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LinkedIn is today launching its official desktop application for Windows 10, allowing theMicrosoft-owned professional social networking service to be more deeply integrated into the operating system through features like the Windows 10 Start Menu, a pinnable Live Tile, and Action Center notifications. These alerts will include things like new messages in your LinkedIn inbox, updates about whos viewed your profile, trending news stories in your industry, and other highlights, the company says.

Users can configure which alerts theyd like to see from the Notifications tab inside the app, LinkedIns blog post notes.

Microsoft closed on its $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn in December, then noting its plans to bring LinkedIn identity to Microsofts productivity applications, like Office and Outlook; the ability to draft resums and apply for jobs via Microsoft Word; LinkedIn integration with Active Directory; and LinkedIn notifications in the Windows Action Center, among several other things.

This latter item is being addressed with the launch of the new Windows 10 application, which sends out its updates in real-time a move that could make LinkedIn feel like a more active network, with timely news and information, rather than a place that many people today only think to check when theyre looking to change jobs.

At the time of the acquisition, LinkedIn had over 400 million users worldwide, which makes it the largest professional social networking site in existence. In April, the company announced it had grown to 500 million usersacross 200 countries around the world, which represented10+ million active jobs, access to 9+ million companies, and more than 100,000 articles published every week. Simply put, thats a lot of business-related information for Microsoft to tie into through this new, integrated desktop experience.

The launch of the Windows 10 application comes shortly after Microsoft announced its plans to deprecate its Windows mobile app, which will be shut down on August 30, 2017. The companys statement at the time said that Microsofts efforts were instead focused on building out the new LinkedIn desktop app, which would arrive this summer as it has today. Mobile users, meanwhile, could use the site from the mobile web if they chose, said Microsoft.

LinkedIn, whose user base is 40 percent desktop users, also rolled out an update to its desktop experience on the web in January.

The new Windows 10 app is beginning to roll out to the Windows Store today, and will be available in 22 languages at launch.

The list of supported languages includesEnglish, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese (simplified), Arabic, Danish, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Turkish, Swedish, Chinese (traditional), Czech, Indonesian, Thai, Malay, and Romanian.

The app will be available to all LinkedIn markets by the end of the month.

Originally posted here:
LinkedIn's new desktop app arrives on Windows 10 - TechCrunch

The DOJ is in court arguing the use of Stingray devices by the FBI and local cops shouldn't require a warrant. The government's lawyers are fighting a suppression motion by Purvis Ellis, charged with racketeering and the attempted murder of a police officer.

The events of the case happened in 2013, two years before the DOJ instructed federal agents to seek warrants when deploying Stingrays. For this investigation, the Oakland PD used a pen register order, as was the style at the time. (And perhaps still is. Despite the DOJ's internal instructions, warrant requirements are all but nonexistent when it comes to local law enforcement agencies' use of cell tower spoofers.)

As Cyrus Farivar points out, the PD's Stingray couldn't locate Ellis, so it brought in the FBI. All without warrants and all without informing the defense about the additional Stingray deployment.

Ellis was located in an East Oakland apartment several hours after a January 2013 shooting with the help of two stingrays. Prosecutors initially insisted that only one stingray was used, but, as was revealed last summer, that turned out not to be the case. The Oakland Police Department's own stingray was seemingly insufficient, so officers then called in the FBI, both times without a warrant.

The defendant is arguing the multiple warrantless Stingray deployments violated the Fourth Amendment. Considering the devices coax a location signal out of phones by aping cell towers, this differentiates Stingrays from more passive collections -- like the pen register the government didn't actually use.

The government, quite obviously, is arguing otherwise. It points out in its opposition motion [PDF] that it has all the warrant exceptions on its side:

Four gang members ambushed a young man in broad daylight, shooting him through the forehead from close range. The next day, those same men jumped, pistol-whipped and shot a police officer investigating the prior days shooting. The suspects then fled, armed with their own arsenal, as well as with the guns they had just stolen from the officer. Police surrounded the apartment complex where the men were thought to be hiding. Finding them quickly was essential. By shooting two people in a 27-hour period, the suspects including the defendant Purvis Ellis had just demonstrated an ability and willingness to kill others. So, when officers used a cell site simulator (CSS) to find Ellis, they were entirely justified by the exigent circumstances presented, rightly believing him to be armed and dangerous.

The defendants motion to suppress is meritless. The courts have not definitively decided whether use of a CSS constitutes a search triggering Fourth Amendment protections. But it largely does not matter here, since exigent circumstances amply supported a warrantless use of the device.

[...]

Other exceptions to the warrant requirement also cut against suppressing evidence. For instance, the officers acted in good faith reliance on established law the pen register statute, Supreme Court precedent, even the FBI policy at the time. Those laws and policies, combined with the dearth of binding case law on the CSS, all justified using the device without a warrant. In addition, the officers would have inevitably discovered everything they ultimately did, even had they never used the CSS. After all, they had the building surrounded by dozens of officers and SWAT team members hours before the CSS was even deployed.

It's a long list of counterarguments, most of which have some validity in this particular case. (That, of course, doesn't stop the government from using the same arguments in cases where its assertions of good faith, exigency, etc. are far more questionable. But that's how lawyering works on both sides.)

It appears the government would rather the court didn't make a determination as to whether Stingray deployments are Fourth Amendment searches. The government lets the court know what it doesn't need to do to resolve this issue in the DOJ's favor:

Whether use of a cell site simulator constitutes a search for Fourth Amendment purposes is not necessarily a question this Court needs to answer, since even if it were a search, it was amply justified under the circumstances. That said, the law supports concluding that the device in this case did not affect a search.

The following argument, however, is particularly disingenuous. The defendant argued the warrant was invalid because officers didn't let the judge know they'd be deploying a Stingray device when it got its pen register order approved. The DOJ says this shouldn't matter, as it can find very little pre-2013 evidence suggesting these devices were mentioned in previous court documents.

Since the CSS technology was still relatively new in 2013, there were simply no binding cases to direct agents and officers to disregard Smith v. Maryland and get a warrant. According to the governments research, only a few federal pre-2013 cases referenced cell site simulator, digital analyzer, triggerfish, or stingray in a relevant context. (The government found no such cases in California courts.)

Well, of course this search came up empty. For years, the FBI swore law enforcement agencies to secrecy if they acquired Stingrays, telling them to dismiss cases rather than have defendants, judges, or even some prosecutors discuss the tech in open court. The lack of DOJ search results means the NDAs the FBI forced everyone to sign worked.

By no means was CSS technology "relatively new" in 2013. Documentation of Stingray devices can be found dating back to 2006 and use of pre-Stingray "digital analyzers" dates back more than 20 years. There wasn't much courtroom discussion because the FBI actively prevented it from happening. And the DOJ knows this, as its "research" likely turned up things like this 2012 NDA on DOJ letterhead telling a New York sheriff's office to STFU about its new toy.

With no discussion, there are no binding cases. That's how the FBI wanted it. And it pays off years down the road by making it easier for the DOJ to prevail in a suppression argument without setting precedent it may find inhibiting another half-decade down the road.

See original here:
DOJ Tells Court There No Need To Establish A Warrant Requirement For Stingray Devices - Techdirt

ACLUA Somali familyimmigrants who are now legally citizens of the United Statesare suing several federal agencies over what appears to have been a particularly rough border detention and search. Their treatment, they say, stems from the government's secretive, unaccountable watchlists.

They family is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has spent years fighting to force a system of due process on the various watchlists that agencies use (and share among each other). Thanks to these lists, hundreds of thousands of people are subjected to increased and intrusive searches when traveling.

The lawsuit attacks two significant and well-established problems with these watchlists. One: Even though these lists supposedly exist to keep an eye on suspected terrorists, they contain hundreds of thousands of names of people with no known ties to terrorist organizations. Two: The system is handled secretly, with almost no oversight or due process. People who end up on the list often cannot find out why or even get the government to acknowledge that they're on a list; their only option is to ask to be taken off the list and hope it happens.

The plaintiffs are the Wilwal-Abdigani family, who in March 2015 traveled from their home near Minneapolis to visit relatives in Canada. According to the lawsuit, they had little trouble passing into Canada but were warned that that the father, Abdisalam Wilwal, had a notation on his records that might result in some additional questions when he attempted to return home.

That proved to be an understatement. According to the lawsuit, when the family tried to return to the United States, border agents confronted them at gunpoint and detained them for hours. The lawsuit says that the border patrol asked Wilwal if the travelers were Muslims and accused him of involvement in terrorism. They handcuffed Wilwal and left him alone in a room for hours without even questioning him. He ended up fainting, and they had to call in paramedics. They eventually questioned him for 45 minutes, though he was detained for more than 10 hours.

The other members of the family were detained separately and were not allowed to leave either. At one point the mother, Sagal Abdegani, realized the agents had neglected to take the cellphone away from one of her children and she managed to call 911 to try to get outside help. An agent snatched the phone away from her. According the lawsuit, border patrol agents also took the couple's 14-year-old son into a separate room and demanded he take off his clothes for a strip search. He refused to comply.

The family was released much later in the day and was allowed to return home. They know now that Wilwal's name is in a federal watchlist database, but they don't know why. They've petitioned the feds to have Wilwal's name removed, but per the federal government's processes, the Department of Homeland Security declined to confirm or deny whether Wilwal is actually watchlisted or whether they removed him from the list. The lawsuit notes, "At no point in the process can an individual appear in person before a neutral decision maker to challenge placement on the watchlist or its consequences."

The family is claiming violations of their Fourth Amendment rights, claiming unconstitutional searches and seizures as well as excessive force. They're also claiming violations of their Fifth Amendment rights to due process, because of the way these federal lists are managed and because of the barriers to clearing Wilwal's name.

For the Fourth Amendment claims, unfortunately, the courts have historically given federal officials very wide latitude to engage in warrantless searches with very little justification at the country's borders. But some important court rulings bolster's Wilwal due process complaint, and the ACLU knows itbecause they're involved with some of those suits as well.

These lawsuits involve the federal no-fly list, a subset of these terror watchlists. People on the no-fly list are denied the right to board aircraft under a secretive, opaque system much like the one described in this lawsuit. In 2014 a federal judge ordered the Department of Justice to develop a system where people can determine whether they are actually on the no-fly list and a mechanism for correcting mistaken inclusion on the list. One woman turned out to have been added to the no-fly list by accident (somebody checked the wrong box); she had to fight the government for years to be removed. She only found out about the mistake as a result of the lawsuit.

Read the family's lawsuit here. Read the mother's own account of the border search here.

Follow this link:
Secret Government Watchlist Sweeps Up an American Family, and Now They're Suing - Reason (blog)

After a long debate, the United States is reportedly moving forward with plans to separate its military-focused Cyber Command branch from the National Security Agency. The changes could be announced in the coming weeks, according to the Associated Press.

The two roles have caused tension

Since Cyber Commands 2009 inception, it has been under the same command as the NSA, but the two operate in different ways: Cyber Command has focused on digital warfare, while the NSA has focused on electronic intelligence gathering. According to the AP, those two roles have caused tension, especially in the battle against ISIS.

Under a new division of authority, Army Lt. Gen. William Mayville would reportedly be nominated to lead Cyber Command, replacing Admiral Michael Rogers, who also leads the NSA. Leadership of the NSA could be turned over to a civilian, according to the AP.

Last year, then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter reportedly sent a plan to President Obama proposing the split, and it seems the Trump administration is prepared to move ahead with those plans. The mechanics of the split including what the AP describes as Cyber Commands reliance on the NSA are still reportedly being worked out.

See the rest here:
The US is reportedly close to separating military-focused Cyber Command from the NSA - The Verge

Today, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) just filed its second lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA).

We made lawful demands for government records that will shed light on the Susan Rice unmasking scandal that rocked the intelligence community. The NSA failed to comply with the law. So, today, we took the NSA to federal court.

Heres what Fox News reported back in April:

Susan Rice, former national security adviser under then-President Barack Obama, requested to unmask the names of Trump transition officials caught up in surveillance. The unmasked names, of people associated with Donald Trump, were then sent to all those at the National Security Council, some at the Defense Department, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-CIA Director John Brennan essentially, the officials at the top, including former Rice deputy Ben Rhodes.

The only way we even know about the Obama Administrations apparent politically motivated unmasking is because this raw intelligence information - classified national security secrets - was illegally leaked to the media.

The ACLJ went to work in our effort bring these secret and unlawful actions to the forefront. Our Government Accountability Project prepared a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests designed to get to the bottom of this disturbing revelation.

Our FOIA Request sought:

records pertaining to any and all requests former National Security Advisor Susan Rice made to National Security Agency (NSA) officials or personnel regarding the unmasking of the names and/or any other personal identifying information of then candidate and/or President-elect Donald J. Trump, his family, staff, transition team members, and/or advisors who were incidentally caught up in U.S. electronic surveillance.

The NSA acknowledged our FOIA request and even granted expedited processing which means the NSA acknowledged the time-sensitive urgency behind our requests. But, even though expedited processing means the NSA is bound to process the request faster than other requests, we have heard nothing from them since.

So, today, we filed a critical lawsuit and we will force the NSA to answer to a federal court for its blatant disregard for the law. Among other things, we asked the Court for [a]n Order enjoining Defendant from continuing to withhold any and all non-exempt records responsive to Plaintiffs FOIA request.

This is not our first time weve taken the NSA to federal court. We filed a lawsuit earlier this year to force the NSA to produce government records that could expose the people and purposes behind the Obama Administrations eleventh hour rule change that dramatically expanded access to raw signal intelligence signed by the Obama Administration officials on their way out the door. It was these changes that have lead to an unprecedented avalanche of dangerous national security leaks.

Both of these lawsuits are part of our ongoing effort to aggressively combat the dangerous national security leaks that have been plaguing the federal government. The deep state shadow government bureaucracy must not be allowed to endanger the national security of the American people as it carries out a vicious vendetta against the current Administration. We will not stop fighting until we defeat and expose the shadow government leaks.

You can be part of our effort. We need your voice. Sign our petition today.

Excerpt from:
ACLJ Files Federal Lawsuit Against NSA Whatever it Takes to Get to the Bottom of the Dangerous Susan Rice ... - American Center for Law and Justice...