Surveillance

After months of wrangling between national security hawks and privacy advocates, the House will vote this week on a long-term extension of a surveillance program that allows the government to gather foreign intelligence on US soil. Should the bill pass unchanged, Senate leaders say they expect their chamber to approve it before it expires on Jan. 19. But privacy advocates in the House are backing an amendment that would impose a set of restraints.

FBI Director Christopher A. Wray renewed a call for tech companies to help law enforcement officials gain access to encrypted smartphones, describing it as a “major public safety issue.”  Director Wray said the bureau was unable to gain access to the content of 7,775 devices in fiscal 2017 — more than half of all the smartphones it tried to crack in that time period — despite having a warrant from a judge. “Being unable to access nearly 7,800 devices in a single year is a major public safety issue,” he said, taking up a theme that was a signature issue of his predecessor, James B. Comey.

On Jan 11, the House of Representatives will likely vote on a stand-alone measure to reauthorize and expand Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire on January 19, 2018. The bill to be voted on is a modified version of the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017 (H.R. 4478; now S. 139), which was reported out of the House Intelligence Committee on a party line vote, with at least four members voting “no” because of privacy concerns. The Open Technology Institute and a coalition of dozens of leading privacy groups strongly oppose the bill.

I was sitting in the nearly empty restaurant of the Westin Hotel in Alexandria (VA) getting ready for a showdown with the federal government that I had been trying to avoid for more than seven years. The Obama administration was demanding that I reveal the confidential sources I had relied on for a chapter about a botched CIA operation in my 2006 book, “State of War.” I had also written about the CIA operation for the New York Times, but the paper’s editors had suppressed the story at the government’s request. It wasn’t the only time they had done so.

Every year, Facebook gets tens of thousands of requests for data from governments worldwide, including search warrants, subpoenas, or calls to restrict certain kinds of content. According to a new report released by the company on Dec. 18, these requests are increasing. In the US, the requests rose by 26% from the last six months of 2016 to the first six months of 2017, while globally, requests increased by about 21%.

[Commentary] I used to track cell phone location information for prosecutors. My experience illustrates the overwhelming need for better technical resources for defense attorneys.

Apparently, the Trump Administration is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies. The plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency.

I had the opportunity to go to the Supreme Court to watch the oral arguments in a case called United States v. Carpenter. Carpenter deals with what standard law enforcement must meet to obtain cell site location information from a wireless carrier, which fundamentally is about the appropriate balance between privacy and security. This is an issue of great interest to Verizon.  Verizon joined an amicus brief in the case this summer, and we will host an event in Washington, DC to discuss it in more detail in the new year.