WASHINGTON The amount and types of business records available to U.S. investigators has dramatically expanded in recent years under terms of the Patriot Act, resulting in the FBI’s pursuit of a “broadening scope” of materials, an internal Justice Department review found Thursday. The report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, the third in a series […]
NSA data sweeps ruled illegal, Tallahassee Democrat
A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that a National Security Agency program that sweeps up logs of Americans’ phone calls is illegal — the most significant setback yet for the long-running surveillance operation. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York said the program went beyond what Congress authorized in 2001 to […]
Public has right to know what government agencies are doing – Victoria Advocate
With the 10th anniversary of Sunshine Week, a couple of themes become apparent in a review of pending state legislation affecting the public’s right to know. First, the rush to equip police officers with body cameras throws new light on the long-running tension between privacy rights and public-access rights. Current Oklahoma law, for example, makes […]