By Sandra Fulton, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:51pm
While the Internet community came out in force to protest the free speech and privacy threats posed by the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), an international trade agreement with the same stated goals—and potentially greater threats—was being negotiated behind closed doors. While the First Amendment can be served by intellectual property protections that incentivize content creation, IP laws can easily be misused. Like PIPA and SOPA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (“ACTA”) is another misguided and overbroad attempt to crack down on counterfeiting and piracy over the Internet. There has been excellent analysis of the issue by sources including EFF, Tech Dirt and Ars Technica, but we have also been watching this issue and wanted to summarize what’s at stake.
Guest blogger Agatha M. Cole is a J.D. candidate, Cardozo Law School, Class of 2013
The ongoing controversy surrounding domain name seizures under "Operation In Our Sites" seems to be reaching new heights. DHS launched Operation In Our Sites in 2010 to combat online piracy and the proliferation of counterfeit goods on the Internet. Since then, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has shut down over 758 websites allegedly involved in the sale or distribution of counterfeit goods or illegal copyrighted works.
By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 5:56pm
We’ve been doing a fair amount of thinking about the implications of consumer wearable cameras like Google Glass, and I’m sure we’ll have more to say in this space on the subject. But meanwhile, we’re pleasantly surprised to report a very trenchant analysis of the technology’s implications for our privacy by none other than Michael Chertoff. Writing on CNN’s web page, the former DHS chief writes,
So, who owns and what happens to the user's [video] data? Can the entire database be mined and analyzed for commercial purposes? What rules will apply when law enforcement seeks access to the data for a criminal or national security investigation? For how long will the data be retained? ….
Even those who might be willing to forgo some degree of privacy to enhance national security should be concerned about a corporate America that will have an unrestricted continuous video record of millions.
What is to prevent a corporation from targeting a particular individual, using face recognition technology to assemble all uploaded videos in which he appears, and effectively constructing a surveillance record that can be used to analyze his life?
Chertoff says he’s inclined to think that government regulation may be needed. I haven’t seen Chertoff say anything about the threat of pervasive government surveillance, which would make him a kind of anti-libertarian on privacy—in favor of restricting corporations, but not the government. For the average, relatively powerless person trying to live their life, the threat comes from both directions.
By James Evans, Bryson Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Medicine, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill School of Medicine at 10:44am
James Evans, MD, PhD is the Bryson Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Medicine at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Medicine. He was a member of the advisory committee to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services on Genetics, Health and Society and spearheaded that committee's task force investigating gene patenting and its effect on patient care. He also filed an amicus brief in the ACLU's challenge to gene patents.
By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 11:15am
Yesterday I wrote about Dayton Ohio’s plan for an aerial surveillance system similar to the “nightmare scenario” ARGUS wide-area surveillance technology. Actually, ARGUS is just the most advanced of a number of such “persistent wide-area surveillance” systems in existence and development. They include Constant Hawk, Angel Fire, Kestrel (used on blimps in Afghanistan), and Gorgon Stare.
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:34pm
So, Wednesday, I’ll be participating in an “Ask Me Anything,” or AMA, discussion on Reddit. It amazes me that folks are even interested, but the topic will be the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (“TPP”).
By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 4:56pm
I blogged recently about video analytics, the attempt to build intelligence into video surveillance so that cameras can not only record our every move in public, but also in some respects understand what they are seeing. Now comes word of the latest twist in this effort: “product recognition.” As Technology Review reports, a startup called Graymatics
