Fourth Amendment

Senators rebuke Marshals Service on full-body scans

Six U.S. senators delivered a sharp rebuke to the U.S. Marshals Service on Thursday, saying that they were "disturbed" to learn that thousands of images produced by full-body scanners at security checkpoints were surreptitiously recorded.

The bipartisan group of senators demanded a detailed explanation from the Marshals Service, which installed the millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of at a Florida courthouse. (See CNET's earlier article about the Marshals Service admitting the recording took place.)

A letter the politicians sent to Marshals Service director John Clark asks him to "identify any other locations … Read more

Meet Project Vigilant--the Wikileaks leak

In the last week or so, descriptions of a secretive group called Project Vigilant have ranged between dubbing it a hoax and proclaiming it to be the next big threat to Internet privacy.

Neither is quite accurate.

Highlighting Project Vigilant's role in outing an alleged Wikileaks source, a Salon.com column warned that the organization's members have "extensive, sophisticated expertise in compiling highly invasive data about individuals' Internet activities." It's been labeled a "shadowy spy group" that's "building dossiers" for the feds.

To security maven Richard Bejtlich, however, Project Vigilant … Read more

DHS tries to defuse privacy criticism, asks for help

LAS VEGAS--A top Homeland Security official on Wednesday sought to downplay concerns about privacy and Internet monitoring raised by recent reports of the department's activities.

Jane Lute, the department's deputy secretary, told an audience at the Black Hat security conference here that she wants "to create a safe, secure, resilient place where we can thrive...The goal here is not control. It's confidence."

"How do we craft a strategy that permits the fullest exploitation of technology while ensuring our safety?" asked Lute, a lawyer who also has a degree in political science and … Read more

Police push to continue warrantless cell tracking

A law requiring police to obtain a search warrant before tracking Americans' cell phones may imperil criminal investigations and endanger children's lives, a law enforcement representative told Congress this week.

Obtaining a search warrant when monitoring the whereabouts of someone "who may be attempting to victimize a child over the Internet will have a significant slowing effect on the processing of child exploitation leads," said Richard Littlehale of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. "If that is acceptable, so be it, but it is a downstream effect that must be considered."

Littlehale's remarks to a … Read more

ACLU: FBI used 'dragnet'-style warrantless cell tracking

To nab a pair of men accused of robbing banks in Connecticut, court documents show the FBI turned to a novel investigative technique last year: warrantless monitoring of the locations of about 180 different cell phones, court documents show.

The FBI obtained a secret order--it has not been made public--commanding nine different telephone companies to provide federal police "with all cell site tracking data and cell site locator information for all incoming and outgoing calls to and from the target numbers."

But because the U.S. Justice Department did not obtain a warrant by proving to a judge … Read more