Tag Archives: NSA

Vet of the Month: Daniel Gagnon

19 May 2014By Kevin Conroy

Daniel was sent to serve in Germany. The first two years he worked as a personnel clerk for Army Security Agency, a precursor to the NSA. This involved studying the North Vietnamese language. His daily duties included processing soldiers, both those returning from and being deployed to Vietnam. During this time, American deaths in the war reached their apex, and pressure was on to start pulling back. The ASA program was dissolved by President Nixon in the winter of 1969. During the last two years of his service, Daniel worked within the US Army mortuary system, which involved assisting morticians and funeral directors, processing the remains of the fallen, and occasionally holding funerals (though typically this was done back in the States).

How to protect your digital privacy from NSA intrusion

9 March 2014By Eric Franzo

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On June 5, 2013, Edward Snowden released classified NSA documents, causing ripples of distrust and anger to not only boil up within America, but throughout the world. Since the news broke, many have wondered what it means for the average individual. Should you be worried? Or does it even really matter, because you have nothing to hide . . . right? Those debates will sift through the public discourse in one form or another. But while those arguments rage on, let’s take a look at how using a few simple tools can help protect your right to privacy in the digital age.

Obama Worse Than Bush On Civil Liberties Abuses

17 January 2014By Jason Scheurer

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The emperor has no clothes. Now that the President has been exposed by the likes of concerned patriots like Edward Snowden, he is running around trying to rescue his legacy and save face to the staunch leftists who once supported him. Make no mistake: these recent new proposals are in response to U.S. tech companies, such as Cisco and Google, possibly losing billions in future sales to foreign firms rather than concern for the individual citizen.

DROPOUTJEEP: Apple likely assisted NSA in making iOS devices spy devices

31 December 2013By John Manko

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Famed technologist and White Hat, Jacob Applebaum, gave a presentation at the Chaos Communication Congress that outlines many of the ways the NSA compromises computer systems and networks.

How The NSA Deploys Malware: An In-Depth Look at the New Revelations

9 October 2013By Dan Auerbach (EFF.org)

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We’ve long suspected that the NSA, the world’s premiere spy agency, was pretty good at breaking into computers. But now, thanks to an article by security expert Bruce Schneier—who is working with the Guardian to go through the Snowden documents—we have a much more detailed view of how the NSA uses exploits in order to infect the computers of targeted users.

Assessing votes of area congressmen on the Amash-Conyers amendment

8 August 2013By John Manko

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On July 24 the House of Representatives had a showdown concerning limiting the powers of the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect and store—en masse—the private communications of all Americans. Representatives Justin Amash (R–MI) and John Conyers (D–MI) introduced an amendment to H.R. 2397, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, which would defund all programs and activities specifically targeting Americans who were not the subjects of an ongoing terrorism investigation.

Government Spying: Should We Be Shocked?

12 June 2013By Ron Paul

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The government does not need to know more about what we are doing. We need to know more about what the government is doing. We need to turn the cameras on the police and on the government, not the other way around. We should be thankful for writers like Glenn Greenwald, who broke last week’s story, for taking risks to let us know what the government is doing. There are calls for the persecution of Greenwald and the other whistle-blowers and reporters. They should be defended, as their work defends our freedom.

Government Says Secret Court Opinion on Law Underlying PRISM Program Needs to Stay Secret

11 June 2013By David Sobel (EFF.org) and Mark Rumold (EFF.org)

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EFF filed a suit under the Freedom of Information Act in August 2012, seeking disclosure of the FISC ruling. Sens. Ron Wyden and Mark Udall revealed the existence of the opinion, which found that collection activities under FISA Section 702 “circumvented the spirit of the law” and violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. But, at the time, the Senators were not permitted to discuss the details publicly. Section 702 has taken on new importance this week, as it appears to form the basis for the extensive PRISM surveillance program reported recently in the Guardian and the Washington Post.