You may have heard that the Patriot Act is set to expire soon. That’s not quite the case. The Patriot Act was a large bill, as were the reauthorizations that followed in 2005 and 2006. Not all of it sunsets. But three provisions do expire on June 1st: Section 215, the "Lone Wolf provision," and the "roving wiretap" provision.
Berry The drones were not as precise as I had hoped, for they sometimes miss the designated enemy and hit an innocent bystander—the sort of operator’s error that we must classify as normal. The enemies of peace resent these errors just as much as we peace-lovers would. And so the drones have very likely made more enemies than they have killed.
The collection of Americans’ personal information by intelligence agencies is one of the most intrusive powers the executive branch can exercise. Such programs require a strong check in the form of robust judicial review. By Elizabeth Goitein, Faiza Patel Just Security CommonDreams.org April 14, 2015 The collection of Americans’ personal information by intelligence agencies is one of More
There are very few government checks on what America’s sweeping surveillance programs are capable of doing. John Oliver sits down with Edward Snowden to discuss the NSA, the balance between privacy and security, and dick-pics.
Greenwald: Propagandizing 70 percent of the population is not easy to do, and obviously requires active deceit or pervasive acquiescence by the country’s news media. As part of his discussion last night, Oliver showed my favorite MSNBC clip in order to illustrate the lack of substantive surveillance discussion in the media:
Giroux: Already imperiled before the aftershocks of the terrorists’ attacks, democracy became even more fragile in the aftermath of 9/11. Almost fourteen years later, the historical rupture produced by the events of 9/11 has transformed a terrorist attack into a war on terror that mimics the very crimes it pledged to eliminate.
From the article: “We believe that the NSA’s upstream surveillance has a chilling effect not only on Wikimedia’s writers and editors but on all of our plaintiffs,” Gorski said. “As a general matter, the private communications of innocent Americans don’t belong in the government’s hands, and if people know the NSA is watching, they’re going to hesitate before visiting controversial websites, before discussing controversial issues or investigating online politically sensitive questions.”
AMERICAN AND BRITISH spies hacked into the internal computer network of the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world, stealing encryption keys used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications across the globe, according to top-secret documents provided to The Intercept by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
New reporting by The Intercept, based on documents leaked by whistleblower, reveals how spy agencies hacked world's largest SIM card manufacturer. 'One of the biggest Snowden stories yet,' says journalist Glenn Greenwald
Giroux: The critique of the flight from privacy fails to address how the growth of the surveillance state and its appropriation of all spheres of private life are connected to the rise of the punishing state, the militarization of American society, secret prisons, state-sanctioned torture, a growing culture of violence, the criminalization of social problems, the depoliticization of public memory, and one of the largest prison systems in the world, all of which “are only the most concrete, condensed manifestations of a diffuse security regime in which we are all interned and enlisted.”
“It’s remarkable to see collusion by state and federal agencies to undermine public records requests, which are clearly aimed at keeping the public in the dark about the use of Stingray technology.”
“Democracy is about participation…we take risks. We dare,” he said. “Sometimes we do right and sometimes we do wrong, even if we intended to do right.” He suggested that expressing disagreement with the government is the right course of action when its behavior is perceived as“morally unjustifiable.”
