From the Deutsche Presse-Agentur: More than 3,000 people in the Netherlands have signed a petition demanding that the government overturn a law enabling it to store the fingerprints of all Dutch citizens in a central electronic database. Since September 21, everyone applying for a Dutch passport is obligated to provide four fingerprints for storage in…
EPIC Files Appeal for NSA Policy on Network Surveillance
From EPIC.org: EPIC filed a Freedom of Information Act appeal, seeking disclosure of NPSD 54, the classified Directive that describes a National Security Agency program to monitor American computer networks. EPIC submitted the original request to shed light on the extent of the federal government’s surveillance of civilian computer systems, but the agency refused to…
Keeping Personal Data Private (Editorial)
The following editorial urging Congress to pass a national data protection law is from today’s New York Times: In 2006, a Veterans Affairs Department analyst lost a laptop and external drive with Social Security numbers and other personal data from more than 26 million veterans and active duty troops. There was a national call for…
UK jails schizophrenic for refusal to decrypt files
Chris Williams reports: The first person jailed under draconian UK police powers that Ministers said were vital to battle terrorism and serious crime has been identified by The Register as a schizophrenic science hobbyist with no previous criminal record. His crime was a persistent refusal to give counter-terrorism police the keys to decrypt his computer…