Another slick animation outlining the threats of our growing surveillance society: Big Brother State (YouTube version here) [via Jeremy Hunsinger]
Category: Information Law & Policy
Justice Department Says F.B.I. Misused Patriot Act
In what should not come as that big of a surprise, AP reports: The FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about people in the United States, a Justice Department…
Read More Justice Department Says F.B.I. Misused Patriot Act
Judge Restricts New York Police Surveillance of Public Spaces
A federal judge ruled that the police must stop the routine videotaping of people at public gatherings. Reversing (and clarifying) an earlier ruling, the judge stated that such public surveillance is allowable only if there was an indication that unlawful…
Read More Judge Restricts New York Police Surveillance of Public Spaces
House Introduces Privacy Bill Foursome…With One Runt in the Litter
27B Stroke 6 outlines four important pieces of privacy-protecting legislation that have either been recently introduced or received new life in the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives: * The Prevention of Fraudulent Access to Phone Records Act, introduced by Dingell and…
Read More House Introduces Privacy Bill Foursome…With One Runt in the Litter
Vista a Threat to Internet Freedom?
BBC columnist Bill Thompson warns readers that new DRM technology, especially that found in Vista, is damaging the freedoms that the Internet was based on: The freedom of expression that was once available to users of the Internet Protocol is…
2006 Election’s Impact on Privacy & Surveillance
Wired details the potential impact the Democratic takeover of Congress will have on technology devopment, use and policy. Specific attention is paid to privacy and surveillance technologies: [I]t's unlikely that Democrats -- facing a presidential election in 2008 and fearful…
Volokh Conspiracy: Data-Mining and the Fourth Amendment
The Volokh Conspiracy reports on a Sixth Circuit decision in a Fourth Amendment case that addresses whether querying a database triggers Fourth Amendment protection. The majority concludedthat it does not: If the government collected the data in the database in…
Read More Volokh Conspiracy: Data-Mining and the Fourth Amendment
Federal Judge Orders End to Warrantless Wiretapping
A federal judge in Detroit ruled today that the Bush administration’s eavesdropping program is illegal and unconstitutional. I'll leave analysis of Judge Taylor's reasoning to the experts (Jack Balkin, Orin Kerr, Dan Solove, Eugene Volokh, for starters). But I certainly…
Read More Federal Judge Orders End to Warrantless Wiretapping
Anonymity in Cyberspace: Finding the Balance
Earlier this year, the International Association of IT Lawyers (IAITL) organized the First International Conference on Legal, Privacy and Security Issues in Information Technology in Hamburg, Germany. The conference covered a broad range of topics, such as electronic signatures, e-commerce,…
NJ Librarian ensnared in privacy conflict
NorthJersey.com reports of a local librarian who told police they would need a subpoena before she would turn over the circulation records of a man who had allegedly made sexually threatening comments to a 12-year-old girl outside the library. The…
MichaelZimmer.org 
You must be logged in to post a comment.