Arthur D. Postal and Elizabeth Festa report: A watchdog at the Social Security Administration testified today that there are about 1,000 cases each month in which a living individual is mistakenly included in the agency’s Death Master File. The comments were made by Patrick P. O’Carroll, Jr., SSA Inspector General, at a House hearing on…
Category: Govt
The FBI vs the FTC: the battle for user privacy in social media
Lisa Vaas writes: There’s no doubt about it: The US has mixed motives when it comes to user privacy in social media. That became obvious this week with the juxtaposition of the FBI voicing its voracious desire to suck up social media data vs. the FTC’s 1) recent bemoaning of Facebook’s and Google’s wanton privacy…
FDA workers sue agency over monitoring personal e-mails
Ellen Nakashima and Lisa Rein report: The Food and Drug Administration secretly monitored the personal e-mail of a group of its own scientists and doctors after they warned Congress that the agency was approving medical devices that posed unacceptable risks to patients, government documents show. The surveillance — detailed in e-mails and memos unearthed by…
U.S. cybersecurity efforts trigger privacy concerns
Lolita C. Baldor reports: The federal government’s plan to expand computer security protections into critical parts of private industry is raising concerns that the move will threaten Americans’ civil liberties. In a report for release Friday, The Constitution Project warns that as the Obama administration partners more with the energy, financial, communications and health care…