Politics

A controversial data-sharing bill won the approval of a key congressional committee today without privacy amendments, raising concerns that the National Security Agency and other spy agencies will gain broad access to Americans' personal information.

The House Intelligence committee, by a vote of 18 to 2, adopted the so-called CISPA bill after an unusual session closed to the public where panel members debated and voted on the proposed law in secret.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who proposed three unsuccessful privacy amendments, said afterward she was disappointed her colleagues did not limit the NSA and other intelligence agencies from collecting sensitive … Read more

You can now search among 2 million confidential, or formerly confidential, government documents courtesy of Wikileaks.

The whistle-blowing group has set up a new "public library of U.S. diplomacy" offering more than 1.7 million diplomatic files from 1973 to 1976. Dubbed "The Kissinger Cables," the files reveal diplomatic cables, intelligence reports, and congressional correspondence, many of which relate to then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

As expected, the documents focus on some hot-button issues, including U.S. involvement with dictatorships in Latin America and Greece and the 1973 "Yom Kippur war" … Read more

An unusual bipartisan revolt has erupted against law enforcement plans to fly more drones equipped with high-tech gear that can be used to conduct surveillance of Americans.

A combination of concerns about privacy, air traffic safety, facial recognition, cell phone tracking -- and even the possibility that in the future drones could be armed -- have suddenly placed police on the defensive.

A public outcry in Seattle last month prompted the mayor to ground the police department's nascent drone program. Oregon held a hearing this week on curbing drones, following one in Idaho last week. And on Tuesday, Rep. … Read more

Internet tax supporters are hoping that a vote in the U.S. Senate as early as today will finally give them enough political leverage to require Americans to pay sales taxes when shopping online.

Sens. Mike Enzi (R-Wy.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) are expected to offer an amendment to a Democratic budget resolution this week that, by allowing states to "collect taxes on remote sales," is intended to usher in the first national Internet sales tax.

"We're working overtime in pushing this, talking to our members, activating our grassroots," says Stephen Schatz, a spokesman for … Read more

AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and other wireless providers would be required to capture and store Americans' confidential text messages, according to a proposal that will be presented to a congressional panel today.

The law enforcement proposal would require wireless providers to record and store customers' SMS messages -- a controversial idea akin to requiring them to surreptitiously record audio of their customers' phone calls -- in case police decide to obtain them at some point in the future.

"Billions of texts are sent every day, and some surely contain key evidence about criminal activity," Richard Littlehale … Read more

The Obama administration has dropped its insistence that police should be able to warrantlessly peruse Americans' e-mail correspondence.

But at the same time, the Justice Department is advancing new proposals that would expand government surveillance powers over e-mail messages, Twitter direct messages, and Facebook direct messages in other ways.

It's a development that will complicate the political wrangling over Americans' electronic privacy rights, which are in large part protected by a 1986 privacy law written in the pre-Internet days of the black-and-white Macintosh Plus and dial-up computer bulletin board systems.

"It's like two steps forward and two … Read more

Silicon Valley firms are presenting a rare united front in an effort to end a political logjam that has blocked high-tech immigration reform.

In an unusual show of support that underscores how important the topic has become, executives from Facebook, Google, eBay and other major tech companies sent a letter today to President Obama and congressional leaders asking them to fix immigration law by the end of 2013. The current system is broken, they say, blaming visa shortages, long waits for green cards, and difficulties bringing spouses and children to the United States.

"Because our current immigration system is … Read more

It's not exactly a secret where President Obama stands on a controversial Republican-backed cybersecurity bill: he's already promised to veto it.

But a cadre of Internet activists opposed to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act nevertheless created a petition to the president asking him to "stop CISPA" -- and it has crossed the 100,000-signature threshold necessary to secure a response from the administration.

In reality, there's little Obama can do to stop CISPA that he hasn't already done. The administration offered a stark warning in last year's veto threat, which talked … Read more

Aaron Swartz, the Internet activist who committed suicide while facing the possibility of a felony criminal conviction, was prosecuted under a law that was never intended to cover what he was accused of doing.

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984 dealt only with bank and defense-related intrusions. But over the years, thanks to constant pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice, the scope of the law slowly crept outward.

So by the time Swartz was arrested in 2011, the tough federal statute meant to protect our national defense secrets covered everything from Bradley Manning's offenses to … Read more