https://www.theguardian.com/
Microsoft sued the US government on Thursday for the right to tell customers when authorities search their email inboxes.
In a federal complaint that names the US attorney general, Loretta Lynch, the company argues the government has taken advantage of the consumer trend for storing their private data on tech companies’ servers, rather than storing it on their own devices. This shouldn’t let the government search the digital equivalent of a person’s desk without telling them, Microsoft argues.
The government counters that doing so may tip off suspects of a criminal investigation.
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In this case, Microsoft wants a judge to rule a statute unconstitutional that allows the government to request indefinite gag orders on warrants for suspects’ emails. With traditional searches or wiretaps, the government is often required to notify people they have been searched after some period of time.
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“We view this case as similar to the other three that we have filed,” Smith wrote in a blog post. “It involves the fundamental right of people and businesses to know when the government is accessing their content and our right to share this information with them.”
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World's largest medical imaging study will scan 100,000 Britons
https://www.theguardian.com/
The bodies and brains of 100,000 Britons will be scanned, measured, shared and compared, in the world’s largest medical imaging study to shed light on the onset and progression of major diseases.
The project, which launches on Thursday, will create an unprecedented library of images that capture details of volunteers’ bones, brains, arteries and hearts, alongside the distribution of fat around their midriffs.
Combined with other information already held on the participants, the stack of images – equivalent to 500 ebooks-worth of data per person – will help doctors understand how the environment, genetics, lifestyle and diet affect human health and, eventually, death.
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Researchers will scan volunteers from the 500,000 middle aged people already taking part in UK BioBank, a massive project set up in 2006 to gather medical and lifestyle data on the UK population, in sickness and in health. Participants have donated blood and tissues, had their DNA read, their lifestyles analysed, and cognitive abilities scored with online tests. Compiling the data should help scientists develop new tests for diseases in their earliest stages, and highlight factors that either protect or predispose to illness.
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Secrecy News
Next U.S. National Military Strategy to be Classified
Posted on Apr.13, 2016 in classification, Military Doctrine, special operations by Steven Aftergood
https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/
In a number of national security policy areas, there is a long-term trend in favor of greater transparency and disclosure. For example, the U.S. Army openly published a manual last week on Techniques for Information Collection During Operations Among Populations (ATP 3-55.4). It supersedes and replaces a previous publication from 2007 (FM 2-91.6) that was for restricted distribution and was marked For Official Use Only.
But in some other areas, the arrow of transparency is pointed backwards and previously unclassified categories of records are becoming newly restricted or classified.
That appears to be the case with The National Military Strategy of the United States of America. It was publicly released as an unclassified document in 2015, but the forthcoming edition that is to be completed by the end of next year will be classified.
“The [next] national military strategy will be a classified document,” said Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a March 29 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He acknowledged that up to now the National Military Strategy was “an unclassified document that has historically, you know, been written for the public.” But the next Strategy will not be made public, although “we will certainly articulate to the public the guts of a national military strategy,” he said.
He did not elaborate on the rationale for classification of the hitherto unclassified document, except to say that “in my mind, what the national military strategy ought to do is drive the development of our operation[al] plans. And more importantly, drive the development of viable options that we would need in a crisis [or] contingency.” His speech was reported in Defense News (April 5) and the US Naval Institute News (March 29).
The Congressional Research Service said “it can be assumed” that Special Operations Forces “will figure prominently in DOD’s new classified military strategy document.” But CRS warned that “a high or increased level of U.S. SOF involvement in the nation’s new classified military strategy could come with a price…. there could be a tendency to assign them an inordinate amount of responsibility under this new strategic construct.” See U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues for Congress, updated April 8, 2016.
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Journalist gets two-year sentence for helping Anonymous hack LA Times
https://www.theguardian.com/
Matthew Keys, a journalist found guilty of conspiring with hacking group Anonymous to break into the Los Angeles Times website, was sentenced to two years in prison on Wednesday in a case that has sparked national debate about how the US prosecutes hacking offenses.
Keys, who was found guilty of three criminal counts in October, was convicted of giving Anonymous login credentials to the computer system of the Tribune Company, which owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun and other media companies.
Prosecutors alleged that a hacker used information Keys provided to change the headline of a 2010 Times story. KTXL-TV, a Tribune-owned Fox affiliate in Sacramento, had previously fired Keys, and the US attorney’s office asserted that the incident was payback by a disgruntled former employee.
