Marco Rubio Leaks that the Phone Dragnet Has Expanded to "A Large Number of Companies"
Last night, Marco Rubio went on Fox News to try to fear-monger over the phone dragnet again.
He repeated the claim that the AP also idiotically parroted uncritically -- that the government can only get three years of records for the culprits…
In One of His First Major Legislative Acts, Paul Ryan Trying to Deputize Comcast to Narc You Out to the Feds
As the Hill reports, Speaker Paul Ryan is preparing to add a worsened version of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act to the omnibus budget bill, bypassing the jurisdictional interests of Homeland Security Chair Mike McCaul in order to…
Internet of Things: Now, with 'Breachable' Kids Connect and 'Hackable' Barbie
The Internet of Things (IoT) already includes refrigerators, televisions, slow cookers, automobiles, you name it. Most of these items have already experienced security problems, whether personal information leaks, or manipulative hacking.
Now…
The Businessman's Briefcase of ISIS Propaganda
The Guardian has a story today about what it claims is ISIS' manual in state-building which explains -- the Guardian concludes -- how it became the richest and most destabilizing Jihadi group of the past 50 years (as if that's a category tracked…
Why the AP's Call Record Article Is So Stupid
Update, 12/8: After ignoring corrections on Saturday, letting their story be a key prop on the Sunday shows, having me write this post on Sunday, and then re-tweeting their story Monday morning, the AP has now fact checked the AP, effectively…
Yes, Calling Only Muslims Terrorists Does Result in Disparate Treatment of Muslims
Over at Salon, I've got a piece addressing the things we call terror in this country that mostly argues, "In the wake of the Planned Parenthood attack, both the right and the left should redouble our commitment to distinguishing speech from…
Correlations on Facebook Probably Key to ISIS Claim in San Bernardino
Authorities investigating the San Bernardino killing just told all the press that they found a posting from the wife in the attack, Tashfeen Malik, pledging allegiance to ISIS's Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. CNN's report included the following interesting…
Ten Billion: A Kick in the Ass We've Needed
[Note: You can join Professor Stephen Emmott for a @reddit AMA TODAY Friday 04-DEC-2015 at 4:00 pm (UK) / 11:00 am EST.]
If we learned a cataclysmic, extinction-level event was hurtling toward our planet, how would we respond? How should…
The Emptywheel...It's Now Sunday!...Football Rumble
[Okay, it is hard when you have to start on Thursday. So, here, for the second week in a row!....is repurposed Thursday Trash. Tear it up same as always. And Phred and I thank you for all the congratulations to the CheesePackers. Go Cards!…
How FISC Amicus Preston Burton Helped Michael Mosman Shore up FISC's Authority
On November 24, Judge Michael Mosman approved the government's request to hold onto the Section 215 phone dragnet data for technical assurance purposes for three months, as well as to hold the data to comply with a preservation order in EFF's…
The Great Transformation Part 7: Land as a Fictitious Commodity
Previous posts in this series:
The Great Transformation: Mainstream Economics and an Introduction to a New Series
The Great Transformation Part 1: The Market
The Great Transformation Part 2: More on Markets
The Great Transformation…
Shorter Devin Nunes: There Are Privacy-Violating Covert Counter-Terrorism Programs We're Hiding
I want to return to a detail I pointed out in the Intelligence Authorization yesterday: This language, which would affirmatively clarify that the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight does not get access to information on covert operations.
ACCESS.—Nothing…
Interesting Tidbits from the House Intelligence Authorization
The House version of next year's Intelligence Authorization just passed with big numbers, 364-58.
Among the interesting details included in the unclassified version of the bill, are the following:
Section 303, 411: Permits the ICIG and…
IRS' Stingray Tracked 44 Cell Devices Over 4 Years But the Agency Needs Another
Back in 2010, Daniel Rigmaiden forced the government to reveal it had used a Stingray to bust him for tax fraud in 2008. Apparently, even in spite of blowing their prosecution of Rigmaiden, the IRS liked what it did, because in 2011, they…
Eli Lake Defends the "Rectal Feeding" Consensus in DC
Democrats and Republicans do not agree that waterboarding to capture terrorists was a crime, but many do agree it was a blunder.
That's the central wisdom offered by Eli Lake, in a piece arguing against a Human Rights Watch report calling on…
FBI Redacted Passages Showing Judge Mocking Its Stupid Claims
As I noted earlier, today Nicholas Merrill was finally able to reveal the things he was requested to turn over to the FBI in response to a National Security Letter he received 11 years ago.
The expiration of his gag order also allowed him…
FBI Asks for at Least Eight Correlations with a Single NSL
After 11 years and a number of lawsuits, Nicholas Merrill is finally permitted to release the National Security Letter he received from the FBI in 2004. Here's the list of things the FBI asked for about one of Merrill's ISP customers.
DSL…
Another Probable Reason to Shut Down the Internet Dragnet: Dissemination Restrictions
I noted the other day that an NSA IG document liberated by Charlie Savage shows the agency had 4 reasons to shut down the domestic Internet (PRTT) dragnet, only one of which is the publicly admitted reason -- that NSA could accomplish what…
The Costs of Equal Opportunity in a Neoliberal Economy
Eric Loomis has a nice discussion of an article in the WaPo titled “White Americans long for the 1950s, when they didn’t face so much discriination.” The article reports these findings:
• 43% of all respondents said discrimination…
The Government Wants You To Forget It Will Still Collect Your Phone Records in Bulk
I Con the Record released two statements to mark the end of the Section 215 phone dragnet (which will take place at midnight tomorrow night): a statement and a "fact" sheet. They're a curious mix of true statements, false statements, and probably…