• U.S. secretly obtains AP phone records to identify source of story

    In what the AP calls a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into the news organization’s news work, the U.S. Justice Department secretly gathered two-months-worth of telephone records of the agency’s reporters and editors. The AP says the records listed incoming and outgoing calls to the offices and homes of reporters and editors. The Justice Department began collecting the phone records in order to identify the source or sources of a 7 May 2012 AP story which detailed a secret CIA operation in Yemen to intercept an al Qaeda-sponsored attempt to load an IED onto a U.S.-bound airplane.

  • U.S. considering revamping wiretap laws

    The White House is reviewing an FBI plan to overhaul surveillance laws in order to make it easier for law enforcement officials to wiretap citizens using the Internet to communicate rather than phone services.

  • Master “remote” control for all military unmanned systems

    Historically, unmanned systems have been developed and fielded as individual items built by different vendors, which has led to increased spending, from $284 million in 2002 to more than $3 billion in fiscal year 2010. Researchers have developed something similar to a master remote control for separate components of differing brands of entertainment systems: it is called the Common Control System, and it will control military ground, air, and undersea unmanned systems across the services.

  • Canadian company provides software to U.S. intelligence agencies

    A Canadian company has spent the last few years locking up contracts to provide security software to U.S. federal agencies such as the NSA, CIA, and FBI. The company moved from the United States to Canada because the Canadian government gives tax credits for high-tech companies coming to Canada, and Canadian government agencies help the company break into new markets by sponsoring his company in international conferences. It was in one of these conferences that he once met “some NSA folks.”

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  • Privacy, cost concerns check drive for more surveillance cameras

    Law enforcement agencies in cities across the United States are campaigning to increase surveillance on city streets, impressed with the effectiveness of video surveillance in helping the Boston Police identify the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings. This campaign to expand law enforcement’s surveillance power is likely to run into stiff opposition, as Americans have proven suspicious of allowing the government powers which would infringe on privacy. Expanding surveillance networks also costs money, and these are tight budgetary times.

  • Central Washington State proposed for a UAV research and testing site

    The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 enacted by Congress calls for establishing six unmanned aircraft system research and testing sites in the United States. A consortium of Washington State-based organizations will soon submit the final section of a proposal to site an unmanned aircraft system research and testing facility in central Washington. If successful, the proposal to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will result in the FAA naming the Pacific Northwest Unmanned Aerial Systems Flight Center as one of six U.S. testing facilities later this year.

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  • Immigration reform conditioned on border being secured by unmanned vehicles

    Between 2006 and 2011, CBP spent $55.3 million on drone use and maintenance operations, according to a DHS Inspector General (IG) report. The IG recommended that the agency stop buying drones because the aircrafts are costly to maintain and have flown significantly less than their predicted flight times. The bipartisan immigration proposal drafted by the bipartisan Gang of Eight includes a provision which would create a 24/7 border surveillance system heavily dependent on the use of drones.

  • Tamerlan Tsarnaev's name was on U.S. terror watchlist since 2011

    In March 2011, after being contacted by the Russian security services, the CIA added the name of Tamerlan Tsarnaev to the U.S. government’s terror watchlist. DHS secretary Janet Napolitano said that Tamerlan’s travel to Dagestan, and his arrival back in the United States, were “pinged” by the department. Leading lawmakers have raised questions about whether the U.S. intelligence community and law enforcement agencies have dropped the ball on the Tsarnaev brothers.

  • Critics say drones make little contribution to border security

    A new report says that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) drones are a wasteful giveaway to defense contractors and a threat to civil liberties. The report cites CBP own figures, the contribution drones make to border security is minimal. According to CBP calculations, drones have played a role in only 0.003 percent in drug seizure and 0.001 percent in illegal border crossing apprehensions.

  • McCaul to draft cybersecurity bill

    House Homeland Security chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said he was drafting his own cybersecurity bill, which will define the role of DHS  in sharing information with private companies about cyber threats. McCaul hopes to agree on a compromise with the White House, which threatened to veto the bill.

  • DHS-funded police gear blurs line between crime-fighting and war-fighting

    DHS is funding the purchase of military gear by Bay Area police departments. Critics of the program say the money allocated for the war on terror is blurring the line between local law enforcement focusing on crime fighting and soldiers fighting in an enemy war zone.

  • Sponsors of CISPA to address nagging privacy concerns about the bill

    House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Maryland), sponsors of the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), say they are currently working on the draft to alleviate privacy concerns civil liberty advocates may have about the bill.

  • California city could become first in the state to ban drones

    The City Council in Rancho Mirage, California was set  to vote yesterday on a proposal which would ban the use of drones in residential areas in the city. If it passes, it will be the first law of its kind in the state. The ordinance would ban the flying of “unmanned aircraft that can fly under the control of a remote pilot or by a geographic positions system (GPS) guided autopilot mechanism” up to 400 feet above areas that have been zoned residential.

  • Exploring the human brain to support national security

    The other day, at a White House event, President Barack Obama unveiled a new research initiative designed to revolutionize the understanding of the human brain. DARPA plans $50 million in 2014 investments to translate this increased understanding of brain function to create new capabilities.

  • Pervasive surveillance threatens privacy, gives power advantage to the watcher

    Surveillance is everywhere, from street corner cameras to the subject of books and movies. A researcher says that pervasive surveillance menaces our intellectual privacy and it gives the watcher a power advantage over the watched, which can be used for blackmail, persuasion, or discrimination.