WASHINGTON — In the first public accounting of its kind, cellphone carriers reported that they responded to a startling 1.3 million demands for subscriber information last year from law enforcement agencies seeking text messages, caller locations and other information in the course of investigations. The cellphone carriers’ reports, which come in response to a Congressional inquiry, document an explosion in cellphone surveillance in the last five years, with the companies turning over records thousands of times a day in response to police emergencies, court orders, law enforcement subpoenas and other requests. The reports also reveal a sometimes uneasy partnership with  [ Read More ]

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is supporting a bill to ban the use of domestic drones to monitor citizens in the U.S. He spoke with CNN’s Carol Costello a day after a U.S. Navy drone crashed in Salisbury, Maryland. Here is the transcript: Costello: The smoldering wreckage is still there lying in a marsh in Salisbury, Maryland. It’s what’s left of a military drone. No injuries. No property damage, but $176 million loss for the air force. The air force is still investigating why this thing crashed. The drone is used for military purposes, but smaller drones are being used by  [ Read More ]

Why Congress and the States Should Prohibit This Practice Have you ever gone to a job interview and had a prospective employer ask to see letters you’ve written to friends or family members, or your family photo albums? Have prospective employers asked for the key to your apartment so that they can snoop around? The answer to these questions should, of course, be “No.” Yet, as the Associated Press reported last week, employers—both public and private—are increasingly asking job applicants to do the equivalent, by turning over their Facebook user IDs and passwords as part of the interview process. This  [ Read More ]

Wednesday, March 28, 2012 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer | Natural News (NaturalNews) An Idaho couple that was ordered recently by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to stop building a house on their own property and pay fines of up to $75,000 a day until the property was returned back to its original condition, has been granted due process and a hearing by the U.S. Supreme Court. The ruling is a first as it now allows property owners to challenge the EPA’s violation allegations prior to, rather than after, enforcement actions are taken. In 2005, Mike and Chantell Sackett  [ Read More ]