Thursday, March 29, 2012


Voluntary – I don't think that word means what you think it means...
Teacher’s aide wouldn’t let school district access her Facebook page, now in legal battle
March 29, 2012 by Dissent
Kelli Stopczynski reports on a case in Michigan where a teacher’s aide refused to allow her employer to view her Facebook postings and was suspended. In this case, the district had been alerted by a parent to a photo that the aide had uploaded to her account.
Lewis Cass ISD superintendent Robert Colby called her into his office.
“He asked me three times if he could view my Facebook and I repeatedly said I was not OK with that,” Hester told WSBT.
In a letter to Hester from the Lewis Cass ISD Special Education Director, he wrote “…in the absence of you voluntarily granting Lewis Cass ISD administration access to you[r] Facebook page, we will assume the worst and act accordingly.”
Hester keeps that letter in her stack of documents related to the case. She provided the letter to WSBT.
Hester said Colby put her on paid administrative leave and eventually suspended her.
Read more on South Bend Tribune. The case is scheduled to go to arbitration in May.
There are some who might argue that the aide used poor judgement in uploading a silly or unprofessional photo to her account. But it was her personal account and on her own time and it was not publicly available. Could her employer rightfully claim that such conduct or images hurts the image of the district? Perhaps. In this case, a parent was the one who reported the matter – a parent who had friended the aide on Facebook.
But where is the line here? I don’t like an employer assuming the worst or that an employee who asserts their right to privacy has “something to hide.” But laws do not protect employees from this type of demand in many states.
The lines have been blurred between our professional lives and our online, but still personal, lives. Employers can certainly see what’s publicly available. But should they be allowed to demand access to what an employee takes pains to protect as private? And should such material be used to terminate their employment?
Back in the day, if an employee conducted himself or herself somewhat inappropriately (liking being a drunken spectacle at a party), there might be talk and gossip at work the next week, but their job wasn’t generally in jeopardy. Even if someone were to come in with a photo of drunken behavior, it would not lead to job termination. So why is a photo on a private page now the basis for job termination?
This is not a brave new world. It’s a confused new world that shrinks our private lives each day unless we draw a line in the cybersand and say, “This is mine, and no, you can’t have it.”

(Related) Nobody gets this “Privacy stuff”
House votes down plan to block employers from Facebook snooping

(Related) “We merely point out that once again Congress did a terrible job writing a law...” Somewhere there must be a law that puts a value on privacy beyond 'actual damages'
Supreme court limits damages under 1974 Privacy Act to actual damages
March 28, 2012 by Dissent
James Vicini reports on a somewhat disappointing but unsurprising verdict by the Supreme Court:
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that a pilot from San Francisco, whose status as HIV-infected was disclosed by one federal agency to another one in violation of a privacy law, cannot sue for damages for mental and emotional distress.
By a 5-3 vote with conservative justices holding sway, the court overturned a ruling by a U.S. appeals court in California and held that violations of a 1974 federal privacy law allowed only for actual damages such as out-of-pocket financial losses.
Read more on Reuters. Barbara Leonard of Courthouse News provides additional background on the case. You can find the Supreme Court’s decision here (pdf), but the heart of it (for me) concerns whether the Privacy Act limited damages to actual damages as in incurred economic loss or includes emotional harm or distress. The court held that the law restricted damages to actual damages, noting:
We do not claim that the contrary reading of the statute accepted by the Court of Appeals and advanced now by respondent is inconceivable. But because the Privacy Act waives the Federal Government’s sovereign immunity, the question we must answer is whether it is plausible to read the statute, as the Government does, to authorize only damages for economic loss. Nordic Village, 503 U. S., at 34, 37. When waiving the Government’s sovereign immunity, Congress must speak unequivocally. Lane, 518 U. S., at 192. Here, we conclude that it did not. As a consequence, we adopt an interpretation of “actual damages” limited to proven pecuniary or economic harm. To do otherwise would expand the scope of Congress’ sovereign immunity waiver beyond what the statutory text clearly requires.


How closely have you been monitored?
Google has just launched a new service called Account Activity, allowing users to produce periodical reports showing their usage patterns of Google products. Google’s activity reports mean you can now get a report that shows you how much Gmail you’ve received over the past month, how much you’ve sent, what were your top Google searches, where you were located during the month, and more.


A summary. Mentions DHS privacy concern...
March 28, 2012
Cybersecurity: Selected Legal Issues
  • "The federal government’s role in protecting U.S. citizens and critical infrastructure from cyber attacks has been the subject of recent congressional interest. Critical infrastructure commonly refers to those entities that are so vital that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating impact on national security, economic security, or the public health and safety. This report discusses selected legal issues that frequently arise in the context of recent legislation to address vulnerabilities of critical infrastructure to cyber threats, efforts to protect government networks from cyber threats, and proposals to facilitate and encourage sharing of cyber threat information amongst private sector and government entities. This report also discusses the degree to which federal law may preempt state law."


Hoover-esque? Why would any “law enforcement” agency not accurately train it's personnel in the law? Because it is easier to enforce the law without all those silly legal restrictions!
Read the FBI Memo: Agents Can ‘Suspend the Law’
The FBI once taught its agents that they can “bend or suspend the law” as they wiretap suspects. But the bureau says it didn’t really mean it, and has now removed the document from its counterterrorism training curriculum, calling it an “imprecise” instruction.

(Related) This suggests why the FBI feels they need to “cheat” a bit to “catch up” with crooks and terrorists.
"Shawn Henry, who is preparing to leave the FBI after more than two decades with the bureau, said in an interview that the current public and private approach to fending off hackers is 'unsustainable.' 'I don't see how we ever come out of this without changes in technology or changes in behavior, because with the status quo, it's an unsustainable model. Unsustainable in that you never get ahead, never become secure, never have a reasonable expectation of privacy or security,' Mr. Henry said."


Google e-Discovery. No doubt they're good at it by now. Should be of interest to those who have switched to Gmail...
Google Apps Debuts Archiving And Records Management System For Businesses, Vault
Today, Google is debuting a new archiving, records management and e-discovery solution for Google Apps for businesses called Vault.
Google Apps Vault, which is priced at $5 per-user, per-month, allows businesses to reduce risks and costs associated with litigation, investigation, and compliance audits by providing an in-depth archiving system in the cloud. So all emails, documents and chat messages from Gmail can be accessed in one place. Businesses can define what needs to be retained for Gmail and on-the-record chat messages based on content, labels, and metadata.
As Google says, governance policies are applied directly to the native data store, eliminating the need to duplicate data in a separate archive and helping to reduce the risks associated with data movement and from spoliation.
Search is also a part of Vault, and via the new service users can search across large amounts of email in an archive, and define and manage collections of message search results and collaborate with others to manage them. Email can also be exported for further review and processing.


It is good to know that on occasion, cost saving claims are true.
"Mayor Ude reported today that the city of Munich has saved €4 million so far (Google translation of German original) by switching its IT infrastructure from Windows NT and Office to Linux and OpenOffice. At the same time, the number of trouble tickets decreased from 70 to 46 per month. [If I recall, they actually trained people to use the new software Bob] Savings were €2.8M from software licensing and €1.2M from hardware because demands are lower for Linux compared to Windows 7."


This is a joke, right? Something to make the “politically correct” extremists look ridiculous? They sure made the article look real...
"New York educators banned references to 'dinosaurs,' 'birthdays,' 'Halloween' and dozens of other topics on city-issued tests. That is because they fear such topics 'could evoke unpleasant emotions in the students.' Dinosaurs, for example, call to mind evolution, which might upset fundamentalists; birthdays are not celebrated by Jehovah's Witnesses; and Halloween suggests paganism. Homes with swimming pools and home computers are also unmentionables — because of economic sensitivities. The city asks test companies to exclude 'creatures from outer space' as well — for unspecified reasons."


For my fellow Trekies...
"Another example of Star Trek technology becoming a reality. In light of the recent Tricorder X-Prize announcement, Dr. Peter Jansen has openly released the designs for a series of Science Tricorders that he developed while a graduate student at McMaster University. The Science Tricorders are capable of sensing a variety of atmospheric, electromagnetic, and spatial phenomena. Where the Science Tricorder Mark 1 is a relatively easy-to-build proof of concept, the Science Tricorder Mark 2 runs Linux and resembles a cross between a Nintendo DS and scientific instrument with dual OLED touch displays. An exciting video shows them in action, and describes the project goal of creating general scientific tools for learning about and visualizing the world, as well as their importance for science education by helping kids understand abstract concepts like magnetism or polarization visually. The hardware schematics, board layouts, and firmware source are freely available on the Tricorder project website under various open licenses."


I use my RSS reader every morning to produce my Blog. There are MANY free RSS readers. Find one that is intuitive...
I still remember the first time I saw Google Reader in action. I was instantly in love it! Without a doubt RSS feeds and Google Reader are the most important tool that I use on a daily basis. Sure I could subscribe via email to all 300+ of my favorite websites, but who wants more email? And I certainly don't want to open 300+ sites individually. Subscribing to RSS feeds in Google Reader lets me keep up with my favorite sites. So while tech blogs like to make claims that Twitter, Google+, and other platforms will make RSS feeds redundant, I still love my RSS feeds.
What is Google Reader?
More and more I'm consuming RSS feeds through Feedly instead of Google Reader, learn more about Feedly in the video below.

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