The law authorizing warrantless searches of data on U.S. citizens by the federal government has been so consistently abused that it must be either thoroughly revised or allowed to expire this year, surveillance and privacy advocates say. “A law designed to provide tools to collect foreign intelligence and prevent terrorist attacks has been warped into…

The law authorizing warrantless searches of data on U.S. citizens by the federal government has been so consistently abused that it must be either thoroughly revised or allowed to expire this year, surveillance and privacy advocates say. “A law designed to provide tools to collect foreign intelligence and prevent terrorist attacks has been warped into…

America First Legal (AFL) has released documents obtained from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) showing that the agency has conducted programs that characterize white people and conservative values as tilting towards radicalism. An internal memo (pdf) dated Jan. 29, 2021—just nine days after Biden was sworn in as the president—talks about a “Choose…

Commentary As a working principle, the conviction that things are always worse than they seem is hard to beat. Along with the observation from William Dean Howells that the problem for a critic isn’t making enemies but keeping them, that mournful conviction that things are worse than they seem has the twin clarifying advantage of…

Days after its sweeping covert internet surveillance operation was exposed through media reports, the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) changed the program’s name and told analysts to stop monitoring the keyword “protest,” according to a recently released inspector general’s report. The March 25 IG report comes nearly a year after the USPIS “Internet Covert…

Days after its sweeping covert internet surveillance operation was exposed through media reports, the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) changed the program’s name and told analysts to stop monitoring the keyword “protest,” according to a recently released inspector general’s report. The March 25 IG report comes nearly a year after the USPIS “Internet Covert…

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has collected Americans’ financial records in bulk, according to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). Wyden revealed the existence of a DHS financial surveillance in a March 8 letter to the department’s inspector general, calling for an investigation into the previously unknown activities. Wyden said he recently learned that Homeland Security…

The FBI’s so-called “secret spy plane surveillance program” is under scrutiny in a Florida terrorism case, where the defendant has asked a U.S. judge to toss evidence from the bureau’s aerial surveillance activities. The FBI’s aerial surveillance program was first revealed in June 2015 by the Associated Press, which reported that the bureau maintained a civilian air…

The same law used by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) as the basis for a sweeping intelligence program has also been interpreted to be highly restrictive on postal policing activities—raising questions among some critics about the legitimacy of USPS surveillance power. When Postal Police Officers Association president Frank Albergo first read a leaked U.S. Postal…

Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism coordinator John Cohen said Nov. 3 that the DHS has not found evidence of rising violence against educators—refuting the ostensible reason that Attorney General Merrick Garland launched an ongoing investigation into the matter. Cohen’s remarks came during a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on domestic terrorism in response…