Government Surveillance

12/12/2012

Hotel Lock Security Vulnerability is Reminder of Government’s Ambiguous Role in Protecting Security

By Chris Soghoian, Principal Technologist and Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 10:36am

This summer, at the Black Hat security conference, a security researcher presented details of a troubling security flaw: An electronic lock system, used in more than 4 million hotel rooms around the world, is vulnerable. The researcher, Cody Brocious, revealed that with less than $50 in electronic parts, a device can be built that will open one of the vulnerable locks in seconds. Just a few months after Brocious revealed the flaw, hotels in Texas reported a string of thefts by burglars from rooms, all protected by vulnerable locks.

12/10/2012

Government Surveillance

Who’s a Radical Now?

By Michael German, Senior Policy Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:10am

The Bipartisan Policy Center published a report last week called, “Countering Online Radicalization in America,” which strongly endorsed First Amendment principles in rejecting censorship as an appropriate tactic for addressing violent extremist content on the Internet. The report evaluated the many methods governments around the world use to censor the Internet – including filtering or blacklisting online content, taking down websites (either through legal means, cyber attacks or appealing to private sector providers), and prosecuting Internet content producers – and rejected them all as both ineffective in stopping the spread of undesirable ideas, and an affront to American values: “For the United States, the cost-benefit analysis would be even clearer: with its long and cherished tradition of free speech, the creation of a nationwide system of censorship is virtually inconceivable.” But the BPC’s positive recommendations are potentially undermined by its continuing embrace of a radicalization theory that draws too close a causal connection between “radical” ideas and violent action.

11/27/2012

Warrantless Wiretapping

Does Using Certain Privacy Tools Expose You to Warrantless NSA Surveillance? ACLU Files FOIA to Find Out

By Chris Soghoian, Principal Technologist and Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 1:04pm

Can using privacy-enhancing tools (such as Tor or a Virtual Private Network) actually expose you to warrantless surveillance by the National Security Agency? This week, the ACLU sent off four FOIA requests to federal agencies in order to try and answer this question.

To understand why we think that may be the case, we have to go back to the passage of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) in 2008. That act was not a high-point for civil liberties or the rule of law. It included a provision giving immunity to the telecom companies that violated the law by assisting the NSA with its warrantless wiretapping program. Although the get-out-of-jail-free card given to the phone companies is the most well-known aspect to the FAA, there is much more to the law, and many other things that give privacy advocates reason to worry.

11/15/2012

Background checks

Data Breach Raises Questions About NASA Policy At Issue in Recent Supreme Court Case

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 4:35pm

We hate to say “I told you so.”

In 2010, the Supreme Court heard a case called NASA v. Nelson, which involved the government’s right to carry out highly intrusive background checks. NASA decided to require its employees—many of whom had already been working for the agency for many years in what the government conceded were “low-risk” and “non-sensitive” positions—to fill out a form in which they were required to disclose any illegal drug use or possession within the previous year, along with details on any treatment or counseling received for such use. These employees were also required to sign an authorization permitting NASA’s security people to obtain

11/14/2012

GPS

ACLU Asks Appeals Court to Require a Warrant for GPS Tracking

By Catherine Crump, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 1:33pm

Yesterday we asked the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to consider our argument that law enforcement agents should have to obtain a warrant based on probable cause to attach a GPS tracker to a car and track its movements (you can read our amicus brief here).

In the case, the government suspected that Harry, Mark and Michael Katzin had robbed a number of Rite-Aid pharmacies. To confirm their hunch they attached a GPS tracker—without first going to a judge and getting a warrant—to Harry Katzin’s car. They used the GPS tracker to follow the Katzins when they traveled to another Rite-Aid, and arrested them shortly afterwards.

11/13/2012

Online Privacy

Surveillance and Security Lessons From the Petraeus Scandal

By Chris Soghoian, Principal Technologist and Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 4:24pm

When the CIA director cannot hide his activities online, what hope is there for the rest of us? In the unfolding sex scandal that has led to the resignation of David Petraeus, the FBI’s electronic surveillance and tracking of Petraeus and his mistress Paula Broadwell is more than a side show—it's a key component of the story. More importantly, there are enough interesting tidbits (some of which change by the hour, as new details are leaked), to make this story an excellent lesson on the government’s surveillance powers—as well as a reminder of the need to reform those powers.

11/08/2012

Civil Liberties in the Digital Age

Will Increasing Surveillance Change Fiction?

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 3:36pm

The end of the Cold War created a problem for espionage thriller writers and moviemakers. They faced loss of a built-in backstory needing no explanation, a whole set of strong but realistic motivations for extreme behavior, a pre-fab cast of bad guys, and weighty, global stakes underlying all the action. Perestroika left a generation of writers searching for new conflicts and settings and plot devices.

10/29/2012

FISA

Today at the Supreme Court: The Right to Challenge Warrantless Wiretapping

By Mitra Ebadolahi, Legal Fellow, ACLU National Security Project at 6:26pm

The ACLU appeared before the Supreme Court to argue for the right of Americans to challenge a law that instituted a far-reaching and unconstitutional surveillance regime.

10/26/2012

Twitter

In Court Today: Fighting Judicial Secrecy in the WikiLeaks Investigation

By Brian Hauss, Legal Fellow, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 9:30am

(Updated below)

In another round of the legal battle over the records of Twitter users sought by the government in connection with its WikiLeaks investigation, the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are appearing before a federal appeals court in Richmond this morning, arguing that the public has a right to know about secret court orders and other documents related to government efforts to obtain Internet users’ private information without a warrant.

10/25/2012

Domestic Drones

ACLU Testifies as Congress Takes on Domestic Drones

By Sandra Fulton, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:44pm

The ACLU testified before a House field forum examining drone technology and the Fourth Amendment at Rice University called by Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.). Drones have gotten a lot of attention lately – U.S. law enforcement agencies are eager to get their hands on them while civil libertarians are concerned about the potential threat to privacy.

American Civil Liberties Union