From the American Library Association Washington Office Newsline: “On July 31, 2003, Senator Feingold (D-WI), joined by Senators Bingaman (D-NM), Kennedy (D-MA), Cantwell (D-WA), Durbin (D-IL), Wyden (D-OR), Corzine (D-NJ), Akaka (D-HI), and Jeffords (I-VT), introduced the Library, Bookseller, and Personal Records Privacy Act (S. 1507). The bill would amend the PATRIOT Act to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans and set reasonable limits on the federal government’s access to library, bookseller, medical, and other sensitive, personal information under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and related foreign intelligence authority.”
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Monthly Archives: July 2003
Total Information Awareness Director to Resign and Passenger Screening Progam Scaled Back
Today’s WSJ and Washington Post report that TIA Director John Poindexter will resign in the wake of the debacle over the proposed “FutureMAP research project…to explore the power of futures markets to predict and thereby prevent terrorist attacks.” See my posting on the background of, and Congressional response to, the FutureMAP research project here. In… Continue Reading
New E-Gov Program for Public Access to Federal Info
GSA Launches USA Services: “New Initiative Rapidly Connects Citizens with the Federal Government Service Answers Citizens’ Web, E-mail and Telephone Questions in 2 Days or Less.” “USA Services is built on the foundation of three successful information channels, each of which has been providing comprehensive access to federal information and services within its particular medium:… Continue Reading
FBI and Digital Wiretapping
FBI targets Net phoning: Internet telephone calls are fast becoming a national security threat that must be countered with new police wiretap rules, according to an FBI proposal presented quietly to regulators this month. Learn more about Net telephony – Tutorial on Internet Telephony. Continue Reading
Best Practices for Managing Information
How to Win the Information Battle Lessons from a Modern War “Communication is moving from being a peripheral, specialist responsibility to being an essential and integral element of corporate leadership. No matter the organization government, business, nonprofit the roles of professional communicators who lead communications functions are being reinvented and reinvigorated.” Continue Reading
Bertelsmann Selling BarnesandNoble.com
Bertelsmann will sell BarnesandNoble.com back to Barnes and Noble for $164 million. Barnes & Noble press release on the purchase. Continue Reading
New Bill on Spyware Programs
Rep. Mary Bono introduced H.R. 2929, the Safeguard Against Privacy Invasions Act (SPI), to protect users of the Internet from unknowing transmission of their personally identifiable information through spyware programs. Rep. Bono’s press release. “The bill grants the Federal Trade Commission regulatory authority over the SPI Act, and imposes civil penalties for those who do… Continue Reading
Hackers Use Google Cached Pages
“Computer hackers have adopted a startling strategy in their attempts to break into websites. By using the popular search engine Google, they do not have to visit a site to plan an attack. Instead, they can get all the information they need from Google’s cached versions of web pages, say experts in the US.” (link… Continue Reading
Microsoft Seeks to Challenge Google
From ComputerWorld: “Microsoft Corp. is beefing up its MSN search engine to go head-to-head with Google Inc., but at the same time, it says it has no immediate plans to cancel its agreement for paid search listings with Overture Services Inc., which was recently bought by MSN rival Yahoo Inc.” Continue Reading
Lawsuit on Patriot Act
This lawsuit, Muslim Community Ass’n of Ann Arbor, et al, v. John Ashcroft and Robert Mueller (July 30, 2003), filed by the ACLU on behalf of Arab-Americans, challenges the constitutionality of Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. In related news, see this CNN article, ACLU files lawsuit against Patriot Act . Continue Reading
Commentary on File Sharing and Piracy Controvery
“Copying is Theft …” And other legal myths in the looming battle over peer-to-peer, by Mark D. Rasch, J.D., former head of the Justice Department’s computer crime unit, and now Senior Vice President and Chief Security Counsel at Solutionary Inc. “The RIAA, MPAA and copyright holders describe P2P users as “pirates” – invoking images of… Continue Reading
Boston Globe Calls for TIA Director’s Resignation
From today’s Boston Globe editorial, which refers to yesterday’s debacle on the DARPA FutureMap Program : “The Defense Department should sever its ties with Poindexter (TIA Director John Poindexter) before he can humiliate Americans again. Indeed, President Bush should have dismissed him last year and owes the nation an explanation of how his administration nearly… Continue Reading
