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Facebook faces class action law suit for violating privacy by amassing users facial recognition data.

Facebook faces class action law suit for violating privacy by amassing users facial recognition data. (TW).

Facebook faces class action law suit for violating the privacy of its users by collecting their facial data and storing it.

Facebook is being accused of violating the privacy of its users by collecting their facial data, according to a class-action lawsuit filed last week. Facebook has been allegedly collecting facial recognition data from millions of FB users and creating “the largest privately held stash of biometric face-recognition data in the world,” according to Courthouse News Service.

The class action lawsuit filed by Carlo Licata and associates alleges that this facial recognition program violates the privacy of its users. The plaintiffs have cited an Illinois law called the Illinois Biometrics Information Privacy Acts, which requires companies to get written content from a user if it is collecting biometric data. Further, according to the Illinois law, such company must state the purpose and length of its data collection program.

The plaintiffs claims that Facebook’s biometric program shows “brazen disregard for its users’ privacy writes.” They have also argued that even by changing user settings, the FB users can't escape the facial recognition collection program, reports the Chicago Tribune. Hmmmm......Reason xxxx why i don't go to facebook......Read the full story here.

"We are far closer to the tyrannical model than we are the free model" Greenwald.

"We are far closer to the tyrannical model than we are the free model" Greenwald. (sltrib).

The 48-year-old, who worked to publish the documents leaked by former government contractor Edward Snowden, spoke for about 40 minutes and took questions for 20 minutes more about privacy and Snowden.

Greenwald said the most shocking thing he's found in the tens of thousands of NSA documents published so far has been the NSA's motto: Collect it all.

"It's not, like, 'Collect a lot of it,' or even, like, 'Collect all the terrorist communications,' " Greenwald said. "It's like saying the goal of the NSA is to eliminate all private communications."

He contended this impedes Americans' freedom: If people are being monitored, they aren't as creative and don't think as freely.

Also, the decisions to collect the data and store it was done with no public discussion. Greenwald said that in free societies, government officials have an expectation of transparency and citizens have an expectation of privacy.

Tyrannical societies have an opposite system. "I would submit, and I don't think that it's in dispute, that we are far closer to the tyrannical model than we are the free model," Greenwald said.

Greenwald also discussed the NSA's Utah Data Center, located in Bluffdale. He pointed to NSA documents from 2009 and 2010 saying the agency had a problem storing all the data it was collecting. The Utah Data Center helps solve that problem, Greenwald said.

In a meeting with reporters before his speech, Greenwald said the data center has an "ominous role in the surveillance state."

"The better [the government's] capacity for storage, and the more space they have to do it the longer they can keep the data," Greenwald said. Read the full story here.

Russia has no reasons to detain Snowden - source.

Russia has no reasons to detain Snowden - source.(Rbth).

Russian law enforcers have no reasons so far to detain and subsequently extradite former CIA employee Edward Snowden who disclosed information about the operations of U.S. special services, a well-informed Moscow source told Interfax on Monday.

"Snowden has not committed any crimes in the territory of Russia. Neither have Russian law enforcement bodies received any instructions to detain him along Interpol lines," he said. "Thus, we have no grounds for detaining this transit passenger."

Earlier reports said the open section of Interpol's international search database, posted on the Interpol.int website, has no information about Snowden. However, the U.S. could have entered Snowden on the international wanted list using internal information channels only, without informing the press. In this case, the Russian law enforcement services, being parties with Interpol, would be obliged to detain the ex-spy immediately on arrival.

On Sunday Snowden left Hong Kong on an Aeroflot flight and landed at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. Shortly after it was reported that he had asked Ecuador for political asylum. The Ecuadoran authorities are currently handling the request, Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino Aroca announced. He stressed that the Ecuadoran side will decide on the Snowden case on the basis of principle, not the protection of its own interests on the international arena.

Snowden fled to Hong Kong in May and then he disclosed information about special services' secret surveillance operations on the Internet. Snowden's leak suggests that the U.S. special services have gained access to millions of telephone calls, and to the servers of major Internet companies.

Related: Can granting political refuge to Snowden be Cold War act?

"Feind Hört Mit" - leaking is tantamount to aiding the enemies of the United States.

"Feind Hört Mit" - leaking is tantamount to aiding the enemies of the United States”HT: McClatchy.

Even before a former U.S. intelligence contractor exposed the secret collection of Americans’ phone records, the Obama administration was pressing a government-wide crackdown on security threats that requires federal employees to keep closer tabs on their co-workers and exhorts managers to punish those who fail to report their suspicions.

President Barack Obama’s unprecedented initiative, known as the Insider Threat Program, is sweeping in its reach. It has received scant public attention even though it extends beyond the U.S. national security bureaucracies to most federal departments and agencies nationwide, including the Peace Corps, the Social Security Administration and the Education and Agriculture departments. 

It emphasizes leaks of classified material, but catchall definitions of “insider threat” give agencies latitude to pursue and penalize a range of other conduct.

Government documents reviewed by McClatchy illustrate how some agencies are using that latitude to pursue unauthorized disclosures of any information, not just classified material. 

They also show how millions of federal employees and contractors must watch for “high-risk persons or behaviors” among co-workers and could face penalties, including criminal charges, for failing to report them. Leaks to the media are equated with espionage.

“Hammer this fact home . . . leaking is tantamount to aiding the enemies of the United States,” says a June 1, 2012, Defense Department strategy for the program that was obtained by McClatchy.Read the full story here.

Sen. Rand Paul: NSA Whistleblower Performed ‘Noble Gesture’ in Many Ways.

Sen. Rand Paul: NSA Whistleblower Performed ‘Noble Gesture’ in Many Ways.(NM).Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said in many ways NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden performed a “noble gesture,” but he reserves judgment as to whether the 29-year-old should be tracked down and brought to justice or honored for his act of civil disobedience.

“I think what’s most important is that what he’s talking about, which is the Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment, the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure,” Paul asserted on Fox’s “O’Reilly Factor.” “That does rise to a very high level for me.”

Paul continued to take aim at the NSA’s eavesdropping programs, having earlier written in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that they are a manifestation of a virtual police state and accusing the agency of an “extraordinary invasion of privacy” by sifting through more than one billion phone calls placed on Verizon lines each day.

“He’s practicing civil disobedience. But many times in our history we’ve honored people who have done that,” said Paul of the whistleblower, who is believed to be in Hong Kong. “I’m reserving judgment on that.”

Paul said that he doesn’t believe the type of information Snowden leaked rises to the level of classified information that “might get people killed in the field,” which would be of greater concern.

“I think he released information to say, ‘look the Bill of Rights is being ignored’ and I think that in many ways it’s a noble gesture because he’s having to give up a great deal,” said Paul “He will be on the run.”

Paul added that the Obama administration is “horrified” that the American public learned of the NSA programs, which he said may be broader than initially thought.

“I think every phone call and every cell phone in America is getting the same order,” Rand told host Bill O’Reilly. “You think they just picked Verizon?”Read the full story here.