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Airline Security’s False Hope?: An expert on aviation safety statistics says a new computer system to screen out terrorists may actually make things easier for them, by Arnold Barnett (reg. req’d). “The latest incarnation of security screening for our airports has many friends in high places. U.S. secretary of transportation Norman Mineta described it as …
The Inbox Defense Task Force is “a non-profit legal research organization dedicated to tracking down the true identities of spammers.” The organization lists the following goals on its website: Find the Spammers; Create Courtroom-Quality Documentation; Enable Prosecution and Private Legal Action. A lengthy review of this organization’s work, by Keith H. Hammonds, a Fast Company …
Unpatriotic Acts: The FBI’s Power to Rifle Through Your Records and Personal Belongings Without Telling You, July 2003, from the ACLU. The focus of this 26 page report (pdf) is an examination of, along with related resources and legal documents on, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, “which gives the FBI unprecedented access to …
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) maintains a no-fly blacklist that may include thousands of names, to which the CIA, FBI, Immigration and Dept. of State contribute information. See also Airline passenger screening tested: “The Homeland Security Department will begin testing a program to classify all airline passengers according to their security risk.” CAPPS II Privacy …
From the American Library Association Washington Office Newsline: “Last night, July 31, Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), introduced the “Protecting the Rights of Individuals Act.” (S. 1552) This bill contains many provisions that will help to restore some protections of civil liberties weakened by the USA PATRIOT Act. Several provisions are of …
Privacy Act: OMB Leadership Needed to Improve Agency Compliance. GAO-03-304, June 30. Highlights “More than one in four federal agencies, or 29 percent of those surveyed by the GAO, did not have procedures to ensure that personal data about individual Americans that they disclosed to nonfederal groups was complete, accurate, relevant and timely, as required …
From the American Library Association Washington Office Newsline: “On July 31, 2003, Senator Feingold (D-WI), joined by Senators Bingaman (D-NM), Kennedy (D-MA), Cantwell (D-WA), Durbin (D-IL), Wyden (D-OR), Corzine (D-NJ), Akaka (D-HI), and Jeffords (I-VT), introduced the Library, Bookseller, and Personal Records Privacy Act (S. 1507). The bill would amend the PATRIOT Act to protect …
Today’s WSJ and Washington Post report that TIA Director John Poindexter will resign in the wake of the debacle over the proposed “FutureMAP research project…to explore the power of futures markets to predict and thereby prevent terrorist attacks.” See my posting on the background of, and Congressional response to, the FutureMAP research project here. In …
FBI targets Net phoning: Internet telephone calls are fast becoming a national security threat that must be countered with new police wiretap rules, according to an FBI proposal presented quietly to regulators this month. Learn more about Net telephony – Tutorial on Internet Telephony.
Rep. Mary Bono introduced H.R. 2929, the Safeguard Against Privacy Invasions Act (SPI), to protect users of the Internet from unknowing transmission of their personally identifiable information through spyware programs. Rep. Bono’s press release. “The bill grants the Federal Trade Commission regulatory authority over the SPI Act, and imposes civil penalties for those who do …
This lawsuit, Muslim Community Ass’n of Ann Arbor, et al, v. John Ashcroft and Robert Mueller (July 30, 2003), filed by the ACLU on behalf of Arab-Americans, challenges the constitutionality of Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. In related news, see this CNN article, ACLU files lawsuit against Patriot Act .
From today’s Boston Globe editorial, which refers to yesterday’s debacle on the DARPA FutureMap Program : “The Defense Department should sever its ties with Poindexter (TIA Director John Poindexter) before he can humiliate Americans again. Indeed, President Bush should have dismissed him last year and owes the nation an explanation of how his administration nearly …
