Clearly we need to react when mental
health professionals flag an individual as dangerous. I see no
indication that that happened here. And don't get me started on the
argument that the only way the police knew what guns he had were
because he had followed the law and registered them.
There was a story from upstate New York
that didn’t get my attention when I first read about it. A man was
ordered
to turn in his guns under New York’s new SAFE Act, allegedly
because he had taken anti-anxiety medication and his mental health
history made him a danger to himself or others. His guns were
returned to him after it was discovered that a mistake had been made
and he was not the individual with the mental health
history. The case is raising questions as to whom is
responsible for investigating before a referral is made to the courts
to revoke someone’s permit or have them turn over their guns.
But there’s even more to the story,
it seems, and some legislators and the man’s lawyer are raising
questions about whether medical records are being scoured without
warrants. Capital Tonight reports that the man’s attorney, Jim
Tresmond, is filing a lawsuit:
Tresmond claims
while investigating the “mistake” he discovered that State police
had examined his client’s medical records without a valid search
warrant. Tresmond said that’s a clear violation of federal and
state privacy laws in addition to the New York State Criminal
Procedure Law.
“This is not a
simple case of mistaken identity. Mr. Lewis’ medical privacy was
invaded and he was publicly defamed and humiliated by New York State
officials,” Tresmond said.
Tresmond went a
step further, accusing the State of creating a “clandestine HIPAA
unit” within the Division for Criminal Justice Services, charged
with examining New York residents’ medical records without warrant.
“I believe there
are seven officers assigned to this unit, who are assigned to review
those HIPAA files. And try to nab those people who are on certain
medications, certain treatments, and then pull their licenses across
the state,” said Tresmond.
A State Police
spokesperson told YNN the accusations are “flat wrong.”
Read more on Capital
Tonight.
In related coverage, Dan Roberts
discusses the alleged HIPAA unit on AmmoLand,
where he repeats a report that the unit was created at the request of
Homeland Security. At this point, there’s been no proof or named
sources, however, so I’m not sure what we can make of all this.
Wow! And only a couple (three) years
after the first reported case.
CBS/The Associated Press reports:
Gov. Chris
Christie has signed a measure intended to prevent New Jersey school
districts from violating students’ privacy rights by tracking them
through school-issued laptops.
Districts that
provide students with laptops, cell phones or other electronic
devices will now have to provide written notification that the device
may track them. The notification also must include a statement that
the school won’t violate the student’s privacy rights.
Read more on CBS
(Related) Now perhaps they can think
about generalizing that law a bit...
Following a public comment period, the
Federal Trade Commission has approved nine final orders settling
charges that seven rent-to-own companies and a software design firm
and its two principals spied on consumers using computers that
consumers rented from them. The companies used software to take
screenshots of confidential and personal information, log customers’
computer keystrokes, and in some cases take webcam pictures of people
in their own homes, all without the customers’ knowledge.
In settling the FTC’s
administrative complaint, the respondents will be prohibited from
using monitoring software and banned from using deceptive methods to
gather information from consumers. The settlements will prohibit the
use of geophysical location tracking without consumer consent and
notice, and bar the use of fake software registration screens to
collect personal information from consumers. The seven rent-to-own
stores will also be prohibited from using information improperly
gathered from consumers to collect on accounts. In addition, the
software company, DesignerWare, and its principals, Ronald P. Koller
and Timothy Kelly, will be barred from providing others with the
means to commit illegal acts. All of the proposed settlements
contain record-keeping requirements to enable the FTC to monitor
compliance with the orders for 20 years.
The respondents, with links to the
respective orders and associated public comments, are:
The Commission vote approving the final
orders and letters to members of the public who commented on it was
3-0-1, with Commissioner Wright not participating. (FTC File No.
112-3151; the staff contacts are Julie Mayer, 206-220-4475, and Tracy
Thorleifson, 206-220-4181.)
Source: FTC
Of course, as regular readers of this
blog know, there are ongoing lawsuits against Aaron’s that include
allegations that some of the problematic behavior may have continued
after the consent orders were first posted for public comment.
I don’t know if you generally read
the comments submitted by the public on proposed settlements, but
this one generated a lot of public comment – much of it seemingly
by employees and rental store owners who are not happy with the FTC
and think that the case was misrepresented.
Like Real Estate, the law is all about
location, location, location.
From EPIC,
yesterday:
In an order
today, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined
to reviewa decision concerning e-mail privacy. In Jennings
v. Broome, the South Carolina Supreme Court held that the federal
Electronic Communications
Privacy Act (ECPA) does not protect emails stored on remote
computer servers. As a result of this case, users in South
Carolina have lesser privacy protections than those in California
where a federal court reached the opposite conclusion. EPIC,
joined by 18 national organization filed an amicus
brief, urging the US Supreme Court to clarify the scope of e-mail
privacy protections. For more information, see EPIC:
Jennings v. Broome and EPIC:
Electronic Communications Privacy Act
It’s unfortunate that the court does
not explain why it declines to review a case. In the meantime,
Congress has failed to update ECPA to clarify and strengthen
protections that we need in a digital world.
(Related) Another “exception” to
privacy?
From FourthAmendment.com:
Defendant had no
reasonable expectation of privacy in his computer from police
accessing it via Limewire when he was hooked up to the Internet. He
did not create an expectation of privacy from his efforts to hide
files on his computer. Warshak has no application to this situation.
United
States v. Conner, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 7437, 2013 FED App. 0365N
(6th Cir. April 11, 2013)
Read more about the opinion on
FourthAmendment.com.
[From the article:
Warshak does not control this case
because peer-to-peer file sharing is different in kind from e-mail,
letters, and telephone calls. Unlike these forms of communication,
in which third parties have incidental access to the content of
messages, computer programs like LimeWire are expressly designed
to make files on a computer available for download by the public,
including law enforcement.
“We've invited Mr. Fox here to give
us a lecture on henhoue protection.” What could possibly go wrong?
Andrea Smith reports:
Facebook and
privacy sometimes seems like an oxymoron — words or ideas that
contradict one other. Users complain about Facebook’s privacy
settings being too difficult to understand
and properly implement.
Now, Facebook and
the National
Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) want to change that
through a consumer education program.
Read more on Mashable.
Related to a “Right to be forgotten?”
Worth skimming the Comments.
"The last few months a digital
inheritance idea has been floating around in my head, and I am sure
the thought has crossed your mind as well. With Google talking about
the inactive
account program it made me wonder, how do I make sure my children
get my iTunes, and amazon movies? I have plenty of mp4 movies on my
server that will just set itself to admin with no password after I do
not log in within a 6 month time frame. But what about the huge
amount spent on digital content every year? What's the best way to
make sure your "digital inheritance" gets passed down?"
Inside the minds... (Such as they are)
“We plan on moving to this new and clearly superior technology,
but first we have to be sure we can screw it up with the technology
our customers hate.” Not yet to the point where the tail can wag
the dog.
Netflix
plotting move to HTML5 video - but only if DRM works
… In a blog
post on Monday, reps for Netflix – which by some estimates now
accounts for around a third of all internet traffic in North America
– said the company definitely plans to get off the Silverlight boat
before it sinks
for good in 2021, and that HTML5 video is probably the solution
... but it's not quite there yet.
The problem? As Netflix cloud
architect Adrian Cockcroft candidly explained at the seventh annual
Linux Collaboration Summit in San Francisco on Monday, "We're
trying to get to the point where we don't need a plugin. But we have
to have DRM."
… When asked by a Linux
Collaboration Summit attendee what Netflix was doing to help push
back against Hollywood's insistence on DRM, the way Amazon and Apple
have done for music downloads, Cockcroft was brutally frank.
"Right now what we're basically
doing is giving billions of dollars to Hollywood to buy the content,
so that they can afford to build more content," he said.
"That's basically the business we're in. We're
a major source of funds for Hollywood and we're mostly
concerned about getting content made and getting it out to our
customers."
Plan ahead.
April 15, 2013
OECD
- Machine-to-Machine Communications Connecting Billions of Devices
You or your institution
Machine-to-Machine
Communications - Connecting Billions of Devices, Publication
Date, 30 Jan 2012. Bibliographic information No.: 192 Pages. 45. DOI
10.1787/5k9gsh2gp043-en
- "This document examines the future of machine-to-machine communication (M2M), with a particular focus on mobile wireless networks. M2M devices are defined, in this paper, as those that are actively communicating using wired and wireless networks, are not computers in the traditional sense and are using the Internet in some form or another. While, at the global level, there are currently around five billion devices connected to mobile networks, this may by some estimates increase to 50 billion by the end of the decade. The report provides examples of some of the uses to which M2M is being put today and its potential to enhance economic and social development. It concludes that to achieve these benefits, however, changes to telecommunication policy and regulatory frameworks may be required. Some of the main areas that will need to be evaluated, and implications of M2M assessed, include: opening access to mobile wholesale markets for firms not providing public telecommunication services; numbering policy; frequency policy; privacy and security; and access to public sector information."
Create a virtual library?
Here at MakeUseOf we get a lot of
questions
on MakeUseOf Answers asking for sources of free
eBooks. The benefit of owning a physical, printed book lies in
the ability to pick it up, examine it and borrow or loan it to
friends and family. It’s no secret that the traditional lending of
literature can be achieved using Amazon’s Kindle format, but this
is only possible
between other Kindle users.
And so that’s where Ownshelf comes
in. The service which is currently in beta uses Facebook as a
platform for connecting you with people you already know. In
reality, it’s like a Dropbox for eBooks and best of all it doesn’t
matter which eReader you own or which eBookshop you frequent,
provided the format is ePub you can share between platforms.
Once you’ve logged in and approved
the app to use your Facebook account you can upload files in ePub
format which will then appear on your bookshelf ready to be shared
with your friends. You can also browse the shelves of others in your
friends list or borrow books with the click of a button, though you
might want to tell your eReading buddies to sign up for the Ownshelf
service as it feels a little empty on your own.
I may have mentioned that I like lists.
This one is not just for teachers...
Finding the best education technology
tools is a time-consuming task. It may even be viewed as a chore
(for some). Typically, one tracks down a handful of useful apps or
web tools and puts them through their paces at home. Then you
probably don’t use any of them because each tool took far too long
to understand, use, become accustomed to, and actually implement in a
classroom.
That’s why I was so excited to find
this Symbaloo created by user
lcobbs detailing 50 great classroom tools that are all easy to
implement into just about any classroom. From Animoto
to Prezi to Dropbox
to Stixy (wait
what?), there’s a lot to check out. Don’t know all 50 tools? I
didn’t! Click on each icon to get an idea about each tool and
learn more.
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