Thaw America

The German Federal Administrative Court has announced a decision curtailing telephone metadata collection after a lawsuit by Reporters Without Borders.

German Court Takes Steps Against Mass Surveillance - Thaw America On Thursday December 14, a German court announced it will instruct the BND not to retain metadata on on international calls. The BND - an equivalent of the USA's NSA - is responsible for collecting foreign intelligence and uses wiretaps and electronic surveillance extensively to do so.

In NYC? Got nothing to do tomorrow morning? We're presenting on our work at Radical Networks. 315 Ten Eyck Street, 10:30AM. All-day tickets are $30.

We filed a motion for reconsideration with FICoR. If accepted, this would allow the court to take a fresh look at the decision. The court was told there is no technology to separate phone numbers from other dialed digits. We showed that there is technology to do so. Since this lack of technology is a linchpin of the court's decision, we have high hopes they will accept our motion.
Also included is a motion to be appointed amicus. If appointed, the court would have significantly greater access to our technical and legal knowledge.

Thaw America Files Motion for Reconsideration Lynnfield, MA - August 9, 2017 - Thaw America has filed a Motion for Reconsideration in FISCR 16-01 with the FISA Court of Review. At issue is whether or not pen registers can be used to capture metadata embedded in the body of a call. In …

The NSA is closing a major violation of Americans' rights. This is progress worth celebrating! However, we can't forget there are a myriad of other problematic programs.

N.S.A. Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets The National Security Agency program was one of the most disputed forms of surveillance.

We're going to be speaking at MA PirateCon on the "State of Surveillance" panel!

We'll be at PirateCon! - Thaw America Thaw America is proud to announce its participation in the Massachusetts Pirate Party's annual conference, PirateCon. The conference will be held April 29th, 2017 at the Community Church of Boston.

It's time! Our first call to action: help clarify who can and how to appeal FISA Court of Review decisions. Right now, it isn't clear if anyone can when law enforcement wins.

Please feel free to get in touch with any questions!

Tell your representatives: FISA reform is needed - Thaw America The Supreme Court clerk's illegal rejection of our appeal makes it clear that the law describing how to appeal decisions from the nation's secret courts needs clarification. We need your help to do this.

The recordings of Michael Flynn are legal. And that is frightening. We talk about why surveillance reform is needed.

Recordings of Michael Flynn are perfectly legal - Thaw America Last night, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn gave his resignation after he was caught lying to the vice-president about the contents of conversations with the Russians. Some have begun to ask how it could possibly be legal for the FBI to have recorded his calls.

Now online: an FAQ about who we are and what we do.

Something we didn't cover? Leave it in the comments and we'll add it.

FAQ A non-partisan group dedicated to changing the law around mass surveillance. We want to maximize First and Fourth Amendment rights while maintaining or improving the institutions that keep us safe.

Excellent news: The house voted to revise the law to that law enforcement needs a warrant, no matter how old the email is. Now we just need the senate to pass it too.

The Fight Over Email Privacy Moves to the Senate The House passed the Email Privacy Act (H.R. 387) yesterday, bringing us one step closer to requiring a warrant before law enforcement can access private communications and documents stored online with companies such as Google, Facebook, and Dropbox. But the fight is just beginning. We’ve long calle...

We've written a short letter to President Trump asking him to look into reducing mass surveillance as part of restoring power to the people.

Dear Mr. Trump - Thaw America Today we watched as the 45th president of the United States was sworn in. We listened as he spoke about how he plans to improve our country. We listened as he spoke about unifying our country and all its peoples. And we listened as he spoke about ousting Washington insiders and restoring power to th...

The Clerk of the Supreme Court illegally rejected our appeal. But we're not giving up. We've asked Justice Stephen Breyer to intercede on our behalf - he could order the clerk to take the appeal.

Supreme Court Clerk Illegally Decides Constitutional Law LYNNFIELD, MA – January 12, 2017 – Walsh & Walsh LLP is requesting Justice Breyer reverse an illegal rejection by the Supreme Court Clerk's Office. In a letter dated December 23, 2016, the Supreme Court Clerk's Office rejected Walsh & Walsh's …

"However, under the rules, if analysts stumble across evidence that an American has committed any crime, they will send it to the Justice Department."

This is abysmally stupid. Information - protected by the 4th amendment, but captured illegally and without a warrant - can now be used to start investigations. All that has to happen is an agent has to promise s/he wasn't looking for information about Americans.

To bring this back to the context of FISCR 16-01: If we assume the government (ie: NSA) is recording every call, this would let the government listen to those calls, as long as an agent is willing to promise they found it by accident.

The protections here are unconstitutionally weak. But challenging the rules is going to be nigh-impossible - if this results in prosecution, law enforcement will use parallel construction or something similarly shady to hide the real source of the investigation. The defendant then would be unable to challenge it.

We cannot allow law enforcement to ignore our rights merely by promising they violated our rights by accident.

N.S.A. Gets More Latitude to Share Intercepted Communications New rules relax longstanding limits on what the National Security Agency may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations.