Thursday, January 02, 2025

Review of DOJ Process to Obtain Records of Members of Congress, Media

'A Jewish Kind of Feeling of the World'

Isaac Bashevis Singer, speaking with an interviewer in 1983:

“I really don’t believe that a writer can have a programme. Many have; they say, ‘I’m writing about alienation’, or whatever they call it. I don’t have this programme. I have a story to tell and I sit down to tell the story, believing that if the story will be told in the right way, some truth or even generalisation may come out of it. In other words, I’m not one of those modern writers who are trying to write, with the power of literature, a better world. Not that I wouldn’t like to do it, but I don’t think it is in the power of literature.”


Elon Musk changes his name to Kekius Maximus on X



Review of DOJ Process to Obtain Records of Members of Congress, Media

DOJ Oversight and Review Division 25-01.Redacted For Public Release. A Review of the Department of Justice’s Issuance of Compulsory Process to Obtain Records of Members of Congress, Congressional Staffers, and Members of the News Media: “In the spring and summer of 2017, CNN.com (CNN), The New York Times, and The Washington Post published articles containing classified information, some of which was classified as Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information. In May and June 2021, multiple news media outlets reported that, in 2020, the Department of Justice (Department or DOJ) issued compulsory process to obtain non-content communications records of reporters at CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post in an attempt to identify the sources of the leaked classified information. The reported revelations sparked widespread concern, including from the news media, that the  Department’s use of compulsory process was an encroachment on the news media’s ability to report  on government activities. Concerns also were raised about the Department’s use of non-disclosure orders (NDO)—sought by the Department and issued by federal courts—that prevented the reporters and newsroom leadership from learning about the use of compulsory process to seek reporters’ non-   content email records. 

Such NDOs could prevent reporters and news media companies from having an opportunity to challenge the compulsory process in court. Concerns also were expressed that the NDOs impeded the news media’s ability to report on the orders, thereby hindering public scrutiny of the government’s activities…”



: “EFF - The Breachies 2024: The Worst, Weirdest, Most Impactful Data Breaches of the Year 

Every year, countless emails hit our inboxes telling us that our personal information was accessed, shared, or stolen in a data breach. In many cases, there is little we can do. Most of us can assume that at least our phone numbers, emails, addresses, credit card numbers, and social security numbers are all available somewhere on the internet. But some of these data breaches are more noteworthy than others, because they include novel information about us, are the result of particularly noteworthy security flaws, or are just so massive they’re impossible to ignore. For that reason, we are introducing the Breachies, a series of tongue-in-cheek “awards” for some of the most egregious data breaches of the year. If these companies practiced a privacy first approach and focused on data minimization, only collecting and storing what they absolutely need to provide the services they promise, many data breaches would be far less harmful to the victims. But instead, companies gobble up as much as they can, store it for as long as possible, and inevitably at some point someone decides to poke in and steal that data. Once all that personal data is stolen, it can be used against the breach victims for identity theft,ransomware attacks, and to send unwantedspam. The risk of these attacks isn’t just a minor annoyance: research shows it can causepsychological injury, including anxiety, depression, and PTSD. To avoid these attacks, breach victims must spend time and money tofreeze and unfreeze their credit reports, tomonitor their credit reports, and to obtain identity theft prevention services.   This year we’ve got some real stinkers, ranging from private health information to—you guessed it—credit cards and social security numbers. The Winners:

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