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Verizon has requested a stay in Judge John D. Bates’ (United States District Court for the District of Columbia) ruling in favor of RIAA, compelling Verizon to release personal customer data on a subscriber who downloaded copyrighted music. See my previous post on this issue here.
The Center for Democracy and Technolgy (CDT) filed an amicus brief (PDF) in the Supreme Court on February 10 in the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) case, supporting the lower court decision (210 F. Supp 2d 401) overturning the requirement that federally funded libraries must filter Internet access to patrons. See also the library of …
The efforts of Senators Ron Wyden and Harry Reid to block the progress of the Total Information Awareness surveillance program through an amendment (S. 59) added to the omnibus spending bill to discontinue its funding, have been successful. For additional information on this legislation and the Democratic-led initiative to terminate this government sponsored data mining …
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) released a strategic plan (PDF) detailing the goals and objectives of the Total Information Awareness Program, as required by the Senate as part of the Defense Authorization Act of 2003.
The advocacy group Public Integrity issued a press release on February 7 detailing their research on a previously secret 120 page draft of what is being called the “Patriot Act II” legislation, which apparently has not been shared with the House Judiciary Committee. This draft was written by the staff of Attorney General John Ashcroft. …
The National Journal reports that opposition to the government’s Total Information Awareness Project continues to gain momentum. Sen. Ron Wyden, who spearheaded a bill to limit spending on the program, spoke this week with a coalition of advocacy groups including the ACLU, in an effort to ensure that the upcoming conference report will adopt the …
GPO Access recently made available The Privacy Act Issuances, 1995, 1997 1999, and 2001 Compilations Online. The fully searchable database uses a template to enter information in the following fields: Full text of the Privacy Act Notices, Agency, System Number, or System Name, and also supports Boolean searching. The data entails “descriptions of Federal agency …
EPIC announced it filed an amicus brief (PDF) with the Supreme Court in Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms v. City of Chicago. The case involves the Freedom of Information Act and privacy issues related to witholding data on the illegal purchase of firearms in the city. See this EPIC page …
As previously reported, college and university students are under growing scrutiny for downloading digital files using campus provided ISP access. Brown University is the latest institution in the news to formalize efforts to control the parameters of student use of file sharing applications. Keeping the DMCA (PDF) firmly in mind, and with an awareneess of …
The FTC announced a free, three day forum, April 30-May 2, open to the public, consisting of fourteen separate panels, each addressing different aspects of the spam email issue including legislation, security, privacy, law enforcement, and blocking software. The text of the Federal Register notice on this forum is available here, and references a recent …
In a post on January 6, 2003 I noted a proposed rule from DOJ that would subject transportation manifests to electronic monitoring. On February 3, EPIC filed comments on the privacy implications of this rule with the INS. For the first time, data would be collected electronically on all U.S. and non-U.S. residents.
Privacy and Security, A librarian’s dilemma, addresses the challenges faced by public librarians post 9/11 who are committed both to the country’s safety and security, as well as to their patron’s right to privacy. Law professor and library law expert Mary Minow states the issue succinctly: “How do we make sure we protect the privacy …
