privacy

Bush's attorney general pick a Patriot Act defender

President Bush's nominee to replace departing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has a history of sticking up for the electronic-surveillance powers expanded by the controversial USA Patriot Act.

That's one of the tidbits about retired federal judge Michael Mukasey that the White House is playing up--in boldface type, no less--as part of a fact sheet distributed as the president announced his pick Monday.

Mukasey, a Reagan appointee with 18 years of experience as a district judge in New York, aired an apparently pro-Patriot Act position in a 2004 op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, suggesting that the law gave … Read more

Can I see your iPhone? Prying eyes want to know...

One of the inherent risks of having an iPhone will necessarily mean that you will become a de facto sales rep for Apple.

It's not uncommon for co-workers, non-iPhone-laden friends or strangers asking to 'see' your iPhone. "See?" Is that the right word? No, perhaps play and fool around with your iPhone is a better description as you can plainly see an iPhone, but these people clearly want to touch it to believe it as the Apple ads direct them to do. It happens to me enough to make me feel like a roving iPhone sales rep. … Read more

Privacy getting an upgrade in China?

As noted on Slashdot, and as reported by Xinhua,

A Beijing university student is suing Microsoft for infringing upon his privacy, demanding 1,350 yuan (180 U.S. dollars) in compensation and an apology printed in a national newspaper.… Read more

Google tries to clarify "public"

Google has now unequivocally stated that "public" means "public," and hence users of Google Apps need not worry, as CNET reports. The problem, as ever, is that the term is still not defined properly, whatever Google's good intentions (and I genuinely believe that they are good).

This is super easily solved by Google:… Read more

Spy chief: Oops! FISA changes didn't aid arrests

Earlier this week, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told a Senate committee that a recent expansion of electronic snooping law helped lead to a recent trio of terror arrests in Germany.

Now he's publicly admitting that he was wrong, which may complicate the Bush administration's efforts to renew and further expand the controversial new law.

"The Protect America Act was urgently needed by our intelligence professionals to close critical gaps in our capabilities and permit them to more readily follow terrorist threats, such as the plot uncovered in Germany," he said in a statement issued … Read more

Would Google Maps Street View be legal in Canada?

The privacy commissioner in Canada says Google Maps' new high-resolution images in its Street View feature could violate Canada's privacy laws because citizens may not know they have been photographed, according to The Canadian Press.

Street View isn't available yet in Canada, but has been rolled out to nine major cities in the U.S. since May. The maps show close-up, high-resolution images in San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area only. After initial criticism about privacy concerns, Google quietly changed its policy to allow anyone to notify the company when a recognizable face or license plate number has been captured, … Read more

Keyloggers to be installed at Indian cybercafes

The debate between personal privacy and national security continues to rage on, but privacy advocates in India have recently been dealt a blow with the news that keyloggers will be installed in the approximately 500 Internet cafes serving the city of Mumbai. According to a report in today's Ars Technica, "cybercafe owners must agree to the installation of the software or else they will lose their licenses." Given that terrorists seek to hide their identities and are known to frequent Internet cafes in order to stay anonymous, the government hopes to thwart terrorism by monitoring computer activities in the cafes.

Vijay Mukhi, the president of India's Foundation for Information Security and Technology, defends the decision to install keyloggers stating, "The police needs to install programs that will capture every key stroke at regular interval screenshots, which will be sent back to a server that will log all the data. The police can then keep track of all communication between terrorists no matter which part of the world they operate from. This is the only way to patrol the Net and this is how the police informer is going to look in the e-age." But will such surveillance practices actually stop terrorism or will they just leave everyday citizens feeling uncomfortable using Mumbai's cybercafes?

… Read more

Feds still love Real ID despite growing opposition

Editors note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff offered states a new deadline of February 2008; this deadline had actually been announced earlier.

WASHINGTON--A controversial plan for national identification cards known as Real ID drew another ringing endorsement from top Bush administration officials on Monday, even as senators continued to question the law's privacy implications and cost.

Cheerleading for the mandate was led by the retiring Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), who called a nationalized ID card a top priority. He asked the four Bush administration officials present to divulge whether they … Read more

Spy chief: Expanded U.S. snooping law aided German terror arrests

WASHINGTON--A recent expansion of U.S. eavesdropping law helped lead to the high-profile arrest of three terrorism suspects in Germany last week, the nation's intelligence director told senators on Monday.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell credited Congress's much-criticized update of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last month with making "significant contributions" that ultimately allowed the U.S. government to aid German investigators. The apprehensions targeted what were described as Islamic militants plotting attacks against sites regularly visited by Americans.

McConnell spoke at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing here, which was … Read more