privacy

The Trump administration does not want to reform an internet surveillance law to address privacy concerns, a White House official told Reuters on Wednesday, saying it is needed to protect national security.

Should we register all international travel by air, train, and bus? Dutch liberal MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld doesn’t think so. And she has got a point.

A man holds up his iPhone during a rally in support of data privacy outside the Apple store in San Francisco. (AP/Eric Risberg)
PORTLAND, Ore. (ANALYSIS) — Watchdog groups that keep tabs on digital privacy rights are concerned that U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents are searching the phones and other digital devices of international travelers at border checkpoints in U.S. airports.

“Americans shouldn’t have to make a choice between health and privacy."

Belgium: Several European countries will start requiring photo ID from passengers to ride trains, similar to airport identity checks. The requirement concerns the high-speed Thalys and Eurostar services in Europe, with the vague goal of “tightening security and tracking criminals”. Activists said this would happen when useless security theater appeared in airports – it will just spread, but people dismissed the idea at the time as preposterous, probably because it still is.

An inforgrapic demonstrating how a Stingray device works via a USA Today investigation.
ALBANY, N.Y. (REPORT) – A bill introduced in the New York Assembly would ban the use of “stingrays” to track the location of phones and sweep up electronic communications without a warrant in most situations. The proposed law would not only protect privacy in New York, but would also hinder one aspect of the federal surveillance state.

Copyright Monopoly: Enforcement of copyright is fundamentally, conceptually incompatible with privacy of correspondence. You can't have the sealed and private letter in existence at the same time as you enforce copyright, once communications have gone digital. This is the reason you see VPN companies and other privacy advocates fight copyright enforcement and copyright law: because society has to choose between privacy and copyright, and basic civil liberties are considered more important than one particular entertainment business model.

Persistent Surveillance Systems, used for "pre-event forensics, tracking targets in real time, and post-event forensics." Pre-event forensics? This isn't just about parades and demonstrations. It means constantly taping large areas of a city just in case an unplanned event (explosion, a murder) should occur. by Gaius PubliusWe could make some grand statement about the nature of surveillance in 21st Century America — there's certainly a grand and frightening statement to be made — but that would obscure the detail.

New World: The Police wants the cooperation of a robotic witness to a murder case, requesting Amazon’s help in recalling what the domestic robot “Echo” heard in the room. Robotic witnesses have been a theme in science fiction for a long time — and yet, we forgot to ask the most obvious and the most important questions. Maybe we just haven’t realized that we’re in science fiction territory, as far as robotic agents go, and explored the consequences of it: what robot has agency and who can be coerced?

The Stasi was the "secret police" of communist East Germany. In 1989, about 1% of the population was used as "informers" (source).by Gaius PubliusDid you know that Best Buy's central computer repair facility — their so-called "Geek Squad" — contains at least three employees who are also regular informers for the FBI?