Centennial Man: 2011-02-20

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Apparently, this was a more significant “First” than I thought.

https://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/hipaa-bares-its-teeth-43m-fine-privacy-violation-022311

HIPAA Bares Its Teeth: $4.3m Fine For Privacy Violation

The health care industry's toothless tiger finally bared its teeth, as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a $4.3 m fine to a Maryland health care provider for violations of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. The action is the first monetary fine issued since the Act was passed in 1996.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Notice of Final Determination to Cignet Health care of Temple Hills, Maryland on February 4. The notice followed a finding by HHS's Office of Civil Rights that Cignet failed to provide 41 patients with copies of their medical records and for failing to respond to requests from HHS's Office of Civil Rights for information related to the complaints.

For my students (and everyone else)

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-online-resources-prepare-death-digital-afterlife/

4 Online Resources To Prepare For Your Death & Digital Afterlife

… have you ever thought what happens to all your content when you die? Do your digital productions, no matter how large or small, represent a part of who you are? Is what you produce a part of the legacy you will leave behind after you’re gone?

To address these and other questions, writers Evan Carroll and John Romano have put together a website called The Digital Beyond, as well as another companion site for their book, Your Digital Afterlife.

Perhaps they read my Blog? Or at least listened to their users?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20110224/tc_zd/261049

Facebook Pulls Plug on 'Breakup Notifier' App

Facebook crushed the hearts of 3.6 million Facebook "stalkers" on Wednesday, when it suddenly disabled the popular tracking app, Breakup Notifier.

Three days after the launch of the app, which notifies Facebook users when a chosen friend changes his or her relationship status, the social network on Wednesday sent a vague e-mail (obtained by TechCrunch) to app creator Dan Loewenherz, a 24-year-old programmer in Beverly Hills, telling him it had disabled the app.

On Thursday, Facebook sent Loewenherz a second e-mail clarifying (sort of) why it had disabled the app the day before:

"Thanks for your inquiry. We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion - provided Breakup Notifier respects user privacy settings, the general concept of the app is fine from a policy perspective because it surfaces information that is readily available to people through their News Feed. However, your app unfortunately received very strong negative feedback from users, which is why it was detected and disabled by our automated systems. We are currently looking into your situation and will be in touch with more information when we can provide it." (emphasis added)

For my Information Assurance students – a “Full Employment Act”

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=16932

A Novel Data Security Law Proposed in Colorado

February 25, 2011 by admin

David Navetta discusses a proposed law in Colorado, HB 11-1225:

Regulation is achieved via the “carrot” or the “stick” (and sometimes both). This is true in the information security context as well. For example, to incentivize encryption of personal information, breach notice laws use a stick: those that fail to encrypt may have to provide notice to affected individuals in the event of a security breach. In the credit card breach context, a Washington state law provides banks with a stick (e.g. the right to seek fraud and reissuance expenses from breached merchants), but also provides those merchants with a shield to block that stick (e.g. validation of PCI compliance blocks a bank’s ability to recover). In HB 11-1225, Colorado state legislator, Dan Pabon, apparently wants to give the carrot a chance. In the process, I am told that part of the goal is to make Colorado the “Delaware” of data storage. Here is how it works.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Apparently, no one at Google (or any of the others who gather Behavioral data) bother to consider the implications of gathering information that identifies their users.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=21145

Consumer Watchdog Asks House Privacy Caucus Chairmen to Seek Hearing After Google Gathers Children’s Social Security Data

February 24, 2011 by Dissent

Consumer Watchdog today asked Rep. Ed Markey, D-MA, and Rep. Joe Barton, R-TX, to seek hearings examining why Google gathered children’s social security numbers in entry forms for its “Doodle 4 Google” contest. The hearing should also investigate the Wi-Spy scandal.

In a letter to the Congressmen, who are co-chairmen of the Bipartisan House Privacy Caucus, the nonpartisan, nonprofit public interest group said, “The Doodle 4 Google incident is not a one-time event, but part of a consistent pattern of disregarding privacy rights.”

Read Consumer Watchdog’s letter here http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/ltrmarkeybarton022411.pdf

Read the rest of their press release on PRNewswire.

“Sure we have policies, but that doesn't stop us from doing whatever we want.” (Or are the merely the tool of the government agencies that monitor cash transfers through PayPal?)

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/02/24/205208/PayPal-Freezes-Support-Account-For-Bradley-Manning?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

PayPal Freezes Support Account For Bradley Manning

"The online payment provider PayPal has frozen the account of Courage to Resist, which in collaboration with the Bradley Manning Support Network is currently raising funds in support of US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning. 'We've been in discussions with PayPal for weeks, and by their own admission there's no legal obligation for them to close down our account,' noted Loraine Reitman of the Bradley Manning Support Network (Support Network). 'This was an internal policy decision by PayPal. ... They said they would not unrestrict our account unless we authorized PayPal to withdraw funds from our organization's checking account by default. While there may be no legal obligation to provide services, there is an ethical obligation. By shutting out legitimate nonprofit activity, PayPal shows itself to be morally bankrupt.'"

The debate continues...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=21152

Md. AG: Requiring employees’ personal passwords is legal

February 24, 2011 by Dissent

Neal Augenstein reports:

Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler says requiring a prospective state employee to turn over his social networking user names and passwords as a condition of employment could be appropriate and legal, WTOP has learned.

A day after Maryland’s Department of Public Safety and Corrections suspended the practice, which it used to root out potential employees’ possible gang affiliations, Gansler says the major problem is there hasn’t been a written policy in place for corrections officials.

Gansler, whose office defends the corrections department in court, says it “it would be patently unfair” to say to a current employee, who had passed all background checks, “Now you’re going to have to waive all your privacy rights on the Internet in terms of your social networking.”

“It’s a completely different issue to prospectively do it, and say ‘You can be a correctional officer at this facility, but one of the things you should know up front is that you’ll have to give up your passwords to your social networking websites.’”

Thursday, February 24, 2011

The “If I own it, I can do whatever I want with it” argument, is heating up.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/02/24/0638257/Police-Raid-PS3-Hackers-House-Hacker-Releases-PS3-Hypervisor-Bible?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Police Raid PS3 Hacker's House, Hacker Releases PS3 'Hypervisor Bible'

"Graf_chokolo, who has contributed countless things to the PS3 scene, had his private home raided by police this morning. They confiscated all of his 'accounts' and anything related to PS3 hacking. Some of you may remember that graf_chokolo promised if he was pushed, that he would release all of his PS3 hypervisor knowledge to the world. He kept good on this promise, releasing what is being dubbed as the Hypervisor Bible. 'The uploaded files contains his database, which is a series of tools for the PS3's Hypervisor and Hypervisor processes. It will help other devs to reverse engineer the hypervisor of PS3 further.'"

“Micro” used to mean less than $1. I guess kids have larger allowances now.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/02/24/0617228/FTC-To-Examine-Microtransactions-In-Free-To-Play-Games-and-Apps?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

FTC To Examine Microtransactions In Free-To-Play Games and Apps

A post at GamePolitics points out that the Federal Trade Commission will be looking into free-to-play mobile games that rely on internal microtransactions as a business model. Many such games are marketed for children, and there have been a spate of cases where kids racked up huge bills without their parents' knowledge or explicit consent.

"The in-app purchases have also catapulted children's games such as Smurfs' Village and Tap Zoo, by San Francisco-based Pocket Gems, into the ranks of the highest-grossing apps on iPods, iPhones and iPads. But the practice is troubling parents and public interest groups, who say $99 for a wagon of Smurfberries or $19 for a bucket of snowflakes doesn't have any business in a children's game. Though a password is needed to make a purchase, critics say that the safeguards aren't strong enough and that there are loopholes. 'Parents need to know that the promotion of games and the delivery mechanism for them are deceptively cheap,' said Jim Styer, president of Common Sense Media, a public advocacy group for online content for children. 'But basically people are trying to make money off these apps, which is a huge problem, and only going to get bigger because mobile apps are the new platform for kids.'"

Dudes! What have you been smoking? “You can be anonymous, as long as we know who you are.”

http://www.noco5.com/Global/story.asp?S=14041486

Marijuana Privacy Laws

DENVER (AP) — Medical marijuana patients in Colorado are facing new rules concerning patient privacy, and some are getting a briefing from the state health department to understand how their patient records could be used.

Marijuana advocates requested Wednesday's briefing by the state Board of Health.

Marijuana advocates complain that looming regulations allowing law enforcement to access records at marijuana dispensaries violate the marijuana amendment to Colorado's constitution. The amendment set up a "confidential registry" of patients maintained by "the state health agency," not the Department of Revenue, which is regulating dispensaries.

Some marijuana patients say they are planning a lawsuit to challenge how patient records are kept if the plan isn't changed so that the health department can't share patient records with law enforcement or tax regulators.

“It's not policy, but we always do it.”

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=21096

Maryland Agency Stops Asking Interviewees for Facebook Login

February 23, 2011 by Dissent

As I noted yesterday in an update to the original blog entry, the Maryland Department of Corrections has issued a 45-day moratorium [Wait for this to blow over... Bob] on asking employees and applicants for their Facebook login after the Maryland ACLU went public with the situation and the story got spread far and wide.

Alexis Madrigal, who had helped call attention to the ACLU case, reports:

Days after the American Civil Liberties Union went public with the story of a Maryland corrections officer who was asked for his Facebook login information during a job interview, the state’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) has suspended that practice.

[...]

In an e-mail to The Atlantic, the department’s director of communications Rick Binetti wrote that he thought the ACLU letter and press release had created “misperceptions” about the organization’s policy.

Binetti said that it was not policy to “demand any personal social media information from applicants.” However, he did admit that the organization does ask for that information during interviews. Here’s how he described what was supposed to happen:

During the initial interview, or recertification processes, DPSCS does not require correctional officer applicants to provide any information related to social media. An applicant is asked if they are active users of social media. If so, the Department only asks if an applicant would provide this information. If any information is provided by an applicant, it is done so voluntarily. If an applicant does not provide this information, it is not held against them and the interview process moves forward.[...]

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The fine seems to be more for “failure to kowtow” than for HIPAA violations.

http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=6005

HHS Imposes a $4.3 Million Civil Money Penalty for Violations of the HIPAA Privacy Rule

By Dissent, February 22, 2011

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has issued a Notice of Final Determination finding that Cignet Health of Prince George’s County, Md., (Cignet) violated the Privacy Rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). HHS has imposed a civil money penalty (CMP) of $4.3 million for the violations, representing the first CMP issued by the Department for a covered entity’s violations of the HIPAA Privacy Rule.

[...]

In a Notice of Proposed Determination issued Oct. 20, 2010, OCR found that Cignet violated 41 patients’ rights by denying them access to their medical records when requested between September 2008 and October 2009. These patients individually filed complaints with OCR, initiating investigations of each complaint. The HIPAA Privacy Rule requires that a covered entity provide a patient with a copy of their medical records within 30 (and no later than 60) days of the patient’s request. The CMP for these violations is $1.3 million.

During the investigations, Cignet refused to respond to OCR’s demands to produce the records. Additionally, Cignet failed to cooperate with OCR’s investigations of the complaints and produce the records in response to OCR’s subpoena. OCR filed a petition to enforce its subpoena in United States District Court and obtained a default judgment against Cignet on March 30, 2010. On April 7, 2010, Cignet produced the medical records to OCR, but otherwise made no efforts to resolve the complaints through informal means.

Read more in the Sun Herald. So far, I don’t see a copy of the press release or documentation on HHS’s web site, but I’ll keep checking.

[From the Sun Herald:

OCR also found that Cignet failed to cooperate with OCR’s investigations on a continuing daily basis from March 17, 2009, to April 7, 2010, and that the failure to cooperate was due to Cignet’s willful neglect to comply with the Privacy Rule. Covered entities are required under law to cooperate with the Department’s investigations. The CMP for these violations is $3 million.

… A copy of the Notice of Proposed Determination and Notice of Final Determination can be found at http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy. Additional information about OCR’s enforcement activities can be found at http://www.hhs.gov/ocr.

Future of Privacy & Surveillance?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=21043

Deconstructing the CALEA hearing

February 22, 2011 by Dissent

Chris Soghoian writes:

Last Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing focused on law enforcement surveillance of modern Internet services.

Although both the New York Times and CNET have stories on the hearing, I don’t think either publication covered the important details (nor did they take the time to extract and post video clips).

The FBI is no longer calling for encryption backdoors

Read more on slight paranoia, where Chris includes excerpts from the hearing as well as his thoughts on what he thinks the FBI will be pushing for. I think Chris is dead-on in his predictions of what the FBI wants, and as he suggests, some of the “asks” will likely not get a lot of media attention – unless the privacy community gets our act together to make a lot of noise. Certainly any attempt by the government to require cloud services to provide capability for real-time interception of communications (think of the government having the ability to monitor your chats in real-time) is an issue that the public can appreciate in terms of its potential for abuse – that is, if the public doesn’t stick its collective head in the sand while it mutters, “Well, if you’ve got nothing to hide…”

One thought – based on only one cup of coffee, and hence, somewhat muddled – is whether putting a hole in the security of cloud services to enable such monitoring would somehow violate any non-U.S. laws on data protection and security or make non-U.S. entities more leery of using American cloud providers. If so, could any such “ask” or requirement put American cloud service providers at an economic disadvantage?

[From Slight Paranoia:

While Skype uses some form of proprietary end-to-end encryption (although it should be noted that the security experts I've spoken to don't trust it), and RIM uses encryption for its Enterprise Blackberry messaging suite, the vast majority of services that consumers use today are not encrypted. Those few services that do use encryption, such as Google's Gmail, only use it to protect the data in transit from the user's browser to Google's servers. Once Google receives it, the data is stored in the clear.

There is one simple reason for this, which I described in a law journal article last year ago:

It is exceedingly difficult to monetize a data set that you cannot look at.

(Related) Like your data, they “need” to track your browsing...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=21053

FTC Internet Privacy Proposal Slammed By Ad Industry

February 22, 2011 by Dissent

Mathew J. Schwartz reports:

Will the future see a “Do Not Track” setting in browsers that prevents data brokers and Web sites from tracking a consumer’s every click?

[...]

Industry groups, however, have slammed the FTC’s proposal, suggesting it would wreck the ability of Web sites to provide personalized content. “The Internet is comprised of millions of interconnected Web sites, networks and computers — a literal ecosystem, all built upon the flow of different types of data,” according to a statement released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). “To create a Do Not Track program would require reengineering the Internet’s architecture.” [Bull! Bob] Instead, it suggested a new self-regulated program for online behavioral advertising.

But consumer rights groups have been arguing differently. The Center for Digital Democracy and U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) on Friday released a statement recommending that the FTC require that all surveillance technologies in use be disclosed. It also wants people to be allowed to view and correct the data collected about them, in addition to a Do Not Track feature.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Try this! Something for my Computer Security students.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=21033

SelectOut Founder Analyzes 1,000 Privacy Policies to Make Online Privacy Easier, Part 1

February 22, 2011 by Dissent

Elaine Rigoli writes:

Calvin Pappas is just 19-years-old but thinks online privacy is one of the hottest topics today. While Congress debates regulating the online advertising and tracking industry, the Computer Engineering student has created a site called SelectOut to teach consumers how companies really gather and use their online data.

As companies are working to become more transparent before any legislation is enacted, however, Pappas is keeping one step ahead of them with his Consumer Opt-Out list that shows people how to choose their own privacy options.

His site couldn’t be simpler. When you click on www.selectout.com, the site instantly determines how many websites are tracking you. It then gives you the option to “select out” of all or just some of the tracking.

Monday, February 21, 2011

How about one in English?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110220/tc_afp/mideastpoliticsunrestusinternettwitter_20110220162104

Clinton says Twitter helps US tap into youth unrest

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Sunday highlighted the need for the US government to use Twitter and other social media to connect with young people amid turbulent change in the Middle East and North Africa.

Following revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt fueled by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube exchanges, the US State Department set up Twitter accounts last week in Farsi, Arabic and other languages to get its message across.

"What we expect to do is to be communicating through the new social media with literally millions of people around the world because we want them to hear directly from us what our policies are," Clinton said.

(Related) It's interesting what you can find if you sift through enough data...

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/bi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229218847&subSection=

Seven Breakthrough Sentiment Analysis Scenarios

Could sentiment analysis -- the automated mining of attitudes, opinions, and emotions from text, speech, and database sources -- have foretold the demise of Egyptian autocrat Hosni Mubarak?

Can this fast-emerging technology and discipline predict the movement of Oracle's share price based on online and social reactions to company and market news? Could it quantify reactions to Groupon's widely panned SuperBowl ad and tell the ad-agency creative types what particular aspects viewers disliked? And in a more mundane, everyday application, could it identify product defects to help convert dissatisfied customers into promoters?

… In the pre-Net, pre-text analytics world, sentiment analysis was of very limited scope or limited to indirect measures. We had focus groups and other forms of "qualitative research" that, because they are expensive and generate voluminous text transcripts requiring laborious human analysis, can be used for only small samples.

Survey "verbatims" (free-text responses) are similarly expensive to analyze, so indicators such as the U.S. Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) have also been based on samples, with question responses limited to not-very-illuminating positive/negative/neutral responses.

Text analytics is a limit breaker. Solutions automate large-scale information collection, filtering, and classification technologies via natural language processing and data mining technologies that handle both factual and subjective information. Subjective information: That would be attitudes, moods, opinions, and emotions -- the province of sentiment analysis.

Will this approach become critical for any company whose reputation is challenged?

http://mashable.com/2011/02/17/taco-bell-social-media-defense/

What Brands Can Learn From Taco Bell’s Social Media Lawsuit Defense

When it comes to high profile lawsuits, it’s often been the plaintiff’s use of social media that makes headlines and wins those ever-important battles in the Court of Public Opinion. Blogs raise awareness of issues that could lead to lucrative litigation, and smart SEO and SEM campaigns can dominate the online conversation. Social media is used recruit potential class action clients. All the while, the target of the litigation — the defender — often stands mute, from a digital perspective. Commonly, the defender will cede control of the Internet’s messaging high ground to adversaries.

But the “no comment” strategy has increasingly been cast aside in an age when instant impressions can cause lasting reputation damage. More and more companies are realizing the benefits of mounting a digital defense when plaintiffs come knocking. As evidenced by the recent lawsuit against Taco Bell — alleging that its “seasoned beef” doesn’t meet USDA requirements for that label — defense messages are starting to compete for attention in the online space. Over the last several weeks, Taco Bell has written a template for digital litigation communications that — while certainly more aggressive than many lawsuits call for — has highlighted a number of best practices that every company playing social media defense should consider.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

This looks like a Cloud Computing application. Apparently the customer had no control over the data and didn't even know that inappropriate data (card security codes) were being kept. The vendor, like many “assumed” that access by their people was always authorized and appropriate.

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=16849

(update) Hacker accessed HuskyDirect.com database by using vendor’s administrative password

February 19, 2011 by admin

On January 31, lawyers for the University of Connecticut Cooperative Corporation notified the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office of a breach mentioned previously on this blog. Their letter revealed some previously unreported details, including the fact that the HuskyDirect.com web site was hosted and managed by Fuss & O’Neill Technologies LLC in Connecticut, a firm that does business as Fandotech.

According to the Co-ops lawyers, the breach was first discovered by customers who reported it to the Co-op. On December 28, the Co-op contacted Fandotech and asked them to investigate. Fandotech investigated but informed the Co-op that it found no evidence of a breach.

The Co-op called a few more times over the next days, each time asking Fandotech to investigate again.

On January 5, Fandotech reportedly found evidence that a breach had occurred on December 26 – two days before the Co-op started calling them to investigate a possible breach. It appears that whoever accessed the database started using the data immediately as by December 28, people were already reporting card fraud to the Co-op.

Significantly, the breach involved an unauthorized person accessing the database by using a Fandotech administrative password. [Unknown is not unauthorized. Perhaps the person was authorized but the actions were not. Bob]

“Fandotech has sole access, authority, and control over that administrative password,” Aaron Bayer of Wiggin and Dana wrote to the New Hampshire Attorney General.

The database contained information on 18,059 people, 286 of whom were New Hampshire residents. Information in the database included customers’ names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, credit card numbers, card expiration dates, and card security codes. At the time of the breach, the Co-op

“understood from Fandotech that it employed a firewall, antivirus software, encryption, and a secure, administrative password to safeguard this data, and believed that Fandotech was PCI compliant.”

Under the PCI standards, however, the 3- or 4-digit card security codes may not be stored – even if encrypted.

The HuskyDirect.com web site, which was taken down the first week in January, is still not online.

In their correspondence of January 31, the Co-op’s attorneys describe the steps the Co-op has taken and note that despite the commercial cost in terms of lost revenues, the Co-op had not returned the site to operation. Their detailed response to the discovery of the breach included retaining Trustwave to perform an audit to determine the cause and a cure for the problem. Lawyers for the Co-op say that it does not intend to re-open the old HuskyDirect.com web site, but plans to open a new web site for UConn merchandise after it is assured that the web site will be in a secure environment.

(Related) Something like this will become much more desirable as everything moves into the Cloud...

http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/02/19/232226/Industry-IT-Security-Certification-Proposed?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Industry IT Security Certification Proposed

"The US can build defenses against 'cyberwar' by having government and the private sector work together to confront the threat, a panel of experts said at RSA Conference 2011 in San Francisco this week. 'Chertoff called for a regulatory framework where company executives and board members sign on the dotted line, certifying what steps they have taken to secure their network, what backup systems they have in place and what level of resiliency is built into their IT system. “People take that seriously. Is it dramatic? No, but it moves the ball down the field,” Chertoff said. Schneier concurred, noting that holding individuals at a company accountable for certain protections has worked with environmental regulations and Sarbanes-Oxley, the post-Enron law that requires directors and executives to certify their financial results.'"

“We trust our employees. It's their relatives and friends we don't trust.” What happens on your own time determines your grade at school and now, your continued employment.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=20961

Should Govt. Employers Be Allowed to Require Your Facebook Login?

February 19, 2011 by Dissent

Meredith Curtis of the ACLU of Maryland describes a case that should concern us all:

Maryland corrections officer Robert Collins approached the ACLU of Maryland late last year, disturbed that he was required to provide his Facebook login and password to the Maryland Division of Corrections (DOC) during a recertification interview. He had to sit there while the interviewer logged on to his account and read not only his postings, but those of his family and friends too.

[...]

On January 25, the ACLU of Maryland sent a letter (PDF) to Public Safety Secretary Gary Maynard on behalf of Officer Collins, concerning the Division of Correction’s blanket requirement that applicants for employment with the division, as well as current employees undergoing recertification, provide the government with their social media account usernames and personal passwords for use in employee background checks.

[...]

The demand for Facebook login information is not only a gross breach of privacy for Officer Collins and his friends, it raises significant legal concerns under the Federal Stored Communications Act and Maryland state law, which protect privacy rights and extend protections to electronic communications.

Read more about the case on the ACLU of Maryland’s blog. h/t, The Atlantic

What does it tell them? Where their clients should commit their crimes?

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/026561.html

February 19, 2011

Comparative Criminal Procedure

Via the terrific law librarians at University of Chicago at the D'Angelo Law Library, Comparative Criminal Procedure: "This research guide prepared for Professors Ginsburg and McAdams' Comparative Criminal Procedure Seminar (LAWS 41702) lists selected English-language resources on comparative criminal procedure. It focuses on journal articles, book chapters, and treatises covering comparative criminal procedure generally, criminal procedure in multiple jurisdictions, and specialized research topics in comparative criminal procedure such as: arrest, pre-trial detention, interrogation, right to counsel, legal assistance for indigent defendants, discovery, plea bargaining, trial by jury, the privilege against self-incrimination, inquisitorial versus accusatorial systems, role of prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys, cross-examination, exclusionary rules, sentencing, death penalty, criminal appeals, and double jeopardy."

Interesting video. Some “opt outs” require lots of effort...

http://cnettv.cnet.com/8301-13415_53-20033968-11.html

How To: Take Back Your Privacy from Data Brokers

Data brokers, data harvesters, people finders: Whatever you call them, they roll up a huge amount or real and deduced information about you to create a dossier on your life that anyone can buy or even browse for free. While the nuggets of information about you are already out there, the way these sites aggregate it makes a lot of people feel very invaded. Watch this video to see how you can opt out, to a degree, then use the links below to start taking back your privacy.

Opt out tools: Spokeo PeopleSmart Pipl Peek You (email link): Include the PeekYou.com address of you profile to have it suppressed. ZabaSearch

Centennial Man

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Friday, February 25, 2011

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Monday, February 21, 2011

Sunday, February 20, 2011

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