The Associated Press (AP) released an exclusive report Thursday revealing a secret US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) spying program that targeted top Venezuelan officials, including Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, despite the program’s potential illegality under international law. According to AP, the program, internally referred to as Operation Money Badger, has been ongoing since at least [...]
Search Results for: nsa surveillance
US senator releases letter alleging NSA buys personal data without warrant
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) released a letter Thursday alleging that the US National Security Agency (NSA) buys Americans’ internet browsing information from commercial brokers without a warrant. According to the letter, US intelligence agencies are acquiring data about Americans from private data brokers, and have been for several years. Senator Wyden likened federal agencies purchasing [...]
US lawmakers introduce new bill to reform current intelligence and surveillance law
Several US Democratic and Republican Senators introduced the Government Surveillance Reform Act of 2023 on Tuesday in an effort to protect Americans’ privacy from government surveillance. The bill aims to establish better national security protections for people who may have had their information unknowingly collected by government agencies such as the FBI and National Security [...]
White House advisory board report calls for reforms to intelligence gathering procedures
The US President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) released a report Monday in support of the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) while also recommending restrictions to prevent abuse. Section 702 is a controversial provision of FISA that allows for “the targeting of persons reasonably believed to be located outside the [...]
US NSA director urges Congress to renew foreign surveillance provisions
The Commander of US Cyber Command and NSA Director Paul Nakasone Thursday urged Congress to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Services Intelligence Act. Unless Congress acts, Section 702 will expire on December 31, 2023. Section 702 permits the US government to conduct targeted surveillance of foreign persons located outside the US without a warrant [...]
Interview: Brennan Center's Elizabeth Goitein on Supreme Court Fight Against Government Surveillance
JURIST Deputy Features Editor Anne Bloomberg recently spoke with Elizabeth Goitein, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, about the case FBI v. Fazaga, for which the Supreme Court held oral arguments last week. The following has been edited and condensed for clarity. Anne Bloomberg (JURIST): Could you briefly explain [...]
Samuel Moyn’s Unprincipled Attack on Human Rights Giant Michael Ratner Is Shameful
Samuel Moyn’s vicious and unprincipled attack on Michael Ratner, one of the finest human rights attorneys of our time, was published in the New York Review of Books (NYRB) on September 1. Moyn singles out Ratner as a whipping boy to support his own bizarre theory that punishing war crimes prolongs war by making it [...]
Federal appeals court upholds dismissal of Wikimedia lawsuit against NSA
The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld Wednesday the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Wikimedia Foundation against the National Security Agency (NSA) for intercepting and searching international internet communications. The NSA uses Upstream, a surveillance program authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. NSA’s use of the program was illegally leaked [...]
UN experts call for moratorium on sale of surveillance technology
A panel of human rights experts have called on the UN member states to place a moratorium on the sale of surveillance technology until there is a regulatory framework that protects human rights. In a statement released Thursday, the group of experts said they were “deeply concerned that highly sophisticated intrusive tools are being used [...]
US Ninth Circuit rules mass surveillance program exposed by Snowden was unlawful
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday that the US government’s mass surveillance program exposed by Edward Snowden seven years ago was unlawful. The ruling was handed down as part of the court’s decision in a case involving four members of the Somali diaspora who were convicted for sending or conspiring to [...]