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European Court of Justice Privacy Rule Could Ruffle American Tech Companies

September 25, 2015February 15, 2016 Staff Writer

A top European lawyer made a decision this morning that could prove a massive headache for American tech companies in Europe. Advocate General Yves Bot, an advisor to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has said the “safe harbour” agreement for transferring data between the US and EU is “invalid,” because of concerns over US spying. Bot’s opinion isn’t legally binding, and the ECJ judges will make a formal ruling in the coming months. But as The Irish Times notes, the judges follow such opinions “in most cases.” But if…

Report: NSA was allowed to spy on Africa since 2010

July 1, 2014February 25, 2016 Staff Writer

Virtually no foreign government is off-limits for the National Security Agency, which has been authorized to intercept information “concerning” all but four countries, according to top-secret documents. The United States has long had broad no-spying arrangements with those four countries — Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — in a group known collectively with the United States as the Five Eyes. But a classified 2010 legal certification and other documents indicate the NSA has been given a far more elastic authority than previously known, one that allows it to intercept…

Germany cancels Verizon contract over spying anxiety

June 27, 2014February 25, 2016 Staff Writer

The German government has cancelled a contract with Verizon over concern that US firms may be giving data to US authorities. Verizon has provided internet services to a number of German government departments and the current contract was due to run out in 2015. The firm did not comment on the move. There was anger in Germany over allegations that a US agency bugged Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone. Earlier this month Germany announced an investigation into those allegations which were made by a former contractor of the US National Security…

Vodafone admits some governments have a direct link to their network for snooping

June 6, 2014March 3, 2016

LONDON (Reuters) – Vodafone, the world’s second-biggest mobile phone company, said government agencies in a small number of countries in which it operates have direct access to its network, enabling them to listen in to calls. Security agencies across the world, and in particular in the United States and Britain, have faced greater scrutiny since Edward Snowden, a former contractor with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), disclosed the extent of their surveillance to newspapers. Snowden’s disclosures caused an international uproar, showing that U.S. and British agencies’ monitoring programs took…

Privacy under attack: the NSA files revealed new threats to democracy

May 28, 2014March 3, 2016

In the third chapter of his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon gave two reasons why the slavery into which the Romans had tumbled under Augustus and his successors left them more wretched than any previous human slavery. In the first place, Gibbon said, the Romans had carried with them into slavery the culture of a free people: their language and their conception of themselves as human beings presupposed freedom. And thus, says Gibbon, for a long time the Romans preserved the sentiments –…

Edward Snowden: The Biggest Revelations Are Yet to Come

March 21, 2014June 20, 2014 Staff Writer

VANCOUVER, Canada — Edward Snowden on Tuesday said the biggest revelations have yet to come out of the estimated 1.7 million documents he acquired from the National Security Agency. In a surprise appearance via satellite robot at the 2014 TED conference in Vancouver, Snowden said there is still a lot of reporting to be done, including diving deeper into the accusation that the NSA tricks companies into building backdoors into their systems that make data vulnerable to hackers across the world. “Is it really terrorism that we’re stopping? I say…

Edward Snowden Warns Us of the Dark Path Ahead

March 11, 2014March 11, 2014 Staff Writer

In written testimony to the European Union (EU), Edward Snowden explained in patient, well-written, detailed prose exactly why what the NSA is doing is so dangerous. Snowden reveals himself an articulate writer, and through that moves from mere whistleblower into an almost philosophical role. His testimony deserves your full read, so you should best stop right here and just go read it. For those who prefer some highlights, with commentary, please follow me deeper down the rabbit hole. Snowden says: The suspicionless surveillance programs of the NSA, GCHQ, and so…

Obama proposes changes to NSA surveillance

January 22, 2014 Staff Writer

U.S. President Barack Obama called for changes to U.S. National Security Agency surveillance, with new privacy advocates assigned to a surveillance court and a transition away from a controversial telephone records collection program in the U.S. U.S. President Barack Obama called for changes to U.S. National Security Agency surveillance, with new privacy advocates assigned to a surveillance court and a transition away from a controversial telephone records collection program in the U.S. However, Obama stopped short of major changes advocated by his own surveillance review panel and civil liberties groups.…

Man behind NSA leaks says he did it to safeguard privacy, liberty

June 11, 2013June 11, 2013 Staff Writer

He’s a high school dropout who worked his way into the most secretive computers in U.S. intelligence as a defense contractor — only to blow those secrets wide open by spilling details of classified surveillance programs. Now, Edward Snowden might never live in the United States as a free man again. In an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian, Snowden revealed himself as the source of documents outlining a massive effort by the U.S. National Security Agency to track cell phone calls and monitor the e-mail and Internet traffic…