Emptywheel’s Marcy Wheeler writes on Salon: It has been a month since former State Department section chief for Internet freedom John Napier Tye wrote a Washington Post Op-Ed warning about Executive Order 12333 — the order the executive branch uses to self-authorize spying overseas. “The order as used today,” Tye wrote, “threatens our democracy.” Since that time, his concerns…
Category: Govt
For sale: Systems that can secretly track where cellphone users go around the globe
Craig Timberg reports: Makers of surveillance systems are offering governments across the world the ability to track the movements of almost anybody who carries a cellphone, whether they are blocks away or on another continent. The technology works by exploiting an essential fact of all cellular networks: They must keep detailed, up-to-the-minute records on the…
Media spotlight without facts makes mHealth privacy a tougher task
Senator Schumer got a lot of positive media coverage for asking the FTC to investigate whether fitness apps are selling personal information. But in naming FitBit, Schumer may have pointed the finger at a company that does not sell personal information. Judy Mottl writes: …. The lawmaker, Chuck Schumer (D), is obviously acting in best…
FTC Announces Agenda for Upcoming Big Data Workshop
From the FTC: The Federal Trade Commission has announced an agenda for its upcoming workshop, “Big Data: A Tool for Inclusion or Exclusion?” taking place at 8 a.m. on Sept. 15 in Washington, D.C. “Big data” is used to refer to advancing technologies that are dramatically expanding the commercial collection, analysis, use, and storage of…