Cody Taylor

Hugh Pickens writes “The NY Times reports that legal and operational problems surrounding the NSA’s surveillance activities have come under scrutiny from the Obama administration, Congressional intelligence committees, and a secret national security court, and that the NSA had been engaged in ‘overcollection’ of domestic communications of Americans. The practice has been described as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional. The Justice Department has acknowledged that there had been problems with the NSA surveillance operation, but said they had been resolved. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the intelligence community, did not address specific aspects of the surveillance problems, but said in a statement that ‘when inadvertent mistakes are made, we take it very seriously and work immediately to correct them.’ The intelligence officials said the problems had grown out of changes enacted by Congress last July to the law that regulates the government’s wiretapping powers, as well as the challenges posed by enacting a new framework for collecting intelligence on terrorism and spying suspects. Joe Klein at Time Magazine says the bad news is that ‘the NSA apparently has been overstepping the law,’ but the good news is that ‘one of the safeguards in the [FISA Reform] law is a review procedure that seems to have the ability to catch the NSA when it’s overstepping — and that the illegal activities have been exposed, and quickly.'”

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An anonymous reader writes “Due to outrage over the verdict in The Pirate Bay trial, the Swedish Pirate Party has gained 3000 members in less than 7 hours. It is now bigger than 3 of the 7 parties represented in the Swedish parliament. ‘Ruling means that our political work must now be stepped up. We want to ensure that the Pirate Bay activities — to link people and information — is clearly lawful. And we want to do it for all people in Sweden, Europe and the world, continues Rick Falk Vinge. We want it to be open for ordinary people to disseminate and receive information without fear of imprisonment or astronomical damages.'”

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fudreporter is one of many who writes to tell us that Time Warner is not planning to continue their tiered consumption tests at this time. The company is not completely admitting defeat, stating that they “may return to the idea in the future,” but for now the test has been ceased. “The plan would have established several tiers based on how much consumers use the Internet. Time Warner Cable had said at the time that it believed that consumers who download the most content need to pay more to cover infrastructure upgrades. The plan was first announced two weeks ago, then modified with higher download caps last week. In a news release yesterday, Glenn Britt, the chief executive of Time Warner Cable, said, ‘We will not proceed with implementation of additional tests until further consultation with our customers and other interested parties, ensuring that community needs are being met.'”

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An anonymous reader writes “Republican consultant Patrick Ruffini, who counts Google as one of his clients, sketches out a way that the GOP could ‘win back’ Silicon Valley — but he gets smacked down by tech businessman Francis Cianfrocca. ‘Patrick’s basic thesis is that the VC firms that fund the Valley will rebel at being regulated by [Treasury Secretary] Tim Geithner, who is talking about increasing reporting requirements for both private equity and venture capital. Assuming I understand them both correctly, something tells me that neither Geithner nor Ruffini understand deeply what venture capital is all about.'”

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