Internet Control
TWO years ago today, three journalists and I worked nervously in a Hong Kong hotel room, waiting to see how the world would react to the revelation that the National Security Agency had been making records of nearly every phone call in the United States. In the days that followed, those journalists and others published documents revealing that democratic governments had been monitoring the private activities of ordinary citizens who had done nothing wrong.
More than 250 tech companies and digital rights organizations on Wednesday sent a joint letter to Congress, blasting the corporate-backed TPP trade deal they say “actively silences the voices of Internet users, start-ups, and small tech companies…while undermining the health of the entire Web.”
In a very creative and off-beat campaign, one organization is trying to bring home how violative, of our privacy and peace of mind, is the unbridled and more and more “legal” right of our government to spy on us. 14 years of the Patriot Act has not made us safer as it was shown last year that it has not given us actionable information, yet it is still around. It is slated to expire in June of this year. The CISA Bill threatens to put another piece of legislation, worse than the Patriot Act in place.
The Snowden Archive will allow us to better understand the scope and scale of mass surveillance programs, and help the public engage in conversation about government surveillance practices.
A day after Citizenfour, a documentary in which he stars, won an Academy Award, Edward Snowden reveals he wishes he had come forward a little sooner.
In a blow to telecom and cable companies, FCC chairman Wheeler said he is proposing the FCC use its authority under Title II of the Communications Act to protect consumer broadband Internet. This move will allow the FCC to stop Internet service providers from charging content providers like Netflix more money for reliable Internet access.
The principle of net neutrality is easy to understand and support; to treat the delivery all data equally. This has been the status quo. Works great. Few oppose that, but supporting the principle of net neutrality is not the same thing as supporting the government’s plan to enforce that principle.
After President Obama came out with a surprise call for net neutrality, Verizon struck back with a new lawsuit threat. But the case for net neutrality is on solid legal ground — it’s the political case that’s now shaky. Here’s why.
A summary of the chilling new anti-terrorism/freedom of speech laws introduced by the Abbott Government in Australia this week. George Orwell must be rolling in his grave… again. “Under the National Security Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014, anyone including, “journalists, whistle-blowers and bloggers” – who “recklessly” disclose “information” … [that] relates to a special intelligence operation” will now face up to 10 years in jail for doing so.
In 2007, Yahoo fought back against the government’s demand for information on certain overseas customers, saying that the request was over-broad and violated the constitution.
Make sure you sign American Commitment’s petition to Tom Wheeler, the chairman of the FCC below—and tell him that the American people won’t stand for a federal takeover of the Internet. And we’ll send a copy of your petition to your Congressman too—just so that they know where their constituents stand in the fight to stop these crippling Internet regulations.
Sign the petition HERE…
Governments around the world, spearheaded by Uncle Sam, monitor communication via email, phone, social networks, webcam etc. en masse. Even though government surveillance is becoming more and more invasive, there are ways to shield yourself from prying eyes.
The virtually inescapable government surveillance has impaired if not eliminated the ability of news-gatherers and attorneys to communicate confidentially with their sources and their clients.
Big retailers, including Amazon, have been lobbying long and hard for it, and now the Internet sales tax is back after being quietly reintroduced in the US Senate last week. The Marketplace and Internet Tax Fairness Act would force customers to pay sales taxes for online purchases from out-of-state online merchants, and it forces online retailers to collect and remit separately sales taxes to all US territories.
A new cybersecurity bill poses serious threats to our privacy, gives the government extraordinary powers to silence potential whistleblowers, and exempts these dangerous new powers from transparency laws. The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2014 (“CISA”) was scheduled to be marked up by the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday but has been delayed until after next week’s congressional recess. The response to the proposed legislation from the privacy, civil liberties, tech, and open government communities was quick and unequivocal – this bill must not go through. The bill would create a massive loophole in our existing privacy laws by allowing the government to ask companies for “voluntary” cooperation in sharing information, including the content of our communications, for cybersecurity purposes. But the definition they are using for the so-called “cybersecurity information” is so broad it could sweep up huge amounts of innocent Americans’ personal data.
