Tag Archives: Privacy

Those of a certain age will remember spy vs. spy, a cartoon in Mad Magazine dating from 1961 but extant to this day (here’s an example of the original by Antonio Prohías). I haven’t thought of the cartoon in years … Continue reading →

In a bit of good news, The Hill is reporting that U.S. House of Representatives members are pressing Speaker of the House John Boehner to allow a vote on reining in the NSA. If the members don’t get their vote, … Continue reading →

Senators Ron Wyden, Mark Udall, and Martin Heinrich have an interesting Op-ed in The New York Times entitled End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now. In it they say that they believe the NSA’s collection of telephone call metadata is a clear … Continue reading →

Whenever ordinary folks push back against—or even question—the NSA’s extralegal surveillance of innocent citizens they are always told that it’s to protect them from terrorists. “Don’t let there be another 9/11,” they say. “Really,” they assure us, “it’s for your … Continue reading →

Just in case those of you in Europe think that you don’t have reason to be as mad as Americans should be, you might want to reconsider.

Just in case you needed more proof of the iron law of data collection, consider this McClatchyDC story about how almost 5000 people had their personal information swept up and shared with nearly 30 federal agencies because they ordered a … Continue reading →

Are you angry yet? How about now?1 Footnotes: 1 To be fair, there’s some controversy associated with this claim and it doesn’t even seem possible—given that Linux is open source—until you remember the greatest hack of all time.

The EFF has a list of ten steps you can take to protect yourself from surveillance. There’s nothing there that will come as news to the always informed Irreal reader but it’s a nice summary and worth passing on to … Continue reading →

Here’s some rare good news from the NSA front: the Lavabit and Silent Circle teams have joined forces to form the Dark Mail Alliance. There are quite a few stories on the Internet about the alliance and what they are … Continue reading →

The Guardian, which has done almost all the heavy lifting on the ongoing NSA story, has an excellent recapitulation of the story so far and what it means for us. The page is interactive and has snippets of video interviews … Continue reading →