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Alleged leaked documents about the NSA's XKeyscore snooping software appear to show the paranoid agency is targeting Tor and Tails users, Linux Journal readers – and anyone else interested in online privacy.Apparently, this configuration file for XKeyscore is in the divulged data, which was obtained and studied by members of the Tor project and security specialists for German broadcasters NDR and WDR. <a href="http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x250%7C300x600&tile=3&c=33U7ZK6qwQrMkAACSrTugAAAP1&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26unitname%3Dwww_top_mpu%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0" target="_blank"> <img src="http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ad?iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x250%7C300x600&tile=3&c=33U7ZK6qwQrMkAACSrTugAAAP1&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26unitname%3Dwww_top_mpu%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0" alt=""></a> In their analysis of the alleged top-secret documents, they claim the NSA is, among other things:Specifically targeting Tor directory servers Reading email contents for mentions of Tor bridges Logging IP addresses used to search for privacy-focused websites and software And possibly breaking international law in doing so. We already know from leaked Snowden documents that Western intelligence agents hate Tor for its anonymizing abilities. But what the aforementioned leaked source code, written in a rather strange custom language, shows is that not only is the NSA targeting the anonymizing network Tor specifically, it is also taking digital fingerprints of any netizens who are remotely interested in privacy.

These include readers of the Linux Journal site, anyone visiting the website for the Tor-powered Linux operating system Tails – described by the NSA as "a comsec mechanism advocated by extremists on extremist forums" – and anyone looking into combining Tails with the encryption tool Truecrypt.If something as innocuous as Linux Journal is on the NSA's hit list, it's a distinct possibility that El Reg is too, particularly in light of our recent exclusive report on GCHQ – which led to a Ministry of Defence advisor coming round our London office for a chat.

If you take even the slightest interest in online privacy or have Googled a Linux Journal article about a broken package, you are earmarked in an NSA database for further surveillance, according to these latest leaks.This is assuming the leaked file is genuine, of course.Other monitored sites, we're told, include HotSpotShield, FreeNet, Centurian, FreeProxies.org, MegaProxy, privacy.li and an anonymous email service called MixMinion. The IP address of computer users even looking at these sites is recorded and stored on the NSA's servers for further analysis, and it's up to the agency how long it keeps that data.The XKeyscore code, we're told, includes microplugins that target Tor servers in Germany, at MIT in the United States, in Sweden, in Austria, and in the Netherlands. In doing so it may not only fall foul of German law but also the US's Fourth Amendment.

The White House has instructed US security agencies to review their training and policy materials for racial or religious bias after documents leaked by Edward Snowden showed training material for the intelligence agencies referring to "Mohammed Raghead".After an extensive investigation by the Intercept on Wednesday reported that the NSA and the FBI spied on the emails of five prominent US activists and attorneys with Muslim backgrounds, White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said that the administration took accusations of the slurs "extremely seriously." "Upon learning of this matter, the White House immediately requested that the director of national intelligence undertake an assessment of intelligence community policies, training standards or directives that promote diversity and tolerance, and as necessary, make any recommendations changes or additional reforms," Hayden said.It is at least the second time the White House has ordered a review of agency training materials said to include offensive language.

Hayden declined to provide additional detail on the scope or duration of the investigation. But it is reminiscent of an earlier incident in which the White House ordered the government's vast counter-terrorism apparatus to find and purge inflammatory training material, particularly that which singled out Muslims for particular scrutiny. In 2011, this reporter published FBI training material instructing newer counter-terrorism agents that Islam itself was a threat to US national security and compared the prophet Muhammad to a cult leader. Initial FBI pushback gave way to an inquiry, at the instruction of the White House, that removed significant quantities of offensive or imprecise training material. That instruction came six years after the "Mohammed Raghead" material and stretched far beyond the FBI. Anti-Islam training material, including some urging "Hiroshima" tactics against Islamic nations, was found and removed from professional education courses for US military officers, at the behest of Army General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

The accusation is one of the gravest the US intelligence agencies have faced in the year since the Guardian and other news outlets began publishing material leaked by Snowden. A central aspect of the intelligence agency's public defense is that it cannot surveil US persons for constitutionally-protected activity and that its court-certified privacy protections are too robust to allow for privacy intrusions of the sort the Intercept reported.The allegation threatens to sever the tenuous relationship between US law enforcement and surveillance agencies and American Muslim communities, many of whom have long suspected that their government views them as an internal threat and not a population to be protected.The NSA, the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence sharply pushed back against the accusations that protected speech, unrelated to terrorism or espionage, turned American Muslims into counterterrorism targets.

Human Rights Watch and the ACLU today published a terrific report documenting the chilling effect on journalists and lawyers from the NSA's surveillance programs entitled: "With Liberty to Monitor All: How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law and American Democracy." The report, which is chock full of evidence about the very real harms caused by the NSA's surveillance programs, is the result of interviews of 92 lawyers and journalists, plus several senior government officials.  This report adds to the growing body of evidence that the NSA's surveillance programs are causing real harm.  It also links these harms to key parts of both U.S. constitutional and international law, including the right to counsel, the right of access to information, the right of association and the free press. It is a welcome addition to the PEN report detailing the effects on authors, called Chilling Effects: How NSA Surveillance Drives US Writers to Self-Censor and the declarations of 22 of EFF's clients in our First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA case. 

The HRW and ACLU report documents the increasing treatment of journalists and lawyers as legitimate surveillance targets and surveys how they are responding. Brian Ross of ABC says: There’s something about using elaborate evasion and security techniques that’s offensive to me—that I should have to operate as like a criminal, like a spy. The report also notes that the government increasingly likens journalists to criminals. As Scott Shane of the New York Times explains: To compare the exchange of information about sensitive programs between officials and the media, which has gone on for decades, to burglary seems to miss the point. Burglary is not part of a larger set of activities protected by the Constitution, and at the heart of our democracy. Unfortunately, that mindset is sort of the problem. Especially striking in the report is the disconnect between the real stories of chilling effects from reporters and lawyers and the skeptical, but undocumented, rejections from senior government officials.  The reporters explain difficulties in building trust with their sources and the attorneys echo that with stories about the difficulties building client trust.  The senior government officials, in contrast, just say that they don't believe the journalists and appear to have thought little, if at all about the issues facing lawyers.  

A federal judge has affirmed the legality of the U.S. government's bulk phone and email data collection of foreign nationals living outside the country in denying an Mohamed Mohamud's motion to dismiss his terrorism conviction. It was the first legal challenge to the government's bulk data-collection program of non-U.S. citizens living overseas after revelations about massive, warrantless surveillance were made public by former National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden. The program also sweeps up information about U.S. citizens who have contact with overseas suspects, but such surveillance has been considered incidental. Lawyers for Mohamud tried to show the program violated his constitutional rights and was more broadly unconstitutional. U.S. District Court Judge Garr King on Tuesday denied that effort. The ruling also upheld Mohamud's conviction on terrorism charges. In his decision, King rejected the argument from Mohamud's attorneys that prosecutors failed to notify Mohamud of information derived under the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act until he was already convicted.

King held that Mohamud's most persuasive argument was that, even if the original surveillance were lawful, the subsequent use of that information on a U.S. citizen required a warrant. Previous federal appeals court rulings have said that the government needs a warrant to test pills seized in an unrelated search or to search a computer for more information that the warrant sought. Those rulings, the defense argued, meant King should apply the same standard to the evidence seized. But King disagreed. "I do not find any significant additional intrusion," King wrote. "Thus, subsequent querying of (collected data), even if U.S. person identifiers are used, is not a separate search and does not make (such surveillance) unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment."

The U.S. Congress passed in two readings a Russian aggression prevention bill that provides major non-NATO ally status for Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova (during the period in which each of such countries meets specified criteria) for purposes of the transfer or possible transfer of defense articles or defense services. The bill was submitted to the competent commission for being prepared for the final reading, APA reports, quoting the official website of the U.S. Congress. The bill directs President Barack Obama to increase U.S. Armed Forces interactions with the armed forces of Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia; and U.S and NATO security assistance to such states. Armenia is not included in the list. The bill also amends the Natural Gas Act to apply the expedited application and approval process for natural gas exports to World Trade Organization members, and urges the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Trade and Development Agency, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the World Bank Group, and the European Bank for Reconstruction to promote assistance to Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova in order to exploit natural gas and oil reserves and to develop alternative energy sources.

The document prohibits any federal department or agency from taking any action that recognizes Russian Federation sovereignty over Crimea or otherwise endorses the Russian Federation’s illegal annexation of Crimea, and directs the Secretary of State to strengthen democratic institutions, the independent media, and political and civil society organizations in countries of the former Soviet Union; and increase educational and cultural exchanges with countries of the former Soviet Union.

I write both as a Democrat (which Barack Obama merely claims to be, but shows by his actions that he is not) and as an American (which he, unfortunately, actually is, but which Republicans often deny), in the hope of preserving the honor not just of my Country, but of my Party, both of which he violates routinely. When President Obama refused to allow the prosecution of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for their manifest crimes, after they had been in office (their having lied this country into invading a country that was no imminent threat to the United States, tortured people, violated the 4th Amendment by unleashing the NSA against the American public, unleashed Wall Street crooks against the American people via MBS frauds, etc.), Obama thereby took upon himself Bush’s and Cheney’s crimes, as being his own. Those crimes still need to be prosecuted — now by America prosecuting Obama himself, for his covering them up: he still does it, after all of these years. Those crimes are no less heinous and, indeed, no less treasonous, now that a so-called “Democrat” is hiding them, than they were when his self-acknowledged Republican predecessors, and now in some cases even the fake “Democrat” Obama himself, were and have been and still are perpetrating them.

On 11 July 2014, Rebecca Gordon at rinf.com bannered, “America: Where the ‘Good Guys’ Torture,” and she noted that: There are several important reasons why the resurgence of torture remains a possibility in post-Bush America:     Torture did not necessarily end when Obama took office.     We have never had a full accounting of all the torture programs in the “war on terror.”     Not one of the senior government officials responsible for activities that amounted to war crimes has been held accountable, nor were any of the actual torturers ever brought to court. She documented each one of her points, the last two of which are urgent indicators of the necessity for Democrats (yes, Democrats, since Obama claims to be one of us) to bring forth in the U.S. House of Representatives an impeachment resolution and proceedings against the worst “Democratic” President in U.S. history, or else we shall be implicitly accepting his crimes as being unpunished crimes by our Party, in the person of Obama, just like the Republican Party accepts Bush’s and Cheney’s crimes as being unpunished crimes by their Party, in the persons of Bush and Cheney. And, if Obama’s crimes are acceptable by our Party, then our Party is an embarrassment to our country and should be dissolved,

However, there are two more reasons why Obama needs to be impeached, removed from office, and then prosecuted for treason: PROTECTING BANKSTERS:

The “USA Freedom Act”—the proponents of which were heralding as “NSA reform” despite its suffocatingly narrow scope—died in the august U.S. Senate last night when it attracted only 58 of the 60 votes needed to close debate and move on to an up-or-down vote. All Democratic and independent senators except one (Bill Nelson of Florida) voted in favor of the bill, as did three tea-party GOP Senators (Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Dean Heller). One GOP Senator, Rand Paul, voted against it on the ground that it did not go nearly far enough in reining in the NSA. On Monday, the White House had issued a statement “strongly supporting” the bill. The “debate” among the Senators that preceded the vote was darkly funny and deeply boring, in equal measure. The black humor was due to the way one GOP senator after the next—led by ranking intelligence committee member Saxby Chambliss of Georgia (pictured above)—stood up and literally screeched about 9/11 and ISIS over and over and over, and then sat down as though they had made a point.

So the pro-NSA Republican senators were actually arguing that if the NSA were no longer allowed to bulk-collect the communication records of Americans inside the U.S., then ISIS would kill you and your kids. But because they were speaking in an empty chamber and only to their warped and insulated D.C. circles and sycophantic aides, there was nobody there to cackle contemptuously or tell them how self-evidently moronic it all was. So they kept their Serious Faces on like they were doing The Nation’s Serious Business, even though what was coming out of their mouths sounded like the demented ramblings of a paranoid End is Nigh cult. The boredom of this spectacle was simply due to the fact that this has been seen so many times before—in fact, every time in the post-9/11 era that the U.S. Congress pretends publicly to debate some kind of foreign policy or civil liberties bill. Just enough members stand up to scream “9/11″ and “terrorism” over and over until the bill vesting new powers is passed or the bill protecting civil liberties is defeated.

Eight years ago, when this tawdry ritual was still a bit surprising to me, I live-blogged the 2006 debate over passage of the Military Commissions Act, which, with bipartisan support, literally abolished habeas corpus rights established by the Magna Carta by sanctioning detention without charges or trial. (My favorite episode there was when GOP Sen. Arlen Specter warned that “what the bill seeks to do is set back basic rights by some nine hundred years,” and then voted in favor of its enactment.) In my state of naive disbelief, as one senator after the next thundered about the “message we are sending” to “the terrorists,” I wrote: “The quality of the ‘debate’ on the Senate floor is so shockingly (though appropriately) low and devoid of substance that it is hard to watch.” So watching last night’s Senate debate was like watching a repeat of some hideously shallow TV show. The only new aspect was that the aging Al Qaeda villain has been rather ruthlessly replaced by the show’s producers with the younger, sleeker ISIS model. Showing no gratitude at all for the years of value it provided these senators, they ignored the veteran terror group almost completely in favor of its new replacement. And they proceeded to save a domestic surveillance program clearly unpopular among those they pretend to represent.

Australia’s criminlisation of dissent: anti-protest law is an ominous sign of the times Share This Tags AustraliaTasmania Brendan Gogarty (TC) : The Workplaces (Protection from Protesters) Bill – locally known as the “anti-protest” bill – was passed by Tasmanian parliament late on Tuesday night. The law was introduced as part of the government’s intention to “re-build Tasmania’s forestry industry”. That is a source of controversy and division in Tasmanian society. To achieve its aim, the government has committed itself to a wide legislative agenda. This includes: amending the uniform Defamation Act 2005 to allow large companies to sue protesters; defunding community and conservation organisations; and tearing up a “peace deal” between foresters and conservationists, which had been enacted into law before the 2014 election.

Recognising the potential return to hostilities, the government said it would “not try and appease” protesters, but would rather “toughen the law to deter them”. The anti-protest law is its chosen mechanism of deterrence. While such hard-line policies on political opposition are not new, the severity and breadth of the law to enforce such a policy arguably is. The shift from hard-line policy to hard-line law is worrisome in a constitutional democracy. The spread of state anti-bikie laws in Australia illustrates why this law is not just of concern for Tasmanians.

The new law covers all acts on, or acts inhibiting access to, a business premises (all public and private land, including forestry and mining lands) which are: … in furtherance of, or for the purposes of promoting awareness of or support for an opinion, or belief, in respect of a political, environmental, social, cultural or economic issue. Any such protest is subject to significant penalties if they interrupt “business activity”. While originally such sanctions were mandatory, the government agreed in the upper house to exchange these for discretionary penalties. However, the government agreed to this only on condition that the subsequent maximum penalties would be significantly increased. This was to “send a strong message” to protesters and the courts charged with punishing them. As a consequence, protesters who repeatedly interrupt business face fines of up to A$10,000 and four years in jail.

British spies have been granted the authority to secretly eavesdrop on legally privileged attorney-client communications, according to newly released documents. On Thursday, a series of previously classified policies confirmed for the first time that the U.K.’s top surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters (pictured above) has advised its employees: “You may in principle target the communications of lawyers.” The U.K.’s other major security and intelligence agencies—MI5 and MI6—have adopted similar policies, the documents show. The guidelines also appear to permit surveillance of journalists and others deemed to work in “sensitive professions” handling confidential information.

Still, is the Justice Department’s airborne dragnet program legal? The answer is “maybe.” Federal authorities have employed similar tools in the past. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is known to use a surveillance tool called a “stingray,” a portable transceiver that tricks cell phones within a certain area into relaying their locations, not unlike the equipment onboard the Marshals’ aircraft. A government vehicle with a stingray can net hundreds of nearby cell phones’ approximate locations just by driving through a typical neighborhood. The government has said it doesn’t need a probable cause warrant to use stingrays because investigators don’t collect the content of phone calls, just the locations of those phones. Government officials, meanwhile, have said they get court approval to use the devices. Much of the government’s warrantless use of stingray-style technology hinges on a 1979 Supreme Court decision titled Smith v. Maryland. Smith involved law enforcement’s use of a device called a pen register that, when attached to a suspect’s phone line, recorded the numbers of outgoing calls, but not the calls themselves. The Smith decision upheld the warrantless use of such devices because the suspect’s phone company would record the same data picked up by the pen register, and therefore the suspect had no reasonable expectation of privacy when it came to that information. Currently, the law requires a court to approve the use of a pen register, but investigators only have to show that the device’s use is “relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation,” a much weaker standard than a probable cause warrant requires.

However, to get back to the Smith decision, wireless carriers do store your location history for several months to several years, information they obtain by keeping a record of the cell towers to which your device connects as you move from place to place. That could mean Americans don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy over their location data and the Smith precedent applies, making the DoJ’s aerial surveillance program legal. Still, that would be a matter for the courts to decide. “There are a lot of tricky questions whether a stingray or dirtbox operated by the government directly is a pen register, or the Fourth Amendment concerns dismissed by the Supreme Court 35 years ago in Smith v. Maryland are more applicable here,” Fakhoury said.

Hanni Fakhoury, an attorney at the pro-privacy Electronic Frontier Foundation, says the Department of Justice could use the Smith precedent as legal justification for the airborne dirtbox program. However, Fakhoury also highlighted a key problem with that argument: Location. Pen registers aren’t intended to pick up location data beyond an area code, whereas the airborne dirtboxes can track a person down to a single building. Many courts, he said, have expressed that location data deserves greater constitutional protection than is afforded to other kinds of information.

Uncle Sam’s Databases of Suspicion A Shadow Form of National ID

We do know that the nation’s domestic-intelligence network is massive, including at least 59 federal agencies, over 300 Defense Department units, and approximately 78 state-based fusion centers, as well as the multitude of law enforcement agencies they serve. We also know that local law enforcement agencies have themselves raised concerns about the system’s lack of privacy protections.

The SAR database is part of an ever-expanding domestic surveillance system established after 9/11 to gather intelligence on potential terrorism threats. At an abstract level, such a system may seem sensible: far better to prevent terrorism before it happens than to investigate and prosecute after a tragedy. Based on that reasoning, the government exhorts Americans to “see something, say something” -- the SAR program’s slogan. Indeed, just this week at a conference in New York City, FBI Director James Comey asked the public to report any suspicions they have to authorities. “When the hair on the back of your neck stands, listen to that instinct and just tell somebody,” said Comey. And seeking to reassure those who do not want to get their fellow Americans in trouble based on instinct alone, the FBI director added, “We investigate in secret for a very good reason, we don't want to smear innocent people.”

James Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) defended the use of an FBI agent posing as an Associated Press journalist in order to install spyware into the computer of a teenager from Lacy, Washington State.

Comey said in an open letter published in mainstream media that the FBI did not “overstep its bounds” while using deceptive tactics during their investigation into the teen who was in communication “online with the” FBI agent.” According to Comey: “An F.B.I. agent communicated online with the anonymous suspect. Relying on an agency behavioral assessment that the anonymous suspect was a narcissist, the online undercover officer portrayed himself as an employee of The Associated Press, and asked if the suspect would be willing to review a draft article about the threats and attacks, to be sure that the anonymous suspect was portrayed fairly.” To entrap the student, the FBI produced a fake news report provided by the FBI agent to the Associated Press regarding a “technology savvy student holds Timberline High School hostage.”

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) wrote a letter to Holder and Comey explaining : “The warrant for such action apparently did not mention that the tracker was delivered as an AP article, with an AP byline “and therefore impersonated a news media organization.” Concerned that the FBI not only failed to follow its own guidelines for such activity, but also did not make clear to the judge who signed the warrant or FBI counsel that the software ‘impersonated a media organization or that there were First Amendment concerns at stake’.”

The Iraqi army has been paying salaries to at least 50,000 soldiers who don’t exist, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Sunday, an indication of the level of corruption that permeates an institution that the United States has spent billions equipping and arming. A preliminary investigation into “ghost soldiers” — whose salaries are being drawn but who are not in military service — revealed the tens of thousands of false names on Defense Ministry rolls, Abadi told parliament Sunday. Follow-up investigations are expected to uncover “more and more,” he added.

Abadi, who took power in September, is under pressure to stamp out the graft that flourished in the armed forces under his predecessor, Nouri al-Maliki. Widespread corruption has been blamed for contributing to the collapse of four of the army’s 14 divisions in June in the face of an offensive by Islamic State extremists.

The United States is encouraging Abadi to create a leaner, more efficient military as the Pentagon requests $1.2 billion to train and equip the Iraqi army next year. The United States spent more than $20 billion on the force from the 2003 invasion until U.S. troops withdrew at the end of 2011. With entry-level soldiers in Iraq drawing salaries of about $600 a month, the practice of “ghost soldiers” is likely to be costing Iraq at least $380 million a year — though officials say that’s probably only a fraction of the true expense.

A federal judge is demanding that the government explain, photo-by-photo, why it can’t release hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of pictures showing detainee abuse by U.S. forces at military prison sites in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a courtroom in the Southern District of New York yesterday, Judge Alvin Hellerstein appeared skeptical of the government’s argument, which asserted that the threat of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda exploiting the images for propaganda should override the public’s right to see any of the photos. He was “highly suspicious” of the government’s attempt to declare the whole lot of the photos dangerous. “It’s too easy and too meaningless,” he said. Since 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union has been fighting for the release of photos from military investigations into prisoner abuse beyond those that were leaked from Abu Ghraib. The additional pictures reportedly show sexual assault, soldiers posing with dead bodies, and other offenses. The exact number of photos has not been disclosed in court, though former Senator Joe Lieberman has previously said that there are nearly 2,100.

Hellerstein first ordered the government to hand over a subset of the pictures in 2005. President Obama decided to release them in 2009, but Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the top American general in Iraq implored him not to. Congress then passed a law amending the Freedom of Information Act to allow the Secretary of Defense to certify that publishing the pictures could put American lives at risk, which then-secretary Robert Gates did. The ACLU continued to fight the issue in court, and last August, Hellerstein ordered that the government needed to justify withholding each picture individually.

In 2008, after collecting millions of dollars in fees to help California sell its bonds, Goldman urged its bigger clients to place investment bets against those bonds, in order to profit from a financial crisis that was sparked in the first place by irresponsible Wall Street speculation. Alarmed California officials warned that these short sales would jeopardize the state’s bond rating and drive up interest rates. But that result also served Goldman, which had sold credit default swaps on the bonds, since the price of the swaps rose along with the risk of default.

At least 50 U.S. law enforcement agencies have secretly equipped their officers with radar devices that allow them to effectively peer through the walls of houses to see whether anyone is inside, a practice raising new concerns about the extent of government surveillance.Those agencies, including the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service, began deploying the radar systems more than two years ago with little notice to the courts and no public disclosure of when or how they would be used. The technology raises legal and privacy issues because the U.S. Supreme Court has said officers generally cannot use high-tech sensors to tell them about the inside of a person's house without first obtaining a search warrant.

The radars work like finely tuned motion detectors, using radio waves to zero in on movements as slight as human breathing from a distance of more than 50 feet. They can detect whether anyone is inside of a house, where they are and whether they are moving.

Other radar devices have far more advanced capabilities, including three-dimensional displays of where people are located inside a building, according to marketing materials from their manufacturers. One is capable of being mounted on a drone. And the Justice Department has funded research to develop systems that can map the interiors of buildings and locate the people within them.The radars were first designed for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. They represent the latest example of battlefield technology finding its way home to civilian policing and bringing complex legal questions with it.

We are witness to a historic first: an individual charged with espionage and actively sought by the United States government has been (virtually) invited to speak at Harvard Law School, with applause. [Note: all of the following links go to different parts of a long YouTube video.] HLS Professor Lawrence Lessig conducted the hour-long interview last Monday with a list of questions by himself and his students. Some interesting segments from the interview include: Snowden's assertion that mass domestic intercept is an "unreasonable seizure" under the 4th Amendment; that it also violates "natural rights" that cannot be voted away even by the majority; a claim that broad surveillance detracts from the ability to monitor specific targets such as the Boston Marathon bombers; him calling out Congress for not holding Clapper accountable for misstatements; and his lament that contractors are exempt from whistleblower protection though they do swear an oath to defend the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic.

These points have been brought up before. But what may be most interesting to these students is Snowden's suggestion that a defendant under the Espionage Act should be permitted to present an argument before a jury that the act was committed "in the public interest." Could this help ensure a fair trial for whistleblowers whose testimony reveals Constitutional violation?

Three cases that likely lay the groundwork for a major privacy battle at the U.S. Supreme Court are pending before federal appeals courts, whose judges are taking their time announcing whether they believe the dragnet collection of Americans' phone records is legal. It’s been more than five months since the American Civil Liberties Union argued against the National Security Agency program in New York, three months since legal activist Larry Klayman defended his thus far unprecedented preliminary injunction win in Washington, D.C., and two months since Idaho nurse Anna Smith’s case was heard by appeals judges in Seattle. At the district court level, judges handed down decisions about a month after oral arguments in the cases. It’s unclear what accounts for the delay. It’s possible judges are meticulously crafting opinions that are likely to receive wide coverage, or that members of the three-judge panels are clashing on the appropriate decision.

Attorneys involved in the cases understandably are reluctant to criticize the courts, but all express hope for speedy resolution of their fights against alleged violations of Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights.

Though it’s difficult to accurately predict court decisions based on oral arguments, opponents of the mass surveillance program may have reason for optimism.

After months of back-room negotiations, key congressional negotiators are finally ready to unveil legislation that would fast-track approval for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The bill would prohibit Congress from amending the trade deal, and would require a simple-majority vote for passage, but would in exchange set a variety of negotiating parameters. If the architects of the legislation—Senators Ron Wyden and Orrin Hatch and Representative Paul Ryan—are at all worried that members of Congress will feel fast-track leaves them out of the process, they are doing a pretty terrible job of addressing those concerns. A Senate Finance Committee hearing Thursday morning featured top US trade officials—but occurred before the legislation was even unveiled, and was called with almost no notice. This drew some unusual and strong rebukes from Democrats on the Finance Committee over an unfair process.

Hatch and Wyden, the chairman and ranking member of Senate Finance respectively, called hearing on Wednesday night that was ostensibly about “Congress and US Tariff Policy.” It featured several top US officials that deal with trade: US Trade Representative Michael Froman, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. Hatch announced at the top of the hearing that fast-track legislation could come as early as the afternoon, and both he and Wyden began their opening statements by talking about the looming bill. Members of the committee thus suddenly found themselves in a fast-track hearing without knowing it—and before they saw the legislation. Many of them didn’t like it. Senator Chuck Schumer, likely to be the next Democratic majority leader, opposes fast-track and objecting in the hearing to “rushing” the legislation. Senator Sherrod Brown said “We got twelve hours notice on a bill we haven’t seen…you can’t fast-track fast track.”

Senators appeared unsure if they would even get to see the legislation before a vote. Senator Debbie Stabenow asked if the committee would have to vote “on an agreement that we have not yet even seen and that hasn’t been reached,” according to the Huffington Post.

Soon after the U.S. and other major powers entered negotiations last year to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, senior White House officials learned Israel was spying on the closed-door talks. The spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to penetrate the negotiations and then help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal, current and former U.S. officials said. In addition to eavesdropping, Israel acquired information from confidential U.S. briefings, informants and diplomatic contacts in Europe, the officials said.

The espionage didn’t upset the White House as much as Israel’s sharing of inside information with U.S. lawmakers and others to drain support from a high-stakes deal intended to limit Iran’s nuclear program, current and former officials said. “It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on the matter.

The U.S. and Israel, longtime allies who routinely swap information on security threats, sometimes operate behind the scenes like spy-versus-spy rivals. The White House has largely tolerated Israeli snooping on U.S. policy makers—a posture Israel takes when the tables are turned. The White House discovered the operation, in fact, when U.S. intelligence agencies spying on Israel intercepted communications among Israeli officials that carried details the U.S. believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks, officials briefed on the matter said. Israeli officials denied spying directly on U.S. negotiators and said they received their information through other means, including close surveillance of Iranian leaders receiving the latest U.S. and European offers. European officials, particularly the French, also have been more transparent with Israel about the closed-door discussions than the Americans, Israeli and U.S. officials said.