Gloria Chan reports: Chengdu authorities have ignited privacy concerns with new rules requiring public baths, massage parlours, teahouses, chess and mahjong rooms, and cinemas to install surveillance cameras in public areas. The Chengdu Municipal People’s Congress endorsed the rules, which come into effect on March 1, to help tackle crime and improve security in the…
Drone privacy push could stall out
Tony Romm reports: As companies like Amazon and Google forge ahead with plans to develop their own drones, a White House effort to ensure these unmanned vehicles don’t spy on consumers is sputtering along — and seems destined to produce weak privacy protections that the government will struggle to enforce. Read more on Politico.
Time for a Rigorous National Debate About Surveillance
Congressman Mike Pompeo and constitutional lawyer David B. Rivkin, Jr., have an OpEd in the Wall Street Journal today. Let me cut to their point: Congress should pass a law re-establishing collection of all metadata, and combining it with publicly available financial and lifestyle information into a comprehensive, searchable database. Legal and bureaucratic impediments to surveillance should…
Majority of US citizens in favor of warrantless surveillance – poll
Paul Hill reports: In a new poll conducted by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research (AP-NORC), most Americans are in favour of warrantless online surveillance. The poll found that 56 percent were in support of government being able to conduct surveillance on Internet communications without needing to get a warrant. Just…