Privacy Roundup #0085 • August 2013
August 2013 belonged to the Snowden fallout, as fresh leaks, an audit of thousands of NSA violations and the shutdown of encrypted email services laid bare the cost of mass surveillance.
1. Russia grants Edward Snowden one year of temporary asylum
Russia gave the former NSA contractor a one-year temporary asylum, allowing him to leave the Moscow airport transit zone where he had spent more than five weeks. The decision angered Washington and complicated relations between the two governments.
2. Malware on the Tor network points to an FBI operation against Freedom Hosting
A Firefox flaw was used to plant malware on visitors to sites hosted by Freedom Hosting, sending their real addresses to a server in Virginia. Researchers traced the operation to United States law enforcement, and it coincided with the arrest of the host's operator.
3. The DEA hides NSA tips behind 'parallel construction'
A Reuters report revealed that the Drug Enforcement Administration received intelligence tips from the NSA and then concealed their origin in ordinary criminal cases. Agents were trained to reconstruct an investigative trail so that defendants and judges would never learn where the lead truly came from.
4. Lavabit shuts down rather than betray its users
Ladar Levison closed his encrypted email service, telling customers he could not explain why under a gag order. The company was widely understood to have resisted a government demand tied to the account of Edward Snowden.
5. Silent Circle pre-emptively kills its encrypted email service
Hours after Lavabit closed, Silent Circle shut down Silent Mail even though it had received no government order. The firm decided that standard email could never offer the privacy guarantees its customers expected.
6. Obama promises surveillance reforms at a White House press conference
President Obama announced changes to the Patriot Act, more transparency for the secret court and an outside review group. Privacy advocates welcomed the gestures but warned that he had not pledged to curb the surveillance of ordinary people.
7. The NSA can search Americans' communications without a warrant
The Guardian reported a secret rule change that lets the NSA query its databases for Americans' calls and emails using their names. Senator Ron Wyden described it as a back-door search loophole in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
8. Google argues Gmail users have no expectation of privacy
A court filing surfaced by Consumer Watchdog showed Google arguing that people using web email cannot expect their messages to stay confidential. The company leant on a 1979 Supreme Court ruling to defend its automated scanning of emails.
9. An internal audit shows the NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times a year
Documents from Snowden revealed an internal audit counting 2,776 incidents of unauthorised collection or handling of protected communications in a single year. Many cases involved Americans whose calls and emails were swept up without authority.
10. The surveillance court admits it cannot verify NSA compliance
The chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said his court must trust the government to report its own violations. He acknowledged that the court lacked the staff and tools to investigate whether the NSA was breaking the rules.
11. David Miranda is detained for nine hours at Heathrow
Glenn Greenwald's partner was held under anti-terrorism powers while passing through London and had his electronic devices seized. Greenwald called the detention an abuse of the law designed to intimidate journalists working on the Snowden files.
12. Groklaw closes, citing the impossibility of private email
The respected legal and technology site shut down after its editor concluded she could no longer guarantee the confidentiality of email. Pamela Jones pointed directly to the surveillance revelations as the reason the volunteer project could not continue.
13. Bradley Manning is sentenced to 35 years for the WikiLeaks disclosures
A military judge imposed a 35-year prison term on the soldier who passed hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks. The sentence drew sharp criticism from press freedom and human rights groups.
14. A declassified opinion finds the NSA collected tens of thousands of domestic emails
A newly released Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruling found the NSA had gathered up to 56,000 wholly domestic emails a year and deemed the practice unconstitutional. The judge also rebuked the government for repeatedly misrepresenting how the programme worked.
15. The NSA can reach 75 percent of United States internet traffic
A Wall Street Journal report described a surveillance network, built with telecom carriers, able to touch roughly three-quarters of American internet communications. The coverage was far broader than officials had previously disclosed.
16. NSA staff used their spying powers to track lovers
A practice nicknamed LOVEINT came to light, in which agency employees used surveillance tools to monitor partners and romantic interests. The handful of disclosed cases drew remarkably light punishments.
17. Der Spiegel reveals the NSA bugged United Nations headquarters
Documents showed the NSA had cracked the encryption on the United Nations video conferencing system in New York. The agency also ran a covert collection programme from dozens of embassies and consulates around the world.
18. The NSA paid tech companies for PRISM compliance costs
A Guardian report showed the NSA reimbursed Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo for the expense of meeting new certification demands. The disclosure offered the first evidence of a financial relationship between the agency and the technology firms.
19. Facebook publishes its first government requests report
Facebook released its inaugural transparency report, showing it had received tens of thousands of government demands for user data in the first half of the year. The United States led the list, although officials would only permit the figures to be published as broad ranges.
20. The leaked 'black budget' exposes a 52 billion dollar spy complex
The Washington Post published a Snowden document detailing the 52.6 billion dollar secret intelligence budget for fiscal 2013. The summary mapped the spending, staffing and priorities of sixteen agencies that had never before faced public scrutiny.
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