Recently, the FTC announced a settlement in its complaint against the data broker ChoicePoint for a data security breach that resulted in over 160,000 people’s personal information being sold to identity thieves. According to the Washington Post:
Attorney General Gozales brought out some new arguments in defense of the warrantless NSA surveillance program. He should have kept these arguments in the bag, as they are flatly wrong. For example, according to the AP:
Law reviews get little respect both within and outside the legal academy. For those unfamiliar with the system, legal academics publish their articles in law reviews, which are edited and run by law students. Law students select the articles, not professors. In contrast, journals in most other fields are peer reviewed and edited.
I just blogged about the case where the government is seeking search query records from Google. I am very pleased that Google is opposing the government’s subpoena. According to the AP article:
According to the AP:
Google Inc. is rebuffing the Bush administration’s demand for a peek at what millions of people have been looking up on the Internet’s leading search engine — a request that underscores the potential for online databases to become tools for government surveillance.
Mountain View-based Google has refused to comply with a White House subpoena first issued last summer, prompting U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week to ask a federal judge in San Jose for an order to hand over the requested records.
The government wants a list all requests entered into Google’s search engine during an unspecified single week — a breakdown that could conceivably span tens of millions of queries. In addition, it seeks 1 million randomly selected Web addresses from various Google databases.
A while back, I wrote about the Million Dollar Homepage, where Alex Tew, a student, created the idea of selling a million pixels on a website to advertisers for $1 each. His plan was successful, and he recently reached his goal of raising a million dollars in just a few months.
But the story attracted some unsavory criminals bent on ruining Tew’s enterprise. From the BBC:
In an interesting interview at Reason Online, NSA surveillance whistleblower Russell Tice explains what prompted him to speak out about the program:
MSNBC journalist Bob Sullivan, in his blog Red Tape Chronicles, writes:
Ask Americans something like, “Should the government be allowed to read e-mails and listen to phone calls to fight terrorism?” and you’ll get a much different result than if you ask, “Should the government be allowed to read your e-mails and listen to your phone calls to fight terrorism.” . . . .
In 2002, The Pew Research Center for People and The Press asked just those questions — and by simply dropping the word “your,” the number of people willing to support such government snooping jumped by 50 percent. Only 22 percent were willing to let the government peek when it was personal, but 33 percent were willing when it sounded like only someone’s else privacy was at risk, said Scott Keeter, director of survey research for Pew.
There is a lot of discussion about the lack of meaningful revelations in the Alito confirmation hearings. The Roberts confirmation hearings were also devoid of much meaningful substance as well.
Basically, the nominee must say that he’ll have an open mind, that he will decide cases according to the “rule of law,” that he has respect for precedent, and that he won’t be a “judicial activist.” The nominee must sit calmly while Senators bluster and wait out the storm.
The Chicago Sun Times reports:
The Chicago Police Department is warning officers their cell phone records are available to anyone — for a price. Dozens of online services are selling lists of cell phone calls, raising security concerns among law enforcement and privacy experts. . . .
To test the service, the FBI paid Locatecell.com $160 to buy the records for an agent’s cell phone and received the list within three hours, the police bulletin said. . . .
How well do the services work? The Chicago Sun-Times paid $110 to Locatecell.com to purchase a one-month record of calls for this reporter’s company cell phone. It was as simple as e-mailing the telephone number to the service along with a credit card number. . . .
On Tuesday, when it reopened, Locatecell.com e-mailed a list of 78 telephone numbers this reporter called on his cell phone between Nov. 19 and Dec. 17. The list included calls to law enforcement sources, story subjects and other Sun-Times reporters and editors.