DHS issues final rule for Secure Flight - On Oct. 22nd, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a final rule for its Secure Flight program that will require all air passengers to provide full name, date of birth and gender. The DHS Transportation Security Administration will use the information to screen passengers against a watch list of potential terrorists, a function the airlines have been performing. TSA will retain passenger information for seven years, including travel itinerary, for anyone tentatively matched to a name on the watch list. TSA will retain that information even if it ultimately determines that the person flying is not the person on the watch list. Data on other passengers will be deleted after seven days. October 23, 2008
Share this articleNSA Spying on Americans in the Green Zone - The National Security Agency is intercepting and retaining communications of innocent Americans in Iraq's so-called "Green Zone"; agency workers even pass around the most titillating conversations, according to explosive allegations made by two NSA whistleblowers in an ABC News segment airing tonight. According to the report, collection of telephone conversations U.S. soldiers and aid workers in Iraq had with their families in the U.S. continued even after NSA analysts knew that the telephone numbers on which they were eavesdropping belonged to Americans who had no ties to terrorism. The report calls into question assurances the NSA and Justice Department repeatedly gave Congress that internally enforced "minimization procedures" are adequate to protect the private conversations of Americans. October 09, 2008
Share this articleJustice Department Issues New FBI Guidelines - The Justice Department today issued new guidelines for FBI investigations, weakening the standards that have long been in place to ensure proper targeting of law enforcement and national security investigations. The guidelines represent another step in the creation of a domestic intelligence system in the United States. They permit FBI agents to go undercover to collect information, send in informants and tail citizens, all without suspicion of wrongdoing or connections to a foreign power. October 03, 2008
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