Why Isn't The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board Staffed?

from the questions,-questions dept

Certainly one of the biggest questions concerning both the last president and the current one has been the general disregard for certain civil liberties -- especially on issues like domestic spying and warrantless wiretapping. Barry Steinhardt, over at Stanford's Center for Internet and Society, reminds us that the government is supposed to have a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, but it doesn't. This board was created by Congress a few years back after widespread abuses of civil liberties and privacy due to The Patriot Act were discovered. But, rather than do anything about it, President Bush ignored it until the very end of his term, and didn't even fully nominate the members. Meanwhile, President Obama has done absolutely nothing with the board. To be fair, he's been busy with lots of other stuff, but this is certainly an important issue, and it's a shame that it's been ignored. Unfortunately, it seems to indicate what those in the ultimate seat of power think about everyone's civil liberties and privacy.

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White House Says Feds Should Have Unfettered Access To Mobile Phone Location Info

from the *sigh* dept

Many civil libertarians were hopeful that the Obama administration would be a lot more reasonable on certain issues, like warrantless wiretapping and surveillance of Americans. So far, that hasn't really been the case. The new administration has already sided with the old on the legality of warrantless wiretapping, and is now saying that it shouldn't need a warrant to demand location records from mobile phone providers. This certainly seems like the sort of private info that, under the 4th Amendment, would require a warrant, but not according to the administration(s). It feels that mobile phone providers should freely hand over records of what mobile phone tower any phone was connected to, even without the administration bothering to get a warrant (i.e., whenever and for whomever it wants to keep tabs on). This is tremendously problematic if you believe in the basic principles of the 4th Amendment. The EFF and the ACLU have asked a court to stop this practice, and it's rather disappointing that the administration is pushing in the other direction.

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Large-Scale Surveillance Systems Create Security Risks

from the unauthorized-access dept

There's been a lot of discussion, here and elsewhere, about the dangers that expanded government surveillance pose to civil liberties. The Constitution protects the right to be free of unreasonable searches, which the courts have held includes electronic eavesdropping, and many people, myself included, think that recent proposals for expanded wiretapping threaten that right. But less attention has been paid to the security risks created by expanded eavesdropping programs. Matt Blaze and some other computer security experts have a new article documenting the risks concerning eavesdropping systems that themselves could be compromised, allowing unauthorized third parties to use government surveillance networks for their own ends. That's what happened in Greece, when someone managed to hack into the Greek surveillance infrastructure and listen in on dozens of senior government officials. Blaze and his co-authors argue that the more information collected by a wiretapping scheme, the greater the damage that will be done if it's ever compromised. The Protect America Act, which Congress passed last August and is due to expire in a few days, authorizes virtually unchecked government interception of communications between Americans and those overseas. The paper warns that the safeguards in the Protect America Act are inadequate to protect Americans from a compromised surveillance network. Congress would do well to listen.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Ohio State Senator Interested In Using 'Sex Offender Radar' To Alert People If Sex Offenders Are Nearby

from the civil-liberties-in-the-age-of-technology dept

For years, people have talked about the idea of a device (or mobile application) that could be useful for meeting available members of the appropriate sex. You could program in your likes and dislikes, and if you happen to be walking near a "match," it would alert both of you. It appears that some are looking to take that concept and use it in a very different way: to help worried parents know if convicted sex offenders are nearby -- and the idea is so intriguing that an Ohio state senator is considering regulating that certain sex offenders need to use the device. Basically, some convicted sex offenders would be required to wear a special bracelet. Then, anyone who was concerned could carry around a special device that would vibrate if one of those bracelets came within a certain distance. Of course, there wouldn't be any indication of who the person was or even where he was -- just that he was nearby. For obvious reasons, this has some folks questioning whether this violates various civil liberties. It also is hard to see how it does much good, especially since you still would have no idea who was wearing the bracelet. If anything, it would just make already worried parents more paranoid.

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