Henry Chu reports: The good folk of Broughton don’t take kindly to being photographed without permission. Just ask Google. When the search-engine giant sent one of its specially equipped cars to take pictures of the village for its Street View feature, residents swung into action. They stopped the car in its tracks, called the police…
Category: Surveillance
Wiretapping saved lives
Controversial secret wiretapping activities launched by former President George Bush following 9/11 stirred understandable privacy concerns. But they also provided vital evidence for the arrest and recent conviction of three British Muslims in a plot to destroy at least seven and as many as 18 trans-Atlantic airliners in the summer of 2006. This case demonstrates…
Jailhouse calls are not private, SJC rules
Shelly Murphy reports from Massachusetts: In a 4-to-3 decision that could have a sweeping impact on grand jury investigations and prisoner privacy, the state’s highest court ruled yesterday that prosecutors may subpoena recordings of telephone calls made from jail by inmates and people who are being held while awaiting trial. Rejecting contentions that the subpoenas…
Communications Surveillance: Privacy and Security at Risk
Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau have an article on ACMqueue that reviews developments in wiretapping technology and the privacy and security risks that such changes have created. Some quotes from their article: Curiously, the greatest threat to privacy may not be snooping on people but snooping on things. We are moving from a world with…