U.S. President Barack Obama, in a taped interview with PBS’ Charlie Rose, on Monday confirmed the existence of and defended two specific National Security Agency surveillance programs. “With respect to the NSA, a government agency that has been in the intelligence gathering business for a very long time — what I can say unequivocally, if [...]

In an exclusive online Q&A session with The Guardian, NSA whistle blower Edward Snowden suggested that members of the U.S. Congress are granted special immunity from the Agency’s domestic surveillance programs to mute opposition. The overlooked exchange came at the end of the session during which readers could participate in the discussion. The Guardian’s Glenn [...]

The technology company Apple on Monday released total number of  requests from law enforcement for customer data for the period covering the last six months. In addition, Apple said in a privacy statement posted on its website that the company takes seriously the need to protect customer data and stated they don’t collect or maintain [...]

A Democratic Senator from Colorado, and a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, on Sunday said the NSA’s program of collecting massive amounts of phone “metadata” is not making the country any safer. “I am skeptical that the 215 Business Records program of the NSA is effective,” Colorado Senator Mark Udall said during a [...]

Two of the companies named in highly sensitive National Security Agency (NSA) documents as playing a role in the government’s domestic surveillance program named “Prism” on Friday released total numbers of user-data requests, including national security requests. Attorneys for Microsoft and Facebook said that both companies had received permission from the FBI and Department of [...]

A new public safety system for mobile device consumers allows government officials to issue emergency alerts to geographically-targeted areas in the event of imminent threats to safety. The Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system, managed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in partnership with the wireless industry, became operational [...]

New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler (10th District-D) on Thursday revealed during a House Judiciary Committee hearing that National Security Agency (NSA) analysts have the capability to access digital content once its collected in bulk without any new authorizations from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The statement seemed to contradict the testimony of FBI Director Robert [...]

A former 22-year AT&T telecommunications technician claims the company split & routed copies of domestic Internet traffic — including voice & data — to a secret room in California which was controlled by the U.S Government’s National Security Agency (NSA). Mark Klein, an employee of AT&T from 1981-2004, first made the explosive allegations in a [...]

A Democratic Senator from Oregon on Wednesday challenged the Director of the National Security Agency over its practice of collecting all phone records on all Americans in the name of national security. “Here I have my Verizon cell phone,” Sen. Jeff Merkley said to Keith B. Alexander, Director of the National Security Agency, during a [...]

Calling untrue recent claims that it has given the U.S. government “unfettered access” to its users’ electronic data, a lawyer for the technology giant Google has asked for permission to published “aggregate numbers” of national security requests. “Google has nothing to hide,” said David Drummond, Google’s Chief Legal Officer, in a June 11 letter to [...]

A former senior adviser for the Central Intelligence Agency’s solutions consultant has fled to Hong Kong after revealing that he is the one who released sensitive documents which confirmed the existence of a massive domestic surveillance apparatus in the United States. Edward Snowden, a 29-year old infrastructure analyst employed by the contracting firm Booz Allen [...]

In a letter dated June 6, at least 20 U.S. Congressional Representatives have demanded that the heads of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Security Agency (NSA) explain in greater detail their agencies’ data collection activities against Americans under the authority of the USA Patriot Act’s Section 215, codified at 50 U.S.C [...]

A new global survey of Muslims — the world’s second-largest religion — by the Pew Research Center finds that most are deeply committed to their faith, that Islam is the one true faith leading to eternal life in heaven, and that traditional Islamic law (sharia) should be the official law of their country. The five-year [...]