According to the Associated Press, Lauri Love, the 28-year-old British man accused of hacking into certain United States government networks, is fighting attempts to extradite him to the United States in order to face trial. The charges against Love, which include computer hacking, aggravating identity theft, and attacking the Federal Reserve, carry a sentence of up to twelve years.
GCHQ, the British surveillance agency, reportedly collected images intercepted from the web communications of millions of net users–none of which were suspected of wrongdoing, reports The Guardian. “Optic Nerve,” as the program was codenamed, dates back to 2008-2010. According to The Guardian, “In one six-month period in 2008, the agency collected webcam imagery–including substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications–from more than 1.8 million Yahoo user accounts globally.”
A report by The Washington Post details outgoing Cyber Command and National Security Agency (NSA) director, General Keith Alexander’s parting remarks last week. Specifically, General Alexander called for “a stronger strategy to deter cyber attacks, saying the line that would prompt a U.S. response against an adversary ‘did not yet exist.'” Moreover, he “said his greatest concern was a terrorist attack against the United States or Europe[,]” and addressed the NSA surveillance debate by noting he was “open to some proposed reforms,” the Washington Post reports.
Speaking of NSA reform, the AP and the Washington Post report that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has gone to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to seek permission to retain collected phone records beyond five years, which is the current practice. The argument, according to the article, is that the government must retain evidence for future lawsuits.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama Administration is currently considering four proposals devised by White House attorneys regarding reforms to NSA surveillance programs: (1) have phone companies retain data and perform NSA-requested searches; (2) have a separate government organization retain the data, such as the FBI; (3) have a non-government entity other than phone companies retain the data; or, (4) ditch the phone metadata collection program.
Lastly, Reuters reports that, according to the German paper Bild am Sonntag, since Obama ordered the NSA to halt its spying on Chancellor Merkel, the agency has begun conducting surveillance of other senior German officials, such as Minister of the Interior, Thomas de Maiziere.
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