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Tag: Wiretapping

  • MLK & Ali were NSA Targets During Vietnam War

    More revelations have been coming out since the NSA came under fire via the Edward Snowden leaks, and to some, these latest discoveries may not be so surprising: AlJazeera America reported that the NSA did eavesdrop on famed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., legendary boxer Muhammad Ali, and several others during the Vietnam War in recently declassified documents.

    The documents were declassified and released on Wednesday after the governmental panel responsible for declassification ruled in favor of a team of researchers from George Washington University who were seeking the release of the papers, which included the names of top-secret NSA targets in the late 1960’s and early ’70s.

    In a program code-named “Minaret,” the NSA was tasked with monitoring those personalities that were considered hostile to war efforts. Lyndon B. Johnson was president at the time Minaret was assembled, but the program continued throughout the the paranoid Nixon administration. In the official release, the researchers state the list includes such prominent names as Dr. Martin Luther King, Whitney Young, Muhammad Ali, New York Times journalist Tom Wicker, and veteran Washington Post humor columnist Art Buchwald. Two politicians, Senator Frank Church of Idaho and Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee, were also included. The full list of names has yet to be released.

    Slate notes that the reasons justifying such irresponsible surveillance haven’t changed in 40 years; at the time, the NSA had cited “[the identification of] domestic terrorist and foreign radical suspects” as reason enough to tap their phones. However, an NSA lawyer who examined the program after it was shut down in 1973 wrote the following in the classified records: “[as someone] who first looked at the procedural aspects [for the NSA, the agents involved in Minaret] seemed to understand that the program was disreputable if not outright illegal.”

    If you want to read the official release from George Washington University regarding the papers, which includes a ton of awesome citations, you can check it out here.

    [Image via the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, On-line Photo Archive, W425-21]

  • Middle-School Principal Charged in Locker Room Recording

    A principal charged with encouraging her daughter to secretly videotape conversations inside a high school locker room could face up to 20 years in prison and a $20,000 if convicted of the crime. Wendee Long, principal of Wayside Middle School in Fort Worth, Texas, turned herself over to authorities on Monday. She was soon released after posting a $25,000 bond, according to MSNBC.

    The charges stem from Long’s suggestion that her daughter hide a cell phone in a locker room during an away game to record the actions of her basketball coach, who is rumored to be excessively hard on the team. Although Long’s daughter was in the room at the time of the alleged recording, the incident is still considered to be the same as wiretapping. In addition to the investigation by Forth Worth authorities, school officials intend to look into the incident, as well.

    Although such recordings are considered illegal, the principal’s attorney seemed to be genuinely shocked by the charged levied against Long. “Wendee and I are both surprised and disappointed at the actions of the Denton County Grand Jury last week,” Long’s lawyer said in a statement on Tuesday. “Wendee maintains, and I agree, that she has not violated any law. We do not believe anything has taken place that should involve the justice system. However, now that we find ourselves in the system we are confident that Wendee will be cleared of any wrong doing.”

    Given that Long has been the principal at Wayside Middle School for over five years, you’d think she would realize this sort of behavior would reflect negatively on her as both a mother and a school official. The fact that she seems to stand behind her actions is a little peculiar, particularly when she’s had plenty of experience working behind-the-scenes within the public school system. I’m definitely curious to see how this story unfolds.

  • Google Street View Faces Probe in Australia

    Google Street View Faces Probe in Australia

    The Google Street View wi-fi spying scandal may have been quelled in the United States, but the fun’s just getting started in other parts of the world. Over the weekend, an independent privacy watchdog in United Kingdom launched an investigation into Google’s use of the Street View cars to sponge up information from people using unsecured wi-fi networks. Today, Australia’s government is joining Team Investigate Google.

    Australia’s Privacy Commissioner, Timonthy Pilgrim, is planning to reassess whether Google should be referred to the Australian Federal Police following the U.S. Federal Communications Commission report that found Google had essentially covered up the wi-fi spying habits of the Google Street View car in spite of Google previously saying it wasn’t really doing all that spying.

    Google’s Street View cars typically drive around the world and photograph ground-level images so that users of Google Maps can take walking virtual tours of different areas. However, information was recently made public that not only were Google Street View cars secretly collecting personal information from unencrypted wi-fi networks like browser histories, emails, chats, passwords, and many other bits of personal data, but that supervisors at the company actually knew about the info-siphoning.

    The FCC has fined Google for delaying and obstructing the agency’s investigation into the Google Maps spying on wi-fi practice but didn’t really do anything to Google for being a Big Brother creep and spying on people. More, the fine was a measly $25,000, which is barely a bite of bread crust for Google. Stay tuned to see what Australia’s government decides to dish out to Google (if anything).

  • Facebook Hires Law Firm Specialized In Class Action Defense

    As more voices join the chorus of detractors accusing Facebook of trampling over privacy laws, Facebook’s adding a couple of sirens of its own to answer those charges. All Facebook is reporting that Facebook has added some sizable muscle to its legal division with the hiring of Steptoe & Johnson, an international law firm that often represents clients before government bodies.

    We reported at the end of February that, upon the build-up of many disparate lawsuits, a national class-action suit was beginning to take shape. It just so happens that, according to Steptoe’s website, that’s one of the firms specialties:

    Steptoe’s class action lawyers either have direct experience with these industries and fields of regulation, or work in tandem with those Steptoe lawyers who do.

    We believe this is a critical aspect of class action defense because strategy and tactics are often determined on the basis of the substantive law governing the claims of the putative class. For example, class claims may be vulnerable to dismissal in the early stages of litigation based on exclusive and primary jurisdiction doctrines or federal preemption principles. We frequently work with federal regulators to obtain amici curiae briefs or other support of the defendants’ position.

    The firm could have been hired to act as a lobbyist for Facebook as privacy laws continue to evolve in the different parts of the world, especially since so many of Steptoe’s professionals have experience working within government institutions. Understandably, Facebook would want to have a chance to say their piece in that discussion. Given the wave of privacy-related lawsuits happening lately, though, it’s foolish to expect that wave has crested yet. Facebook hasn’t yet been dragged into a court room yet but surely their day is coming if the accusations of violating wiretapping laws and the sort continue.

    In that case, retaining a legal firm with beaucoup experience in government cases, especially with some experience in class action defense, might be an indication that Facebook sees a court room battle over its practices as inevitable.

  • Could Facebook Face A Class Action Lawsuit Over Its Questionable Tracking Habits?

    The kicks just keep getting harder to find for Facebook when it comes to explaining away that sneaky habit of tracking internet users even after they’ve logged out of the site. Today two lawyers in Baltimore became the latest to file a lawsuit against the online social network charging that Facebook spies on Internet browsing habits and violates wiretapping and privacy laws.

    If this is starting to sound like second verse same as the first, you couldn’t be faulted for that impression. The Baltimore case stems from last year’s revelation when Nik Cubrilovic discovered that Facebook was still following users’ activity across the internet despite having logged out of the site. A similar lawsuit was filed last year in Mississippi which has now been relocated to California. In both cases, the Baltimore case and the formerly-Mississippi case, the charges levied against Facebook claim it violated wiretapping laws.

    Facebook isn’t the only tech company being dragged up to the docket, though, as Google’s feeling the legal ire of internet users as well. Last week, Google fessed up that they had been circumventing privacy settings in Safari and Internet Explorer in order to continue tracking people’s activity on internet. In an attempt to normalize their tracking habits, Google defended itself by citing Facebook’s “Like” button and how it used a similar exploit in browsers to track users’ internet activity. Facebook yawned at Google’s attempt to include them in the public relations firestorm and admitted that the “Like” button did employ the same exploit.

    Curiously, Facebook was excluded from the Obama’s Administration’s call for tech companies to provide internet users more fortified options for protecting their privacy. Google, for example, agreed to a “Do Not Track” button for their browser, Chrome, but the same was not expected of Facebook and their “Like” button. Such an omission from the federal government might prove to be a valuable inoculation against legal charges that Facebook when it faces charges of violating people’s privacy.

    Of course, three plaintiffs in two cases a class action suit does not make. The legality problems of Facebook possibly breaking wiretapping laws are in its snowball infancy; it still has a way to go before it becomes a full-out avalanche. However, if more lawsuits continue to pour forth against Facebook’s info-tracking, or if even it so happens that one judge rules in the favor of the plaintiffs in these current lawsuits, Facebook’s habits may be forced to change. Worse, more lawsuits could be brought against the company once a legal precedent has been established.

    I’m no legal Sherlock and so I can only affirm the verity of this idea as speculation. But in the event that further lawsuits are thrown at Facebook – charges of wiretapping, even! – the eventuality of collective public legal action against the online social network can’t be completely eschewed from the pallet of possibility.

  • Facebook Wiretapping Case Moves To California

    Last year, a woman in Mississippi filed a lawsuit against Facebook, alleging that the social networking site violated U.S. wiretap laws by tracking her browsing history. In the suit, Brooke Rutledge accused the site of breach of contract, trespassing, unjust enrichment, and invasion of privacy. Now, in what may be a sign that the case is getting a go-ahead, a Mississippi judge has transferred the suit to California.

    The reasoning behind the suit was based on the revelation that Facebook was tracking members’ browsing habits and storing the data even when they weren’t signed in to the site. After getting busted by Australian writer/hacker Nik Cubrilovic, Facebook avowed to remove the omni-tracking cookie but then returned it shortly after that was gone.

    Although Facebook has since promised to change their data retention policies, that doesn’t really change the fact that they may have violated federal wiretap laws in the United States. And, sorry Facebook, but if you broke the law, changing your habits after you get caught doesn’t automatically nullify your prior legal infraction. What’s more is that if this case should work out into Rutledge’s favor, which who knows at this point given how everybody’s suing tech companies for possible privacy violations these days, it’d be the first precedent of what could be a very long and extensive overhaul with how companies can collect and store users’ personal information.