The American Civil Liberties Union today targeted Attorney General John Ashcroft's continuing push for expanded surveillance and intelligence gathering powers with a new full-page newspaper advertisement in this morning's Washington Times and New York Times.

"Americans of all ideological stripes - right, center and left - are up in arms about the unnecessary and intrusive powers being pushed for by John Ashcroft's Justice Department," said Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "This new advertisement highlights the serious concerns shared by an unlikely alliance that includes groups and individuals as ideologically disparate as the ACLU and well-known conservative Bob Barr."

The ad describes examples of the slew of new intelligence gathering and law enforcement powers either asserted unilaterally by the Administration or granted to the President by Congress since September 11, 2001.  It also warns against the proposed Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, the Department of Justice's follow-up wish list of expanded powers not granted in the original USA PATRIOT Act. 

Slashdot | Safe and Free from Patriot II.

JJ22 writes "The ALCU has a press release about a full page ad they have running in the New York Times. See the ad here. It gives a list of some of the freedoms which were taken away under the Patriot Act, and lists more which Ashcroft is pushing for under Patriot II. Obviously, you should only be concerned about losing your liberties if you're a terrorist (or similar dissident)."

New York Times - free registration required A Radio Chip in Every Consumer Product.

And, yes, Procter & Gamble will notice if a case of Pantene shampoo does not make it to the Wal-mart Supercenter in Broken Arrow, Okla. Its truck is equipped to monitor signals continuously from chips hidden in each case. If any case stops sending its "Hi, I'm still here" signal, a monitor in the "smart truck" will record exactly when and where.

Such technology, known as radio-frequency identification -- the same techniques that enable an electronic sensor to record data from an E-ZPass tag or an office door to open for people with chip-equipped cards in their pockets -- could one day stymie pilferers. But it is also capable of doing much more for commerce. Beyond Gillette and Procter & Gamble, companies as diverse as International Paper and Canon USA are teaming up with retailers and customers to apply R.F.I.D., as it is known, to tracking products from the time they leave an assembly line to the time they leave the store.

The companies are tagging clothes, drugs, auto parts, copy machines and even mail with chips laden with information about content, origin and destination. They are also equipping shelves, doors and walls with sensors that can record that data when the products are near. "We want to track all of our merchandise, and that includes items that people are unlikely to steal," William C. Wertz, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Stores, said.

[ ... ]

Consumer privacy is also an issue. It would be easy to combine credit card data with information from the retail chips to know who bought what, and when -- and, conceivably, track the product even after it left the store.

"I don't think the average consumer understands the threat to personal privacy that these kinds of technologies can present," said Alan N. Sutin, a partner specializing in information technology at the law firm of Greenberg Traurig.

William H. Steele, a consumer products analyst with Bank of America, doubts companies will "succumb to the temptation to keep tracking products in the consumers' hands," but he, too, stops short of calling the issue specious. "There should be a certain level of skepticism on the part of the U.S. consumer," he said.

Slashdot | NYT on RFID Tags.

indros13 writes "The NY Times is running a story on the radio tagging of merchandise. Companies like Gillette want to make sure their razors are in stock and stores like Wal-Mart want to make sure you can find your paisley panties, size 10. But what happens to privacy when everything you buy can be tracked from store floor to door?"

Nando Times - Internet firms seek limits on privacy law This link is an indirect one via Moreover.com - Registration is required and I haven't registered so I can't provide any interesting pull quotes from the article.

emarketer.com - Online Privacy and the Food, Beverage & Tobacco Industry.

According to a 2003 study from The Customer Respect Group, 29% of Web sites for Fortune 500 companies in the US Food, Beverage & Tobacco Industry do not have privacy policies and just 13% use autoresponder technology.

ICANNWatch | ENUM: Bad For Privacy, or Very Bad For Privacy?

There's a lot happening with ENUM fairly quickly, and it's hard to keep track of half of it. Alas, one thing about ENUM seems pretty clear: as currently specified, ENUM's intersection with the DNS creates a major privacy problem for the average person. ENUM partisans tend to admit this in person, often even before being cornered. The trouble is, they keep pressing on trying to write standards without dealing with the problem. (All the more reason why WHOIS privacy issues matter so much!) Here -- I think -- is not just one case in point, but two, both of which dropped into my mailbox today: Internet-drafts for " Registration for enumservices voice and video" and for "IFAX service of ENUM". The two documents also provide an interesting stylistic contrast in methods of flagging the issue.

Slashdot | Your Rights Online - Secret Irish Data Repository Uncovered.

topgold writes "During an initial public meeting yesterday, the Irish Justice Ministry revealed that for nearly a year, the Irish government has mandated all telecommunications operators store traffic information from every landline, fax and mobile phone call for at least three years. Irish Times journalist Karlin Lillington offers insights regarding this secret data retention regime in several national newspaper columns. A considerable citizen reaction is at the boiling point, stoked by a civil liberties discussion board and the rejuvenation of the Electronic Freedom Ireland citizen group. By law, the Irish government can deep-six any Cabinet discussions related to the 'deliberative process' and since this decision to retain phone records happened at Cabinet level, it could have remained hidden for more than five years."