Bytes and Pieces
A Privacy, Free Speech & Technology Blog
Written by Technology and Civil Liberties Policy Director Nicole Ozer
Daily compilation of links to articles related to technology and civil liberties.
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Daily compilation of links to articles related to technology and civil liberties.
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Daily compilation of links to articles related to technology and civil liberties.
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Want to keep your information private now that Google has started rolling out “Search, plus Your World,” a new search results format? For those signed-in with a Google account, the new feature combines search results from the public web plus private information and photos you have shared (or have been shared with you) through Google+ or Picasa.
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"I don't think it is working. It's not effective. We know that." This is how California's death penalty was described just a few days ago by the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye.
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Facial recognition tools automatically identify the same face in two different photos. As a result, any picture of you -- whether you know it's being taken or not -- could be linked to your identity. Lawmakers and companies need to ensure that facial recognition tools provide transparency and control so that individuals can choose how and whether to participate, as well as ensure that any information held by these tools is protected from abuse and warrantless disclosure.
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Today, Facebook agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges that it deceived customers by failing to uphold privacy promises. The FTC announced today that the social networking site “deceived consumers by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public.
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On November 29, the FTC announced a proposed settlement with Facebook, addressing its assertion that Facebook deceived users by failing to uphold its privacy promises.
The proposed settlement has one major step forward: it prohibits the company from “begging forgiveness instead of asking permission” by changing its privacy settings to make data more public or share it with more people. But it doesn’t cure all of the issues with Facebook privacy.
Here’s a quick rundown of what the settlement covers, as well as what it doesn’t.
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In a victory for the privacy rights of everyone with a cell phone, a court has held that law enforcement agents must get a warrant to access cell phone location records. The ACLU, ACLU of Texas and Electronic Frontier Foundation submitted a brief urging the court to adopt exactly this position. The Constitution requires nothing less.
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Today in the Senate there was a major win for freedom of speech and the Internet. In a largely partisan vote Senate Democrats defeated a resolution introduced by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) which would have overturned the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) open Internet rules that are set to go into effect this month.
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Google's latest Transparency Report shows that the U.S. government demands far more user information than any other government -- and that number continues to increase.
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Today, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) turns 25 years old. On October 21, 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed ECPA into law. As Wired reported today on the "Aging 'Privacy' Law," ECPA was passed "at a time when e-mail was used mostly by nerdy scientists, when phones without wires hardly worked as you stepped out into the backyard, and when the World Wide Web didn't exist. Four presidencies later, [ECPA] has aged dramatically, providing little protection for citizens from the government's prying eyes — despite the law's language remaining much the same."
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We were planning to do a blog post every day to draw attention to Electronic Communication Privacy Act's (ECPA) anniversary but Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) gave us an anniversary present and we couldn't resist doing an extra one to crow about it.
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Congress hasn't updated our basic electronic privacy law since 1986, long before most Americans sent their first email. So it's no surprise that our privacy protections haven't kept pace with new technological advancements. The current law even allows the government to read virtually all of our emails without a warrant. This extraordinary power is an egregious violation of the privacy Americans rightly expect.
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In honor of ECPA's 25th birthday this week, Congress had the chance to walk down digital memory lane and see firsthand just how far technology has advanced since our federal electronic privacy law was last updated in 1986. Yesterday, the Digital Due Process coalition held a Retro Tech Fair to illustrate how far technology has come in 25 years.
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Changes in technology have resulted in a slowly evolving disconnect between the reality of law enforcement practices and our fundamental values. Americans have embraced cell phones for their convenience and extraordinary functionality. The fact that they also track a user's every movement is an unwanted side effect, sort of like privacy pollution.
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What were you doing in 1986? Maybe you were wearing acid wash jeans, crimping your hair, or watching Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O'Connell in 1986's Stand By Me. In 1986, Congress was enacting the law that protects the privacy of online communications, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA).
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On Thursday, Judge Royce Lamberth held that Americans have no constitutional right to privacy in the location records held by cell phone carriers. That's just not right. Please join us in asking Congress to update electronic privacy law and ensure that these records receive the protection they deserve.
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On Sunday, Governer Brown signed the Reader Privacy Act of 2011, ensuring that Californians' reading records would be properly protected from prying eyes. Thanks to everyone for your support!
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When the City of Pleasanton set up its public Wi-Fi network, it required public users signing onto the network to agree not to access any sites “promoting or involving gambling, sexually explicit material, or illegal activity.” In addition to being bad policy, the restriction was just plain unconstitutional. After the ACLU of Northern California contacted the City, Pleasanton immediately removed the restriction. Now Pleasanton has joined Portland and other cities that have recognized that free speech must flow on both our actual and our virtual town squares.
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Today the ACLU won a significant victory in our battle to ensure that cell phones don’t become Big Brother tracking devices. Following a four-year fight, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to comply with our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and turn over the names and docket numbers in numerous cases where the government accessed cell phone location data without a warrant.
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The Reader Privacy Act has passed the California legislature with a strong bipartisan vote in both the Senate and Assembly and is now headed to Governor Brown’s desk. Please urge the Governor to sign this important privacy bill into law.
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Today, California lawmakers took an important step towards updating reader privacy for the digital age. The California Assembly passed the Reader Privacy Act of 2011 (SB 602) with a strong bipartisan vote of 60-13.
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SXSW is one of the country’s largest and most influential gatherings of technology and new media brands and innovators. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, and others will be there and so should the ACLU. The ACLU’s Demand Your dotRights campaign hit SXSW by storm last year. We need your help to put privacy on the agenda again for SXSW 2012.
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Today Facebook is rolling out a series of changes to its privacy controls. We reviewed the changes in detail on Tuesday; now here’s how you can take advantage of these changes.
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Quick quiz: where did a government agency shut down cell service on Aug. 12, 2011 to disrupt a political protest? You wouldn’t expect the answer to be San Francisco, but that’s exactly what happened yesterday evening. BART blocked cell service on trains and platforms in San Francisco after notifying riders that there might be demonstrations near Civic Center Station.
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This morning, Facebook announced its latest set of changes to its privacy controls. Based on what we know thus far, these changes allow you to pre-approve tags and give you better tools to manage your own profile. We see this as a positive step, and encourage Facebook to turn settings like these on by default and to continue to develop and improve features and tools that give you control over your own personal information.
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BART is the first known government agency in the United States to block cell service in order to disrupt a political protest. In this case the demonstration was to protest the recent fatal shooting of a passenger by BART police. Pulling the plug on cell phones is the wrong response to political protests, whether it’s halfway around the world or right here at home.
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Gibberbot, a secure chat and messaging app, was announced as the winner of the inaugural Develop for Privacy Challenge at an awards ceremony at DEF CON on August 5.
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If you’re using LinkedIn, you’re probably doing so to connect with peers and colleagues, explore new business relationships, or even network for your next career move. Chances are you didn’t join LinkedIn so you could tell your boss or your colleagues which products or brands you like. But LinkedIn’s new “social advertising” feature does exactly that: it takes your name or photo and connects that to ads that your friends and colleagues see based on your groups, contacts, and personal content.
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In honor of Privacy Enhancing Technology (PET) and “James Bond Man from U.N.C.L.E. type spy stuff” being the themes of this year’s DEFCON 19, the ACLU is serving up some special activities. Hope you will join us if you are in Vegas for DEFCON!
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Demanding to know when, why, and how police are using mobile phone location data and deploying other surveillance technologies to track the people they are responsible for protecting and serving, the ACLU of California sent requests to more than fifty law enforcement agencies across the state today.
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Today, 34 ACLU affiliates are filing 379 public records requests in 31 states around the nation, seeking information about how our local law enforcement agencies are using our cell phone location information to track us.
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Today, the House Judiciary Committee is voting whether to approve legislation that would create a sweeping new provision requiring Internet companies (email, cloud, social networking, and more) to collect and retain hundreds of millions of records about the identity of online users. The bill, HR 1981, the "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011," – if only it were that narrow! – is a direct assault on the privacy of Internet users and overlooks some key fixes that could actually help to address the very real problem of child exploitation.
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George Washington University Law School professor Dan Solove is one of the preeminent law scholars working on privacy issues today. In his latest book, Nothing to Hide: the False Tradeoff between Privacy and Security, Solove translates his research and thinking into a succinct analysis intended for a general audience. Via e-mail, I recently asked Solove about his book.
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Join us for a very timely panel exploring the benefits and risks to privacy, freedom of speech and freedom of association of technology’s increasingly crucial role in organizing and social change.
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Google released its new transparency report this week, revealing that U.S. government demands for the personal information of Google's users, like chat records or emails, continue to rise. The report serves to emphasize the heightened importance of increased transparency about how often the government is accessing sensitive information about who we are, where we go, what we do and why.
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Today the Supreme Court announced it will consider whether the government may plant GPS devices on vehicles to track people without judicial supervision. In the case, United States v. Jones, the FBI and Washington, D.C., police attached a GPS device to Antoine Jones’s car and tracked his movements continuously for a month.
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Yesterday, California lawmakers took an important step towards updating reader privacy for the digital age. The California Assembly Judiciary Committee passed the Reader Privacy Act of 2011 (SB 602) with a bipartisan vote of 8-2.
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Last year Yasir Afifi, a 20-year-old U.S.-born citizen, found a strange device attached to his car. When he posted a photo of it online, the FBI showed up at his home two days later. They wanted their GPS tracking device back. The FBI had been tracking Afifi’s movement for months without his knowing about it.
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On Friday, the ACLU of Delaware filed a brief with the Delaware Supreme Court arguing that law enforcement agents should not be permitted to attach a GPS device to a car without getting a search warrant.
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The revised California budget is out and sentencing reform is, well, left out. In his revised budget Gov. Brown recommitted to his criminal justice realignment plan, but didn't include any sentencing reforms that would help ensure that the plan is effective and affordable. Realignment reserves state prison for people with the most serious offenses and redirects people with low-level offenses to local control. This is a step in the right direction but it leaves a key piece of the puzzle missing: we should convert minor offenses from felonies to misdemeanors so that the punishment and its associated taxpayer cost fit the crime.
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Today Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) took an important step toward giving all of us who live our lives online a measure of true digital privacy. He announced (via Twitter — not bad for one of the senior members of the Senate!) that he was filing the Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act of 2011.
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WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) today introduced important legislation that would update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). ECPA was passed in 1986, before the advent of much of our communications technology, and has not been substantially updated since.
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Students have the right to keep their private lives private -- which means that schools don't have the right to search through every electronic device a student brings to school.
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Daily compilation of links to articles related to technology and civil liberties.
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Today, California lawmakers took an important step towards updating reader privacy for the digital age. The California Senate passed the Reader Privacy Act of 2011 (SB 602) with a unanimous bipartisan vote of 40-0.
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In light of the recent disclosures about iPhone and Android location tracking, Sen. Al Franken and the Senate Judiciary Committee are taking the very welcome step of shedding light on privacy and smart phones with a hearing tomorrow.
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Sony's recent announcement of a data breach in its PlayStation network highlights some of the company's poor privacy and security practices. Join us in telling Sony and other companies to be more responsible stewards of our information!
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Apple has finally responded to the revelation that iPhone and iPads keep records of their users' whereabouts. We're glad that Apple has promised to change this practice. At the same time, nobody should think of this dust-up as some overblown quirk or mere bug, as Apple has portrayed it. This incident should be a wakeup call to Americans that we need to demand greater transparency and accountability from the companies that collect and use our personal information.
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Is Your iPhone Tracking You? Good Morning America reports on why many tech companies collect your data.
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Researchers at NC State have released a tool for Android phones that gives users additional choices about the information they share with apps. This is a great example of how technology can be used to improve privacy and protect personal information.
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An unencrypted hidden file on the latest iPhone and iPad includes information about a user's location. Apple needs to explain why this information is being collected and ensure that users are given a real choice about whether or not they share sensitive information.
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The San Francisco Entertainment Commission has proposed new rules that would require entertainment venues to use ID scanners and video cameras to monitor every performer and attendees without any provisions protecting the ID scans and video images. These rules would violate the long-enshrined privacy and free speech rights of Californians.
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The Reader Privacy Act (SB 602), a bill that would protect the privacy rights of readers of real-world and digital books, was passed by the Senate Judiciary Committe by a vote of 4-0. This is an important first step in enacting this much-needed protection for individual privacy and First Amendment rights.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee met this week to hear testimony from Obama administration officials on upcoming plans to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). You remember ECPA? That bill passed in 1986 — before we had the World Wide Web — to protect your electronic records and which hasn't been updated since?
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California Senator Leland Yee has introduced the Reader Privacy Act of 2011 (SB 602), with backing from the California Affiliates of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The law would bring a much-needed upgrade to match Californians’ reading habits.
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union today appealed a ruling holding that the government can collect the private records of three Twitter users as part of its investigation related to WikiLeaks.
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This week four U.S. Senators asked Apple, Google and RIM to remove certain apps, with the claim that they’re harmful. RIM has already taken down that app. The ACLU of Northern California is asking Apple and Google not to cave to the pressure.
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What you read says a lot about what you think and believe. That’s why the ACLU, on behalf of authors and readers concerned about privacy, filed an objection [pdf] to the proposed Google Book Search settlement. Now a federal court has echoed our concerns, rejected that proposed settlement, and urged Google to build additional privacy protections into its digital book service.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing for April 6 to discuss the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the need to protect privacy in the digital age. Please join us in telling your Senators that we need modern privacy law to match our modern technology!
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In a huge victory for privacy and the rule of law, a federal appeals court today reinstated our landmark lawsuit challenging the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), a statute that gives the executive branch virtually unchecked power to collect Americans' international e-mails and telephone calls.
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ACLU's dotRights team is in Austin - here's where to find us!
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In 1986 the Bangles were all the rage, Donkey Kong was a hot video game, mobile phones were bigger than your head, and the World Wide Web didn't even exist. A lot has changed since then - but not electronic privacy law. So, we are teaming up with Google and the ACLU of Texas and heading to SXSW to Party Like It’s 1986 - Demand Privacy Like It’s 2011!
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Facebook is working on a “privacy policy written for regular people.” We’re glad that Facebook plans to make its new privacy policy simpler to read and understand—but we hope it will simply provide better controls and protection too.
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The ACLU of Northern California and the Center for Democracy and Technology invite you to join us at an evening with Dr. Susan Landau, fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and former Distinguished Engineer for Sun Microsystems.
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Internet companies have an important role to play in this unfolding story. That is why we are asking them to take the following steps to better safeguard our privacy.
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Legislation introduced by Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) today would institute much needed privacy guidelines for Americans’ online information.
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Today Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA 12th District) introduced the Do Not Track Me Online Act of 2011 (HR 654). This Act would provide much-needed privacy controls for Americans’ online information and create a barrier against unwarranted surveillance.
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Late yesterday, a court unsealed three motions filed by the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) last month on behalf of Birgitta Jonsdottir, the Icelandic parliamentarian whose Twitter account records were targeted by the government in connection with its investigation related to WikiLeaks.
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Today, a court unsealed three motions filed by the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) last month on behalf of Birgitta Jonsdottir, the Icelandic parliamentarian whose Twitter account records were targeted by the government in connection with its investigation related to WikiLeaks.
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A federal court in Alexandria, Virginia today unsealed motions filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American Civil Liberties Union and others concerning government attempts to obtain Twitter account records about three individuals in connection with its WikiLeaks investigation. The documents were originally filed under seal late last month.
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Protecting digital privacy isn’t a one person—or even one organization—job. That’s why the ACLU is working with companies and other organizations to reform outdated electronic privacy law and take a stand for privacy. But we need more tools that allow people regain control of their personal information. And we need software developers who are up for a real challenge: building the tools that help ordinary users understand and protect their privacy in the world we live in.
That's why we are announcing the first Develop for Privacy Challenge and inviting developers to build apps that will improve privacy on smartphones and other mobile devices. (Submissions are due by May 31, 2011.)
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Today is International Privacy Day, commemorating the first international convention on privacy signed in 1981. Join us in celebrating the day by doing something to Demand Your dotRights!
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Because Donny’s Facebook posting posed no actual or threat of substantial disruption, it is protected speech. Donny posted the comment to his Facebook page from his home computer during non-school hours, another fact that makes his suspension unlawful.
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We have to break this new surveillance model at the source — with the advertisers who are collecting all this information. One of the best ways to do that is to give everyone a universal way to opt-out of tracking, specifically a "Do Not Track" list.
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Daily compilation of links to articles related to technology and civil liberties.
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You can't hide a gun or a stolen credit card in your cell phone--but you can carry personal email, intimate photos, calendars, and more.
So while the police might have good reason to search your backpack if they arrest you, they shouldn't be able to search your cell phone without a search warrant.
Somehow, though, the California Supreme Court didn't get the message...
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The ACLU and a coalition of free speech organizations today sent an open letter to public officials cautioning against the prosecution of third party publishers for publishing leaked government documents and efforts to limit the rights of individuals to view the documents.
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Your online activities say a lot about you: what you like, where you go, and even who you know. And companies are often eager to collect this kind of detailed information about you. So we’re pleased that the FTC has joined the chorus calling for companies and lawmakers to give us all greater control over our own personal information.
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Check out our new guide outlining privacy considerations for mobile location-based services and a side-by-side comparison of the privacy practices of six popular social location-based services.
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A federal judge ruled late Monday that government requests for detailed information about Amazon.com customers violate Internet users' rights to free speech, anonymity and privacy.
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The WSJ reported that the 10 most popular Facebook apps all share personal information about users with advertisers and other third parties. Tell Facebook we need greater control over our own personal information!
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Researchers at Intel, Penn State, and Duke have built a tool called TaintDroid that allows users to pull back the curtain a bit and see what apps actually do: what data (such as your phone number) they really access and where they send it. This is a great example of using technology to help promote transparency and give you better control of your own apps and information.
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The ACLU will be in a federal court arguing that the North Carolina Department of Revenue's demands for detailed purchase information made by Amazon.com customers is an unconstitutional violation of those customers' rights to free speech, anonymity and privacy.
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On Wednesday, Facebook announced a set of changes to its user experience. Overall, these changes are clearly positive, addressing some of the issue we raised in our Open Letter to Facebook in June and re-emphasizing the company’s principles of giving users control of their own information. We hope that Facebook will extend these changes to help address the “app gap” and further improve privacy and user control.
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Looking beyond the manufactured drama and snappy dialogue, we are right to be concerned about this company that knows and collects so much information about our personal lives.
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Daily compilation of links to articles related to technology and civil liberties.
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We must take a stand against this proposal before it even makes its way to Congress.
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Daily compilation of links to articles related to technology and civil liberties.
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The Obama administration is seeking to expand the government’s ability to conduct invasive surveillance online, according to a report in The New York Times.
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Good news today for the location privacy of all California FasTrak users. Legislation authored by State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) to protect the privacy of drivers using the FasTrak payment system for toll bridges and roads was signed into law today by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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Daily compilation of links to articles related to technology and civil liberties.
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The American Civil Liberties today submitted written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing on updating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA).
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Wednesday, September 29, 6:30 pm.
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Open letter from ACLU-NC and EFF calls for answers about controversial RFID program at Richmond, California Head Start Program.
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On Tuesday, preschoolers in Richmond, California showed up for school and were handed jerseys embedded with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips. But when it comes to student safety, insecure RFID creates more problems than it solves.
We hope to work with the school officials and parents in Richmond to help them take a good look at this program and whether it properly protects the privacy and security of their young children.
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Last Friday, Judge James Orenstein in the Eastern District of New York held that cell phone tracking invades Americans' reasonable expectations of privacy and is thus protected by the Fourth Amendment. We believe that Judge Orenstein got it exactly right.
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SXSW Interactive is a major annual technology and media conference. We need your help to make sure that privacy is on the SXSW agenda. Vote for our SXSW panels before Friday, August 27th.
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Hundreds of millions of sensitive records have been compromised by data breaches. If your personal records were compromised by a breach, wouldn't you want companies to be required to tell you important information about the breach and how to protect yourself? Then ask Governor Schwarzenegger to sign SB 1166, which standardizes the details that must be disclosed to security breach victims.
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Facebook responded to some of our privacy concerns with its new Places product- here are our latest thoughts.
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Following Facebook’s announcement today about its new location-based product, Places, check out what the ACLU of Northern California has to say on the privacy front.
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The district court in the Western District of Washington granted the motion to intervene that the ACLU filed on behalf of our clients in the lawsuit challenging the North Carolina Department of Revenue’s repeated requests for Amazon’s customer records.
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Got a cell phone? Use Facebook? What about Gmail? Read books on your shiny new iPad? Did you buy that new iPad online? Since you're reading this on some kind of electronic device, we're guessing that you can answer "yes" to at least a few of those questions.
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This panel of attorneys from major technology companies, civil liberties organizations, and academia will discuss recent case law, the impact of an outdated ECPA on clients, business, the public, and government, and the broad-based coalition effort currently underway to modernize ECPA and better protect privacy and innovation in the 21st century.
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Earlier today, Facebook announced the rollout of privacy settings for mobile users. Providing privacy controls for mobile users is a step in the right direction, and these controls are even an improvement over the web-based privacy controls in some ways. But they are still missing a few key elements that would give users full control.
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If you’re at DEFCON or in Las Vegas looking, come join the ACLU of Northern California, the ACLU of Nevada, and the Demand your dotRights campaign at one of our many Las Vegas events this week.
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The ACLU is hiring a new Advocacy and Policy Strategist. A focus of the position will be work related to informational privacy. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled which will not be before July 31, 2010.
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On June 16, ten of the nation’s top privacy organizations sent a joint letter to Facebook [pdf] detailing outstanding privacy concerns. Facebook’s response glossed over many of the critical points raised about necessary next steps. The following reiterates our concerns and addresses Facebook’s response to our June 16 letter.
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Today, ten of the nation’s top privacy organizations, including the ACLU of Northern California, EFF, EPIC, and CDT, sent a joint letter to Facebook calling for the social networking giant to fix remaining issues concerning user privacy and control. It’s time for Facebook to plug the app gap and give users real control over all of their information.
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The "U.S. Copyright Group" has attempted to file a massive lawsuit in D.C. alleging filesharing by thousands of individuals across the country. The ACLU, along with other public interest groups, is opposing this effort to circumvent due process by making it all but impossible for individuals to effectively defend themselves in a courthouse hundreds or thousands of miles from their homes.
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After much criticism (including from the ACLU) about its privacy practices, Facebook responded today with a number of changes to its privacy controls. These changes represent a substantial improvement over yesterday's options, although there is more that Facebook needs to do. We analyze the change inside.
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Google has just announced the release of "Encrypted Search," allowing search users to prevent third parties from intercepting and viewing their search terms or search results. Although limited right now, this is a positive step by Google and a good example of how companies can use technology to improve--rather than erode--the privacy of their users.
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The ACLU of Pennsylvania announced today that it is representing two anonymous Twitter users who have criticized State Attorney General Tom Corbett on a social networking site. Corbett’s office asked a grand jury to issue a subpoena earlier this month to Twitter demanding the identities of his critics.
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The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of North Carolina today sent a letter to North Carolina Secretary of Revenue Kenneth Lay reiterating concern over a recent request by the state Department of Revenue (NCDOR) for the private records of Amazon.com customers. The letter informs Lay that the ACLU will take legal action on behalf of North Carolina residents who are Amazon.com customers if NCDOR persists in its demand for their constitutionally protected private information. Specifically, the letter says the ACLU and its clients will intervene in an existing lawsuit brought by Amazon.com to stop NCDOR from collecting individually identifiable information that could be linked to specific purchases made on Amazon.com.
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Daily compilation of links to articles related to technology and civil liberties.
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If you are interested in dotRights online privacy issues and are interested in a more detailed analysis of the Fourth Amendment and the state of privacy today, check out The Crisis in Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence, the new issue brief written by Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst at the National ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Program.
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According to news reports, Facebook has called an "all hands" meeting today to discuss its privacy policies. That's because they are facing a brewing revolt among Facebook users alarmed by the company's cavalier attitude toward protecting your privacy.
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The ACLU of Northern California's Santa Clara Valley Chapter is holding an essay contest for high school students residing in or attending school in Campbell, Cupertino, Gilroy, Los Gatos, Milpitas, Monte Serano, Morgan Hill, San Jose, Santa Clara, Saratoga, or Sunnyvale. The deadline has been extended until May 15, 2010.
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2 surveys are on two very different Internet privacy topics—location information and cloud computing—reveal how important it is that we reform electronic privacy law to clearly cover useful digital services.
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The American Civil Liberties Union today welcomed a new tool launched by Google to track and display the number of government requests the company receives worldwide, country by country.
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We've known for a long time that electronic privacy law is woefully outdated. But what we haven't known is how often the government is taking advantage of this fact to engage in a shopping spree in the treasure trove of personal information being collected by companies like Google. So we're happy to see Google's just-released Government Requests tool, which is the company's attempt to shine some light on how often governments around the world request user information (and content removal) from Google.
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Facebook has announced that it plans to move forward with its unpopular plans to change the service's privacy policy and Statement of Rigths and Responsibilities. Please make your voice heard and tell Facebook to reconsider its plans!
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The federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act was written in 1986. That's older than the World Wide Web! Join the ACLU and its partners and Congress that it's time to update ECPA!
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Facebook's newly-proposed changes to its privacy policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities would allow applications and sites to collect and use more information about Facebook users. Tell Facebook that you want to control what these sites know about you and what they do with it!
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The ACLU filed an amicus brief yesterday to the Supreme Court in the case of City of Ontario v. Quon. At stake in this case is whether public employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy for the text messages they send on devices owned by their employers. But at stake more broadly is the balance between employer access and employee privacy in a world where communications via computers, emails and text messages play a crucial and rapidly expanding role.
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We spent the last few days in the middle of the exciting whirlwind of the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) festival in Austin, Texas. We thought that it would be an important and receptive audience for our online privacy message. Were we ever right!
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The ACLU of Northern California’s dotRights digital privacy team will be out in force at the 2010 South by Southwest Interactive Conference. If you're there, come visit us at Booth #105 and check out our presentations on "Big Brother on the Big Screen: Fact/Fiction?" and "My Life, Take Two: The Right to Delete." Hope to see you there!
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The Ninth Circuit's ruling in Quon v. Arch Wireless will be reviewed by the Supreme Court this Term. At stake in this case is whether public employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy for the text messages they send on devices owned by their employers. But at stake more broadly is the balance between employer access and employee privacy in a world where communications via computers, emails and text messages play a crucial and rapidly expanding role. An ACS panel on March 30th will bring together experts on electronic privacy law and employment law to discuss the case and what the Supreme Court's decision may mean for the law and for many of us who carry work-owned devices.
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The ACLU and others are in federal court today urging a judge to reject the proposed settlement in a lawsuit over Google Book Search because it does not include critical privacy protections for users of the online book materials.
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Facebook recently announced that it was rolling out tools that would give users more granular control over content posted via third-party applications. More flexible privacy controls are always a welcome step, but this move does not address the privacy flaws with Facebook's third party application platform that are highlighted by our Facebook Privacy Quiz.
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The ACLU has fought alongside libraries and bookstores time and again to defend the privacy rights of readers. Now we are doing what we can today to help protect reader privacy rights in the digital era.
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Google's CEO recently stated that Buzz's privacy issues were really just "confusion" and that "no really bad stuff happened in the sense that nobody's personal information was disclosed." If only he were right.
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The Technology and Civil Liberties Program at the ACLU of Northern California (ACLU‐NC) has 1-2 spaces available for attorneys who have a demonstrated commitment to public interest technology work and who are in a position to volunteer for one year.
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Earlier this week, Google released its new Buzz social networking service to a storm of criticism about privacy. The company has responded by taking some steps to improve the privacy of Buzz users. Please keep pushing them to do more!
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On January 28, the Federal Trade Commission held its second "Exploring Privacy" roundtable to discuss privacy concerns raised by technology. In anticipation, we blogged about it generally, and explored two of the panel topics in detail (cloud computing and social networking).
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Google and the NSA. It is hard to imagine a more potent—or frightening—combination when it comes to the collection and safety of Americans' private information.
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Facebook is rolling out more changes to its user interface, including an "Application and Games Dashboard" that allows you to see which applications your friends are running. What's new here and how can you control this?
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Votes on re-authorizing key parts of the Patriot Act will happen in Congress any day now. Take action and stop fear-mongering and scare tactics from blocking genuine Patriot Act reforms.
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In a potential Great Leap Forward for the "Surveillance-Industrial Complex,"Google is working on partnering with the NSA. Probably the two biggest collectors of personal communications data in the world teaming up? Details are scarce, but the very concept brings to mind the phrase "marriage made in hell." At a time when some are pushing to increase law enforcement access to Americans' communications, policymakers need to take a hard look at these systems.
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Join us at our ACLU dotRights 80s party. We’ll have a DJ spinning 80s tunes, retro video games, and a “time machine” hair and makeup station to finish off your perfect look!
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In this blog post we’re going to focus on the privacy implications of cloud computing services and why it is so important that you know how and when cloud providers share your personal information with third parties.
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On Thursday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will be in California for the second of its "Exploring Privacy" roundtables. Please join the ACLU-NC in demanding to know more about how and when companies disclose your personal information!
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On Thursday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will be in California for the second of its "Exploring Privacy" roundtables. Please join the ACLU-NC in demanding to know more about how and when companies disclose your personal information!
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Computerworld is reporting that the hacking attack on Google (which prompted it to tell the Chinese government it would no longer censor on its behalf) exploited a system the company set up to help the government access its users' data.
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Back in July 2008, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a new policy (PDF) regarding searches of documents and electronic devices at the border. CBP asserts it has the right to conduct these searches of any traveler — citizens and noncitizen alike "absent individualized suspicion," — meaning no suspicion of wrongdoing is even required to conduct a search. Today we released the first batch of information we got back from the CBP.
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed privacy in an interview last Friday. Did he declare the end of privacy on Facebook?
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On January 5, President Obama addressed airport security in remarks responding to the Christmas Day attack on a plane headed for Detroit.
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What's behavioral advertising and what's the ACLU trying to do about it to better protect your privacy? Learn more about it and read our statement to the House Energy & Commerce Committee.
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The Obama administration, in an August announcement that attracted little public attention, stated that it would continue President Bush’s policy of searching and copying the information on international travelers’ laptops, cameras and cell phones without any suspicion of wrongdoing. If you want to know how much that matters, just think about the personal information you have on those devices. The administration is expected to issue a civil liberties assessment of the policy any day now, but it’s hard to imagine any justification for groundless searches of Americans’ sensitive personal data.
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Responding to public outcry over Wednesday's new privacy settings, Facebook backtracked today, announcing that it would allow users to hide their list of friends from search - but did not allow users to protect friends lists from other Facebook users or applications. Keep pressing Facebook to give you full control over your friends list and all of your information!
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In a move to create stricter privacy guidelines, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released the latest version of its grant application today that includes new requirements for video surveillance. It will now be recommended that applicants for DHS grant money perform privacy assessments if grant money is to be used to purchase, install or support cameras. The American Civil Liberties Union praised the new requirement as the first step in pushing back on the proliferation of unchecked video surveillance.
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Facebook has announced several changes to its privacy controls, including a "transition tool" that each of its 350 million current users will be required to use.
While we applaud Facebook for putting privacy front and center, the announced changes not only fail to address existing privacy concerns with third party applications but may actually weaken or discourage user privacy directly. We hope that Facebook will live up to its public promises and give users better tools to control their personal information.
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A Federal Judge ruled that a lawsuit brought by two Bay Area community organizations against federal agents over the seizure of their computers can continue.
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Sprint/Nextel has handled 8 million requests for GPS location information from law enforcement over the past 13 months. Don't let this continue - Demand Your dotRights!
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California policymakers are deciding now whether your sensitive health-care records can be electronically shared.
Take action today to protect your private health records.
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On Wednesday, November 18 the Tiburon, California Town Council approved a license-plate camera surveillance system that will keep track of every vehicle that enters and leaves the city. These cameras are expensive and there is no evidence that they will do anything to make the Tiburon community safer.
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No one should be forced to choose between using the Internet and keeping their personal information from being misused. It's time to demand a privacy upgrade. It's time to Demand our dotRights!
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The Amended Google Book Search Settlement has everything but the kitchen sink...and adequate privacy protections. Google says that the Book Search settlement is not "the right place" to include privacy protections.
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The Amended Google Book Search Settlement, filed with the Court on Friday, November 13, does not resolve the privacy concerns.
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Google Street View is once again in hot water, this time from the Swiss authorities who say the panorama street view pictures violate Swiss privacy law.
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The ACLU Facebook Quiz was featured in a lengthy news story on Fox News in D.C. Check it out!
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Following a lawsuit filed by American Civil Liberties Union, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has revised its policies governing airline passenger screening to make clear that TSA agents are authorized to conduct searches related to safeguarding flight safety, not to engage in general law enforcement. Calling the policy changes a victory for civil liberties, the ACLU has moved to drop its lawsuit, originally filed in June on behalf of a traveler who was illegally detained and harassed by TSA agents at the airport after they discovered he was carrying approximately $4,700 in cash.
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The ACLU released the Enforcing Privacy Report, which cautions that American privacy and values cannot be adequately protected without designated oversight bodies. The United States lags behind other democracies in implementing this necessary protection.
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The ACLU Facebook Quiz and its developer, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow Chris Conley, were recently featured on NPR’s radio show, All Things Considered.
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The Technology & Civil Liberties Program is pleased to welcome Tamar Gubins and Hari O'Connell, who will be working with the Program as Volunteer Attorneys for the next year!
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The ACLU submitted a statement to the House Judiciary Committee today for today’s hearing on Google Book Search.
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A coalition of authors and publishers – including best-sellers Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem, as well as leading security author Bruce Schneier – is urging a federal judge to reject the proposed settlement in a lawsuit over Google Book Search, arguing that the sweeping agreement to digitize millions of books ignores critical privacy and speech rights for readers and writers.
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A coalition of authors and publishers, represented by ACLU, EFF, and the Samuelson Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law, filed an objection this morning in the Google Book Search case. We need your help to protect reader privacy. Write Google CEO Eric Schmidt and tell him that you won’t pay for digital books with your privacy!
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Google just released a privacy policy for its proposed Google Books services. While this policy has some welcome features, it does not go far enough to ensure that reader privacy will be well-protected.
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The ACLU of Northern California and other ACLU affiliates are pitching session ideas for SXSW 2010. Help us build a movement for online privacy by voting for our panels! [registration required]
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Facebook has announced plans to improve its privacy controls and practices. Keep up the pressure and tell them to do even more to give you control of your own information!
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Facebook's default privacy settings allow quizzes and other applications to peer into your profile - even if it's your friend, and not you, who takes the quiz! To learn more, check out our very own Facebook quiz!
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What you choose to read says a lot about who you are, what you value, and what you believe. That's why the ACLU has fought alongside libraries and bookstores time and again to defend the privacy rights of readers. Now we need your help to protect reader privacy rights in the digital era.
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"Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said [Wednesday] that Real ID was 'DOA'. That's 'Dead On Arrival' for the tiny percentage of you out there who don't watch a lot of cop shows on TV. But the real question is: If Real ID is dead, why is everybody working so hard to bring it back to life?"
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The new PASS ID Bill, while touted as a repeal of the Real ID Act of 2005, has revived provisions of Real ID that threaten the privacy of Americans. Take action and encourage your congressperson to oppose PASS ID in order to protect your privacy.
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Facebook quizzes may seem like a harmless way to spend a few minutes. But do you really know how much these quizzes are learning about you and how that info could be used? Take our quiz and learn more!
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After hearing from concerned citizens, a California Senate subcommittee rejected the DMV's attempt to include facial recognition scans through a budgetary request.
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A big thumbs up to the San Jose City Council for standing up for free speech and against censorship on Tuesday night and voting against the installation of internet blocking software on library computers.
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If you live or work in San José, please stand up for free speech by attending the San José City Council meeting on Tuesday, April 21, 2009 at 7:00 PM in the City Council Chambers. Join us in supporting access to essential information and opposing plans to impose Internet content blocking in San José libraries!
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AT&T recently released FamilyMap, an application that allows customers with "Family Plans" to track the location of other phones on the same plan. But in order to use it, you have to "expressly agree that You have no expectation of privacy when using AT&T FamilyMap as it relates to Your location."
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Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society is hosting a panel event this coming Tuesday, April 7, from 5-7:30 p.m. about the ACLU-NC's new document, Privacy and Free Speech: It's Good for Business. The event is free and open to the public and a limited number of individuals may also attend via webcast.
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Privacy and Free Speech: It’s Good for Business, released today by the ACLU of Northern California, is a first-of-its-kind publication offering hands-on tips for how businesses can build their reputations—while saving time and money—by properly protecting customers’ privacy and free speech. The publication is based on dozens of case studies analyzing what prominent companies like Google, Yahoo!, Qwest, ChoicePoint, Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T have done right—and wrong— in safeguarding users.
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If you live or work in San Jose, please speak up for free speech and say no to library internet censorship!
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A few weeks ago, Facebook made a small change to its Terms of Use with potentially major privacy ramifications. When users cried out, however, they reversed course and reinstated previous protections.
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Thousands of faxes and emails from concerned citizens like you were critical in stopping the DMV from getting quick authorization to embed face scans and fingerprints into our drivers' licenses.
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January 28th is Data Privacy Day. Don't just learn how to protect yourself online - learn how you can change the way companies protect you.
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The ACLU's Chris Hansen talks about online content filtering, how it works, and when it doesn't.
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The Child Online Protection Act, a well-meaning but thoroughly flawed law that severely hindered free speech without substantially protecting children, is officially dead after the Supreme Court refused to hear the Justice Department's final appeal.
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After federal and local law enforcement agents seized computers used by two San Francisco Bay Area community organizations, the ACLU of Northern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed suit to protect the organizations' privacy and free speech rights.
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A report released today evaluating San Francisco’s surveillance cameras concludes that the cameras have failed in their mission of reducing violent crime in the city.
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"Private modes" built into recently-released Web browsers protect you if someone else uses your computer - but do they protect your privacy from online observers?
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When you sign up for a channel on YouTube, the site automatically - and silently - adds your name to a public list of "subscribers." Shouldn't you choose whether or not to publish information about what you choose to see?
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The ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation uncovered documents revealing that law enforcement officials have begun using new devices to track cell phone users without judicial oversight and without even informing and working with phone companies.
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The next edition of Microsoft Windows threatens to give location information to applications without your knowledge or consent. Here's why you should be concerned.
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Google is using search data to track flu outbreaks. This may be an admirable goal, but it shows a startling sense of ownership over your queries - you, not Google, should choose how your queries are used.
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With the Geode extension, your Firefox browser can determine where you are. Here are some ways to keep that information out of the wrong hands.
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Who's watching where you're going, and why.
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The University of Washington and RSA today released a report on the significant privacy and security vulnerabilities of RFID-embedded Enhanced Drivers' Licenses and Passport cards.
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A broad coalition of public interest groups released two letters today calling on television networks and YouTube to protect online political speech in the final days of this election.
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Congress and the Bush White House overstepped their constitutional authority and violated the rights of millions of customers when they passed and approved legislation granting sweeping immunity to telecoms that collaborated in illegal spying.
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A DHS-sponsored report concludes that data mining to identify potential terrorists simply does not work.
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Opt out of Chrome's new features that collect massive amounts of user data.
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Governor Schwarzenegger took an important first step to protect the privacy, personal safety, and financial security of millions of Californians by signing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) anti-skimming legislation into law this week.
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Fight library censorship and celebrate the freedom to read.
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Federal legislation has been introduced to safeguard the privacy rights of Americans and stop personal belongings such as laptops, cell phones, and digital cameras being searched without probable cause.
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Previously we’ve discussed the push to search under travellers’ clothes with the naked machine and the million names on the terrorist watch list. The latest Civil Discourse comic examines DHS’s need to literally put their hands in your pockets.
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The ACLU of Northern California is pleased to welcome its new Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, Chris Conley.
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Right now, two bills authored by State Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) that would help protect the privacy of you and your family are on the governor’s desk. Please send a letter to the governor urging him to sign the bills.
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In an important victory for privacy rights, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday reinstated a portion of California's landmark financial privacy law that allows consumers to prevent banks from sharing information with affiliated companies about a customer's savings account or buying habits.
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No matter where you stand on the candidates or the issues, we should all agree on one principle: No Downtime for Online Free Speech!
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The Federal Communications Commission chastised Comcast for throttling peer-to-peer applications, calling the practice unreasonable and ordering Comcast to change its network management policies.
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If you travel outside the United States, you can kiss your right to privacy, and perhaps your laptop, digital camera and cell phone, goodbye.
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In a clear victory for free speech, a federal court again says that the ACLU is right and that COPA is unconstitutional.
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Researcher Nate Lawson has discovered that FasTrak transponders are vulnerable to sniffing, cloning, and surreptitious tracking of a driver’s comings and goings.
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Dutch Chipmaker NXP is trying to prevent researchers from publishing a scientific paper showing how the RFID chips used in Dutch travel cards can be copied and cloned.
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Members of Congress, war heroes and other law-abiding Americans with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith have become like poor Mr. Buttle in the movie, Brazil, trapped in an ineffective system riddled with errors that claims to be making things safer.
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President Bush signed into law the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, at 1:15 p.m. this afternoon in the Rose Garden. Immediately after he signed, the ACLU sued.
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Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California issued a ruling blasting arguments made by supporters of telecom immunity.
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The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit today urging a federal court to order the Department of Justice to turn over records related to the government's use of people's cell phones as tracking devices.
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In a victory for civil liberties and responsible government spending, the Budget Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to cut $300,000 from its invasive, intrusive, and ineffective video surveillance camera program.
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In a recent victory for employee privacy and free speech, the Ninth Circuit told employers to stop snooping on email and text messages.
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The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) set off a minor firestorm in the blogosphere over its new ID policy, which went into effect this past Saturday. At least one passenger has reported that he was asked which political party he is registered to vote for, as part of TSA's new authentication process.
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The effort by telecom lobbyists to steamroll retroactive immunity is being met with stiff resistance by a broad coalition of activist groups.
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Can video surveillance become more privacy friendly by using technology to blur faces?
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A US Appeals Court judge has been thrust into the media spotlight after his own private collection of photographs and videos was accidentally made available on the Internet.
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RFID Anti-Skimming bill overwhelmingly passed the California Assembly Judiciary Committee on yesterday by a vote of 10-0.
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What do your cell phone and the prosecution of CIA agents in an Italian court for the 2003 kidnapping of Muslim cleric Abu Omar have to do with each other? Location information and data privacy.
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Your photos are likely the next frontier in targeted advertising.
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Charter Communications, one of the nation's largest cable Internet providers, plans to begin monitoring the online activities of its high-speed Internet customers and then sell the data for targeted advertising.
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A coalition of privacy and consumer organizations have sent a letter today urging Google to post a prominent link on its homepage to its privacy policy in accordance with the California Online Privacy Protection Act and the widespread practice of commercial web sites.
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Issues of free speech, censorship, and harassment took center stage last week at Twitter.
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The blogosphere has been bubbling over the past few weeks over the subject of laptop searches and seizures at international borders.
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A prosecutorial theory in a emotionally charged case against a MySpace bully threatens to have serious repercussions for online speech and anonymity.
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The ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation can today reveal their participation in months-long fight with the FBI over free speech and government imposed secrecy.
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In response to a letter from the ACLU of Northern California, the Linden Unified School District will not be reading private text messages stored on students’ cell phones unless there is good reason to believe that the search will show that a law or school rule was violated. The District’s new policy also limits the scope of the search to the alleged infraction leading to the seizure of a cell phone.
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Don't miss the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference on May 20-23, 2008 at the Omni Hotel in New Haven, Connecticut.
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The Sacramento Library Board will be debating its internet use policy tomorrow afternoon.
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Is the federal government gearing up to spy on Internet users who visit .gov websites? That was one of the concerns at a hearing on the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) cybersecurity program called “EINSTEIN.”
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The ACLU Washington Legislative Office, the Technology and Liberty Program, and the ACLU of Northern California submitted written comments to the FCC on net neutrality today.
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Last week, a coalition of consumer and public-interest groups in the U.S. and Europe presented a resolution to U.S. government representatives that called for policies to promote net neutrality on the Internet.
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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is holding a hearing on internet freedom and net neutrality in Palo Alto next Thursday, April 17. With the future of the internet at stake, it is absolutely critical that those who support freedom of expression show up in force.
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San Jose and Sacramento are currently debating whether to censor access to internet information at their libraries. The internet has become a pivotal means of accessing information at the library and with its growth in importance, the age-old issues of library censorship have followed.
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Bush Administration appeal of important case striking down two search and seizure provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act as unconstitutional will be heard by the Ninth Circuit.
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Today was a really good day for the First Amendment. And it was also a good day for our court system.
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The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Northern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) last night filed a motion to intervene in the Wikileaks case on behalf of organizations and individuals that have accessed and used documents on the Wikileaks.org website in their work and want to continue to be able to do so.
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Are social networking and privacy mutually exclusive? We think not ...
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The Stanford Technology Law Review recently published Rights "Chipped" Away: RFID in Identification Documents.
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The ACLU has released its scorecard on the final REAL ID regulations.
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SB 31, an RFID Anti-Skimming Bill, overwhelmingly passed the California State Senate 36-3 last week.
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TSA has launched a blog that is open to moderated comments.
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The ACLU released the following statement as a response to today’s Washington Post article about the DHS Secretary's plans to defy Congressional extensions and attempt to implement the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) now.
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The ACLU of Northern California is pleased to offer a new two-year (September 2008- September 2010) Technology and Civil Liberties Fellowship to help develop legal and policy papers about emerging technologies and implement an innovative campaign to educate consumers of all ages, policymakers, and businesspeople about privacy and free speech rights.
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A recent blog post discussed privacy concerns with the new Bay Area TransLink transit card.
The Dutch RFID transit pass produced by TransLink was recently cracked and cloned.
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At the Consumer Electronics Show last week, top media giant executives announced that ISPs may be ready to start filtering for copyrighted content at the network level. But, checking for copyright violations at the network level may end up meaning a lot more high-level snooping at many other types of content as well
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Congressional leaders from throughout the nation released statements expressing their dissatisfaction with the Real ID regulations released today by the Department of Homeland Security.
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The Real ID regulations released today do not resolve any of the fundamental threats the law poses to California’s privacy, freedoms and pocketbooks, but just kick the problems farther down the road.
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The Bay Area’s transit systems are about to join other cities and get a single payment card. The TransLink card will let you pay for rides on BART, San Francisco Muni buses, and the Peninsula's Caltrain. But, unless you buy the card in cash, TransLink will have a record of who you are, where you go, and when you go there.
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The future of municipal WiFi seems to be fading further. A new study by the New America Foundation examines why Philadelphia's system, now three-fourths completed, seems to be falling flat, why it's happening, and lessons learned for other cities.
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A new online search tool, AskEraser, could be a good step towards empowering consumers to protect their privacy online.
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Google is planning to offer online data storage to its users. While storing documents online can provide benefits, it can also cause all sorts of problems you might not see coming.
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Wake up early on Monday morning and make sure your Senators know that you do not support warrantless wiretapping and immunity for the telephone companies.
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The American Civil Liberties Union today released a new report outlining serious concerns about new institutions called “fusion centers. The "anti-terrorism intelligence" being collected in these databases includes an immense amount of information about the daily lives of Americans and many of these fusion centers are operating with little oversight, boundary-setting, or checks and balances.
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The ACLU of Northern California has filed a friend-of–the-court brief in support of neither party in Fair Housing Council v. Roommate.com, a case raising important anti-discrimination and internet free speech concerns that will be heard by an expanded panel of the Ninth Circuit tomorrow.
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The amount of controversy surrounding Facebook’s intrusive Beacon advertising program continues to grow. The San Jose Mercury News published an editorial criticizing Facebook and the program and calling on Congress and other policy-makers to “get up to speed on what’s happening and decide if stronger protections are needed” to protect consumers online.
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This past Thursday morning ACLU Legislative Director Caroline Fredrickson participated in an online chat on Firedoglake about the ongoing FISA fight and upcoming Senate floor debate.
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The American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request yesterday with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to learn the details of the government’s use of cell phones as tracking devices. The request follows on the heels of revelations that federal officials are using Americans' cell phones to pinpoint their location, sometimes without any court oversight.
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In response to pressure from privacy advocates and an online petition signed by 55,000 of its members, Facebook has changed its invasive ad system we blogged about yesterday. Facebook’s new ad system silently collects information on the things you do on dozens of major websites and distills those actions down into ads they show to your friends.
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In August we blogged about privacy problems on the social networking site, Facebook, and its plans to unveil a new targeted advertising system. The system is now up and running. It not only analyzes your activity on Facebook, but also monitors your other Internet activities and reports them back to your Facebook friends in the form of advertisements.
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A recent ballot initiative asked San Franciscans to decide whether they want a citywide municipal WiFi network. Almost two thirds of the city voted yes on measure J, the City-Wide Wireless & Internet Network initiative, but they are unlikely to get their wish any time soon. EarthLink, the internet service provider that had planned to partner with San Francisco to provide free and low cost Internet access, has concluded that municipal WiFi networks are not going to be profitable in the near future.
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The DHS Privacy Office has announced a public workshop on video surveillance- December 17 and 18th in Arlington, Virginia. The workshop will provide a forum to discuss the impact on privacy and civil liberties of CCTV and begin to inform the development of best practices for the use of CCTV by government agencies.
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Ranking members of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust are asking the FTC to review Google's desired merger with DoubleClick with a fine- toothed comb. This fall, Google was ranked the worst major Internet company in terms of consumer privacy. Will Google's September endorsement of the APEC international privacy standards make a difference?
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What happens when you mix political speech, clips of “The Daily Show” and self-styled YouTube video blogs? Last spring Allen Asch found out first hand when Viacom sent him takedown notices for copyright infringement.
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Yahoo! executives faced harsh criticism this week from the House Foreign Affairs Committee for the company's role in the Chinese government's arrest of journalist and democracy advocate Shi Tao.
Although stories like Shi Tao’s may seem remote and unrelated to American Internet users, they illustrate that who you are, what you do, and what you say on the Internet often does not stay with the company when the government comes knocking.
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At the request of State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), the California Research Bureau has established the eleven person Radio-Frequency Identification Document Advisory Panel. The Panel will hold meetings on RFID and help the CRB issue a final report on the technology.
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Last week several public interest groups finalized a set of fair use guidelines for user-generated content. With the rise of YouTube and other video-sharing sites, the phenomenon of UGC has exploded, and, with it, ambiguity over what constitutes fair use has also grown.
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Today’s news story that Comcast is blocking customer use of peer-to-peer program, BitTorrent, provides yet another glimpse into a future without net neutrality.
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On September 27, we blogged about Verizon’s attempt to discriminate based on content when it announced that it would block the text messages of NARAL. Whether or not companies will be able to function as a bottleneck on protected speech is at the heart of the debate over net neutrality.
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In late September, US District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the PATRIOT Act’s changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) violated the 4th Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures.
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Governor Schwarzenegger has signed California Senate Bill 362 (Simitian D-Palo Alto) which would prohibit employers and others from forcing anyone to have a radio frequency identification (RFID) device implanted under their skin.
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Last November we learned that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been secretly compiling data on millions of innocent Americans through its Automated Tracking System. Recently they proposed federal rules that would continue the controversial program. In response, the ACLU has filed comments with the DHS urging that the program be scrapped because it violates not only federal law but the privacy of all Americans traveling internationally.
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Over the last week, Americans in places as far as upstate New York and as nearby as downtown San Francisco have noticed ads for Google’s experimental service, Google 411. Google 411 allows users to call a 1-800 number to get local business information for no fee.
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As expected, the government is appealing the ACLU's March 2007 victory in the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) case. COPA is an Internet censorship law that makes it a crime to place content deemed "harmful to minors" on the Web unless the content is behind a credit card or age verification screen. Our victory capped off more than eight years of litigation, including two trips to the Supreme Court. The ACLU won at every stage.
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A controversial new program to use spy satellites for domestic surveillance has been postponed due to concerns brought to the attention of Congress by the ACLU and other civil liberties groups.
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A post by Michael German, Policy Counsel on national security, immigration and privacy explaining how some of the Director of National Intelligence's public statements in support of warrantless wiretaps distort reality, the issues, and the law.
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The federal Real ID Act doesn’t have many friends these days. Eighteen states have passed legislation rejecting the law and Congress has refused to put any money into implementing it. But, companies that stand to profit significantly from a massive national ID and database system are trying to use their pull to convince Congress to fund this privacy and security nightmare.
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According to a recent study by the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CIAA), the fair use doctrine in copyright law not only facilitates criticism, news reporting, teaching, scholarship and research, but fair use-related industries add $2.2 trillion dollars to the United States economy each year in the process.
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If you want to see what the Internet will look like in a few years without net neutrality, you need look no further than this week's stories about Verizon Wireless' attempts to censor messages on its text-message network. Today the telecommunications giant reversed a decision it made last week to reject NARAL Pro-Choice America's request to make a text-message advocacy campaign available on Verizon networks.
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Signing up with one company for multiple goods or services or just visiting one store or internet site to buy everything for your home often seems like a good idea. But, as you buy more things from fewer companies, they are not just pocketing more of your money, but they may also be collecting a lot more of your personal information.
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Figures released last week by the London Assembly of Liberal Democrats suggest that London’s video surveillance network, totaling over 10,500 cameras in all, does not help solve crimes.
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The Pentagon’s decision to shut down its much maligned TALON program is a good thing, but threats to civil liberties remain in the form of fusion centers and government intelligence databases.
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ACLU victory- A federal court today struck down the amended Patriot Act's National Security Letter (NSL) provision as unconstitutional.
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Earlier this week, the Federal Election Commission ruled in support of freedom of speech for bloggers when it dismissed complaints against the DailyKos and a blog site critical of former Representative Mary Bono.
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Judge Walker of the Northern District of California heard arguments yesterday on the ACLUs of California case against Verizon for allegedly providing the NSA with California customers' phone records without their consent and without legal process.
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Facebook has felt private to people. But, of course, it isn’t. Once you put your information up on Facebook, you do not know where it will end up or how it could be used.
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Google has made it easier to request take-down of Street View images, but unfortunately, has not made the interface for initiating the process any more intuitive.
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The ACLU affiliates of California released a report today detailing the expansion of video surveillance in California.
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The public overflowed the courtroom and late-comers filed into an adjoining video room, members of the press hovered around the courthouse, and oral argument lasted an hour and forty five minutes- that was the scene yesterday afternoon as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard the government’s appeal in Hepting v. AT&T.
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The outcome in the lawsuit Hepting v. AT&T, being heard today by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, will be important to the various challenges to illegal spying of Americans.
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EarthLink announces halt on new municipal wireless build-outs- San Francisco plan may be delayed.
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The ACLU today applauded the failure of an amendment offered to the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill that would have authorized $300 million of federal funding for states to implement the Real ID driver’s license program, which has been estimated by DHS to cost $23.1 billion.
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The privacy and security concerns associated with the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is in the news again.
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Want to know why the new San Francisco municipal wireless contract needs to include privacy and free speech protections? Read "Make free wi-fi truly free", the opinion piece published in today's SF Chronicle.
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The Supervisor's Budget Committee has delayed voting on the Earthlink/Google municipal wireless contract until July 25 to allow for further negotiations on the contract, including the privacy provisions.
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The San Francisco Board of Supervisors Budget Committee will be voting this Wednesday about whether to approve the Earthlink/Google municipal wireless contract. The contract needs to be modified in order to properly protect privacy and free speech.
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Sixth Circuit dismisses the ACLU v. NSA case for lack of standing- more important than ever that Congress hold hearings on the warrantless wiretapping program to get out the truth and stop any illegal activities.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee has taken action to finally get out the truth about the administration’s domestic spying program. Subpoenas have been issued to the White House and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.
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Your calls about the Real ID Amendments made a real difference.
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A provision inserted into the major immigration reform bill would effectively force every American to present a standardized national ID in order to get a job and establish a huge "employment verification" system filled with Americans' personal information. Urge Senators Boxer and Feinstein to vote for two amendments to fix these problems with the immigration bill.
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An amicus (friend of the court) brief written by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, National ACLU, ACLU of Ohio, and the Center for Democracy and Technology, was influential in a recent decision ruling that the government cannot secretly seize emails without a warrant.
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The California Assembly Judiciary Committee passed five important RFID bills today, including the Identity Information Protection Act (SB 30), which ensures that no RFID tags will be embedded into state-issued IDs, without privacy and security protections.
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A new Reporter's Shield Law, the Free Flow of Information Act, has been introduced in Congress. The proposed legislation would protect a broader group of people than earlier versions- anyone engaged in journalism, which is defined as "gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public."
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An update to an earlier blog posting about the new Google map Street View feature. In addition to the core privacy issues discussed earlier, it turns out that the process for requesting removal of photos that present privacy and security concerns is quite difficult.
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Google’s new Street View service may help some people get around, but it raises serious privacy concerns for individuals who are unwittingly captured by Google’s candid cameras.
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New Facebook capabilities may spread your personal informationto more parties. Check and update your Privacy Settings.
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The Identity Information Protection Act (SB 30), the first bill in the country to require privacy and security protections for the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags in state government-issued ID's passed the California State Senate this morning with a strong bipartisan vote of 33-2.
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Earlier this week, the U.S. military ordered troops to stop posting to blogs and sending personal emails without getting clearance.
Now, the Defense Department is claiming that barring military troops from using social networking, video sharing, and other “recreational” sites such as YouTube and MySpace on military computers is purely an attempt to “preserve bandwidth for operational missions.”
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Some academics and scientists are turning technology on its head, developing technical solutions that help to enhance users’ privacy.
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WHEN: Monday, May 14, 2007
TIME: 2:00pm (approximate start time)
WHERE: City Hall, Board Chamber, room 250, Budget and Finance Committee
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While other states are courageously standing up to Congress' misguided national ID mandate, California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is simply passing the buck.
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Police in Clermont County, Ohio, have started using a handheld scanner to swipe the magnetic strip of state-issued ID cards, passports, and drivers’ licenses and match someone’s identity against 140 wanted or watch lists, ones from the Drug Enforcement Agency and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
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ACLU of Northern California wrote an amicus brief on Josh Wolf’s behalf in both the District Court and Ninth Circuit, contesting the government’s argument that a journalist cannot invoke a First Amendment privilege when presented with a grand jury subpoena.
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Remember in the movie, Minority Report, when the characters walked by a billboard and it changed to target the advertisement to that particular person or walked into a store and over the loudspeaker, it welcomed them and asked how they liked those pair of pants that had been purchased? That future is starting to become a reality with the use of RFID tags in products and not without serious privacy and security concerns.
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We won ACLU v. Gonzales, our longstanding challenge to stop a law that would suppress constitutionally protected speech on the Internet!
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Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) also thinks Real ID is a real problem.
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The ACLU-NC has been very active in highlighting the need for privacy and free speech safeguards in municipal wireless programs. Cities should not be deploying wireless networks that track who we are, what we are looking at, and where we are looking at it from. Once that information is collected, who knows where it will end up or how it will be used or abused?
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Google will begin removing ½ to ¼ of each IP address after 18 months to 2 years to anonymize the data. The government has been asking ISPs to hold data for a year or more.
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The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, today, called on lawmakers to push for a major overhaul of the Real ID Act, calling it a “real nightmare” for Californians. The Department of Homeland Security’s recently proposed delay for implementing the act would do nothing to prevent a national identity card system that violates personal privacy and increases identity theft, all while creating bigger bureaucratic messes, longer lines, and higher fees at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
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HID Global Corporation has threatened to sue IO Active, a computer security company based in Seattle, with patent infringement if it gives its planned presentation at the BlackHat Convention this Wednesday, February 28, 2007, in Washington D.C. The presentation discusses vulnerabilities of HID RFID cards and demonstrates a handheld RFID cloner developed by the company to highlight these vulnerabilities.
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On Wednesday, January 31st, the Montana House passed an anti-REAL ID bill on a vote of 99-1. The bill is expected to head to the Senate next week.
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Maine Becomes First State to Reject Flawed Real ID Act-Momentum growing against Real ID Act! For more information about the Maine resolution rejecting Real ID, and more information about the Real ID Act, RFID, and the Identity Information Act ...
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The San Francisco Police Commission may not approve surveillance cameras unless it finds that the potential for deterrence outweighs community concerns. The San Francisco Police Commission approved 25 new surveillance cameras around the city despite the fact that there was no evidence for the potential for deterrence and dozens of people came to the Police Commission meeting to voice their opposition...
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Privacy is definitely back on the National agenda. In case you missed some of these stories, here is a little run-down on recent activities in Washington...
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San Francisco just announced it has finalized its contract with Earthlink/Google...
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The Police Commission is about to decide whether to install 25 new surveillance cameras in locations around San Francisco, including multiple cameras at 24th and Mission and 16th and Mission...
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On Wednesday, November 15, the San Francisco Police Commission voted to expand the City's video surveillance program to an additional six locations. The Commission approved the expansion over objections raised by ACLU-NC regarding inadequate notice to the community, privacy concerns, and the failure of the City to provide any evidence that cameras are an effective deterrent, as required by San Francisco Administrative Code.
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While studies from around the world show that video surveillance is not effective in preventing or reducing violent crime, another Northern California city is moving to install cameras. The City of Sacramento Police announced yesterday that it was starting a “pilot program” to install public video surveillance- claiming it will help make the community safer.
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Senator Joe Simitian introduced four RFID bills into the California legislature.
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Video Surveillance, NSA Call Records Lawsuit, Free Speech and the Internet, and more...
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Very disappointing news- despite strong support from up and down the state and across the aisle and thousands of letters sent by constituents, the Governor vetoed the RFID bill.
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Welcome to Bytes and Pieces, the new blog for the Technology and Civil Liberties Program.
I hope that you will be a frequent visitor to this spot to keep up to date on all the latest news and activities on privacy, free speech, and new technology and share your thoughts on current projects and emerging issues.
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