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A federal judge this week struck down a controversial set of laws allowing the Federal Bureau of Investigation to seek people's records without a court's approval, saying the strict secrecy orders demanded by the laws are not constitutional. Judge Susan Illston, of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, said the laws, which underlie a tool known as a "national security letter," violate the First Amendment and the separation of powers principles. In her order, Judge Illston ordered the government to stop issuing national security letters or enforcing their gag orders, although she said enforcement of her judgment...

A federal judge has ruled that Google must comply with the FBI's warrantless requests for confidential user data, despite the search company's arguments that the secret demands are illegal.

Even as the U.S. Air Force faces a long-term pilot shortage, there are no plans to grow the ranks of enlisted pilots, a top official said recently. "We'll certainly see what the study says, but at this point, we have no intention to expand enlisted pilot positions beyond the Global Hawk" community, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told Military.com on May 4. Wilson was referring to a Rand Corp. study exploring the feasibility of bringing back a warrant officer corps as the service faces shortfalls in its pilot billets. "The Rand study is complete, and we are now reviewing, analyzing...

A Glimmer of Hope Dear A-Letter Reader:In the April 17, 2002 A-Letter, I wrote about an obscure type of treaty called a "MLAT," or Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. MLATs give governments the right to gather evidence and seize assets without a judicial hearing and in some cases, with no right of appeal to any court. The treaties essentially override all confidentiality laws that might otherwise apply. And their one-sidedness is an invitation to serious abuse.The US has more than 50 MLATs in effect, more than any other country. Since the first MLAT came into effect in 1977, they have been...

Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul on Sunday blasted former CIA Director John Brennan for suggesting that President Trump will be remembered as a “disgraced demagogue,” saying that Brennan spying on Americans while running the agency was disgraceful. “This man had the power to search every American’s records without a warrant,” Paul tweeted Sunday. “What’s disgraceful is attacking the Bill of Rights and the freedom of every American.”

BREAKING: Carter Page – The Linchpin to Deep State Spying on Trump – Was Member of Clinton Transition Team ( Full title ) ... The FBI sought FISA warrants FOUR TIMES to spy on Carter Page. The warrants on Page then gave the Deep State access to spy on all of the Trump campaign officials. According to reports from 2016 Carter Page was previously working as an undercover informant for the FBI. And now this… Carter Page was a member of the Clinton administration Transition Team.

What Is It? Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is a statute that authorizes the collection, use, and dissemination of electronic communications content stored by U.S. internet service providers (such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft) or traveling across the internet’s “backbone” (with the compelled assistance of U.S. telecom providers such as AT&T and Verizon). Section 702 sunsets on December 31, 2017. Are There Any Restrictions? Unlike “traditional” FISA surveillance, Section 702 does not require that the surveillance target be a suspected terrorist, spy, or other agent of a foreign power. Section 702 only requires that the targets...

Turkish government, under the rule of autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has issued detention warrants for 112 people over the links to the Journalists and Writers’ Foundation (JWF), which is defunct in Turkey, on Wednesday as part of its massive post-coup witch hunt campaign targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement.İstanbul-Anadolu Chief Prosecutor’s Office has ordered warrants against those who are executives of the JWF or who have relations with the foundation. The anti-terror police teams have started İstanbul-based operations to detain the JWF’s civil society activists and intellectuals in 17 provinces including İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir and Manisa provinces on Wednesday.It was...

Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort is calling on the Justice Department to release transcripts of any intercepted communications he may have had with foreigners. Manafort, a longtime Republican political consultant, also called on the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate the leak of details of secret surveillance warrants obtained by U.S. investigators. “Mr. Manafort requests that the Department of Justice release any intercepts involving him and any non-Americans so interested parties can come to the same conclusion as the DOJ — there is nothing there,” Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni said in a statement. On Monday, CNN reported that investigators...

from the whoa dept Okay, here's one that's just crazy. A few weeks ago, lots of folks, including us, covered the story of how the Justice Department claimed to a court that reporter James Rosen was "an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator" in a leak of some State Department info concerning North Korea. He was none of the above. He was a reporter, but the DOJ was abusing its power in order to spy on his email and phone records, to try to find the source of the leak. Soon after that, it came out that the DOJ had been...

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey has issued detention warrants for 3,224 people over suspected links to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, news channels NTV and CNN Turk reported on Wednesday, in one of the largest operations in months against the network which Turkey blames for a failed July coup. More than 1,000 of those had already been detained, NTV said. Turkey's interior minister said earlier that the operation targeted the network's structure in the police force.

(Snip)in a possible effort to chip away at this number, the New York Times reports that all five borough district attorneys are considering striking thousands of open warrants from the record. The group has reportedly agreed to purge 200,000 warrants that were issued at least 20 years ago, while Acting Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez and Bronx DA Darcel Clark push for a larger purge: all 800,000 warrants written 10 or more years ago.New York immigration attorneys and advocates say these warrants are increasingly dangerous for non-citizens, as one of President Donald Trump's sweeping executive orders targets any non-citizen with an...

On Thursday, December 1, a vital Supreme Court order is set to go into effect that dramatically expands the surveillance power of federal agents.The impending alteration to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure softens the legal requirements for obtaining search and seizure warrants that grant the government remote access to individual’s computers and phones. In the past, law enforcement was required to obtain a warrant from a judge within the jurisdiction where the proposed search was going take place.Under this new system, however, if an individual is using technology to conceal their location, the warrant is considered valid regardless of jurisdiction. A single authorization will...

San Francisco’s chief judge says he and his colleagues discarded 66,000 arrest warrants issued over five years for quality-of-life crimes, like sleeping on the sidewalk, because it made no sense to lock people up for fines they couldn’t afford.

Attorneys in Baltimore are reviewing hundreds of convictions after an investigation revealed that police there have secretly used cell phone surveillance tools in nearly 2,000 criminal cases. Following a report in USA Today that exposed the extent of the Baltimore Police Department’s use of cell-tracking technology to locate suspects sought in connection with low-level crimes, lawyers in the city’s public defender office now tell the paper they plan to ask the court to toss out “a large number” of convictions.

MADISON, Wis. – Democrat Milwaukee County prosecutors tapped the email and text communications of conservative activists as part of a five-year probe aimed at bringing down Republican Gov. Scott Walker, affidavits reviewed by Wisconsin Watchdog reveal. One target of the spying operation told Wisconsin Watchdog the methods used to keep tabs on Wisconsin residents were like those of the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program. “It was actually worse because (Milwaukee County prosecutors) were taking the body of emails and looking at actual data,” said the source, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution from the prosecutors....

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill that would have required police to obtain warrants for surveillance by drone, making California the latest state to weigh on an issue that is dividing lawmakers across the country. Mr. Brown's decision comes as the nation grapples with how to balance concerns over privacy and civil liberties with a technology that police departments say can serve as a powerful law-enforcement tool.

This week’s Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling on warrantless vehicle searches has motorists wondering when a cop will be rummaging through their car. The ruling now permits police to search a vehicle without a driver’s consent or a judge’s signature on a warrant. Local police professionals, however, say little will change as far as who is subjected to searches. They claim it all comes down to an officer having “probable cause,” as the high-court ruling states. What exactly is probable cause? What qualifies as means for an officer to search a vehicle? “There must be probable cause that there is evidence...

Texas courts have ruled that because legally owned firearms represent “a threat of physical violence” to police, officers may ignore the 4th Amendment rights of Texas residents by treating ALL legally issued warrants as “No Knock” warrants, even if the issuing judge has made it clear that officers “…must knock on the door and announce their identity and purpose before attempting a forcible entry.” In August of 2006, police in Collin County, Texas obtained a warrant to search the home of John Quinn based on information that Quinn’s son might be keeping a controlled substance on the premises. Although the...

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that police need a warrant based on probable cause to attach a GPS device to a suspect's car. The Supreme Court ruled last year that attaching a GPS device to a car qualifies as a "search" under the Fourth Amendment, but the justices stopped short of declaring that police need a warrant. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals held Tuesday in a two-to-one decision that attaching a GPS device to a car without a warrant is an "unreasonable search," and therefore unconstitutional. The decision involved a man, Harry Katzin, who was under suspicion of...