The NSA is denying a report from the Wall Street Journal that a secret program code-named “Perfect Citizen” will be monitoring civilian networks. That’s from a rare public statement by the ultra-secret agency responsible for spying on outsiders and defending classified networks. The NSA, as a wing of the military, is largely prohibited from operating within the U.S. The Journal reported Wednesday that defense contractor Raytheon... 

The NSA has a new program called “Perfect Citizen” that lets it monitor the networks of utilities and other “critical” infrastructure to identify potential electronic attacks, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Under the $100 million program, the nation’s top spying group will embed surveillance probes in privately owned networks to look for suspicious behavior, the Journal ’s Siobhan Gorman reports.... 

A federal judge on Wednesday said the George W. Bush administration illegally eavesdropped on the telephone conversations of two American lawyers who represented a now-defunct Saudi charity. The lawyers alleged some of their 2004 telephone conversations to Saudi Arabia were siphoned to the National Security Agency without warrants. The allegations were initially based on a classified document the government accidentally mailed to the former Al-Haramain... 

The FBI and telecom companies collaborated to routinely violate federal wiretapping laws for four years, as agents got access to reporters’ and citizens’ phone records using fake emergency declarations or simply asking for them. The Justice Department Inspector General’s internal audit, released Wednesday, harshly criticized how the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s  Communications Analysis Unit — a counterterrorism... 

An internal audit found the FBI broke the law thousands of times when requesting Americans’ phone records using fake emergency letters that were never followed up on with true subpoenas — even though top officials knew the practice was illegal, according to The Washington Post . The inspector general’s follow-up report on the so-called “exigent” letters — an investigation that started in 2007 — is due... 

TSA Special Agent John Enright, left, speaks to Steven Frischling outside the blogger's home. Hours after two TSA agents served a civil subpoena on blogger Steven Frischling last week to uncover the anonymous source of a leaked document, an unusual message appeared on the blogger’s Twitter account. “To the gentleman who sent Flying With Fish the TSA Security Directive … Thank You! Can you drop me…  Read More →

TSA Special Agent John Enright, left, speaks to Steven Frischling outside the blogger In the wake of public outcry against the Transportation Security Administration for serving civil subpoenas on two bloggers, the government agency has canceled the legal action and apologized for the strong-arm tactics agents used. Travel writer and photographer Steven Frischling, who was served with a subpoena by two TSA agents on Tuesday, told Threat Level... 

TSA Special Agent John Enright, left, speaks to Steven Frischling outside the blogger’s home in Niantic, Connecticut, after returning Frischling’s laptop Wednesday. Photo: Thomas Cain/Wired.com Two bloggers received home visits from Transportation Security Administration agents Tuesday after they published a new TSA directive that revises screening procedures and puts new restrictions on passengers in the wake of a recent bombing...