How could anyone
possibly see things differently?
Ellen Nakashima
reports:
A
federal surveillance court on Tuesday released a
declassified opinion upholding the constitutionality of the
National Security Agency’s sweeping collection of billions of
Americans’ phone records for counterterrorism purposes.
The
gathering of “all call detail records” from phone companies is
justified as long as the government can show that it is relevant to
an authorized investigation into known — and, significantly —
unknown terrorists who may be in the United States, the Aug. 29
opinion states.
Read more on Washington
Post. See also Charlie Savage’s coverage on the New
York Times.
[From
the Post article:
“This isn’t a
judicial opinion in the conventional sense,” said Jameel
Jaffer, American Civil Liberties Union deputy legal director. “It’s
a document that appears to have been cobbled together over the last
few weeks in an effort to justify a decision that was made seven
years ago. I don’t know of any precedent for that, and it raises a
lot of questions.”
Jaffer added that the
opinion was “completely unpersuasive” as a defense of the
call-records program. The constitutional analysis fails to mention
the landmark United States v. Jones privacy case decided by
the Supreme Court last year, which suggested a warrant was necessary
for long-term tracking of GPS data, he said. And Eagan’s analysis
of the statute overemphasizes some terms while ignoring others, he
said.
Also out of control?
From the ACLU:
[Today]
the ACLU will release a report, “Unleashed and Unaccountable: The
FBI’s Unchecked Abuse of Authority,” documenting the bureau’s
expanded post-9/11 authorities, their impact on civil liberties in
the United States, and the FBI’s evasion of oversight that enables
abuses to continue today. Twelve years after 9/11, its time for the
attorney general and Congress to revisit the extraordinary powers
given to the federal government’s premier law enforcement agency in
the haze of tragedy and initiate a top-to-bottom review of FBI
policies and practices to identify and curtail any activities that
are unconstitutional or easily misused.
The
FBI serves a crucial role in protecting Americans from criminals and
terrorists, but it must do so while guarding and respecting the
rights that make the United States worth protecting. Liberty and
security are not mutually exclusive: we can be both safe and free.
“Unleashed
and Unaccountable: The FBI’s Unchecked Abuse of Authority” will
be available here,
at 10 a.m.
For my Computer
Security students. First, do you have a camera?
Hack
Attack: How To Keep Your Webcam Secure From Online Peeping Toms
Someone could be
watching you through your webcam right now. Chances are you’re
safe so don’t freak out, but you should be aware that the
possibility exists.
… Fortunately,
there are ways to keep yourself clean from these online peeping Toms.
Keep reading to find out how.
For my students with
artistic talent. Note that it links to earlier C++ code.
– is a web sculpting
application, powered by WebGL and JavaScript. It features dynamic
and adaptive topological tools, as well as more classical sculpting
tools, such as drag, brush or smooth. Make 3D models on your
computer screen! At the moment, the best performance is on Google
Chrome.
Redundant, but that's
okay. I've listed it before.
– is a sortable
database of educational resources from the Edupunks’ Guide and
around the web. If you are looking for either an online or offline
education resource, this page has some excellent links to choose
from, such as MetaFilter, TED, and Google Code University.
I'm going to read this
soon, or at least look at the Infographic.
The
12 Different Types Of Procrastinators
No comments:
Post a Comment