CivilLiberties
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Senate demands answers from Amazon over Ring surveillance
Ring's controversial "Neighbors" surveillance network and cozy relationship with police departments has drawn the eye US lawmakers. In a letter to CEO Jeff Bezos, Senator Edward Markey expressed concern that the system "could easily create a surveillance network that places dangerous burdens on people of color and [feed] racial anxieties in local communities."
Privacy groups ask tech companies to sign user data 'security pledge'
A number of organizations including the ACLU, Fight for the Future and Color of Change have called on tech companies to sign a pledge and commit to protecting their users' data. The move comes as repercussions of the Cambridge Analytica scandal continue to unfold. "Technology can empower and grant freedoms to us all, but now our online data is empowering data brokers, ISPs, surveillance companies and runaway government agencies to discriminate, exploit and limit our freedoms," says the Security Pledge website. "Companies and governments can exploit the massive troves of data companies have on people and weak links in internet security. They can twist the internet into something it was never meant to be: a weapon against the public."
Digital rights groups speak out against EU plan to scan online content
For the past few years, the European Union has been developing reforms that would turn Europe into a Digital Single Market. Under such a structure, anyone in Europe would be able to buy goods and services online from any of the EU member states, not just where they currently happen to be, and services like Netflix would be the same in each country, though that piece would be quite a bit harder to implement. However, there's another part of this conversation that has drawn a fair amount of backlash and this week led major rights groups to pen an opposition letter to the EU.
Canada says court order to pull Google results applies worldwide
In 2012, Canadian manufacturer Equustek asked Google to remove search results relating to a court case against Datalink, a distributor of the former company's network devices. While Google complied with the request, it only did so in Canada itself. The Supreme Court then ordered Google to remove search results pertaining to the issue in all countries Google operated in. Google appealed the decision, arguing that the order went against its own freedom of expression. The court has now rejected the company's argument. The majority decision says that Canadian courts may in fact grant injunctions that compel compliance anywhere in the world.
Lyft donates to the ACLU in response to Trump's immigration ban
More than a few tech companies have voiced opposition to President Trump's Muslim-focused immigration ban, but Lyft is going the distance by making a firm financial commitment. The ridesharing outfit has promised to donate $1 million to the American Civil Liberties Union over the next four years in a bid to "defend our Constitution." Trump's policy goes against both Lyft's inclusive beliefs and the "nation's core values," the company says, and the team "will not be silent" on issues like this.
Tor's new executive director is a digital privacy legend
Tor's anonymizing internet technology is already vital to whistleblowers, human rights advocates and others who value their digital privacy. It only makes sense that the project team should hire a privacy champion to help lead its efforts, doesn't it? Sure enough, Tor is doing just that: it's appointing Electronic Frontier Foundation veteran Shari Steele as its executive director. She led the EFF's efforts to fund Tor a decade ago, and spurred online security initiatives like HTTPS Everywhere. There's no doubt that she knows what Tor can do to protect your data, then.
US prisons allegedly record more inmate calls than they should (update: response)
It might not just be everyday people who've been subject to illegal surveillance -- prisoners may be victims, too. An anonymous hacker has given The Intercept phone records showing that prisons have recorded "at least" 14,000 calls between inmates and lawyers through software from Securus. As you might imagine, that potentially represents huge violations of both the attorney-client privilege and Sixth Amendment protections against interference with your right to counsel. Prosecutors could use these recordings to cheat at trial by getting case details that they're not supposed to know. In fact, a recent Austin lawsuit accuses Securus of contributing to just that kind of trickery.
Supreme Court: online threats must be intentional to be illegal
You can't be sent to prison for kinda sorta threats in the real world, and that now applies to the internet as well. The US Supreme Court has overturned the conviction in Anthony Elonis v. United States on the grounds that online threats aren't illegal unless they're clearly intentional -- not just that a "reasonable person" would see them as hostile. When Elonis raged against his ex-wife and the government through allegedly "therapeutic" rap lyrics on Facebook, the court says, it wasn't absolutely certain that he actually wished harm. The man isn't out of the woods yet (a lower court has to look at the case once again), but there's now a higher standard for putting him behind bars.
Government scales back plans for license plate-tracking program
To say that there's been some concern about the Department of Homeland Security's on-again, off-again license plate-tracking initiative is something of an understatement. Despite fresh resistance from the ACLU, the agency is persisting with the project, but has revealed that it will walk back on some of its more far-reaching requirements. The original idea was to implement a nationwide system of license plate scanners that could track a suspect's movements, making it easier for the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency to follow and apprehend criminals. Now, however, the folks at Nextgov have uncovered a document, dated February 18th, that scales the scope of the setup to a minimum of 25 states.
Police think Waze's traffic app puts officers in danger
You may use Google's Waze app primarily to avoid traffic jams and watch out for speed cameras, but some American police see it as a threat -- and they want Google to do something about it. Officers speaking to the Associated Press believe that Waze's police finding feature, which is mainly meant to warn about speed traps, makes it too easy for would-be cop killers to find targets. These critics hope to muster support from law enforcement groups and push Google into disabling the feature so that it's not relatively trivial to "stalk" uniformed people from a phone.
NSA Privacy Director says fears of government spying are unwarranted
It was one of the final questions of the NSA's open Q&A today, and one that's weighed heavily on the minds of American citizens since the Prism scandal last year: "Are our fears of being discreetly spied on merited?" They aren't, according to NSA Civil Liberties and Privacy Director Rebecca Richards . "NSA is a foreign intelligence agency," she explained. "Our mission is to collect critical intelligence on foreign powers or their agents necessary to defend the country." The response is almost dismissive, but technically correct: the NSA isn't supposed to keep tabs on domestic threats, that's the FBI's job. That said, Richards did admit that some intelligence collection against US citizens is unavoidable. "For example, a foreign intelligence target may communicate with or about a U.S. Person," she explained. "NSA's minimization procedures have been designed to account for this possibility and other cases where NSA may incidentally acquire U.S. Person information."
Twitter hands over Occupy Wall Street protestor's updates under pressure
Twitter has been building a modest reputation for siding with the little guy (or girl) when it comes to communication privacy, and it just demonstrated how far it's willing to go in a showdown with Manhattan's Criminal Court over a demand to hand over tweets from Occupy Wall Street protestor Malcolm Harris. The social network has been pushed into delivering the claimed evidence, but only as it faced a deadline and the threat of a fine -- it even tried one last request for a stay before producing hard copies of the messages. However much the handover affects Harris' chances at winning during trial, it emphasizes that public posts have serious consequences -- companies ultimately can't shield you from the law. [Image credit: Paul Stein, Flickr]
Google to flag 'censored' searches for Chinese users (video)
Google is announcing that it's going to place a flag on contentious search terms for users in mainland China. Mountain View's Alan Eustace euphemistically described how some searches break a connection to the service, leading to users being frozen out for around a minute each time. He theatrically added that the company has checked its servers several times and found no error, so whatever issue causes these outages must be external. Whenever a term is typed that is likely to cause an "outage," the error message in the picture above will appear, with a suggestion to search for something else, or use Pinyin to search for a term where contentious keywords appear inside otherwise natural searches.
FBI reportedly pressing for backdoor access to Facebook, Google
Investigators at the FBI supposedly aren't happy that social networks like Facebook or Google+ don't have the same kind of facility for wiretaps that phones have had for decades. If claimed industry contacts for CNET are right, senior staff at the bureau have floated a proposed amendment to the 1994-era Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) that would require that communication-based websites with large user bases include a backdoor for federal agents to snoop on suspects. It would still include the same requirement for a court order as for phone calls, even if US carriers currently enjoy immunity for cooperating with any warrantless wiretapping. As might be expected, technology firms and civil liberties advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation object to deepening CALEA's reach any further, and Apple is thought to be preemptively lobbying against another definition of the law that might require a government back channel for audiovisual chat services like FaceTime or Skype. The FBI didn't explicitly confirm the proposal when asked, but it did say it was worried it might be "going dark" and couldn't enforce wiretaps. [Image credit: David Drexler, Flickr]
Hawaii's online tracking law is all but dead, lead sponsor confirms
The Hawaii state legislature has apparently pulled an about face on a proposed internet tracking bill, amid swelling concerns from civil libertarians and internet service providers alike. First introduced last week, the controversial measure calls for all ISPs to track and record a user's online activity and identity within individual digital dossiers. The law's supporters trumpeted it as a vital step in protecting "victims of crime," but its momentum has all but come to a halt, now that its lead champion has proclaimed its death. In a recent interview with CNET, Democratic Representative John Mizuno (pictured left) confirmed that his bill has been shelved, attributing the decision to the avalanche of critical feedback he's received (see the coverage links, below). "It's generated a lot of national attention," Mizuno explained. "I've taken into consideration the thousands of e-mails (which were often) colorful and passionate, which is absolutely fine... This bill just isn't ready. It needs a lot of work." Unfortunately, this doesn't mean spell an outright death for the law, as Mizuno still believes that keeping a record of browsing history could help authorities hunt down pedophiles and other evil doers. "I think both would be very strong pieces of evidence if there's going to be a criminal proceeding," he argued. Despite our own fundamental misgivings with Mizuno's approach, it's still encouraging to see politicians respond to public outcry so swiftly and, as with the SOPA debacle, appropriately.
NYPD begins testing long-distance gun detector as alternative to physical searches
As part of its ongoing effort to keep New York City safe, the NYPD has begun testing a new scanning device capable of detecting concealed firearms from a distance of about 16 feet. Developed in conjunction with the Department of Defense, the technology uses terahertz imaging detection to measure the radiation that humans naturally emit, and determine whether the flow of this radiation is impeded by a foreign object -- in this case, a gun. During a speech Tuesday, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the device shows "a great deal of promise as a way of detecting weapons without a physical search." Kelly went on to say that the technology would only be deployed under "reasonably suspicious circumstances," though some civil liberties activists are already expressing concerns. "We find this proposal both intriguing and worrisome," New York Civil Liberties Union executive director Donna Lieberman said in a statement, adding that the scanner could all too easily infringe upon civilian privacy. "If the NYPD is moving forward with this, the public needs more information about this technology, how it works and the dangers it presents." For now, the NYPD is only testing the device at a shooting range in the Bronx, and has yet to offer a timeline for its potential deployment.
EFF takes the fight to Carrier IQ, requests reinforcements
If we didn't love the EFF already, we'd be proposing marriage now that it's managed to reverse-engineer Carrier IQ's pernicious monitoring software. CIQ exists in phones in three parts, the app itself, a configuration file and a database -- where your keystrokes and coded "metrics" are logged before being sent to the company. Volunteer Jared Wierzbicki cracked the configuration profile and produced IQIQ, an Android app that reveals what parts of your activity are being monitored. Now the Foundation is posting an open call for people to share their data using the app in order to decipher what personal data was collected and hopefully decrypt the rest of the software. Hopefully, our thoughts can soon turn to who's gonna play the part of Trevor Eckhart in the All the Presidents Men-style biopic.
Democratic Republic of Congo bans text messaging
After a controversial presidential election that saw Joseph Kabila retain the office amid fierce protests, the Democratic Republic of Congo has shut down the nation's text messaging services in order to restore public order. Civil liberties concerns aside, it's proving to be highly dangerous for the one point four million deaf residents who rely on text messaging. Normally they would receive safety signals when conflict broke out in their vicinity -- leading to people being caught unawares in crossfires who would otherwise have remained indoors. Human Rights organization ASADHO has said the crackdown could lead to further deaths, especially for people in remote areas and has joined numerous others in requesting the repeal of the ban.
New privacy laws needed that entail GPS technology, hot-headed rogue cops
An expert testifying at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties said on Thursday that the government needs to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. Among the criticisms was the fact that it doesn't adequately address location-aware technologies. "With regard to this type of location data, ECPA's statutory framework is profoundly unsatisfying," said Marc Zwillinger of Zwillinger and Genetski, a Washington DC law firm that specializes in cybercrime. "[I]t fails to provide clear guidance for situations in which the government seeks to track an individual's precise movements, leaving the answer to the general application of Fourth Amendment principles and significant variation across jurisdictions." In other words, the wording of the law is extremely nebulous, a situation that can lead to confusion (and civil right violations). And if it weren't enough that courts and law enforcement are applying decades-old law to cutting edge technology, "the current law is overly secretive because warrants for wiretaps and other communications intercepts are often sealed for years after they are issued," writes Gautham Nagesh in The Hill. He cites U.S. Magistrate Stephen Smith of the Southern District of Texas as charging that "the brunt of that secrecy is borne by people who are never charged with a crime but have the misfortune to contact someone whose communications are being monitored." Well, we're glad that someone in Washington seems to think that the ECPA needs overhauled -- but we'll remain skeptical until we see something concrete. Regardless, we doubt that a simple change in law will keep McNulty from doing whatever he has to do to make his case. He's real police.
Laptops can be confiscated and searched at US border without cause says report
In further evidence of our rapidly eroding civil liberties, the Department of Homeland Security disclosed today that US Customs and Border Protection and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement have the right to confiscate and search a traveler's laptop or other electronic device without any suspicion of wrongdoing. The rules -- which we reported on in February -- allow for searches of hard drives, flash drives, cellphones, iPods, pagers, and video or audio tapes, and specify that the agencies can "detain" belongings for a "reasonable period of time," (i.e., as long as they please). Additionally, the DHS can share the data found with other government agencies or private entities for translation, decryption, or (astoundingly vague) "other reasons." The DHS says the policies apply to anyone entering the country -- including US citizens -- and claim the measures are necessary to prevent terrorism. In other news, Big Brother issued a statement today guaranteeing a bonus for turning over family members suspected of crimethink to the Thought Police.[Via Switched]
