June 2014

Every cable TV network needs one thing to thrust itself into the consciousness of viewers: a signature show that attracts ratings and passionate advocates.

Since March 2014, WGN, a channel that has lacked an identity for much of its more than three decades, has scored an unusual success with its first original drama, “Salem,” generating strong reviews and positive word of mouth. Too bad it is not a cable network.

Not yet, anyway. WGN America, as it is now called, is among the few remaining “cable superstations,” holdovers from cable’s early days when a few large local broadcast stations, relying mostly on sports -- like Chicago Cubs games on WGN -- carved out niches on cable systems, though they were not categorized as cable networks.

“Salem” is the first step in a strategy by the Tribune Company, owner of WGN America, to transform the superstation into a full-fledged cable network, creating yet another competitor in the increasingly crowded field of purveyors of distinctive television drama. Next up, in July, is “Manhattan,” a drama about the secret work to develop the atom bomb.

[Commentary] When the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Riley v. California, it definitively told the government to keep its warrantless fingers off your cell phone. But as the full impact of that opinion has rippled through the privacy community, some SCOTUS-watchers say it could also signal a shift in how the Court sees the privacy of data in general -- not just when it’s stored on your physical handset, but also when it’s kept somewhere far more vulnerable: in the servers of faraway Internet and phone companies.

In the Riley decision, which dealt with the post-arrest searches of an accused drug dealer in Boston and an alleged gang member in California, the court unanimously ruled that police need a warrant to search a suspect’s phone. The 28-page opinion penned by Chief Justice John Roberts explicitly avoids addressing a larger question about what’s known as the “third-party doctrine,” the notion that any data kept by a third party such as Verizon, AT&T, Google or Microsoft is fair game for a warrantless search.

But even so, legal analysts reading between the opinion’s lines say they see evidence that the court is shifting its view on that long-stewing issue for online privacy. The results, if they’re right, could be future rulings from America’s highest court that seriously restrict both law enforcement’s and even the NSA’s abilities to siphons Americans’ data from the cloud.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) will release its next analysis of US spying programs soon.

The new report from the PCLOB, which declared that the National Security Agency’s (NSA) phone records collection program was illegal, will examine the agency’s collection of foreigners’ data.

The analysis comes as the Senate continues debate on legislation to overhaul the NSA’s operations and could provide ammunition to reformers looking for major changes.

The PCLOB’s report “will contain a detailed analysis” of programs targeting foreigners authorized under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, it said. The government has cited that section of the law as authorization for its controversial PRISM program, which allows agents at the NSA to tap into networks at Facebook, Google and other major websites to scoop up information.

“It will address the Section 702 program's development and operation, statutory basis, constitutional implications, and whether it strikes the right balance between national security and privacy and civil liberties, and will make recommendations for policy reforms,” the PCLOB announced.

The Obama Administration provided a small peek into its intelligence surveillance efforts, releasing a new report on how many requests it made for information in 2013.

The report offers some new details about how many court orders it obtained in 2013 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) -- about 1,900, along with an additional 178 requests for business records -- as well as a few details about the 19,000 or so National Security Letters (which are a form of subpoena) the government sent.

The report may not be particularly meaningful since intelligence officials still use vague definitions to describe data requests and the figures can’t be placed in context because we don’t have data from previous years.