Chances that Congress would enact legislation to update the 35-year-old Privacy Act this year are slipping away. The legislation would have had to be introduced by Independence Day for it to have any chance of being enacted this year, says Ari Schwartz of the Center for Democracy and Technology, who has been working closely with…
Highlights of proposed Canadian spam law
The Canadian House of Commons in April introduced a bill to create the Electronic Commerce Protection Act (ECPA) (ECPA)—Canada’s version of the U.S. CAN-SPAM legislation, with some significant differences. The bill seeks not only to cut down on spam but also addresses phishing, spyware and unsolicited text messages. It also lays out penalties for spamming,…
Cybersecurity plan to involve NSA, telecoms
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…