William Hershey reports: Ohio taxpayers are right in the middle of the civil rights lawsuit that Samuel Joseph — “Joe the Plumber” — Wurzelbacher has filed against three former state employees, charging that they illegally accessed his confidential information through state databases. Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray’s office is defending former state employees Helen Jones-Kelley,…
TSA nominee questioned over FBI censure
Ed O’Keefe reports: Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) questioned President Obama’s nominee to lead the nation’s airport security agency Tuesday about a censure he received from the FBI in 1988. Erroll Southers, who was serving as an FBI special agent at the time of the censure, asked a co-worker’s husband who worked for the San Diego…
Google Book Search Settlement Revised: No Reader Privacy Added
Cindy Cohn of EFF comments on the revised Google Book search settlement proposal: Late Friday night the parties to the Google Book Search class action submitted a revised settlement agreement to the federal court in New York that is hearing the case. Unfortunately, the parties did not add any reader privacy protections. The only nominal…
Biometrics sparks privacy fears in Ireland
Jared Yee reports: Collecting biometric information could put civil liberties and privacy at risk, despite considerable benefits, says the Irish Council for Bioethics (ICB). In its report, “Biometrics: Enhancing Security or Invading Privacy?”, the ICB explores privacy concerns stemming from the growing use of biometric technologies to counter identity theft. The technologies reviewed in the…