Chris Soghoian writes: Last week, the FOIA fairy delivered 25 pages of internal rules that outline when and how the US Marshal Service uses electronic surveillance methods. According to the cover letters accompanying the documents, the policies are “obsolete” and that “the office is preparing to rewrite/revise it, which could take 30 days or longer to…
Category: Govt
Outed! Senate staffers, anti-gay slurs, and IP addresses
Nate Anderson of Ars Technica reports that yet another political disaster is brewing because some people just don’t get that you can be traced by your IP address: … But someone in Sen. Saxby Chambliss’ (R-GA) office didn’t get the memo. In the aftermath of this week’s failed vote on the military’s “don’t ask, don’t…
Government privacy invasions
Mark J. Fitzgibbons has an opinion piece in the National Law Journal Government has gone overboard disclosing personal information about citizens. Two recent cases involving disclosure of personal information filed with the government for “public records” show two different approaches to fighting back. In Doe v. Reed, Washington Secretary of State, 130 S. Ct. 2811 (2010),…
FTC Previews Forthcoming Privacy Report
Christopher Wolf writes: Maneesha Mithal from the FTC Division of Privacy and Identity Protection spoke today at the Online Trust Alliance Forum in Washington, DC and provided some insights into the forthcoming FTC Report on Privacy, following the three recent Roundtables conducted by the Commission. She cautioned that the Commissioners had not yet reviewed and approved the Report, and that…