PRIVACY + SECURITY BLOG

News, Developments, and Insights

The New FISA Amendments and Immunity for Telecommunications Companies

For the past several months, Congress has been wrangling over how to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to allow for the NSA warrantless surveillance program. The fact that the NSA surveillance program was clearly illegal — even under charitable creative dubiously-plausible fantastical interpretations of the law — seems to have quickly been forgotten. The […]

Responses to Blog Reviews of The Future of Reputation: Part I

A few weeks ago, I offered free review copies of my book, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet (Yale University Press, Oct. 2007) to bloggers who would agree to write a review of the book. A few reviews have now come in, and they are quite thoughtful and interesting. Many […]

The New Facebook Ads — Starring You: Another Privacy Debacle?

Facebook recently announced a new advertising scheme. Instead of using celebrities to hawk products, it will use . . . you! That’s right, pictures of you and your friends will appear on Facebook ads to make products more enticing to Facebook customers. As Facebook’s website describes its new “Social Ads” program:

Public vs. Private: Funerals, Free Speech, and Privacy

Timothy Zick recently blogged about a lawsuit by a parent of a deceased soldier against a fundamentalist religious group that protested near the funeral. The religious group has been protesting near several funerals for soldiers, and their message is particularly offensive: The group claims that the soldiers died as punishment for a society that permits […]

Belle Lettre on The Future of Reputation

Belle Lettre, the pseudonymous blogger at Law & Letters, has posted a very thoughtful and interesting review of my book, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet. It is unlike most reviews that typically summarize ideas in the book and quickly react; Belle Lettre has really engaged the issues and arguments […]