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Wyden: NSA Must Answer Whether it is Buying Americans’ Location Data and Web Browsing Records Before New Director Is Confirmed Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., announced he will place a hold on the nomination of Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh to serve as director of the National Security Agency (NSA) until the NSA discloses whether it is buying Americans’ location data and web browsing records. In a statement placed in the Congressional record this afternoon, Wyden said the Defense Department has refused to make public important information about purchases of Americans’ personal data — information that the government...

Author and journalist Michael Shellenberger has said that “U.S. and U.K. military contractors” have used “sophisticated psychological operations and disinformation tactics… against the American people” in sworn testimony in the U.S. House of Representatives. In a hearing of the Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government chaired by Jim Jordan (R-OH) on suppression of free speech by the government, Shellenberger presented the information he received from a whistleblower about the origins of the so-called “Censorship Industrial complex.” Shellenberger, one of the “Twitter Files” authors, coined the phrase “Censorship Industrial Complex” to describe the network of government and private entities...

The U.S. government requested and received the metadata for accounts connected to, and in alignment with, President Donald J. Trump.That’s billions of billions of datapoints on millions of American citizens, their locations, their devices, their ip addresses and ultimately their real identities and connected activity as attributed to -and connected with- their connected social media accounts. Essentially, turning Donald J. Trump into the center of a surveillance virus.People then say – how could the Jack Smith special counsel possibly comb through all of those users and all of that connected metadata? The answer is Artificial Intelligence; but the serious concern...

Author and environmentalist Michael Shellenberger has recently accused military contractors from the US and UK of employing advanced psychological operations and disinformation tactics aimed at manipulating public perception. As citizens become increasingly aware of these allegations, questions arise about the ethical implications of such actions and the impact on democratic principles. The need for a thorough investigation and public discourse on the matter becomes apparent to ensure the responsible use of government funds and to safeguard the integrity of information available to the public.

“We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government.” — William O. Douglas, dissenting in Osborn v. United States (1966)The government wants us to believe that we have nothing to fear from its mass spying programs as long as we’ve done nothing wrong.Don’t believe it.It doesn’t matter whether you obey every law. The government’s definition of a “bad” guy is extraordinarily broad, and it results in the warrantless surveillance of innocent, law-abiding Americans on a staggering scale.For instance, it was recently revealed that the...

House and Senate conservatives on Wednesday sounded the alarm on a potential move by congressional leadership to extend a deep state surveillance law in a defense bill. “Reauthorization of FISA can’t be hooked to anything. The federal GOV has spied on Americans [who] decided to go to Church or you went to a school board meeting. This needs to end. Reauthorization needs to stand on its own, and have significant reform,” House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry (R-PA) said during a press conference with the House Freedom Caucus and Senate conservatives. The conservatives held their press conference as congressional leaders...

Millions of Americans who use AT&T’s phone network are having their phone calls monitored by a surveillance program called Data Analytical Services (DAS), which has had coordination with federal and local law enforcement agencies. According to a document obtained by WIRED, DAS has been secretly collecting and analyzing over one trillion domestic phone records within the U.S. each year. The program used to be called Hemisphere and is run by AT&T in coordination with different agencies, according to Fox News. The program uses a technique known as chain analysis. This goes after those who have been in direct contact with...

@RepThomasMassie Were it not for Edward Snowden, the elected lawmaking body of the United States would not know about vast unconstitutional programs that were being run by the unelected government of the U.S. I say this definitively as 1 of 535 elected lawmakers of the U.S. government.

The tool is called Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance ActWith just seven weeks until the end of the year, the Biden administration is running out of time to win the reauthorization of a spy program it says is vital to preventing terrorism, catching spies and disrupting cyberattacks. The tool, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, will expire at the end of December unless the White House and Congress can cut a deal and resolve an unusually vexing debate that has yielded unlikely alliances at the intersection of privacy and national security... This year, a key point...

Even Democrats are pushing back against Biden’s police state. US Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is blowing the whistle on a secretive surveillance program that permits federal, state, local and Tribal law enforcement agencies to surveil over a trillion domestic phone records annually. On Sunday, Sen. Wyden sent a letter to the Department of Justice warning the Data Analytical Services, formerly known as Hemisphere Project, illegally authorizes government agencies to track, monitor Americans’ calls and analyze the phone records of everyday people who are not suspected of committing any crime, including victims of crimes. The Democrat lawmaker called on Attorney General...

Hannah Lovaglio's first son entered the world a month early. Nurses bustled in and out of the hospital room during his first days of life and frequently pricked his heel to check his blood, Lovaglio recalled. "I just trusted and assumed that everyone had my best interest in mind and my child's best interest in mind," she said. "So I didn't question much." Unbeknownst to the new mother, New Jersey secretly stores newborn "bloodspots" for up to 23 years and has in some cases turned samples over to police, open records inquiries found

Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley called for an end to anonymity on social media during a television appearance on Nov. 14. “Every person on social media should be verified by their name,” the 2024 presidential hopeful said while fielding questions from voters on Fox News’s “The Faulkner Focus,” hosted by Harris Faulkner. “First of all, it’s a national security threat. When you do that, all of a sudden, people have to stand by what they say. And it gets rid of the Russian bots, the Iranian bots, and the Chinese bots. And then you’re going to get some civility, when...

Former ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Tuesday that she favored requiring social media accounts to be verified by a person’s name.Haley clashed with businessman and fellow Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy over social media multiple times, including a testy exchange during Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate after Ramaswamy mentioned that Haley’s daughter used TikTok. Several popular Twitter accounts, including Catturd and LibsofTikTok are or had been anonymous

EXCLUSIVE: The House Ways and Means Committee is demanding answers from the Justice Department on why it charged a former IRS consultant with one count of unauthorized disclosure of taxpayer information, including information belonging to former President Trump and thousands of wealthy Americans, despite the individual admitting to two separate disclosures. The former IRS official, Charles Littlejohn, pleaded guilty last month to one count of unauthorized disclosure of tax return information. The Justice Department accused him of leaking tax information belonging to former President Trump and "thousands of the nation’s wealthiest individuals" to news outlets between 2018 and 2020. The...

A federal judge on Tuesday refused to bring back a class action lawsuit alleging four auto manufacturers had violated Washington state’s privacy laws by using vehicles’ on-board infotainment systems to record and intercept customers’ private text messages and mobile phone call logs. The Seattle-based appellate judge ruled that the practice does not meet the threshold for an illegal privacy violation under state law, handing a big win to automakers Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen and General Motors, which are defendants in five related class action suits focused on the issue. One of those cases, against Ford, had been dismissed on appeal previously....

Nearly every US-born baby has blood drawn to check their risk of about 60 rare diseases within hours of coming into the world. What many parents may not know is that these DNA samples can be stored in a government lab indefinitely, allowing law enforcement access to blood for investigations into a child's relative. New Jersey can store samples for up to 23 years, while others like California, Massachusetts and Maine are indefinite.

Gmail has gotten to the point that it regularly locks me out of my accounts for a week or more. Im tired of them using phony security concerns to track my location, accounts, devices, etc. Looking for free accounts for personal use. Interested in hearing about your experience using other emails, both the pros and cons. What are your suggestions?

House Judiciary Committee Republicans are pressing ahead with sweeping reforms to the government’s FISA surveillance powers that among other things would would prohibit the FBI from searching through Americans’ phone records without a court-approved warrant. The effort is on track to be wrapped up by the end of the year when several Patriot Act powers expire. Republicans and Democrats are coming together on this matter in rare bipartisan cooperation, lawmakers told Just the News. “We've got, I think, strong agreement amongst members of the Intel Committee and members of the Judiciary Committee. And frankly some Democrats as well, that there...

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration faces an uphill battle to reauthorize a key surveillance tool, known as Section 702, before it expires at the end of the year as members of both parties of Congress push for big changes.Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, allows the government to conduct targeted surveillance of foreign nationals living outside the U.S. without needing to obtain a warrant. It has become increasingly controversial over the years.As recently as this month, a court opinion disclosed that FBI employees wrongly searched foreign surveillance data for the last names of a U.S. senator...

Several current and former congressional oversight staff have been recently informed that the U.S. Justice Department seized their phone and email records back in 2017 as part of leak investigations, belated revelations that have touched off an inquiry by DOJ's internal watchdog and raised serious concerns about the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches. Over the last week, several current and former Senate and House staff from both political parties have alerted Congress that they received belated notifications from Apple, Google or other Big Tech firms that their email or phone records were obtained from their personal...