Online Privacy

Privacy Will Not Ruin the Free Internet

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 9:28am

Tuesday I posted about the controversy over Do Not Track and the advertising industry’s objections to pro-privacy default settings. One thing I didn’t comment on was that the Interactive Advertising Bureau trotted out the usual argument against any steps to prevent the full force and fury of modern American capitalism from figuring out how to spy on us most thoroughly:

Do Not Flack

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 12:10pm

Microsoft’s welcome announcement that it plans to leave a “Do Not Track” flag turned on by default for its users has been very revealing in a number of respects. It also risks distracting from more important issues in the debate over commercial online surveillance.

The Government, Privacy, and Companies (The Ones We Pay and the Ones We Don’t)

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 5:18pm

Privacy researcher Chris Soghoian gave a very nice talk at TEDx recently on “Why Google Won’t Protect You From Big Brother.” He provides a cogent overview and some useful perspective on the relationship between companies and the government, which is something we at the ACLU have been concerned about since our 2004 report on the Surveillance Industrial Complex, and before.

Will We Let the FBI Micromanage Our Software?

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 4:42pm

CNET’s Declan McCullaugh reported Friday that the CALEA II proposal is alive and well within the Justice Department. This is a proposal to radically expand the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, a law passed in the 1990s that requires the phone companies to affirmatively design their systems so that law enforcement can eavesdrop on them. The new proposal would expand that requirement from the telephone system to computer programs such as those that run social-networking sites, VoIP, instant messaging, and webmail.

Saturday Panel in NYC: Life in the Panopticon

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 4:53pm

A quick note to our New York City-area readers: the ACLU's Catherine Crump, author Ken MacLeod, Cato's Julian Sanchez and others will be appearing at Cooper Union this Saturday for a panel on "Life in the Panopticon: Thoughts on Freedom in an Era of Pervasive Surveillance.” The panel is sponsored by the ACLU and Cooper Union as part of the PEN American Center’s Festival of International Literature.

Keep Domestic Cybersecurity Efforts in Civilian Hands

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.

ACLU Guidance on Demands For Passwords To Protected Accounts

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 3:54pm

The Associated Press wrote a story a couple of weeks ago about job applicants being compelled to turn over the passwords to their social-networking accounts. This is an issue that the ACLU has worked on in a number of states, and it has stirred a lot of interest. Now, we’ve posted  a guide to the issue on our web site.

In the guide, we do the following:

Making Do Not Track a Reality

By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 7:24pm

The ACLU has stated concern again and again about the new model of internet advertising which relies heavily on tracking users as they move from website to website and creates a detailed profile about their viewing habits. Our suggested solution has been a Do Not Track (DNT) mechanism, one that would allow users to opt out and convey that they don’t want to be tracked. But what does it mean not to track someone online?

Civil Liberties in the Digital Age: Weekly Highlights (3/23/2012)

By Anna Salem, ACLU of Northern California at 2:10pm

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.

Facebook Considering New Laws And Legal Action Against Employers Asking For Users’ Passwords [Tech Crunch]
"Following up on disturbing reports that some employers are asking applicants to turn over their Facebook usernames and passwords, Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer on Policy, Erin Egan, hints that the company is looking into drafting new laws to protect users from violations of their privacy like this."

ACLU Guide to New Facebook Privacy Controls

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 11:30am

Today Facebook is rolling out a series of changes to its privacy controls. We reviewed the changes in detail on Tuesday; now here’s how you can take advantage of these changes:

Turn On “Profile Review”
One of the biggest changes to Facebook’s privacy controls is the option to review any content you’re tagged in (including photos, Places, and more) before that content is fed into your news feed. You can also review any tags that are added to photos or other content that you post yourself.

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