Michael Zimmer.org

Why should you be concerned about the aggregation and commercial availability of your personal information? Because you have little Constitutional protection from the state accessing such “third party” data, as this AP report makes all to clear:
Numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies have bypassed subpoenas and warrants designed to protect civil liberties and gathered Americans’ personal telephone records from private-sector data brokers.
These brokers, many of whom advertise aggressively on the Internet, have gotten into customer accounts online, tricked phone companies into revealing information and even acknowledged that their practices …

My U.S. Senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is calling for the creation of a “privacy bill of rights” to protect people’s personal data. From the AP wire:
”Modern life makes many things easier and many things easier to know, and yet privacy is somehow caught in the crosshairs of these changes,” Clinton said in a speech to a left-leaning legal group.
…Clinton wants to create a ”privacy czar” within the White House to guard against recent problems like the theft of personal data from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
She also wants legislation to …

Please read Jack Balkin’s excellent post on the The Twin Dangers of the National Surveillance State:
The twin dangers of national security displacing the criminal justice system and the criminal justice becoming increasingly like the national security system are consequences of technological change. Although the National Surveillance State arises from the changing nature of war, changes in technology do not stop with the problem of war, as least as traditionally conceived. Rather, the very same changes in technology threaten to transform the ways that democratic governments interact with their citizenry. That …

Jack Balkin points out that under the new Iraqi constitution (passed with the support of the Bush administration), the NSA spying program would be unconstitutional. According to Article 38:
The freedom of communication, and mail, telegraphic, electronic, and telephonic correspondence, and other correspondence shall be guaranteed and may not be monitored, wiretapped or disclosed except for legal and security necessity and by a judicial decision. [emphasis added]

With end of semester craziness, the holidays, and the transition to this new website, I wasn’t able to blog about the revelations that the President authorized the NSA to engage in domestic surveillance without proper warrants. [See Bruce Schneier's excellent analysis and collection of links if you're searching for more commentary on the topic.] But I thought I’d pass along this announcement I received from EPIC today:
Gore to Speak About Domestic Spy Program at Constitution Hall
Former Vice President Al Gore will give a speech addressing the constitutional crisis caused …

ComuterWorld reports that a senior legislator in Japan is calling for the addition of data privacy rights to the country’s constitution:
An influential Japanese politician earlier this month called for the right to information privacy to be added to the country’s constitution. The collection, storage, use and transfer of personal information should be banned unless the person consents to the activity or there’s a valid legal exception, said Yukio Hatoyama, a member of Japan’s House of Representatives and former leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan.
People should have the right …