The controversy over the alleged bugging at the residence of Union Minister Nitin Gadkari's house refused to die down with Congress on Monday demanding a probe and government virtually rejecting it.
The United States is extremely disappointed on Russia giving temporary asylum to former Central Intelligence Agency contractor and national Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, adding that it is evaluating its ties with Moscow now, the White House said.
Over the last few days there has been a constant scrutiny over Facebook having access to your SMS. Buried within the latest update for Facebook's Android app is a feature that is causing growing concern among some users.
China on Monday evaded queries on its role in the departure of ex-Central Investigation Agency operative Edward Snowden from Hong Kong even as it asked United States to explain the whistleblower's revelations of American cyber attacks on Chinese institutions.
American tech giants Microsoft and Facebook have disclosed the number of requests they had received from the US National Security Agency to reveal details, including internet usage of their consumers.
In an investigative story, the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday said that the officials of National Security Agency are "angry" on the assertions being made by the White House that Obama was not aware about its surveillance of foreign leaders.
The US National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation spied on five prominent Muslim-American activists, including an Indian-origin attorney, according to the leaked documents which showed use of objectionable religious slurs against these individuals.
British police have detained the live-in partner of a Guardian journalist responsible for leaking reports on US surveillance programme for nine hours under terror laws, prompting Indian-origin lawmaker Keith Vaz to seek an explanation from Scotland Yard on the issue.
The political slugfest on Ishrat Jahan alleged fake encounter case on Friday saw the Bharatiya Janata Party supporting Congress leader Digvijaya Singh's demand that the home ministry come clean on the issue of her alleged terror links as agencies such as the Intelligence Bureau, the Central Bureau of investigation and the National Investigation Agency have differences over it.
American intelligence service used bugs, phone taps and cybermonitoring to obtain information from European Union embassies and offices in Washington, New York and Brussels, a German weekly reported on Sunday.
The plan of UID/Aadhaar-based surveillance does not end with the collection of fingerprints and iris scan, it goes quite beyond it and poses a lethal threat to the idea of India, says Gopal Krishna.
Three months on, investigations reveal that 80 per cent of the politicians in power and various government departments continue to use e-mail services such as Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail which are hosted on US-based servers.
Rediff.com tries to recap the debate and presents the highlights from the event.
Edward Snowden, the American National Security Agency whistleblower whose unprecedented leak of top-secret documents led to a worldwide debate about the nature of surveillance, insisted on Monday that his actions had improved the national security of the United States rather than undermined it, and declared that he would do it all again despite the personal sacrifices he had endured, Guardian reported.
With thousands of people receiving ransom messages from cybercriminals every day, Devangshu Dutta explains how you can defeat the hackers.
The United States, which spends billions monitoring adversaries like Al Qaeda, North Korea and Iran, pays an equal amount of attention on ally Pakistan and has ramped up surveillance of its nuclear arms, according to a report.
'All their idealism, intensity of emotions, acute sense of right and wrong, and burning passion for public causes can never serve as justifiable grounds to be touted by students of any country, let alone of India, with all its fragility and vulnerability, to question its unity in the name of freedom of expression,' says B S Raghavan.
The Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing are at loggerheads with the Home Ministry for its proposal to allow international roaming for Pakistanis on Indian soil as they believe it will be misused. Vicky Nanjappa reports
Rediff.com takes a look at some personalities who are likely to win the prize this year.
'The Lashkar-e-Tayiba has always been sensitive about how it is perceived internationally,' says Stephen Tankel, discussing PRISM, the Lashkar's presence in Myanmar and Mohammad Saeed's recent dare with Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa.
India on Thursday bluntly told the US that surveillance of political leaders and others in India by the American intelligence was "unacceptable" to which the US responded by saying that any differences that may exist can be resolved by intelligence communities of the two countries.
Whether history will remember Edward Snowden as a traitor to his country or as a champion for free speech and less intrusive government is hard to tell, but the issues he has brought into focus need deep thought, writes Ajit Balakrishnan
'Biometric Aadhaar-based surveillance is not only about violation of privacy, but also about the treasure hunt for unprecedented financial surveillance and economic intelligence in the economic history of mankind,' asks Gopal Krishna.
It emerges that not only does the CIDR project fails the test of fairness, justness and reasonableness besides the test of not being fanciful, oppressive or arbitrary; it also fails the test of Arthashastra, Hadith and the Bible.
While the government's new Central Monitoring System looks extremely impressive on the technological front and could be a vital tool to fight terrorism, there are several questions regarding the privacy aspect that are being raised. Vicky Nanjappa reports
Is Devyani Khobragade's arrest connected to India detaining an anti-piracy ship owned by a US security firm, asks Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
A definitive guide to the movers and shakers who sit at the helm of the Asian sports boom.
'Happily,' says Ambassador B S Prakash, 'BRICS displayed new-found energy and built something real, a bank. Between needless nihilism and as yet unjustified euphoria, there are many stations for the BRICS train and we can watch its progress with renewed interest.'
'Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may be anxious for a farewell visit to Washington in October,' says retired Ambassador K C Singh, 'but bending backwards on America's PRISM policy is going to earn him scorn at home and contempt abroad.'
Like China, India needs to encourage 'hacker clubs' in view of the challenges of virtual terrorism, says Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd)
Admittedly, EVMs too have a UID number and any convergence of data can make the secret ballot system a party of history, warns Dr Gopal Krishna in the 5th part of his series against Aadhaar.
B S Prakash takes a tongue-in-cheek look at what India's neighbours think about the proposal of a SAARC satellite.
'Devyani -- she is a public servant and her personal life has already received far too much attention -- and her ambitious father now need to retreat to the background so that wiser diplomatic heads restore sanity to India-US relations as India prepares for parliamentary elections,' says Ambassador K C Singh.
China has been keeping tabs on the restive Tibet province through a 'grid' system and some 600 'convenience police posts' armed with high-tech equipment that monitor the daily life of the citizens of Lhasa and other Tibetan towns. Worse, 'volunteer security groups' known as 'Red Armband Patrols' are roaming around in order to get more information and 'classify' each and every citizen, says Claude Arpi
Isn't National Intelligence Grid and UIDAI engineered by vested interests, asks Gopal Krishna.
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