By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:22pm
Last Thursday we moved half a step closer to legislation requiring police to get a warrant before viewing personal email or other private electronic communications, such as documents and photos stored in the cloud (with Google, Yahoo or any other provider). For more background on the amendment see here; for explanation of why it’s a half a step and what comes next please keep reading.
By Anna Salem, ACLU of Northern California at 2:51pm
In the digital age that we live in today, we are constantly exposing our personal information online. From using cell phones and GPS devices to online shopping and sending e-mail, the things we do and say online leave behind ever-growing trails of personal information. The ACLU believes that Americans shouldn’t have to choose between using new technology and keeping control of your private information. Each week, we feature some of the most interesting news related to technology and civil liberties that we’ve spotted from the previous week.
By Naomi Gilens, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 5:28pm
This morning, faced with the threat of criminal and civil contempt, Twitter turned over information about Occupy Wall Street protester Malcolm Harris to a New York criminal court judge. This development follows Twitter’s months-long effort to challenge the Manhattan District Attorney Office’s subpoena for Harris’s information, which was issued as part of the D.A.’s disorderly conduct prosecution of Harris stemming from his participation at an Occupy event last fall.
By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:14pm
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced late yesterday that he will bring legislation before the committee requiring law enforcement to use a probable-cause warrant to access all non-public internet communications such as email. This legislation is a key piece of efforts to reform the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), first passed in 1986 and not substantially updated since.
By Aden Fine, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 12:44pm
Twitter just filed its brief appealing a June decision by a New York criminal court judge requiring the company to give the Manhattan District Attorney detailed information on the communications of Twitter user Malcolm Harris, an Occupy Wall Street protester charged with disorderly conduct in connection with a march on the Brooklyn Bridge.
By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 5:33pm
A gathering of cyber-crime specialists in Massachusetts last week provided a glimpse into the tactics used by prosecutors and police to access digital data. Kade Crockford of the ACLU of Massachusetts has done a nice writeup of the conference. As she points out, the event was closed to the press and the public, but the schedule of events was posted online, and included sessions with titles such as:
By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 8:37am
Last night the House of Representatives passed HR 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA. We’ve written about the many privacy problems with this bill, but here I would like to focus on one of its biggest and most fundamental flaws: it empowers the military, including agencies like the NSA, to collect the internet records of Americans’ everyday internet use.
By Matthew Harwood, Media Relations Associate, ACLU at 3:23pm
When Jill Kelley sought help from the FBI in the fall after receiving harassing e-mails, she had no idea that her trust in law enforcement would ultimately end in a loss of faith.
In November, Kelley and her husband, Scott, woke up to find themselves at the heart of a scandal that would ultimately lead to the resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus because of an extramarital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, and engulf another high-ranking military official, U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, in allegations of “inappropriate communications” with Mrs. Kelley. (Last night, the Pentagon’s Inspector General cleared Gen. Allen of all wrongdoing).
By Chris Soghoian, Principal Technologist and Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 7:16pm
Today, the FTC announced a settlement with Epic Marketplace, an online advertising company that had abused a security flaw in popular web browsers in order to covertly “sniff” other websites visited by consumers.
According to the FTC complaint, for a period including between March 2010 and August 2011, the online advertising company Epic Marketplace probed the browsing history of visitors to popular websites including CNN, the Red Cross, and Orbitz in order to determine which other web sites those consumers had previously visited. The pages revealed by this snooping included those relating to fertility issues, impotence, menopause, incontinence, disability insurance, credit repair, debt relief, and personal bankruptcy.
By Anna Salem, ACLU of Northern California at 3:50pm
In the digital age that we live in today, we are constantly exposing our personal information online. From using cell phones and GPS devices to online shopping and sending e-mail, the things we do and say online leave behind ever-growing trails of personal information. The ACLU believes that Americans shouldn’t have to choose between using new technology and keeping control of your private information. Each week, we feature some of the most interesting news related to technology and civil liberties that we’ve spotted from the previous week.
