“The FBI’s decision to create a fake media company raises critical questions about the federal government’s practice of impersonating the press.”
“The FBI has a long record of both deceit and incompetence. Five years ago, Americans learned that the FBI was teaching its agents that the bureau ‘has the ability to bend or suspend the law to impinge on the freedom of others.’ This has practically been the FBI’s motif since its creation.”
“We’re not dealing with a government that exists to serve its people, protect their liberties and ensure their happiness. Rather, these are the diabolical machinations of a make-works program carried out on an epic scale whose only purpose is to keep the powers-that-be permanently (and profitably) employed.”
“Microsoft references the WannaCry ransomware’s source as an vulnerability known by the NSA, noting that similar security holes were revealed on WikiLeaks in documents stolen from the CIA. It says that the governments of the world should treat the WannaCry attack as ‘a wake-up call,’ to consider the ‘damage to civilians that comes from hoarding these vulnerabilities and the use of these exploits,’ and to adopt the ‘Digital Geneva Convention’ the company first suggested in February. That Convention would have a new stipulation, too: ‘a new requirement for governments to report vulnerabilities to vendors, rather than stockpile, sell, or exploit them.'”
Read more: https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/15/15639890/microsoft-wannacry-security-vulnerabilities-ransomware
“Not content with having a fleet of insecure surveillance drones, the state of Connecticut wants a fleet of insecure weaponized drones. What could possibly go wrong?”
Read more: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/04/soon_youll_be_a.html
“U.S. Customs & Border Protection is becoming more adamant about examining the cell phones of some arriving travelers – including U.S. citizens – and now the American Civil Liberties Union is challenging that practice. The ACLU has taken up the case of a U.S. artist named Aaron Gach, who returned to the U.S. at San Francisco International from an exhibition in Europe, and was pulled aside by CBP officers and ordered to unlock his iPhone for a search of its contents. Gach resisted, but finally gave in when he was told that if he didn’t, CBP would keep his phone for an indefinite period.”
Read more: http://blog.sfgate.com/cmcginnis/2017/05/10/feds-searching-passenger-cell-phones-at-sfo/
“Duterte is doing nothing more than copying the processes and methods of the U.S. government in its war on drugs and its war on terrorism, both of which most members of the mainstream media have long supported.”
Read more: https://www.fff.org/2017/05/09/dutertes-murder-model-u-s-government/
“Travel is not an inherently suspicious activity. It’s the exercise of a Constitutional and human right, and cannot in itself be the basis for warrant checks.”
Read more: https://papersplease.org/wp/2017/04/27/is-the-tsa-checking-domestic-airline-passengers-for-warrants/
“Because the NSA collects data on numbers that are ‘two hops’ away from a targeted phone, records would be collected from any number that called or was called by the target number, and then every number each of those numbers interacted with. As a result, collection expands exponentially as additional targets are added.”
“FBI Director James Comey has put to rest any hope of achieving privacy in the United States. Speaking at a cybersecurity conference at Boston College on Wednesday, Comey said that ‘there is no such thing as absolute privacy in America.’ He added that everything Americans engage in, including conversations with members of the clergy and their attorneys, live within ‘judicial reach.’ ‘In appropriate circumstances, a judge can compel any one of us to testify in court about those very private communications,’ Comey said, according to CNN, which obtained a video of his remarks.”
Read more: http://fortune.com/2017/03/09/fbi-james-comey-privacy/