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The American Library Association (ALA) has a useful resource available on their site: USA Patriot Act Resolutions of State Library Associations. It offers an alphabetical list of states, along with either direct, or sometimes circuitous links, to their respective resolutions endorsing the ALA USA Patriot Act Resolution.
Building Trust on the Web, Consumer WebWatch’s First National Summit on Web Credibility, April 24, 2003. Presentation topics include: Health Web Sites, Search Engines, Guidelines & Best Practices on the Web, Scams & Schemes: Why Don’t Consumers Trust the Web?, and Toward a More Credible Web. See this link for Jim Guest’s opening remarks.
EPIC, along with a coalition of 10 advocacy groups, filed a complaint with the FTC today stating that Amazon.com is violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (“COPPA”) by collecting and disclosing personal information about children. EPIC provides specific examples of children, with key information redacted to protect their privacy, who are registered …
From around the country, more articles on the escalating backlash against the Patriot Act as exemplified by defiant libraries and local governments. In Washington State, Libraries routinely toss data on patrons’. From New York State, Libraries, government at odds over Patriot Act, and from California, Local Officials Rise Up to Defy The Patriot Act.
On April 18, the DOJ filed a brief with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that supports the RIAA’s case against Verizon to compel the release of personal customer data of an individual who allegedly engaged in Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) violations through file swapping. The DOJ contends the government’s position …
Via FOIA requests, EPIC has obtained documentation on the federal government’s contracts and pricing for access to database records of personal information on citizens from Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Columbia, and Costa Rica, from public records group ChoicePoint.
The South Carolina Senate approved The Consumer Identity Theft Protection Act (S. 222) on April 16. The bill provides for the creation of an identity theft database by the Attorney General, expedited court proceedings for victims of ID theft, stricter verification of card holder identification by credit card companies, and blocks the distribution of inaccurate …
The Department of Homeland Security has hired a Chief Privacy Officer, attorney Nuala O’Connor Kelly. According to this government bio, she was formerly Chief Counsel for the Dept. of Commerce Technology Administration, and prior to that, she served as Vice President-Data Protection and Chief Privacy Officer for Emerging Technologies of the online media services company, …
The Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office “allows residents to view, free of charge, basic information about properties in Santa Clara County such as assessed value, assessor’s parcel number (APN), document number, property address and other information.” Here is a link to the Property Assessment Information System. Please note the following disclaimer: “California Government Code 6254.21 …
Public libraries across the country continue to pro-actively protect patron privacy using various straight-forward methods. In and around Chicago, libraries have recently posted signs informing visitors that their reading habits, and web sites visited from library PCs, are subject to tracking. “We want our patrons to be aware we could be forced to turn these …
EPIC has created a color-coded Privacy Threat Index that corresponds to that used by the Deparment of Homeland Security, which today lists the threat as Red (High). EPIC’s press release states that the Privacy Threat Index will be used to “track the growing threat to privacy resulting from the expansion of government surveillance.” Today’s Privacy …
The third annual survey on e-government, The New e-Government Equation: Ease, Engagement, Privacy and Protection, conducted on behalf of the non-partisan Council for Excellence in Government, indicates that Americans are pleased with improvements in e-gov services, but are also deeply concerned about data privacy issues associated with the collection and dissemination of personal data by …
