Tag: nsa

Oct142014 by editorNo Comments

Emails Snowden Sent to First Introduce His Epic NSA Leaks

Six months before the world knew the National Security Agency’s most prolific leaker of secrets as Edward Joseph Snowden, Laura Poitras knew him as Citizenfour. For months, Poitras communicated with an unknown “senior government employee” under that pseudonym via encrypted emails, as he prepared her to receive an unprecedented leak of classified documents that he would ask her to expose to the world. Poitras’ remarkable new film, Citizenfour, premiered Friday at the New York Film Festival, and opens in theaters on October 24. It is a haunting, historic document of Snowden’s motivations and personality, the sort of revelatory filmmaking that could only have been achieved by a director who was herself at the center of the story; Poitras lived out the NSA drama almost as completely as Snowde

Aug182014 by editorNo Comments

Tweetstorm: Rupert Murdoch Says Google Is Worse Than the NSA

Cyber Security, Governance, Internet

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is not known to be a shrinking violet when it comes to saying what he thinks on Twitter, especially on a Sunday when he seems most fired up and ready to rumble. Reports Recode.net But today was a doozie, in which he claimed Google was — wait for it — worse than the NSA: NSA privacy invasion bad, but nothing compared to Google. — Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) August 17, 2014 Murdoch has gone after the search giant many times before — including about the NSA. In April, he tweeted: “Google attack on NSA extreme nerve. Google has more data on all of us and uses it. No evidence of NSA doing this. Ethical company?” In 2013, Murdoch went after Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt. And in 2012, he was all riled up about piracy: Piracy leader is Google who strea

May222014 by Alex ReeceNo Comments

Snowden leak reveals NSA collects content of all phone calls in the Bahamas, Mexico, Kenya and the Philippines

Broadband, Cyber Security, Internet

The United States National Security Agency is reportedly collecting the contents of effectively every phone call dialed or received within the Bahamas, putting the conversations of countless residents and tourists into the hands of the NSA. Reports rt.com Journalists at The Intercept on Monday accused the secretive American spy agency of participating in this massive but previously undisclosed dragnet surveillance system after being supplied with classified documentation provided to them by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. “According to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the surveillance is part of a top-secret system – code-named SOMALGET – that was implemented without the knowledge or consent of the Bahamian government,” Ryan Devereaux, Glenn Gre

Feb262014 by Alex ReeceNo Comments

Do the NSA revelations have anything to do with Internet governance?

Governance

Editors note: This blog post is based on a talk given at the New America Foundation December 5, 2013. Thanks to Tim Maurer and Kevin Bankston for hosting the talk The evolution of Internet governance has been characterized by a tension between the Internet’s organically evolved governance institutions and nation-states. The native Internet institutions, such as IETF, IANA/ICANN, the Internet Society, and the regional Internet address registries (RIRs) are transnational in scope and rooted in non-state actors. Governments on the other hand are seeking to reassert traditional forms of territorial authority over communications in the context of the internet. In this struggle, non-state actors had a first-mover advantage. The Internet succeeded in creating a globalized virtual space before st

Feb192014 by editorNo Comments

Euronet: Internet security for Europe or NSA backlash

Governance, Internet

GENEVA, Switzerland, February 18, 2014 – With a series of well-timed revelations, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden single-handedly managed to change the way the American government is perceived across the world. By exposing that worldwide surveillance is real, something that was long suspected but never clearly proven, he has created a European backlash against America. Now German Chancellor Angela Merkel is throwing her support behind the creation of a European data network that would bypass US servers. In her Saturday podcast, Merkel underlined that there would be negotiations, “with European providers that offer security for our citizens, so that one shouldn’t have to send emails and other information across the Atlantic.” Such a European network would supposedly be beyond the lon