Federal agencies go to extreme lengths to keep powerful phone spying gear secret—and new information shows just how the government pressures investigators to keep it under wraps.

A new computer program developed by a pro-Kremlin political center mines social network sites for chatter about unauthorized protest rallies — and then reports its findings to the local authorities.

CISPA is back. You might remember the bill as the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act—or perhaps as "the worst privacy disaster our country has ever faced." Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger reintroduced the bill to the House Intelligence Committee on Friday under the auspices of preventing another Sony hack.

In the United States, the Fourth Amendment regulates citizens' right to privacy from the government. Unfortunately it was written over 200 years ago, long before mass electronic surveillance. But now there are hopeful signs that interpretations of the Fourth Amendment may get much-needed updates in 2014.

Last weekend at New York Comic-Con, a lot of attendees found themselves tweeting ecstatically about the convention — without having written those tweets, because NYCC had hijacked people's social media accounts that were linked to their badges. In this open letter, the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains why…

The more digital video spreads, the more misinformed police fear it—as evidenced by this cop's draconian response to a guy simply filming a pulled over vehicle. It's important to know your rights, but knowledge can't keep you un-cuffed.

Facebook is rolling out two new relationship status options: "in a civil union" and "in a domestic partnership." Good for them! Personally, I'm waiting until they offer "single and miserable but coming to terms with being alone forever" to bother setting mine. [Huffington Post]

With the threat of today's protests looming in Egypt, on Thursday Egyptian authorities cut the nation off the internet. No online communication could pass in or out of the country. We investigated whether a similar lockdown could happen in America.

Citizens recording their public interactions with police sure seems like the kind of thing that would prevent corruption, harassment and bad behavior by cops. Just don't do it in Illinois, where it's punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Some of today's biggest legal debates (genetic discrimination, patents for human genes) might have seemed far-fetched not so long ago. So the American Civil Liberties Union is looking to science fiction to figure out tomorrow's biggest challenges to personal liberty.

Peter Watts, the critically-acclaimed Canadian author of Blindsight and other dystopian novels, entered a dystopia of his own on Tuesday after border guards beat and pepper sprayed him at the US-Canadian border. Now you can help with his legal defense.

Join scifi greats Cory Doctorow and Rudy Rucker, with io9 editors Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders, in San Francisco Monday night at a benefit for high tech civil liberties organization Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Yeah, I'm a civil liberties futurist junkie. That's right - I want to make the future a place where you've got a right to do things like speak your mind online, or get a little privacy away from government's prying eyes. I also think scientists and engineers should have the freedom to tinker with machines, whether…

In a historic vote this afternoon, the Senate voted to amend the Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA) to expand the government's surveillance capabilities and provide retroactive immunity for phone companies who participated in the Bush administration's illegal wiretapping program. The margin of victory was wide,…

Hello guys!

Batman Bin Suparman here. I wanted to talk to you about Real ID. Apparently, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security just extended deadlines on Real ID because many states are resisting it. I know that in the United States and the UK national identity cards are considered a risk to privacy, even while US…

Verizon and AT&T have both gone on record saying they do not record SMS communications. The privacy debate is one that, understandably, gets emotions stirred, but you can all rest a little easy knowing the official stances of two of the major cellular networks.