Archive

Dutch and British transit cards, California Senate ID cards, HID building access cards, some new generation credit cards, and now FasTrak.What do they have in common?They all use RFID technology and security researchers have shown that they all have glaring privacy and security risks.Researcher Nate Lawson has discovered that FasTrak transponders are vulnerable to sniffing, cloning, and surreptiti... Read More

Dutch Chipmaker NXP, formerly Philips Semiconductors, is taking Dutch Radboud University to court to try to prevent researchers from publishing their scientific paper showing how the RFID chips used in Dutch travel cards can be copied and cloned.The Bay Area recently released its own RFID-enabled transit card system,Translink. It is important to ensure that security research about these systems is... Read More

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.Our clients are reporters, organizations like Amnesty International, Global Fund for Women, and Human Rights Watch, and defense attorneys, whose activities will be greatly curtailed by this new law.Our argument is simple: This bill is a clear vio... Read More

According to Google, the "time was right" for the company to post a link to a privacy policy on its homepage.It certainly was.The California Online Privacy Protection Act states that a company is in violation of the Act if they fail to post its policy within 30 days of being notified of noncompliance.Google released its modified homepage including the privacy link 30 days after receiving a letter ... Read More

Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California issued a ruling blasting key arguments made by supporters of telecom immunity last week.The lengthy opinion cuts through many common misconceptions and makes clear that the Senate is set to vote on telecom immunity based on misinformed arguments.The FISA bill is scheduled for a vote tomorrow, Tuesday, July 8. Contact your Senators to... Read More

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.The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the records in November 2007 following revelations that federal officials are using Americans... Read More

In a victory for civil liberties and responsible government spending, the Budget Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted Thursday to cut $300,000 from its invasive, intrusive, and ineffective video surveillance camera program.The Budget Committee's decision is an important first step, but will not be finalized until the full Board approves the budget next month. Please contact yo... Read More

The first comprehensive study of California’s death penalty was released today by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice (CCFAJ), a nonpartisan statewide advisory board. The 116 page report highlights a myriad of problems, including the failure to adequately fund defense counsel for poor people facing death sentences, a decades-long appeals process, and the risk that inno... Read More

The ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC) has reached a settlement with the Upper Lake Union Elementary School District that contains a comprehensive series of steps the District will undertake to protect students from anti-gay harassment and discrimination. The agreement is on behalf of a student who was persistently subjected to verbal taunting and physical abuse throughout elementary and middl... Read More

In a recent victory for employee privacy and free speech, the Ninth Circuit told employers to stop snooping on email and text messages.The case:Quon v. Arch WirelessThe facts:The City of Ontario Police Department gave two-way pagers to its employees. Officer Quon, a Department employee, used his pager to send personal messages. Quon exceeded his messaging limit and the Department decided to audit ... Read More