Annie Searle and Associates

N.S.A. Chief Says Surveillance Has Stopped Dozens of Plots

2013-06-19T00:00:00

"Top national security officials on Tuesday promoted two newly declassified examples of what they portrayed as “potential terrorist events” disrupted by government surveillance."

More Data on Privacy, but Picture Is No Clearer

2013-06-18T00:00:00

"Technology companies, the custodians of reams of personal data from hundreds of millions of people around the world, have been under fire after recent revelations that they secretly handed over customer information, including e-mails, in response to requests by the federal government made in the name of national security."

Every Wall Is A Door

2013-06-17T00:00:00

"I started teaching about operational risk at the University of Washington's Information School a little more than a year ago."

Metadata reveals the secrets of social position, company hierarchy, terrorist cells

2013-06-16T00:00:00

"The general’s mistress thought she was being clever by using anonymous e-mail accounts and sending messages using hotel WiFi networks. But metadata — in this case the Internet protocol addresses pointing to network locations — gave her away."

Facebook Discloses Basic Data on Law-Enforcement Requests

2013-06-15T00:00:00

"Facebook on Friday disclosed for the first time how many requests for data about its 1.1 billion users it had gotten from law enforcement authorities in the United States."

A Promise of Changes for Access to Secrets

2013-06-14T00:00:00

"The chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee emerged from a classified briefing on Thursday about the leak of top secret surveillance programs and declared that Congress would soon consider legislation to sharply limit the access that private contractors — who operate much of the national security infrastructure — have to the nation’s most sensitive intelligence programs."

N.S.A. Chief Says Phone Logs Halted Terror Threats

2013-06-13T00:00:00

"The director of the National Security Agency told Congress on Wednesday that “dozens” of terrorism threats had been halted by the agency’s huge database of the logs of nearly every domestic phone call made by Americans, while a senator briefed on the program disclosed that the telephone records are destroyed after five years."

3 Tech Giants Want to Reveal Data Requests

2013-06-12T00:00:00

"Google, Facebook and Microsoft on Tuesday asked the government for permission to reveal details about the classified requests they receive for the personal information of foreign users."

Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning and the risk of the low-level, tech-savvy leaker

2013-06-12T00:00:00

"In the span of three years, the United States has developed two gaping holes in its national security hull, punctures caused by leakers who worked at the lowest levels of the nation’s intelligence ranks but gained access to large caches of classified material."

Debate on Secret Data Looks Unlikely, Partly Due to Secrecy

2013-06-11T00:00:00

"Edward J. Snowden said he had leaked secret documents about National Security Agency surveillance to spark a public debate about civil liberties. President Obama, while deploring the leak, endorsed the same goal of a vigorous public discussion of the “trade-offs” between national security and personal privacy."

In the Name of Public Safety, Part II

2013-06-10T00:00:00

"New York University hosted its annual Global Risk Forum last week, with presentations from experts on critical infrastructure protection, hacktivism from groups like Anonymous, and bio-threats like the MERS coronavirus; and a general discussion by participants of top risks on the radar screen. "

U.S., company officials: Internet surveillance does not indiscriminately mine data

2013-06-09T00:00:00

"The director of national intelligence on Saturday stepped up his public defense of a top-secret government data surveillance program as technology companies began privately explaining the mechanics of its use."

Administration Says Mining of Data Is Crucial to Fight Terror

2013-06-08T00:00:00

"In early September 2009, an e-mail passed through an Internet address in Peshawar, Pakistan, that was being monitored by the vast computers controlled by American intelligence analysts."

U.S. Confirms That It Gathers Online Data Overseas

2013-06-07T00:00:00

"The federal government has been secretly collecting information on foreigners overseas for nearly six years from the nation’s largest Internet companies like Google, Facebook and, most recently, Apple, in search of national security threats, the director of national intelligence confirmed Thursday night."

U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records of Verizon Calls

2013-06-06T00:00:00

"The Obama administration is secretly carrying out a domestic surveillance program under which it is collecting business communications records involving Americans under a hotly debated section of the Patriot Act, according to a highly classified court order disclosed on Wednesday night."

One of Wall Street's Riskiest Bets Returns

2013-06-05T00:00:00

"Investors are once again clamoring for a risky investment blamed for helping unleash the financial crisis: the synthetic CDO."