Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Honoring Sunshine Week. The Total Information Awareness project FOIA saga. Honoring Sunshine Week. 27B tells the sad tale of requesting open records on the government's Total Information Awareness project. 44 months later, still no word. In 27B Stroke 6. [Wired News: Top Stories] 4:29:39 PM

FBI Slips Demand Patriot Act Cuts. FBI Slips Demand Patriot Act Cuts. A probe finds the bureau abused its expanded powers to obtain Americans' private records. Time to put the G-men on a shorter leash. Commentary by Jennifer Granick. [Wired News: Top Stories] 4:25:02 PM

U.S. Spy Case Will Be Heard. U.S. Spy Case Will Be Heard. A Northern California judge will hear arguments in the case of two American lawyers who say they can prove the U.S. spied on them without a warrant. The government says the case should never be heard. In 27B Stroke 6. [Wired News: Top Stories] 4:17:14 PM

Four Colorado Counties Placed on Election Watch List. Four Colorado Counties Placed on Election Watch List. Errors with voting machines, delays in voting, inadequate security cited. [GT: Security and Privacy] 4:04:05 PM

FCW.com News - Bill would protect information about students from recruiters An amendment to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act seeks to keep military recruiters from accessing secondary students' personal data by requiring parents to choose to share that information rather than having to opt out of sharing it. Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) introduced the legislation March 6. The Student Privacy Protection Act would require local school systems to obtain written consent before releasing information on secondary school students to military recruiters or their agents. The measure will next be referred to the House Education and Labor Committee sometime during this session, said a spokesperson for Honda. That committee's chairman, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), is a co-sponsor of the bill. Because of a provision in the NCLB, school districts are directed to give information about students to military recruiters unless parents explicitly request that their children's data remains private. Since the enacting of NCLB, secondary schools have been supplying the names, addresses and telephone numbers of students to recruiters sponsored by the military services. However, schools often failed to make parents aware of the option to keep that information private, Honda said. 3:54:06 PM

Dispute surfaces over certification for personal health records n a rare instance of public dissent, an American Health Information Community AHIC) workgroup has split over whether to recommend that product certification be available for personal health record software. AHIC, a high-level advisory committee to the Department of Health and Human Services, sided with the majority on its Consumer Empowerment Workgroup and voted unanimously in favor of the certification recommendation. A minority -- five members of the 23-person workgroup -- took the position that certification would be premature and the top priority should be privacy and security policies for PHRs. "The risks [of certification now] outweigh any potential benefits," the dissenters said in a letter to AHIC. The workgroup's task is to foster widespread adoption of PHRs. One of its leaders, Dr. Rose Marie Robertson, told AHIC that the group believes PHRs will be more widely used if consumers do not have to sit at a computer and enter all their health information. Instead, the PHRs could be populated by data from doctors, health plans, drug stores, or elsewhere. 3:51:04 PM

SignOnSanDiego.com > Technology -- Official: Yahoo didn't violate laws in case of jailed journalist HONG KONG - Investigators said Wednesday there was not enough evidence to show that Yahoo Inc.'s Hong Kong branch provided private information that helped convict a Chinese reporter accused of leaking state secrets. The case raised questions about whether Internet companies should cooperate with governments that deny freedom of speech and frequently crack down on journalists. Yahoo! Hong Kong Limited was accused of helping Chinese authorities by Hong Kong lawmaker Albert Ho, who filed a complaint last year with the city's privacy commissioner. Ho alleged the Internet company provided information that helped convict journalist Shi Tao, sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2005 on mainland China. 3:43:01 PM

CDT Calls for Judicial Approval of National Security Letters. CDT Calls for Judicial Approval of National Security Letters. CDT is calling on Congress to require judicial supervision of FBI requests for access to the sensitive records of US citizens to protect privacy and national security. Recent revelations regarding violations in the use of so-called "national security letters" have shown that no matter how many internal controls the FBI adopts, self-certification is not sufficient when the government is obtaining the sensitive financial and communications records of citizens. CDT believes Congress should reform the law and adopt a reasonable system of judicial checks and balances. [Center for Democracy and Technology] 3:35:59 PM

DMCA Abuser Apologizes for Takedown Campaign. DMCA Abuser Apologizes for Takedown Campaign. Michael Crook Agrees to Stop Attacks on Free Speech San Francisco - Michael Crook, the man behind a string of meritless online copyright complaints, has agreed to withdraw those complaints, take a copyright law course, and apologize for interfering with the free speech rights of his targets. The agreement settles a lawsuit against Crook filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of Jeff Diehl, the editor of the Internet magazine 10 Zen Monkeys. Diehl was forced to modify an article posted about Crook's behavior in a fake sex-ad scheme after Crook sent baseless Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices, claiming to be the copyright holder of an image used in the story. In fact, the image was from a Fox News program and legally used as part of commentary on Crook. But Crook repeated his claims and then attempted to use the same process to get the image removed from other websites reporting on his takedown campaign. "Crook's legal threats interfered with legitimate debate about his controversial online behavior," said EFF Staff Attorney Jason Schultz. "Public figures must not be allowed to use bogus copyright claims to squelch speech." In addition to withdrawing current complaints against Diehl and every other target of his takedown campaign and taking a copyright law course, Crook has also agreed to limit any future DMCA notices to works authored or photographed by himself or his wife, or where the copyright was specifically assigned to him. All future notices must also include a link to EFF information on his case, as well as the settlement agreement. Crook has also recorded a video statement to apologize and publicize the dangers of abusing copyright law. "We're pleased that Crook has taken responsibility for his egregious behavior," said EFF Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry. "Hopefully, this will set a precedent to prevent future abuse of the law by those who dislike online news-reporting and criticism." The settlement with Michael Crook is part of EFF's ongoing campaign to protect online free speech from the chilling effects of bogus intellectual property claims. EFF recently filed suit against the man who claims to have created the popular line dance "The Electric Slide" for misusing copyright law to remove an online documentary video that included footage of people trying to do the dance. For the video statement from Michael Crook: http://blip.tv/file/169553 For more on Diehl v. Crook: http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/diehl_v_crook/ Contacts: Corynne McSherry Staff Attorney Electronic Frontier Foundation corynne@eff.org Jason Schultz Staff Attorney Electronic Frontier Foundation jason@eff.org [EFF: Breaking News] 3:33:48 PM

OpenCongress OpenCongress brings together official government data with news and blog coverage to give you the real story behind each bill. 3:30:38 PM

Google Cooperating with Mumbai & Brazilian Police. Google Cooperating with Mumbai & Brazilian Police. Boing Boing has two good posts detailing how Google has been cooperating with Mumbai and Brazilian authorities to help censor content and track down offenders on their Orkut social networking service. In the Mumbai case: The Indian Express and other regional media are reporting that Google[base ']s social networking service Orkut will cooperate with the Mumbai Police to share IP addresses of users who post [base ']Äúobjectionable content[base ']Äù on Orkut. If reports are to be believed, the police need only email a complaint to Orkut, and Orkut will send back the personally identifying data, no questions asked. The police are said to be targeting a number of [base "]problematic[per thou] Orkut posts, including items that criticize various public figures in India, others that glorify Indian mobsters, and [base "]anti-Indian words.[per thou] The latter probably has to do with a group on Orkut called [base "]I Hate India,[per thou] which pissed off Indian officials so much, they decided to sue Google over it last October. And the Brazilian matter: Google has designed a special Orkut admin tool for deleting or blocking illegal content, and given Brazilian police access to this tool. This means that if you[base ']re on Orkut and you say something that in Brazil could be considered illegal (such as celebrity gossip, Consumerist-style corporate bashing, mistreating animals), the Brazilian police can censor the community where this [base "]illegal[per thou] speech is seen. Much more if you follow the links. [michaelzimmer.org] 11:39:49 AM

© Copyright 2007 Paul Hardwick. Last update: 3/18/07; 10:23:31 PM.