Today the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued a decision supporting EPIC’s claim that it was a representative of the news media, and therefore entitled to “preferred fee status under FOI” as it related to obtaining substantial numbers of documents concerning the activities of the Total Information Awareness program (TIA).
See my related posting on EPIC’s use of FOI to obtain TIA documents here. Also see EPIC’s Total Information Awareness Page for documentation on the non-profit’s lobbying efforts against TIA, as well related news links.
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Daily Archives: January 16, 2003
Broadband Usage Grows Again
According to this new Nielson-Netratings survey, broadband usage at home has increased by 59% in one year, accounting for more than 33 million users accessing the web via high-speed connections. Seniors, children, men and women have all increased broadband usage, whereas the pace of dialup connectivity is dropping. Continue Reading
Search Engine Stats Show Google Firmly in Lead
The most recent search engine statistical report published by Greg Notess (December 31, 2002) indicates that Google still has a commanding lead, followed by AlltheWeb, and then AltaVista, who has made significant progress in regaining user confidence. Greg also reports on the continued downward spiral of once well regarded search engine Northern Light, a favorite… Continue Reading
New Efforts by Senators to Limit Data Mining
Senators Ron Wyden, and Harry Reid are seeking to disable the Total Information Awareness surveillance program by the most direct means possible – an amendment to discontinue its funding. Wyden, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued a press release that stated, “It is time for the Senate to put some reins on this… Continue Reading
ACLU Issues Report on Privacy
The press release is here. The full-text report, Bigger Monster, Weaker Chains: The Growth of an American Surveillance Society, was issued by the ACLU on January 15. Continue Reading
Discarded Hard Drives Full of Private Data
Think twice, and then a third time, before you trash your old PC hard drive. This MIT press release describes a recently released study conducted by two of the university’s grad students about their purchase of 158 used drives from which they successfully salvaged a treasure trove of personal credit card information, banking transaction data,… Continue Reading
New Free E-Filing Tax System
According to this press release from the Department of the Treasury, today the IRS will announce details about a new program (IRS Free File) that facilitates the free e-filing of tax forms by most Americans. The home page for Free File is here. The IRS entered into a agreement with a consortium of tax software… Continue Reading
Supreme Court Upholds Copyright Protections
On January 15, the Supreme Court issued a 7-2 decision in Eldred et al. v. Ashcroft, Attorney General, upholding the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, and extending by 20 years existing copyrights and future copyrights. Via Cornell’s Legal Information Institute there is access to the PDF versions of the Syllabus (PDF version), the Opinion… Continue Reading
