Case Report – BCCA says aerial surveillance by telphoto zoom lens not a search « All About Information: Via A legal blog about the law of information – By Toronto, Ontario lawyer Dan Michaluk.

Today, the British Columbia Court of Appeal held that the police did not violate section 8 of the Charter by conducting aerial surveillance of a rural property from in excess of 1000 feet by using a digital camera equipped with a telephoto lens. [ Read more ... ]

Global Internet Freedom and the U.S. Government: Via Freedom to Tinker.

Over the past two weeks I've testified in both the Senate and the House on how the U.S. should advance "Internet freedom." I submitted written testimony for both hearings which can be downloaded in PDF form here and here. Full transcripts will become available eventually but meanwhile you can click here to watch the Senate video and here to watch the House video. In both hearings I advocated a combination of corporate responsibility through the Global Network Initiative backed up by appropriate legislation given that some companies seem reluctant to hold themselves accountable voluntarily; revision of export controls and sanctions; and finally, funding and support for tools, and technologies and activism platforms that will counter-act suppression of online speech.
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To Stop Crime, Share Your Genes: Via NYTimes.com ( Op-Ed Contributor ).

PERHAPS the only thing more surprising than President Obama’s decision to give an interview for “America’s Most Wanted” last weekend was his apparent agreement with the program’s host, John Walsh, that there should be a national DNA database with profiles of every person arrested, whether convicted or not.Emphasis added: Many Americans feel that this proposal flies in the face of our “innocent until proven guilty” ethos, and given that African-Americans are far more likely to be arrested than whites, critics refer to such genetic collection as creating “Jim Crow’s database.”

In truth, however, this is an issue where both sides are partly right. The president was correct in saying that we need a more robust DNA database, available to law enforcement in every state, to “continue to tighten the grip around folks who have perpetrated these crimes.” But critics have a point that genetic police work, like the sampling of arrestees, is fraught with bias. A better solution: to keep every American’s DNA profile on file. [ Read more ... ]

Better U.S. Net Rules for Iran, Cuba and Syria: Via EFF.org Updates.

The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced on Monday key amendments to the regulation of United States sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Sudan.

The new provisions give a blanket license for the export of "certain services and software incident to the exchange of personal communications over the Internet, such as instant messaging, chat and email, social networking, sharing of photos and movies, web browsing, and blogging, provided that such services are publicly available at no cost to the user."

This clarification is just what EFF called for last June, and will go a long way to allay concerns that online service providers based in the U.S. cannot offer their services in those countries. Previously, despite the well-known freedom-enhancing capabilities of services like Twitter and Facebook in repressive regimes like Iran, it was unclear whether those companies could even offer their services there without falling foul of the United State's broad prohibition on the export of goods and services to these regimes. [ Read more ... ]

Supreme Court to Decide Case Involving ‘Right of Informational Privacy’: Via News - ABA Journal.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the First Amendment protects demands for personal information from government contract workers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The case asks whether the Constitution protects a “right of informational privacy,” SCOTUSblog reports. “The Supreme Court mentioned such a right in a 1977 decision, and has seldom mentioned it since,” the blog says.

The case could affect how the federal government investigates the background of its employees, the Associated Press reports. [ Read more ... ]

Italy Convicts Google Execs To Protect Privacy: Via NPR.

Europeans are debating the overall reach of the Internet into their lives. An Italian court recently convicted three Google executives for privacy violations after a clip was posted on Google Video showing a disabled student being bullied by classmates in Turin. The ruling highlights a deep trans-Atlantic cultural gap: Americans see the ruling as undermining the concept of freedom of expression, while Europeans put privacy first — they consider it a fundamental human right. [ Read more ... ]

Breaching your online privacy to fight crime: Via The Ottawa Citizen.

The "mosaic effect" is an argument often put forward by governments and police to block access to sensitive information. It suggests even seemingly innocuous pieces of information can be fitted together like a puzzle to form a meaningful picture of something they want kept secret, typically a national security operation.

But when the tables are turned and it's police and government that want to piece together seemingly innocuous bits of your personal and digital information to form a picture of you, the "mosaic effect" is recast as "lawful access" and characterized as benign state intervention into the online lives of Canadians in the name of crime-fighting.

Your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address and Internet Protocol (IP) address can reveal your Internet habits, social network, personal interests, political views, secrets and more.

The government's new "lawful access" initiative, contained in bills C-46 and C-47, was tabled in the Commons in June. It's the latest attempt in a decade-long push by successive governments to give police and other agents of the state, such as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Competition Bureau, modernized surveillance powers and technical capabilities to better patrol the dark side of the digital world.

But here's the rub: C-47 allows police and government agents to demand basic subscriber data from telecommunication and Internet service providers without a warrant. (Some companies routinely volunteer the data when asked, others don't, according to police.)

The Score on USA Patriot Act: Via Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union.

"We've come to love our fears more than we love our freedoms," Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) mused on the House floor just before that chamber voted 315-97 (with 20 members not voting) to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act without any changes for yet another year.

By now, you know the stakes — the tweaks that could have been made to guarantee that Patriot powers are used only against suspected terrorists or spies and to mandate continued reporting to ensure that we actually learn about current and future Patriot abuses. Many of these fixes were, in fact, included in prior iterations of Patriot reauthorization bills introduced in both the House and the Senate.

As Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) pointed out to her colleagues, "I think we are missing an opportunity. There are good ideas in this House about how to curb the abuses with national security letters, how to clarify that roving wiretaps are limited to a single identifiable target, and how to eliminate the lone wolf provision which has never been used and for which existing title III authority can suffice. Those ideas have been the subject of hearings in the Judiciary Committee, but they're not being debated on this floor . . . I think this is a real missed opportunity." [ Read more ... ]

Deceptively simple Patriot Act extension - a giant blow: Via LibraryLaw Blog.

By now you've heard that the Patriot Act provisions that were due to sunset Feb. 28, 2010 have been extended until Feb. 28, 2011. It sounds deceptively simple, a mild one-year extension.

But it's not. It undoes months, no years of work to add a few checks and balances to better extension bills. I will write up a longer post very soon, but the thrust of it is that we are stuck with an unchanged Sect. 215, often called "the library records" provision, a broad authority that doesn't require particularized suspicion.

Far worse, to my mind, is what's NOT included in this extension. Small but important reforms to the National Security Letter (NSL) provisions were riding on more favorable extension bills. The NSL provisions do not sunset, and the momentum to reform them vanishes with the straight-up one-year sunset extension.

Read Original Article:(Via LibraryLaw Blog.)

South Carolina Senate Should Reject Warrantless Search Bill Approved By House, Says ACLU South Carolina National Office: Via American Civil Liberties Union.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

The South Carolina House on Thursday approved on its third reading Senate bill 191, which authorizes warrantless searches of juveniles and adults on probation and parole. The ACLU South Carolina National Office urges the Senate to vote no on this bill when it takes it up next week.

"There is no evidence supporting the concept that we can reduce recidivism by expanding police power to conduct warrantless searches of people's cars and possessions," said Victoria Middleton, Executive Director of the ACLU SC National Office. "The proposed expansion of police power would, in essence, create a category of citizens with no right to privacy – all those who are on probation or parole."

This bill would undermine the goals of omnibus criminal justice legislation (S 1154) recently proposed by the South Carolina Sentencing Reform Commission. [ Read more ... ]

Lawmakers Punt Patriot Act to Obama: Via Threat Level.

The House and Senate are forwarding to President Barack Obama legislation reauthorizing three expiring provisions of the Patriot Act — despite heated debate among lawmakers the surveillance measure went too far.

The act, hastily adopted six weeks after the 2001 terror attacks, greatly expanded the government’s ability to spy on Americans in the name of national security. Three measures of the act were set to expire at the end of 2009, but lawmakers in December extended the deadline to the end of February in hopes of reaching a compromise.

But no deal was reached by the end of the new Feb. 28 deadline. Instead, both chambers ditched two competing measures and extended the Patriot Act for another year without any changes. The final package was sent to the president Thursday for his expected signature.

Lawmakers had taken the expiration as an opportunity to revisit a number of the act’s surveillance provisions, including elements of the Patriot Act that were not expiring. This included proposals to alter the standard by which so-called National Security Letters are issued. [ Read more ... ]

Ninth Circuit addresses “actual damages” under the Privacy Act: Via Personal Health Information Privacy blog.

I posted this yesterday to PogoWasRight.org but then it dawned on me today that since this involved medical information, I should have posted it here, too:

A new ruling from the Ninth Circuit in Cooper v. FAA addresses the meaning of “actual damages” in the Privacy Act. The case arose when federal agencies shared information without consent in “Operation Safe Pilot:”

Read Original Article:(Via Personal Health Information Privacy blog.)

Italian Court Finds Google Violated Privacy: Via NYT > Privacy.

Google said the case, involving a video of bullying, could undermine freedom of expression on the Internet.

MILAN — Three Google executives were convicted Wednesday of violating Italian privacy laws in a ruling that the company denounced as an “astonishing” attack on freedom of expression on the Internet.

The case involves online videos showing an autistic boy being bullied by classmates in Turin, which were posted in 2006 on Google Video, an online video-sharing service that Google ran before its acquisition of YouTube.

Prosecutors charged that the videos violated Italian personal privacy protections. They said the clips were removed only after complaints from Vivi Down, an Italian organization representing people with Down syndrome, whose name was mentioned in the videos.

“We are definitely satisfied that someone has to take responsibility for this violation of privacy,” said Guido Camera, a lawyer for Vivi Down. [ Read more ... ]

FBI Tracks Suspects' Cell Phones Without a Warrant: Via Newsweek.com .

Law enforcement is tracking Americans' cell phones in real time—without the benefit of a warrant.

But many federal magistrates—whose job is to sign off on search warrants and handle other routine court duties—were spooked by the requests. Some in New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas balked. Prosecutors "were using the cell phone as a surreptitious tracking device," said Stephen W. Smith, a federal magistrate in Houston. "And I started asking the U.S. Attorney's Office, 'What is the legal authority for this? What is the legal standard for getting this information?' "

Those questions are now at the core of a constitutional clash between President Obama's Justice Department and civil libertarians alarmed by what they see as the government's relentless intrusion into the private lives of citizens. [ Read more ... ]

Student slaps Google Buzz with privacy lawsuit: Via The Money Times .

Lawsuit against Google

Now a student at Harvard Law School has filed a class action suit against the company for making personal information of the users public.

Law firms in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. have sued Google on behalf of Eva Hibnick.

The 24-year-old law student filed the law suit against the search giant after finding herself automatically opted to the new networking service, without consent. [ Read more ... ]

ACLU, EFF And Others In Court Today To Challenge Google Book Search Settlement: Via American Civil Liberties Union.

Groups And Prominent Authors Say Settlement Doesn't Protect Free Speech Or User Privacy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org  

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law are in federal court today urging a judge to reject the proposed settlement in a lawsuit over Google Book Search because it does not include critical privacy protections for users of the online book materials. The groups filed an objection to the settlement in September 2009 on behalf of a coalition of more than two dozen authors and publishers, including ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero and best-selling novelists Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem.

"As digital book programs like Google Book Search advance, more and more people will turn to the Internet for their reading needs. Readers should be able to expect as much privacy when they're reading a book on a Web site as they do in a library or bookstore," said Aden Fine, staff attorney with the ACLU First Amendment Working Group. "People should feel that they are free to read on the Internet without being monitored by private companies or the government." [ Read more ... ]

Google Books Fosters Intellectual, Legal Crossroads: Via Threat Level.

Nobody in their right mind opposes the intellectual soundness of digitizing the world’s books – even titles gathering dust in the stacks of university libraries — and making them available online.

Yet Google will encounter stiff resistance in a Manhattan federal court Thursday during a marathon hearing that could grant Google the keys to free the written word from a business and intellectual model as old as paper and ink.

“The benefits of approval are bounded only by the limits of human creativity and imagination,” Google told U.S. District Judge Denny Chin in a recent court filing ahead of Thursday’s hearing.

The final word on the so-named “Google Books” plan won’t rest with Judge Chin, and instead likely could fall on the U.S. Supreme Court. [ Read more ... ]

The Informants! Need Protections: Via Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Matt Damon is funny. No, really, it's true. For all his serious emoting in Good Will Hunting and action-hero pyrotechnics in the Jason Bourne movies, the man knows how to generate a giggle. In The Informant! Mr. Damon is a mild-mannered corporate whistleblower, dressed up in nondescript glasses and a funny moustache. And he's pretty hilarious, bumbling his way through corporate intrigue and exposing abuses of power along the way. After all, nothing is more fun than good ol' corporate corruption and the lengths to which people will go to cover it up.

But all jokes aside, whistleblowers are real-life heroes — people brave enough to speak up when they see wrongdoing and demand change. Sometimes they take on corporations, sometimes they take on the government, but no matter how large or small the obstacle, it takes true courage to take on the establishment, especially if doing so costs them their jobs or their freedom. That courage should be rewarded with meaningful legal protections, [ Read more ... ]

Any use of this article without the NFL's express written consent is prohibited: Via Law & Disorder Section - Ars Technica.

With the Super Bowl just concluded and baseball's spring training only weeks away, a question occurred to us: whatever happened to the push for copyright holders to tone down their copyright notices?

We hear and see the warnings whenever a football or baseball game is televised, whenever we read books, whenever we watch a movie. These are the sort of warnings that make claims like, "Any other use of this telecast or any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent is prohibited," despite the apparent wrongheadedness of the statement. [ Read more ... ]

Wikileaks and Iceland MPs propose 'journalism haven': Via BBC News.

Iceland could become a "journalism haven" if a proposal put forward by some Icelandic MPs aided by whistle-blowing website Wikileaks succeeds.

The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI), calls on the country's government to adopt laws protecting journalists and their sources.

It will be filed with the Althingi - Iceland's parliament - on 16 February.

If the proposal succeeds it will require the Icelandic government to consider introducing legislation.

Julian Assange, Wikileaks' editor, told BBC News that the idea was to "try and reform Iceland's media law to be a very attractive jurisdiction for investigative journalists".

He has been in Iceland for a number of weeks and is advising MPs on the IMMI.

The hope is that journalist-friendly laws will encourage media businesses to move to Iceland. [ Read more ... ]

British Court Orders Release Of Torture Evidence In Extraordinary Rendition Case: Via American Civil Liberties Union.

Ruling May Affect British Resident's Case In ACLU Lawsuit Against Boeing Subsidiary For Its Role In Unlawful Extraordinary Rendition Program 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union commended today's ruling by a British court that the British government must release evidence of torture in the case of British resident Binyam Mohamed, who was captured in Pakistan and detained in Morocco, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay as part of the Bush administration's extraordinary rendition program. While in detention, Mohamed was subjected to physical and psychological abuse by his captors. Upon his release, Mohamed sought documents from the British government that would confirm that U.K. officials were aware of and complicit in his abuse by U.S. forces. Today's ruling orders the disclosure of seven previously suppressed paragraphs from an earlier court ruling that summarize British government documents related to Mohamed's detention and torture while under the control of U.S. authorities. [ Read more ... ]

Sweden Probing Cisco, NASA Hacks: Via Threat Level.

Swedish investigators are probing a hacker U.S. authorities accuse of unlawfully intruding into Cisco Systems, NASA’s Ames Research Center and NASA’s Advanced Supercomputing Division, the authorities said Monday.

Philip Gabriel Pettersson, known in the hacking world as “Stakkato,” allegedly seized computer code that controls internet traffic. After the 2004 breach of Cisco, the proprietary source code for Cisco’s IOS operating system was discovered on a Russian website.

Pettersson was indicted in the United States in May on five hacking counts, (.pdf) but could not be brought from Sweden to the United States for trial. Sweden does not extradite its own citizens, but said it was examining whether to prosecute him in Sweden after U.S. authorities in San Francisco initiated that request. [ Read more ... ]

Jurors: Stop Twittering: Via Threat Level.

A federal court policy making body is belatedly entering the internet age by proposing that judges clearly inform jurors they must not electronically discuss cases they are hearing.

It’s standard procedure to inform jurors to remain mum and not conduct any research about the case until a verdict. But recent gadget use by jurors has forced the hand of the Judicial Conference, the policy making body of the U.S. federal courts.

“You may not communicate with anyone about the case on your cell phone, through e-mail, Blackberry, iPhone, text messaging, or on Twitter, through any blog or website, through any internet chat room, or by way of any other social networking websites, including Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and YouTube,” (.pdf) according to the model jury instructions the Judicial Conference released days ago to the federal judiciary. [ Read more ... ]

EFF Asks Court to Suppress Evidence Illegally Gathered From Password-Protected Phone: Via EFF.org Updates.

Our cell phones aren't just for calls anymore. They hold our address books, our calendars, our emails, and our grocery lists. They may even include things like a list of questions to ask your doctor, pictures of your girlfriend, or URLs of web sites you've visited. When can police search your phone and look at all this information?

That's the question that EFF is asking a court in California to consider. In People v. Taylor, police in Daly City, California seized a suspect's iPhone during his arrest. Hours later, investigators bypassed the password and searched through the data on the device without a search warrant. After the officers realized that the information was too extensive to write down, they finally obtained a warrant to search the phone. [ Read more ... ]

Know Before You Go: Tickets May Come at a Higher Price Than You Realize: Via EFF.org Updates.

As part of our Terms of Ab(use) project, we pay close attention to the fine print of online agreements for provisions that are potentially dangerous to consumers. We've noticed a troubling change in the way event planners restrict the rights of individuals who attend their shows. Where once these limitations had to fit on the back of a ticket, increasingly event organizers have moved their fine print online, where they are able to use even more contract law to avoid the limits of trademark and copyright law and actively control what ticket holders can say or do even after the event is over.

These burdensome terms can show up in some pretty unexpected places. Last year we noted how the Burning Man Organization (BMO) used online ticket terms to require participants to assign to BMO—in advance—the copyright to any pictures they took on the playa. Tickets for the 2010 event went on sale in mid-January, and we hoped the new terms would acknowledge the concerns we had expressed. Sadly, the new terms are just as onerous as before. [ Read more ... ]