Murdoch's Reporters Allegedly Listened To The Voicemails Of Hundreds

from the the-sort-of-journalism-that-needs-protectionism? dept

While there had been earlier reports of how some reporters for Rupert Murdoch's News of the World had spied on members of the royal family by listening to their voicemails, new reports suggest this activity was endemic, impacted hundreds -- and that Scotland Yard failed to let many who were victims of such spying know about it (and even focused their investigation on just one reporter, rather than looking into whether or not it was a widespread practice, as it apparently was).

Although Coulson has long insisted he knew nothing about the illegal activity, sources who worked at the tabloid told the Times Coulson not only knew about it, he actively encouraged it. A dozen former reporters said the hacking was so pervasive at News of the World that everyone knew about it. "The office cat knew," one longtime reporter said.

This is the kind of "reporting" that needs to be protected?

Filed Under: eavesdropping, rupert murdoch, voicemails

Is The UK Really Looking To Spy On All Browsing Habits, Emails And Phone Calls?

from the seems-a-bit-extreme dept

There's not much in the way of detail, and our UK readers have pointed out in the past that The Times Online is hardly the most reputable of newspapers in the UK, but it's reporting that the UK government is considering spending £12 billion on a system to spy on the internet browsing histories, emails and phone calls of everyone in the UK. That seems almost too ridiculous to be true, so consider us to be skeptical that this is actually what's happening -- but we'll mention it here with the link back to the source to see if some of our readers can fill us in on the details (or lack of details, as the case may be).

Filed Under: eavesdropping, spying, tapping, uk

Large-Scale Surveillance Systems Create Security Risks

from the unauthorized-access dept

There's been a lot of discussion, here and elsewhere, about the dangers that expanded government surveillance pose to civil liberties. The Constitution protects the right to be free of unreasonable searches, which the courts have held includes electronic eavesdropping, and many people, myself included, think that recent proposals for expanded wiretapping threaten that right. But less attention has been paid to the security risks created by expanded eavesdropping programs. Matt Blaze and some other computer security experts have a new article documenting the risks concerning eavesdropping systems that themselves could be compromised, allowing unauthorized third parties to use government surveillance networks for their own ends. That's what happened in Greece, when someone managed to hack into the Greek surveillance infrastructure and listen in on dozens of senior government officials. Blaze and his co-authors argue that the more information collected by a wiretapping scheme, the greater the damage that will be done if it's ever compromised. The Protect America Act, which Congress passed last August and is due to expire in a few days, authorizes virtually unchecked government interception of communications between Americans and those overseas. The paper warns that the safeguards in the Protect America Act are inadequate to protect Americans from a compromised surveillance network. Congress would do well to listen.

Filed Under: civil liberties, eavesdropping, greece, privacy, wiretapping