Tag: US

Last week, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) released a statement detailing plans to release not just one, but two reports on NSA surveillance programs. The Board will release one report on metadata collection under PATRIOT Act Section 215 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), expected in late January or early February, and a second report on the targeting of non-US persons under FISA Section 702, with an indeterminate release date. These reports come on the heels of a parallel report by the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, released in December 2013.

A broad coalition of activist groups, companies, and online platforms will hold a worldwide day of activism in opposition to the NSA’s mass spying regime on February 11th. Dubbed “The Day We Fight Back”, the day of activism was announced on the eve of the anniversary of the tragic passing of activist and technologist Aaron Swartz. The protest is both in his honor and in celebration of the victory over the Stop Online Piracy Act two years ago this month, which he helped spur

After years of public calls for telco transparency, today marks a historic moment: the release of the first-ever telco transparency report. We applaud CREDO Mobile for being the first telco in the world to issue such a report, detailing their responses to law enforcement requests for user data.

One of the many recommendations in the President’s Review Group report on the NSA surveillance programs released last month was for the review of MLATs, or Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties. This was the second time that MLATs made the news in December: at the beginning of the month, eight major internet companies issued a series of principles for reforming government surveillance that including improving the MLAT system. Clearly MLATs are an issue, but what does this four-letter word mean, and why are they so desperately in need of reform?

Last month the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies released their report and recommendations on reform of U.S. surveillance programs. The criticisms in the report, and the detailed nature of the more than 46 recommendations, underscore how much the NSA’s current mass surveillance programs violate the fundamental privacy rights of people around the world.

Following close on Verizon’s heels, AT&T today announced it will begin to publish a semi-annual online transparency report in early 2014. This announcement is an abrupt about-face for the company, which only two weeks ago requested that the SEC allow it to ignore a shareholder proposal calling for exactly such transparency.

AT&T announced today it would begin in early 2014 to publish a semi-annual online report on the number of law enforcement requests for customer information that it receives, in each country of operations.

Access welcomes today’s news that Verizon Communications has broken ranks with telcos globally by announcing that it will issue a transparency report. It will be the first telco to do so. We call on all telcos to release regular, detailed transparency reports: Anything less is a failure of their human rights obligations and their investors’ expectations.

This afternoon the White House released “Liberty and Security in a Changing World,” the report and recommendations of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. This five-person task force was convened by President Obama to assess the NSA’s communications surveillance programs and provide recommendations on reform.

Even before Edward Snowden began leaking documents detailing the scale and scope of the NSA and other intelligence agencies’ violations with our privacy, Access had been working with civil society organizations (like Privacy International and EFF), as well as international law experts, and human rights scholars to draft the International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance (“the Principles”).