Global Positioning System (GPS) technology is a premium feature in many new cars. However, as this New York Times article details, these systems may be used for "Big Brother" surveillance by law enforcement, often without the knowledge or permission of the car owner.

The CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology is exhibiting some of its historic, unique and formerly secret techie gadgets, dating back to the 1940s, for employees and invited guests only, according to this AP report: "...the exhibits include a robotic catfish, a remote-controlled dragonfly and a camera strapped to the chests of pigeons.."

Clicking for President - Blogs, meetups, listservs, and other online tools bring a digital aspect to every campaign.

"EPIC's survey of the 2003 Privacy Year in Review notes the collapse of Total Information Awareness, surveillance cameras in schools, a Supreme Court victory for privacy, legal battles over the Do Not Call list, busted luggage locks, anti-terrorism law used for routine criminal investigations, and a conservative radio commentators asking for privacy."

Three Out of Four People Connect to the Internet Through Non-Browser Based Applications:

The Natural Resources Defense Council announced their choices for the best environmental websites of 2003 here.

As a follow-up to my posting U.S. Animal Tracking Database Still Under Development, this AP article, Mad Cow Scare May Spur High-Tech Tracking.

Information Technology Management, Terrorism Information Awareness Program, December 12, 2003, Deparment of Defense, Office of the Inspector General. "This report completes our response addressing concerns of Senators Grassley, Nelson, and Hagel and discusses whether development of the DARPA TIA program included safeguards to ensure the technology was properly managed and controlled in an operational environment...DARPA could have better addressed the sensitivity of the technology to minimize the possibility of any Governmental abuse of power....[Link to the full text report, 42 pages, pdf]

Freewheeling 'bloggers' are rewriting rules of journalism.

FBI urges police to watch for people carrying almanacs:

From ConsumerWeb Watch, a report issued December 8, Booking and Bidding in the Blind: An In-Depth Examination of Opaque Travel Web Sites

Amend PATRIOT Act Urges National League of Cities:

This past May, I posted on a digital book scanning project underway at the Stanford University Libraries. As a follow-up, the USA Today reports on automated digital scanning hardware and software from Kirtas Technologies, Inc. that facilitates the "digitization of massive document libraries, fully automating the scanning of bound documents (emphasis added) at a capture rate of 1200 pages per hour." The Library of Congress has an Information Technology Services (ITS) scanning team, and Amazon has undertaken a program to scan millions of books for its Search Inside the Book application.

This afternoon AP reported that VoteHere Inc., a company that provides "secure e-voting technology," was the victim of hackers some months ago. Internal documents and blue prints were stolen, and the case is under investigation by the FBI. VoteHere contends the crime was committed in an effort to undermine e-voting technology, which has been assailed recently on issues related to product flaws, questionable security and lack of voter verification.

The federally funded Internet Fraud Complaint Center, last week renamed the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), reported a 60% increase in a range of cybercrimes from 2002 to 2003. According to the IC3, cybercrimes include: Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) matters, Computer Intrusions (hacking), Economic Espionage (Theft of Trade Secrets), On-line Extortion, International Money Laundering, and Identity Theft.

United States Animal Identification Plan (USAIP) Draft, pdf, 74 pages.

How the Internet Has Changed Our Lives - The sites that have "had the greatest impact on Internet and on society as a whole" include: Google, eBay, Microsoft Outlook, Amazon, and Blogger.

Traffic flow in the greater DC, Virginia and Maryland metro areas are now covered by almost 300 closed circuit video cameras whose live feeds can be viewed on the Internet via TrafficLand.com. Users simply chose specific areas by clicking on a map designating major highways and commuter routes to view real-time traffic patterns.

From today's Christian Science Monitor: The Internet hasn't reeled in everyone yet

Happy Holidays to All, and just for good measure, here is the new issue of LLRX.com:

How You Can Thwart ID Thieves quickly cuts to the chase and enumerates eight free or low-cost ways to protect yourself against ID theft. For more resources, see my other postings on this topic here.

Jackson Web Site Unites, Divides Legal Profession:

This FTC press release details a joint proposed rulemaking of eight federal regulators on new regulations under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLB Act) to ensure that financial institutions provide practical, effective mechanisms to ensure the privacy of their customers' personal data.

From today's New York Times, an article on how House members are purchasing email lists to spam constituents (with the caveat that the messages include an opt-out option) in an effort to build a list of potential voters comprised of those who have chosen to opt-in and receive future messages.

This new book, Mexican Legal Dictionary and Desk Reference, by prolific author and international/comparative law scholar Professor Jorge Vargas, should be in the library collection of any organization that conducts research on Mexican law. The resource includes "over 3,000 legal terms, definitions, rules and legal principles taken from federal codes, federal statutes, regulations, bilateral treatises and international agreements between the United States and Mexico."

From Steven M. Cohen, Keeping Current, Advanced Internet Strategies to Meet Librarian Patron Needs. This book comprises five chapters, and focuses primarily on web-based current awareness strategies; resources for staying abreast of advances in search engines techniques and learning about new features; reviews of software for monitoring changes on websites; and how best to leverage content from topical and research specific weblogs. The book includes useful screen shots, recommendations for web-based current awareness services (free and fee), as well as discussion of the limitations of these resources.

From Perry Aftab, this article on pro-active ways to use the web to ascertain what personal information is online about you and your children, and suggestions for safe web use and protecting your privacy while online. See also her site, WiredSafety, which focuses on resources to combat cybercrime.

Building a Home for Library News with a BLOG

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced the state is suing Synergy6, Inc. and Delta Seven Communications, LLC, whose principals are accused of disseminating over one billion spam messages each week.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled today that the recording industry cannot use subpoenas to enforce claims of copyright infringement under the DMCA by compelling ISPs to turn-over customer data on alleged music downloaders.

The Department of Defense Transformation website provides links to government documents that focus on the technology capabilites of the U.S. armed forces engaged in the fight against terrorism.

According to Government Computer News, the content on 13 NASA websites was compromised by hackers, requiring them to go offline in what is described as "one of the most significant breaches of .gov domain … sites in the last six months." At the time of this posting, the sites listed in the article were still unavailable.

FCC Takes Additional Steps to Improve the Universal Service Schools and Libraries Program

From today's Washington Post (WP), an article titled White House Web Scrubbing details the ongoing removal of controversial documents from government websites by the White House. A specific example is the disappearance from the USAID site of a link to a transcript of statements made by the agency's Administrator Andrew S. Natsios that the cost of Iraqi reconstruction would be $1.7 billion. The actual cost of the war and reconstruction may be as high as $400 billion over a several year period. See the President's September 17, 2003 request for FY 2004 Supplemental Appropriations totaling $87 billion to fund the war and reconstruction.

The original address of the link was http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/nightline_042403_t.html. This page now contains the following message: "We're sorry. The page you are trying to request may be temporarily unavailable or may no longer exist on the USAID web site, or may have changed locations due to our recent redesign."

The WP also reports that the cached link to the USAID page has been removed from Google as well. Neither is the text of the document available in the Internet Archive or for free on the ABCNews.com Nightline site, the program that conducted the interview with Natsios. However there is a link on the Nightline website to purchase the transcript of the April 23 interview for $14.95.

See also my recent posting, New Report and Resources on Gov't Docs. Disappearing From Public Access

From the Washington Post, Online Financial Crime Headed From Bad to Worse. Worms, viruses and browser flaws will all continue to pose security risks for enterprise wide networks and home users alike in 2004.

Via Secrecy News, this link to an important recent CRS report, Continuity of Government, Current Federal Arrangements and the Future. From the Summary:

According to this CBSNews.com report, Thomas H. Kean, Chair of the 9-11 Commission, which has struggled to obtain essential government documents to conclude its investigation and issue a report by the end of May 2004, has gone on record with the following statements:

From the FTC website, this press release from December 16 announcing the effective dates for the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACTA), H.R. 2622, Public Law No: 108-159.

E-voting machine manufacturer Diebold Inc. is in the news again, this time in connection with possible California state election law violations, according their Secretary of State, as determined by an auditors report that revealed the use of unapproved software in the last election.

Homeland Security Presidential Directive/Hspd-8:

Google Print (BETA) FAQ:

From a December 16 announcement by ICANN:

Electronic Discovery and Evidence by Michael R. Arkfeld, with eight chapters on topics that include: the creation and storage of electronic information, Computer Forensics, Experts and Service Bureaus, Discovery and Production Process, and Court Procedural Rules and Case Law.

Quoting from the 16th December 2003 speech by Frits Bolkestein, Member of the European Commission in charge of the Internal Market, Taxation and Customs concering EU Data Protection:

The New Millennium Research Council today (NMRC) issued a press release and a report titled, The Future of Internet Phone Calling, Regulatory Imperatives to Protect the Promise of VoIP for Industry and Consumers [Link].

The GAO failed in their effort to obtain access to essential documents from Vice President Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group in order to determine if the nation's energy policy was influenced by corporations with a financial stake in the outcome. See my August 26 posting for links to relevant documents and commentary on this issue. On December 15, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the VP's documents must be released to the public. (Cheney v. U.S. District Court, No. 03-475.) See the Federal Advisory Committee Act, specifically section 10 (a)(1) - Each advisory committee meeting shall be open to the public.

Coverage of the issue is available at the links listed below, with the caveat that full-text access will be archived by most newspapers after seven days.

Results Iowa - Accountability for Iowa:

InformationWeek conducted a Cyberloafing Study to determine the level of personal use of the web on the job by a group comprising 225 business-technology professionals. Survey says: 91% admit to personal use of the web on the job. Most were using the web to access their personal email and to "search for items of personal interest."

This BBC article reports on the incredible staying power of the fax machine after three decades of use.

A December 12 ZDNet article provides a link to the Copyright Board of Canada decision, the press release and a fact sheet.

Forging America's New Normalcy: Securing Our Homeland, Protecting Our Liberty - The Fifth Annual Report to the President and the Congress of the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, December 15, 2003:

An incisive news article from the December 12 Ohio Times-Reporter presents Congressional and advocacy group perspectives on public access to CRS reports, a controversial issue about which I have posted a number of times. CRS does not maintain a public access website, but online access to selected reports is available through several non-government websites, and copies of the full-text reports from 1995 are available for purchase individually or through a subscription service, from one private source.

From the Pew Internet and American Life Project: Wired for Health: How Californians compare to the rest of the nation: A case study sponsored by the California HealthCare Foundation, released December 14, 2003:

From U.S. News, an extensive investigative report on How the public's business gets done out of the public eye:

Do you have an E-ZPass electronic tag? Have you received a notice in the mail indicating you were speeding on a particular date and time, or to enquire why your vehicle was traveling on the I-95 corridor on a specific date? The tag is a commuter convenience, and a law enforcement tool, as noted by this article that describes how the technology was used in the investigation into the recent death of an Assistant U.S. Attorney. But privacy issues associated with transportation surveillance also merit review.

According to the Winter Corporation Top Ten Program for 2003, the organizations identified as maintaining the "world's largest and most heavily used databases" using either Windows or Linux platforms include: France Telecom, AT&T, Amazon.com, FedEx Services, and at number 4, an organization listed as "Anonymous." [Slashdot]

Leading Publishers Sue Document Deliverers For Copyright Infringement; New Lawsuits Reflect Growing Infringement of Digital Content:

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) announced her intention to introduce legislation in early 2004 to ensure that every vote counts, by requiring that e-voting machine manufacturers provide built-in, not expensive add-on, paper records to verify the accuracy and security of the machines.

From the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries (UK), four valuable new guides, from a group of 12 to be released by February 2004, that address "how best to meet the needs of disabled people as users and staff in museums, archives and libraries."

The American Association of University Professors recently published a report, Academic Freedom and National Security in a Time of Crisis:

From the Washington Post's Jonathan Krim, this article Patenting Air or Protecting Property? reviews the growing criticism of the USPTO's patent process, and details the marked increase in lawsuits involving Internet-related technologies from companies that include high-profile Amazon, Microsoft, Blackberry, and eBay.

Dean Heller, Nevada Secretary of State, issued a news release December 10 on his decision to purchase Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines from Sequoia Voting Systems, and to require the inclusion of "voter verifiable receipt" technology to accompany each machine. This makes Nevada the first state to adopt such a requirement, and reflects growing voter and state concerns subsequent to the Diebold controversy.

A new survey that targeted the UK's top 90 websites revealed a widespread lack of privacy compliance just as the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulation comes into force today.

The text of Wednesday's Supreme Court decision, McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, upholding the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill (S. 25), is here in pdf (298 pages).

As a follow-up to my posting yesterday, Are Paralegal Work and Legal Research Next to Go Offshore? this afternoon Reutersreported that Google will establish an R&D center in India in early 2004.

Thanks to fellow blogger Dennis Kennedy for the mention of beSpacific in his article, Beating Information Overload with News Aggregators, from the November/December 2003 issue of ABA Law Practice Management.

Rep. Adam Putnam, (R-Fla.) in conjunction with the House Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census, issued a comparison chart, using an A through F grading scheme, to evaluate government agency information security in 2002 and 2003. It should be noted that the governmentwide average rose from an F to a D this past year. Feel more secure now! See this Federal Computer Week article for more details as well as to review a copy of the chart.

The San Diego County Californa Board of Supervisors will institute an ID Theft Task Force in cooperation with the DA and law enforcement as a means to combat the second highest rate of ID theft in the state. [Link]

TechDirt posted on a patent awarded by the USPTO to Microsoft yesterday for a "Method and apparatus for writing a windows application in HTML."

From the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse: Testimony on December 9 by Beth Givens to the San Diego County Chairman's Conference on Identity Theft--Prevent Identity Theft with Responsible Information-Handling Practices in the Workplace. "The keys to prevention are two-fold, involving the credit industry and the workplace:

Information Week reported yesterday that law firms are actively considering sending white collar jobs offshore, where paralegal salaries are between $6 and $8 per hour, while the average in the U.S. is over $17. The statistics for this article were obtained from a research report sponsored by the University of California, Berkeley, Fall 2003, titled The New Wave of Outsourcing. The outsourcing first wave began in the 1980s and focused on manufacturing. The next wave encompasses white collar jobs according to the authors, and is driven by the ubiquity of the Internet and global communications applications. Telecommunications, ISPs, telephone call centers, software design, and other non-manufacturing related sectors are increasingly at risk to outsourcing, due in no small measure to huge discrepancies in U.S. salaries vs. those in Eastern Europe, Asia and Ireland.

From EPIC:

Cash-strapped states and localities nationwide are turning to eBay to sell everything from yachts to unclaimed goods in the possession of police departments, according to USA Today.

U.S. is No.1 in technology competitiveness

Congress approves anti-spam legislation

The 9-11 Commission held a public hearing today on the topic Security and Liberty, that included witness testimony on "domestic intelligence collection, protecting privacy while preventing terrorism, and the use of immigration laws to prevent terrorism."

On December Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, sent a letter to Dept. of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, expressing concerns over the US-VISIT program and publication of required privacy assessment data. As noted on December 1, the Committee on Government Reform also documented concerns regarding the impact of data collection on foreign citizens visiting the U.S.

From the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) a Special News Advisory About Terrorism in the Two Years After 9/11: "Investigators seek prosecution of more than 6,400 but only five get twenty years or more in prison. Median or typical sentence for those classified as international terrorists is 14 days."

Trademark Assignments on the Web System is Now Available on the United States Patent and Trademark Office Web Site:

Government officials and observers report on the progress made under the E-Gov Act of 2002

From a Justice Department press release:

According to Government Computer News, two Google Seach Appliances have been purchased for use on the government's intranet for classified information sharing that spans numerous agencies, called Intelink.

The Tax Relief Extension Act of 2003 (H.R. 3521 and S. 1896) will expire on December 31, 2003.

In response to a FOIA request for documents on the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) no-fly lists or "watch lists," the ACLU obtained 94 pages of documents from the FBI that are posted here. The documents are heavily redacted. The ACLU press release is here.

From PC Magazine, a brief "how-to" overview of blogging features, tools and pricing, as well as ratings of the following applications: Blogger/Blog*Spot, LiveJournal, Radio UserLand, Tripod Blog Builder, TypePad, Weblogger, Xanga, Movable Type 2.64. The author awards TypePad, the hosted version of Movable Type, with the honor as best in its class.

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), scheduled to begin in Geneva on December 10, is shaping up to be the backdrop for an escalating dispute focused on Internet governance.

With the expiration of an October 31 deadline for implementing the Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications, the European Commission indicated that legal action against nine member states may be necessary to ensure their compliance. The directive addresses e-privacy issues that include spam, the use of cookies, and the protection of customer data by ISPs.

In anticipation of widely reported plans for a initial public offering (IPO) in early 2004, Google is seeking a ruling from District Court in San Jose, California to determine whether keyword searches associated with advertising sold by the site constitute trademark infringement. (Google, Inc. v. American Blind & Wallpaper Factory, Inc. (Complaint) , ND Ca)

The RIAA filed 41 new lawsuits in a continued effort to stem the tide of music file-sharing, and indicated that previous lawsuits have resulted in settlements that average $3,000.

"The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee plans a February hearing to probe fraud allegations in the E-Rate program, the nation's $2.25 billion initiative to help schools and libraries connect to the Internet." [Link]

President Bush Signs Identity Theft Legislation

From tech research firm Gartner: Spam Will Likely Worsen Despite U.S. Law.

From the November/December 2003 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: How agencies thwart the Freedom of Information Act, by Jeffrey T. Richelson, a senior fellow with the National Security Archive, Washington, D.C.

Information Quality and the Law, or, How to Catch a Difficult Horse:

From Google Help: "Google now uses stemming technology. Thus, when appropriate, it will search not only for your search terms, but also for words that are similar to some or all of those terms... Any variants of your terms that were searched for will be highlighted in the snippet of text accompanying each result." [Search Engine Showdown]

Today the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Buck Doe v. Elaine L. Chao, Secretary of Labor (No. 02-1377), involving the Privacy Act of 1974 and the wrongful disclosure of the social security number of a coal miner seeking benefits for black lung disease.

Dr. Avi Rubin of the Johns Hopkins' Information Security Institute gave the keynote today, Electronic Voting: A case study of how closed systems fail, at the Secure Trusted Operating System Consortium Symposium underway at George Washington University. Dr. Rubin's research identified critical security flaws in e-voting machine manufacturer Diebold Inc.'s software. The company announced this past July that it was awarded a $55.6m contract by the state of Maryland for its touch screen voting technology and related support services.

From the press release: "The Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age today released its second report, concluding that the U.S. government has not yet taken advantage of America's technology expertise to fight the war on terrorism. In its report, the Task Force catalogs current gaps in the nation's system for analyzing and sharing intelligence. It details the elements of a proposed System-wide Homeland Analysis and Resource Exchange (SHARE) Network that would more effectively combat terrorism while protecting privacy and other civil liberties."

On November 21, Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT) introduced the Congressional Research Accessibility Act (H.R. 3630), To make available on the Internet, for purposes of access and retrieval by the public, certain information available through the Congressional Research Service Web site.

The redesigned website for Washington, DC was recently honored by the Center for Digital Government as the Best of the Web city portal. The site has more than 120,000 pages, available in seven languages, in addition to English, and receives in excess of 100 million annual visits (yeh DC!). Content is arranged into the following sections: DC Guide, Living and Working in DC, Doing Business in DC, Visiting DC, and Government Services in DC. Drop-down menus offer access to online services, online forms, and searchable databases from DC government agencies and featured organizations.

From today's LA Times (reg. req'd), FBI Seeks Wiretap Capabilities for Phone Calls Made Over the Internet. As I posted yesterday, FCC Commissioner Powell released a strong statement opposing regulation of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). According to the Times article, DOJ officials maintain that such a position would "jeopardize the ability of federal, state and local governments to protect public safety and national security against domestic and foreign threats."

The Internet and the right to communicate: "This paper examines the development of a right to communicate and how it can be defined and implemented."

Today the Federal Communications held a public forum on Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). From the Opening Remarks of FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell:

The Tampa Tribune reported on November 26 (the article is now in the archives $$) that the Florida Supreme Court appointed a committee, chaired by Jon Mills, to determine new procedures to address privacy issues related to the release of personal data in electronic court records.

Press release from the House Government Reform Committee: "Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA) wrote last week to Secretary of State Colin Powell and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge seeking assurances about the upcoming implementation of the US-VISIT program."

"As the January deadline for implementing the program at 115 airports and 14 seaports approaches, Davis sought information about coordination between the Department of State and Department of Homeland Security; potential adverse impacts on commerce and tourism; and the unprecedented task of collecting, storing and accurately accessing vast quantities of biometric records."

Victim advocates want names, addresses, records offline.

From the EFF: Diebold Backs Down, Won't Sue on Publication of Electronic Voting Machine Flaws:

This article from today's New York Times indicates that the IRS plans to implement an Electronic Account Resolution program for tax professionals by spring 2004.

Google Viewer: