PRIVACY + SECURITY BLOG

News, Developments, and Insights

high-tech technology background with eyes on computer display

The Privacy Paradox

Privacy Paradox

Over at the New York Times’s Bits blog, Brad Stone writes: Researchers call this the privacy paradox: normally sane people have inconsistent and contradictory impulses and opinions when it comes to their safeguarding their own private information. Now some new research is beginning to document and quantify the privacy paradox. In a talk presented at […]

The New TSA Identification Requirement

TSA

The TSA, in its never-ending quest to inconvenience us without keeping us safe, has once again changed its rules on identification. According to the old rule, if you didn’t provide ID at the airport, you would be subjected to secondary screening. Now, you may be denied the right to fly entirely. According to the TSA:

My New Book, Understanding Privacy

Understanding Privacy

I am very happy to announce the publication of my new book, UNDERSTANDING PRIVACY (Harvard University Press, May 2008). There has been a longstanding struggle to understand what “privacy” means and why it is valuable. Professor Arthur Miller once wrote that privacy is “exasperatingly vague and evanescent.” In this book, I aim to develop a […]

Final Version Available: Data Mining and the Security-Liberty Debate

Data Mining

My short essay, Data Mining and the Security-Liberty Debate, 74 U. Chi. L. Rev. 343 (2008) has just been published. I’ve posted the final version on SSRN. You can find the abstract and more information about the essay in a previous post I wrote about the subject here. The essay critiques arguments by Richard Posner […]

Does the Roomates.com Case Affect CDA § 230 Immunity for JuicyCampus?

Juicy Campus

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (en banc) has just issued a very interesting opinion interpreting a federal law providing immunity from liability for online speech — the Communications Decency Act (CDA), 47 U.S.C. § 230. The case is Fair Housing Council v. Roommates.com, LLC, 2008 WL 879293 (9th Cir. April 3, […]

The NSA: The Total Information Awareness Agency

NSA

Remember when, about five years ago, a program called Total Information Awareness (TIA) came to light. TIA was a plan to create a massive government database of personal information which would then be data mined. The program led to a public outcry, with William Safire writing a blistering op-ed in the New York Times attacking […]

Battlestar Galactica Interview Transcript (Parts II and III)

Battlestar Galactica Interview

This post contains Parts II and III of the transcript of our interview with Ron Moore and David Eick, the creators, producers, and writers of the TV show Battlestar Galactica. Joe Beaudoin, Jr., the project leader of the Battlestar Wiki, transcribed the interview for us. We edited the transcript, but the bulk of the work […]