NSA headquarters US officials on Friday slammed plans to construct an EU-centric communication system, designed to prevent emails and phone calls from being swept up by the NSA, warning that such a move is a violation of trade laws. Calling Europe’s proposal to build its own integrated communication system “draconian,” the office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said American tech companies,... 

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Turkey has reportedly launched an espionage investigation after a secret state meeting over possible military intervention in neighboring Syria was leaked on YouTube. Turkish media reported on Saturday that police had briefly detained Onder Aytac, a columnist known to be close to the Hizmet movement of the US-based cleric, Fethullah Gulen, on suspicion of... 

US Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said he takes some credit for President Obama’s decision to end the National Security Agency’s metadata collection program. In an interview after Obama announced the change on Tuesday, Paul was asked on “Fox and Friends” if it would make him happy for phone companies, not the government, to retain the metadata. “Well, you know, I don’t want to take... 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei. Beijing has demanded a clear explanation from Washington over reports of espionage by the US National Security Agency (NSA) on Chinese institutions. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, said on Monday that Beijing is gravely concerned about the claims and demands that any such spying be stopped. “China has already lodged many complaints with... 

A new project of an autonomous airship – a hybrid between a drone and a satellite – has been developed in France. The ‘StratoBus’ dirigible drone will be able to carry out long endurance observation operating at an altitude of about 20 kilometers. The new breed of autonomous zeppelin has a mission of “observation, security, telecommunications, broadcasting, and navigation,” developers... 

John McAfee speaks with David Knight regarding a new development to combat government snooping. The first of his projects is about to come together in a new product that launches on March 1st. The product is called Cognizant, a free to download app for Android mobile phones and tablets. It protects those devices by empowering the user to be fully aware of all the permissions that applications have... 

Yet more previously secret surveillance operations waged by the United States National Security Agency were made public Wednesday morning thanks to leaked documents supplied by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The files — published first by The Intercept this week and dissected over the course of a 3,000-word article attributed to journalists Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher — bring to... 

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has said that it will deploy Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) reconnaissance planes in Poland and Romania to monitor the spiraling crisis in Ukraine. A NATO spokesman said the alliance gave the go-ahead on Monday for the reconnaissance flights following a recommendation from US Air Force General Philip Breedlove, who is NATO’s Supreme... 

National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden answered questions before the European Parliament on Friday, saying that the United States spy agency pressures its allies to take steps towards further enabling widespread and indiscriminate surveillance. “One of the foremost activities of the NSA’s FAD, or Foreign Affairs Division, is to pressure or incentivize EU member states to change their... 

The Central Intelligence Agency’s inspector general has asked the US Justice Department to investigate allegations that the spy agency spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee. The allegations are directly related to a closed-door battle between the CIA and its congressional overseers over a 6,300-page report which details torture techniques, including water-boarding, wall-slamming and shackling,... 

British and American surveillance agencies teamed up to develop a system that collected millions of images from the webcams of unsuspecting and innocent internet users, new leaked documents reveal. This “Optic Nerve” program — administered by the UK’s GCHQ with the assistance of the National Security Agency — routinely intercepted and stored those webcam images in secret starting in... 

Secret units within the ‘Five Eyes” global spying network engage in covert online operations that aim to invade, deceive, and control online communities and individuals through the spread of false information and use of ingenious social-science tactics. Such teams of highly trained professionals have several main objectives, such as “to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet”... 

The European Commission has said it is determined to “redraw the global map of internet governance” as massive US surveillance has damaged public trust in the web, and said it is ready to negotiate with Washington for control of web architecture. The commission, the EU’s top executive body, on Wednesday proposed a key reform to the way the internet is managed and run, saying that Europe will... 

Properly mobilized people can become a massive online force capable of blocking ‘dangerous bills’ and changing government policies, Josh Levy of the Free Press told RT. The participants of The Day We Fight Back campaign say their call to action is simple. RT: What are the protesters trying to achieve? How exactly are they supposed to ‘fight back’? Josh Levy: This day of action [Wednesday,... 

More than 6,000 websites, including Reddit, Tumblr, Mozilla, are taking part in an online protest against government surveillance. The action marks two years since website blackouts against SOPA and PIPA and commemorates Aaron Swartz’s death. The February 11 online protest, going by the title ‘The Day We Fight Back’, is supposed to see around 6, 200 websites each host a large banner at the top...