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Monthly Archives: April 2005

Gov’t Proceeds With Plans to Mine Personal Data on Students

A follow-up to my previous posting, Federal Gov’t Wants To Mine College and University Student Data, is this recently released report: Feasibility of a Student Unit Record System Within the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (168 pages, PDF) “This report describes the feasibility of collecting individual enrollment and financial aid information for each student in… Continue Reading

Congressional Access to Intelligence Documents Narrows Precipitously

White House Has Tightly Restricted Oversight of C.I.A. Detentions “By law, the White House is required to notify the House and Senate Intelligence Committees of all intelligence-gathering activities. But the White House has taken the stance that the secret detention program is too sensitive to be described to any members other than the top Republican… Continue Reading

New Report on PR Impact of Blogs

Press release: “A newly published white paper on blogs from Edelman, the world’s largest independent public relations firm, and Intelliseek, a marketing intelligence firm and provider of one of the Internet’s leading blog portals, explores the importance of the blogging phenomenon for public relations and marketers and provides a first-of-its-kind directory of influential bloggers, segmented… Continue Reading

Contradictions Arise In Wake of Patriot Act Hearing

Several articles today raise questions about the extent to which the government has obtained access to library patron records, as indicated in testimony from yesterday’s hearing concerning the reauthorization of the law’s 16 provisions which are scheduled to expire at the end of 2005. Links are as follows: From the Christian Science Monitor, Patriot Act:… Continue Reading

FEC Proposed Rule on Internet Communications

Summary: The Federal Election Commission requests comments on proposed changes to its rules that would include paid advertisements on the Internet in the definition of “public communication.” These changes to the Commission’s rules would implement the recent decision of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in Shays v. Federal Election Commission, which… Continue Reading

DOJ Press Release Documents Use of Patriot Act

Press release today – Fact Sheet: USA Patriot Act Provisions Set for Reauthorization “Section 215 allows the FISA court to order the production of business records and other items, in the context of a national security investigation, to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a U.S. person; or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine… Continue Reading