The Campaign for Reader Privacy, which has been fighting to restore privacy safeguards for library and bookstore records that were stripped away by the Patriot Act, warmly welcomed an announcement by the Inspector General (IG) of the Justice Department that he plans to begin a new investigation into how the government is using Patriot Act…
Category: U.S.
Defendant has burden of showing drug dog is not qualified [Wrong!]
John Wesley Hall, Jr. writes: The CI was corroborated in significant part, and the CI had a good track record, so the stop was justified by that and the fact the registration expired. A drug dog was used on the vehicle, and the defendant has the burden of showing the drug dog was unqualified. United…
DOJ’s surveillance reporting failure
Chris Soghoian writes: In both 2004, and 2009, the US Department of Justice provided Congress with a “document dump”, covering 5 years of Pen Register and Trap & Trace surveillance reports. Although the law clearly requires the Attorney General to submit annual reports to Congress, DOJ has not done so, nor has it provided any…
Silicon Valley readies for privacy battle
Mike Swift reports: In the wake of a series of privacy missteps by Google, Facebook and other companies, a growing chorus on Capitol Hill is calling for major online privacy legislation and Silicon Valley companies are girding for the battle. […] The interest in Washington is because “professional privacy critics are generating the noise and…