New Pentagon Data Mining Program

Noah Shachtman’s Wired article reveals plans for a huge new database project, purportedly under development, called LifeLog (from DARPA, sponsors of the Total Information Awareness System, renamed the Terrorism Awareness Information Program), comprised of information compiled “by tracking where people go and what they see.” In an associated reference, on May 16 I posted information …

Subjects: Privacy

Further FOIA Exemptions for NSA

The NSA has proposed a FOIA exemption for “files that document the means by which foreign intelligence or counterintelligence is collected through technical systems.” Also via FAS, see the text of the proposed exemption, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004, S. 747. From OMBWatch, “The Senate language, included in the proposed FY …

Subjects: Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legislation

Total Information Awareness Becomes Total Terrorism Awareness

Big news day concerning DARPA’s Total Information Awareness Program, which according to this press release, is now called the Terrorism Awareness Information Program. This change coincides with the agency’s report to Congress delivered today, with links to associated documents as follows: Guide to the Report to Congress download Executive Summary (6 pages, 30Kb, pdf) download …

Subjects: Privacy

RSS Feeds For Summaries of Recent Supreme Court Decisions

From Thomas R. Bruce, Co-Director, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School: “As part of some extensive (and ongoing) renovation of our Supreme Court collection, we’ve added RSS feeds that offer summaries of recent decisions. There are two: http://supct.law.cornell.edu:8080/supct/rss/0.91/supct_today.rss Actually the less-useful of the two feeds, this one takes in decisions handed down “today” (that is, …

Subjects: Courts

NY City Consumer Affairs Decisions Go Online

“The city Department of Consumer Affairs has begun posting decisions on consumer protection and licensing issues at www.citylaw.org, the Web site of New York Law School’s Center for New York City Law. More than 600 administrative law judges’ decisions, from January 2003 to the present, are available on the site, and the department plans to …

Subjects: E-Government

Federal Prosecutions Against Internet Crime

Fact Sheet, Operation E-Con: Cracking Down on Internet Crime, released by the DOJ on May 16, 2003. “Since its inception, Operation E-Con has conducted over 90 investigations involving 89,000 victims and estimated losses of more than $176 million….To date Operation E-Con has executed over 70 search and seizure warrants that have led to 130 arrests …

Subjects: Cybercrime, ID Theft, Internet

Libraries Testify at Copyright Office DMCA Hearings

From the American Libraries Association (ALA) DMCA Section 1201 Anti-Circumvention Rule site: “On May 9, the U.S. Copyright Office concluded a round of hearings in Washington, D.C. pursuant to its rulemaking, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA), to determine potential exemptions to the Section 1201 prohibition on circumvention of technological measures that …

Subjects: Copyright, Legislation, Libraries

EFF Files Brief in Verzion/RIAA Privacy Case

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), joined by “45 organizations (including the American Library Association) – 27 consumer and privacy groups and 18 ISPs and ISP associations,” filed a 35 page brief (pdf) on May 16 with the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, suporting Verizon’s continued refusal to reveal the name of a customer who …

Subjects: Copyright, Privacy

Calendar of International CLE Programs for Lawyers, Law Librarians

From the International Association of Law Libraries, this calendar of upcoming events provides links to topical CLE programs around the world for law librarians/info professionals and attorneys that will take place in 2003-2007, as well as links to past events from 2002. The site is maintained by Lyonette Louis-Jacques, Foreign and International Law Librarian and …

Subjects: Legal Research, Libraries

Freeware Anti-Spam Program

From InfoWorld, a review of an open source anti-spam application that may be useful to a wide user community. “SpamBayes knows spam – Outlook add-in really works to block spam, and it’s free.” For more information, see the SpamBayes website, and this technical background document.

Subjects: E-Mail, Privacy