Category: First Amendment Issues

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John Seigenthaler, RIP

Voices: Seigenthaler a champion of First Amendment
by Ken Paulson
Special for USA TODAY

john-seigenthaler-425

A lead pipe to the head will get your attention.

One day in 1961, Justice Department aide John Seigenthaler was brutally attacked with a pipe by Ku Klux Klansmen as he rushed to protect Freedom Riders arriving in Montgomery, Ala. The Klansmen left John in the street to die.

But John survived, going on to a rich career as a journalist and a passionate First Amendment advocate who would laugh about how Attorney General Bobby Kennedy thanked him for “using his head.” John died at 86 Friday morning in Nashville.

Read more here and here.

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Create an NSA document

From Joe King: Leak your own NSA document, via Graham Cluley’s Security Newsletter, the site churns out a unique [fake] surveillance program when you visit.

The NSA Product Generator

Inspired by the recent dump of NSA’s TAO product catalog, containing weirdly-codenamed products beyond the wildest paranoid’s dreams. Each time you refresh the page, another document is generated.

nsaproductgenerator

Another demented project from @ternus

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NSA Cracks Smartphone Security. Why Wear Clothes?

The NSA Can Access Basically Everything On iOS, Android and Blackberry
by Lily Hay Newman
Gizmodo
August 8, 2013

ku-bigpic-200I guess we’re not even surprised at this point. Der Spiegel is reporting that internal NSA documents prove the agency’s widespread smartphone data access. And it’s pretty exhaustive. Spiegel found explicit mention of information access from iPhones, BlackBerry handsets, and devices running Android.

Everything from contact lists to texts and location tracking is available, and the NSA has set up teams to specialize in cracking each operating system. These teams also look for additional gains like the ability to monitor a user’s computer after an iPhone sync, and get access from there to even more iPhone features.

The news is problematic for RIM in particular, because the security of BlackBerry mail has always been a touted feature. A RIM representative made a statement to Der Spiegel that, “It is not for us to comment on media reports regarding alleged government surveillance of telecommunications traffic.”

Der Spiegel notes that the documents indicate specific, customized access on the part of the NSA, perhaps without company knowledge, rather than widespread smartphone surveillance. But at this point who knows. [Der Spiegel]

image: Gizmodo

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Secure Email Service Shuts Down Preemptively to Elude Fed Prying

Encryption App Silent Circle Shuts Down E-Mail Service ‘To Prevent Spying’
by Parmy Olson
Forbes.com
August 9, 2013

Updated with comments from co-founder Phil Zimmermann

Silent-Circle-200The business of protecting consumers from prying government eyes has suddenly become a pre-emptive one for Silent Circle. The communications encryption firm said Friday that it was shutting down its e-mail service to prevent spying, a day after competitor Lavabit suspended its core email service. Lavabit”s founder had suggested in a letter to customers that he had been the subject of a U.S. government investigation and gag order.

Silent Circle, which has seen a 400% revenue jump in recent months as a result of the Snowden furore and concerns over government surveillance, does not rely solely on e-mail hosting as Lavabit does. It also encrypts phone calls, text messages and video conferencing with a suite of iOS and Android apps.

Only a small portion of its customers used Silent Mail, some of whom used it as their exclusive email provider “” at some point in the last 24 hours, many discovered their cloud-based emails had been suddenly deleted. Continue reading “Secure Email Service Shuts Down Preemptively to Elude Fed Prying”

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Email Service Provider Shuts Down to Avoid Violating Users’ Privacy

Update from Forbes: Lavabit’s Ladar Levison: ‘If You Knew What I Know About Email, You Might Not Use It’

Lavabit, email service Snowden reportedly used, abruptly shuts down
by Xeni Jardin
boingboing.net
August 8, 2013

Screen-Shot-2013-08-08-at-3.03Remember when word circulated that Edward Snowden was using Lavabit, an email service that purports to provide better privacy and security for users than popular web-based free services like Gmail? Lavabit’s owner has shut down the service, and posted a message on the lavabit.com home page today about wanting to avoid “being complicit in crimes against the American people.”

According to the statement, it appears he rejected a US court order to cooperate with the government in spying on users.

The email service offered various security features to a claimed user base of 350,000, and is the first such firm to have publicly and transparently closed down, rather than cooperate with state surveillance programs. The email address Snowden (or someone sending emails on his behalf) is reported to have used to send invites to a press conference at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in mid-July was a Lavabit account.

Read the full message from Lavabit’s founder and operator Ladar Levison here.

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  1. John Seigenthaler, RIP
  2. NSA Cracks Smartphone Security. Why Wear Clothes?
  3. Secure Email Service Shuts Down Preemptively to Elude Fed Prying
  4. Sustain the First Amendment: Support WikiLeaks

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