PogoWasRight - Surveillance

Domestic spying far outpaces terrorism prosecutions

Tue, 13 May 2008 06:30:08 -0400

The number of Americans being secretly wiretapped or having their financial and other records reviewed by the government has continued to increase as officials aggressively use powers approved after the Sept. 11 attacks. But the number of terrorism prosecutions ending up in court -- one measure of the effectiveness of such sleuthing -- has continued to decline, in some cases precipitously.

The trends, visible in new government data and a private analysis of Justice Department records, are worrisome to civil liberties groups and some legal scholars. They say it is further evidence that the government has compromised the privacy rights of ordinary citizens without much to show for it.

Source - Los Angeles Times

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NY: Dunkin' Donuts employee nabbed for hidden bathroom camera

Mon, 05 May 2008 06:43:18 -0400

A Kings Park Dunkin' Donuts employee was arrested for hiding a wireless surveillance camera in the women's bathroom and watching the images on his laptop computer, police said.

Danish Qureshi, 25, of Huntington Station, concealed a wireless pinhole camera in a fake smoke detector on the bathroom ceiling, police said.

Qureshi's surveillance system was discovered inadvertently by a neighbor with a similar system in his home, police said.

Source - Newsday

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AU: Hidden camera found in SBS changeroom

Mon, 05 May 2008 06:41:31 -0400

An SBS employee is being investigated by federal police after images from a camera hidden in a women's changeroom at the station were found on a personal computer.

SBS said the images of three women in the changeroom at SBS headquarters at Artarmon in Sydney were believed to have been taken in 2006 by a stills camera in the ceiling.

Source - LiveNews

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D.C. Forging Surveillance Network

Fri, 02 May 2008 06:28:10 -0400

The D.C. government is launching a system today that would tie together thousands of city-owned video cameras, but authorities don't yet have the money to complete the high-tech network or privacy rules in place to guide it.

The system will feature round-the-clock monitoring of the closed-circuit video systems run by nine city agencies. In the first phase, about 4,500 cameras trained on schools, public housing, traffic and government buildings will feed into a central office at the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. Hundreds more will be added this year.

Source - Washington Post

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Protecting Yourself From Suspicionless Searches While Traveling (updated)

Thu, 01 May 2008 13:52:25 -0400

The Ninth Circuit's recent ruling (pdf) in United States v. Arnold allows border patrol agents to search your laptop or other digital device without limitation when you are entering the country. EFF and many civil liberties, travelers� rights, immigration advocacy and professional organizations are concerned that unfettered laptop searches endanger trade secrets, attorney-client communications, and other private information. These groups have signed a letter asking Congress to hold hearings to find out what protocol, if any, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) follows in searching digital devices and copying, storing and using travelers� data. The letter also asks Congress to pass legislation protecting travelers� laptops and smart phones from unlimited government scrutiny.

In the meantime, how can international travelers protect themselves at the U.S. border, short of leaving their laptops and iPhones at home?

Source - EFF

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Secret spy court OKs record number of warrants

Thu, 01 May 2008 10:36:57 -0400

The Justice Department says the nation's spy court approved a record number of requests to search or eavesdrop on suspected terrorists and spies last year.

The agency says the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved 2,370 warrants last year. That's a 9% increase over 2006.

Source - USA Today

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Wiretaps Up by 20 Percent in 2007

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:26:20 -0400

According to the 2007 Wiretap report, federal and state courts issued 2,208 orders for the interception of wire, oral or electronic communications in 2007, compared to 1,839 in 2006. (Press release.) As in 2006, no applications for wiretap authorizations were denied by either state or federal courts. The total number of authorized wiretaps has grown in each of the five past calendar years, beginning in 2003. The 2007 Wiretap Report does not include interceptions regulated by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 or interceptions initiated by the President outside the exclusive authority of the federal wiretap law and the FISA. See EPIC Wiretapping page.

Source - EPIC.org

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The irony of privacy enhancing technologies

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 07:18:12 -0400

New privacy-enhancing video surveillance technology developed by the University of Toronto may bring some peace in the tug-of-war between public safety and privacy concerns in mass transit systems - but also raises a fresh set of concerns.

The technology was endorsed by Ontario privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukian, who recently gave the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) the green light to proceed with its plans to implement 11,000 video cameras by 2011 after investigating a privacy complaint lodged by UK-based NGO Privacy International. If implemented with strong protocols, this privacy-enhancing technology (PET) allows surveillance to be conducted without the usual concerns, says Cavoukian in her report.

Source - InterGovWorld.com

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Face scans for air passengers to begin in UK this summer

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 06:16:43 -0400

Airline passengers are to be screened with facial recognition technology rather than checks by passport officers, in an attempt to improve security and ease congestion, the Guardian can reveal.

From summer, unmanned clearance gates will be phased in to scan passengers' faces and match the image to the record on the computer chip in their biometric passports.

Border security officials believe the machines can do a better job than humans of screening passports and preventing identity fraud. The pilot project will be open to UK and EU citizens holding new biometric passports.

Source - Guardian

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State Secrets: A government misstep in a wiretapping case.

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:37:33 -0400

One Friday afternoon in August, 2004, a Washington, D.C., attorney named Lynne Bernabei received a package from the Department of the Treasury. The government was investigating one of her clients, the American branch of a Saudi charity called the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, which had been active in fifty countries. Al Haramain had come under scrutiny, as had many other Islamic charities, after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and Treasury Department investigators believed that Al Haramain�s American branch, which was based in Oregon, had connections to Al Qaeda. In response to a request from Bernabei for evidence against her client, the government had turned over two sets of documents, primarily media reports that referred to other branches of Al Haramain. None of the materials demonstrated a direct connection between the Oregon branch and Al Qaeda.

Source - Patrick Radden Keefe, in The New Yorker

hat-tip, Cryptome

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Bob Barr: Cast wary eye on surveillance efforts

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 07:44:18 -0400

It�s become a cottage industry �- scaring the bejesus out of the citizenry in an effort to push U.S. House members into following the example of their Senate counterparts and pass legislation giving the administration legal authority to secretly surveil phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens in this country without court approval.

Surveillance advocates from President Bush on down are disingenuously mischaracterizing the law �- and the already vast power of the government to gather intelligence information electronically �- in order to gain the votes needed to send such legislation to the president for signature.

To set the record straight, here are some key points concerning the surveillance powers of government �- current and desired...

Source - Barr Code

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Justice Department Withholds Records of Stealth Campaign to Block Surveillance Suits

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 22:24:31 -0400

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit against the Department of Justice (DOJ) today, demanding any records of a telecom industry lobbying campaign to block lawsuits over their compliance with illegal electronic surveillance. EFF's lawsuit comes as Congress debates letting telecommunications companies off scot-free as part of the hotly disputed "modernization" of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

EFF represents the plaintiffs in Hepting v. AT&T, a class-action lawsuit brought by AT&T customers accusing the telecommunications company of violating their rights by illegally assisting the National Security Agency in domestic surveillance. The Hepting case is just one of many suits aimed at holding telecoms responsible for knowingly violating federal privacy laws with warrantless wiretapping and the illegal transfer of vast amounts of personal data to the government.

Source - EFF

Complaint [pdf]

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