UnderReported.com :: Surprising stories from the media and primary sources. A collection of entries at this publication

UnderReported.com - Congressmen quoting for the record Safire's NY Times "You Are a Suspect" .

There's not much difference now between the rhetoric on blogs and on the floor of Congress. Both are condemning the trampling of the Constitution, and neither is having an effect on the actual votes in Congress.

William Safire's now-famous Nov. 14, 2002 New York Times editorial has been quoted extensively in both chambers this past week.

Read more for the excepts from the Congressional Record...

Only partial quotes are provided here -- follow the links for the full quotes, to see the level of sustained exhortation first-hand.

NEWS.com.au | Government site breaches Privacy Act.

The Department of Family and Community Services has breached the Privacy Act by spamming website competition entrants on behalf of a university.

The Office of Federal Privacy Commissioner said it had concluded its investigation of The Source website, which the department manages, and the breach had now been adequately addressed.

During April 2002, the department ran 34 online "Win Free Stuff" competitions, which attracted thousands of entries. In June 2002, the website editor was approached and agreed to send marketing emails to the entrants on behalf of RMIT students who were running a project to send spiders into space with NASA.

Deputy Federal Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim said the Office received no formal complaints regarding the marketing emails, but decided to investigate the matter.

New York Times - free registration required Postcards From Planet Google.

Google currently does not allow outsiders to gain access to raw data because of privacy concerns. Searches are logged by time of day, originating I.P. address (information that can be used to link searches to a specific computer), and the sites on which the user clicked. People tell things to search engines that they would never talk about publicly - Viagra, pregnancy scares, fraud, face lifts. What is interesting in the aggregate can be seem an invasiion of privacy if narrowed to an individual.

So, does Google ever get subpoenas for its information?

"Google does not comment on the details of legal matters involving Google," Mr. Brin responded.

Privacy News from Wired News - Record the Lens That Records You.

Ronald Deibert, a University of Toronto associate professor of political science, wants people to grab their cameras and hit the shopping malls Dec. 24 and participate in World Sousveillance Day.

Surveillance means "to view from above." Sousveillance means "to view from below."

On the day before Christmas, at noon, local time, all over the world, Deibert wants citizens to "shoot back" at surveillance cameras -- not with guns, but with cameras of their own. Participants are to head out, in disguise, to their favorite malls and public spaces, and photograph all the security cameras they find.

Deibert warns that photographing security cameras will quickly cause large men wearing navy blue blazers and two-way radios to place their hands over your camera lens. Photographers may even be escorted off the premises.

Which is exactly the point. Deibert hopes World Sousveillance Day will "raise awareness about the increasing pervasiveness of all forms of surveillance in today's hypermedia society."

[ ... ]

Paula Kelliher, marketing director of the upscale Galleria Mall in White Plains, New York, warns that photography, especially of surveillance cameras, is not permitted on mall property.

"It's not really in the best interests of our customers," she said.

Slashdot | Your Rights Online - Record the Surveillance Cams.

GruffGoat writes "Have you noticed all the video cams watching your every movement? Perhaps we are becoming accustomed to always being watched. University of Toronto Associate Professor Deibert has an excellent idea of setting aside a day in which we take notice of being watched. Here's a Wired article about taking pictures of the surveillance camers."

Irish Times - Department to store data on citizens for four years.

Detailed personal data on every Irish citizen's phone and mobile calls, faxes, and e-mail and Internet usage will be retained for up to four years under a new Department of Justice Bill, writes Karlin Lillington

The Bill, which is being drafted and which the Minister, Mr McDowell, hopes to implement by next spring, requires that personal electronic data be retained for two to four years. At present, data may only be retained for a short period, exclusively for billing purposes - generally, three to six months - and then must be destroyed.>

"We have serious concerns that this  is treating everybody as a potential suspect in a crime," said Mr Malachy Murphy, e-rights convener with the Irish Council for Civil Liberties. "This would also appear to go against the European Convention on Human Rights, which has explicit protections for citizen privacy."

Slashdot | Your Rights Online - Ireland To Check EVerything.

ncostigan writes "The Irish Times is running a story on new legislation proposal where detailed personal data on every Irish citizen's phone and mobile calls, faxes, and e-mail and Internet usage will be retained for up to four years under a new Department of Justice Bill, Officials within the Department of Justice are understood to be seeking a legal regime similar to that mandated by Britain's controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act. This 'timely' announcement just after a blackhat security conference hivercon held in Dublin this week had described similar draconian messures proposed in other EU states."