My Way News - Microsoft asks Holder to ease gag on NSA program
My Way News reports: "Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder calling on him to personally review a gag order that prevents the company and others from further discussing secret national security requests for customer emails, Skype calls and documents stored on its servers. The letter follows Microsoft's motion in a secret court last month asking for permission to break out which requests were from law enforcement officials and which were from the National Security Agency. It hasn't received a response."

The Cost of Surveillance

My Way News - What the gov't pays industry to snoop
My Way News reports: "How much are your private conversations worth to the government? Turns out, it can be a lot, depending on the technology. In the era of intense government surveillance and secret court orders, a murky multimillion-dollar market has emerged. Paid for by U.S. tax dollars, but with little public scrutiny, surveillance fees charged in secret by technology and phone companies can vary wildly."

Comment: I wonder if the telcos send a monthly statement to the government? Do they get a special 1-800 customer service number to call in case they have questions about their bill? 

Ayatollah Online: You've Got Mail

My Way News - Report: Iran opens national email service
My Way News reports: "Iran has discussed for years having its own domestic email service as the government occasionally has blocked access to foreign email providers like Gmail and Yahoo. The country also has blocked and made illegal virtual private networks that allow Iranians to freely use the Internet and access banned websites like those for opposition groups."

Surveillance News

My Way News - In worldwide surveillance age, US has big edge
My Way News reports: "The saga of Edward Snowden and the NSA makes one thing clear: The United States' central role in developing the Internet and hosting its most powerful players has made it the global leader in the surveillance game."

My Way News - Web giants get broader surveillance revelations:
My Way News reports: "Facebook and Microsoft Corp. representatives said that after negotiations with national security officials their companies have been given permission to make new but still very limited revelations about government orders to turn over user data. [...] Facebook received between 9,000 and 10,000 government requests from all government entities from local to federal in the last six months of 2012, on topics including missing children investigations, fugitive tracking and terrorist threats. The requests involved the accounts of between 18,000 and 19,000 Facebook users. [...] Microsoft received between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 accounts."

My Way News - Secret to Prism program: Even bigger data seizure
My Way News reports: "The revelation of Prism this month by the Washington Post and Guardian newspapers has touched off the latest round in a decade-long debate over what limits to impose on government eavesdropping, which the Obama administration says is essential to keep the nation safe. But interviews with more than a dozen current and former government and technology officials and outside experts show that, while Prism has attracted the recent attention, the program actually is a relatively small part of a much more expansive and intrusive eavesdropping effort."

My Way News - Since 9/11, life _ and surveillance _ made easier
My Way News reports: "Americans' expectations of privacy have diminished remarkably since Sept. 10, 2001 - and only partly because of what happened the next day. Laws were passed to take up the fight against shadowy terrorists by giving authorities access to information that previously was off limits. At the same time, technologies intended to make Americans' everyday lives easier have also made it easier for corporations - and the government - to track their movements and habits."

My Way News - US spy programs raise ire both home and abroad
My Way News reports: "The Obama administration faced fresh anger Monday at home and abroad over U.S. spy programs that track phone and Internet messages around the world in the hope of thwarting terrorist threats. But a senior intelligence official said there are no plans to end the secretive surveillance systems."

My Way News - Monumental phone-records monitoring is laid bare
My Way News reports: "Separately, The Washington Post and The Guardian reported Thursday the existence of another program used by the NSA and FBI that scours the nation's main Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, emails, documents and connection logs to help analysts track a person's movements and contacts. It was not clear whether the program, called PRISM, targets known suspects or broadly collects data from other Americans."

My Way News - Report: Gov't scooping up Verizon phone records
My Way News reports: "The National Security Agency currently is collecting the telephone records of millions of U.S. customers of Verizon under a top secret court order, Britain's Guardian newspaper said Wednesday. [...] The newspaper said the document, a copy of which it had obtained, shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of U.S. citizens were being collected indiscriminately and in bulk, regardless of whether they were suspected of any wrongdoing."