Tag: Ron Wyden

Well, That’s Everyone: Senator Wyden Letter Confirms The NSA Is Buying US Persons’ Data From Data Brokers

Ms. Cat1 Comment

Buying domestic data from data brokers is just something the government does all the time. Bypassing restraints enacted by the Supreme Court, federal agencies (along with local law enforcement agencies) are hoovering up whatever domestic data they can from private companies all too happy to be part of the problem.

Well, That’s Everyone: Senator Wyden Letter Confirms The NSA Is Buying US Persons’ Data From Data Brokers

Ron Wyden Wants To Know Why The DEA Still Has On-Demand Access To Trillions Of Phone Records

Ms. Cat

For decades, the government has used the Third Party Doctrine to obtain massive amounts of phone records without a warrant.

Even prior to the creation of the Third Party Doctrine by the Supreme Court in 1979, government agencies were obtaining phone records using pen register requests that provided them with info on numbers called and the length of the calls. This method, however, required the government to supply some information of its own: specifically, a targeted source phone number phone companies could use to search for call metadata.

Ron Wyden Wants To Know Why The DEA Still Has On-Demand Access To Trillions Of Phone Records

IRS audits Black taxpayers more often than other groups, agency confirms

Ms. Cat

The Internal Revenue Service audits Black taxpayers at significantly higher rates than other Americans, Commissioner Daniel Werfel told lawmakers Monday, confirming earlier findings by researchers at leading universities and the Treasury Department.

IRS audits Black taxpayers more often than other groups, agency confirms

Related:

The IRS Targets Black Taxpayers, Researchers May Have Uncovered Why

Consistent underfunding of the IRS means it’s a lot easier for them to go after someone who is low-income and qualifies for the EITC than it is to go after someone with a million lawyers hiding money in the Cayman Islands.

Targeting the rich for their tax-related shenanigans takes some major coins, and the IRS severely lacks the funds it would need to do that. Unfortunately, that means they’re more likely to knock on the doors of people just trying to get by.

Good thing Republicans are trying to repeal IRS funds?! /sarcasm

Political Grandstanding, FBI’s Long History Of Surveillance Abuse May Finally Get It Booted Off The Section 702 Block

Ms. Cat

from the hell,-I’ll-take-politicized-if-that’s-the-best-option dept

Wed, Feb 15th 2023 10:45am – Tim Cushing

The FBI has had access to Section 702 surveillance and it has always abused this access. The data and communications are collected by the NSA under this authority. Once collected, the FBI hooks up to this massive data store and to perform backdoor searches on domestic targets, even though it’s only supposed to received masked/minimized domestic data from the NSA.

Political Grandstanding, FBI’s Long History Of Surveillance Abuse May Finally Get It Booted Off The Section 702 Block

More Mass Surveillance: FOIA Docs Reveal Illegal Snooping On US Residents’ Financial Transactions

Ms. Cat

If it can conceivably be considered a “third party record,” the government is going to seek warrantless access to it. The Third Party Doctrine — ushered into existence by the Supreme Court in 1979 — says there’s no expectation of privacy in information shared with third parties. That case dealt with phone records. People may prefer the government stay out of their personal conversations, but the Smith v. Maryland ruling said that if people shared this info with phone companies (an involuntary “sharing” since this information was needed to connect calls and bill phone users), the government could obtain this information without a warrant.

More Mass Surveillance: FOIA Docs Reveal Illegal Snooping On US Residents’ Financial Transactions

The FBI and Zero-Click

Ms. Cat

During the Trump administration, the FBI paid $5 million to an Israeli software company for a license to use its “zero-click” surveillance software called Pegasus. Zero-click refers to software that can download the contents of a target’s computer or mobile device without the need for tricking the target into clicking on it. The FBI operated the software from a warehouse in New Jersey.

The FBI and Zero-Click

Related:

NSO Group Pitched Phone Hacking Tech to American Police

A former NSO employee told Motherboard that Phantom was “a brand name for U.S. territory,” but the “same Pegasus,” referring to NSO’s phone hacking tool that the company has sold to multiple countries including the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia for millions of dollars. Infamously, Saudi Arabia used the software to surveil associates of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Motherboard granted the source anonymity to protect them from retaliation from NSO

Source