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DaVita settles False Claims Act charges for US$350 million
DaVita Healthcare Partners, Inc., one of the two dominant corporate providers of dialysis services in the US, has agreed to pay US$350 million to resolve charges that it violated the False Claims Act...
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DOJ walks back demand for Risen to reveal source
The US Department of Justice has wisely, if belatedly, walked back its demand that Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times staffer James Risen reveal his source for a series of articles he wrote on the...
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Obama’s Justice Department spikes FOIA transparency
It was rare in last Congress to find bipartisan support for dang near anything, but very broad support existed for the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Improvement Act. The proposed legislation was...
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Poitras’ Citizenfour wins 2015 Academy Award for best documentary
Last night, Laura Poitras’ Citizenfour, her cinéma vérité account of her first meetings with Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden, won the 2015 Academy Award for best documentary. Frankly, it was the...
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Petraeus hand-slapped for classified leaks
Earlier this week, David Petraeus — the former US military leader in Iraq and Afghanistan and former head of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) — pled guilty to leaking highly classified...
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Comcast blinks, comcastically
Earlier this week — just after US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) staffers recommended that Comcast’s US$45 billion planned acquisition of Time Warner Cable be reviewed by an administrative...
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DaVita to pay US$450 million to settle yet another whistleblower lawsuit
This week DaVita Healthcare Partners, Inc. — one of the two biggest corporate providers of dialysis services in the US — disclosed its agreement to pay US$450 million to settle one of its ongoing...
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Second Circuit finds NSA’s bulk phone data collection illegal
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled that the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) bulk phone data collection program is illegal. Without speaking to the constitutionality of the...
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Look, up in the sky
For some time, reports have surfaced about mysterious small aircraft flying in oddly precise circular patterns over US cities. Matt McKinney and John Reinan writing for the StarTribune, for example,...
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Reheating the cryptowars
In the early 1990s, the Clinton administration proposed using a key escrow system to allow government access to information encrypted by American citizens. An appropriate court order would be required...
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US Department of Justice publishes media subpoena report
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has published its first ever report on its use of subpoenas to obtain information from media sources, covering calendar year 2014. The government agency has said...
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Federal use of Stingrays now subject to warrant
Earlier this week the US Department of Justice (DOJ) published policy changes for its use of cell-site simulators, commonly called Stingrays. The most important change is that federal agents must, in...
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Apple can’t comply with iMessage decryption demand
Earlier this summer, you’ll remember US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey claimed to recognize the importance of strong cryptography and encouraged open debate on balancing...
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Warren calls for restorative justice by prosecuting corporate criminals
While Bernie Sanders continues to chip away at the dominant politcal model in the US from one side — here’s a hint: When Hillary Clinton starts self-identifying as a progressive, she’s mimicking...
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And so crypto wars 2.0 begins
On 21 March, the prosecutors for the US Department of Justice (DOJ) asked the US District Court for the Central District of California to vacate its order to compel Apple to assist in decrypting the...
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EFF sues for access to FISC documents declassified by USA FREEDOM Act
One of the things that was supposed to happen when President Barack Obama signed the USA FREEDOM Act into law in June 2015 was that “significant” decisions from the US Foreign Intelligence...
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The FISC rubber stamp
For the entire calendar year of 2015, the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) received 1,457 electronic surveillance requests, and granted every single one of them. Dustin Volz writing...
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FBI wants biometric database exempted from Privacy Act
For the last eight years, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been quietly building a sprawling biometric database it calls the Next Generation Identification System (NGIS). The NGIS...
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Wyden and Paul propose to stop Rule 41 amendments
US Senators Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) have introduced a one-sentence piece of legislation to stop the proposed amendments to Rule 41: “The proposed amendments to rule 41 of the...
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ACLU challenges Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), as currently written, criminalizes anyone who uses a computer — including breaking the terms of service of a website — in an “unauthorized” manner. It’s the...
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Classified surveillance rules for journalist targets
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a set of classified rules that allow its agents to obtain the telephone records of journalists without a probable-cause warrant. Rather than a warrant...
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Aetna’s and Bertolini’s pants catch fire
Last April, Mark Bertolini — board chair and chief executive of Aetna, the managed health care company and insurer — bragged to Forbes about lucratively participating in the Affordable Care Act (ACA)...
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Elizabeth Warren winds up on the banksters
US Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachussets) wants President Barack Obama to explain — before he leaves office in a few months — why his administration declined to criminally prosecute the banksters...
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NSA has another contractor leak
Last August, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Harold T. Martin III, a former contractor for the US National Security Agency (NSA), on charges that he stole highly classified...
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North Dakota prosecutor’s war on the First Amendment
For all of its roots in progressivism and democratic socialism, North Dakota — or rather, one North Dakota prosecutor — is having a problem with the First Amendment when it comes to activities around...
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FBI still using NSLs to obtain out-of-scope information
Among the cache of classified and unclassified documents recently obtained and disclosed by the Intercept, was the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) rules for working with national security...
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Trend to neuter US First Amendment
In the US, the framers of the Constitution rightly made freedom of expression the First Amendment because it’s the most important. President Donald Trump is, of course, fanatically in favor of his own...
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Whistleblower leaks NSA report on Russian cyberattack
According to a top secret report by an analyst at the US National Security Agency (NSA) that was leaked by an anonymous whistleblower to the Intercept, the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU)...
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Why does the US tolerate secret law?
A recently released 2014 US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) ruling by Judge Rosemary M. Collyer is so heavily redacted that we don’t know if an “American communications company” is one...
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CMS hastily cancels release of Medicare Advantage data
Medicare Advantage plans are a private insurance alternative to original Medicare Parts A (hospitalization), B (physicians and out-patient care), and D (prescription drugs) that provide a managed...
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Trump administration issues warrant for identities of visitors to anti-Trump...
On 17 July 2017, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) served a search warrant (.pdf; 1MB) on DreamHost, a website host, for all information related to a website used to coordinate protests during the...
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DaVita resolves yet another allegation of illegality
According to a US Department of Justice (DOJ) media release, DaVita Rx, the pharmacy services business unit of Denver-based dialysis service provider DaVita Inc., has agreed to pay US$63.7 million to...
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US Supreme Court rules that cell tower records require warrant
In a 5–4 decision (.pdf; 508KB) — with Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the so-called “liberal” arm of the court — the US Supreme Court has ruled that government authorities must obtain a...
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Adam Schiff and Joseph Maguire continue their dance of the whistleblower...
The stare-down between US Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Joseph Maguire and US Representative Adam Schiff (D‑California), chair of the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence over...
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Trump tosses word salad admitting discussing Biden with Zelensky
Earlier today, US President Donald Trump admitted discussing former US Vice President Joe Biden in a 25 July 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Full stop. Reread that opening...
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