In discussing security vs. civil liberties, I’ve argued that too little questioning of the security side of the balance is going on. The government engages in some elaborate and expensive program in the name of security, and instantly the debate shifts to whether we can deal with the sacrifices in civil liberties. The effectiveness of the security measure is rarely questioned, and the defense of this position is that government security officials have the expertise and shouldn’t be second guessed. But security is about choices. And I wonder whether we’re making wise ones when it comes to security. I found the following article to be particularly disheartening:
Terrorism and Security Overreactions
Bruce Schneier has a thoughtful and provocative post about how our overreactions to terrorism are exactly what the terrorists want:
The Ten Greatest Privacy Disasters
Wired News lists what it considers to be the 10 greatest privacy disasters:
NSA Surveillance and the First Amendment
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 grounds to invalidate the program. I just completed an article entitled The First Amendment as Criminal Procedure in which I argue for First Amendment regulation of government information gathering. In the final section, I have a discussion of the NSA surveillance program.
Victim Privacy vs. Criminal Enforcement
An article in today’s Washington Post raises a difficult privacy issue:
NYC Subway Searches
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 without a warrant, without probable cause, and even without reasonable suspicion. In a blog post critiquing the decision, I wrote:
The AOL Privacy Debacle: Internet Search Queries and Privacy
Recently, AOL released about 20 million search queries of over 650,000 users to researchers. As the Washington Post reported:
Is Any Privacy Left in the Workplace?
Recently, in United States v. Ziegler, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concluded that under the Fourth Amendment, a private sector employee has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his computer if the employer’s computer administrator has access to that computer.
Employer Liability for Not Monitoring Its Employees’ Computer Use
The United States v. Ziegler case I wrote about in a previous post brings to mind a radical employment law case decided last December in New Jersey. [Thanks to Charlie Sullivan and Timothy Glynn for bringing the case to my attention]. The case is Doe v. XYC, 887 A.2d 1156 (N.J. Super. 2005). Since I couldn’t find a version of it online, I’ve posted a copy here [link no longer available].
Online Blacklisting of Medical Malpractice Plaintiffs
In a disturbing development, websites are emerging to create blacklists of individuals who file medical malpractice claims. According to an article at Law.com: