Blog of Rights
Noam
Biale
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10/21/2008

Fawlty Powers

By Noam Biale at 1:46pm

Reports last summer indicated that the Brits were considering plans to store information on every phone call, email and text message sent in the UK. The proposed legislation, part of a package of amendments to the already-seriously-terrifying Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA), would require everyone to present his or her passport in order to get a phone. It would then compel all communications and Internet use data from phone companies and Internet Service Providers and consolidate all this information into one massive uber-database of British subjects' private lives and characteristic witty repartee.

The plan met opposition from civil liberties groups and the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, as well as the UK's Information Commissioner. Recall that our friends in merry old England have been a touch on edge about data security lately, since the government managed to lose two discs with information on every family with a child under the age of 16. This and other data breach gaffes make one wonder just what sort of operation the chaps in charge were running before they came into office (Answer: here).

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09/19/2008

Privacy is Not Partisan

By Noam Biale at 5:06pm

The recent hacking of Gov. Sarah Palin’s email accounts is the latest in a series of events that show how urgently we need better privacy protections in this country – and that privacy is an issue that transcends partisan politics.

Although we face unprecedented threats to our privacy, many Americans still shrug their shoulders and say, “I have nothing to hide.”Government officials use this complacency to pry further into our personal lives, justifying the wholesale capture of all communications between Americans and their friends and relatives abroad, for example, by saying that only the terrorists need fear scrutiny.

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09/17/2008

Surveillance Society: Stepping Back from the Precipice

By Noam Biale at 4:58pm

If you’re like me, you measure the passage of time by your annual celebration of Constitution Day. Personally, I look forward all year to decorating the Tree of Liberty and lighting the Nation of Laws, Not Menorah.

Still, it’s hard not to look upon this year’s Constitution Day — our last under the presidency of George W. Bush — and not get a little wistful. As some popular musicians once said, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.” For those of us who care about the Constitution, that pretty well sums up the last eight years. The trip has certainly been long.

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07/11/2008
TSA

What's on Jim Carafano's Laptop?

By Noam Biale at 3:47pm

He doesn't mind you knowing. In fact, he thinks it would be totally reasonable for you to seize and copy the contents, provided you're a government official and he's crossing the border.

In recent testimony, and in an article in yesterday's Christian Science Monitor, James Jay Carafano of the Heritage Foundation called it "unrealistic to require probable cause" for such searches, and argued that privacy protections would "create some kind of sanctuary for criminals and terrorists to carry things across the border."

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06/08/2008

Policy Debate Game, Set, Match

By Noam Biale at 1:31pm

It may not quite be the French Open, but James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation and I have been discussing the pros and cons of the virtual fence in a series of recent blogs. At least I thought that was what we were discussing. In his most recent post, Carafano doesn’t mention the virtual fence once. Instead he takes a potshot at me for “condemning the United States.”

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06/06/2008

J’accuse, Heritage!

By Noam Biale at 1:56pm

My post highlighting the privacy problems and massive cost of the virtual fence appears to have touched a nerve at the Heritage Foundation. Dr. James Carafano, who has been blogging from the border for the last week, wrote yesterday, “I don’t know if the person who wrote the ACLU blog post has ever been to the border, but his or her criticisms read like many of those who have not…”

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06/04/2008

Something in the Water at the Heritage Foundation?

By Noam Biale at 4:37pm
James Carafano has been blogging on the Heritage Foundation’s “The Foundry” this week on his trip to our southern border. Carafano has been mighty impressed with all the potential benefits of increased border security. Specifically, Carafano believes it will protect the environment, even though Defenders of Wildlife has warned that the erection of a border fence will have “serious and lasting” effects on wildlife, clean water and clean air in the region. He's also convinced it will reduce human fatalities, even though over 200 people die on the border each year, mostly from exposure, while the rate of illegal immigration remains steady.
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05/29/2008

No Real ID in Alaska

By Noam Biale at 5:05pm

The battle over Real ID — the Bush Administration’s backdoor national ID card — has been getting quieter in the last few weeks, but is by no means cooling down.

First, the statutory deadline for all states to comply with the Real ID Act — May 11, 2008 — came and went without a single state participating in the program. The Department of Homeland Security tried its best to bully states into agreeing to comply, but the best they got was half-hearted responses like that of California, which said it could not commit one way or the other.

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05/20/2008

New Plan for Protecting Genetic Privacy: Don't Get Arrested.

By Noam Biale at 8:41am
(Also, don't be an immigrant.)

A few weeks ago, the Justice Department quietly released proposed regulations that would permit the collection and permanent retention of DNA from anyone arrested for a federal crime, or any non-U.S. person detained under federal authorities. As I wrote on Dail

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03/04/2008

Happy Anniversary from the Homeland Civil Liberties Union!

By Noam Biale at 5:12pm
It's a jubilee year for the Department of Homeland Security, where Secretary Michael Chertoff and company are celebrating their fifth year of doing what they do best - securing the homeland. On March 1, the Department marked the five-year anniversary of its Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

Since we at the ACLU have been privy to much of the Department's fine work in this area, we decided to put toge
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