Mike Scarcella writes: When federal authorities got a warrant to install an electronic tracking device to track a drug suspect, agents acted in an “abundance of caution,” a federal prosecutor said today in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where the government is defending its ability to secretly follow suspects without judicial…
Category: Surveillance
Google Adds Location History to Latitude: Feature Request, or Strategic Rollout?
Michael Zimmer writes: When Google launched Google Latitude 9 months ago, they took steps to ensure users’ locational privacy was protected. Among the most important privacy-protecting features was the fact that Google didn’t keep a log of user locations on its servers; only the most recent locational ping was stored. Not even law enforcement could…
Real ID program in deep trouble
Jaikumar Vijayan reports: A decision by lawmakers to slash funding for the unpopular Real ID national driver’s license program has put an already struggling initiative on life support. The U.S. Senate recently approved a $43 billion budget for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for the federal government’s 2010 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1….
The “techie” side of “Getting It Right”
Jim Burrows writes: The following posting is intended as part of the background information for a forthcoming Get FISA Right chat on the technological issues in “getting FISA right” or more generally balancing needed foreign intelligence gathering with the rights reserved and protected in the Constitution. We eagerly seek your comments here and your participation…