Since the Cold War, more than 120 countries reportedly trusted a Swiss company Crypto AG to safeguard their most secret messages. However, few of them knew that, according to a leaked report published last week by the Washington Post, the encrypted communications device maker was actually controlled by the CIA and its German counterpart.

The two intelligence agencies reportedly rigged the devices to let them listen in on political and military leaders, other spies, and even private companies and make millions of dollars in profit along the way. Crypto AG helped them spy on uprisings in Latin American countries, Middle Eastern dictators, the Vatican and even the United Nations.

While the CIA report called the operation "the intelligence coup of the century," other major leaks over the past decade have shed light on some closely held state secrets.

Whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, by sharing confidential documents with journalists and organizations like WikiLeaks, have helped expose everything from the NSA's surveillance of millions of American citizens to offshore tax havens used by world leaders and the ultra wealthy.

Here are just some of the most significant things we've learned as a result of recent leaks.

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From Snowden to Crypto AG: the biggest leaks since 2010 - Business Insider - Business Insider

What happens to your bitcoin after you die?

This is more than just a philosophical question: It could involve a substantial amount of currency.

The question of crypto and the Great Beyond is what prompted about 20 or so developers to get together in London recently to experiment with repurposing the current lightning protocol to send private messages as a dead mans button, a system that cant be censored and would keep your crypto safe for your heirs.

Related: Bitcoins Coronavirus Selloff Throws Cold Water on Safe-Haven Argument

Lightning Labs infrastructure engineer Joost Jager has been exploring using lightning for messaging over the past year. At the Advancing Bitcoin conference in London, Jager hosted a workshop to explore building a dead mans button with lightning. The mission was to show that lightning can be used as messaging system as well as a payment network.

These buttons are not new. At the workshop, Jager noted Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistleblower, used one in case he died before journalists could reveal the contents of the documents he wanted to make public.

The goal of the workshop was to explore one of lightnings relatively new features, keysend (formerly known as spontaneous payments). Its so experimental it isnt even described in the lightning specifications yet. But it does offer a way to send data (called custom records in LND, the lightning implementation Jager works on) along with a transaction.

Heres how it might work: Imagine a user who wants to pass on a bitcoin (BTC) inheritance. That user would communicate with a service, pushing a button that would send a message every week or so to signify that the user is still alive.

Related: $10K Proving a Tough Nut to Crack for Bitcoins Bulls

If the button isnt pressed one week, it is assumed the bitcoin user is dead or incapacitated and its time for the bitcoin to be passed on, at which point the service automatically dispenses a secret, which can be used to retrieve the crypto.

Beyond that, Jager thought some additional features should be added, even if they could make the program trickier to implement. The program should maintain the privacy of the sender and the receiver, he said, and should allow the sender to get proof the service still has the secret.

Developers split into small groups to think about how to build a service that would meet all of these and other goals. The workshop developers came up with some ideas, which Jager published to GitHub. He included a rough implementation, which puts several of the ideas into practice, though he said the code is extremely limited and does not implement everything described.

This design isnt necessarily the best way forward, Jager said, but its a proof of concept he hopes can inspire other implementations.

Jager told CoinDesk the primary reason he chose the dead mans button for the workshop was it is complex enough of a use case that it can show off what lightning can do as a messaging system.

But he also thinks a dead mans button could be a real use case for lightning down the road.

Many people try to arrange their crypto inheritance and need to make up their minds about who they trust. This could be an alternative, assuming that wrinkles are ironed out and the whole process is hidden underneath a user-friendly shell, he said. This is unlikely to happen short term, but I hope people see the possibilities.

Lawyer Pamela Morgan, an expert on crypto inheritance and author of a book dedicated to helping people develop a plan to pass on their crypto, agrees with Jager the technology is far from ready. But she said she would not encourage users to put any money into any experimental dead mans button systems just yet.

Dead mans switches are fun projects that excite our imaginations but fail to solve the complex and multidisciplinary challenges of crypto asset inheritance distribution. Relying on such solutions for something as important as inheritance is likely to cause catastrophic loss, she told CoinDesk.

However, she said the technology has promise. Since few crypto enthusiasts have any sort of a plan for what to do with their currencies after they are gone, shes happy to see people exploring ways to make crypto inheritance a more common practice.

If adding a dead mans switch makes more people actually do inheritance planning for their bitcoin, then Im all for it because so few people actually do anything, she told CoinDesk.

In the meantime, Jager is pressing on with beefing up lightnings messaging system to make it easier to send messages across the network.

Correction (Feb. 24, 22:52 UTC): This article has been updated to clarify the intent of the workshop.

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How to Protect Bitcoin for Your Heirs With the Push of a Dead Mans Button - Yahoo Finance

The European Commission has told its staff to switch to the encrypted Signal messaging app in a move thats designed to increase the security of its communications. Politico reports that, earlier this month, a message on the commissions internal messaging boards notified employees about the change. Signal has been selected as the recommended application for public instant messaging, the message to the EUs executive branch says.

According to Politico, Signal will not be used for all communication. Encrypted emails will be used to send non-classified but sensitive information, and classified documents use tighter security measures still. Signal, meanwhile, is intended to be used for external communications between staff and people outside the organization.

The initiative comes as the EU is attempting to lock down the security of its communications in the wake of high-profile hacks. In June 2018, BuzzFeed News reported that the European Unions embassy in Moscow had been hacked and had information stolen from its network. Later that year, The New York Times reported that the EUs diplomatic communications network had been hacked over the course of a three-year period in a display of the remarkably poor protection given to official communications.

The European Commission is not the only governmental body to tell its staff to switch to Signal. Last December, The Guardian reported that the UKs ruling party, the Conservatives, told its MPs to switch to the service from WhatsApp. At the time, there was speculation that the switch was done in order to take advantage of Signals disappearing messages feature to stop leaks like those the party saw while using WhatsApp. However, a party spokesperson claimed it was because its recent influx of newly elected MPs meant that it had exceeded WhatsApps maximum group size.

Signal is generally considered to be one of the most secure messaging apps available. Its open source, uses end-to-end encryption by default, and unlike WhatsApp, it doesnt store any message metadata or use the cloud to back up messages. Edward Snowden said at one point that he uses it every day, and it even has the backing of one of WhatsApps original co-founders.

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Signal becomes European Commissions messaging app of choice in security clampdown - The Verge

Perhaps no city cares about the privacy of its residents as much as Oakland.

Last year, the California city became one of just a handful around the country that have banned municipal use of facial recognition technology. That came on top of an earlier ordinance that put limits on surveillance technology.

Those laws were largely the handiwork of Oaklands Privacy Advisory Commission, a citizen-led board that can review any and all city policies and regulations through a privacy lens. Other cities have privacy policies or staff in place, while a few have ad hoc groups to address particular issues, such as smart city policies. No other city has a standing group with such a broad charter.

We know the activities that are going on in the city of Oakland, says Tracy Rosenberg, advocacy director for Oakland Privacy, a nonprofit watchdog group. Oakland is considering buying some drones. Im not happy about it, but I know about it, I can weigh in on it, and theres a body looking at the issues. Its not like were going to find out just by looking up when theyre already flying over our heads.

Tracy Rosenburg, advocacy director for Oakland Privacy.

In 2020, data privacy bills are being debated in numerous states many modeled on a California law that took effect this year. Meanwhile, the tech industry is lobbying Congress to put a national standard in place. The European Union already has stricter data protection policies in place than the U.S.

While privacy can seem like an issue thats national or even international in scope, issues such as surveillance often play out at the local level, particularly in law enforcement.

There is a really important role for local institutions, says Chris Calabrese, vice president for policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil liberties group based in Washington. That is, figuring out how their localities are using surveillance technologies. Its actually not unusual for a state or a town to get a grant from DHS [Department of Homeland Security] to get a drone or surveillance without any discussion by the city council.

Thats exactly what happened in Oakland. The city had received DHS funding for a Domain Awareness Center (DAC), which collected and analyzed surveillance data from throughout the city. It began as a security project at the port and airport, but crept out to encompass the entire city, collecting information from 700 cameras in public housing and schools, outdoor gun detection microphones, license plate readers and other sensors.

News about the DAC broke thanks to someone with a temp job in the citys technology office. If that sounds like Oakland had its own version of Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor who made international news with revelations of mass data collection at the federal level well, the Oakland story happened to break just after Snowden himself burst on the scene.

They have the great fortune of hitting the public safety agenda in the middle of June 2013, which was two weeks after somebody named Edward Snowden hit the front pages of newspapers, says Brian Hofer, who chairs the Oakland Privacy Advisory Commission.

Realizing that the issues Snowden had brought to the fore were playing out right in their own hometown had a galvanizing effect in Oakland. City officials were already highly familiar with the large aggregation of activist groups who call Oakland home. Many of those groups were already on high alert. At the time, the Occupy movement was still fresh. The city had also been rocked by the killing of Oscar Grant by a transit officer, which formed the basis of the 2013 movie Fruitvale,and anticipated the complaints about police violence that would erupt in 2014 in Ferguson, Mo.

There was just all this activist energy in Oakland at that exact time, Hofer recalls, and it was just like the match that lit the gasoline fire.

Brian Hofer, chair of the Oakland Privacy Advisory Commission.

At that time, Hofer had never before set foot in Oakland City Hall, but he became part of the coalition of opposition that grew in response to the Domain Awareness Center, which entailed not just lobbying but street protests. The citys project ended up dying a slow death, becoming limited to the port, which pulled all its funding and staffing for it.

Activists then pushed for a standing body to deal with privacy matters so that such a project couldnt sneak up on them again. These kinds of technological projects, smart city projects in some form or another keep coming and you cant always mobilize the entire city to react, Rosenberg says. We were lucky, but in the future it might be harder.

After a long struggle, the city council narrowly agreed in 2016 to create the standing commission. Hofer now consults formally and informally with other cities that are looking to put policies in place safeguards as concerns about the potential dark sides of technology use garners more attention. Through monthly conference calls, he trades ideas with municipal privacy professionals in several cities.

Im still flying around to conferences where the Domain Awareness Center is still the case study, and that was from 2014, Hofer says. Its still the shot heard round the world like you can actually say no to the surveillance state, and also come up with a reasonable solution that still addresses public safety concerns.

The ban on facial recognition and limits on surveillance have attracted most of the attention, but the commission has also worked on a broad range of policies, clarifying general data usage rules and reviewing agreements with outside agencies such as DHS, ATF and the FBI.

Each member of the city council appoints a commissioner. That has sometimes made recruitment a challenge, since members have to come from within relatively small districts. The commission has nevertheless attracted people with a range of backgrounds, including civil rights attorneys, a retired police officer and the occasional technology company employee. In drafting some policies, the commission has relied on outside expertise from entities such as the University of California, Berkeley and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The commission constantly encounters pushback, both from technology companies who warn that constraints will hamper innovation and from city staff who worry about increased paperwork or other administrative burdens. Hofer does his best to address such concerns, arguing that an insistence on transparency and an airing of issues does not mean projects will fail to move forward.

He feels that his most convincing argument comes from building consensus, both within the commission and among city staff. Since the commission started four years ago, its seen a grand total of one no vote and three abstentions. Every other position has been taken unanimously.

Ive always said that Im going to resign as chair if theres ever a 5-4 vote that I have to send to the council, Hofer says. Were an advisory body, were supposed to be subject matter experts, and if I send a 5-4 vote up, that means we didnt do our job.

The commmission is now working on an umbrella set of privacy principles that will govern all kinds of non-law-enforcement activities, such as business licensing and tax collection. Hes concerned, given the ever-evolving technological landscape, that information collected innocuously at first could eventually be used in ways that put people in harms way.

Thats certainly been a theme with various uses of technology. License plate readers were initially brought in for parking enforcement, but the data they collect is then stored and used for broader surveillance. The same with smart streetlights, which may first be seen as just a way to cut the electricity bill, but can be equipped with surveillance cameras and sensors. Oakland's commission can ask vendors who come in promising labor and cost savings for the city about the potential privacy issues raised by their products and services.

Four years after its founding, the Oakland privacy commission remains unique in allowing citizens to help draw the lines when it comes to the full range of privacy concerns. In many cities, privacy remains under the purview of government officials themselves, which may or may not provide a forum for hearing citizens concerns. There can also be turf protection, with police commissions, for example, insisting that they should handle any privacy issues that might arise.

The list of technologies that will affect privacy at the local level, from biometrics to doorbell cameras, will only continue to grow. Governments tend to be reactive, but it might be time for cities and counties to try to get out in front.

Our argument is its really a lot easier if you do it on the front end and set up a system for what you can see coming, Rosenberg says. If youre not actively doing something to be on top of it, youre going to throw up your hands, let everything come through and be dealing with privacy and usage concerns on the back end.

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What Cities Can Learn from the Nation's Only Privacy Commission - Governing

Many Democrats are still acquiescing to a George W. Bush-era policy that has been in place for nearly 20 years.

There is still broad bipartisan support for the CDR program, bringing significant risk that Democrats could cut a deal for reforms with significantly less teethand more loopholesthan SAPRA.

Three key provisions of the USA Patriot Act, which give the Trump administration broad surveillance powers, are set to expire on March 15 unless Congress votes to reauthorize them. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is the only leading democratic presidential candidate in Congress who is publicly opposing them.

I voted against the Patriot Act in 2001, 2006, 2011 and 2015. I strongly oppose its reauthorization next month, he tweeted on February 11. I believe that in a democratic and constitutional form of government, we cannot sacrifice the civil liberties that make us a free country.

One provision is section 215, the bulk metadata collection program exposed by Edward Snowden. This provision underwent modest post-Snowden reforms in 2015, but its essence remains largely intact in the call detail records (CDR) program. The program authorizes the NSA to seize call records of people deemed a targetand the people those targets communicate with. In 2017 and 2018, this provision allowed the government to collect more than 968 million records. The government recently shut down the CDR program, admitting to its overreach, but the legal authority to reinstate it at any time remains.

This CDR program was shuttered by the government because of massive over-collection of millions of Americans records, Sandra Fulton, government relations director for Free Press, tellsIn These Times. At this point, eliminating the CDR program is low-hanging fruit for any reform that is at all acceptable. According to Fulton, even if the CDR program is currently shuttered, keeping it on the books is a problem, because the government could reactivate it at any time. If we find a program that's being an abuse, the government doesn't just get to keep it, she says.

The other two senators among the leading Demoratic candidates, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), have not made similar statements publicly opposing the reauthorization, and neither returned In These Times request for comment.

Sen. Klobuchar voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act in 2011, while Sanders did not (Warren was not yet in the Senate). Both Klobuchar and Warren voted in favor of the USA Freedom Act in 2015, which imposed limited reforms on the Patriot Act; Sanders voted no, citing the inadequacy of the reforms. Warren did, however, vote no on2018 on a bill to extend the NSAs powers to carry out warrantless surveillance for another six years, as did Sanders. Klobuchar voted yes.

Speaking publicly against the Patriot Act could have a significant impact at a time Democrats are still acquiescing to a George W. Bush-era policy that has been in place for nearly 20 years. Last November, Democrats voted overwhelmingly for a measure granting a three-month extension of the three Patriot Act provisions, included in a House resolution to prevent a government shutdown, infuriating civil rights activists. Only 10 Democrats in the House voted against the reauthorization, among them Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), known as the squad. But Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) co-chairs Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.), and vice chairs, Reps. Ro Khanna (Calif.) and Barbara Lee (Calif.),all voted for it. (Neither Sanders, Warren nor Klobuchar were present for the Senate vote.)

As Sam Adler-Bell previously reported, the CPC said the extension was necessary to negotiate for better reforms, butthose progressives who voted yes caught considerable heat from activists. While we would oppose these authorities under any administration, history demonstrates that mass surveillance disproportionately impacts communities of color, immigrants, and other marginalized groups that Donald Trump is actively targeting, the activist organization Demand Progress said in a statement.

Likely in response to criticism, the CPC now says it doesnt plan to acquiesce to Bush-era spy powers so easily in mid-March.

For far too long, Congress has permitted blatant, unconstitutional violations of Americans Fourth Amendment rights under the PATRIOT Act, co-chairs Jayapal and Pocan told In These Times via email. Any long-term reauthorization of this legislation must contain meaningful and substantial reforms to these legal authorities, as proposed in the Safeguarding Americans Private Records Act (SAPRA), in order to secure our support.

Introduced by Sens. Ron Wyden (DOre.) and Steve Daines (RMont.) and Reps. Zoe Lofgren (DCalif.), Warren Davidson (ROhio), and Pramila Jayapal (DWash.),SAPRA, introduced in the House by on January 24 by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), would rescind authority for the CDR program. It has attracted support from a coalition of civil rights and privacy organizations, among them Color Of Change, Committee of Concerned Scientists and Indivisible.

However, the organizations note that the reform has shortcomings. In a letter, the coalition said that SAPRA does not, for instance, prohibit backdoor searches under Section 702, a loophole that poses a dangerous threat to Americans privacy by allowing the government to search through communications collected under Section 702 of FISA seeking information about Americans without a warrant. Further, it reauthorizes the so-called lone wolf authority, which has never been used and should be repealed just like the Section 215 CDR program. This lone wolf authority allowsthe government to wiretap someone who is not a U.S. personand not a part of a terrorist organizationbut deemed by the United States to be helping international terrorism (it is believedthat this provision has never been used).

Nonetheless, David Segal, the executive director of Demand Progress, tells In These Timesthat SAPRA is the only genuine reform bill in play.

Whatever this bills shortcomings, its almost certain to face opposition not only from the Trump administration, but from the Democratic Party leadership. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) played a significant role in November in pushing Democrats to endorse a reauthorization of the Patriot Actwith no reformsby slipping it into the funding bill. And impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who boosted his public profile by emphatically declaring that President Trump is dangerous to this country, was among the yes votes for full reauthorization of that presidents spy powers.

There is still significantbipartisan support for the CDR program, bringing significant risk that Democrats could cut a deal for reforms with less teethand more loopholesthan SAPRA.

A Sanders spokesperson noted to In These Times that the senator has been a supporter of Wyden's efforts to reform the Patriot Act and cosponsored his bipartisan USA RIGHTS Act. The spokespersonindicated that Sanders opposes the current iteration of the Patriot Act but would likely support Wyden's SAPRA legislation in the Senate, as it goes much further to protect privacy and civil liberties than a sunset of Section 215.

By coming out now against the mass surveillance powers, Sanders appears to besignaling to the CPC that it should find its backbone on this issue. And those who stay silent are implicitly encouraging the opposite.

This piece has beenupdated to include remarks from a spokesperson for Sanders that was sent following publication.

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Bernie Sanders Is the Only Leading Presidential Candidate Publicly Opposing the Patriot Act - In These Times

By U.S. Rep. Warren DavidsonR-Ohio

When our Founding Fathers established this American republic, a wise group insisted that our Constitution include the Bill of Rights to ensure that the federal government they created could not infringe on the natural rights of Americans.

The First and Second Amendments protect speech and the right to bear arms, respectively. After these essential freedoms, however, comes an amendment that most consider obsolete: the Third, which prohibits the federal government from quartering soldiers in Americans homes during peacetime.

On its face, Americans shouldnt have to worry about the Third Amendment. The Founding Fathers ban on quartering addresses a problem we no longer encounter. But considered in tandem with the Fourth Amendment the right to keep private property and documents secure against illegal searches a different picture emerges.

Taken together, the Third and Fourth Amendments dovetail to form a right to privacy as it applies to the home, your property and your person. The government cannot take up residence in your home, and it cannot look through your private effects without a warrant.

Yet, thats exactly what the government has done. Technology developed for national security purposes has worked its way into phones, computers, and tablets, compromising not only the American right to privacy but also the sanctity of our homes.

In less than a month, Congress can make our Founding Fathers proud and reverse this invasive legal trend. Section 215 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is set to expire on March 15. FISA was originally created in 1978 and massively expanded after 9/11 under the USA Patriot Act. The emphasis is on foreign there are supposed to be safeguards to protect American citizens from being targeted with these statutes. However, the U.S. government secretly has secretly taken up residence in Americans smartphones and laptops.

The scope of abuse from this troublesome law gained notoriety in 2013 when whistleblower Edward Snowden went public about the National Security Agencys warrantless warehousing of millions of Americans phone records and geolocation data. Congress attempted to fix the obvious legal problems by passing the USA Freedom Act in 2015, but we know the story of abuse doesnt end there.

In 2016, the FBI spied on a member of President Trumps campaign staff, abusing the lax standards and selective enforcement mechanisms of FISA, using stories of Russian meddling in the general election to prop up Clinton-sourced opposition research linked to Russia.

Separately, an October 2018 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) found more widescale abuse. The FISC opinion was declassified on Oct. 8, 2019. Among other findings, it shows that the FBI made 3.1-million warrantless searches of Americans data in 2017 alone. Some 57,000 individuals were subject to illegal searches by the FBI in April 2018. The year before, the FBI searched over 70,000 email addresses and phone numbers. At no point did a court issue a warrant and these individuals were never notified that they were subject to such a search.

Worse, no one batted an eye after the FISA court made these abuses public -- despite the fact that such abuses strike at the very heart of our civil liberties and the spirit of our constitutional republic.

Fortunately, an unlikely group of legislators from both chambers in Congress has banded together to introduce legislation that will finally protect the 3rd and 4th Amendments and overhaul FISA.

In the House, I joined my colleagues Reps. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., Pramila Jayapal D-Wash., Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore. and Ted Yoho, R-Fla., to work with Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Steve Daines, R-Mont., to introduce the Safeguarding Americans Private Records Act (SAPRA).

This bipartisan legislation ends the National Security Agency's mass phone record program and prohibits warrantless searches of GPS, web browsing, and search engine history. It also makes the FISA court more accountable by requiring the court to notify American citizens if theyve been investigated under FISA and forcing the court to disclose all opinions within six months of issuance.

SAPRA also creates public reporting requirements about the extent to which intelligence agencies illegally used FISA to surveil Americans or target activity protected under the First Amendment.

My fellow cosponsors and I can only hope that as the evidence has piled on that more of our colleagues will support our bipartisan legislation. With the March 15 deadline approaching, we are in a unique position to correct this prior constitutional malpractice and systemic abuse.

For too long, Congress has allowed an overzealous intelligence community to operate with limited oversight in the name of national security. America can (and must) sustain the worlds preeminent intelligence capabilities without infringing on the rights of American citizens. SAPRA will help bring this era of congressional negligence to an end and usher in a newfound appreciation for the power and purpose of those oft-forgotten Third and Fourth Amendments.

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highlandcountypress.com - The Highland County Press

Robert Torricelli, Opinion contributor Published 7:00 a.m. ET Feb. 21, 2020

We can't continue to give a rubber stamp to policies that endanger Americans' civil liberties. In this small window to make reform, Congress must act.

We will never forget the searing images from September 11, 2001, that played out across our television screens and in front of our eyes. The image that sticks most with me was the sight of hundreds of abandoned cars belonging to World Trade Center workers parked at a New Jersey commuter lot, each vehicle representing someone who would never come home from work.

At the time I represented New Jersey in the U.S. Senate. Working with my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, we debated how to thwart the next terrorist attack. Many of our ideas were incorporated into the Bush-era USA Patriot Act. While not billed as emergency powers, it was clear to us that the raft of legislation that followed 9/11 was in response to an emergency. What we viewed as immediate measures to protect American lives became a permanent framework that has governed American counterterrorism and counterintelligence for decades.

In the years since we passed the Patriot Act, many of my former colleagues and I, while remaining firm on the need to protect national security, have become increasingly skeptical even concerned those powers have been abusedand contain potential for even greater abuse.

These laws have been reauthorized with curtailed debate, over the objections of civil liberties advocates. In 2013, we were shocked to see the extent of mass warrantless surveillance after revelations by leaker Edward Snowden.A modified version of the Patriot Act, the USA Freedom Act, passed in 2015 to correct the lawless practices Snowden revealed.And yet it appears that shortcomings with the surveillance of Americans remains entrenched.

National Security Agency office in Fort Meade, Maryland.(Photo: Patrick Semansky/AP)

This became clear with the recent release of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitzs report on the origins of the FBIs investigation into potential ties between the Trump 2016 campaign and Russia. While stating clearly that there was no sign of bias in the FBIs decision to open the investigation, Horowitz laid out a string of errors and violations of Americans rights. One wonders, if this is how the FBI operates in a case bound to end up under a microscope, how fairly do they treat Americans involved in less prominent cases?

Two practices are of particular concern. Measures intended to fight international terrorism might now be used for backdoor surveillance of Americans at home. Parallel construction is another problematic practice, allowing law enforcement to make a case against Americans having nothing to do with terrorism.

The latter is a particular peril of programs under Section 215 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which holds that any information you give to a third party such as Google, Amazons Alexa, a doorbell video cameraor any other commercial entity, is fair game for surveillance.While the law does limit access to such business records information to cases relevant to national security, that term is elastic enough to include almost anything the government wants to see.

Inspector General report on FBI's FISA abuse tells us one thing: We need radical reform.

Key components of Section 215 are set to expire on March 15. Word from the hill is that there is strong, bipartisan support for reform from many members of the House Judiciary Committee, as well as from civil liberties stalwarts like Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Members of the liberal Progressive Caucus and conservative Freedom Caucus are circulating ideas for reform with backing from groups across the ideological spectrum, from the ACLUto FreedomWorks.

These reformers, however, face intense pressure from surveillance hawks to pass a clean reauthorization that includes no reforms.Congress should instead use the next two months to craft changes that will bring surveillance law in line with the U.S. Constitution.

One needed reform is to protect the First Amendment. Current law holds that investigations can be based on speech or religion, so long as they are not based solely on how one exercises ones First Amendment rights.Congress should tighten this elastic standard to disallow possible political surveillance of journalists, religious groups and campaigns.

Congress should also bring Section 215 business records provision into line with the Fourth Amendment requirement of probable cause whenever this information is used in a criminal proceeding against a U.S. person.

Former FBI agent: Justice Department investigation finds Trump's FBI conspiracy is false

The current system commendably allows for outside legal experts to critique surveillance requests before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.But this resource has been used sparingly.Congress should expand that program whenever an important constitutional issue is at stake.

We will never forget those empty cars and the need for surveillance measures to keep another attack from happening again. But Congress should take this opportunity to bring surveillance practices more in line with the Constitution. And law enforcement and intelligence agencies would be well advised to respect the intent of those who write surveillance legislation.

Robert Torricelli served from 1983 to 2003 as a U.S. representative forNew Jerseys 9th district and as a U.S. senator. Follow him on Twitter:@bobtorricelli

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Congress has the chance to reform the Patriot Act. They should take it. - USA TODAY

A verdict is expected tomorrow in the cases of 11 human rights defenders, including the former leadership and several members of Amnesty Turkey, who have spent more than two-and-a-half years fighting trumped-up charges and could face up to 15 years behind bars if found guilty.

Ahead of the hearing, which resumes tomorrow in Istanbul, Amnesty International said only acquittal of all could deliver justice for the 11 activists arrested in the summer of 2017 on baseless terrorism charges. Amnesty Turkeys former Chair, Taner Kl, former Director, Idil Eser, and several other members of Amnesty Turkey are among the human rights defenders on trial.

The plight of these activists shows that Turkey has become a country where defending other peoples freedoms can cost you your own, and where standing up for human rights is being criminalized. This verdict is an acid test for Turkeys justice system - we demand anend this prolonged saga of injustice now, said Marie Struthers, Amnesty Internationals Europe Director.

From the moment they were arrested, it was clear this was a politically motivated prosecution aimed at silencing independent civil society within Turkey. After months in jail and years before the courts, and with no credible evidence presented to substantiate the charges made against them, any verdict other than a full acquittal for all 11 activists would be an outrage.

Over the course of ten hearings, the terrorism allegations made against all 11 defendants have been repeatedly and categorically disproven, including by the states own evidence. The prosecutions attempt to present legitimate human rights activities as unlawful acts has comprehensively failed. The verdict must reflect that reality.

Since 2017, more than two million people from around the world have joined the call for justice for the 11, including scores of renowned figures from the arts world, among them Ben Stiller, Whoopi Goldberg, Edward Snowden, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Ai Weiwei, Anish Kapoor, Catherine Deneuve and Anglique Kidjo.

Writing in an open letter in 2017 when the 11 were still behind bars, dozens of high-profile figures stated: When human rights defenders are silenced, all our rights are put at risk. They are the ones that stand up for us. Now we must stand up for them.

After more than 14 months in prison, Taner Kl was released on bail in August 2018. Eight of the others spent almost four months each behind bars before they were released in October 2017. But thousands of others caught up in Turkeys deep and far reaching crackdown on dissent remain in jail.

The targeting of human rights defenders has escalated during the wave of repression that has gripped Turkey since the 2016 coup attempt. The post-coup crackdown by the government has seen an ongoing assault on civil society which has resulted in the closing of more than 1,300 NGOs and 180 media organizations, and the arbitrary dismissal of almost 130,000 public service workers.

The significance of the verdict will reach far beyond this courtroom. The acquittal of these 11 human rights defenders should herald the beginning of the end of the crackdown on civil society and a restoration of respect for human rights in Turkey, said Marie Struthers.

The eyes of the world will be on the courtroom. Any verdict other that acquittal will be a chilling reminder that truth and justice have become strangers in Turkey.

The hearing will begin at 07.00am GMT, on 19 February, 10.00am local time, at Istanbul Heavy Penal Court, No 35.

There will be a press conference at 6.30am GMT (9.30 local time), outside the courtroom.

An international delegation of senior Amnesty International representatives from around the world are attending the hearing in Istanbul including: Kate Allen, Director of AI UK; John Peder Egenaes, Director of AI Norway; Anna Lindenfors, Director of AI Sweden; Gabriele Stein, Chair Amnesty International Germany, Stefanie Rinaldi, Chair of Amnesty Switzerland and Yolanda Vega, Turkey Co-ordinator for AI Spain.

BACKGROUND

At the most recent hearing in November 2019, the state prosecutor presented his final opinion requesting convictions against Taner Kl for membership of a terrorist organization, Idil Eser, zlem Dalkran, Gnal Kurun, Veli Acu and Nejat Tatan for knowingly and willingly assisting a terrorist organization. He requested that the court acquits Nalan Erkem, lknur stn, eyhmus zbekli, Ali Gharavi and Peter Steudtner.

For more information about the case visit https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2020/01/turkey-istanbul-human-rights-activists-justice/

For an analysis of the case against Taner Kl visit: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur44/7331/2017/en/

For details of the November 2019 hearing visit https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/11/turkey-amnestys-exdirector-and-honorary-chair-must-be-acquitted-in-absurd-terror-trial/

Over the past two-and-a-half years more than 2 million people spoke out to call for justice for the 11. Well-known figures who signed open letters (in 2017) include:

Edward Snowden, Catherine Deneuve, Ai Weiwei, Anglique Kidjo, Anish Kapoor, Peter Gabriel, Zo Kravitz, Nazanin Boniadi, Don Cheadle, Marisa Tomei, Adam McKay, Paul Haggis, Joshua Malina, Fisher Stevens, Claire Danes, Ben Stiller, Whoopi Goldberg, Mike Farrell, Eva Orner, Peter Sarsgaard, Tim Roth, Kathy Najimy, Mark Ruffalo, Zach Galifianakis, Bruce Cohen, Shira Piven, Mike White, Tim Kring, James McAvoy, Francois Morel, Elif Shafak, Bianca Jagger, Juliet Stevenson, Juliette Binoche, Jane Birkin, Isabelle Huppert and Tanita Tikaram.

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Turkey: Human rights activists face up to 15 years in jail as verdict expected in baseless trial - Amnesty International

Joanne McNeil. Photo: Lift Conference Photos

You dont usually hear much about lurkers. Usually, the story of the contemporary internet is told from the point of view of its architects, in airport-bookstore best sellers about thedevelopers and entrepreneurs who built powerful, wealthy megaplatforms. Sometimes, youll get sensational articles about the posters, creators, and influencers whove rocketed to fame on those architects creations. But rarely do you read about everyone else: the vast majority of people, who quietly consume content online without creating much of it. A well-worn principle of internet communities called the one percent rule holds that only one percent of users in a given community create new content. The other 99 percent lurk, clicking links, reading posts, and unassumingly powering the multitrillion-dollar digital economy. Whos telling their story?

Over the last year or so, a parallel history of the internet told from the point of view of the average person,the lurker, the subscriber, the entry-level tech worker, the Monthly Active User has begun to emerge, across a number of excellent new books. In Joanne McNeils new book Lurking: How a Person Became a User, the latest addition to this library of counter-histories and revived accounts, the internets 99 percent is the focus. For McNeil, lurking isnt simply the passive activity of silently browsing the web, but an act of bearing witness, in this case to the shifts that took us from the small, rickety clubhouse internet of the 1990s to the bustling, terrifying casino internet of the 2010s and beyond. Shes interested in tracing this history not through dramatic stories of dorm-room creation and boardroom betrayal, but through the familiar, everyday experience of the lurker. How did communication habits change? How did culture shift?

Thats not to say its an anthropological text, either. Lurking is an impressionistic chronicle of the last 25 years online, divided into chapters based on themes and concepts like sharing and anonymity. The result is a history that illuminates ongoing debates and opens up interesting new questions about how we understand the industry and the technologies that have taken over the world. In a chapter called Visibility, she writes about the culture of fakesters people with fake accounts on the early social network Friendster, explaining the still-muddled distinction between credibility and visibility online. In the chapter on search, McNeil explores how the rise of search engines, and specifically Google, changed the not just the structure of the internet from a warren of hyperlinks to a database to be cross-referenced but the terms we use to discuss it. People used to talk about the internet as a place, she writes. Now people talk about the internet as something to talk to; it is a someone the Voltron of all the family photos, diary entries, jokes, hotel reviews, support-group message boards, and VHS-ripped detritus of everyone who ever lived a digital life.

In its exploration of the history and experience of the internet from a less well-attended vantage point, McNeils book made me think of a handful of other recent books about the internet, in particular Claire Evanss Broad Band, Anna Wieners Uncanny Valley, and Jenny Odells How to Do Nothing. All of these books are formally and substantively very different from Lurking, but I think they all are participating in a version of McNeils project a kind of Lurkers History of the Internet.

Broad Band, which came out in 2018, is straightforwardly a history:a collection of biographical sketches and historical accounts of the women mathematicians, computer scientists, developers, and administrators who (in the words of its subtitle) made the internet. Many of Evanss subjects are geniuses and pioneers, its true, but many of them are more or less normal people not quite lurkers, but something close who happen to have lived through a particularly interesting moment in the history of computing or the internet. (A handful of characters, like Stacy Horn, the founder of influential early message board ECHO, are featured in both Broad Band and Lurkers.) By illuminating their lives, Evans is able to flesh out the history of the internet beyond the myths and stereotypes we already know and rescue old and forgotten visions of how the internet might be.

Odells How to Do Nothing, by contrast, is less a history or a narrative at all than a strange and compelling amalgamation of polemic and self-help. Odell is able to articulate the affective experience of being online (and of logging off) particularly well, and her exploration of how the internet makes us feel is fascinating. But How to Do Nothing is also not a slick tome about digital detoxification. Where it shines in particular is when Odell excavates overlooked and forgotten previous versions of the internet (like the Community Memory kiosk, a physical box housing an electronic bulletin board, built in a Berkeley record store in 1972), contrasting them with their crassly monetized descendents (like the local social network Nextdoor, which Odells boyfriend pegs as for uppity property owners) and exploring the ways in which we could recover some of the more utopian visions of the internet.

Finally, Wieners memoir, published earlier this year, explores the recent internet from within the tech industry. Silicon Valley documents the authors life working for various tech businesses in New York City and the Bay Area, and as such, is less concerned with specific experiences of the changing internet than with chronicling the cultural milieu from which the tech industry operates. Importantly, though, its not a story of well-remunerated boy kings or swashbuckling venture capitalists, but of the low- and mid-level employees who cycle in and out of various tech start-ups implementing, with varying levels of awareness, the changes that McNeils book is concerned with. Wieners co-workers at an unnamed analytics start-up are neither daring geniuses nor grand villains: We didnt think of ourselves as participating in the surveillance economy, she writes in a section set after the Edward Snowden revelations. We were just allowing product managers to run better A/B tests.

I thought of Wieners account often while reading Lurking. If theres a through line in McNeils book, its ironically that lurking that fundamental online activity is no longer really possible. Where once you might have been able to browse online privately and unobtrusively, now you leave traces everywhere you go. McNeil documents the way Googles autocomplete function collects and suggests the theoretically private searches of billions of lurkers, and describes efforts by MySpace and Facebook users to jury-rig or reverse engineer tracking systems to tell who was looking at each profile. Anonymity is fraught and harder to come by; everyone is now obligated, by social custom or through the inveiglement of advertising profiles, to have an online presence, and that presence is increasingly connected to your life and identity off-line. Lurkers have become identifiable, trackable users to be exploited, as McNeil writes, as scrap metal, as data in a data set, as something less than human.

I dont put a lot of stock in the idea that reading a particular book or taking a particular humanities class could help transform Silicon Valley. But I thought many of Wieners bosses could have benefited from an understanding of their industry that went beyond fables of disruption and growth from hearing about how the internet is experienced by the people who use it and the developers who maintain it, rather than the tin-pot emperors hustling for tribute on whatever corner of it they can annex. The spate of new books that flesh out our understanding is welcome. If were going to recover the fully human lurker from the prepackaged and surveilled user, histories like these will be essential.

Daily news about the politics, business, and technology shaping our world.

Read more here:
Writing a Lurkers History of the Internet - New York Magazine

February 15 marks the day, 17 years ago, when global demonstrations against the pending Iraq invasion were so massive that theNew York Timescalled world public opinion "the second superpower." But the U.S. ignored it and invaded Iraq anyway. So what has become of the momentous hopes of that day?

The U.S. military has not won a war since 1945, unless you count recovering the tiny colonial outposts of Grenada, Panama and Kuwait, but there is one threat it has consistently outmaneuvered without firing more than a few deadlyrifle shotsand some tear gas. Ironically, this existential threat is the very one that could peacefully cut it down to size and take away its most dangerous and expensive weapons: its own peace-loving citizens.

During the Vietnam War, young Americans facing a life-and-death draft lottery built a powerfulanti-war movement. President Nixon proposed ending the draft as a way to undermine the peace movement, since he believed that young people would stop protesting the war once they were no longer obligated to fight. In 1973, the draft was ended, leavinga volunteer army that insulated the vast majority of Americans from the deadly impact of America's wars.

Despite the lack of a draft, a new anti-war movement this time with global reach sprung up in the period between the crimes of 9/11 and the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The February 15, 2003, protests were thelargest demonstrationsin human history, uniting people around the world in opposition to the unthinkable prospect that the U.S. would actually launch its threatened "shock and awe" assault on Iraq.Some 30 million people in 800 cities took part on every continent, including Antarctica.This massive repudiation of war, memorialized in the documentary "We Are Many," ledNew York Timesjournalist Patrick E. Tyler tocommentthat there were nowtwo superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion.

The U.S. war machine demonstrated total disdain for its upstart rival, and unleashed an illegal war based on lies that has now raged on through many phases of violence and chaos for 17 years. With no end in sight to U.S. and allied wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Yemen andWest Africa, and Trump's escalating diplomatic andeconomic warfareagainst Iran, Venezuela and North Korea threatening to explode into new wars, where is the second superpower now, when we need it more than ever?

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Since the U.S. assassination of Iran's General Soleimani in Iraq on January 2, the peace movement has reemerged onto the streets, including people who marched in February 2003 and new activists too young to remember a time when the U.S. was not at war. There have been three separate days of protest, one on January 4, another on January 9 and a global day of action on January 25. The rallies took place in hundreds of cities, but they did not attract nearly the numbers who came out to protest the pending war with Iraq in 2003, or even those of the smaller rallies and vigils that continued as the Iraq war spiraled out of control until at least 2007.

Our failure to stop the U.S. war on Iraq in 2003 was deeply discouraging. But the number of people active in the U.S. anti-war movement shrank even more after the 2008 election of Barack Obama. Many people did not want to protest the nation's first black president, and many, including the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, really believed he would be a "peace president."

While Obama reluctantly honoredBush's agreementwith the Iraqi government to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and he signed the Iran nuclear deal, he was far from a peace president. He oversaw anew doctrineof covert and proxy war that substantially reduced U.S. military casualties, but unleashed an escalation of the war in Afghanistan, a campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria thatdestroyed entire cities, atenfold increasein CIA drone strikes on Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and bloody proxy wars in Libya and Syria thatrage on today.In the end,Obamaspent more on the military and dropped more bombs on more countries than Bush did. He also refused to hold Bush and his cronies responsible for their war crimes.

Obama's wars were no more successful than Bush's in restoring peace or stability to any of those countries or improving the lives of their people. But Obama's "disguised, quiet, media-free approach" to war made the U.S. state of endless war much more politically sustainable. By reducing U.S. casualties and waging war with less fanfare, he moved America's wars farther into the shadows and gave the American public an illusion of peace in the midst of endless war, effectively disarming and dividing the peace movement.

Obama's secretive war policy was backed up by a vicious campaign against any brave whistleblowers who tried to drag it out into the light. Jeffrey Sterling, Thomas Drake, Chelsea Manning, John Kiriakou, Edward Snowden and now Julian Assange have been prosecuted and jailed under unprecedented new interpretations of the WWI-era Espionage Act.

With Donald Trump in the White House, we hear Republicans making the same excuses for Trump who ran on an anti-war platform that Democrats made for Obama. First, his supporters accept lip service about wanting to end wars and bring troops home as revealing what the president really wants to do, even as he keeps escalating the wars. Second, they ask us to be patient because, despite all the real-world evidence, they are convinced he is working hard behind the scenes for peace. Third, in a final cop-out that undermines their other two arguments, they throw up their hands and say that he is "only" the president, and the Pentagon or "deep state" is too powerful for even him to tame.

Obama and Trump supporters alike have used this shaky tripod of political unaccountability to give the man behind the desk where the buck used to stop an entire deck of "get out of jail free" cards for endless war andwar crimes.

Obama and Trump's "disguised, quiet, media-free approach" to war has inoculated America's wars and militarism against the virus of democracy, but new social movements have grown up to tackle problems closer to home. The financial crisis led to the rise of the Occupy Movement, and now the climate crisis and America's entrenched race and immigration problems have all provoked new grassroots movements. Peace advocates have been encouraging these movements to join the call for major Pentagon cuts, insisting that the hundreds of billions saved could help fund everything from Medicare for All to the Green New Deal to free college tuition.

A few sectors of the peace movement have been showing how to use creative tactics and build diverse movements. The movement for Palestinians' human and civil rights includes students, Muslim and Jewish groups, as well as black and indigenous groups fighting similar struggles here at home. Also inspirational are campaigns for peace on the Korean peninsula led by Korean Americans, such asWomen Cross the DMZ, which has brought together women from North Korea, South Korea and the United States to show the Trump administration what real diplomacy looks like.

There have also been successful popular efforts pushing a reluctant Congress to take anti-war positions.For decades, Congress has been only too happy to leave war-making to the president, abrogating its constitutional role as the only power authorized to declare war. Thanks to public pressure, there has been a remarkable shift.

In 2019, both houses of Congressvotedto end U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen and to ban arms sales to Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen, although President Trumpvetoedboth bills. Now Congresshas passed bipartisanbills to explicitly prohibit an unauthorized war on Iran. These bills prove that public pressure can move Congress, including a Republican-dominated Senate, to reclaim its constitutional powers over war and peace from the executive branch.

Another bright light in Congress is the pioneering work of first-term Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who recently laid out a series of bills calledPathway to PEACEthat challenge our militaristic foreign policy. While her bills will be hard to get passed in Congress, they lay out a marker for where we should be headed. Omar's office, unlike many others in Congress, actually works directly with grassroots organizations that can push this vision forward.

The presidential election offers an opportunity to push the anti-war agenda. The most effective and committed anti-war champion in the race is Bernie Sanders. The popularity of his call for getting the U.S. out of its imperial interventions and hisvotesagainst 84 percent of military spending bills since 2013 are reflected not only in his poll numbers but also in the way other Democratic candidates are rushing to take similar positions. All now say the U.S. should rejoin the Iran nuclear deal; all have criticized the "bloated" Pentagon budget, despite regularlyvoting for it; and most have promised to bring U.S. troops home from the greater Middle East.

So, as we look to the future in this election year, what are our chances of reviving the world's second superpower and ending America's wars?

Absent a major new war, we are unlikely to see big demonstrations in the streets. But two decades of endless war have created a strong anti-war sentiment among the public. A 2019Pew Research Centerpoll found that 62 percent of Americans said the war in Iraq was not worth fighting and 59 percent said the same for the war in Afghanistan.

On Iran, a September 2019 University of Maryland pollshowedthat a mere one-fifth of Americans said the U.S. "should be prepared to go to war" to achieve its goals in Iran, while three-quarters said that U.S. goals do not warrant military intervention. Along with the Pentagon's assessment of how disastrous a war with Iran would be, this public sentiment fueled global protests and condemnation that have temporarily forced Trump to dial down his military escalation and threats against Iran.

So, while our government's war propaganda has convinced many Americans that we are powerless to stop its catastrophic wars, it has failed to convince most Americans that we are wrong to want to. As on other issues, activism has two main hurdles to overcome: first to convince people that something is wrong; and second to show them that, by working together to build a popular movement, we can do something about it.

The peace movement's small victories demonstrate that we have more power to challenge U.S. militarism than most Americans realize. As more peace-loving people in the U.S. and across the world discover the power they really have, the second superpower we glimpsed briefly on February 15, 2003, has the potential to rise stronger, more committed and more determined from the ashes of two decades of war.

A new president like Bernie Sanders in the White House would create a new opening for peace. But as on many domestic issues, that opening will only bear fruit and overcome the opposition of powerful vested interests if there is a mass movement behind it every step of the way. If there is a lesson for peace-loving Americans in the Obama and Trump presidencies, it is that we cannot just walk out of the voting booth and leave it to a champion in the White House to end our wars and bring us peace. In the final analysis, it really is up to us. Pleasejoin us!

Read more:
Can the world's second superpower rise from the ashes of 20 years of war? - Salon