Since The Washington Post first broke the news that the Obama administration is moving ahead with Einstein, a Bush-era plan to use National Security Agency assistance in screening government computer traffic on private-sector networks, the drum beat from privacy advocates has been growing. Today, Siobham Gorman of The Wall Street Journal reports that the latest…
Court orders spammers to give up $3.7 million
A U.S. district court has ordered key players in an international spam ring to give up $3.7 million that they made by sending out illegal e-mail messages pitching bogus hoodia weight-loss products and a “human growth hormone” pill they claimed reversed the aging process. In a Federal Trade Commission law enforcement action, the court found…
Abandoned business records can’t be destroyed
Every year, businesses go under and disappear, leaving behind boxes of transaction records, Social Security numbers and other sensitive information that could lead to identity theft and other forms of fraud. Landlords and owners of storage companies, who tend to get stuck holding these records, have no legal way to dispose of them and are…
DOJ wins rehearing in Tooley wiretapping suit
Scott Tooley narrowly won an appellate court victory earlier this year in his suit against top government officials, accusing them of invading his privacy through purported wiretaps, clandestine surveillance and “terrorist watch lists.” Now he may lose again. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 2-to-1 in February…