United States
The United States was where the Internet started but it was also where electronic surveillance of it began. The 11 September attacks have only strengthened the government’s determination to monitor the flow of information on the Internet. A new step was taken on 20 November 2002 with Senate approval of the Homeland Security Act, which set up a super-ministry with the job of preventing terrorist attacks. It will eventually have a staff of 170,000 drawn from 22 government departments and bodies. Section 225 of the law allows ISPs to disclose the content of their customers’ messages at the request of federal or local officials if, “in good faith” they think this will prevent death or serious injury. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says this means ISPs will be doing the work of a court. It deplores the fact that disclosure will be on the basis of “good faith” rather than “reasonable belief” as before and says the threats cited can be very general. Section 225 also allows police to record without permission any message sent or received by a “protected computer” (one used in interstate commerce or communications) which is under attack. It also increases to 20 years the penalty for computer crimes that cause serious injury and life imprisonment if they result in death.Encryption in the dockMany US officials have also criticised encryption, which allows Internet users to keep their messages and activity confidential by encoding it with software. Encryption, mainly used by companies to exchange sensitive economic data, has never been banned in the United States. But its export is restricted under the Wassenaar Arrangement, which required inspection of material that could be used for both civil and military purposes. The 11 September attacks have revived the debate between supporters and opponents of encryption.The director of the FBI said in March 2001 that terrorists were using encryption. On 13 September that year, Republican Sen. Judd Gregg proposed a blanket ban on encryption software whose makers had not handed over the decoding key to the government.The authorities noted that plans to hijack 11 US airliners had been found on the laptop computer of the man behind the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 and that the FBI had needed 10 months to decode the files, most of which were encrypted with the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) software. PGP’s inventor, David Zimmerman, who nearly went to jail in the 1980s for widely distributing his programme, recently defended it in an interview in Futur(e)s magazine. He said the US Congress, courts and media had discussed the issue for the past decade and concluded society had more to gain than lose from powerful encryption. PGP was saving lives all over the world, he said, and was used by human rights organisations everywhere, especially in countries ruled by dictatorships.Encryption software has under attack from the FBI’s Magic Lantern programme, an e-mail that can secretly record the keystrokes of an Internet user, so the FBI can see the passwords and codes employed by encryption users. After press reports about it, the FBI denied having such a programme but admitted it was working on one.Against censorship, but in favour of monitoringAs well as seeking to monitor the flow of online information to check what is being said and exchanged, the authorities are also trying to use the Internet to put out US propaganda in their war against terrorism. The New York Times reported on 19 February this year that the Defense Department’s Office of Strategic Influence (OSI) had proposed planting disinformation in the foreign media, mainly through websites set up and secretly run by the OSI and through e-mails sent to journalists or media offices. The revelation caused an outcry and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer quickly said President Bush knew nothing about the project and had ordered the OSI closed down because, said defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Pentagon “does not lie to the American people” or to “foreign audiences.”The Bush administration could also use the Internet to break the information monopoly under some dictatorships. Two members of the US House of Representatives proposed a law on 2 October 2002 to fight censorship worldwide. The Global Internet Freedom Act would set up a federal Office of Global Internet Freedom to counter jamming and censorship of the Internet by authoritarian regimes and persecution of those who use it. The office would be part of the International Broadcasting Bureau, which runs several radio stations that already combat censorship, such as Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia. It would have a $50 million budget for 2003 and 2004.But what is censorship? The Global Internet Freedom Act would have the US take no steps against government censorship aimed at protecting minors. A legal battle pitting several civil liberties groups and public libraries against the Bush administration over the Children’s Internet Protection Act is growing. The US supreme court said on 12 November 2002 it would rule on the Act, passed in 2000 and obliging all libraries receiving federal funds for Internet facilities to install anti-pornography filters on their computers.The Act’s opponents say it violates the first amendment to the US constitution concerning freedom of expression and also blocks access to other websites as well as pornographic ones. In May 2002, a federal court in Philadelphia said forcing public libraries to install filters was indeed censoring freedom of expression protected by the constitution. The federal government has appealed to the supreme court, saying the filter software was the best available to prevent taxpayers’ having to subsidise the spread of obscene websites and material unsuitable for children. Ten per cent of the 143 million Internet users in the US go online at public libraries, 80 per cent of which have received federal funds to set up Internet facilities.An Orwellian future?In early November 2002, the US media reported that the Pentagon had set up an Information Awareness Office to develop technology to trawl Internet navigation records to spot activity such as credit card purchases and airline reservations that might indicate a potential terrorist. The head of this $200 million a year project, John Poindexter, says software will pick out travel in dangerous parts of the world, suspicious e-mail and dubious money transfers. The data will be regularly gathered by intelligence services with the permission of governments and companies.Opponents of the project call it “Orwellian” and several civil liberties organisations say personal information unrelated to terrorism and which is none of the government’s business would also be obtained. Marc Rotenberg, head of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), says the authorities would have data in their hands hitherto only obtainable by court order as part of criminal investigations. He deplores the lack of a body to monitor the collection of such information.Poindexter was sentenced to six months in prison in 1990 for lying to the US Congress in the Iran-Contras scandal but the conviction was quashed on grounds that his legal rights were not respected. News About Carnivorefbi.govepic.orgwired.comNews for specialists Receive email alerts RSF_en United StatesAmericas April 28, 2021 Find out more News United StatesAmericas to go further June 3, 2021 Find out more WhatsApp blocks accounts of at least seven Gaza Strip journalists
News Help by sharing this information Follow the news on United States Facebook’s Oversight Board is just a stopgap, regulation urgently needed, RSF says More than half of all Americans are online and most have high-speed connections. The Internet is a vital means of communication in the United States. However, the 11 September 2001 attacks and the terrorists’ presumed use of it to contact each other in preparing that operation abruptly changed the government’s attitude to the Internet.Just a few hours after the attacks, FBI agents went to the head offices of the country’s main ISPs, including Hotmail, AOL and Earthlink, to get details of possible e-mail messages between the terrorists. The online magazine Wired said FBI agents also tried to install the Carnivore surveillance system (since renamed DCS 1000) on the ISPs. It said they turned up at ISP offices with the software and offered to pay for installation and operation. They reportedly demanded and obtained material from certain e-mail accounts, most of whose names included the word “Allah.” All major US-based ISPs are thought to have complied fully with the FBI demands.Easing the rulesCarnivore, designed by the FBI, can record and store all messages sent or received by an ISP’s customers, using word filters that make no distinction between different kinds of messages, thus exceeding the bounds of normal surveillance. US civil liberties campaigners fought Carnivore, which had never been used before without a court order. However, the Combating Terrorism Act, passed urgently by the Senate on 13 September, after 30 minutes of debate just two days after the attacks, allowed intelligence services to use it without having to seek such approval. A prosecutor can now order electronic surveillance of someone for 48 hours without getting a judge’s permission.Monitoring Internet data was legalised on 24 October 2001 when the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the “USA Patriot Act” (Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism). It confirmed the authority already given to the FBI to install Carnivore on an ISP’s equipment to monitor e-mail messages and store records of Internet activity by people suspected of being in contact with a foreign power. This requires only the permission of a special secret court. The Act also expands the kind of information a prosecutor can ask for from an ISP without a judge’s permission and invites ISPs to freely hand over to the authorities data unrelated to content, such as records of websites visited. June 18, 2003 – Updated on January 20, 2016 United States News June 7, 2021 Find out more Links:American Civil Liberties UnionThe Center for Democracy and TechnologyThe Digital Freedom NetworkThe Electronic Frontier FoundationThe Electronic Privacy Information CenterPeacefireThe Reporters Committee for Freedom of the PressBasic documents :USA Patriot ActHomeland Security ActGlobal Internet Freedom ActInformation Awareness OfficeChildren’s Internet Protection Act NSO Group hasn’t kept its promises on human rights, RSF and other NGOs say Organisation 
The Week Ahead: Nearing the Forbearance Exit 2 days ago Demand Propels Home Prices Upward 2 days ago Sign up for DS News Daily Print This Post Demand Propels Home Prices Upward 2 days ago The Urban Institute recently examined data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure act to discover if minority applicants were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than other races. In total, the group found that at least 16 percent of applicants were denied GSE loans, according to data from the HMDA. However, when the Urban Institute compared HMDA data to CoreLogic data, they found denial rates for low credit profile applicants was at least 54 percent for all races.Regardless of race, weaker credit profile applicants were denied at a significantly higher rate than other applicants. The Urban Institute found that of low credit profile applicants, at least 75 percent of African American applicants were denied GSE loans, 67 percent of Hispanic, 50 percent of white and 55 percent of Asian. Compare to 2001, at least 37 percent of African Americans were denied GSE loans, as were 25 percent of Hispanics, 15 percent of whites and 11 percent of Asians. The group believes the GSEs are underserving applicants with weaker credit profilesMortgage credit access opened up slightly in May, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Mortgage Credit Availability Index. The MCAI increased 1.14 percent from April to May, reading 115.1 in the latest measure. The index was benchmarked at 100 in March 2012, and would have read roughly 800 if the tracking measure had existed in 2007. May’s gains came partially from a slight increase in the availability of jumbo loans and lower credit score requirements on FHA loans. Is Rise in Forbearance Volume Cause for Concern? 2 days ago Servicers Navigate the Post-Pandemic World 2 days ago Share Save Related Articles The Best Markets For Residential Property Investors 2 days ago 
For the fourth consecutive year, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension and the Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens at the Historic Bamboo Farm (CGBG) are hosting December Nights and Holiday Lights, a traditional, family event filled with displays, music and more than 500,000 holiday lights. The seasonal event will be Nov. 27 through Dec. 24, from 6-9 p.m. each Wednesday through Sunday night. Cost of admission is $8 for adults, $5 for children 10 years and under, and free for children under 2 years. “Events like Holiday Lights are great ways for families to spend time together learning and enjoying the outdoors,” said Elizabeth Lubrani, outreach coordinator for the gardens and Chatham County Extension agent. This year, the CGBG has expanded the event to add two more acres of lights and lighted displays, and there will be local choirs and musical groups performing live in the new Andrews Visitor and Education Center, Lubrani said. The gardens will also feature a model holiday train display from the Coastal Rail Buffs. Favorite activities, such as story time with Mrs. Claus, are back by popular demand this year, said Lubrani, along with Saturday night pictures with Santa. In “Mrs. Claus’ Kitchen,” students from the local 4-H and nonprofit groups will sell and serve holiday treats and hot drinks to raise funds for their organizations. “These events and events like it really bring the community out to the gardens and get them excited,” Lubrani said. “I would like all visitors to leave feeling impressed with what University of Georgia Extension has to offer, and I would like for local visitors to leave feeling proud that Savannah has such an impressive and well-supported botanical garden.” Located 10 miles southwest of historic Savannah, Georgia, the CGBG is a UGA Extension facility that showcases 51 acres of plants, gardens, lakes and historical buildings for residents and visitors. To learn more about the CGBG, visit coastalgeorgiabg.org or call 912-921-5460.
Related Articles Superbet doubles down on Lucky7’s challenger investment July 27, 2020 Romania’s ONJN adds 20 sites to blacklist August 14, 2020 Submit Share EveryMatrix promotes Samoil Dolejan to lead next phase of MoneyMatrix growth May 21, 2020 Mitsuya Fujimoto,Industry high-definition games developer Ganapati Malta has announced that it has set-up a tech-hub office in Bucharest Romania under its development arm Ganalogics SRL, which was registered as a business earlier this year.The Bucharest hub will support the ongoing development projects of the firm’s lead tech office in Tallin Estonia, which Ganapati management has has doubled in size in the past year.The games’ developer undertakes its investment in the Bucharest tech scene, as the company looks to drive up demand for its unique ‘Japanese-styled’ games in the coming months.Mitsuya Fujimoto, CEO of Ganapati Malta and COO of Ganapati Plc holding company, commented on the update: “We are delighted and excited to welcome our new teams in Europe as part of our global network. This move to Bucharest and expansion of the Tallinn studio were part of our immediate plan to strengthen our own branded game productions in Europe which would enable us to provide a wider range of content to our customers.”Further to its announcement, Ganapati management has confirmed that its Ganalogics SRL division will be led by Richard Hogg as Director.“We are delighted to be in Bucharest, having identified it as a tech hub of the future,” said Hogg. “The talent we have been able to attract thus far will enable us to create even more great games for Ganapati Malta. Estonia continues to grow and having this additional resource in Romania will ensure our games are delivered in a timely fashion to our clients.” Share StumbleUpon