Cheaper than a big
fence? Perhaps we could start this in our boarder states? Can you
see Texas asking, “Papers, y'all.”
Dana Smith reports:
Those
who call for the introduction of a national identity card “must
also understand there are civil liberty implications” that can
arise as a result, Foreign Affairs and Immigration Minister Fred
Mitchell said yesterday.
Such
implications, he explained, could include being
stopped on the street at any time and asked by authorities to show a
national ID card as proof of legal residency.
It
was last Thursday that National Security Minister Bernard Nottage
said “the time has come” for the country to consider the
introduction of such a card, considering the Bahamas’
long-standing illegal migration problem.
Read more on
Tribune242.
“We respond with
complete indifference. We don't process your data, we have a
contractor in Addis Abeba who does that for us. As does
Twitter and Facebook and a bunch of others.”
It’s been a good day
for consumers in California. Governor Brown signed SB-46 into law,
expanding business’s data breach notification obligations to
consumers whose online account data has been breached. He also
signed AB-370 into law. The law requires a site operator to disclose
how it responds to “do not track” signals or other mechanisms
that provide consumers a choice regarding the collection of
personally identifiable information and the collection of their
activity across sites.
The bill
also requires the operator to disclose whether other parties may
collect personally identifiable information when a consumer uses the
operator’s site or service.
AB-370 amends Section
22575 of the Business and Professions Code by adding the following
three requirements:
(5)
Disclose how the operator responds to Web browser “do not
track” signals or other mechanisms that provide consumers the
ability to exercise choice regarding the collection of personally
identifiable information about an individual consumer’s online
activities over time and across third-party Web sites or online
services, if the operator engages in that collection.
(6)
Disclose whether other parties may collect personally
identifiable information about an individual consumer’s online
activities over time and across different Web sites when a consumer
uses the operator’s Web site or service.
(7)
An operator may satisfy the requirement of paragraph (5) by providing
a clear and conspicuous hyperlink in the operator’s privacy policy
to an online location containing a description, including the
effects, of any program or protocol the operator follows that offers
the consumer that choice.
(Related) California
is “solving that Internet problem”
Governor Jerry Brown
signed SB
46 into law today.
Dominique R. Shelton
and Paul G. Martinoof of Alston & Bird had a good summary of the
changes the law makes:
Read more of Alston
& Bird’s advisory. The amendments go into effect in
January, 2014.
Is anyone keeping
score? Has the government actually won any of these? Do they have
to give up when their record hits 0-99?
Mark Jaycox writes a
welcome government transparency smackdown by the courts:
A
federal judge ordered the government to unseal more documents
concerning the NSA spying programs by December 20, 2013. The judge
issued the ruling in EFF’s lawsuit, Jewel
v. NSA, which began in 2008 over the NSA spying program initiated
by the Bush Administration, which continues to this day.
In
light of the declassifications inspired by the June leaks, Judge
Jeffrey White ordered the government to unseal any
declassified material, like exhibits, declarations, and
other ex
parte submissions that the government had previously submitted to
the court under seal.
Read more on EFF.
We knew that, didn't
we?
Adam Klasfeld reports:
The
FBI has been deploying unmanned aircraft for domestic surveillance
for seven years, though the agency first acknowledged
their use in July, the Justice Department’s inspector
general reported Thursday.
FBI
Director Robert Mueller revealed the program’s existence during
congressional testimony. The inspector general’s first audit of
the program reveals that it did not develop specific
policies to protect the privacy of U.S. citizens or the
integrity of the evidence the drones purport to collect, the audit
found.
Read more on Courthouse
News.
I wonder if there is a
mathematical formula that establishes a cutoff level of risk insurers
are willing to accept? If so, do they ever share it with customers
before they deny coverage?
Law360.com reports
that St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company wants a court to rule
it’s not responsible for $7 million in liability coverage in a
class action lawsuit brought against online ticket broker Vendini.
Subscription required to read the article.
Coverage of the Vendini
hack can be found in these
posts.
Perspective. I'm not
sure yet what this means, but I am sure it is important beyond the
first Blackberry President being scooped. Imagine if one president
had contradicted the other...
Today
in Modern Diplomacy: The U.S. President Gets Scooped by a Tweet
Earlier
today, President Obama and the Iranian president Hassan Rouhani had
a phone call. The discussion was, it seems, substantial: Among
its topics was Iran's nuclear program. But the content of the
conversation was only one thing that made the call a big deal; even
more significant was the fact that any conversation took place at
all. The talk marked the
first direct communication between a U.S. president and an Iranian
president since 1979, when the Islamic Republic was installed and
the Shah ousted and the diplomatic relations between the two
countries all but severed. The talk itself – the
gesture of it, the meaning of it -- was, in other words, big news.
Which was why President
Obama, a few minutes ago, called
a press conference to announce the conversation to the media.
"Just now I spoke on the phone with President Rouhani,"
Obama told convened reporters. The call, he added, "underscores
the deep mistrust between our countries, but also indicates the
prospect of moving on that difficult history."
Again: big news!
Except that the call was not news to many of the people who were
gathered to hear it. Minutes before Obama began his speech, today at
3:35 pm Eastern time, Hassan Rouhani, via his (unverified)
English-language Twitter account, tweeted the following:
Phone
conversation between @HassanRouhani and @BarackObama
Isn't this rather old
school or even Ludd-esque? Shouldn't we be encouraging anything that
makes health care (especially mental health care) more widely
available? Skype should be easy to secure. There was no indication
the diagnosis was wrong in any of the articles...
Telemedicine has always
held great promise. In my field, it could allow experts in movement
disorders to actually observe a patient in a remote area where no
experts were available to see what the abnormal movements look like
and to interview the patient. And I’ve often had patients request
therapy sessions by Skype or FaceTime (I’ve always declined such
requests). State laws regulate the use of telemedicine and the
communications systems, and practitioners need to know their state’s
laws. They also need to be aware of the privacy and security
concerns associated with various communication systems. See, for
example, this somewhat frightening
report by Declan McCullagh on how NSA can eavesdrop on Skype.
Mike Stinebiser writes:
Just
as the September 23 enforcement deadline of the new HIPAA rules
arrives, The Oklahoman reports
a case of a doctor who did not take heed of state health regulations
for practicing telemedicine. Dr. Thomas Trow is being disciplined
for prescribing powerful meds to mental health patients over Skype
video chat without ever having seen them in person. With few
exceptions, most state health laws require an initial in-person
visit to establish a patient-physician relationship before before a
doctor can treat a patient over video conference. This includes
prescribing drugs, rendering diagnoses, and performing other medical
services during a virtual visit. In addition, medical board
documents also show that Skype video chat, which Dr. Trow was using,
is not an approved telemedicine communication system.
Read more on vsee.com
I know I've mentioned
this before...
– is free and
multi-platform dynamic mathematics software for all levels of
education that joins geometry, algebra, tables, graphing, statistics
and calculus in one easy-to-use package. Graphics, algebra and
tables are connected and fully dynamic. It has an easy-to-use
interface, and an authoring tool to create interactive learning
materials as webpages. It’s open source software freely
available for non-commercial users.
For my programming
students. Free is good!
Powerful
Python IDE PyCharm Community Edition Now Available For Free
Developer JetBrains
is well-known for their sophisticated IDEs (integrated developer
environments), but their tools usually cost money to use. That is
not always the case, however. The company has recently released a
new version of their PyCharm
IDE in two different flavors, one of which is entirely free.
Aimed at helping
developers create scripts and applications using the Python
programming language, PyCharm is now offered in a Professional
Edition (starting at $99 for a personal license), as well as in a
Community Edition which anyone can download
and just use to their heart’s content under the free and
open-source Apache 2 license.
Every week, free humor.
It's wonderful.
… Students in
Indiana
managed to bypass the security on their school-issued iPads
within hours of receiving them, reports
Education Week. [Same thing in LA Bob]
… California
has passed a law (SB
568) that would require
websites and apps aimed at minors to give them
the ability to erase their personal data or any
information they post. Although it might sound like a win for
privacy, there are lots of concerns about how exactly this will be
implemented. A critical look at why the bill won’t
work via
Forbes. [I hadn't seen that. Bob]
… Indiana
state lawmakers are weighing
whether to expand “Stand-Your-Ground”
laws to schools, “changing the law to protect a person who may
resort to deadly force to prevent a school massacre.” WTF.
[Contrast with the next one Bob]
… Darnell Hamilton,
age 17 with a 4.0 GPA, has
been charged as an adult with two felonies – unlawful use of a
weapon and possession of a firearm in school – for bringing a gun
to his Chicago
school on Tuesday. Hamilton's mother said that he felt he needed the
gun to protect himself from the gangs he must pass through in order
to commute to and from his school. That's Urban Prep, a charter
school that boasts all its seniors get into college. Hamilton has
already been promised a scholarship to Ohio State; no word from the
school if they will take disciplinary action.
… The
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
has partnered
with the startup NovoEd
to offer a MOOC for remedial math students.
NovoEd does boast more student support with its online offerings,
and the Cargenie Foundation claims it has a good track record with
its developmental math offerings. So we’ll see…
… Nearly
200 colleges and universities have cut adjunct hours in order to
avoid having to pay for their employees’ healthcare as mandated by
the Affordable Care Act.
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