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The San Francisco Chronicle reported on February 28 that Attorney General Ashcroft has threatened to prosecute California law enforcement officials who continue to access three government databases, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), the National Crime Information Center and the Interstate Identification Index, to track illegal gun owners.
A new bill introduced in the Oregon Senate on February 25, Senate Bill 656, “Directs public libraries to install filtering software on computer terminals that provide access to Internet in children’s areas or near children’s areas.”
EPIC’s continuing efforts to ensure public accountability for the Total Information Awareness program through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit has yielded the release of 180 pages of important documents, most in PDF (of variable copy quality). The documents supplied include the names, addresses and contacts for the companies that applied for Total Information Awareness …
The FTC announced individual settlements with Hershey Foods Corporation and Mrs. Fields Cookies for violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rule. Specifically, the sites did not “obtain verifiable parental consent prior to collecting, using, and/or disclosing personal information from children.” The documents in these cases are available as follows: United States of …
The Gartner Group released a news analysis on February 20, Stolen Credit Card Case Should Prompt Card Companies to Act, in reponse to the recent hacking of a database containing millions of credit card records. Their conclusion: “The theft of 8 million credit cards reveals serious flaws in card companies’ disclosure processes. Credit card issuers …
Last week, Israel’s Haaretz Daily published an article, Big Brother is watching you – and documenting, detailing statements made by eBay’s Director of Law Enforcement and Compliance, Joseph E. Sullivan, at the CyberCrime 2003 conference. Mr. Sullivan’s presentation, “eBay: Working with Law Enforcement,” was made behind closed-doors, but according to the article, was recorded. Sullivan …
Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released a report yesterday, highly critical of the FBI, that identified serious problems impacting the FISA process: FBI Oversight in the 107th Congress by the Senate Judiciary Committee: FISA Implementation Failures – An Interim Report. Senators Release Committee Report on FISA Implementation Failures and …
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), an agency created post 9/11, is accepting comments on its proposed plan to create a new data mining program, the Aviation Security-Screening Records database. EPIC submitted comments to TSA stating that the system “would infringe on the Constitutional right of association and travel.”
Washington Times columnist Nat Hentoff delivers a pointed commentary on the “sequel to the Patriot Act…. an assault on the Bill of Rights drafted without consultation with Congress.”
On February 21, Microsoft announced the Windows Rights Management Services For Windows Server 2003. The company also released a white paper,
The Federal Trade Commission is sponsoring two free workshops, Technologies for Protecting Personal Information: The Consumer Experience (May 14, 2003), and Technologies for Protecting Personal Information: The Business Experience (June 4, 2003), according to this February 21 press release. See also the text of the Federal Register notice on these workshops, for which written comments …
For librarians around the country, concerns about the Patriot Act and patron privacy rights have only increased in the wake of recent news about the administration’s proposed Patriot II legislative initiative. From Sunday’s Ohio Toledo Blade, this article, Libraries fear loss of privacy as FBI searches for terrorists, illustrates the conflicting positions at issue involving …
