Tag: WIRETAPPING

The ACLU and other civil liberties groups can continue their legal battle against a federal wiretapping law, now that a New York appeals court has reinstated their lawsuit. At issue is a 2008 federal law known as the FISA Amendments Act, which empowered the U.S. government to conduct widespread electronic surveillance on suspected terrorists. The ACLU's challenge had been previously thrown out ...

Big surprise! Turns out that forwarding your boss's e-mail to yourself with Outlook rules is quite illegal. Ars Technica reports that David Szymuszkiewicz, now a former IRS worker, learned this the hard way after being convicted on wiretapping charges under the U.S. Wiretap Act. Already in hot water for driving drunk with a suspended license, Szymuszkiewic's job required he drive to the homes ...

As part of their tireless struggle to prevent terrorist attacks and protect U.S. citizens, federal law enforcement officials are now pushing for new legislation to enhance their online surveillance capabilities. The bill, which the Obama administration plans to submit for Congressional deliberation next year, would require communications services like Facebook, BlackBerry and Skype to be capable ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... Various studies have contributed contradictory evidence about whether or not the majority of DVR owners actually view commercials. The latest survey, performed by Duke University, claims that 95-percent of the material viewed by the focus group was actually watched live, and that the fast forward-ers and live viewers spent roughly ...

A recent court ruling indicated that the Bush-era warrantless wiretappings were indeed illegal, confirming what most people already considered blatantly obvious. Some observers will undoubtedly and rightfully celebrate that ruling, and pronounce that it may signal a move toward increased law enforcement transparency and strengthened individual freedoms. Yet, according to an official government ...

Among the many controversial policies enacted under the George W. Bush administration, perhaps the most legally nebulous was the National Security Agency's wiretapping program, which authorized federal agents to monitor Americans' phone calls and e-mails in the name of national security. When it was revealed that federal officials had been monitoring the phone calls of the now defunct Islamic ...

Skype, a service which provides free Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls between users, has exploded in popularity, reportedly becoming the world's largest international call provider. Skype is generally considered to be almost impenetrable to hackers, due to its encryption software, but it's now evident that a "wiretap Trojan" virus will allow eavesdroppers to record, and listen to, ...

Criminals are usually steps (or leaps) ahead of the law enforcement agencies that are chasing them. This has, depressingly enough, always been the case. The dark side is apparently very well funded. That said, it is a cheap Internet phone service that is currently giving Italian authorities fits. Police in Italy believe Skype is the new frontier for shady characters attempting to circumvent ...

Remember those pesky little warrant-less wiretaps George W. Bush defended back in the day? Remember how he said that only those guilty of talking to terrorists would be targeted by surveillance? Well, it turns out -- surprise, surprise -- that wasn't exactly the whole truth. In an interview with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann last week, Russell Tice, a former National Security Agency (NSA) analyst, ...