"In 2006, a retired AT&T engineer knocked on the door of the EFF's office in a rundown part of San Francisco's Mission district and asked, "Do you folks care about privacy?" With him he carried schematics exposing the largest US government domestic spying operation since Watergate.

That person was Mark Klein, who died on March 8 this year from cancer. He was 79.

After a life working in telecoms, Klein realized he had helped the NSA wire up a listening station in AT&T's San Francisco switching facility - the infamous Room 641A - that was being used to illegally spy on Americans.

The evidence he gathered and shared led to two lawsuits that exposed the extent to which US citizens were being spied on by their own government in the post-9/11 world. Klein faced legal pressure, death threats, and the constant fear of ruin, to get his story out and tell the public what was going on. But Klein regretted nothing."

https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/15/rip_mark_klein/

#USA #NSA #Surveillance #ATT #MassSurveillance #PoliceState #Privacy

Gaza is a Testing Ground

https://youtu.be/k17q7hdVsTA

#usa #israel #palestina #gaza #genocide #weapons #surveillance #surveillancecapitalism #masssurveillance #police #military #oppression

"For 37 years, Congress has completely failed to pass another consumer privacy law. Which is how we got here – to this moment where you can target ads to suicidal teens, gambling addicted soldiers in Minuteman silos, grannies with Alzheimer's, and every Congressional staffer on the Hill.

Some people think the problem with mass surveillance is a kind of machine-driven, automated mind-control ray. They believe the self-aggrandizing claims of tech bros to have finally perfected the elusive mind-control ray, using big data and machine learning.

But you don't need to accept these outlandish claims – which come from Big Tech's sales literature, wherein they boast to potential advertisers that surveillance ads are devastatingly effective – to understand how and why this is harmful. If you're struggling with opioid addiction and I target an ad to you for a fake cure or rehab center, I haven't brainwashed you – I've just tricked you. We don't have to believe in mind-control to believe that targeted lies can cause unlimited harms.

And those harms are indeed grave."

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/20/privacy-first-second-third/#malvertising

#USA #AdTech #DataBrokers #DataBrokerage #Privacy #BigTech #MassSurveillance #DataProtection

"This troubling decision to potentially profit from high-tech warfare, which could have serious consequences for real lives and real people comes after criticism from EFF, human rights activists, and other international groups. Despite its pledges and vocal commitment to human rights, Google has faced criticism for its involvement in Project Nimbus, which provides advanced cloud and AI capabilities to the Israeli government, tools that an increasing number of credible reports suggest are being used to target civilians under pervasive surveillance in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. EFF said in 2024, “When a company makes a promise, the public should be able to rely on it.” Rather than fully living up to its previous human rights commitments, it seems Google has shifted its priorities.

Google is a company valued at $2.343 trillion that has global infrastructure and a massive legal department and appears to be leaning into the current anti-humanitarian moment. The fifth largest company in the world seems to have chosen to make the few extra bucks (relative to the company’s earnings and net worth) that will come from mass surveillance tools and AI-enhanced weapons systems."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/02/google-wrong-side-history

#AI #AIWarfare #Google #BigTech #MassSurveillance

Secret #EU law threatens #Internet security #massSurveillance
Last Chance to fix #eIDAS

"New legislative articles, introduced in recent closed-door meetings and not yet public, envision that all web browsers distributed in Europe will be required to trust the certificate authorities and cryptographic keys selected by EU governments.

These changes radically expand the capability of EU governments to surveil their citizens by ensuring cryptographic keys under government control can be used to intercept encrypted web traffic across the EU. Any EU member state has the ability to designate cryptographic keys for distribution in web browsers and browsers are forbidden from revoking trust in these keys without government permission.

https://last-chance-for-eidas.org/

#Europe #Surveillance #Privacy #Data #Antireport

Police and migration authorities are increasingly using #AI for harmful & discriminatory #surveillance.

This use of such tech for policing and migration control:
❗️is dangerous for our #FundamentalRights
🚫 increases harms against already discriminated groups such as racialized communities & migrants
👁️ is invasive and normalizes #MassSurveillance

We have joined 114 civil society organizations, calling on EU policymakers to ensure the protection of human rights! ⬇
https://algorithmwatch.org/en/eu-policymakers-regulate-police-technology/

🇬🇧 Worrying! Internal minutes reveal that numerous EU states want to pass indiscriminate #Chatcontrol #CSAM #MassSurveillance legislation in just two weeks. Protest now!

https://netzpolitik.org/2023/internes-protokoll-eu-staaten-wollen-chatkontrolle-in-zwei-wochen-beschliessen/