To start, here’s another update from President Obama’s January 17th speech regarding changes to the government’s surveillance activities. The Washington Post reports that, yesterday, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved a motion modifying the most recent primary order that authorized the Section 215 phone records program. More specifically, as reported by the Post,these amendments make is so that metadata inquiries will only be permitted upon a judicial finding that there is a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” of international terrorist organization association “absent true emergency.”
Toward the end of last month, President Obama officially nominated Vice Admiral Michael Rogers to head the National Security Administration (NSA), according to the Washington Post. Terry Roberts, formerly of Naval Intelligence, “cited [Rogers’] background in intelligence and his experience heading Fleet Cyber Command, the Navy’s cyber unit that also works for U.S. Cyber Command[,]” the Post reports.
According to reports by NBC News, some of the documents leaked last year by Edward Snowden reveal that a British espionage unit was created specifically to mount attacks against hacktivist groups, namely Anonymous and LulzSec. However, NBC News reports that the spy unit’s attempts in this regard may have simultaneously interrupted web communications sent or received by political activists who were in no way involved in criminal activity.
A while back we covered Klayman, et al. v. Obama, et al., a case in which the plaintiffs alleged statutory and constitutional violations arising from the NSA Bulk Telephony Metadata program. Politico reports that Larry Klayman, conservative activist, attorney, and plaintiff in the aforementioned case, has asked the Supreme Court to hear his case–a direct request that does not comply with the normal appeals process. “We went to the Supreme Court because, unlike the government, we’re not dragging our feet[,]” Klayman said. “We want a quick decision here.”
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