A classified intelligence assessment shows the United States is “the target of a massive, sustained cyber-espionage campaign that is threatening the country’s economic competitiveness,” according to the Washington Post. In the story, Ellen Nakashima reports the “National Intelligence Estimate identifies China as the country most aggressively seeking to penetrate the computer systems of American businesses and institutions.” [...]

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has determined that border searches of American citizens without probable cause or suspicion, which sometimes result in the seizure of laptops, cell phones or other electronic devices, do not violate civil liberties. How DHS drew these self-serving conclusions is unknown because no evidence to support these conclusions was released [...]

An appeal requesting that all orders or court documents relating to three individuals under investigation because of their association with WikiLeaks be unsealed or publicly listed was denied by a federal appeals court in Virginia. The three individuals—Tor software developer Jacob Appelbaum and Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir and Rop Gonggrijp, who worked on the release [...]

Over a week ago, a federal judge ruled documents the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was ordered to produce in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit could not be subjected to a protective order. The development has received minimal attention, but the case seems important, as the government sought to use an innovative tactic [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has received what it considers to be two key memos, which indicate how the Justice Department views when it can and cannot legally track Americans with GPS tracking devices. The memos requested after the ACLU sued the department in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request are both heavily [...]

Drones are becoming much cheaper and easier to use, a reality that increases the possibility that the technology will become much more ubiquitous. With this kind of proliferation in mind, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) held a panel discussion at the National Press Club on drones being a critical privacy issue in 2013. Amie [...]

A foundation connected to Motorola, a license plate reader (LPR) manufacturer, has published a report showing police expect to become more reliant on the technology. The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) conducted a survey and found “71 percent of responding agencies already have LPRs.” “Typically, an agency has only a few vehicles equipped with the [...]

A surveillance law that granted the government expanded authority to collect the communications of foreign persons outside the United States four years ago is set to expire in four days unless reauthorized. On Thursday, senators concerned about how the law has been interpreted in secret and how these secret interpretations permit the collection or interception [...]

The increasingly omniscient and omnipresent corporation that is Google has released its latest transparency report on requests from government authorities around the world to take down content and hand the data of users over to agencies. The report indicates “authorities worldwide made 20,939 requests for access to personal data from Google users, including search results, [...]

The United States Supreme Court heard a legal challenge being brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) of 2008 today. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of human rights attorneys, journalists and human rights and media organizations. And, despite the threat of Hurricane Sandy, the Supreme Court went [...]