Elizabeth Goitein reports: When Congress reauthorized Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in January, it ratified the warrantless collection of potentially millions of Americans’ phone calls and e-mails – content as well as metadata — without suspicion of wrongdoing. It also blessed the FBI’s practice of searching these communications for evidence to…
Category: Govt
Oklahoma state investigation finds Veterans Affairs didn’t violate medical privacy laws
Justin Wingerter reports: A state investigation has concluded that the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs did not violate privacy laws when it allowed medical aides to search patients’ records on their cellphones. Mark Gower, the state’s chief information security officer, wrote in a memo Thursday that the practice did not violate state or federal privacy…
Tech Firms, Embattled Over Privacy, Warm to Federal Regulation
John D. McKinnon and Marc Vartabedian report: U.S. tech companies, battered over their handling of consumers’ personal data, are hoping to get ahead of the public and legal fallout by working with policy makers to help shape potential new federal privacy legislation. The effort by tech coalitions such as the Information Technology Industry Council—representing internet…
California DMV lies about the REAL-ID Act
Ed Hasbrouck writes: We’ve heard that the California Department of Motor Vehicles has posted scary new signs in DMV offices around the state misinforming motorists and holders of DMV-issued non-driver state ID cards about the Federal REAL-ID Act of 2005. We assume that these public disinformation messages are similar in content to the false answers…