• Tag Archives privacy

  • The State Is Spying on You Right Now. Where’s the Outrage?

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    When Hillary Clinton learned that a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives had subpoenaed her emails as secretary of state and she promptly destroyed half of them—about 33,000—how did she know she could get away with it? Destruction of evidence, particularly government records, constitutes the crime of obstruction of justice.

    When Gen. Michael Hayden, the director of both the CIA and the NSA in the George W. Bush administration and the architect of the government’s massive suspicionless spying program, was recently publicly challenged to deny that the feds have the ability to turn on your computer, cellphone, or mobile device in your home and elsewhere, and use your own devices to spy on you, why did he remain silent? The audience at the venue where he was challenged rationally concluded that his silence was his consent.

    And when two judges were recently confronted with transcripts of conversations between known drug dealers—transcripts obtained without search warrants—and they asked the police who obtained them to explain their sources, how is it that the cops could refuse to answer? The government has the same obligation to tell the truth in a courtroom as any litigant, and in a criminal case, the government must establish that its acquisition of all of its evidence was lawful.

    The common themes here are government spying and lawlessness. We now know that the Israelis spied on Secretary of State John Kerry, and so Netanyahu knew of what he spoke. We know that the Clintons believe there is a set of laws for them and another for the rest of us, and so Mrs. Clinton could credibly believe that her deception and destruction would go unpunished.

    We know that the NSA can listen to all we say if we are near enough to a device it can turn on. (Quick: How close are you as you read this to an electronic device that the NSA can access and use as a listening device?) And we also know that the feds gave secret roadside listening devices to about 50 local police departments, which acquired them generally without the public consent of elected officials in return for oaths not to reveal the source of the hardware. It came from the secret budget of the CIA, which is prohibited by law from spying in the U.S.

    What’s going on here?

    What’s going on here is government’s fixation on spying and lying. Think about it: The Israeli Mossad was spying on Kerry while the CIA was spying on the Mossad. Hillary Clinton thought she could destroy her emails just because she is Hillary Clinton, yet she forgot that the administration of which she was an integral part dispatched the NSA to spy on everyone, including her. And though it might not voluntarily release the emails she thought she destroyed, the NSA surely has them. The police have no hesitation about engaging in the same warrantless surveillance as the feds. And when Hayden revealed a cat-like smile on his face when challenged about the feds in our bedrooms, and the 10,000 folks in the audience did not reveal outrage, you know that government spying is so endemic today that it is almost the new normal.

    Yet government spying is not normal to the Constitution. Its essence—government fishing nets, the indiscriminate deployment of government resources to see what they can bring in, government interference with personal privacy without suspicion or probable cause—was rejected by the Framers and remains expressly rejected by the Fourth Amendment today.

    Full article: http://reason.com/ar … onstitutional-abuses


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  • FBI: new Apple, Google phones too secure, could put users ‘beyond the law’

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    The FBI director James Comey has expressed concern that Apple and Google are making phones that cannot be searched by the government.

    Speaking to reporters in a briefing Thursday, Mr. Comey said he is worried that such phones could place users “beyond the law,” The Wall Street Journal reported. He added that he’s been in talks with the companies “to understand what they’re thinking and why they think it makes sense.”

    Major tech companies recognize the marketing potential of selling products that make consumers feel their data is as secure as can be. Both Apple and Google have made recent announcements emphasizing their new products will make it more difficult for law enforcement to extract customers’ valued data.

    But Comey’s remarks raise questions of what, exactly, the government wants.

    The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in June that police need warrants to search the cellphones of people they arrest. Law enforcement also cannot maintain someone’s personal information for its own convenience. The only exception would be in the case of urgent, or “exigent” circumstances, says Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program.

    But even then, law enforcement cannot require individuals to keep their information readily available just in case those circumstances occur. “It’s like saying you have to leave your door open in case we have an exigent circumstance and we need to search your house without a warrant,” she says.

    This comes at a time of high concern among consumers that devices are not secure. The Edward Snowden leaks pointed to the breadth of government surveillance, and tech companies have tried to reassure customers that their information is not being handed over to the government casually.

    More recently, a string of high-profile iCloud hacks saw the nude photos of more than 100 celebrities leaked onto the web. Since then, Apple rolled out its new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus and Apple Watch, restating its pledge to keep consumers’ data secure. For example, a feature in its new iOS 8 mobile-operating system encrypts phone data if the user sets a passcode, making the phone unreadable to anyone except the user. Similarly, Google said the next version of its Android mobile-operating system would prevent law enforcement from accessing customers’ private data.

    Full article: http://news.yahoo.co … d-put-225021452.html


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  • FBI Director Says Apple and Google Are Putting Their Customers ‘Beyond The Law’

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    It’s worth noting that earlier this year, law enforcement argued to the Supreme Court that it shouldn’t actually need that court order to search someone’s phone, but the high court disagreed.

    Comey had already expressed concern about Apple’s new iCan’tOpenThisOS to the press last month, so I’d hoped that 60 Minutes interviewer Scott Pelley would push Comey more on what law enforcement might do to try to force Google and Apple’s hands. He did not, instead leaving the topic with Comey suggesting that Apple is making us all live in a more dangerous global neighborhood with its new encrypted operating system. Pelley failed to make the point that a locked trunk or locked home could have inside a hostage, a body, or contraband that needs to be seized. Phones can’t store those things for us yet. They contain only our self-incriminating data.

    via FBI Director Says Apple and Google Are Putting Their Customers ‘Beyond The Law’


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