Regulation

Surveillance 'partnership' between NSA and telcos points to AT&T, Verizon

Want to play a game of "guess who?"

A newly disclosed top secret document lauds the National Security Agency's "productive" and long-standing surveillance "partnership" with a pair of telecommunications providers -- that permitted tapping into their fiber links -- but without naming names.

This is where things get interesting for clue sleuths.

Even in the top-secret document published by the Guardian today, the firms are described only as "Company A" and "Company B." But the NSA's inspector general did disclose that, at the time the program was being … Read more

EU court lawyer backs Google in 'right to be forgotten' case

Google cannot be forced to remove "damaging" material from its search engine that was legally posted elsewhere, according to an adviser to the top court in Europe.

The senior adviser to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), whose job it is to present a public and impartial opinion on cases the court receives, also said there is no general "right to be forgotten" under existing EU data and privacy laws.

In an opinion published on Tuesday, advocate-general Niilo Jaaskinen said that Google cannot be considered the "controller" of personal data from other Web sites … Read more

How Web mail providers leave door open for NSA surveillance

Billions of supposedly private e-mail messages a day flow through unsecured links, where they can be snared in digital dragnets operated by the National Security Agency and other intelligence services.

Recent revelations about NSA surveillance -- including a top-secret document discussing "collection of communications on fiber cables and infrastructure as data flows past" -- have highlighted the ease with which government eavesdroppers can exploit the Internet's infrastructure. Another classified document, which the Guardian published Thursday, mentions network-based surveillance of Hotmail servers.

Over the last decade or so, Web mail providers began to turn on encryption to armor the connections … Read more

Google challenges DOJ's surveillance gag order

Google has asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to lift a gag order, saying it has the constitutional right to clear its name by discussing government data requests.

The company filed a five-page motion before the court on Tuesday afternoon, arguing it has "a right under the First Amendment to publish" summary statistics about requests made under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, sent an open letter last week to Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller asking for "transparency" -- but was unable to reach an … Read more

Snowden: NSA snoops on U.S. phone calls without warrants

Edward Snowden, who became famous for leaking top-secret U.S. government documents, said today that the National Security Agency can get a look at information from Americans' domestic phone calls without a warrant.

In an online discussion organized by the Guardian newspaper this morning, the 29-year-old former intelligence analyst said, when it comes to the contents of e-mail and phone calls, "Americans' communications are collected and viewed on a daily basis on the certification of an analyst rather than a warrant."

Intelligence analysts at the NSA, CIA, FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other similar arms of the … Read more

Body scanner ruling could squelch NSA domestic spying

A high-profile group of technologists and privacy advocates is attempting to halt domestic surveillance of Americans through a clever twist: using federal bureaucratic rules against federal bureaucrats.

In a request today to National Security Agency director Keith Alexander and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, the group argues that the NSA's recently revealed domestic surveillance program is "unlawful" because the agency neglected to request public comments first. A federal appeals court previously ruled that was necessary in a lawsuit involving airport body scanners.

"In simple terms, a line has been crossed," Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the … Read more

Kroes: Unify the mobile market or Europe will fall farther behind

Neelie Kroes, the European Commission vice president in charge of the digital agenda, sketched out several steps toward the unified mobile-network market she believes is necessary to keep Europe's economy from falling behind.

In a speech Tuesday, she called for several steps to lower barriers that today make it hard for carriers to expand from one country to another and for customers to use mobile devices outside their home countries. Among the steps she suggested:

A "passport" that let a carrier, once certified to operate a mobile network permission in one country, operate in other countries, too. … Read more

NSA spying flap extends to contents of U.S. phone calls

The National Security Agency has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls, a participant in the briefing said.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed on Thursday that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed "simply based on an analyst deciding that."

If the NSA wants "to listen to the phone," an analyst's decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. "I … Read more

Facebook, Microsoft release NSA stats to reassure users

Facebook and Microsoft on Friday became the first Internet companies to disclose the total number of legal orders they receive for user data, including ones from the National Security Agency and from state, local, and federal police performing criminal investigations.

The total for Facebook: About 18,000 accounts over a six month period, or one-thousandth of one percent of user accounts.

Microsoft's total was about 31,000 accounts over the same six month period ending December 31, 2012. A Google representative told CNET this evening that the search company is working on disclosing the same type of statistics, and … Read more