Today’s theme seems to be surveillance. From Out-Law.com: Western industrial countries are becoming more willing to spy on their citizens, according to an analysis of snooping that says that the UK is sixth in a world ranking for electronic state surveillance. Privacy technology company CryptoHippie has produced its second annual report on surveillance trends and…
Category: Surveillance
Satellite Surveillance: Domestic Issues
Speaking of domestic surveillance, the Congressional Research Service’s February 1 report, Satellite Surveillance: Domestic Issues, by Richard A. Best Jr., Specialist in National Defense, and Jennifer K. Elsea, Legislative Attorney, is available on the Web. The summary: Reconnaissance satellites, first deployed in the early 1960s to peer into denied regions of the Soviet Union and…
Op-ed on NYC police database
I missed an op-ed by Bob Herbert in the New York Times on March 1 that is worthy of note here: From 2004 through 2009, in a policy that has gotten completely out of control, New York City police officers stopped people on the street and checked them out nearly three million times, frisking and…
MEPs ask for more time before full vote on PNR data transfer
Members of the European Parliament (MEP) have been asked not to torpedo a long-standing agreement on sending air passengers’ personal details to US authorities to leave time for a new deal to be negotiated. Passenger name records (PNR) are sets of 19 pieces of information that US authorities demand on every air traveller entering that…