obama

Update, June 8 at 2:45 p.m. PT: In response to outcry over PRISM, the U.S. director of national intelligence has released some details. Among other things, he says the government "does not unilaterally obtain information from the servers of U.S. electronic communication service providers" and that PRISM-related activities are conducted "under court supervision." More here.

The National Security Agency has not obtained direct access to the systems of Apple, Google, Facebook, and other major Internet companies, CNET has learned.

Recent reports in The Washington Post and The Guardian claimed a classified program … Read more

President Obama offered a lawyerly defense of the National Security Agency this morning that can be summarized in two words: Trust us.

"The people involved in America's national security they take this work very seriously," he said. "The last thing they'd be doing is taking programs like this to listen to people's phone calls."

The president, whose administration has been buffeted by a series of disclosures in the last two days about warrantless NSA surveillance, was supposed to be speaking to reporters in the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, Calif., about health care. … Read more

On the eve of President Barack Obama's high-level meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, U.S. intelligence officials have revealed that a slew of documents and e-mails were stolen during the 2008 presidential campaign from both the president and then GOP presidential candidate John McCain. Officials are accusing China's government for the hack.

According to NBC News, officials said that they first detected the major cyberattack in the summer of 2008 and were then able to trace the culprits back to China.

"Based on everything I know, this was a case of political cyberespionage by the Chinese … Read more

In 2011, Loris Elementary School in Loris, S.C., was ranked 41st in the state among grammar schools with similar demographics. By 2012, it had risen to 19th.

What happened? According to the White House: technology.

Many of the students at Loris Elementary School are from low-income families that don't have the means to give their children all of today's high-tech devices, according to the Obama administration. That's why in 2012 the school decided to introduce a technology blended learning program complete with laptops, software, and Internet access. It's apparently made a difference.

President Barack Obama … Read more

The White House is defending the decision to collect the telephone records of U.S. citizens by labeling it an anti-terrorist measure.

The move by the National Security Agency to gather the phone records of Verizon customers was revealed on Wednesday by U.K. newspaper The Guardian. A court's top-secret order forced Verizon to hand over information about domestic and overseas calls "on an ongoing daily basis."

The court order, which can be seen on The Guardian's Web site, forces Verizon to release all call details or "telephony metadata" created by the carrier for … Read more

As expected, President Obama has come out today in full force against so-called "patent trolls."

In a statement released on Tuesday by the White House, the president issued five executive actions it'll take against companies that collect patents for the sole purpose of licensing them and suing other companies that may or may not be violating them. The administration has ordered that patent owners regularly update their ownership information so they can't hide patents in other entities. It has also requested that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) enhance employee training to decrease chances … Read more

The Obama administration will reportedly announce a set of executive actions on Tuesday aimed at reining in certain patent holders amid concerns they are abusing the current system and squelching competition.

President Obama will instruct the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to initiate a rule-making process that would require patent holders to disclose the owner of a patent, senior Obama administration officials told The Wall Street Journal. He will reportedly announce five executive actions and seven proposed legislative changes, including asking Congress for legislation that would sanction litigants who file lawsuits deemed abusive by the courts.

Patent assertion entities (… Read more

A new lawsuit in Manhattan pitting the U.S. Department of Justice against Google offers a rare glimpse of how determined prosecutors are to defend a process that allows federal agents to gain warrantless access to user records, and how committed the Mountain View, Calif., company is to defending its customers' privacy rights against what it views as illegal requests.

The Justice Department's lawsuit, filed April 22 and not disclosed until this article, was sparked by Google's decision to rebuff the FBI's legal demands for confidential user data. It centers on the bureau's controversial use of … Read more