“EPIC and a coalition of open government advocates has urged Congress to pass FOIA reform legislation. In response to a request from the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the coalition expressed support for the FOIA Act of 2015, specifically praising a provision limiting the use of Exemption 5, which has enabled… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: E-Records
Massive hack of federal personnel files included security-clearance database
Washington Post, Ellen Nakashima: ” The Chinese breach of the Office of Personnel Management network was wider than first acknowledged, and officials said Friday that a database holding sensitive security clearance information on millions of federal employees and contractors also was compromised. In an announcement, OPM said that investigators concluded this week with “a high… Continue Reading
DOJ Seeks to Expand Ability to Hack Computers of Suspects
arstechnica – Feds want an expanded ability to hack criminal suspects’ computers – Proposed rules to let one judge authorize “remote access” essentially anywhere. “The United States Department of Justice wants to broaden its ability to hack criminal suspects’ computers, according to a new legal proposal that was first published by The Wall Street Journal on… Continue Reading
2015 Cost of Data Breach Study
“IBM is proud to sponsor the tenth annual Cost of Data Breach Study, the industry’s gold-standard benchmark research independently conducted by Ponemon Institute. The study found the average consolidated total cost of a data breach is $3.8 million representing a 23% increase since 2013. The study also reports that the cost incurred for each lost… Continue Reading
New Study – Americans Losing Battle on Privacy Rights
The Tradeoff Fallacy – How Marketers Are Misrepresenting American Consumers and Opening Them Up to Exploitation – Joseph Turow, Ph.D.; Michael Hennessy, Ph.D; Nora Draper, Ph.D. June 2015. A Report from the Anneberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. “New Annenberg survey results indicate that marketers are misrepresenting a large majority of Americans by claiming that… Continue Reading
NSA surveillance: how librarians have been on the front line to protect privacy
Dan Roberts – The Guardian UK – “In the hours before US senators voted to take on the might of the National Security Agency this week, their inboxes were deluged with more than 2,200 supportive emails from a most unlikely group of revolutionaries: America’s librarians. Their contribution to the passage of the USA Freedom Act… Continue Reading
FTC – OPM data breach – what should you do?
Lisa Weintraub Schifferle – Attorney, FTC Division of Consumer and Business Education – “A data breach at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) – and you’re a current or former federal employee whose personal information may have been exposed. What should you do? Take a deep breath. Here are the steps to take. First Step… Continue Reading
Paper explains factors influencing archaeologists’, zoologists’ skepticism about data preservation
Frank, R. D., Yakel, E., & Faniel, I. M. (2015). “Destruction/reconstruction: preservation of archaeological and zoological research data.” Archival Science, 15(2), 141–167. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-014-9238-9 “Destruction/Reconstruction: Preservation of Archaeological & Zoological Research is available in a special digital curation issue of Archival Science, Volume 15, Issue 2. A preprint [pdf] is also available online. Key highlights from… Continue Reading
US DOJ IG Report – Review of the FBI’s Use of Section 215 Orders
FBI’s Use of Section 215 Orders: Assessment of Progress in Implementing Recommendations and Examination of Use in 2007 through 2009, Oversight and Review Division Report 15-05. May 2015. Redacted. “The Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) announced today the release of a public version of its most recent report examining the… Continue Reading
Inspector General Warns: Significant Oversight of Section 215 Required
EPIC – “The DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General released a report this month detailing the FBI’s use of Section 215 and warning that “significant oversight” is required. The Inspector General describes the FBI’s expanding use of 215 to collect electronic information in bulk and criticized the agency for taking seven years to develop minimization… Continue Reading
Americans’ Attitudes About Privacy, Security and Surveillance
“Two new Pew Research Center surveys explore [the issues of privacy and surveillance] and place them in the wider context of the tracking and profiling that occurs in commercial arenas. The surveys find that Americans feel privacy is important in their daily lives in a number of essential ways. Yet, they have a pervasive sense that… Continue Reading
Most Agencies Falling Short on Mandate for Online Records
“Nearly 20 years after Congress passed the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments (E-FOIA), only 40 percent of agencies have followed the law’s instruction for systematic posting of records released through FOIA in their electronic reading rooms, according to a new FOIA Audit released today by the National Security Archive at www.nsarchive.org to mark Sunshine… Continue Reading
