Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor that is the source of a cache of leaked internal NSA documents who is now hiding out in Russia to avoid espionage charges promises that more revelations about the agency's vast international and domestic spying programs will be revealed. He calls these upcoming revelations "big" and notes that reporting these revelations is not a crime. Snowden made his comments remotely during a recent TED event.

This might keep you up at night, assuming that the National Security Agency's unprecedented levels of spying bother you: new documents obtained by the Washington Post and presented in this in-depth report details a system capable of capturing an entire country's calls and storing them for thirty days.

The House Intelligence Committee’s Republican and Democratic leaders are "close to" agreeing on legislation that would end the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of U.S. citizens’ telephone data, according to what top lawmakers are telling Politico.

Earlier this week it was revealed (through documents from Edward Snowden's cache of NSA internal documents) that the National Security Agency planned to infect millions of computer systems using sophisticated malware. This would allow it to pose as Facebook and other sites in order to intercept data. Today the agency is denying the information in those documents. The agency said today that it does not pose as any U.S. companies and that "what it does is legal."

We know that the NSA has been ramping up its efforts to collect data from computers since 911, but as more information from Edward Snowden's cache of lifted NSA documents are made available it is becoming evident that the intelligence agency has already put the necessary tools in place to compromise or hack computers on a grander scale than anyone could have imagined.

In a statement to NBC News former NSA contractor (currently in exile in Russia after leaking classified NSA documents about domestic and international spying programs) called Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA.) hypocritical for complaining about the CIA allegedly spying on the Senate while strongly supporting the NSA's spying programs and bills like CISPA.

Did the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) spy on Senate staffers in an effort to stymie an investigation into illegal torture tactics being used by the agency during the Bush Administration? CIA Director John Brennan said that the agency does not spy on Congress and that such an allegation is beyond the scope of reason and simply not true.

According to a report in the New York Times, the National Security Agency knew in 2013 that the Australian spy agency, the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), was conducting surveillance on a U.S.-based law firm representing the Indonesian government in a trade dispute with the U.S. government. The dispute was over the United States banning the import of clove cigarettes into the U.S. from Indonesia.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said during her weekly podcast that she is proposing to other European nations - most notably France - to build their own communications network to help improve data protection. Chancellor Merkel described a network that would not have to automatically pass through the United States.

According to a report in the Washington Post written by political columnist Dana Milbank, former Reagan administration lawyer Bruce Fein has accused Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and former Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli of stealing his work.

Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) has been talking about a class action lawsuit against the NSA and the Obama administration over the spy agency's collection of phone metadata and other collection activities.

The lawsuit was filed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, with Rand Paul and conservative group Freedom Works named as lead plaintiffs. The lawsuit is aimed at President Barack Obama, Director of National Security James Clapper, Director of the NSA Keith Alexander, and Director of the FBI James Comey Jr.

Today is the day that advocacy groups and businesses have designated as a day of protest online against the NSA's unfettered surveillance and data collection practices. Led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the collective are calling on websites and internet users to show their support by displaying special banners online and to contact their elected official in D.C. to let them know that the mass surveillance being conducted by the NSA needs to come to an end.

Jesse Ventura, former Minnesota Governor and host of a new show online called "Off the Grid," has endorsed tomorrow's planned Internet protest of NSA surveillance, attentively dubbed "The Day We Fight Back."

“Benjamin Franklin once said those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety,” stated Jesse Ventura. “I hope to raise awareness of how dangerous the NSA has become, and I will be joined online with people around the world who feel the same way.”

The lead author of the Patriot Act said on Tuesday that he will spearhead an effort to reject reauthorization of the law (which is set to expire next year) if the White House doesn't make some serious changes to Section 215 of the law, which has led to the NSA and other government agencies collecting and storing all kinds of information on American citizens.

The head of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) has lashed out at one of the key journalists publishing stories about the documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. While not mentioning him by name, Rogers basically calls The Guardian's Glen Greenwald a thief, implying that he is committing some sort of crime and is selling the documents leaked by Edward Snowden. You may recall that Greenwald was one of the first journalists to break the story about Edward Snowden and his cache of NSA-related documents and materials..

The Electronic Frontier Foundation today released an add-on for the Android version of Firefox that implements its HTTPS Everywhere encryption technology. HTTPS Everywhere is already available for web browsers here.

Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said in a blog post today that President Obama's proposed changes to how the National Security Agency collects and stores both phone and internet data is not enough.

"Despite the President’s reform efforts and our ability to publish more information, there has not yet been any public commitment by either the U.S. or other governments to renounce the attempted hacking of Internet companies," Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said. "This has been and remains a major concern across the tech sector."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is calling on everyone on the Internet to make something extraordinary happen: end mass surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA).

This week Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and LinkedIn were finally able to release some data on requests by law enforcement agencies and federal authorities from January to June of 2013. Getting to this point was quite the fight, but something the aforementioned companies decided was important to pursue because the NSA files leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden said that some corporations were actively cooperating with government agencies. All flatly denied those allegations.

Rep. Peter King (R-New York) this week laid into the Republican National Committee (RNC) for its resolution stating that the National Security Agency's spying was unconstitutional, that various surveillance programs should be halted immediately, and that a "full public accounting" of those activities should take place. Rep. King described the resolution as a “hysterical” measure that could be a “death warrant” for the GOP. The RNC announced the resolution on Friday.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper made headlines again this week when he intimated that certain unnamed journalists were accomplices in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Following its report yesterday that the NSA and other spy agencies were exploiting "leaky apps" such as Rovio's Angry Birds to gather information on users around the world, ProPublica has released this handy FAQ to better explain exactly how the whole process works and what consumers can do to moderately protect their privacy.

Angry Birds maker Rovio issued a statement today (which they passed along to GamePolitics this morning following a request for comment yesterday) in response to a report from ProPublica that spy agencies were gathering information on users of its popular game. The company said in a statement that it does not share data about its users with government agencies such as the NSA or the UK's GCHQ.

It sounds far-fetched when someone says that playing something as innocent as Angry Birds is helping spy agencies gather information about you, but that is just what happens when users launch what this Pro Publica investigation claims is a "leaky app."

An ACLU attorney serving as a legal advisor to former NSA contractor and leaker Edward Snowden says that he would only take a plea deal with the U.S. government if the terms of the deal were solidified prior to his landing on U.S. soil.

"I can tell you now he is not going to return to the country and take his chances on what the details of a plea bargain might be or what might await him at a trial," American Civil Liberties Union attorney Ben Wizner said in an interview on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports."

The Republican National Committee passed a resolution today renouncing what it is calling "unconstitutional National Security Agency surveillance programs." This is quite a shift in position for the party which defended the ramping up of these programs after the 911 attacks. The resolution was affirmed by a voice vote at the GOP’s winter meeting.

The RNC called upon Republican lawmakers "to immediately take action to halt current unconstitutional surveillance programs and provide a full public accounting of the NSA’s data collection programs."

Leaked copies of the upcoming report by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) have made their way to the New York Times and the Washington Post this morning, revealing that the group's review of the government's metadata collection practi

The great debate about the fate of the former NSA contractor who leaked documents detailing the agency's spying programs on the Internet, mobile phones and even in video games rages on. Some believe that Edward Snowden is a patriot and a whistleblower who deserves a full presidential pardon, while others believe that he should be get the maximum penalty under the law for treason and espionage.

On Friday President Barack Obama gave a speech laying out his plans to curtail the spying activities of the National Security Agency (NSA) on U.S. citizens and on targets abroad. The president promised to reform the agency's programs, but according to a new poll Americans aren't impressed with the president's plan or didn't pay attention to it.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said that President Barack Obama's speech on reforming the National Security Agency contained a lot of lies and that the president spent a lot of time saying nothing. Assange made his comments during an interview on CNN after the speech aired.

"We heard a lot of lies in this speech by Obama," Assange said. "I think it’s embarrassing for a head of state to go on like that for 45 minutes and say almost nothing."