Since the very first Snowden leak a year ago, one of the more common refrains from defenders of the program is "but it's just metadata, not actual content, so what's the big deal?" Beyond the fact that other programs do collect content, we've pointed out time and time again that the "just metadata, don't worry" argument only makes sense if you don't know what metadata reveals. Anyone with any knowledge of the subject knows that metadata reveals a ton of private info. Furthermore, we've even pointed out that the NSA regularly uses "just metadata" to pick targets for drone assassinations. As one person called it: "death by unreliable metadata."

En lagom luddig lag gör det möjligt för FRA att kartlägga trafikdata om alldeles vanliga svenska medborgares kommunikation. Man bör inte snoka i innehållet i meddelandet. Men det är faktiskt tillåtet. Kallar man det för utvecklingsverksamhet behöver man inte ge någon rapport till någon som helst instans om vad man gör. Och det är klart, man måste ju hela tiden utvecklas.

The NSA doesn't just have the technical capabilities to collect location-based data in bulk. A 24-page NSA white paper shows that the agency has a powerful suite of algorithms, or data sorting tools, that allow it to learn a great deal about how people live their lives.

The thrust of this argument is simple: terrorism is such a minor threat to American life and limb that it's simply bizarre—just stupefyingly irrational and intellectually unserious—to suppose that it could even begin to justify the abolition of privacy rights as they have been traditionally understood in favour of the installation of a panoptic surveillance state. Would Americans give up their second-amendment rights if it were to save 3000 lives? Well, it would, but we won't. Surely the re-abolition of alchohol would save more than 3000 lives, but we're not about to discuss it. Why not? Because liberty is important to us and we won't sell it cheaply. Why should we feel differently about our precious fourth-amendment rights?

At the time, a gag order prevented him from discussing the details of his situation. But court documents unsealed on Wednesday reveal that the FBI wanted Levinson to hand over encryption keys that would have given federal agents "real time" access to not just Snowden's account, but the accounts of all 40,000 of Lavabit's customers. § [...] § He certainly deserves credit for his pluck. Levinson complied with the letter of the order, but he delivered the encryption keys as strings of numbers printed out on paper, rather than as electronic files. What's more, he intentionally printed them in a font designed to be hard to scan, one prosecutors described as "largely illegible."

On Sunday, Brazilian TV show Fantastico published previously undisclosed details based on documents obtained by Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The 13-minute news segment focused on the revelation that, according to the leaked files, the NSA apparently targeted Brazil’s state-run Petrobras oil producer for surveillance—undermining a recent statement by the agency that it “does not engage in economic espionage in any domain.” The Petrobras detail has been picked up internationally, and is likely to cause a serious stir in Brazil. (The country is still reeling from the revelation last week that the NSA spied on its president.) But Fantastico delivered several other highly significant nuggets that deserve equal attention.

Speaking at the keynote LinuxCon panel this year, Linus Torvalds, who created the open-source Linux operating system 22 years ago, revealed that the government had approached him about installing a backdoor into system’s structure. Linux is the preferred operating system for the privacy conscious infosec community.

Now that we have enough details about how the NSA eavesdrops on the internet, including today's disclosures of the NSA's deliberate weakening of cryptographic systems, we can finally start to figure out how to protect ourselves.

Lavabit, the security-conscious email provider that was the preferred email service of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, has closed its doors, citing US government interference. § "I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit," founder Ladar Levinson said in a statement posted to the company's homepage on Thursday. "After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations."

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, its civilian and military workforce has grown by one-third, to about 33,000, according to the NSA. Its budget has roughly doubled, and the number of private companies it depends on has more than tripled, from 150 to close to 500, according to a 2010 Washington Post count.