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The tide is turning
[Disclaimer: I’m a member of the Green Party of Minnesota. My coverage is probably biased. Live with it or move along….] Someone — I think it was former Saint Paul, Minnesota mayor George Latimer —...
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Here we go again: VICTORY Act
US Attorney General John Ashcroft is at it again. The Patriot Act II, denounced as a “leaked draft” that was never intended to be taken seriously, has emerged in the form of the Vital Interdiction of...
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John Ashcroft’s magical misery tour
Do you feel safer from terrorism since the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act? US Attorney General John Ashcroft says you better, and that any backsliding will open the door to further terrorist attacks....
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US surveillance shifts from criminals to terrorists
Last year, for the first time, the US government issued more secret surveillance warrants than it approved wiretaps in criminal cases. This, according to a Dan Eggen and Susan Schmidt article in this...
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Wiretapgate plot broadens (and deepens)
As Bruce Schneier and others surmised, President Bush’s unwarranted wiretapping effort is much broader and deeper than the administration has acknowledged. According to Eric Lichtblau’s and James...
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Journalists as criminals under espionage laws
Leaks are a time-tested fact of political life. Governments leak information in order to control a story, and the Bush administration is no different in that regard. When a leak backfires out of...
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Merely a COG in Main Core
When the New York Times first disclosed President Bush’s warrantless wiretap program, Bush addressed the nation, assuring the populace that the program was reviewed every 45 days as part of a threat...
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Verizon, Sprint, and Time Warner agree to censor net
In an agreement with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Verizon, Sprint, and Time Warner have agreed to block access to child pornography on certain websites and Usenet. Until now internet...
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Taking a sledgehammer to an ant
Yesterday Verizon, Sprint, and Time Warner agreed to censor the internet at the behest of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. The story that didn’t get told is just how the corporations were going...
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Joe Biden: Wrong on both the net and tech
If you had any doubt that Barack Obama is a politician like any other, his selection of Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware) should allay that doubt. Biden’s voting record on copyright, for example, is...
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The political class and exemption from the rule of law
If the George W. Bush presidency is going to be remembered for anything it’s going to be the subversion of the executive branch’s adherence to the rule of law. It was systematic and pervasive. In...
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Double-plus for Obama on first full day
One of the first things President Obama did upon taking office was to release a memorandum (.pdf; 44Kb) ordering US federal agencies to reverse course and once again default to transparency: “All...
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WikiLeaks changes everything: Starting with journalism and statecraft
The US Air Force has blocked access on its computers to websites that have published the secret cables obtained and distributed by WikiLeaks. That would include websites of news organizations....
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US spooks out of control
In December 2005, after sitting on the story for more than a year, the New York Times exposed George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program (which continues under Barack Obama) but kind of dropped...
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Don’t let Eduardo Saverin set foot in the US
Eduardo Saverin co-founded Facebook while he was a student at Harvard. Born in Brazil, his wealthy family emigrated to Miami when it was discovered the 13-year-old was on a list of kidnap targets....
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Common Cause goes after ALEC in Minnesota
On 15 May, Common Cause of Minnesota filed complaints with the Minnesota Attorney General and the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board alleging the American Legislative Exchange...
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Unnamed telephone company challenges FBI national security letter
In early 2011, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation did something it had done hundreds of thousands of times before: It sent a national security letter (NSL) to an unnamed telephone company,...
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Yet another fistulagram + angioplasty
End-stage renal disease patients on hemodialysis like myself, who are fortunate enough to have arteriovenous (AV) fistulas, are much less prone to blood clots or infections. A vascular surgeon creates...
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US surveillance statistics rise dramatically
It’s a good thing that the US government is required to release reports on its surveillance activities. It’s a bad thing that it ignored the requirement. It’s a good thing that the American Civil...
View ArticleNCTC free to surveil and datamine the US citizenry at will
Last March, US intelligence officials met at the White House to debate a proposal to “create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about US citizens — even people suspected of no...
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National disgrace: Five more years of warrantless wiretapping
Last September, to no one’s surprise, the US House of Representatives passed the FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization Act for 2012 on a vote of 301-118. On 28 December 2012, scheduled to be hidden as...
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Time for pitchforks, torches, and heads on pikes — investigate Lanny Breuer...
The US Justice Department is out of control. Underlying the wildly overzealous prosecution of Aaron Swartz is the abject failure of a single bankster to be indicted, let alone convicted and jailed for...
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US Representatives Issa and Cummings want answers about Aaron Swartz prosecution
US Representatives Darell Issa (R-California) and Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chair and ranking minority member, respectively, have sent US...
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US taxpayers subsidize “too big to fail” banksters
Because of the way the US financial system is rigged structured, it’s in a bank’s best interest to get as large and unwieldy as possible because once a bank is “too big to fail” it’s also “too big to...
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Fairview and Sanford sitting in a tree
On 26 March, Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson telegraphed her concerns about a merger currently under consideration between Fairview Health Services — the second largest healthcare system in...
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Holder signed warrant for Fox News reporter’s email
While US Attorney General Eric Holder apparently recused himself from the warrantless seizure of Associated Press telephone records, he reportedly signed the warrant application used to obtain the...
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Obama rumored to nominate Comey as head of FBI
When he was President George W. Bush’s deputy attorney general, James Comey was the figure who authorized one of that administration’s biggest scandals — the warrantless wiretapping fiasco — and...
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From Clipper chip to secure email shutdowns
Chances are you don’t remember much about then-President Bill Clinton‘s public encryption management directive — also known as the Clipper chip — whereby private encryption keys would be escrowed...
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Google’s PREF cookie, mobile phones, and the meaning of “relevant”
Edward Snowden’s latest disclosure regarding the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) domestic surveillance program reveals the agency is surreptitiously using advertising tracking cookies in users’...
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US court forces release of drone memo
A US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has released a previously secret Obama administration memo outlining a legal justification for the government’s use of drones to target and kill...
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DOJ releases useless NSL report
Last month, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) released a 198-page heavily redacted report (.pdf; 3.9MB) on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) use of national security letters (NSLs)....
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DOJ releases warrantless wiretapping justification memos
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has released two heavily redacted memos outlining the government’s justification for warrantlessly wiretapping domestic telephone calls. The documents were released...
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President Obama: Please pardon Edward Snowden
In mid-November, President Barack Obama sat for a lengthy interview with Klaus Brinkbaumer and Sonia Seymour Mikich for Der Spiegel. The most interesting bit was the last question; Obama was asked if...
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Trend to neuter US First Amendment
In the US, the framers of the Constitution rightly made freedom of expression the First Amendment because it’s the most important. President Donald Trump is, of course, fanatically in favor of his own...
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Trump administration issues warrant for identities of visitors to anti-Trump...
On 17 July 2017, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) served a search warrant (.pdf; 1MB) on DreamHost, a website host, for all information related to a website used to coordinate protests during the...
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