House Amendment Limits Funding for NSA Surveillance

The House of Representatives last night overwhelmingly passed an amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act that would cut funding for two programs that grant intelligence agencies access to the private data and communications of U.S. citizens. The amendment shows that Congress is...

Microsoft Calls for NSA Surveillance Reforms

On the anniversary of the first news reports on NSA surveillance, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith seized the opportunity to draw a line in the sand with the U.S. government. Smith challenged the government curtail surveillance because it’s hurting business and impaling privacy and civil...

Ex-NSA Director Admits 'We Kill People Based On Metadata' with Drone Strike

We All now know about the existence of the extensive metadata collection program by U.S National Security Agency NSA, which creates an intimate repository of our lives -- whom we love, whom we’re friends with, where we work, whom we call, when we you, how long we talk over the calls, and how ofte...

Judiciary Committee Approves Bill Limiting NSA Surveillance

The House Judiciary Committee met yesterday in a hearing to discuss, amend and approve the USA FREEDOM Act, which aims to rein in the National Security Agency’s surveillance powers and place new limits on authority granted under the USA PATRIOT Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act...

USA FREEDOM Act Revised to Limit NSA Surveillance

UPDATE: A prior version of this story incorrectly noted that the bill revisions included a clause that would require an earlier re-authorization to the PATRIOT Act, when in fact the revisions push that re-authorization date more than two years further into the future. The House Judiciary Committe...

White House Calls for Transparency from Data Brokers

The White House redirected attention away from the data collection efforts of the intelligence community yesterday with the release of a report that urged data brokers to be more transparent about their own data harvesting. Companies such as Facebook, Google and others make a living collecting th...

Clapper: NSA Queries Databases for Information on U.S. Persons

UPDATE–The NSA searches the data it collects incidentally on Americans, including phone calls and emails, during the course of terrorism investigations. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, confirmed the searches in a letter to Sen. Ron Wyden, the first time that such actions hav...

NSA Surveillance Reform Demonstrate Need for Public Scrutiny

The Snowden leaks and the ensuing critical spotlight shone on the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs have nudged many technologists, privacy hounds and politicians away from their desks and onto the front lines calling for reforms. Two nights ago, the New York Times reported that...

White House Proposal Would End NSA Metadata Program

Privacy advocates are cautiously applauding the reports that the Obama administration will unveil a legislative proposal to end the National Security Agency’s collection of Americans’ bulk phone records, but are concerned what the fine print on that proposal might hold. “Given all the various way...

Microsoft Reads User Email without Warrant

Late last week it emerged that Microsoft had searched through the contents of a French blogger’s Hotmail account in order to track down the source of a leak of proprietary information from the Redmond, Wash., tech giant. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and transparency advocates have expressed...

Verizon Updates 2013 Transparency Report With FISA Data

Verizon updated its transparency report yesterday, breaking down National Security Letter and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act FISA orders for the first and second halves of 2013. The telecommunications giant released its first transparency report in late January, responding to pressure from...

CBI arrests Indian mastermind behind Hire-a-Hacker service on FBI tip-off

For the first time in history, Indian Law Enforcement Agency 'Central Bureau of Investigation' CBI has arrested a Cyber criminal after getting a tip-off from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI. 33-Year-old Amit Vikram Tiwari, son of an Indian Army colonel and an engineering dropout, who...

Oversight Board Calls NSA Metadata Collection Illegal

Another independent review board investigating the National Security Agency’s collection of phone records metadata has come down hard on the program, calling it illegal, recommending the government end the program, and questioning its effectiveness in ferreting out terrorists. The Privacy and Civ...

Congress to Consider Critical Infrastructure Protection Bill

The National Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act of 2013 would amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to better protect the country against potentially destructive cyber attacks targeting national utilities and other critical infrastructure systems. The House Subcommittee on...

Obama Orders NSA Bulk Metadata Surveillance Reforms

President Obama today announced reforms to the National Security Agency’s bulk metadata collection program under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, ordering a transition that would end the program as it exists today, and prohibit the government from storing and accessing the data without secret cour...

CREDO Mobile Publishes Industry's First Transparency Report

Credo Mobile, the small San Francisco mobile provider that is reportedly the unnamed plaintiff in a suit that challenged the legality of national security letters, yesterday published its first transparency report, the first such report published by a mobile provider. Credo, which has raised tens...

Hack or attempt to Hack, you may face 20 years in prison

The Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman 'Patrick Leahy' reintroduced a revamped version of the "Personal Data Privacy and Security Act" for tough criminal penalties for hackers, that he originally authored in 2005. During last Christmas Holidays, a massive data breach had occurred at the shopping...

NSA Metadata Program Likely Not Cost-Effective, Researchers Say

While much of the coverage of the surveillance programs revealed by Edward Snowden have focused on the legality and constitutionality of the collection of metadata and Internet traffic in the name of counter-terrorism and national security, the question of whether these programs are actually cost...

Fedora Update for python-djblets FEDORA-2013-20817

Check for the Version of python-djblets OpenVAS Vulnerability Test Fedora Update for python-djblets FEDORA-2013-20817 Authors: System Generated Check Copyright: Copyright C 2013 Greenbone Networks GmbH, http://www.greenbone.net This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify ...

Surveillance Transparency Act Would Limit NSA Spying

There have been countless hearings in both the House and Senate since the Snowden leaks began in June, and there seems to be no end in sight. The latest committee to get in on the action was the Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, which held a...