Friday, April 28, 2006
Republican Senator Threatens to Block Money for Spy Agency's Domestic Wiretapping
FindLaw.com reports, “A frustrated Senate committee chairman is threatening to try to use Congress' control over the government's money to block President George W. Bush's domestic wiretapping program.”
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Va. Terror Case Sent Back to Lower Court
“The case of a prominent Muslim spiritual leader convicted on terrorism charges was returned to a federal judge in Alexandria yesterday after his attorneys told an appeals court that they believe the man was a target of President Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program.” The Washington Post reports, “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond said it sent the case back in part because attorneys for Ali Al-Timimi have raised concerns that the government has ‘undisclosed intercepts’ related to the controversial National Security Agency program.”
Monday, April 24, 2006
Terror Case May Offer Clues Into Police Use of Informants
“The trial of a Pakistani immigrant on charges that he plotted to bomb the Herald Square subway station in 2004 is likely to provide the most detailed picture to date of how the New York Police Department uses informants in and around the city's mosques.” The New York Times reports, “The trial of the man, Shahawar Matin Siraj, which begins today, is the first involving the department's Intelligence Division since a judge granted the police expanded surveillance powers in 2003.”
UN Damns 'Illegal' Iraq Detention
BBC News reports, “The UN's human rights official in Iraq has said the Iraqi authorities are illegally holding thousands of people.” According to the report, “Gianni Magazzeni said that of the 15,000 people held under Iraqi control, little more than half were under the jurisdiction of the justice ministry.”
Thursday, April 20, 2006
New RFID Travel Cards could Pose Privacy Threat
“Future government-issued travel documents may feature embedded computer chips that can be read at a distance of up to 30 feet, a top Homeland Security official said Tuesday, creating what some fear would be a threat to privacy.” According to CNet, “Jim Williams, director of the Department of Homeland Security's US-VISIT program, told a smart card conference here that such tracking chips could be inserted into the new generation of wallet-size identity cards used to ease travel by Americans to Canada and Mexico starting in 2008.”
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Guantanamo Detainees Lose Unusual Supreme Court Appeal
“The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a long-shot appeal filed on behalf of two Chinese Muslims being held at Guantanamo Bay while the U.S. government tries to find a country to take them.” Law.com reports, “A federal judge said the detention of the ethnic Uighurs at the military prison in Cuba was unlawful but there was nothing courts could do. Without comment, the justices declined to consider an unusual direct appeal of that decision.”
Monday, April 17, 2006
America’s Secret Police?
“A threatened turf grab by a controversial Pentagon intelligence unit is causing concern among both privacy experts and some of the Defense Department’s own personnel,” reports Newsweek. According to the report, “An informal panel of senior Pentagon officials has been holding a series of unannounced private meetings during the past several weeks about how to proceed with a possible merger between the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), a post-9/11 Pentagon creation that has been accused of domestic spying, and the Defense Security Service (DSS), a well-established older agency responsible for inspecting the security arrangements of defense contractors.”
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Librarians Win as U.S. Relents on Secrecy Law
“After fighting ferociously for months, federal prosecutors relented yesterday and agreed to allow a Connecticut library group to identify itself as the recipient of a secret F.B.I. demand for records in a counterterrorism investigation,” reports The New York Times. According to the report, “The decision ended a dispute over whether the broad provisions for secrecy in the USA Patriot Act, the antiterror law, trumped the free speech rights of library officials.”
Documents Show Link Between AT&T and Agency in Eavesdropping Case
“Mark Klein was a veteran AT&T technician in 2002 when he began to see what he thought were suspicious connections between that telecommunications giant and the National Security Agency.” According to The New York Times, now Mr. Klein and a few company documents he saved have emerged as key elements in a class-action lawsuit filed against AT&T on Jan. 31 by a civil liberties group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which accuses the company of helping the security agency invade its customers' privacy.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Bush, Justice Dept. Among Muzzle Winners
“President Bush and the Justice Department are among the winners of the 2006 Jefferson Muzzle awards, given by a free-speech group to those it considers the most egregious First Amendment violators in the past year.” According to The Los Angeles Times, “Bush led the list, compiled by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, for authorizing the National Security Agency to tap the phones of U.S. citizens who make calls overseas.”
Monday, April 10, 2006
Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room
“AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company.” According to Wired News, “Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF's lawsuit this week.”
Friday, April 07, 2006
Gonzales Suggests Legal Basis for Domestic Eavesdropping
“Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales suggested on Thursday for the first time that the president might have the legal authority to order wiretapping without a warrant on communications between Americans that occur exclusively within the United States,” reports The New York Times. According to the report, “The attorney general made his comments, which critics said reflected a broadened view of the president's authority, as President Bush offered another strong defense of his decision to authorize the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without warrants on international calls and e-mail messages to or from the United States.”
Gonzales Draws Criticism From Panel Chief
“The Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee pointedly criticized Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Thursday for ‘stonewalling’ by refusing to answer questions about the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program,” reports The New York Times. According to the report, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) said Gonzales was frustrating his panel’s oversight of the Justice Department and the controversial surveillance program, asking the Attorney General, “How can we discharge our oversight if, every time we ask a pointed question, we're told the program is classified?''
Detainee Says He Was Tortured by Moroccans
“Binyam Muhammad, who has been accused of plotting al-Qaida attacks in the United States, was tortured with a scalpel after American authorities handed him over to Moroccan interrogators, according to an account provided by his lawyer.” The Associated Press reports, “Wearing a long, orange collarless shirt and a black skullcap, the 27-year-old detainee told the judge that he has been tortured. He criticized U.S. authorities for getting his name wrong, claimed he was not the person they sought and bitterly suggested the court refer to him as Count Dracula.”
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Pentagon Says Improper Data in Security Database
“The Pentagon said on Wednesday a review launched after revelations that it had collected data on U.S. peace activists found that roughly 260 entries in a classified database of possible terrorist threats should not have been kept there,” reports Reuters. According to the report, “The review was ordered in December by Stephen Cambone, under secretary of defense for intelligence, after revelations that the database included information on U.S. citizens including peace activists and others who did not represent a genuine security threat.”
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Oregon Suit Tests Bush Wiretaps
The Oregonian has this article discussing an Oregon case that challenges the Bush administration’s wiretapping program. According to the article, “Half a dozen other lawsuits around the nation challenge the ‘Terrorist Surveillance Program,"’ but only the Oregon case claims to have specific evidence of it.”
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Justices Decline Terror Case of a U.S. Citizen
“Jose Padilla, the American citizen held for more than three years in military custody as an enemy combatant, fell one vote short on Monday of persuading the Supreme Court to take his case,” reports The New York Times. According to the report, “The result was to leave standing a decision by the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., that endorsed the government's power to seize a citizen on United States soil and keep him in open-ended detention.”
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