Posts about Surveillance by Professor Daniel J. Solove for his blog at TeachPrivacy, a privacy awareness and security training company.
Google has added a new feature in selected cities to Google Maps. This new feature allows users to view street level shots of each block. For a long time, Google Maps has provided satellite images from above, but Street View allows people to view an area as if standing on the sidewalk. From the NY Times:
I’ve written a short essay (about 20 pages), entitled Data Mining and the Security-Liberty Debate, for an upcoming symposium on surveillance for the U. Chicago Law Review. The symposium website is here [link no longer available]. The symposium looks to be a terrific event. The event will be held on June 15-16, 2007 (registration information is available […]
Typically, when we think of the constitutional criminal procedure that regulates government information gathering, we think of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. But many government investigations involve collecting information about speech, association, religion, and the consumption of ideas. The NSA surveillance of telephone calls, for example, involves speech. National Security Letters can be used to […]
At Balkinization, Mark Graber posts an email from Princeton Professor Walter Murphy, who writes about his ordeal over being on an airline screening list:
According to the a DOJ investigation, the FBI has violated the law on several occasions in connection with the issuance of National Security Letters (NSLs). A NSL is a demand letter issued to a particular entity or organization to turn over various record and data pertaining to individuals. They do not require probable cause, a warrant, […]
Earlier today, a federal district judge struck down the Bush Administration’s NSA surveillance program which involved intercepting international electronic communications without a warrant. The opinion is available here. I have not had time to read the opinion carefully yet, but I am especially intrigued by the court’s use of the First Amendment as one of the […]
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit recently upheld New York City’s program of random searches at subways. The case is McWade v. Kelly, No. 05 6754 CV (2d Cir. 2006). The program was initiated after the London subway bombing. Back in December, 2005, a federal district court upheld the searches, which are conducted […]
In reading the mainstream media accounts, one would get the impression that Senator Specter’s NSA surveillance bill is a compromise with the Administration, a way to limit Executive power, and that the Administration is reluctantly capitulating to judicial oversight.
Jack Balkin has some insightful analysis of the Senator Specter’s NSA Bill over at Balkinization:
Apparently, warrantless wiretapping and gathering of phone call records just aren’t enough to quench the Bush Administration’s thirst for data. Now we learn that the government has gathered massive quantities of financial records. The New York Times reports: