Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery With Daily Postings Since 2002
Press release: “Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) and Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), members of the Senate Banking Committee, today introduced legislation to help protect individuals and businesses from the rampant crimes of identity theft and account fraud…The new bill requires that all entities such as financial institutions, universities, retailers and federal agencies safeguard sensitive information, …
County Clerk to Temporarily Halt Online Posting of Public Records, June 19, 2006: ” Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir announced today that her office will temporarily halt publishing public records on the Internet. DeBeauvoir said her commitment to protecting individual personal data outweighs the convenience of accessing records online. DeBeauvoir stressed the public records will …
AP reports on an impending agreement between Congress and the White House on legislation incorporating language on the government’s domestic surveillance program into law.
Follow-up to June 22, 2006 posting, Government Mines Global Financial Data in War on Terror, the following related government documents and news today includes: Press release: Statement of Treasury Secretary John W. Snow on Disclosure of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program: “Given our intimate knowledge of the global financial system and financial flows, along with …
“The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) told a federal judge today that the government should not be allowed to use the “state secrets privilege” to preempt the class-action lawsuit against AT&T. EFF’s suit accuses AT&T of collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in illegally spying on millions of Americans — handing over customers’ telephone and …
Is the NSA spying on U.S. Internet traffic? by Kim Zetter, Salon.com, June 22, 2006.
Following up on Domestic Call Records Mined for Expansive Pentagon Database Program, today’s passage by the House Judiciary Committee, voice vote, on H.Res. 819, “Requesting the President and directing the Attorney General to submit to the House of Representatives all documents in the possession of the President and the Attorney General relating to requests made …
The Consumer Privacy Legislative Forum (whose members include Google, Microsoft, Oracle, EBay Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Symantec Corp.) issued a statement supporting “a serious process to consider comprehensive harmonized federal privacy legislation to create a simplified, uniform but flexible legal framework.” Google Official Blog: “On an Internet beset with spyware, …
Following up on previous postings on the VA data breach, today the GAO issued yet another related report – Information Security: Leadership Needed to Address Weaknesses and Privacy Issues at Veterans Affairs, Full text GAO-06-897T, and Highlights, June 20, 2006. “For many years, significant concerns have been raised about VA’s information security–particularly its lack of …
AP: “Federal and local police across the country – as well as some of the nation’s best-known companies – have been gathering Americans’ phone records from private data brokers without subpoenas or warrants. These brokers, many of whom market aggressively on the Internet, have broken into customer accounts online, tricked phone companies into revealing information …
Related to previous postings on government telephone surveillance, see this recent commentary, ACLU v. National Security Agency: Why the “State Secrets Privilege” Shouldn’t Stop the Lawsuit Challenging Warrantless Telephone Surveillance of Americans, by John Dean.
Yet another report today about the theft of a laptop from the home of a government employee, this time involving info on D.C. government personnel. The issue of why so many institutions have not implemented proper security measures, such as encryption on digital media removed from the office, remains baffling.
