If you get invited to the Kim Dotcom mansion, get ready to spend some time at the airport. Recent guests of the internet entrepreneur, were detained at the international airport for up to seven hours after listing the Dotcom Mansion as their place of address for their trip to the …
Read More »Judges rule current UK spying methods don’t violate human rights
A panel of judges have ruled that the current system of UK intelligence collection does not breach the European Convention of Human Rights. This case has been important in clarifying the GCHQ's policy following the Snowden leaks, which detailed the extent of US and UK surveillance practices. The current GCHQ …
Read More »Tech firms dismiss GCHQ calls for tighter relationship
Yesterday, fresh faced and bushy tailed, new head of the GCHQ, Robert Hannigan announced that he wanted tech firms of the UK to strike a new deal with intelligence agencies to ensure more cooperation. His reasoning for this call on social networks and similar companies, was to (of course) help …
Read More »GCHQ wants even more tech-giant cooperation
One of the keystone shocks of the big Edward Snowden reveals last year, was that tech giants like Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and many others had been forced into handing over information to the governments in the five-eyes intelligence alliance (USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada), without being able to …
Read More »Government announces crack down on parking spycams
When the Traffic Management Act was introduced in 2004 by the Labour party, it was designed to help clear up some sections of cities which were becoming unusable due to illegal parking. However in the wake of the implementation, councils around the country have been using CCTV cameras and camera …
Read More »CIA backtracks, admits it spied on US senate
Despite denying it for months, the director of the US' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), admitted yesterday that his organisation had spied on senate staff members while they were using specific systems set up to allow them to investigate claims of torture at the CIA. Email searchers and keyword filtering took …
Read More »Obama still wants access to all the world’s data
Despite the drumming that trust in government spy agencies has taken over the past year thanks to Edward Snowden's revelations about the NSA and GCHQ data collection and retention schemes, US president Obama's administration is still pushing its luck with the kind of data it's allowed to collect. In its …
Read More »EA’s Origin is snooping at what programs you’re running
EA might not have been this year's most hated company, but it looks like it might be gearing up to win next time around, as some redditors have discovered what appears to be covert snooping by the company's Origin client, as it looks through programs you've been running recently. EA …
Read More »Parliament rushes through snooping laws after EU rights ruling
The British government is rushing through a new set of laws to allow intelligence agencies like GCHQ and ISPs, to continue legally collecting meta-data on phone calls and digital communications, and in some cases the content of those conversations, in the wake of the EU ruling data retention as a human rights …
Read More »Worldwide ISPs and Privacy International go after GCHQ
GCHQ, the British intelligence agency that is responsible for Tempora, the UK's version of the NSA's PRISM spying scheme which hoovers up data on citizens and foreign nationals alike without permission, is going to have to defend itself in court, as a handful of internet service providers from around the …
Read More »Brazil and allies call for end to US internet dominance
Brazilian politicians and several digital rights leaders have called for a changing of the guard with who has the dominant stake in the management of the internet, hoping to make the whole thing less US-centric, at the NETmundial conference. NETmundial is a Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance …
Read More »Anti-spy groups want software firms held accountable for snooping
Companies that sell invasive spying software to oppressive regimes around the world, should be held accountable. That's according to the Coalition Against Unlawful Surveillance Exports (CAUSE) which has just been launched in Brussels, Belgium. Made up of representatives from a variety of other rights organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights …
Read More »NSA admits to loophole spying on Americans
When the NSA spying revelations were first revealed, it was clear American metadata was being used when it came to tracking down terrorists – though it wasn't particularly useful – but Obama and others made bold statements that suggested “nobody [at the NSA] is listening to [American] telepohone calls.” However now …
Read More »Mega CEO talks about being spied upon at TedX
There's very few people that are ok with the idea of being spied on by government agencies and even less that like it. However when it's going on, there isn't a lot we can do, even if you're a millionaire head of an encrypted cloud network. That's the situation Vikram …
Read More »European Court of Human Rights to demand UK spying justification
Even if you're one of those people that isn't a big fan of European intervention in British politics, you surely have to admit that it's nice to see Europe weighing in on our behalf in this instance. The EU Court of Human Rights has issued a demand that will see …
Read More »France isn’t immune to government data spying
While we've heard all about America's PRISM internal and external spying and we know a bit about Tempora, the British variant and we know about illegal spying in New Zealand thanks to Kim Dotcom's troubles with the law, it seems English speaking countries aren't the only ones having their rights …
Read More »The NSA might have bugged EU offices
The European parliament is not happy and understandably so. A new report has emerged, dating back from 2010, that suggests the NSA might have bugged the computer networks of EU offices in Washington and New York, citing the EU as a “target.” Martin Schulz, current head of the EU parliament, has …
Read More »Anonymous leaks NSA data in wake of spying scandal
In-case you don't read other news sources (and why would you, we do a fantastic job here of covering, literally, everything, ever) America's National Security Agency (NSA) just got caught spying on a huge number of its citizens using services like Facebook, Google, Yahoo and a mass of others – …
Read More »How do you fix illegal government spying? Make it legal of course
This is apparently how politics works if you ask the foreign intelligence agency of New Zealand, the GCSB, or the country's prime minister, John Key. Both the organisation and the man have taken real flak over the past few months for being involved with illegal surveillance of NZ citizen, Kim …
Read More »US authorities win appeal in Dotcom extradition case
Throughout the extradition war between Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and the US authorities attempting to send him to their homeland for a full criminal trial, one of the battlegrounds has been whether Dotcom's legal team should be given access to all the evidence against their client, or simply be given …
Read More »Inquiry ordered on Kim Dotcom ‘spying’
An inquiry has been ordered by the New Zealand Prime Minster, John Key, into whether the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) – NZ's foreign intelligence agency – conducted unlawful spying on the Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, as part of the investigation. According to Mr Key(via Beehive.govt), the GCSB acted unlawfully …
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