RICHMOND, Va. -- Senate Democratic Leader Richard L. Saslaw said Thursday that he had been told by reliable sources that Ed Matricardi, executive director of the state GOP, apparently listened in uninvited on two conference calls between Democratic lawmakers on March 22 and Monday.

[ ... ]

On Wednesday, state police searched Matricardi's office at GOP headquarters, but it wasn't clear whether they confiscated any evidence, the Post reported.

Law enforcement sources told the newspaper police hadn't obtained the tape recording that they believe Matricardi made of the call, but said they had a copy of a GOP transcript of the Democratic session.

ZDNet |UK| - News - Privacy.

ZDNet |UK| - Telecoms - Privacy comes under attack.

The right to privacy of correspondence received a disproportionate shake-up in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on New York

The events of 11 September provoked a new urgency in the need for powers that would allow law enforcement officers to retain traffic data for anti-terrorist investigations. Within a matter of weeks, the privacy rights of British citizens had been hugely compromised by emergency legislation, which allowed the automated surveillance of all electronic communications.

Now at the start of 2002, British surveillance laws are at risk of infringing what are seen by some as basic human rights. Huge demands have been placed on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to stockpile traffic data on customers under the new Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill (ATCS), and the Information Commissioner has characterised the requirements as "disproportionate general surveillance".

Traffic data collected under the voluntary Code of Practice within the ATCS would provide a "complete map of a person's private life" according to the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIRP). Records will include an individual's geographical location determined through their mobile phone, the sender and recipient information from emails, a complete log of a person's Internet sessions including their IP address, and the address of all Web sites visited.

Political News from Wired News - Hollings Howls Will Have to Wait.

Sen. Patrick Leahy says a controversial proposal to embed copy protection in electronics gear will not become law this year.

Since Leahy is the powerful chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, his opposition instantly boosts the difficulty Hollywood studios will encounter in their attempts to enact sweeping copyright legislation.

The Vermont Democrat said through a spokesman that he "does not" support the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA), which Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina) introduced this month.

Leahy had said during a hearing March 14 that he would block an earlier measure -- the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act -- that Hollings had circulated privately. But that was before Hollings had introduced the revised CBDTPA, which is not as far-reaching.

Now spokesman David Carle says that Leahy is just as critical of Hollings' CBDTPA, and has the same plans to prevent it from being enacted this year. Since Leahy's committee has jurisdiction over the bill, he may be in a position to do it.

Slashdot | CBDTPA / SSSCA Won't Be Passed This Year, Say Leahy.

New York Times - Editorial Op-Ed: by Donna E. Shalala free registration required A Loss to Medical Privacy.

In its latest version of the regulation, the administration tried another approach: making consent for routine uses optional, not mandatory. While I'm pleased that the Bush officials chose not to eliminate the consent provision altogether, as some had advocated, I hope they will try to craft an alternative that retains the concept of patient consent and still allows providers, under certain conditions, to begin treatment before obtaining consent.

In another crucial section of the regulation, I think the Bush administration got it wrong. It should be easy for information to flow from one health professional to another, but difficult for information to be disclosed outside the system. The Clinton administration took an appropriately hard line on marketing activities designed to sell products and services to patients.

But the regulation unveiled last week is considerably looser. Many of the activities that we called marketing the Bush administration calls "recommending treatment." The bottom line? Any drug company can now pay a pharmacy to mail information about a new drug to its customers, without their knowledge or consent. Even worse, there is no way for the patient to get off the mailing list -- ever. Our obscure but important "opt out" provision, under which patients could get off the list, has been erased.

Donna E. Shalala, president of the University of Miami, was secretary of health and human services from 1993 to 2001.

New York Times - free registration required Settlement by DoubleClick.

The Internet advertiser DoubleClick said that it had agreed to purge consumer information it had collected.

Privoxy | Project Homepage.

SourceForge: Project Info - Privoxy.

Privoxy is a web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for protecting privacy, filtering web page content, managing cookies, controlling access, and removing ads, banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious junk. It is based on the Internet Junkbuster.

I haven't tried it but it does have a rather long list of supported operating systems.