Google sent a letter today to AG Eric Holder and the FBI seeking permission to disclose the number of national security and FISA requests it has received, the types of data covered by the requests, and the number of user accounts affected by the requests.

We therefore ask you to help make it possible for Google to publish in our Transparency Report aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures—in terms of both the number we receive and their scope. Google’s numbers would clearly show that our compliance with these requests falls far short of the claims being made. Google has nothing to hide.

The letter references the permission it received in March to publish this information about National Security Letters.

Most reaction from media and privacy groups seems to be positive. But Christopher Soghoian tweets:

If Google's FISA numbers are shockingly high, asking for permission to publish if they know it won't be given would be a very savvy move.

Huffington Post reports that Congress was briefed 22 times on the PRISM program and provides the dates.

Glenn Greenwald tells the AP we ain't seen nothing yet.

"We are going to have a lot more significant revelations that have not yet been heard over the next several weeks and months," Greenwald said.
Greenwald claims "dozens" of stories can be generated from the documents, and that the Guardian plans to pursue all of them.

CBS reports the feds are prepping charges against Edward Snowden, who has gone underground in Hong Kong. He told the Guardian he may go to Iceland.

Maybe he should go to New Zealand and hang out at the Dot Com mansion. NZ might not be so willing to provide mutual assistance in arresting Snowden after the debacle of the Kim Dotcom raid.

The PRISM story keeps growing -- now there are reports the NSA has shared data on Kim Dotcom obtained via PRISM with the international spy group "Five Eyes," (background here -- it includes representatives from the U.S., U.K., New Zealand, Canada and Australia,) and that Five Eyes may have given the intercepted data on Kim Dotcom to New Zealand's GSB, which in turn gave it to a specialized New Zealand police group, that used the information to assist the FBI and facilitate his arrest on U.S. charges.

"Five Eyes" met in New Zealand just 2 days before the Prime Minister announced the illegal interception of Kim Dotcom's communications on Sept. 17. Who was at the meeting? Reportedly, Intelligence Co-ordination Group director Roy Ferguson, a former ambassador to the US,along with representatives from the US Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, Britain's Communications Headquarters, Canada's Communications Security Establishment and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service. [More...]

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Update: You can watch the proceedings live here. We are doing live updates in the forums here. Comments on the day's proceedings are here.

Update: Defense jury expert: Robert Hirschhorn. Mark O'Mara made another motion for continuance which was denied.

Jury selection begins today in the George Zimmerman trial. The pre-trial Frye hearing has not been concluded.

500 jurors received summonses. About 100 to 200 will appear tommorrow to begin filling out questionnaires.

There will be six jurors on the case. They will be sequestered when the trial starts. [More....]

Edward Snowden has come forward as the source of the recent NSA leaks.

Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old system administrator and former undercover CIA employee, unmasked himself Sunday as the principal source of recent Washington Post and Guardian disclosures about top-secret NSA programs, denouncing what he described as systematic surveillance of innocent citizens and saying in an interview, “it’s important to send a message to government that people will not be intimidated.”

He intends to seek asylum in another country.

The Washington Post has a graphic timeline of electronic surveillance under Presidents Bush and Obama from 2001 through 2013.

But there are many more examples. In 2010, the FBI got the phone records of WAPO journalists. See, FBI Illegally Collected Thousands of Phone Records Through Fake Terror Emergencies. [More...]

Glenn Greenwald strikes again. In the Guardian today, he writes about another classified NSA surveillance tool, The Boundless Informant.

By extracting information from every DNI and DNR metadata record, the tool is able to create a near realtime snapshot of GAO's collection capability at any given moment. The tool allows users to select a country on a map and view the metadata volume and select details about the collection against that country. The tool also allows users to view high level metrics by organization and then drill down to a more actionable level- down to the program and cover term.

The program slides are here and the three page document is here.

There are many predictable calls for Attorney General Eric Holder's resignation. Until the recent disclosure of mass and indiscriminate electronic surveillance of telecom records, most have been partisan attacks. There are signs that is changing.

Will Eric Holder resign? Matthew Cooper, writing in The Atlantic, has an interesting article today, What Happened to Eric Holder? It chronicles his career, past and current, and makes this observation:

Holder was never going to stay through both terms. (Reno is the only attorney general in the country's history to stay that long.) And they say he'll be gone when Susan Rice and Samantha Power get settled in with John Kerry and Chuck Hagel and after James Comey is confirmed as the new FBI Director.

[More...]

Having a good weekend so far?

Zimmmermanpalooza starts Monday! Are you stoked? I'll be deliberately AWOL during the trial (as opposed to the forced absence of work load.) Good luck to you all. (Added by Jeralyn: Note that this is written by Big Tent Democat. TalkLeft and I will definitely be following all developments.)

Open Thread.

It's a jail day for me. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

The Frye hearing continues in the George Zimmerman case. Voice analyst Tom Owen testified today.

ABC News has obtained a clip of video from Trayvon Martin's cell phone with his voice. To my ear, Trayvon's voice sounds much deeper than the screams on the 911 call, which again tells me it's Zimmerman screaming.

I don't think aural spectrographic analysis or biometric voice comparisons like Tom Owen's should come into evidence under Frye or Daubert. The methodology is skewed because he is comparing a scream to spoken words, there's too much background noise, the environmental and recording conditions were too different, the scream samples aren't long enough, the quantity of words for comparison is insufficient, there are pitch issues because the screamer was under emotional stress, etc. He can't even give an opinion beyond "probable" in his words that it was not Zimmerman screaming. [More...]