Tag Archives: bulk data collection

Exposé of ‘Scandalous’ US Spying Sparks Calls for Congress to Act

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“These new details add up to a horrifying picture that proves the need for Congress to… enact comprehensive privacy protections for Americans before reauthorizing any spying powers,” said one campaigner.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 11-20-2023 by Common Dreams

A U.S. senator is sounding the alarm about a “long-running dragnet surveillance program” enabling law enforcement to :request often-warrantless searches of trillions of domestic phone records.” Photo: Ivan Radic/flickr/CC

Privacy advocates on Monday renewed demands for swift congressional action on government surveillance in response to new WIRED reporting on a federally funded program through which law enforcement obtains phone records from AT&T.

“This is a long-running dragnet surveillance program in which the White House pays AT&T to provide all federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies the ability to request often-warrantless searches of trillions of domestic phone records,” U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote Sunday in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, which WIRED obtained and published in full.

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More Proof of FBI Abuse Sparks Calls for Congress to Stop Warrantless Spying

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“Government self-policing will never be an adequate substitute for the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement,” said one expert as U.S. lawmakers consider whether to reauthorize or reform Section 702.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 7-22-2023 by Common Dreams

FBI Director Christopher Wray discusses the importance of lawful access during an October 4, 2019 summit on the issue at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. Photo: FBI

Privacy advocates renewed calls for swift congressional action to rein in warrantless spying on Americans following the Friday release of documents showing U.S. law enforcement’s further misuse of a powerful surveillance tool.

“These disturbing new revelations show how Section 702 surveillance, a spy program the government claims is focused on foreign adversaries, is routinely used against Americans, immigrants, and people who are not accused of any wrongdoing,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, in a statement.

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State Spying Poses ‘Roadblock’ for Interstate Seekers of Abortion, Transgender Care: Report

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“Digital surveillance data makes profiling easy and suggests that travel data will be weaponized to identify new targets for healthcare prosecutions and investigations.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 7-18-2023 by Common Dreams

Automated license plate reader (ALPR/LPR) cameras scan license plates of cars crossing into Pensacola Beach, Florida. Photo: Tony Webster/flickr/CC

A report published Tuesday details how digital surveillance can be used by police and prosecutors to criminalize patients seeking abortion and gender-affirming healthcare outside their home states.

The report—entitled Roadblock to Care: Barriers to Out-of-State Travel for Abortion and Gender-Affirming Care—was authored by the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), a New York-based privacy and civil rights group. The publication comes as Republican-controlled state legislatures pass a wave of abortion and gender-affirming healthcare bans, forcing people seeking such care to travel out of state.

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‘Shocking Breach’: Probe Shows Tax Prep Companies Shared Personal Data With Tech Giants

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One expert called the new revelations “a five-alarm fire” for taxpayer privacy.

By Jake Johnson. Published 7-12-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: QuoteInspector

After a seven-month investigation, a group of congressional Democrats and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders released a bombshell report Wednesday showing that private tax prep firms have been secretly sharing U.S. taxpayers’ sensitive personal information with tech giants for years, a practice that the lawmakers condemned as outrageous and possibly illegal.

The report, spearheaded by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in the Senate and Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) in the House, notes that TaxAct, H&R Block, and TaxSlayer “used computer code—known as pixels—to send data to Meta and Google.” The lawmakers’ investigation was sparked by recent reporting in The Markup.

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Google to Block Local News Articles in Canada Over Law Targeting Big Tech

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The move comes one week after Meta made the same threat following the passage of a law that policy experts say is an inadequate response to the crisis of underfunded journalism.

By Kenny Stancil. Published 6-29-2023 by Common Dreams

The Googleplex (Google headquarters) in Mountain View, CA. Photo: The Pancake of Heaven!/CC

Google announced Thursday that it will block local news content from search results in Canada once a new law requiring it and Meta to pay media outlets for linking to articles goes into effect in about six months.

Meta said last week that it will pull journalistic content from Facebook and Instagram in Canada over the same law, known as Bill C-18 and the Online News Act.

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How big tech and AI are putting trafficking survivors at risk

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The tech industry’s privileging of ‘safety over privacy’ could get the most vulnerable killed

By Sabra Boyd. Published 6-14-2023 by openDemocracy

Ring spotlight camera’ Photo: Trusted Reviews/CC

High above the homeless camps of Seattle, in September 2022, Amazon hosted the first Tech Against Trafficking Summit. It was an elite affair. Project managers and executives from Amazon, Google, Facebook (Meta), Instagram, and Microsoft were present, as were ministers of labour from around the globe. Panellists included government leaders, law enforcement, tech executives, and NGO directors. Only two trafficking survivors made the speakers’ list.

The summit was above all a show of force. Most of the tools presented were built for law enforcement, and safety over privacy appeared to be the mantra. Only the two survivors highlighted the dangers of haphazardly collecting any and all data, a view that was generally scoffed at. Stopping traffickers by any means necessary, the non-survivors said, was more important.

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Experts Demand ‘Pause’ on Spread of Artificial Intelligence Until Regulations Imposed

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“Businesses are deploying potentially dangerous AI tools faster than their harms can be understood or mitigated,” Public Citizen warns. “History offers no reason to believe that corporations can self-regulate away the known risks.”

By Kenny Stancil. Published 4-18-2023 by Common Dreams

Image: Mike MacKenzie/flickr/CC

“Until meaningful government safeguards are in place to protect the public from the harms of generative AI, we need a pause.”

So says a report on the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) published Tuesday by Public Citizen. Titled Sorry in Advance! Rapid Rush to Deploy Generative AI Risks a Wide Array of Automated Harms, the analysis by researchers Rick Claypool and Cheyenne Hunt aims to “reframe the conversation around generative AI to ensure that the public and policymakers have a say in how these new technologies might upend our lives.”

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90+ Groups Warn ‘Kids Online Safety Act’ Could Have ‘Damaging’ Effects

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“Congress needs to pass real laws that rein in the abuses of Big Tech and protect everyone’s privacy and human rights rather than using kids as pawns to advance poorly drafted legislation in order to score political points,” said one critic.

By Jessica Corbett.  Published 11-28-2022 by Common Dreams

Photo: Julia M Cameron/Pexels

Nearly 100 LGBTQ+ and human rights groups warned in a Monday letter to Congress that while “privacy, online safety, and digital well-being of children should be protected,” proposed legislation intended to do so would instead negatively impact all internet users.

Specifically, the letter says that the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) “would undermine those goals for all people, but especially children, by effectively forcing providers to use invasive filtering and monitoring tools; jeopardizing private, secure communications; incentivizing increased data collection on children and adults; and undermining the delivery of critical services to minors by public agencies like schools.” Continue reading →

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Consumer Advocates Blast ‘Dangerous’ Amazon Bid to Buy Maker of Roomba

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“From a privacy perspective, this is a nightmare,” said one anti-monopoly critic. “From an antitrust perspective, this is one of the most powerful data collection companies on Earth acquiring another vast and intrusive set of data.”

By Julia Conley  Published 8-5-2022 by Common Dreams

Photo: Kārlis Dambrāns/flickr/CC

Amazon on Friday expanded its capacity to connect to and collect information about consumers’ homes and private lives, announcing its plan to purchase of iRobot Corp., the maker of the popular Roomba vacuum.

The e-commerce giant announced it will acquire the company for $1.7 billion in an all-cash deal, taking control of one of its competitors following Amazon’s release last year of Astro, its own “smart” home assistant, which can move between rooms in a home and recognize faces. Continue reading →

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Surveillance is pervasive: Yes, you are being watched, even if no one is looking for you

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Video cameras on city streets are only the most visible way your movements can be tracked.
AP Photo/Mel Evans

Peter Krapp, University of California, Irvine

The U.S. has the largest number of surveillance cameras per person in the world. Cameras are omnipresent on city streets and in hotels, restaurants, malls and offices. They’re also used to screen passengers for the Transportation Security Administration. And then there are smart doorbells and other home security cameras.

Most Americans are aware of video surveillance of public spaces. Likewise, most people know about online tracking – and want Congress to do something about it. But as a researcher who studies digital culture and secret communications, I believe that to understand how pervasive surveillance is, it’s important to recognize how physical and digital tracking work together. Continue reading →

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