Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery With Daily Postings Since 2002
Data on health issues including abortions and contraception have been removed from government web sites, and complaints are escalating that such actions are motivated by the President’s political agenda. See my previous posting on this topic here, which includes references to Congressional concerns over this specific pattern of censoring health related data.
In 1997, then Senator Ashcroft of Missouri published a statement called, Keep Big Brother’s Hands Off the Internet. Fast forward to the Patriot Act.
The Center for Democracy and Technology has published an E-Government Handbook, conceived as a global resource on how to implement technology applications to best serve the needs of citizens by making information easily and readily available online.
The Privacy Journal conducted a survey of state legislation related to privacy issues, and ranked California at the top of the list due to its pro-active institution of protections for its citizens, via legislation, but also through the courts and in its constitution. This information comes from the organization’s Compilation of State and Federal Privacy …
Here is a link to the text of the Homeland Security Act from the November 22, 2002 Federal Register.
The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (“ESIGN”) went into effect on October 1, 2000. It provides that digital signatures are legally valid for use in commercial and government documents. However, compliance with the law has been slow at best, as courts and agencies such as the EPA continue to seek exemptions from …
The Center for Governmental Studies published the Electronic Filing and Disclosure Survey, 2002 Update, which is a 27 page report in PDF, encompassing answers to 23 questions. The document includes data from the federal government, 50 states, and six Canadian provinces. Virtually all of the jurisdictions surveyed provide online campaign finance, lobbyist and personal financial …
This site is nothing to write home about in terms of the design and graphical interface, but it certainly merits your visit for the useful resources it provides. The National Freedom of Information Coalition, a non-profit that received funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation , has compiled an online guide to …
This site provides a flowchart of the TIA System objectives and strategy….very short on facts. This Washington Post article offers more information on the new Pentagon project including links to other press coverage, both pro and con, mostly focused on privacy concerns associated with its goals and objectives. If you are interested in hearing about …
The Copenhagen press reported that the Chinese government has systematically censorsed access to the Danish search engine, Jubii. This is in no small measure due to the fact this engine provides access to sites banned by the Chinese government, including Amnesty International and the Falun Gong spiritual movement. Note: I was not familiar with Falun …
The California state government learned the hard way the repercussions of not acting swiftly to respond to, secure and disclose that employee personal data was comprised by a wide scale database hacking operation in April 2002. Fast forward, and their legislature is now the first in the country to pass a law to prevent the …
William Safire’s Op-Ed piece, You Are a Suspect, generated considerable reaction from readers as he enumerated how each and every daily transaction that you consider innocuous and routine (purchases with credit cards, filling prescriptions, surfing the web) will become part of the DOJ’s vast new, Total Information Awareness database. Needless to say, Safire condemns the …