Even Shredded Documents Are Not Beyond Reconstructing

Picking Up the Pieces: “People perceive it (the paper shredder) as an almost perfect device,” said Jack Brassil, a researcher for Hewlett-Packard who has worked on making shredded documents traceable. If people put a document through a shredder, “they assume that it’s fundamentally unrecoverable,” he said. “And that’s clearly not true.” For more detailed documentation, …

Subjects: E-Records, Privacy

Critique of Google

From Slate, Digging for Googleholes, ends with the following paragraph: “We’re wrong to think of Google as a pure reference source. It’s closer to a collectively authored op-ed page — filled with bias, polemics, and a skewed sense of proportion — than an encyclopedia. It’s still the connected world’s most dazzling place to visit, a …

Subjects: Legal Research, Search Engines

Total Information Awareness Program Hits the Wall

‘Partial’ Information Awareness is an article published on January 9, 2003, authored by Wayne Crews, director of technology studies at the Cato Institute. He states: “It’s one thing to give up privacy for security if there’s no other choice. With TIA we may be sacrificing privacy for no security benefit at all. And potential unintended …

Subjects: Privacy

White House Fights to Keep TIA Program

From Secrecy News: in a July 14 statement, the White House “urges the Senate to remove the provision (from the 2004 Defense Appropriations Act) that prohibits any research and development for the Terrorism Information Awareness Program. This provision would deny an important potential tool in the war on terrorism.” See my related posting, Total Information …

Subjects: Privacy

Homeland Security Proposed Regs for Anti-Terror Tech

Regulations Implementing the Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act of 2002 (the SAFETY Act, subtitle G of the Homeland Security Act, P.L. No. 107-296), Office of the Secretary, Homeland Security: Notice of proposed rulemaking. This proposed rule would implement Subtitle G of Title VIII of the Homeland Security Act of 2002–the Support of Anti-terrorism …

Subjects: E-Government

Resources on Electronic Discovery

From Ken Withers, a Research Associate at the Federal Judicial Center, links to a series of presentations and papers on electronic discovery. Selected Case Law and Further Reading Electronic Discovery: What You Need to Know, Association of the Bar of New York City, 29 May 2003 (PowerPoint slides and text) The Sedona Principles, Best Practices, …

Subjects: E-Records