Domestic Surveillance

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald Trump is angry at his predecessor, former president Barack Obama, this weekend. He says he discovered (from the digital toilet paper ‘Breitbart,’ apparently) that a FISA court ordered a wire tap of Trump Tower in fall of 2016, and that it continued even though investigators […]

Bill of Rights

Bruited Trump pick for Nat’l Intel shreds 4th Amendment, wants Total Surveillance

contributors

TeleSur | – – On Thursday multiple mainstream media outlets reported that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has picked former Republican Senator Dan Coats, an outspoken advocate of illegal domestic surveillance programs, to be director of national intelligence. While yet to be formally announced, anonymous Trump transition team members told multiple outlets that the pick would […]

Domestic Surveillance

Feds: We can read all your email, and you’ll never know

contributors

By Clark D. Cunningham | (The Conversation) | – – Fear of hackers reading private emails in cloud-based systems like Microsoft Outlook, Gmail or Yahoo has recently sent regular people and public officials scrambling to delete entire accounts full of messages dating back years. What we don’t expect is our own government to hack our […]

Bill of Rights

The FBI’s outrageous assault on the 1st Amendment and Apple

contributors

By Andrew Crocker | ( Electronic Frontier Foundation ) | – – Last week, EFF filed a brief in support of Apple’s fight against the FBI, in which we argued that forcing Apple to write—and sign—a custom version of iOS would violate the First Amendment rights of Apple and its programmers. That’s because the right […]

Domestic Surveillance

Trump’s call for Spying on US Muslims recalls FBI bugging of MLK, Black Churches

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – As Donald Trump supporters beat a ‘Black Lives Matter’ protester at his rally in Birmingham, Ala., Trump himself reminded us of the dark days when a paranoid J. Edgar Hoover had the FBI monitor the Rev. Martin Luther King and black Churches of the Southern Christian […]

Domestic Surveillance

3rd Circuit to NYC: Being Muslim is not Reasonable Suspicion for Surveillance

contributors

By Nadia Kayyali | (Electronic Frontier Foundation) | – – Being Muslim can’t be the basis for law enforcement surveillance. That was the message from the Third Circuit last Tuesday when it told the plaintiffs in Hassan v. The City of New York that their lawsuit could go forward. The plaintiffs are suing over the […]

Displaced and Refugees

Ghoul’s Glossary: “Migrants” or “Refugees” or “Anchor Babies”?

contributors

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Migrants: Those who voluntarily go to another country to live and work, seeking a better life. Refugees: Those who are forced out of their homes, because of political persecution or natural disaster or a chronically bad economy. and have no choice but to try to make […]

Domestic Surveillance

Appeals Court Falls for Government’s Shell Game in NSA Spying Case

contributors

By Cindy Cohn | (Electronic Frontier Foundation) | – – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s opinion today in Klayman v. Obama is highly disappointing and, worse, based on a mistaken concern about the underlying facts. The court said that since the plaintiffs’ phone service was provided by one subsidiary of Verizon—Verizon […]

Bill of Rights

New Proof: AT&T and NSA’s Long Surveillance Partnership shredded 4th Amendment

contributors

By Mark Rumold | ( Electronic Frontier Foundation) | – – Reports today in the New York Times and ProPublica confirm what EFF’s Jewel v. NSA lawsuit has claimed since 2008—that the NSA and AT&T have collaborated to build a domestic surveillance infrastructure, resulting in unconstitutional seizure and search of of millions, if not hundreds […]