This San Francisco Chronicle article notes that the Google municipal wi-fi service will require users to create a Google account and log on to access the free service. While (savvy) users can create anonymous accounts, requiring a login makes it…
Read More Google Wi-Fi requries Google Account; Info Held 6 Months
Following up on these privacy concerns with municipal wi-fi programs, I am beginning to wonder to what extent the providers of muni-wi-fi (such as Google) might be considered "state agents" when it comes to the collecting of personal information via…
Michael Froomkin links to a story about a Federal Trade Commission subpoena sent to Google for the complete contents of a Gmail account, including deleted e-mail messages. (This is unrelated to the DOJ's subpoena to Google for search terms and…
The court issued a decision Friday on Gonzales v. Google, the case involving a DOJ subpoena for Google search queries. (Dan Solove has excellent coverage here.) In short, the judge ruled partially in favor of the government, ordering Google to…
Read More Partial Victory for Google; Larger Victory for Search Engine Privacy
A new report by the Center for Democracy & Technology details a widening gap between the technology that collects sensitive personal data and the laws designed to protect that data against government misuse. The National Security Agency's domestic spying program,…
Bruce Schneier reports that a Federal Court has ruled that a financial institution has no duty to encrypt customer databases under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley statute. From the article:In a legal decision that could have broad implications for financial institutions, a court…
Read More Federal Court: Financial Institution Has No Duty To Encrypt Customer Databases
The New York Times has an article today about the privacy of one's online intellectual activities and the increasing tendancy of ISPs and other online service providers to share that information with law enforcement (hopefully only when presented with a…
Read More NYT: Increasingly, Internet’s Data Trail Leads to Court
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…
Read More Iraqi Constitution Would Ban NSA Surveillance Program
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…
I'm attending the "Regulating Search?" symposium hosted by the Yale Information Society Project today. The first panel was on "The Search Space," and Robin Sloan, co-producer of the (in)famous "EPIC 2014" movie on "the future history of media," posed an…
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