secret. But civil liberties groups argue the program exceeds the powers Congress has granted to the executive branch, and that such a broad surveillance program is inconsistent with the Fourth Amendment.

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The Liberty Report Take: This is a clear violation of the United State’s citizens Fourth Amendment.  Here is a quick refresher of what that says for the good people at the Washington Post:

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Click below for the full article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/06/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-nsa-scandal/

Wall Street Journal: Supreme Court: Police Can Take DNA Samples in Arrests

[image]

A divided Supreme Court held Monday that police can take DNA samples from people under arrest in the hope of tying them to unrelated crimes, in a ruling that touched both on fast-changing technology and age-old issues of citizens’ rights against state searches.

Authorities previously have been able to take such samples from convicted felons, whom courts consider to possess minimal privacy rights. At issue Monday was whether people who merely have been arrested—and may ultimately be released or acquitted of the charges that led to their arrest—also must submit to a cheek swab that would be matched against a nationwide DNA database of evidence from unsolved crimes.

That practice, currently followed by 28 states and the federal government, allowed police in Wicomico County, Md., to link Alonzo King, arrested in 2009 for assault with a shotgun, with an unsolved 2003 rape. He later was convicted of the rape and sentenced to life in prison.

The Maryland Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, voided the rape conviction. It held that the state law providing for taking arrestee DNA samples violated the Fourth Amendment, which generally requires police to demonstrate probable cause that an individual has committed a crime before they can search him or her.

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The Liberty Report Take: Just another step forward towards a loss of freedom and liberty as we move toward a Police State.  It should probably be a prerequisite that the Supreme Court Justices actually understand the Constitution as well, not just prior court decisions and culturally accepted practices.

CNN: NSA’s phone snooping a different kind of creepy

I’m finding it hard to get too worked up over the revelation that the National Security Agency has been authorized by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to collect all our call data from Verizon. Hasn’t everyone already assumed this? Everything we do in the digital realm — from surfing the Web to sending an e-mail to conducting a credit card transaction to, yes, making a phone call — creates a data trail. And if that trail exists, chances are someone is using it — or will be soon enough.

This particular style of privacy invasion looks a bit different from those old TV movies where FBI agents sit in a van listening in on phone calls and recording them on reel-to-reel tape recorders. The government isn’t interested in the content of our phone calls — our conversations — so much as who is calling whom and when, or what has become known as metadata. Your life and pursuits are less important than the statistical profile of the way you use your digital devices. This is the world of big data.

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Do you agree with the Columnist’s opinion here?  Click below for the full article.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/06/opinion/rushkoff-nsa-verizon/?hpt=hp_t4

 

Reuters: IRS official apologizes for lavish expenses: IRS officials try to tame conference spending scandal

Faris Fink (R), commissioner of the IRS small business and self-employed division, testifies at a House Oversight and Government reform hearing on 'Collected and Wasted - The IRS Spending Culture and Conference Abuses, on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 6, 2013. REUTERS/Jason ReedInternal Revenue Service officials on Thursday tried to tame another scandal plaguing the agency, apologizing to lawmakers for a lavish 2010 conference in California that included an elaborate Star Trek spoof training video.

“After I saw the production, I fully regretted it,” said Faris Fink, the IRS small business commissioner who played the character Spock in the Star Trek parody that included a tax-themed skit. “It’s embarrassing.”

The IRS, already under a cloud of scandal related to the targeting of conservative groups, this week faced fresh criticism over a Treasury watchdog report on wasteful spending.

Lawmakers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee accused the agency of grossly misusing taxpayer money when it spent at least $4.1 million at the conference on luxury hotel rooms, expensive training videos and outside speakers on topics such as leadership through painting.

A Treasury report released this week condemned the conference and said $3.2 million of the cost was funded by money set aside to hire enforcement employees.

Fink on Thursday said the IRS did not keep full records of the Anaheim, California, conference and warned the overall cost could have been as high as $5 million.

The conference scandal has further eroded the public image of the IRS, which is under fire after it was revealed last month that workers in a Cincinnati, Ohio, field office targeted conservative groups for intense scrutiny when considering applications for tax-exempt status.

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Click below for the full article.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/06/us-usa-irs-idUSBRE9550UX20130606