Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) has been slammed by multiple members of the GOPs Freedom Caucus, as well as by Donald Trump Jr., for breaking with the president on multiple issues winning her warm accolades from the left.

During an in-person conference between various Republican representatives on Tuesday, Cheney came under fire from her own political party. Sources in the closed meeting reported that Ohios Rep. Jim Jordan, a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus and one of the presidents more loyal supporters, listed off all the times Cheney has publicly broken ranks with President Donald Trump, including on his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, his tweeting, as well as on foreign policy.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Arizona) reportedly targeted Cheney for endorsing an opponent to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), whom she was seen speaking with on the House floor following the meeting.

Though Cheney would not directly answer journalists questions about comments made to her at the conference, several Republicans went public soon after with their critiques of the congresswoman.

Rep. Matt Gaetz called for her to step down or be removed as Chair of the House Republican Conference, while Donald Trump Jr. compared her unfavorably to Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), one of the presidents fiercest rivals within the Republican Party.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), one of the more Libertarian-leaning politicians, also targeted Cheney and blasted her for advocating for endless wars.

Federalist senior editor Mollie Hemingway reported that Cheneys comments about the much-derided and questionable New York Times report on Russian bounties allegedly being paid for US soldiers deaths in the Middle East have also distanced her from her colleagues. Cheney was one of the few Republicans not to criticize the story, but appeared to rather buy into its claims.

Comments critiquing Cheney, especially those from Paul, represent an ongoing split in the Republican Party that has only been fueled by Trump, who was elected supporting many policies new to the mainstream sector of the Republican Party. The Freedom Caucus was even formed in 2015 as a response to a party that was quickly changing, with many of its members focusing more on cutting spending, criticizing the authority of federal agencies like the NSA, and advocating against American inverventionalism around the globe. Meanwhile Cheney, who was elected to her position in 2017, holds ideals closer to past presidents like George W. Bush and to her father, Dick, who served as vice president during that administration.

The congresswoman has often criticized Trump for arguing against American troop involvement in the Middle East, but has praised him on occasion when hes become more aggressive overseas, like when he ordered the assassination of Irans Qassem Soleimani.

Cheney may hold opinions closer to the Republican Party before Trump became a serious contender, but all it takes today to earn praise from the left is a break from the presidents loyal political allies just ask John Kasich. Despite her foreign policy opinions and support of NSA spying, she found herself praised as a voice of reason and for being on the right side by the left, following reports about the GOP conference all because she was simply targeted by Republicans for not supporting Trump enough.

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Liz Cheney the latest target of Trump loyalists which is enough to label her voice of reason on the left - RT

The European Unions highest court today made clearonce againthat the US governments mass surveillance programs are incompatible with the privacy rights of EU citizens. The judgment was made in the latest case involving Austrian privacy advocate and EFF Pioneer Award winner Max Schrems. It invalidated the Privacy Shield, the data protection deal that secured the transatlantic data flow, and narrowed the ability of companies to transfer data using individual agreements (Standard Contractual Clauses, or SCCs).

Despite the many we are disappointed statements by the EU Commission, U.S. government officials, and businesses, it should come as no surprise, since it follows the reasoning the court made in Schrems previous case, in 2015.

Back then, the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) noted that European citizens had no real recourse in US law if their data was swept up in the U.S. governments surveillance schemes. Such a violation of their basic privacy rights meant that U.S. companies could not provide an adequate level of [data] protection, as required by EU law and promised by the EU/U.S. Privacy Safe Harbor self-regulation regime. Accordingly, the Safe Harbor was deemed inadequate, and data transfers by companies between the EU and the U.S. were forbidden.

Since that original decision, multinational companies, the U.S. government, and the European Commission sought to paper over the giant gaps between U.S. spying practices and the EUs fundamental values. The U.S. government made clear that it did not intend to change its surveillance practices, nor push for legislative fixes in Congress. All parties instead agreed to merely fiddle around the edges of transatlantic data practices, reinventing the previous Safe Harbor agreement, which weakly governed corporate handling of EU citizens personal data, under a new name: the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield.

EFF, along with the rest of civil society on both sides of the Atlantic, pointed out that this was just shuffling chairs on the Titanic. The Court cited government programs like PRISM and Upstream as its primary reason for ending data flows between Europe and the United States, not the (admittedly woeful) privacy practices of the companies themselves. That meant that it was entirely in the government and U.S. Congress hands to decide whether U.S. tech companies are allowed to handle European personal data. The message to the U.S. government is simple: Fix U.S. mass surveillance, or undermine one of the United States major industries.

Five years after the original iceberg of Schrems 1, Schrems 2 has pushed the Titanic fully beneath the waves. The new judgment explicitly calls out the weaknesses of U.S. law in protecting non-U.S. persons from arbitrary surveillance, highlighting that:

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Section 702 of the FISA does not indicate any limitations on the power it confers to implement surveillance programmes for the purposes of foreign intelligence or the existence of guarantees for non-US persons potentially targeted by those programmes.

and

...neither Section 702 of the FISA, nor E.O. 12333, read in conjunction with PPD28, correlates to the minimum safeguards resulting, under EU law, from the principle of proportionality, with the consequence that the surveillance programmes based on those provisions cannot be regarded as limited to what is strictly necessary.

The CJEU could not be more blunt in its pronouncements: but it remains unclear how the various actors that could fix this problem will react. Will EU data protection authorities step up their enforcement activities and invalidate SCCs that authorize data flows to the U.S. for failing to protect EU citizens from U.S. mass surveillance programs? And if U.S. corporations cannot confidently rely on either SCCs or the defunct Privacy Shield, will they lobby harder for real U.S. legislative change to protect the privacy rights of Europeans in the U.S.or just find another temporary stopgap to force yet another CJEU decision? And will the European Commission move from defending the status quo and current corporate practices, to truly acting on behalf of its citizens?

Whatever the initial reaction by EU regulators, companies and the Commission, the real solution lies, as it always has, with the United States Congress. Today's decision is yet another significant indicator that the U.S. government's foreign intelligence surveillance practices need a massive overhaul. Congress half-heartedly began the process of improving some parts of FISA earlier this yeara process which now appears to have been abandoned. But this decision shows, yet again, that the U.S. needs much broader, privacy-protective reform, and that Congress inaction makes us all less safe, wherever we are.

Link:
EU Court Again Rules That NSA Spying Makes U.S. Companies ...

At a time when U.S. GDP is expected to drop by levels not seen since the Great Depression, U.S. government surveillance practices are landing another blow to large and small businesses alike.

On Thursday, in a ruling with enormous implications for U.S. companies, the E.U.'s highest court invalidated a data-transfer agreement between the European Union and the United States, known as "Privacy Shield."

The demise of Privacy Shield is directly attributable to the breadth of U.S. government surveillance, which ensnares the data of countless Europeans in a spying apparatus that is fundamentally at odds with E.U. privacy law. For the more than 5,000 U.S. businesses across the country that rely on Privacy Shield for transatlantic data transfers, the E.U. court's ruling is a serious problem. But there's a straightforward way out of this dilemma: comprehensive U.S. surveillance reform.

The case before the E.U. Court of Justice, known as Schrems II, presented two key issues: first, whether the scope of U.S. surveillance means that the United States fails to "adequately" protect the privacy rights of Europeans; and second, whether U.S. remedies for unlawful surveillance are inadequate under E.U. law. The court's answer to both questions was yes.

Notably, this isn't the first time that the E.U. Court of Justice has raised concerns about U.S. surveillance.

Under European law, companies have long faced restrictions on transferring large volumes of personal datathat is, data capable of identifying individualsto countries with weaker privacy rules. To address these restrictions, in the 1990s, the European Union and the United States negotiated an agreement known as "Safe Harbor." The agreement allowed companies doing business in the European Union to transfer data to the United States, based on the theory that the United States ensures an adequate level of protection for that information.

But in 2013, Edward Snowden's revelations about warrantless NSA surveillance starkly put the lie to that theory. In response, an Austrian lawyer and privacy activist, Max Schrems, brought a suit against Facebook Ireland. He argued that its reliance on Safe Harbor to transfer data to the United States was unlawful, given the scope of NSA spying. The case made its way to the E.U. Court of Justice, and in 2015, the court invalidated Safe Harbor, based largely on its concerns about the breadth of U.S. government surveillance.

After that ruling, the United States and European Union rushed to negotiate a new agreement, called Privacy Shieldignoring warnings from civil rights groups like the American Civil Liberties Union that reforms to U.S. surveillance law would be necessary to ensure compliance with E.U. privacy law. The court validated those warnings today, holding that the new agreement fails to protect personal data from the underlying problem: the scope of U.S. surveillance, and the lack of adequate remedies.

As I explained in expert testimony in the Schrems II case, when people's data is transferred from Europe, it's vulnerable to warrantless mass surveillance by the U.S. government under two broad spying authorities: Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Executive Order 12,333.

Under Section 702, the United States claims the power to target virtually any European to acquire "foreign intelligence," broadly defined. It pulls information directly from American tech firms, and it collects communications as they're in transit on the Internet. In addition, under Executive Order 12,333, the government collects enormous volumes of private data in bulk outside of the United States. And there are few (if any) effective remedies for this surveillance, largely because the U.S. government almost never notifies the people subjected to this spying. Without notice, it's extremely difficult to challenge surveillance in U.S. court.

The E.U. court today also held that European Data Authorities must halt data flows under a second data-transfer mechanism, known as "Standard Contractual Clauses," to countries that fail to ensure an appropriate level of privacy protections. Based on the court's analysis, it's clear that U.S. law will fail that test.

To be clear, the E.U. court's ruling today will not "break the Internet." Companies in Europe will still be able to execute individual data transmissions where, for example, users explicitly consent to the transfer of their data. But what today's ruling does do is radically alter the landscape for large-scale data flows. Companies that relied solely on Privacy Shield are left in the lurch. For companies relying on Standard Contractual Clauses, it will be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to outsource significant volumes of data to U.S. tech companies for processing or for backup purposes once Data Protection Authorities act.

U.S. surveillance has become a financial liability for U.S. companies trying to compete in a global market. The only solution to these problems is comprehensive surveillance reform, not another slap-dash attempt to paper over the fundamental problems with U.S. law.

Congress must act now to rein in the NSA's warrantless spying, and to ensure that individuals have a meaningful opportunity to challenge the government's surveillance.

Ashley Gorski is a Senior Staff Attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

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Op-ed: Congress must act now to rein in the NSA's ...

On Friday, July 10, 1990, the Electronic Frontier Foundation was officially born. It's safe to say that on that day, co-founders Mitch Kapor and John Perry Barlow were ahead of their time in imagining that there needed to be an organization that fought to protectordinary people's access to newtechnology that could instantly erase distance, create connection, and access much of the worlds knowledge. Todaythirty years laterthat technology affects and is affected by most everything we do.

Throughout those thirty years, EFF hasbeen on the frontlines, fighting thousands of battles in courts, in Congress, on the streets, and across the globe to ensure that when you go online, your rights go with you. We're excited to celebrate our victories. and the lessons we've learned, during our 30th Anniversary Party on Fridayand you're invited!

We're kicking off a year-long celebration of EFF's 30th Anniversary with this special livestream. Along with music, special guests, cat-cams, and Tech Trivia, we'll premiere a series of interactive EFF30 Fireside Chats about the past, present, and future of online rights. Bring your friends!

Here's the detailed schedule:Starting at 3 pm PT, we'll begin the packed schedule with a DJ set by Funkip, a musical tomato from San Francisco who has performed her brand of "cute bangers 80-200 BPM for ravers and otaku" at festivals and other venues around the Bay Area.

DJ Funkip

At 4:00 pm, EFF's Executive Director, Cindy Cohn, will welcome everyone to our stream and commemorate our30th anniversary. Cindy first became involved with EFF in 1993, when EFF asked her to serve as the outside lead attorney in Bernstein v. Dept. of Justice, the successful First Amendment challenge to the U.S. export restrictions on cryptography. Since then, she'sserved as EFFs Legal Director as well as its General Counsel, and has been Executive Director since 2016.

EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn

At 4:10 pm, we'll have the first in a year-long series of "EFF30 Fireside Chats." In this chat, author, security technologist, and EFF board member Bruce Schneier will discuss the future of the "Crypto Wars," the long-running battle between the U.S. government and encryption enthusiasts around secure and private communications.

Starting in the 90s, the Crypto Wars have continued right up to the present day with the EARN IT Act, a bill that wouldgive unprecedented powers to law enforcementincluding the ability to break into our private messages by creating encryption backdoors.Joining Bruce will be Cindy Cohn,Senior Staff Attorney Andrew Crocker, andSenior Staff Technologist Erica Portnoy.

Bruce Schneier

At 5 pm we'll do what Twitch was created for: livestream EFF Staffdiscussing how digital security impacts us all in meatspacewhile playing on theEFF island in Animal Crossing.

EFF Fights For Your Rights On Virtual Islands And Beyond

Just before 6 pm, we'll be saluting some ofthe animal friends that remind us all how great the Internet can be. You'll see cameos from various inhuman EFF companions.

You're invited to give your own buddies some time in the spotlight! Post a video or photo of them with#EFF30Petsand we'll share some of our favorites!

Staff Mountain Dog McKinley (aka Mackey)

And starting at 6 pm, test your mettle withEFFs Fourth Annual Tech Trivia, led by our own "Cybertiger" Cooper Quintin. If you haven't joined an EFF Tech Trivia event before, you're in for a treat. The Cybertiger will urge you to nerd your hardest in this exploration of digital security, online rights, and Internet culture. Thanks to Facebook, Gandi.net, and No Starch Press for supporting this Fourth Annual Tech Trivia contest! EFFs Tech Trivia Night is a great opportunity to gather with peers in the tech community AND support the crucial fight for online civil liberties.

Then, at 8 pm, join us for the virtual party game Quiplash! You can join the fun by playing as part of the audience and voting on your favorite answers.EFF Director of Strategy Danny O'Brienand EFF Special Advisor and authorCory Doctorowlead a panel of online rights advocates and special guests.

Danny O'Brien

Cory Doctorow

Closing out the evening will be aDJ Set by Encanti with visuals by VJ Lumendrop.Encanti is the artist name of Ben Cantil, half of audio/visual duoZebbler Encanti Experience, who releases musicon experimental electronic labels Wakaan and Gravitas Recordings.Lumendrop(Theresa Silver) is an audiovisual artist, multimedia developer, VJ, stage designer, and projection mapping specialist.

Visuals from Lumendrop

Encanti

Whether you're a new member of the digital rights movement, or you were around for the beginning of the Crypto Wars, we hope you'll help us celebrate this milestone. EFF is there for you for now, with advice on avoiding surveillance during protests, and has been there for you then, fighting NSA spying programs and government efforts to break iPhone encryption. We're excited to celebrate 0 years of defending your civil liberties in the digital world.We hope you can stop in for some of fun!

EFF would like to extend our sincere appreciation to No Starch Press and Ridder, Costa, and Johnstone LLP for sponsoring our 30th Anniversary Livestream! If you or your company want to learn about future EFF sponsorship opportunities, please contact Nicole Puller.

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Join EFF's 30th Anniversary Livestream and Party Like It's 1990! - EFF

You could be calling your doctor to book an appointment, calling your lawyer to discuss an active case in court or your accountant to discuss your company's financial situation. In other words, it might be that you are engaged in any type of communication, and you expect to have total privacy.

Well, you could be surprised to know that it is not the case anymore as someone could be actively eavesdropping on your communication. The US National Security Agency can now listen to your phone conversation, activity online, and even monitor your movement. You ought to know that there is a spying program that was mothballed by the NSA and supported by congress. As scary as that may sound, it is essential to understand how the NSA spies on you. Let us delve in deeper and tell you more.

There exists a warrantless wiretapping program that was first revealed to the public by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Fixed under The Patriot Act, the program allows the NSA to obtain business records that are relevant to a terrorist investigation. The agency gets to collect the phone number dialed, the time, and the duration of the call.

The Obama administration found fault with the program and proposed changes. They now require judicial oversight of access to the database. That said, the NSA still actively collects phone records of millions of people each day. Under the guise of the warrantless wiretapping, your conversations are collected by the agency, which means you lack privacy.

The NSA has an established unit known as The Tailored Access Operation (TAO). As opposed to other programs, the NSA uses it to collect your data. Well, the TAO engages in specialized attacks on defined high-value targets. It has since been established that the NSA has a large library of exploits, meaning they continue to make your device vulnerable to hacking.

They can hack into a wide variety of consumer gadgets, including yours and business Information Technology (IT) systems. According to the confessions by Edward Snowden, the NSA hacks network backbones, such as huge internet routers. This gives them access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers. This is done without necessarily having to hack every single one. It makes it possible for the NSA to hack into your laptop without your knowledge.

A surveillance program known only as PRISM is funded by NSA through which the agency spies on the internet of your device. The NSA has been known to work with countries around the world to tap into the undersea fiber optic cables carrying large volumes of optic data. The NSA has even been tapping into the fiber optic cables in the US. They could be spying on your internet activities and illegally store your data.

The NSA tapped into Google massive data of individuals, recording millions of emails without proper authorization.

This happened after Google failed to add encryption in internal data transfers. It was a major cybersecurity flaw that was exploited by the NSA who likely collected your data.

Google added the Lock symbol to your Gmail account, meaning your email communication is now more secure. Although that could be a reason to believe that your email communication is private, there is still reason to worry. The NSA has been known to exploit Gmail flaws quietly. They can bypass encryption to access your email communication.

Research into the NSA activity has shown that the agency has spied and collects more than five billion records per day about cell phone users' location. That means you are likely to be one of the targets, and they could learn about your whereabouts effortlessly.

While the NSA collection of your cell phone location is not acceptable within the United States, it is still known to happen. In fact, the telecommunication companies that serve you are obliged to collect your exact location details as you use your cell phone. So, even though the NSA will not tap into your cell phone directly to collect information on your location, it can use the courts to force the cell phone providers to surrender your location data to them.

The NSA can also track financial records and activities. As shocking as that may sound, the agency gets to extract data regarding the flow of your money by hacking your credit card details. With such critical data, it can follow through every cent you receive or spend. The agency has the ability to track your sources of income and also analyze your spending habits. This is even possible even if your bank puts in place strict security measures to protect you from hackers.

For the sake of privacy, most of your cell phone communications are protected through encryption. However, in 2013, the NSA cracked one of the most popular encryption standards known as A5. Cracking that protocol then allowed them to intercept the contents of your cell phone communication. This means that your phone privacy is violated!

The NSA can use malware attacks to access the camera of your laptop, smartphone, or even webcam with ease. The hacking happens subtly so that it does not affect your device's operation but still collects your information. Besides, it can turn on the microphone of your device to listen to you remotely.

You are not even safe by switching off gadgets, as they can be turned on without you noticing it. The NSA spying activities have made it difficult for you to keep privacy while using your cell phone or the internet.

Over the years, the NSA has continued to monitor your movements and communications. The agency has done so by tracking your locations and hacking into your device to eavesdrop your communications. You need to know how to protect your privacy. You now know a thing or two about the possible ways NSA can be spying on you. You can now find ways to tighten your security like using tools like VPNs to protect your identity.

More here:
8 Ways The NSA is Spying on You Right Now

In April 2020 Vin Armani packed up his family and got on the last flight to an obscure island in the middle of the Pacific.

The cryptocurrency influencer suggested to his 14,000 Twitter followers, many times, that the pandemic is being used to impose totalitarian tyranny on America. As the CTO of CoinText, he was worried that his outspoken views and links to the crypto industry meant he could be disappeared by the Gestapo. He now lives in Saipan, population 50,000.

This isnt the end of whats happening, he says, citing the historical precedent of the Jewish people fleeing Germany before World War II. Our ability to travel is going to be greatly restricted and youre going to be trapped. And its going to be at the points of transit where the undesirables get mopped up. The people who are on the list.

Totalitarianism always starts out of an emergency.

While many in the crypto community share his fears about the erosion of civil liberties during the pandemic, Armani has gone further than most. Six thousands miles further.

He doesnt see himself as a conspiracy theorist just someone questioning societys assumptions about money and power. Armani says the Bitcoin White Paper is often the catalyst that wakes people up and sets them on a journey of discovery.

I hate conspiracy theories, he says. Because you dont need a conspiracy, all you need is a perverse incentive. The world just works in a certain way. People act in their own self-interest. Lord Acton (said): Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I think that what you see in the crypto community is people who have read economic texts you see people who recognize what the government is, what the state is and who the people are in pursuit of state power.

Armani appears to have embraced what some call the paranoid style in American politics. He is a big fan of notorious English conspiracy theorist David Icke and interviewed him twice on his YouTube show. He credits Icke with waking me up when I first came across his work 15 years ago David has been absolutely spot on for 30 years.

Icke believes the world is run by a bunch of shape-shifting blood-drinking reptilian aliens from Alpha Draconis, one of whom is masquerading as the Queen.

Armani says Ickes views have evolved though Icke was recently booted off Facebook and YouTube for spreading 5G coronavirus conspiracy theories.

Another Bitcoiner interested in . unorthodox hypotheses is Caleb Chen, who works in content marketing for a popular VPN provider. Although hes undecided about most conspiracy theories, he still spends part of each day trawling through conspiracy forums on Reddit looking for alternative explanations for whats really going on in the world.

He says the crypto community was where he first encountered conspiracy theorists in the wild. The first Bitcoin meetup I went to was in 2013. And yeah, its right around there when I started running into these people, he says.

Id never met someone who didnt believe that the moon landing happened, or that believed in the flat earth conspiracy, until I started going to Bitcoin conferences and Bitcoin meetups.

Kirby Ferguson, the writer/director of documentary This Is Not A Conspiracy Theory says theres a definite strand of conspiratorial thinking within the crypto community, although price speculation and gossip are the major preoccupations.

There certainly is that subculture of conspiracy theory in there, he says. I feel like its a combination of anti-establishment spirit, that spirit of dissent that is in cryptocurrency, and the dubious media sources that are mixed in there.

The subculture is big enough to be noticeable.

Almost half a million people have watched Crypto Chicos YouTube video in which he explains a complicated crypto meets COVID-19 conspiracy theory titled Global Pandemic Planned.

When Bitcoin Ben isnt pumping the BTC price on YouTube and Twitter, he likes to post about QAnon which The Washington Post described as the idea there is a worldwide cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who rule the world.

And that 5G stuff that one in eight people apparently now believe? You know, how the pandemic was faked to cover up the health impacts of 5G so that Bill Gates can microchip everyone with his vaccine? That whole story was dreamed up by a crypto-loving pastor from the small town of Luton in the UK; a guy who has advised African central banks on digital currencies.

Crypto publication Trustnodes has run with the theme, devoting large amounts of space in recent months to stories with headlines like America on the Verge of a Dictatorship that suggest lockdowns are about keeping humanity down, chained and enslaved.

One editorial said: No wonder people flock to the likes of Alex Jones

One possible reason the cryptocurrency space is so conducive to conspiracy theories is that there really are bad actors doing shady stuff in the space. There are whales out there manipulating the markets, which is why the SEC keeps knocking back Bitcoin ETFs.

The theory that Tether isnt actually backed 1:1 with US dollars has been shown in court to be correct. Many ICOs were elaborate fictions, constructed to fleece gullible investors of their cash. And there is so much doubt over the circumstances surrounding the death of Quadrigas CEO which left the exchange unable to access $145 million in crypto that there have been legal moves to exhume the body of Gerald Cotten. (Or Gerald Cotten, if you prefer.)

Every conspiracy theory, theres always some sort of truth behind it, some sort of fact hidden in it which makes it easier to believe, says filmmaker Torsten Hoffman, who covers the conspiracy theory swirling around Bitcoin development company Blockstream (replete with cartoon Lizard People) in his new documentary Cryptopia.

There are people in the Bitcoin Cash community who genuinely believe that Blockstream deliberately hobbled Bitcoin with a small block size limit as part of a grand plan to push people towards its scaling solutions, Lightning and Liquid. A sample post from Redditor BitAlien: Its not a conspiracy theory, its a conspiracy. Blockstream exists to cripple Bitcoin and allow the legacy banks to retain control over us. Seriously, WAKE UP SHEEPLE!

And for their part, some in the Bitcoin community believe that big block proponent Roger Ver set out to destroy Bitcoin to pump up the price of Bitcoin Cash.

Hoffman admits he disappeared down the rabbit hole on this conspiracy theory and spent far too long investigating inside information about Blockstream allegedly bribing various parties to get its own way. But in the end the truth appears to a lot more humdrum: the two communities just have genuine ideological differences about scaling the blockchain. In reality he says, it comes down to the question: Is it digital cash or is it digital gold? If you believe in one of those two then you have two different technical solutions.

Occams Razor, the idea that the simplest explanation is often the right one, helps explain away some of the theories. But it doesnt explain how some people arrive at the really out there conclusions, like Redditor ShadowOfHarbinger who suggested in r/btc this week that Blockstream is really a front for the CIA.

The CIA has been meddling in Bitcoin affairs since 2012-2013, he wrote blithely as if everyone knows that. It is all a government operation and government-sponsored opposition. He received 12 upvotes.

Its a riff on the theory the CIA invented Bitcoin. After all, the NSA created the SHA-256 hashing algorithm that Bitcoin uses and Satoshi Nakamoto means something vaguely like Central Intelligence in Japanese

Hoffman says its really not that surprising that some Bitcoiners hold unorthodox views.

Bitcoin started at the fringe and started to question the establishment, the economic rules and capitalism and everything the whole world. So these people question other things as well in our society and thats where maybe these conspiracy theories kind of slip in.

Crypto fans and conspiracy theorists share similar motivations: Both groups see themselves as warriors fighting against a corrupt elite whether its bankers or the Illuminati. Both groups are suspicious of institutions and are more open minded than most when it comes to leftfield ideas.

And given how opaque and incredibly complex the financial system is, its probably not surprising that some people go down some blind alleyways in their pursuit of the truth. David Golumbia, the author of The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right Wing Extremism, says that even the question what is money? defies easy answers.

Its very hard to get your head around even the experts cant really provide you with a terrific understanding, he says. I think a lot of people want a simple explanation. They want something that makes sense to them. I understand its frustrating when reality just doesnt conform to our desire to have things be simple. In this view, a conspiracy theory in this view is a neat and simple wrong answer to a complicated question.

In a similar vein, Horizen founder Rob Viglione says hes observed that some people, especially in the privacy coin sphere, are drawn to big ideas and grand narratives.

Theres this assumption of agency in the world, like big forces are being driven by some higher agent big forces, mystical forces are driving things, he said. And I think theres a lot of that for some people who come into Bitcoin. Its like were changing the world. There are really big ideas here you know and its easy to sometimes think theres agency behind just a whole bunch of random events.

A similar phenomenon has been observed in other parts of the financial world. Time Magazines Justin Fox wrote that Wall Street traders also love conspiracy theories, in a piece on alternative financial news source Zero Hedge (which was also recently banned from Twitter for spreading coronavirus misinformation).

Wall Street traders are among the most conspiracy-minded groups of people on the planet, he wrote. Thats because (a) some financial market conspiracies are real and (b) without theories of some sort to grasp on to, youre going to get completely lost in the chaos of the markets day-to-day movements.

The US Federal Reserve has long been an object of suspicion for Bitcoiners. It gives five unelected officials the power to change policies on the worlds reserve currency with impunity. And as Hoffman points out, the whole concept is weird: I mean, the Fed isnt a government body, its owned by private banks, he says (which is sort of true). And if you tell that to someone who doesnt know, it sounds like a conspiracy theory.

While they may be seen as a bunch of conspirators devaluing the currency and carrying out various schemes for nefarious reasons, Viglione says its much more likely theyre just blundering about, pulling levers in the hope that itll help the economy.

My background is in academic finance, Viglione says (he analyzed the Feds actions in detail for his PhD). I can say quite confidently: I dont think that they have any idea what theyre doing.

The further some people go down the rabbit hole of greedy bankers the more likely it is to lead them somewhere nasty.

A lot of that Anti-Fed stuff leads back to the Rothschilds and Jewish conspiracy theories and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and all that crap, says Ferguson. Once you start questioning the Fed and where money comes from and all that stuff you can fall into a gravity well that leads you to thinking the Jews did it.

Lets not overstate it, but theres definitely some overlap. The crypto trading discussions on on 8chan were full of far right hatred and anti-Semitic memes right up until the site was taken down after its users carried out three mass shootings. It was resurrected as 8kun on the darknet thanks to Monero fork Loki. (For a taste, if you dare, visit 4chan.)

Neo Nazis, including Andrew weev Auernheimer, Stormfront and The Daily Stormer also stay afloat with Bitcoin donations. Many on the far-right were early adopters writes the Southern Poverty Law Centre on its page monitoring their known BTC addresses. And many cashed in as the currencys valuation skyrocketed.

Golumbia used to work on Wall Street and when Bitcoin began to emerge a few years ago he realized hed heard a lot of the same conspiracy theories already. They were the same conspiracy theories that I used to see floating around gold.

Gold bugs have a reputation for wacky ideas. Urban Dictionary defines them as: associated with paranoia, conspiracy theories, 9/11 truthers, survivalism, tax protesters, racism, anti-semitism, and the far right. As a gold bug, I can tell you that gold is REAL money, and worthless fiat paper money is a fraud.

Bitcoin narratives around hard money, fixed supply, inflation hedge, market manipulation and distaste for the Feds money printer, can all be traced back to gold bugs.

Everett Millman, Precious Metals Specialist at Gainesville Coins which is developing a gold backed crypto believes the idea of hard money comes hand in glove with a deep distrust of the financial world.

Such a viewpoint is steeped in the idea of conspiracy at its genesis: it characterizes the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913 as a coup against an honest system of money based on gold, he says.

So the whole premise is entangled with the notion of conspiracy from its start. Its fair to say that this does open a path for gold bugs to be exposed to many other kinds of conspiracy theories. When you believe youve been lied to about something as basic as how money works, it naturally leads to questioning other aspects of the world. Similar feelings animate the crypto community.

He says the strain of anti-Semitism that infects the fringes of the gold and crypto communities small though it may be contributes to them being pushed into the margins of mainstream financial discourse. He says this can become a self-fulfilling phenomenon.

When it seems the entire investment community is against you, grand conspiracies take on greater explanatory power.

Golumbia is no fan of Bitcoin and sees conspiratorial narratives in everything from the concept of middlemen (which he say recalls anti-Jewish tropes) to the hatred for the Fed. But he argues convincingly that Bitcoin was born out of the paranoia inherent in cypherpunk concerns about the impending surveillance state. As Ferguson points out:

Paranoia is at the heart of conspiratorial reasoning.

Golumbia details in his book how Bitcoin had its roots in Eric Hughes Cypherpunk mailing list. By 1994 the 700 cypherpunks included Blockstreams Adam Back, Satoshi-confidant Hal Finney, Bit Gold creator Nick Szabo and even Satoshi-claimant Craig Wright.

The cypherpunks were hyper-concerned with online privacy and the government monitoring their communications, and saw cryptography as a tool to carve out a space free from Big Brothers watchful eyes.

The problem they kept running into was money, Golumbia explains. How do we pay for stuff because theyre using our credit cards and our bank accounts to track what we do? Wouldnt it be great if we could pay each other and give each other funds without being trackable? So they started applying encryption technologies to a variety of money-like instruments.

Bitcoin is probably iteration five or six of these projects to build a currency that was outside of the states ability to regulate it, or stop it.

In this conception, the paranoid style is baked into Bitcoins technology and purpose. Horizen founder Viglione points out that one of those 700 cypherpunks was Zooko Wilcox OHearn, who went on to create the privacy coin Zcash, which was forked into Horizen.

These technologies come almost directly out of the cypherpunk movement, Viglione says. Big Brothers watching us, lets build something to stop that.

But just because youre paranoid doesnt mean theyre not after you, as Joseph Heller noted. And as Viglione remarked:

Probably the ultimate conspiracy theory is the idea of Big Brother or the NSA spying on everything we do which turns out to be true.

Despite the small, but noisy minority of the crypto community spreading 5G coronavirus conspiracy theories, Hoffman points out that many more crypto adherents were providing quality information and analysis about the coronavirus pandemic long before the mainstream media.

The information were getting from some of the good sources from crypto is far, far superior to what Im getting in the mainstream media, he says. Not trusting authority figures like journalists makes members of the crypto community take things into their own hands and say OK, I can report on this better, I can do a virus model and an update in my daily newsletter better than the Wall Street Journal.

Hoffman believes that unorthodox perspectives and a propensity to look further than the accepted narrative are among the crypto communitys greatest strengths.

Those investors who question commonly held beliefs, they are the ones that every decade spot things that nobody else sees, Hoffman says. Youre more likely to see a black swan event, youre more likely to add a unique solution to a problem that nobody else even knew existed like Satoshi did 11 years ago.

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The Lizard People Invented Bitcoin: Why Crypto is a Hotbed for Conspiracy Theories - Cointelegraph

Opinion In their natural habitat, when chimpanzees become angry, they often stand up, wave their arms, and throw branches or rocks anything nearby that they can get their hands on. When chimps are removed from the wild and kept in captivity, they experience stress and agitation, which can cause them to react in the same way by throwing things, explains the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada.

Captive chimpanzees are deprived of the diverse objects they would find in nature, and the most readily available projectile is feces. Since they also tend to get a pretty strong reaction from people when they do throw it, their behavior is reinforced and likely to be repeated, which explains the abundance of YouTube videos on this subject.

Crap-flinging has become a regular response from another angry, caged animal experiencing stress and agitation and the past 24 hours have seen such an extraordinary amount of it that as the excrement has piled up, the shock value has faded and the chimp, or chump, hurling the stuff is starting to get it on himself.

In the past 48 hours, there have been no less than 38 tweets from Donald Trump, every one designed to elicit outrage, upset and fury. Even by the current... standards of the current occupier of the White House, they were extraordinary.

But even though they touched every topic from free speech to voting to space exploration to surveillance, there was a common thread, and it was death.

President Trumps patently absurd and offensive claims that MSNBC TV host and former Republican lawmaker Joe Scarborough was behind the accidental death of a staffer decades ago began the pattern. It began with an allegation of murder, and morphed into an ugly line in the sand that no one was willing to cross for political sport, and even partisan news outlets slammed the American president's vile outbursts. To be clear: Scarborough didn't kill anyone.

The death of democracy came next: Californias effort to move to mail-in ballots to ensure the presidential election in November could carry on despite the coronavirus pandemic ravaging the country.

The ballots would be substantially fraudulent the Shit-Flinger-in-Chief warned. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed.

It was too much even for Twitter, which created an entirely new feature for the occasion. Get the facts about mail-in ballots, reads an appended message to those tweets, leading to a separate spot on the social network outlining that not a single component of the foul-smelling claim is true.

But to a man on the look-out for a fight, this was a hit. Who dares silence conservative voices? Another turd quickly hurled out the West Wing window: We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. Them being social networks like Twitter.

The president currently has no power to shut down law-abiding websites in the US just because he disagrees with their speech. An executive order is promised on Thursday tackling internet giants that have upset him, though this isn't the first time he's threatened such a thing.

By now, the pile of crap has started building and everyone is standing back, staring at the angry ape and keeping out of range. The fun seemingly over, Congress turns to leave. His bowels emptied, Trump looks around for something else to fling. And what will soon land on his desk but a bill authorizing the extension of controversial spying powers.

He flings it: WARRANTLESS SURVEILLANCE OF AMERICANS IS WRONG! Nothing. He tries again: If the FISA Bill is passed tonight on the House floor, I will quickly VETO it. Our Country has just suffered through the greatest political crime in its history. The massive abuse of FISA was a big part of it!

But no one is buying the claim that the man in the cage will kill programs that bring him so much information and power. In 2018, he authorized NSA snooping programs.

In a far corner there is the unmistakable stench of death. A black man named George Floyd lies there, motionless, having been needlessly, cruelly crushed under the knee of a white cop. It was captured on camera, all five excruciating minutes of it. Trump flings it.

At my request, the FBI and the Department of Justice are already well into an investigation as to the very sad and tragic death in Minnesota of George Floyd. I have asked for this investigation to be expedited and greatly appreciate all of the work done by local law enforcement. My heart goes out to Georges family and friends. Justice will be served!

But no one cares what Trump has to say; the ability to intone about, or inflame, race relations left long ago with the very fine people of Charlottesville. Arm aching, empty innards slumping; the crowd still there but increasingly bored. One last chance: a moment of national pride as NASA sends men to space.

The exhausted ape and his family is moved to Florida with a chance to relish in its power, and perhaps hitch a ride on a phallic explosion to dispel any thoughts of flaccid leadership. But it too died; a storm was brewing across the water so the NASA-SpaceX launch was postponed.

As the sun went down, the smell of stale sweat and crusted feces wafting around on the breeze, death finally arrived on its own terms. One hundred thousand or more souls taken by the coronavirus in America. The official count ticked over, and millions of phones across the land buzzed as the terrible milestone was reached. And it was all anyone cared about.

Sponsored: Ransomware has gone nuclear

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Made-up murder claims, threats to kill Twitter, rants about NSA spying anything but mention 100,000 US virus deaths, right, Mr President? - The...

A New York Times story in April chronicled the chaos within the Trump White House as it initially responded to the coronavirus pandemic. One of the throwaway revelations in that piece was that the presidents delayed reaction to the crisis was partially due to his fears about the deep state.

Mr. Trumps response, the authors write, was colored by his suspicion of and disdain for what he viewed as the deep state, the very people in his government whose expertise and long experience might have guided him more quickly toward steps that would slow the virus, and likely save lives.

Under normal circumstances, this would be bad; in a pandemic, its terrifying. Now, more than ever, expertise is needed, and Trump isnt especially interested. That a lot of his supporters think the virus itself is a deep state coup isnt helping matters.

And Trumps deep state obsession isnt a new thing. Hes been pumping up this theory since special counsel Robert Mueller launched the investigation into Russias interference in the 2016 election. It has always been a diversion, whether it was coming from Trump or Fox News.

But heres the thing: The deep state isnt exactly a phantasm. There are parts of the US government that wield real power outside the conventional checks and balances of the system. Its not a conspiracy against Trump, but the term does refer to something that exists.

David Rohde is an editor at the New Yorker and the author of In Deep: The FBI, the CIA, and the Truth About Americas Deep State. Its a fair-minded look at the deep state and the various conspiracy theories surrounding it. The term deep state, Rohde argues, has become a way for Trump and his supporters to deflect criticism but its also a real idea that can help us think through some legitimate issues, namely how we consider the limits of presidential power and the nature of government accountability.

I spoke to Rohde by phone about how the deep state has evolved into a sprawling conspiracy theory and if he thinks Trumps complaints about it are at all justified. Ultimately, Rohde believes the deep state is both a real thing and a toxic distraction.

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

What the hell is the deep state, David?

To be honest, I hate the term. I believe its just political rhetoric. Its the equivalent of terms like fake news and witch hunt.

Now, on a deeper level, I do think theres what we might call a permanent government or an institutional government. We have these incredibly large and powerful organizations like the FBI and the CIA and the NSA. In the digital age especially, when the ability to surveil is so immense, these are potentially dangerous agencies. Together these organizations make up what a lot of people mean by deep state, and I agree they need aggressive oversight.

I get why you hate the term, but it does at least refer to something real, right?

Thats true. The problem is that the term has become an effective way of signaling a conspiracy for which there just isnt any evidence.

Whats the origin of this term? When did it take on the meaning it has now?

For decades, the term deep state was applied to Turkey. It was a reference to the Turkish military and their efforts to slow the spread of democracy there. Some applied it to Egypt and the Egyptian military to describe the same thing. The first time I found that the term deep state was applied to the US government was a book written in 2007 by a University of California Berkeley professor named Peter Dale Scott.

I interviewed Scott for my book, and he used the term deep state to describe what liberals typically fear, which is the military-industrial complex. Scott wrote about a sense that the military and defense contractors had driven the country repeatedly into wars and maybe helped fuel 9/11 and the wars that followed. For Scott, it also applied to large financial interests, like Wall Street banks.

But Scott eventually ended up doing interviews with people on the right, like conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and the term was sort of co-opted and vulgarized into what it is today, which is a shorthand for a conspiracy against Donald Trump.

Could we maybe say that, in the most generous sense possible, the term deep state is a way for both sides to describe parts of the government or forces that interact with government that arent elected or are beyond the conventional checks and balances of our system?

I think thats fair. But I also think its extraordinarily effective political messaging that Trump uses to discredit rivals or people who question him.

His use of it has evolved, too. First, it was a reference to the FBIs Russia investigation, and then it was extended to the CIA as well. But more recently he declared the Pentagon part of the deep state when some Pentagon officials questioned his defense of a Navy SEAL accused of war crimes. And now, some of Trumps supporters are absurdly declaring [head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases] Dr. Fauci part of the deep state as well.

Trumps election was a shock event for a lot of people, especially for people who worked in government and were accustomed to a certain level of continuity. Did their self-conception or their understanding of their own role shift once Trump took office? What do they think theyre doing?

Most current officials Ive talked to say theyre trying to do their jobs and keep their heads down and they dont want to be part of the political brawl. And a lot of them think theyve been hurt by the outspokenness of people like former FBI Director James Comey and others like him. They think that damages them and makes their job harder.

How so?

They think it feeds the conspiracy theories Trump and his supporters are spinning up every day. And, to be fair, a lot of them know there was already a lot of distrust of their work after the Ed Snowden leaks [in 2013, Snowden leaked thousands of classified documents about NSA spying programs], and so thats a cloud hovering over everything. Trump, in his own way, has exploited that lack of trust.

One of the reasons I wrote the book was a 2018 poll that found that more than 70 percent of Americans think that there is a group of unelected officials who secretly influence policy in Washington. Something like 80 percent believe they are being surveilled by the government, and the groups that had the highest belief in this or had the highest fear of this were on the right side of the spectrum.

Is there a case for a more robust deep state, especially when the power of the American presidency keeps growing? Is it necessarily bad to have an alternative check on the executive?

I dont think that civil servants should be resisting lawful policies being carried out by elected officials. If a civil servant doesnt want to work for the Trump administration, they should just quit. A core ideal of our democracy is that there is a mandate that comes with elections every two, four, or six years. That mandate has to mean something. If we start playing this game of allowing unelected officials to intervene when they think its necessary, thats dangerous and unpredictable.

Every president has expressed frustration with Washington when they came into office. Reagan complained about the State Department not wanting to fight communism as aggressively as he did. Barack Obama feared that Pentagon officials were leaking possible numbers for a troop increase in Afghanistan as a way to box him in and force him to send more troops than he wanted to Afghanistan. Its the way its always been.

So I think if its a lawful policy or order, civil servants should carry it out.

Theres obviously a sense in which Trump uses the term deep state as a diversion, a way of dismissing legitimate criticisms of himself and his administration. But does he in any way have a point when he complains about the deep state trying to undermine the White House? And I mean beyond the typical stuff you just cited.

Trumps strongest case is about the FBIs Russia investigation, and the fact that the Justice Department inspector general found that low-level FBI officials changed documents that were part of their application to surveil Carter Page. Thats bad. Theres a huge problem with the FISA process, and I accept the finding of the inspector general that the first two warrants for Carter Page to be surveilled were legal, while the subsequent two were not.

Thats bad, no doubt, but its not an attempted coup, as the president claimed.

Absolutely not. Trump Tower was not wiretapped. Carter Page was a former Trump campaign adviser at that point. And just anecdotally, if the FBI wanted to sink his election chances, the FBI and Justice Department would have leaked during the campaign in 2016 that they were investigating him, but they didnt do that.

Bill Barr, Trumps attorney general, gave a speech to the Federalist Society last year celebrating the power of the executive branch. He never mentions the deep state, but its pretty clear Barr believes its real and a problem

Well, yes

Or am I going too far?

The attorney general believes that the deep state in the form of the FBI investigation of Donald Trump was hugely problematic. I believe he called it one of the greatest travesties in American history. I obviously disagree with that. Again, it was wrong that Carter Page was surveilled for longer than he should have been, but the Mueller investigation was carried out properly. Mueller essentially exonerated Trump of collusion.

But to add a little context to that Barr speech: He believes the legislative and judicial branches have created more power for themselves since the 70s than they should have. He thinks the balance of power is off and his reading of the Constitution is that the executive branch should be able to use the FBI to defend the country as needed, and its the only branch that can act decisively in a crisis and we need a powerful president to sort of preserve the country.

Its hard to read your book right now without thinking about the coronavirus pandemic. How do you think Trumps perception of the deep state impacted his response to the virus?

I spoke to a person who left the administration recently who felt that Trumps suspicion of government officials was one of several factors that slowed the response to the coronavirus. They also felt that Trumps belief in business, that businesses could outperform government agencies, was a big factor.

More broadly, I think all of this has shown how important basic facts are. There was an Axios poll that came out this week that showed that over 60 percent of Americans dont think that death totals from coronavirus are accurate. Democrats think the death totals are actually higher than is being publicly reported. Republicans believe the death totals are lower. And if we cant agree on a basic fact about how many people are dying of coronavirus, how are we going to come up with policies to help each other through this?

Were in this cycle of distrust and disdain and conspiracy theories, and its dangerous, and obviously Trumps public doubting of his own government isnt helping.

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Author David Rohde on what the deep state is and why Trump is obsessed with it - Vox.com

On March 15, 2020, Section 215 of the PATRIOT Acta surveillance law with a rich history of government overreach and abuseexpired. Along with two other PATRIOT Act provisions, Section 215 lapsed after lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on a broader set of reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

In the week before the law expired, the House of Representatives passed theUSA FREEDOM Reauthorization Act, without committee markup or floor amendments, which would have extended Section 215 for three more years, along with some modest reforms.

In order for any bill to become law, the House and Senate must pass an identical bill, and the President must sign it. That didnt happen with the USA FREEDOM Reauthorization Act. Instead, knowing the vote to proceed with the Houses bill in the Senate without debating amendments was going to fail, Senator McConnell brought a bill to the floor that would extend all the expiring provisions for another 77 days, without any reforms at all. Senator McConnell's extension passed the Senate without debate.

But the House of Representatives left town without passing Senator McConnells bill, at least until May 12, 2020, and possibly longer. That means that Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, along with the so-called lone wolf and the roving wiretap provisions have expired, at least for a few weeks.

EFF has argued that if Congress cant agree on real reforms to these problematic laws, they should be allowed to expire. While we are pleased that Congress didn't mechanically reauthorize Section 215, it is only one of a number of largely overlapping surveillance authorities. The loss of the current version of the law will still leave the government with a range of tools that is still incredibly powerful. These include other provisions of FISA as well as surveillance authorities used in criminal investigations, many of which can include gag orders to protect sensitive information.

In addition, the New York Times and others have noted that Section 215s expiration clause contains an exception permitting the intelligence community to use the law for investigations that were ongoing at the time of expiration or to investigate offenses or potential offenses that occurred before the sunset. Broad reliance on this exception would subvert Congresss intent to have Section 215 truly expire, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court should carefullyand publiclycircumscribe any attempt to rely on it.

Although Section 215 and the two other provisions have expired, that doesnt mean theyre gone forever. For example, in 2015, during the debate over the USA FREEDOM Act, these same provisions were also allowed to expire for a short period of time, and then Congress reauthorized them for another four years. While transparency is still lacking in how these programs operate, the intelligence community did not report a disruption in any of these critical programs at that time. If Congress chooses to reauthorize these programs in the next couple of months, its unlikely that this disruption will have a lasting impact.

The Senate plans to vote on a series of amendments to the House-passed USA FREEDOM Reauthorization Act in the near future. Any changes made to the bill would then have to be approved by the House and signed by the President. This means that Congress has the opportunity to discuss whether these authorities are actually needed, without the pressure of a ticking clock.

As a result, the House and the Senate should take this unique opportunity to learn more about these provisions and create additional oversight into the surveillance programs that rely on them. The expired provisions should remain expired until Congress enacts the additional, meaningful reforms weve been seeking.

You can read more about what EFF is calling for when it comes to reining in NSA spying, reforming FISA, and restoring Americans privacy here.

Link:
Yes, Section 215 Expired. Now What? - EFF

Video calls have become one of the default modes of communication for those who are stuck at home during social distancing. In March, Zooms daily users grew to more than 200 million from a previous high of 10 million, Chief Executive Eric Yuan said earlier this month, and Skype reported that it had 40 million people using its platform each day in March, up 70 percent month over month.

However, with that growth came an increasing number of media reports highlighting privacy mishaps among such services, and scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators has followed particularly for Zoom. The Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a warning last month that Zoom and other teleconferencing platforms might not be as secure and private as users believe, after reports of Zoombombing, where bad actors barge into a digital meeting to disrupt the events. The U.S. Senate has also reportedly warned lawmakers against using Zoom.

Despite reports, 49 percent of adults said they havent heard anything about the FBIs Zoombombing warning, and 57 percent believe their calls are secure. But nearly half (48 percent) are still at least somewhat concerned that their calls could be hacked.

Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, an advocacy group focused on digital rights, said in the time of social distancing, its unrealistic to have people completely abandon video conferencing services. But that doesnt mean security and privacy for those calls arent important.

With the whole world moving online during this crisis, it helps people think about how real these threats are, Greer said. Theyre like, Well maybe Im not super worried about the NSA spying on my phone calls, but I would rather that my conversation with my therapist not be leaked on the internet.

Last week, Fight for the Future launched a campaign calling on Zoom to default to using end-to-end encryption for all conversations on the platform, saying that until that happens, little can stop law enforcement agencies, hackers and harassers from accessing its content by exploiting vulnerabilities in the software.

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More Than Half of Adults Say Their Video Calls Are Secure, Despite Hacking Concerns - Morning Consult