A motorcyclist in Maryland, who happened to be wearing a helmut camera, was stopped by a police officer. The motorcyclist recorded the video of what happened next, including the cop drawing a gun. He posted the video on YouTube, and now faces a wiretap charge under Maryland law his efforts. Ridiculous. And the ACLU is [...]
Posts Tagged ‘wiretapping’
Film a cop, go to jail
Posted: 28th July 2010 by Brant in politicsTags: civil liberties, justice, police, wiretapping
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Obama = Bush Light, part 2
Posted: 10th June 2010 by Brant in politicsTags: civil liberties, DOJ, Obama, Obama administration, privacy, wiretapping
Once again, President Obama is adopting positions inconsistent with his campaign promises and consistent with his predecessor. His Department of Justice is taking a position that the US government is immune to all claims of warrantless wiretapping, a position even more damaging to privacy rights that Bush’s. The DOJ claims that the U.S. Government is [...]
FBI wants Internet records kept
Posted: 6th February 2010 by Brant in politicsTags: civil liberties, FBI, Internet, wiretapping
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Your Federal government continues to insist that ISPs should be required to keep records of internet usage by their customers for use in criminal investigations. Think of this a the equivalent of having your geographic location tracked and provided to the government at its request. Compare it to requiring your library to track books you [...]
John Yoo: Shameless
Posted: 16th July 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: Bush administration, civil liberties, DOJ, privacy, wiretapping
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John Yoo has a piece in today’s WSJ. I won’t quote it, except to say it is the same old argument, louder and with even less substance. To wit, the President of the US has unlimited power to do anything that the President decides is necessary to protect the country, notwithstanding statutes or even apparent [...]
Cheney was unavailable for comment
Posted: 12th July 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: Bush administration, Cheney, civil liberties, privacy, wiretapping
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According to the New York Times, Dick Cheney personally ordered that a CIA clandestine program be kept secret from Congress for eight years. The investigation of what happened has to occur. This was the program the Leon Pannetta, current CIA director, canceled last month when he first learned of its existence. The Central Intelligence Agency [...]
Warrantless wiretaps of limited value
Posted: 11th July 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: Bush administration, civil liberties, DOJ, justice, privacy, wiretapping
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The Bush administration not only invaded the privacy of telecommunications in apparent violation of the Constitution, but the wiretaps were not even partiularly helpful in combatting terrorism. Most intelligence officials interviewed “had difficulty citing specific instances” when the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program contributed to successes against terrorists, the report said. While the program obtained [...]
Bush warrantless wiretapping program kept secret within DOJ (updated)
Posted: 10th July 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: Bush administration, Cheney, civil liberties, DOJ, wiretapping
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It appears that there may finally be some progress on investigation into Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program. There is an unclassified summary written by five inspectors general, according to the Washington Post. The inspectors general from the Departments of Justice and Defense, as well as the CIA, the NSA and the office of the Director of [...]
Broader electronic surveillance acknowledged (updated)
Posted: 17th June 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: civil liberties, privacy, wiretapping
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Here is an area where far more transparency is needed. As reported in today’s New York Times, the electronic surveillance operations by the NSA continue and are even broader than originally described. Since April, when it was disclosed that the intercepts of some private communications of Americans went beyond legal limits in late 2008 and [...]
Quote of the day
Posted: 4th June 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: civil liberties, Google, privacy, wiretapping
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According to a former Google executive who left in 2004, the thought that the NSA’s data miners could begin ordering them to install a secret pipeline to the agency has many in the company worried. ‘During my time at Google,’ he said, ‘we actually had committee meetings to plan strategy for what to do if [...]
Judge dismisses lawsuits against telcoms for wiretapping
Posted: 3rd June 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: Bush administration, civil liberties, Obama, wiretapping
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Read the sad details here. [Judge] Walker’s decision (.pdf), if it survives, ends more than three years of litigation accusing the nation’s carriers of funneling Americans’ electronic communications to the Bush administration without warrants in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. The ruling also means that the public may never know how [...]
Democratic thinking
Posted: 30th May 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: civil liberties, Democrats, Obama, torture, wiretapping
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Matt Taibbi succinctly summarizes what is wrong with the Democrats. Why is the Gitmo decision classic Democratic Party thinking? Because when certain of us said we wanted Gitmo closed, we sort of meant a change in policy – we didn’t mean just physically closing the plant, moving the prisoners elsewhere, and leaving the policies essentially [...]
DOJ lawyers faces sanctions in wiretapping case
Posted: 23rd May 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: civil liberties, economy, terror, wiretapping
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In a long-fought case filed by an Islamic charity claiming it had been illegally wiretapped, the Judge seems to have reached the end of his rope regarding government delay and claims of “state secrets” to refuse discovery. Government lawyers trying to fend off a much-watched warrantless wiretapping case in federal court now face sanctions and [...]
As usual, government over-reach
Posted: 16th April 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: Bush administration, civil liberties, justice, Obama administration, privacy, wiretapping
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The NSA, it turns out, has been intercepting far more email and phone calls than is allowed even under the overly-broad legal authorization they were given by the Bush Administration. Quelle surprise. The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the [...]
Be careful what you wish for (updated)
Posted: 15th April 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: civil liberties, DOJ, justice, privacy, republicans, wiretapping
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During the Bush administration, the Republicans (with too much help from the Democrats) greatly increased centralized government power, all in the name of “security.” So now, when the DHS puts out a report warning local police agencies about a growing risk of violence from right-wing fringe groups, the Republican blogosphere goes crazy. Glenn Greenwald asks [...]
Who does your ISP work for?
Posted: 26th March 2009 by Brant in biz, techTags: file-sharing, music, privacy, tech, wiretapping
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If you ISP is Comcast or AT&T, you should know that they are both working with the RIAA against you. Both companies admit they are beginning to send out warning letters to users who the RIAA believes are downloading pirated content. The warning is that the alleged downloaders might be disconnected from the Internet. All [...]