Tuesday, April 4, 2006

Anonymizer Takes on China's Net Censors. Anonymizer Takes on China's Net Censors. Company readies new software designed to allow Chinese users access to blocked sites. [PCWorld.com - Latest News Stories] 12:14:52 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Anonymizer software circumvents China's Great Firewall. Anonymizer software circumvents China's Great Firewall. Anonymizer Inc. Saturday announced the availability of its Operation: Anti-Censorship software, which is designed to circumvent Chinese government efforts to block access to certain Web sites. [Computerworld Privacy News] 12:06:12 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Controlling Government Abuse of Our Right to Privacy. Controlling Government Abuse of Our Right to Privacy. America need not rush out to create a new bureaucracy to mimic Europe's approach to solving the privacy dilemma, but Americans deserve much more respect from the institutions, both public and private, that serve them [GT: Privacy] 12:04:24 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

KRT Wire | 04/03/2006 | Panel that reviews intelligence gathering sees little work When a privacy-rights group requested records to show how many times a secretive presidential oversight board had asked the Justice Department to investigate possible violations of intelligence-gathering laws since 2001, the answer that came back last month was as simple as it was startling. Zero. One possible reason: For more than half of President Bush's first term, the Intelligence Oversight Board had no members because Bush didn't appoint anyone to it. Bush didn't make appointments to his oversight board until March 17, 2003, well after his administration had begun an aggressive, post-Sept. 11, 2001, expansion of intelligence-related activity. The oversight board, which can have up to five members, operates in secrecy, but the little information about its workload that has come to light suggests there was ample questionable behavior to examine. Last month, the Justice Department's inspector general reported that the FBI had referred 108 possible violations of intelligence regulations to the oversight board in 2004 and 2005, ranging in severity "from relatively minor to significant." A few heavily censored reports that have been made public suggest that the more serious cases involve surveillance of U.S. residents without proper supervision. The total does not take into account any alleged violations that might have been reported from the other 15 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community. Critics say the long delay in appointing an oversight board fits a Bush administration pattern of resisting scrutiny. "This administration has had a consistent lack of interest in what causes failures," said former Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat who served as chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from mid-2001 to early 2003. "There's a disinterest in understanding what happened, much less holding anyone accountable. It's part of a larger environment of secrecy and a `we know it all' attitude." 11:50:13 AM  PermaLink   / trackback []

DOJ: Identity theft hit 3.6M U.S. families in six months of '04. DOJ: Identity theft hit 3.6M U.S. families in six months of '04. About 3% of all households in the U.S. -- an estimated 3.6 million families -- were hit by some sort of identity theft during the first six months of 2004, according to new data from the Department of Justice. [Computerworld Privacy News] 11:46:09 AM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Cameras scan license plates for stolen cars - baltimoresun.com As her marked car crawled through the parking lot, Detective Kelly Tibbs' new laptop beeped like a supermarket scanner. Two cameras, positioned like crab eyes on the cruiser's roof, snapped digital pictures of hundreds of license plates, and with each beep, the laptop checked the images against an FBI list of stolen cars. Such cameras - called Mobile Plate Hunters - are replacing the laborious eyeball-and-keystroke method of checking for stolen cars, letting busy officers rely instead on an automated scan that takes less than a second. Already in widespread use in London and Italy, automatic number plate recognition is a technology on the verge of exploding in the Baltimore-Washington area, fueled in places by funds from the federal Department of Homeland Security. [...] "The uses are as limitless as your imagination," said Lt. John McKissick, director of Howard County's emergency preparedness division. "We're just in the infancy of this project, but already it saves us money and manpower." Although proponents say the technology eventually will deny all but the most clever of criminals access to roads, privacy advocates warn that the plate hunters mark another step toward a society in which police can track a person's every move. "Normally, your license plate number only becomes relevant when you're involved in an accident, pulled over by police or when your car is stolen," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "This technology changes that. ... It's a new form of surveillance." [...] Though the primary purpose of the technology is to recover stolen vehicles, Howard County and other jurisdictions plan to eventually use the cameras for surveillance. McKissick said he envisions placing cameras around potential terrorist targets and linking them to neighboring counties' systems. For instance, if the same license plate passes emergency communications towers in Howard, Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties, the system could alert police in all three areas. 11:44:36 AM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Yahoo may face penalty over jailed Chinese journalist. Yahoo may face penalty over jailed Chinese journalist. Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. could face a fine, a civil lawsuit or both if it is found to have illegally divulged personal data used to put a Chinese journalist in jail for 10 years. [Computerworld Privacy News] 11:38:25 AM  PermaLink   / trackback []

California Dept. of Justice - Office of the Attorney General / Attorney General Lockyer Opposes IRS Proposal to Loosen Privacy Protections for Personal Information on Taxpayers' Returns - Marketers, Data Brokers Get More Access; Taxpayers Get More Exposure to ID Theft (SACRAMENTO) - Attorney General Bill Lockyer today filed formal objections to proposed Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rules that would increase taxpayers' exposure to identity theft by making it easier for businesses to share and use personal information included on tax returns. "In the guise of increasing taxpayers' control over their return information, the IRS wants to move in exactly the opposite direction," said Lockyer. "This proposal is more than misguided. It's dangerous. By eroding the security of private information, the regulations would increase consumers' exposure to identity theft and invasive, unlawful marketing practices." Lockyer, and Attorneys General from 45 other states and Washington D.C., today filed comments on the proposed regulations with the IRS. The objections were bipartisan, with Lockyer, a Democrat, and Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, a Republican, the co-sponsors. Lockyer wrote the comments. "We are greatly concerned that this regulation, if adopted as proposed, will erode consumer privacy and the security of sensitive personal information, with a consequent increase in such serious problems as identity theft and intrusive or even abusive marketing practices," the Attorneys General wrote. They expressed agreement with the IRS's stated goal to enhance taxpayers' control over the use of their return information, but added, "We are troubled, however, by the provisions of the proposed regulations that seem to undermine rather than advance that goal." Lockyer and his fellow Attorneys General said "the best, most prudent course" the IRS could take to protect individuals' privacy would be to ban tax preparers from sharing their customers' information for any purpose unrelated to preparation of tax returns. The top state prosecutors pointedly noted consumers are not clamoring to make their personal financial information more available to more businesses. 11:35:59 AM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Justice official to launch privacy panel (4/3/06) The Justice Department's recently arrived chief privacy officer said in an interview Monday she plans to launch an internal privacy and civil liberties board in two weeks. The board will be made up of assistant or deputy director-level officials and will address the broad range of privacy issues that confront the department, said Jane Horvath, who assumed her job as the department's first chief privacy and civil liberties officer on Feb. 21. Horvath told Government Executive that her "first and primary responsibility is to ensure that the department ensures the civil liberties of the American people." She said she is working out her relationship with the department's Inspector General's Office to determine what types of privacy complaints she will receive, adding that she anticipates she'll handle broad, issue-related problems rather than complaints from individuals. Horvath also plans to address Justice's use of commercial data for finding terrorists and standards for and oversight of mass data collection. 11:31:33 AM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Movement For Medical Privacy Grows In The USA As Congress moves rapidly to build a national electronic health system, a coalition of 26 organizations representing constituencies across the political and ideological spectrum will urge the U.S. House of Representatives to build a patient-centered system with patient privacy rights at the core of any national HIT legislation. 11:29:25 AM  PermaLink   / trackback []