“The ISO has decided not to approve two NSA-designed block encryption algorithms: Speck and Simon. It’s because the NSA is not trusted to put security ahead of surveillance.”
Read more: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/09/iso_rejects_nsa.html
“Google received 48,941 requests for data from 83,345 accounts and produced user information for 65 percent of requests. About half the requests come from the US government. Other major sources of requests include Germany, France, and the UK.”
“The intelligence division at the Treasury Department has repeatedly and systematically violated domestic surveillance laws by snooping on the private financial records of US citizens and companies, according to government sources. Over the past year, at least a dozen employees in another branch of the Treasury Department, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, have warned officials and Congress that US citizens’ and residents’ banking and financial data has been illegally searched and stored. And the breach, some sources said, extended to other intelligence agencies, such as the National Security Agency, whose officers used the Treasury’s intelligence division as an illegal back door to gain access to American citizens’ financial records.”
Read more: https://www.buzzfeed.com/jasonleopold/us-intelligence-unit-accused-of-illegally-spying-on
“Government bodies are increasingly turning the tables on citizens who seek public records that might be embarrassing or legally sensitive. Instead of granting or denying their requests, a growing number of school districts, municipalities and state agencies have filed lawsuits against people making the requests – taxpayers, government watchdogs and journalists who must then pursue the records in court at their own expense.”
Read more: https://needtoknow.news/2017/10/governments-now-suing-request-public-records/
“Said Rudd, ‘There is currently a gap in the law around material [that] is viewed or streamed from the internet without being permanently downloaded.'”
“The consequences of a government using force to control those it is sworn to protect must be high. When citizens are armed, the consequences for tyranny rise and its likelihood falls.”
Read more: https://fee.org/articles/catalonia-shows-the-danger-of-disarming-civilians/
“Thousands of pages of newly unsealed records reveal a widespread scheme — a highly unorthodox merger of an undercover law enforcement operation and a legitimate business. What began as a way to catch black-market cigarette dealers quickly transformed into a nearly untraceable A.T.F. slush fund that agents from around the country could tap.”
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/us/atf-tobacco-cigarettes.html
“DEA operatives face federal corruption and conspiracy charges after allegedly engaging in all sorts of shady behavior, from selling drugs themselves to lying under oath, falsifying records, falsely identifying drug suspects, accepting bribes, and stealing cash and other property from the people they arrested. In at least one instance, their behavior led to someone being wrongly imprisoned for more than two years.”
Read more: http://reason.com/blog/2017/10/04/dea-agents-sold-opioids-stole-cash
“Sometimes innocent people are locked away for crimes they didn’t commit. Less widely understood is just how reluctant the system is to righting those wrongs.”
Read more: https://www.propublica.org/article/what-does-an-innocent-man-have-to-do-alford-plea-guilty
“Facial recognition is becoming more and more common, but ask anyone how to avoid it and they’ll say: easy, just wear a mask. In the future, though, that might not be enough. Facial recognition technology is under development that’s capable of identifying someone even if their face is covered up — and it could mean that staying anonymous in public will be harder than ever before.”
Read more: https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/6/16254476/facial-recognition-masks-diguises-ai