Lawmakers

The U.S. Government Votes to Extend Controversial Spying Law Despite Criticism of Increased Surveillance Powers

Fisa Government Senate Reauthorization
Lawmakers passed legislation early Saturday reauthorizing and expanding a controversial U.S. surveillance law shortly after the powers expired at midnight, rejecting opposition by privacy advocates and lawmakers. Critics, including lawmakers who voted against the reauthorization, say FISA also sweeps up the communications of Americans while spying on its foreign targets. Following the passage in the early hours of today, Senator Mark Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that FISA was “indispensable” to the U.S. intelligence community. FISA requires the government to seek an annual certification from the secretive FISA Court, which oversees and approves the government’s surveillance programs. The FISA Court last certified the government’s surveillance program under Section 702 in early April, allowing the government to use its lapsed authority until at least April 2025.

UK Accuses China of Major Voter Data Breach

Uk Polling Booth Elections Cyberattack
The U.K. government has blamed China for a 2021 cyberattack that compromised the personal information of millions of U.K. voters. The data breach began as early as 2021 but wasn’t detected until a year later. Dowden said that a separate attempted cyberattack by a China-backed hacking group targeted the email accounts of U.K. lawmakers in 2021, but that parliamentary authorities mitigated the attempted breaches before any email accounts were compromised. The Norwegian government previously attributed a 2018 data breach on its systems to APT31. In 2020, Google security researchers linked APT31 to the targeting of email accounts belonging to the Trump and Biden presidential campaigns.

Pressure Mounts for EU Legislators to Fully Disclose Ties with Child Safety Technology Company, Thorn

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Last year the Commission released some documents relating to its exchanges with the company in question but denied access to others. But EU legislation is a three way affair — requiring buy in from the Commission and Council, too. Here’s the statement, attributed to European Commission spokesperson for Home Affairs, Anitta Hipper:The Commission will provide access to documents as appropriate and within our legal framework. Specifically, as regards the Ombudsman recommendation, the Commission will carefully consider the recommendation of the Ombudsman. We reached out to Thorn but it did not respond to a request for comment about the ombudsman’s inquiry.

Massachusetts Legislators Consider Legislation Regarding ‘Lethal Automatons’

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More recently, the potential use of weaponized robots by law enforcement has been a political lightning rod in places like Oakland and San Francisco. Earlier this week, I spoke about the bill with Massachusetts state representative Lindsay Sabadosa, who filed it alongside Massachusetts state senator Michael Moore. Does the bill apply to law enforcement as well? And what we’ve heard from law enforcement repeatedly is that they’re often used to deescalate situations. We haven’t had law enforcement weaponize robots, and no one has said, “We’d like to attach a gun to a robot” from law enforcement in Massachusetts.

Congress demands DOJ probe Apple’s obstruction of Beeper iMessage app

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Apple’s move to cut off Beeper, the app that brought iMessage to Android users, already caught the attention of U.S. Of Commerce had earlier this year described Apple as a “gatekeeper” with a “monopoly position” in its mobile app ecosystem. Earlier this month, Beeper debuted an app called Beeper Mini, which leveraged new technology to bring support for blue bubble iMessage chats to Android users. Though the company was able to get a fix rolled out, Apple once again targeted Beeper’s users, deliberately blocking messages for about 5% of users, the company said. Lots more to come this week,” said Migicovsky, in a post on X about the letter, reported first by CBS Mornings in a segment about the Beeper app.

EU Lawmakers Reach Agreement to Enhance Protections for Gig Workers

Uber Company
Some two years of talking about gig worker rights later and European Union lawmakers have finally reached a deal on the final shape of the Platform Worker Directive. The development could deliver a significant boost for millions of gig workers laboring on digital platforms without being afforded workers rights. There were also divisions between Member States over how much worker protection vs platform shielding they were prepared to commit to. Rappoteur and MEP Elisabetta Gualmini trumpeted the deal as “historic”, claiming the directive would advance workers rights for millions of gig workers across Europe. And I am really incredibly happy that we are now managing to provide protection [for gig workers].