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Category Archives: E-Records

New on LLRX – Should Colorado court documents be free on public library computers?

Via LLRX.com – Should Colorado court documents be free on public library computers? – Jeff Roberts of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition raises the question of expanding free public access to court documents in Colorado. Specifically, he identifies the only location where a non-lawyer can view and request copies of all civil court documents… Continue Reading

UMMS – Medical Archives go online for Public Access

“The University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) was established in 1962, when the Legislature chartered the Commonwealth’s first public medical school. The school opened in 1970 without even waiting for construction of a new building. Today UMMS ranks in the nation’s top ten percent for primary care education and is a leading center for community… Continue Reading

GAO – Federal Agencies Need to Address Aging Legacy Systems

Federal Agencies Need to Address Aging Legacy Systems, GAO-16-696T: Published: May 25, 2016. Publicly Released: May 25, 2016: “The federal government spent more than 75 percent of the total amount budgeted for information technology (IT) for fiscal year 2015 on operations and maintenance (O&M) investments. Specifically, 5,233 of the government’s approximately 7,000 IT investments are… Continue Reading

The Guardian – How the Pentagon punished NSA whistleblowers

Mark Hertsgaard – The Guardian – “By now, almost everyone knows what Edward Snowden did. He leaked top-secret documents revealing that the National Security Agency was spying on hundreds of millions of people across the world, collecting the phone calls and emails of virtually everyone on Earth who used a mobile phone or the internet.… Continue Reading

Study identifies metadata mining of telephone data by NSA

“Privacy protections against government surveillance are often scoped to communications content and exclude communications metadata. In the United States, the National Security Agency operated a particularly controversial program, collecting bulk telephone metadata nationwide. We investigate the privacy properties of telephone metadata to assess the impact of policies that distinguish between content and metadata. We find… Continue Reading

CIA allegedly destroyed sole copy of Senate torture report

The Independent: “The CIA inspector general’s office has said it “mistakenly” destroyed its only copy of a comprehensive Senate torture report, despite lawyers for the Justice Department assuring a federal judge that copies of the documents were being preserved. The erasure of the document by the spy agency’s internal watchdog was deemed an “inadvertent” foul-up… Continue Reading

IG Report – GSA Data Breach – 18F and Slack

MANAGEMENT ALERT REPORT: GSA Data Breach JE16-004 May 12, 2016 “During the course of an ongoing evaluation, the OIG Office of Inspections and Forensic Auditing identified an issue that warrants immediate attention. Due to authorizations enabled by GSA 18F staff, over 100 GSA Google Drives were reportedly accessible by users both inside and outside of… Continue Reading

FCW – OPM’s sensitive data on feds still not encrypted

Federal Computer Week, Adam Mazmania, May 13, 2016 – “More than a year after a hack of Office of Personnel Management systems compromised more than 22 million records, the agency has not been able to encrypt all the sensitive data on 4 million federal employees, including Social Security numbers. “There are still elements of OPM… Continue Reading

Sixth Annual Benchmark Study on Privacy & Security of Healthcare Data

“The Sixth Annual Benchmark Study on Privacy and Security of Healthcare Data by the Ponemon Institute, finds that criminal attacks are the leading cause of half of all data breaches in healthcare.  Employee mistakes, third-party snafus, and stolen computer devices—are the root cause of the other half of data breaches. The study also found that… Continue Reading

Lack of Trust in Internet Privacy and Security May Deter Economic and Other Online Activities

National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA): “Every day, billions of people around the world use the Internet to share ideas, conduct financial transactions, and keep in touch with family, friends, and colleagues. Users send and store personal medical data, business communications, and even intimate conversations over this global network. But for the Internet to grow… Continue Reading

Multiple data security breaches reported by FDIC

Washington Post: “In yet another example of fragile security in federal cyber systems, data for 44,000 Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. customers were breached by an employee leaving the agency. The breach occurred in February and was outlined in an internal FDIC memorandum obtained by The Washington Post. The March 18 memo from Lawrence Gross Jr.,… Continue Reading

Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings on Mass Surveillance Statute

Via EFF: “The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act Tuesday May 10. The Act, passed in 2008, created what is now known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).  Section 702 is used for mass spying, and government surveillance conducted under the law… Continue Reading