Surveillance News
First came the revelation that prominent Mexican anti-corruption fighters, human rights activists and other government critics were targeted for surveillance with sophisticated spyware sold to the Mexican government for combating crime and terrorism. Now comes the shocking addendum that an international team charged with investigating the disappearance of... Read More »
Category : Surveillance News
The trial against a Broward man accused of killing his wife then claiming she disappeared continued Monday. As his murder trial enters week two, the jury is hearing details on how Cid Torrez relationship with his estranged wife Vilet was unraveling before she vanished.... Roman testified Torrez told him he secretly installed spyware on Vilet’s phone... Read More »
Category : Surveillance News
It took US authorities a single wiretap order to intercept and record over 3 million phone calls and messages last year, the Wiretap Report 2016, published by the United States Courts, revealed. The intercepts were carried out over the course of two months by an undisclosed government agency.... Read Full Article... Read More »
Category : Surveillance News
The number of wiretaps authorized by the courts in 2015 rocketed compared to the year before, says a new report. According to the annual wiretap report released on Thursday, which outlines how many real-time intercept requests were submitted by state and federal law enforcement agencies, the courts allowed 4,148 wiretaps during the last calendar year, up... Read More »
Category : Surveillance News
Mexico's scandal of high-tech spying against journalists and human rights defenders widened Thursday, with experts confirming that leading members of a main opposition party were also targeted by Israeli-made spyware sold exclusively to governments. The conservative National Action Party, or PAN, had asked internet watchdog Citizen Lab to investigate... Read More »
Category : Surveillance News
Documents show federal agents wire-tapped the cellphones of a powerful Philadelphia labor boss and his protege on the City Council for more than a year. Johnny "Doc" Dougherty runs the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98 and has long been a powerful political force in the city. He's the focus of an FBI investigation into nearly all... Read More »
Category : Surveillance News
What types of audio or tape recordings are legally permitted in the employment environment? There are three primary sources of legal authorities governing the issue of workplace monitoring: the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which encompasses both the Wiretap Act and Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2510, et seq.; state statutes... Read More »
Category : Surveillance News
In 2016, California investigators used state wiretapping laws 563 times to capture 7.8 million communications from 181,000 people, and only 19% of these communications were incriminating. The year’s wiretaps cost nearly $30 million. We know this, and much more, now that the California Department of Justice (CADOJ) for the first time has released to... Read More »
Category : Surveillance News
So far this year, federal lawmakers have introduced more than 30 bills related to "sex trafficking," which many in government now define to mean all prostitution. This week alone brought three new efforts. And following the familiar pattern of the drug war, these measures mostly focus on giving federal law enforcement more "tools" to find, prosecute, and... Read More »
Category : Surveillance News
Thanks to leaks targeting Michael Flynn and other members of the Trump administration, the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as currently written, is in doubt. Superficially, Section 702 seems fine. It is a tool that enables the intelligence community to target communications of non-US persons for intelligence... Read More »
Category : Surveillance News