Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Tuesday introduced legislation to address expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, which are slated to sunset on December 31. The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act on Wednesday, September 23. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the chair of…
Category: U.S.
First Amendment lawsuit challenges Florida ‘Police Privacy Statute’
Robert Brayshaw says that the City of Tallahassee arrested and prosecuted him twice for publishing a police officer’s address online at Ratemycop.com. Now Brayshaw is challenging the constitutionality of Florida Statute §843.17, which states: Any person who shall maliciously, with intent to obstruct the due execution of the law or with the intent to intimidate,…
Netflix’s Impending (But Still Avoidable) Multi-Million Dollar Privacy Blunder
Paul Ohm, who has highlighted the problems with supposedly anonymized data, has published a forceful commentary on Netflix’s recent announcement of their new contest. Ohm writes, in part: Although I give Netflix a pass for its past privacy breach, I am astonished to learn from the New York Times that the company plans a second…
Gmail Breach Lawsuit Can’t Be Secret, Judge Says
Thomas Claburn reports on an interesting breach-related lawsuit. Apparently, a Rocky Mountain Bank employee accidentally sent a confidential file containing customer names, addresses, tax identification numbers, and loan information for over 1,300 individuals and business clients to the wrong Gmail address. When the bank tried to contact the recipient of the errant email to…