• IT'S LEGAL: COPS SEIZE CELL PHONE, IMPERSONATE OWNER: Maybe don't trust that the next text you receive actually came from the person you think sent it? Maybe come up with some kind of code word with your friends? Here's why: Police officers in Washington state seized a phone from someone they arrested in 2009. Someone texted his phone while he was in custody. The police replied and set up some drug deals, arresting more people. A judge held that the police can legally do this, but bizarrely the decision seems to hinge on the fact that the court confused pagers with cell phones. A prior decision found that cops could search through a pager for phone numbers to call back, because a pager is basically just an address book of phone numbers. Just like text messages and iPhones, right? No. Wrong. Alas, the court seems to think they are one in the same and decided accordingly. Uh oh. (link)

• FIVE ESSENTIAL PRIVACY TOOLS FOR THE NEXT CYBER WAR: Learn how to protect yourself online with these helpful tips compiled by Forbes. The piece covers email, file, voice, chat and traffic privacy. (link)

• SHELDON WHITEHOUSE CONFIRMS FISA AMENDMENTS ACT PERMITS UNWARRANTED ACCESS TO US PERSON CONTENT: We should all be grateful that Marcy Wheeler has put so much of her considerable intellect and tenacity towards dissecting the upcoming FISA Amendments Act reauthorization. Today she writes: "Mike Lee, Dick Durbin, and Chris Chris Coons just tried, unsuccessfully, to require the government to get a warrant before it searched US person communications collected via the targeting of non-US person under the FISA Amendments Act. It was, as Dianne Feinstein said, not dissimilar from an amendment Ron Wyden and Mark Udall had tried to pass when FAA was marked up before the Senate Intelligence Committee." (link)

• REGULATION OF FACIAL RECOGNITION MAY BE NEEDED, US SENATOR SAYS: Senator Al Franken held a hearing on face recognition yesterday. It's about time Congress looked at the issue. The hearing was a mixed bag, with representatives from a number of offending agencies and corporations (like Facebook) in attendance. Luckily, EFF's Jennifer Lynch was there to save the day and inject some real skepticism into the debate. Read more about face recognition and Lynch's work here. (link)

• THE SPIES WE TRUST: THIRD PARTY SERVICE PROVIDERS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT SURVEILLANCE: This one is for the real geeks out there. Privacy researcher and technologist Chris Soghoian (@csoghoian) has released his Doctoral Thesis, dated July 2012. Give it a read if you are interested to learn all about how the law has failed to catch up to our 21st century digital reality, and how we suffer as a result. It begins: "Telecommunications carriers and service providers now play an essential role in facilitating modern surveillance by law enforcement agencies. The police merely select the individuals to be monitored, while the actual surveillance is performed by third parties: often the same email providers, search engines and telephone companies to whom consumers have entrusted their private data. Assisting Big Brother has become a routine part of business." (link)

• COVERT FBI POWER TO OBTAIN PHONE DATA FACES RARE TEST: Speaking of third party surveillance, the WSJ reports that an unnamed phone company (many suspect it is Credo, but the company will neither confirm nor deny it) has challenged a Patriot Act authorized "National Security Letter" (NSL) subpoena for a subscriber's private information. NSLs don't require judicial oversight, but the phone company in this case took matters into its own hands and is fighting the subpoena in court: "In the challenge playing out in California, the company is fighting the letters on constitutional grounds. It is arguing, among other things, that the gag orders associated with most of these letters improperly restrain speech without a judge's authorization. The FBI says it must maintain the secrecy of national security letters to avoid tipping off potential terrorists. The letters are "critical to our ability to keep the country safe," then-Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security Todd Hinnen told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security last year." (link)