Jennifer Baker reports: The European Union data protection watchdog says that geo-location constitutes private data. The opinion, which was approved by the Article 29 Working Party on Monday, looked at developments in mobile technology and the current legal framework around them and makes recommendations. “Location data is certainly, in many instances, private data, and there…
Category: Featured News
The Secret Sharer
Jane Mayer writes: On June 13th, a fifty-four-year-old former government employee named Thomas Drake is scheduled to appear in a courtroom in Baltimore, where he will face some of the gravest charges that can be brought against an American citizen. A former senior executive at the National Security Agency, the government’s electronic-espionage service, he is…
DOJ petitions federal appeals court for rehearing in wiretapping decision
Erin Bock writes: The US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday petitioned the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to reconsider a ruling that plaintiffs in Amnesty v. Blai had standing to sue the US government over surveillance. The plaintiffs, including attorneys, journalists and rights organizations, facially challenged Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [50 USC § 1881(a)],…
Facebook Busted in Clumsy Smear on Google
Dan Lyons reports: For the past few days, a mystery has been unfolding in Silicon Valley. Somebody, it seems, hired Burson-Marsteller, a top public-relations firm, to pitch anti-Google stories to newspapers, urging them to investigate claims that Google was invading people’s privacy. Burson even offered to help an influential blogger write a Google-bashing op-ed, which…