In the last few years, communities like Haverhill, New Bedford and tiny Rehoboth have acquired mine-resistant military assault vehicles for just the cost of shipping from the federal government; police in Palmer, MA have acquired a camera … [Read more...]
How Much Does The Press Care About Race and Policing?
On October 7, the Joint Committee on the Judiciary of the Massachusetts legislature held a marathon hearing on "Protected Classes. Privacy, and Data Collection Legislation". To be fair, Boston.com and the Boston Herald both reproduced … [Read more...]
TONIGHT: 7pm vigil to sunset the PATRIOT Act
We're in the thick of the fight to sunset Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, which has been used (illegally) to authorize mass metadata surveillance on all of us. We're holding a vigil tonight at Sen. Warren's office (the JFK Building, 15 New … [Read more...]
It’s Time To Push Hard On Surveillance Reform
The part of the PATRIOT Act that has been used to legitimate the mass collection of all of our phone call information, and much else besides, is a wicked awful provision known as "Section 215." Section 215 allows the FBI - and, it appears, … [Read more...]
MA Taskforce Report Tells Schoolkids: Inform, Conform, and Trust the Police
Cross-posted at Digital Fourth Following on from the Sandy Hook school shooting, the "Massachusetts Task Force on School Safety and Security" released a report in July. As you'd expect from a report written with plenty of police … [Read more...]
New disclosures on spy centers lead to protests in Boston, nationwide today
Looks like the surveillance state has put its foot in it again. The New York Times has revealed that since "early 2012", the National Counterterrorism Center now has access to all data, not minimized for privacy in any way, that was … [Read more...]
MA-05: In their only debate, Clark and Addivinola spar over surveillance
Democratic nominee Katherine Clark and Republican nominee Frank Addivinola spent a substantial portion of their only televised debate sparring over privacy and surveillance. Here's a transcript of the relevant section of the debate … [Read more...]
[Cross-posted at Digital Fourth.] Took me a few days, but I got up the transcript of Clark's and Addivinola's surveillance discussion from Friday night's NECN debate. Read on! Democratic nominee Katherine Clark and Republican nominee … [Read more...]
MA-5: Addivinola and Clark tussle over surveillance, differ only on wiretapping bill *UPDATED*
UPDATE: To reflect substantive changes in information received from the Addivinola campaign, the title of this article and portions of the analysis have been changed to more accurately reflect Councillor Addivinola's positions. The … [Read more...]
Big rally against surveillance in DC this weekend
There will be the biggest ever rally against the NSA down in DC this coming Saturday at 12pm-3pm - over 3,000 4,000 people have already signed up. I'll be heading down there Saturday morning, and it would be great if BMGers would be willing … [Read more...]