#DataDump: Megagovernment, Microbes and more

Wyden Protects Privacy, Blocks FISA Surveillance Law*
Sen. Detours Obama Drive to Retain Controversial Wiretap Powers*
Assange to Be Extradited to Sweden, Court Refuses Final Appeal*
Feds Tell Megaupload Users to Forget About Their Data*
Ret. Judge Against Outrageous Seizures in Megaupload Case*
Microbes Capable Of Surviving On Mars Found*

#DataDump: #SuperMoon, Snooping, Sidesteps and more

#Supermoon Saturday:
May's Full Moon coincides with Perigee,
first of 6 Celestial events this month*

Twilight Language:
Cinco De Derby Moon*
Biggest full moon due this weekend as tides rise around the planet*
Venus to appear in once-in-a-lifetime event Jun5-6*
Sun may soon have four poles, say researchers*
Shuttle Enterprise soars over NYC skyline - NASA dignitaries, fidgety schoolchildren and Leonard Nimoy*
7M Birds Die in US and Canada a Year because of Communication Towers*
Law Prof says Megaupload Prosecution 'Depressing Display Of Abuse Of Government Authority'*
Justice Department Clears Google In Wi-Fi Sniffing Scandal*
Congress Should Grill the FCC Over Redacted Google Wi-Fi Snooping Report*
Google’s 'Engineer Doe' is Marius Milner, Known For Wi-Fi Hacking Tool*
Equipment Maker Caught Installing Backdoor Vows to Fix Following Public Pressure*
UK lawmakers say Rupert Murdoch unfit to run company*
British ISPs Ordered to Block Pirate Bay*
Video: How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes*

Dancing With the Devil: Google/NSA Partnership

The All-Seeing Eye is the watchful vigilance of Google and the NSA. In an INFOWARS.COM article, Steve Watson relates recent efforts to sweep under the rug an important partnership in the United Security States of America: "The Department of Justice will ask a federal court to uphold the secrecy that surrounds the working relationship between Google and the National Security Agency in a hearing that is scheduled for next week." The article also reviews the past decade of spying on Americans. A reader shouldn't harbor any doubt - your Google searches are thrown onto hard drives at server farms in anonymous industrial parks across the country. The information may prove useful if you become a problem. You've been warned - with every search you dance with the devil!

#Obamessiah Fights to Retain Warrantless Wiretapping

DOJ Tells SCOTUS Don't Fight Warrantless Eavesdropping

from @ThreatLevel: The Obama administration is urging the Supreme Court to halt a legal challenge weighing the constitutionality of a once-secret warrantless surveillance program targeting Americans’ communications that Congress eventually legalized in 2008. The FISA Amendments Act (.pdf), the subject of the lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and others, allows the government to electronically eavesdrop on Americans’ phone calls and e-mails without a probable-cause warrant so long as one of the parties to the communication is outside the United States. The communications may be intercepted “to acquire foreign intelligence information.” The administration is asking the Supreme Court to review an appellate decision that said the nearly 4-year-old lawsuit could move forward. The government said the ACLU and a host of other groups don’t have the legal standing to bring the case because they have no evidence they or their overseas clients are being targeted.

1/19 defcon: megatakedown, koobfaced & more

Video: Feds Shutter Megaupload, Arrest Executives*

Anonymous Takes Down DoJ, UMG in Retaliation*
Flashback: UMG Issues YT Takedown Notice to Megaupload*
Judge Orders Search of 'News of the World' Computers*
How News Corp hid the Phonehacking Scandal*
Online Protest Against Obama's Drone War Flops*
Gang That Spread Facebook Worm Operates in the Open*
Zappos Hacked, Tells 24m Customers to Change Passwords*
State, DoD endorse 'Space Code of Conduct'*
US to Launch Space Arms-Control Initiative*
Scientists to Catch a Black Hole*

dhs/ice start another round of 'pirate' domain seizures

from torrent freak: US authorities have resumed “Operation In Our Sites” and have seized several domain names associated with copyright infringement or counterfeit related crimes. Among the new targets are two sites that linked to copyrighted films hosted on third party streaming sites such as megavideo.com and veoh.com. Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has yet to officially announce the new operation.

Over the past several months a series of domain name seizures by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made headlines across the Internet.

Under the flag of “Operation In Our Sites” the authorities shut down a dozen file-sharing and streaming sites and many more accused of selling counterfeit goods.

Today ICE continued the operation with a 4th round, and the first one since February this year. Although the authorities are yet to give an official comment on the new seizures, TorrentFreak was able to confirm the following targets:

* Re1ease.net
* Watchnewfilms.com
* Dvdcollectionsale.com
* Dvdscollection.com
* Dvdsetsonline.com
* Newstylerolex.com

The first two domains are accused of copyright-related offenses, but did not host any copyrighted films themselves. Both Re1ease.net and Watchnewfilms.com linked to popular movie streaming sites such as Veoh.com and Megavideo.com. The rest of the domains appear to be connected to sales of counterfeit goods.

The new targets were most likely put forward to ICE by movie industry groups. In April of this year ICE director John Morton admitted that his organization was acting based on “tips from industry representatives,” among others.

The authorities are also aware of the fact that the domain seizures themselves are not really an effective tool. As pointed out before, more than half of the piracy-related domains that were seized by Operation In Our Sites simply continued under a different name.

Morton replied to this critique by emphasizing that the seizures also act as “public education about pirating.”

To quash allegedly copyright infringing sites more effectively U.S. lawmakers introduced the PROTECT IP Act last week. Aside from domain seizures, the new bill will also make it possible to block sites on an ISP level, to censor search engines, and to cut funding of allegedly copyright-infringing websites.

flashbacks: government seizes domains alleged to infringe copyright & dhs seizes more domains; this time for linking to copyrighted material

5/19 defcon: blockage, bills, threats & storms

obama doj tries to block unclassified info from nsa leaker trial*
new yorker mag sheds new light on nsa's warrantless wiretapping & data mining*
senate bill requires warrant for email, cloud content*
senate bill makes illegal internet streaming a felony*
bill clinton: create internet agency*
US secret service questions 13yr-old over facebook 'threat'*
twitter feed @omgfacts lawsuit underscores power of a tweet*
prolific 'spokesman' for 'anonymous' leaves hacker group*
dhs's top cybersecurity official resigns*
giant storm revealed on saturn*
video: scientists discover habitable earth-like planet*

domestic surveillance court approved all 1,506 warrants in 2010

from threat level: The secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved all 1,506 government requests to electronically monitor suspected “agents” of a foreign power or terrorists on U.S. soil last year, according to a Justice Department report released under the Freedom of Information Act. The two-page report, which shows about a 13 percent increase in the number of applications for electronic surveillance between 2009 and 2010, was obtained by the Federation of American Scientists and published Friday. “The FISC did not deny any applications in whole, or in part,” according to the April 19 report to Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada). The 11-member court denied two of 1,329 applications for domestic-intelligence surveillance in 2009. The FBI is the primary agency making those requests. Whether the FISA court, whose business is conducted behind closed doors, is rubber-stamping the requests is a matter of debate... The Justice Department report, meanwhile, said the FBI issued 24,287 “national security letter” requests last year on 14,212 people, “a substantial increase from the 2009 level of 14,788 NSL requests concerning 6,114 U.S. persons,” Aftergood wrote in a blog post. In 2008, there were 24,744 requests regarding 7,225 people.

5/5 defcon: re-entry & removal

video: Spacecraft re-entry over Wash. & Oregon on may3?*

Department of Justice:
FBI Too Focused On Child Porn*
Feds Demand Firefox Remove Add-On That Redirects Seized Domains*
Mozilla Refuses to Block Extension for dhs - As Government's ICE Effort Continues to Look Silly*
flashback: 'mafiaa fire': firefox add-on to reverse US govt domain censorship
Gabrielle Giffords leaves Florida after shuttle Endeavor delay*

1/27 defcon: congress, connections & 'the company'

s3480: 'protecting cyberspace as a national asset act of 2010' - bill to give president right to shutdown net back in congress*
doj seeks to have all web surfing tracked*
mozilla proposes 'do not track' addition to firefox*
google comes under fire for 'secret' relationship with nsa*
apple hires a military grade security chief*
zuckerberg's facebook page hacked*
social networks under attack as tide of cyber-scepticism sweeps US; they don't connect people – they isolate them*
report: US can't link manning to assange*
police arrest five over 'anonymous' wikileaks attacks*
video: tarpley on wikileaks & assange -
limited hangouts in the service of 'the company'?*

update: internet down in egypt ahead of protests*

eff sues to discover how US collects intel over social networks

from raw story: The Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF) has filed a lawsuit against several government agencies hoping to force the revelation of how the U.S. utilizes social networks like Facebook and MySpace to collect intelligence.

"Millions of people use social networking sites like Facebook every day, disclosing lots of information about their private lives," said James Tucker, a student working with EFF, in a media advisory. "As Congress debates new privacy laws covering sites like Facebook, lawmakers and voters alike need to know how the government is already using this data and what is at stake."

However, when EFF went looking for that information by filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, they ran into a stone wall of silence.

The suit was filed in cooperation with the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic at Berkeley. It demands immediate publication of government policies dealing with social networks during an investigation.

"Internet users deserve to know what information is collected, under what circumstances, and who has access to it," said Shane Witnov, a law student working on the case, according to the EFF's release. "These agencies need to abide by the law and release their records on social networking surveillance."

The EFF's full complaint, which encompasses the Central Intelligence Agency, Departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security, the Treasury and Director of National Intelligence, can be read here [136kb PDF].