Bill expands US spying powers
Dr. Martin Shelton
April 25, 2024
Aerial photograph of the National Security Agency. (CC BY-SA 2.0/Trevor Paglen)
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Welp, after months of debate, Congress finally reauthorized a controversial surveillance authority, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. While legislators considered reforms to FISA that would restrain the federal intelligence and law enforcement community’s abilities to spy on American communications without a warrant, they in fact expanded these surveillance powers to subject more electronic communications service providers, such as U.S. cloud computing data centers, to data collection. According to Wired, “Legal experts—including a rare few attorneys who’ve argued cases before the FISA court in the past—say the new ECSP text ensnares owners of facilities housing equipment used to store and carry data, as well as commercial landlords and virtually anyone with access to communications equipment in those spaces.” Read more here.
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Whether someone gives you one at a conference or you find one in a parking lot, chances are you’ve at some point wondered about the safety of an unfamiliar USB device. My colleague Davis wrote a primer on what to do with dodgy USB devices. Check it out.
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Best,
Martin
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Martin Shelton
Principal Researcher
Freedom of the Press Foundation