Jennifer Granick's blog

Senator Chris Coons, Democrat from Delaware, offered a bill today that would delay implementation of proposed changes to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41 for six months. Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society and Mozilla have been studying issues related to government hacking including the Rule 41 changes. Read more about Points of Consensus on Rule 41

On Monday, I wrote a post for Just Security where I reflected on last week's news concerning the FBI's attempts to coerce Apple into creating a forensic bypass to the iPhone passcode lockout. I wrote that we live in a software-defined world. In 2000, Lawrence Lessig wrote that Code is Law — the software and hardware that comprise cyberspace are powerful regulators that can either protect or threaten liberty. A few years ago, Mark Andreessen wrote that software was eating the world, pointing to a trend that is hockey sticking today. Software is redefining everything, even national defense. Read more about Reflections on the FBI's Attempt to Dragoon Apple Into Subverting iPhone Security

Last Friday, a New York federal judge joined in the contentious current debate over whether tech companies should be forced to provide law enforcement the ability to decipher encrypted data stored on smartphones and in the cloud. Read more about Federal judge shines a spotlight on the “going dark” debate

In two years, section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act will expire. It is essential the public to have confidence that any reforms to section 702 will actually address problems with PRISM and Upstream surveillance. To get that confidence, we have to know a lot more about how the intelligence community is using section 702. That understanding requires more investigation. Read more about Things We STILL Need To Know About Domestic Spying

Today we sent a letter to lawmakers expressing security experts' opposition to the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) as well as two other pending bills that purport to be about security information sharing, the Protecting Cyber Networks Act (PCNA), and the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act of 2015. These experts agree that the information sharing bills unnecessarily waive privacy rights because they focus on sharing information beyond that needed for cybersecurity. Read more about Technologists oppose CISA/information sharing bills

It’s the season for “cyberthreat” information sharing proposals. There’s the White House plan, announced in January. There’s the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA, which passed out of the Senate Intelligence Committee on a 14-1 vote earlier this month. Read more about Which Cyberthreat Information Sharing Proposal You Should Support? (Hint: None)

This week's Monday Reflection on Just Security is from me, spilling the beans about all of last week's secrecy news, from Twitter and EFF on NSLs to James Risen's Lovejoy Award and the Department of Defense's revisionist history of the Vietnam War. Check it out!  Read more about Shhh! Last Week Was All About Secrets

Julia Angwin’s blog post today is incorrect. Stanford never promised not to use Google money for privacy research.  Read more about Stanford Research Is Independent

Today’s reporting by the Intercept calls into question whether the NSA minimizes so-called metadata relating to Americans’ digital communications and telephone calls. This is one of the questions I implored the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) to get to the bottom of. It is a question that PCLOB Chairman David Medine thought the Board had a definitive—affirmative--answer to. But today’s story shows doubt still plagues our understanding of how the NSA’s information collection affects American privacy.  Read more about Does the NSA minimize Americans metadata?

Cross-posted from Just Security. Read more about Intercept Reporting Raises Broader Metadata Minimization Question