The Criminal N.S.A.

An Op-Ed by Jennifer Granick and Christopher Sprigman, in The New York Times:

We may never know all the details of the mass surveillance programs, but we know this: The administration has justified them through abuse of language, intentional evasion of statutory protections, secret, unreviewable investigative procedures and constitutional arguments that make a mockery of the government’s professed concern with protecting Americans’ privacy. It’s time to call the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance programs what they are: criminal.

Donor bought Rolex watch for Virginia Gov. McDonnell, $15,000 in clothes for Governor's Wife

Carol Leonnig and Rosalind Helderman, at The Washington Post write:

A prominent political donor purchased a Rolex watch for Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, according to two people with knowledge of the gift, and the governor did not disclose it in his annual financial filings. The $6,500 luxury watch was provided by wealthy businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr., the people said. He is the chief executive of dietary supplement manufacturer Star Scientific and the person who paid for catering at the wedding of the governor’s daughter. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because of an ongoing federal investigation into the relationship between Williams and the McDonnell family. and later on in the same article They are also investigating other money provided to Maureen McDonnell, as well as expensive designer clothing — some bought in 2011 in New York City — according to people familiar with the inquiry. The shopping trip emanated from a social occasion with Williams and Maureen McDonnell shortly after the governor won election. The governor’s wife mentioned that she would need an inauguration dress, preferably one from the designer Oscar de la Renta, and would like Williams’s help getting one, according to two people familiar with her suggestion. Williams agreed to buy one for her, but a top staffer to the governor advised Williams and the first lady that such a gift was not allowed. A year later, the first lady contacted Williams to propose that he take her shopping at Bergdorf Goodman, the people familiar with the shopping said. In that store, Williams purchased an estimated $15,000 in clothing for Maureen McDonnell, they said.

National Insecurity Agency

Jason Kottke, at Kottke.org has an excellent post that will catch you up on this important story:

By now, you've likely heard of Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked secret documents to the press regarding that agency's electronic surveillance activities. From Glenn Greenwald's excellent coverage for The Guardian, here are a few of the most interesting passages from interviews with Snowden.

Eric Cantor Will Propose Federal Law That Ends Overtime Pay For Hourly Workers

Someone who goes by the username TeamSarah4Choice, at Daily Kos writes:

In Eric Cantor's February 2013 speech, he said he wanted to propose Federal Law that would end overtime pay for hourly workers. Currently, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA), signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, mandates that certain workers get paid "time + 1/2" for overtime work. Eric Cantor wants to eliminate that law. Because -- ya know -- workers not getting paid for overtime hours worked out so good for workers before FDR enacted that Law. Eric Cantor is a real piece of work.

Why A One-Room West Virginia Library Runs a $20,000 Cisco Router

Nate Anderson, at Ars Technica writes:

In total, $24 million was spent on the routers through a not-very-open bidding process under which non-Cisco router manufacturers such as Juniper and Alcatel-Lucent were not "given notice or any opportunity to bid." As for Cisco, which helped put the massive package together, the legislative auditor concluded that the company "had a moral responsibility to propose a plan which reasonably complied with Cisco's own engineering standards" but that instead "Cisco representatives showed a wanton indifference to the interests of the public in recommending using $24 million of public funds to purchase 1,164 Cisco model 3945 branch routers." After having dealt with Cisco personally at my current job, this doesn't surprise me.

Oink’s Data Privacy Breach: Download the Data of Any User with Their Own Export Tool

Cristina Cordova, at her blog::

When Oink shut down yesterday, I used their export tool so that I could do something useful with the information I gave them. In requesting my data, which I did simply by filling out a form with only my username, I received the email below. In looking at the link, it seemed that my publicly available username (cristina) called for the download. The screenshot shows a simple link ending in "cristina-export.zip". So, curiously, I tried replacing my username with Kevin Rose’s: http://oink-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/kevinrose-export.zip (go ahead, click it). You’ll get a zip file of every item he has ever added, rated or reviewed. You’ll also get every photo he has ever uploaded to Oink. I began thinking about what access I gave to Oink – did I somehow allow them to make all of my data publicly available without my consent? Well, I tried exploring their privacy page, but it seems to conveniently redirect to their data export page. I hope in the Milk team’s next steps at Google, they place a higher value on user data and privacy. Next steps at Google placing higher value on data and privacy? HA!

A Patent Lie: How Yahoo Weaponized My Work

Andy Baio, writing for Wired:

Yahoo's lawsuit against Facebook is an insult to the talented engineers who filed patents with the understanding they wouldn't be used for evil. Betraying that trust won't be forgotten, but I doubt it matters anymore. Nobody I know wants to work for a company like that. I'm embarrassed by the patents I filed, but I've learned from my mistake. I'll never file a software patent again, and I urge you to do the same. For years, Yahoo was mostly harmless. Management foibles and executive shuffles only hurt shareholders and employee morale. But in the last few years, the company's incompetence has begun to hurt the rest of us. First, with the wholesale destruction of internet history, and now by attacking younger, smarter companies. Yahoo tried and failed, over and over again, to build a social network that people would love and use. Unable to innovate, Yahoo is falling back to the last resort of a desperate, dying company: litigation as a business model. Yahoo is now a patent troll. This fact makes my worry about the future of Flickr grow greater still.

DOJ asks Court to keep secret any partnership between Google and NSA, not that one exists, definitely not

Mike Scarcella in The Legal Times writes about The Justice Department defending the government's refusal to discuss, or acknowledge the existence of, "any cooperative research and development agreement between Google and the National Security Agency."

The Washington based advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center sued in federal district court here to obtain documents about any such agreement between the Internet search giant and the security agency. The NSA responded to the suit with a so-called “Glomar” response in which the agency said it could neither confirm nor deny whether any responsive records exist. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington sided with the government last July. via Boing Boing. I think Google has changed their motto. They've removed the "don't" from the rest of the "be evil" phrase.