Surveillance

(By Andrea Germanos) As part of their arsenal of spying tools, the National Security Agency and its British counterpart, the GCHQ, are sucking up personal data leaked from smartphone apps, according to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. One of the apps the NSA and GCHQ used to gather data is the popular game […]

Dissent

Edward Snowden Interview: NSA is Engaged in Industrial Espionage for Interests, not Security

Juan Cole

Via Liveleak: German Television does first Edward Snowden Interview

censorship

Only post-Snowden did FISA Court even Consider if NSA Bulk Phone Collection is Legal

contributors

(By Michael Masnick) FISA Court Waited Until After Snowden Leaks To Actually Explore If Bulk Phone Record Collection Was Legal (via Techdirt) One of the most common defenses of the NSA’s bulk phone record collection (in which they get access to the record of basically every phone call in the US) is that the program […]

Domestic Surveillance

The Real Irony of Rep. Harman being interrupted on NSA Spying by Bieber Bulletin

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell interrupts former Rep. Jane Harman, speaking on NSA surveillance from Davos, for breaking news about Justin Bieber’s DUI arrest The real irony of interviewing Harman on NSA spying is that, as Ryan Gierach points out, she is both a victim of it and a big defender of it, which […]

Dissent

NSA Surveillance is about Control & Leverage, not Security

contributors

By Alfred McCoy | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – For more than six months, Edward Snowden’s revelations about the National Security Agency (NSA) have been pouring out from the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Guardian, Germany’s Der Spiegel, and Brazil’s O Globo, among other places. Yet no one has pointed out the combination of […]

Dissent

Gov’t used Surveillance of MLK in Bid to Destroy Him: Now they want us to just Trust Them

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Among the ironies of Barack Obama trying to sell us the gargantuan NSA domestic spying program is that such techniques of telephone surveillance were used against the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. in an attempt to destroy him and stop the Civil Rights movement. Had the republic’s most notorious peeping tom, J. […]

Dissent

US Intel Officials keep Talking about Killing Snowden, then say “trust us with your data”

contributors

(By Mike Masnick) The Fact That The US Intelligence Community So Readily Admits To Fantasies Of Killing Ed Snowden Shows Why They Can’t Be Trusted (via Techdirt) We’ve mentioned things in the past like former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden “jokingly” talking about how he’d like to put Ed Snowden on a “kill list” […]

Domestic Surveillance

4 Ways Obama has Misled on NSA Surveillance

contributors

(By Kara Brandeisky) President Obama on Friday announced some reportedly limited reforms to National Security Agency surveillance programs. Since the first disclosures based on documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Obama has offered his own defenses of the programs. But not all of the president’s claims have stood up to scrutiny. Here are […]

Dissent

Assange on Obama Speech: “Embarrassing,” Dragged Kicking and Screaming to Reform by Snowden

Juan Cole

Julian Assange responds to Obama speech on NSA reform at CNN AFP reports: Obama surveillance pledge will change little: Assange (via AFP) WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Friday dismissed President Barack Obama’s proposals to curb the reach of the National Security Agency (NSA), saying they would change very little. In a speech intended to quell […]