In The News

Sweden's NSA Spy Links “Deeply Troubling”

David Landes October 3, 2013
The Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee of the European Parliament continues to hold hearings on electronic mass surveillance of European citizens. During the hearing a journalist suggested that “Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment (Försvarets radioanstalt, FRA) provided the United States National Security Agency (NSA) access to the Baltic underwater cables,” reports...

Latin America: Anti-US in Words, Not Deeds

Luisa Parraguez, Francisco Garcia Gonzalez, Joskua Tadeo October 1, 2013
An avalanche of secrets exposed by a former National Security Agency contract worker is complicating US relations with southern neighbors. Reports allege that the United States spied on countries regardless of poor or good relations. Stopping the Bolivian president’s plane in Europe for a few hours to search for Edward Snowden may be a hiccup compared with allegations that the NSA compromised...

Russia Issues International Travel Advisory to Its Hackers

Kevin Poulsen September 10, 2013
US-Russian relations are strained over revelations about US surveillance programs and Russia’s decision to provide temporary asylum to a former NSA contract worker who exposed details on US electronic spying capabilities. Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a public notice advising citizens against travel abroad, especially to countries with extradition agreements with the United States, reports...

Communities Should Continue to Benefit From Mobile Revolution

Sifiso Dabengwa September 2, 2013
Mobile-phone operators are between a rock and a hard place, juggling protections for customers who seek free communications while satisfying demands from controlling governments, explains Sifiso Dabengwa, CEO of MTN, a multinational telecommunications firm based in South Africa. “On the one hand mobile connectivity is touted as the lifeblood of socio-economic development in the underdeveloped...

UK’s Secret Mideast Internet Surveillance Base Revealed

Duncan Campbell , Oliver Wright, James Cusick, Kim Sengupta September 2, 2013
Documents suggest that Great Britain operates a secret station in the Middle East to intercept emails, phone calls and web traffic, shared with the US National Security Agency. “All of the messages and data passed back and forth on the cables is copied into giant computer storage ‘buffers’ and then sifted for data of special interest,” reports the Independent. Telecom and tech firms have...

New York Police Label Mosques as Terrorist Organizations

Adam Goldman, Matt Apuzzo August 30, 2013
The New York Police Department secretly labeled mosques as “terrorism organizations,” to allow surveillance, reports the Associated Press. “Designating an entire mosque as a terrorism enterprise means that anyone who attends prayer services there is a potential subject of an investigation and fair game for surveillance,” write Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo. “Before the NYPD could target mosques...

Codename “Apalachee”: How the US Spies on Europe and the UN

Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach, Holger Stark August 27, 2013
NSA documents released by former contract worker Edward Snowden suggest that the US has targeted EU, UN and International Atomic Energy Agency offices with surveillance and that US embassies serve as bases for spying activities. The documents were released shortly after the US president had vowed the country's only surveillance interest was to “prevent a terrorist attack.” Such spying has...