An article in today’s Washington Post by Jonathan Krim discusses a really disturbing new market of personal data – the numbers people dial on their cell phones. Here’s an excerpt of the article:
Almost lost amid the Supreme Court fireworks last week was its decision to deny certiorari on a challenge by two reporters to a grand jury subpoena for the identity of White House sources. The imbroglio began back in 2003, when former Ambassador Joseph Wilson disputed White House claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. […]
By way of BoingBoing comes this fascinating incident in Korea. A young woman’s dog pooped inside a subway train. Folks asked her to clean it up, but she told them to mind their own business. A person took photos of her and posted them on a popular Korean blog. Another blogger, Don Park, explains what happened next:
Judge Alex Kozinski and his law clerk, Alexander Volokh recently published an opinion by a panel on U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in a law review article. The article is called The Appeal, 103 Mich. L. Rev. 1391 (2005). The judges on the panel were Judges Alex K., Bucephalus, and Godot. No reason is given for the […]
According to an article in the NY Times, documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center from the Social Security Administration (SSA) reveal that the SSA disclosed personal information in response to FBI requests after 9-11:
According to an NYT article: Law enforcement officials have made at least 200 formal and informal inquiries to libraries for information on reading material and other internal matters since October 2001, according to a new study that adds grist to the growing debate in Congress over the government’s counterterrorism powers. In some cases, agents used subpoenas […]
Remember CAPPS II, the program for screening airline passengers by using databases of personal information? This program was scrapped because the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was concerned that it posed an increasing threat to privacy and civil liberties. Replacing CAPPS II was the nicely-monikered “Secure Flight.” (EPIC’s website has a good […]
The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) of the DOJ has issued a highly suspect interpretation of the original HIPAA that seriously undermines the enforceability of HIPAA. Some background: In 1996, Congress Passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The Act, at 42 U.S.C. § 1320d-6, provided in part for the protection of medical privacy – […]
This interesting AP story demonstrates how illusory anonymity can be on the Internet:
I’m getting tired of posting about data security breaches, but this one is a whopper — actually, more like a double whopper. From the AP [link no longer available]: