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In May and June of this year, we had several blog posts about privacy concerns associated with the new Google Street View service. See here. The Street View photographs included identifiable people and license plates and the procedures for requesting take-down of that information was more difficult than it should have been. There was not a direct link from the image to re... Read More

The online social networking service Facebook is a popular way to build and maintain groups of friends, family, and colleagues online. Many of the site's users post photo albums of their lives for friends and family. Even more include significant personal information on their own individual profile page- information such as age, relationship status, hobbies, job information, and even address and p... Read More

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 a warrant, court order, or legal process. Following revelations in an article in USA Today in May of last year, the three California affiliates of the ACL... Read More

By vetoing three bills that would have helped end wrongful convictions in California, the Governor made it more likely that innocent people will be convicted of crimes they did not commit and the guilty will go free. The ACLU of Northern California regrets the Governor’s decision. Read More

A federal court today struck down the amended Patriot Act's National Security Letter (NSL) provision. The law has permitted the FBI to issue NSLs demanding private information about people within the United States without court approval, and to gag those who receive NSLs from discussing them. The court found that the gag power was unconstitutional and that because the statute prevented courts from... Read More

Earlier this week, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruled in support of freedom of speech for bloggers. The FEC dismissed complaints against the DailyKos and a blog site critical of former Representative Mary Bono. The FEC refused to find that the DailyKos was a political committee subject to regulation under the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). Under FECA, any committee, c... Read More

In August, privacy advocates applauded the Defense Department's decision to close its Threat and Local Observation Notice (TALON) system. While the decision to shut down the much maligned program is a good one, it certainly does not mean the end to the intelligence database threat to civil liberties. The Defense Department reportedly initiated the TALON program in 2003 to store intell... Read More

The American Civil Liberties Union today announced the launch of a new "Surveillance Society Clock" to symbolize the reality that we are fast approaching a genuine surveillance society in the United States. The clock is set at six minutes before the "midnight" of such a dark end to privacy. Also being released is a new report summarizing the state of privacy today, and video of "Monster Among Us,"... Read More

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. The Liberal Democrats looked at the percentage of crimes solved in the boroughs of London and compared those figures with the number of video surveillance cameras in each borough. While the number of... Read More

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. It can mean dealing with fewer bills, saving some time on a busy day, or keeping a few more dollars in your wallet. But, as you buy more things from fewer companies, they are not just pocketing more of your money, they may also be coll... Read More