Government

The " Blame Canada " cliche is back in force amidst reports that the Canadian government has shut down 4,500 websites -- two of which are owned and operated by global warming activists who have routinely criticized the Harper Conservatives for not ... doing enough to help shape an effective international environmental policy. The two websites in question are both Canadian and include enviro-canada.ca and eg-gc.ca. In recent weeks these sites engaged in lively campaigns to highlight the disappointing results at Copenhagen and to specifically blame Canada for its role in the debacle. Part of that ... (view more)

Australia's federal government has announced that it is proceeding with controversial plans to censor the Internet after government-commissioned trials found that using a blacklist of banned sites was accurate and would not slow down web use. ... Critics, including Google , Electronic Frontiers Australia and Greens communications argue that the censorship policy is fundamentally flawed and the trial results are not surprising. Stephen Conroy, Australia's Communications Minister, will introduce legislation just before next year's elections designed to force ISPs to block a blacklist of refused ... (view more)

According to reports, Britain will spend 200 million British Pound Sterling per year (equivalent to $330M US Dollars, or $627 per minute), in a massive expansion of its surveillance networks. The new funding is intended to give officials access to ... details of every Internet click -- on top of the email and telephone records that are already available -- made by every British citizen. LibDem Home Affairs spokesman Chris Huhne, who describes the amount of money being spent on the increasing surveillance state as 'eye-watering,' claims the increase in money spent on tapping phones and emails is ... (view more)

The U.S. government is considering a plan that would prevent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from banning actions online that 'hog' bandwidth. The government's proposal would change how Internet providers such as AT ... (view more)

It seems "being all that you can be" also means being an online hermit. The United States Marine Corps recently announced that it will be banning social networking for all members of the elite fighting force from this day forward. Included in the ... ban are uber-popular pages Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, which encourage members to publish personal information and photos, while roping friends into joining them online. That's a problem for the Marines, who believe that such activity -- and more specifically the disclosure of personal data -- is a security threat to its members who, by extension ... (view more)

According to a recent report, extremely sensitive government data has appeared on peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks. The information is reported to include the precise locations of American nuclear silos and FBI surveillance photos. News of ... the leak came at the recent House Government Oversight ... (view more)

A massive data mining system aimed at identifying terrorists may have continued to operate under an executive order signed by President Bush in October 2001, despite an order to shut it down by Congress. In 2001 the Defense Department was briefed on ... the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program developed by Admiral John Poindexter. TIA was concocted to created a massive database program that would be accessible to the CIA, the FBI, and numerous other police agencies around the U.S. President Continued Program In the summer of 2002, JetBlue, Inc. turned over the names and addresses of 1.5 ... (view more)

When you can't get any states to participate in your flawed National ID scheme, what do you do? If you're the U.S. government, you change its name and try again. With the death of the REAL ID Act comes a replacement bill that poses many of the same ... threats, including what the Campaign for Liberty refers to as a federal grab for personal information. Now the act has been renamed and referred to as an enhanced or higher security driver's license. In reality, however, the only way to resolve the problem is to repeal it, not rename it. (Source: campaignforliberty.com ) After 9/11, the government ... (view more)

Under the questionable guise of cyber security, the National Security Agency (NSA), in partnership with The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and AT&T, will be monitoring private-sector networks. The surveillance will continue despite the ... government's allegations that the NSA will only be scrutinizing data going to or from government systems. Whenever a person visits a 'dot-gov' (.gov) web site or sends an email to a government employee, their actions will be screened for potential harm to the network. NSA's History of Illegal Surveillance It's unclear exactly who is in charge of the ... (view more)

Just in time for the announcement that the National Security Agency (NSA) will be pervasively monitoring private networks comes news that cyber attacks attributed to North Korea paralyzed major South Korean and U.S. government web sites. Eleven ... South Korean organizations, including the presidential Blue House, the Defense Ministry, the National Assembly, Shinhan Bank, Korea Exchange Bank and top Internet portal Naver, and coincidentally, eleven U.S. sites including the U.S. Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department, went down or experienced ... (view more)