Tag: EFF

Congressional Rep Who Discovered His Info Was Illegally Searched By The FBI Likely Has No Legal Remedy

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

from the but-this-is-the-system-Congress-wants…. dept

The FBI has long enjoyed its close relationship with the NSA… or at least the NSA’s collections. Data and communications collected under the NSA’s Section 702 program contain plenty of “incidental” snooping on Americans. That’s because even though it’s a foreign-facing collection, Americans who communicate with people outside of the United States are swept up in the dragnet.

Congressional Rep Who Discovered His Info Was Illegally Searched By The FBI Likely Has No Legal Remedy

“Well that’s unfortunate. If only he were part of some kind of body that had the power to change the law.” [1]

FBI Calls End-to-End Encryption ‘Deeply Concerning’ as Privacy Groups Hail Apple’s Advanced Data Protection as a Victory for Users

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

FBI Calls End-to-End Encryption ‘Deeply Concerning’ as Privacy Groups Hail Apple’s Advanced Data Protection as a Victory for Users

While privacy groups and apps applaud Apple for the expansion of end-to-end encryption in ‌iCloud‌, governments have reacted differently. In a statement to The Washington Post, the FBI, the largest intelligence agency in the world, said it’s “deeply concerned with the threat end-to-end and user-only-access encryption pose.” Speaking generally about end-to-end encryption like Apple’s Advanced Data Protection feature, the bureau said that it makes it harder for the agency to do its work and that it requests “lawful access by design.”

“This hinders our ability to protect the American people from criminal acts ranging from cyber-attacks and violence against children to drug trafficking, organized crime, and terrorism,” the bureau said in an emailed statement. “In this age of cybersecurity and demands for ‘security by design,’ the FBI and law enforcement partners need ‘lawful access by design.'”

Former FBI official Sasha O’Connell also weighed in, telling The New York Times “it’s great to see companies prioritizing security, but we have to keep in mind that there are trade-offs, and one that is often not considered is the impact it has on decreasing law enforcement access to digital evidence.”

Related:

Apple says it will allow iCloud backups to be fully encrypted

Apple Details Plans to Beef Up Encryption of Data in Its iCloud

Bad News For The Internet: Congress Looking To Sneak In Dangerous ‘Save The Kids!’ Internet Bill Into Year-End Omnibus

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Over the last week or so, I keep hearing about a big push among activists and lawmakers to try to get the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) into the year-end “must pass” omnibus bill. Earlier this week, one of the main parents pushing for the bill went on Jake Tapper’s show on CNN and stumped for it. And, the latest report from Axios confirms that lawmakers are looking to include it in the lameduck omnibus, or possibly the NDAA (despite it having absolutely nothing to do with defense spending).

Bad News For The Internet: Congress Looking To Sneak In Dangerous ‘Save The Kids!’ Internet Bill Into Year-End Omnibus

Related:

KOSA Would Let the Government Control What Young People See Online

Big Tech Keeps Withholding Data that Could Help Solve Assassination of Rio de Janeiro Councilwoman Marielle Franco

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

RIO DE JANEIRO – Four-plus years after the assassination of Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco (38), social media giant Facebook has yet to provide investigators with the full stored data of Internet users who visited her social media account prior to the double homicide.

Big Tech Keeps Withholding Data that Could Help Solve Assassination of Rio de Janeiro Councilwoman Marielle Franco

CDC Tracked Millions of Phones to See If Americans Followed COVID Lockdown Orders

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

CDC Tracked Millions of Phones to See If Americans Followed COVID Lockdown Orders

The documents reveal the expansive plan the CDC had last year to use location data from a highly controversial data broker. SafeGraph, the company the CDC paid $420,000 for access to one year of data, includes Peter Thiel and the former head of Saudi intelligence [Turki bin Faisal Al Saud] among its investors. Google banned the company from the Play Store in June.

The CDC used the data for monitoring curfews, with the documents saying that SafeGraph’s data “has been critical for ongoing response efforts, such as hourly monitoring of activity in curfew zones or detailed counts of visits to participating pharmacies for vaccine monitoring.” The documents date from 2021.

Zach Edwards, a cybersecurity researcher who closely follows the data marketplace, told Motherboard in an online chat after reviewing the documents: “The CDC seems to have purposefully created an open-ended list of use cases, which included monitoring curfews, neighbor-to-neighbor visits, visits to churches, schools and pharmacies, and also a variety of analysis with this data specifically focused on ‘violence.’” (The document doesn’t stop at churches; it mentions “places of worship.”)

Related:

Data Broker Is Selling Location Data of People Who Visit Abortion Clinics

Location data broker SafeGraph stops selling information on visits to abortion providers

SafeGraph Provides CDC and 1000+ Organizations With Data to Fight the COVID-19 Crisis

Google Bans Location Data Firm Funded by Former Saudi Intelligence Head:

On its website SafeGraph says “We believe places data should be open for all.” In April 2017, Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, the former head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency, invested in SafeGraph as part of a $16 million Series A funding round. SafeGraph said it had “assembled the deepest policy thinkers.” Beyond Faisal Al Saud, SafeGraph said it had enlisted the help of former U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, author Sam Harris, Meghan O’Sullivan who ran Iraq and Afghanistan policy under President George Bush, former Deputy Chief of Staff to President Obama Mona Sutphen, and former German Minister of Defense Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, among others. Peter Thiel is also an investor in the company.

More investors: SafeGraph Raises $16 Million Series A

New York Democrat introduces new social media censorship bill

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The bill aims to curb people’s speech by targeting platforms By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | December 27, 2021

If a state senator got his way, the state of New York could soon get a new law aimed at regulating what content can appear on social media. The bill is designed to circumvent existing federal-level solutions in some instances and is reportedly inspired by internal documents leaked by former Facebook employee Frances Haugen.

New York Democrat introduces new social media censorship bill

U.S. Schools Are Buying Phone-Hacking Tech That the FBI Uses to Investigate Terrorists

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

U.S. Schools Are Buying Phone-Hacking Tech That the FBI Uses to Investigate Terrorists

In the case New Jersey v. T.L.O, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that schools do not necessarily need a warrant to search students so long as officials have a reasonable belief a student has broken the law or school policy, and the search is not unnecessarily intrusive and reasonably related in scope to the circumstances under which the search was originally justified. The “reasonableness” standard is extremely broad, largely deferential to the whims of school officials, and can serve as the basis for fishing expeditions; courts have only rarely ruled that school searches violate the Fourth Amendment.