U.S. Tries to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet
Federal law enforcement and national security officials
are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing
that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is “going
dark” as people increasingly communicate online instead of by
telephone.
Source: The New York Times (online), September 27, 2010
The Government’s New Right to Track Your Every Move With GPS
Government agents can sneak onto your property in the
middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep
track of everywhere you go. This doesn’t violate your Fourth Amendment
rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in
your own driveway – and no reasonable expectation that the government
isn’t tracking your movements.
Source: Yahoo News!, August 26, 2010
Under financial overhaul, FTC could gain enforcement power over Internet
The version of regulatory overhaul legislation passed by
the House would allow the FTC to issue rules on a fast track and permit
the agency to impose civil penalties on companies that hurt consumers.
FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz has argued in favor of bolstering his
agency’s enforcement ability.
Source: The Washington Post (online), April 27, 2010
‘Hate’ laws could label 5-year-olds ‘offenders’
The case was reported by the London Daily Mail, which
said teachers are being ordered to write up even minor incidents as
“serious bullying” and add them to a database that will follow a student
through a school career.
The report confirmed that when small children use “homophobic” or
racist words without knowing what they mean, they still must be written
up.
Source: WorldNetDaily, March 5, 2010
Feds push for tracking cell phones
Even though police are tapping into the locations of
mobile phones thousands of times a year, the legal ground rules remain
unclear, and federal privacy laws written a generation ago are ambiguous
at best. On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the
topic will hear oral arguments (PDF) in a case that could establish new
standards for locating wireless devices.
Source: cnet news, February 11, 2010
Google links up with US spy-master to thwart threats to cyberspace
Google is teaming up with the US National Security Agency
to battle cyber-attacks from China in a move that is causing disquiet
on the internet.
Source: Times on Line, February 5, 2010
Brain Scan May Foster Communication With Vegetative Patients
Bobby Schindler said that while the test using functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) likely holds promise for the families
of minimally conscious and persistently vegetative patients, he wishes
his sister had been afforded this technology before a court ruling
allowed her husband Michael Schiavo to remove her feeding tube in 2005
leading to her death.
ABC News/Health, February 4, 2010
The government has your baby’s DNA
It’s simple, the pediatrician answered: Newborn babies in
the United States are routinely screened for a panel of genetic
diseases. Since the testing is mandated by the government, it’s often
done without the parents’ consent, according to Brad Therrell, director
of the National Newborn Screening & Genetics Resource Center.
Source: CNN Health, February 3, 2010
Police want backdoor to Web users’ private data
CNET has reviewed a survey scheduled to be released at a
federal task force meeting on Thursday, which says that law enforcement
agencies are virtually unanimous in calling for such an interface to be
created. Eighty-nine percent of police surveyed, it says, want to be
able to “exchange legal process requests and responses to legal process”
through an encrypted, police-only “nationwide computer network.” (See
one excerpt and another.)
The survey, according to two people with knowledge of the situation,
is part of a broader push from law enforcement agencies to alter the
ground rules of online investigations. Other components include renewed
calls for laws requiring Internet companies to store data about their
users for up to five years and increased pressure on companies to
respond to police inquiries in hours instead of days.
Source: CNET, February 3, 2010
Feds push new national identification card program after “Real ID” flops
Four years ago, President Bush signed a law requiring
states to create driver’s licenses that meet national standards, store
related information in nationally connected databases and foot the bill
for most of this nearly $4-billion project. Now, after the 2005 Real ID
Act has alienated state governments and privacy advocates alike, the
federal government is considering a replacement measure called Pass ID
that it hopes will improve national security while being less expensive
and less intrusive on privacy.
Source: Scientific American, September 9, 2009
Ask Permission To Use Newborn Data, Parents Say
These state-required samples, taken to alert doctors to
rare, serious inherited diseases that can be corrected if treated early,
are stored by health agencies for years. Most parents are unaware the
samples still exist, unless a sample proves useful for identification or
to shed light on a child’s health condition. Realizing the samples’
collective value, researchers are beginning to use them to study the
origins of childhood leukemia and toxin exposures in utero, and see
potential for other beneficial research as well.
Source: ScienceDaily, July 12, 2009
Feds can search laptops without reason at airports
Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop or other
electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of
time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search
policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.
Source: Houston Chronicle (online), August 1, 2008
I Hear Ya: Bush Signs Expanded Wiretap Power into Law
The change is the most sweeping since the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
(FISA) was adopted three decades ago to prevent the government from
spying on people in the U.S. suspected of engaging in espionage or
terrorism without court approval. The new provisions allow the U.S. Justice Department and National
Security Agency (NSA) to recruit telephone companies to bug their
customers’ phone conversations, and prohibit lawsuits against the
telecoms for privacy rights violations. The measure also protects the
companies against suits for past wiretaps. That means lawsuits will
likely be dropped against AT&T and Verizon that charged they had
violated privacy rights by tapping their customers phone lines at the
request of the NSA. (Qwest Communications,
on the other hand, refused similar requests in 2001.)
Source: Scientific American, July 11, 2008
Court blasts state’s strip-search of children
Two children who attended a private Christian school in
Wisconsin were illegally strip-searched and had their constitutional
rights violated by a state social worker, the Seventh Circuit Court of
Appeals unanimously ruled Monday.
Source: WorldNetDaily, May 20, 2008
New Cars Are Gathering Information On You That Might Interest Insurance Companies, Advertisers, Government
Years ago, Stanford communication and sociology
researcher Clifford Nass wondered why some people treated their
computers as humans, instead of machines, a question that led him down a
path of interesting research. Now he wonders about drivers willing to
have personal conversations with the artificial voice in their cars—and
what will become of the secrets the humans share with their four-wheeled
friends.
Source: ScienceDaily, May 15, 2008
Bush Lobbies Again for Surveillance Law
“To put it bluntly, if the
enemy is calling into America, we really need to know what they’re
saying, and we need to know what they’re thinking, and we need to know
who they’re talking to,” Bush said at the start of his annual meeting
with the nation’s governors at the White House.
Source: Breitbart, February 25, 2008
Dancing Spychief Wants to Tap Into Cyberspace
Spychief Mike McConnell is drafting a
plan to protect America’s cyberspace that will raise privacy issues and
make the current debate over surveillance law look like “a walk in the
park,” McConnell tells The New Yorker in the issue set to hit newsstands
Monday. “This is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is
that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous
happens.”
Source: The Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2008
The Bush administration’s warrantless spy effort is protected by the ‘state secrets’ privilege, federal judges rule.
In a 3-0 decision, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
sided with the government, which had argued that allowing an Islamic
charity’s claims that it was illegally spied upon to go forward would
threaten national security.
Source: Los Angeles Times, November 16, 2007
Are Young Girls Dressing Too Revealingly?
Ten-year-old Ashley Parks said she admires the Pussycat
Doll look. “I like how it’s sexy,” she said. Six year-old Venus Melvin
aims a bit older, looking to model and fashion mogul Kimora Lee Simmons.
She is really creative,” Melvin said, “and she knows how to handle
fashion.”
Source: ABC News Good Morning America, October 27, 2007
Bush Calls for Expansion of Spy Law
President Bush said Wednesday he wants Congress to expand
and make permanent a law that temporarily gives the government more
power to eavesdrop without warrants on suspected foreign terrorists.
Source: Breitbart, September 19, 2007
Spy Chief Seeks More Eavesdropping Power
No Americans’ telephones have
been tapped without a court order since at least February, the top U.S.
intelligence official told Congress Tuesday.
But National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell could not say how
many Americans’ phone conversations have been overheard because of U.S.
wiretaps on foreign phone lines.
Source: Breitbart, September 18, 2007
Taser ban for illegals blasted by Tancredo
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., is asking the
U.S. Office of Detention and Removal Operations
to explain why it’s OK for jailers to use Tasers to control inmates who
are U.S. citizens but not those who are in the country illegally.
Source: WorldNetDaily, September 15, 2007
Kindergarten cops rule: Witches in, Bibles out
The Arizona-based Alliance Defense
Fund has submitted amicus briefs in a lawsuit filed when a kindergarten
student, under an assignment in which parents were invited to read their
child’s favorite book, was denied permission to have his mother read a
Bible story.
Source: WorldNetDaily, August 31, 2007
Civilian prisons coming soon to U.S. Army base near you
The U.S. Army is authorized to
create civilian prison labor camps on military installations, according
to a little-noticed regulation./span>
Source: WorldNetDaily, August 31, 2007
US intelligence eavesdrops on thousands of foreign
telephone calls on lines that cross through US territory but monitors
the calls of fewer than a hundred people in the United States,
intelligence chief Mike McConnell has disclosed.
Source: Breitbart, August 22, 2007
The decision, made three months ago by Director of
National Intelligence Michael McConnell, places for the first time some
of the U.S.’s most powerful intelligence-gathering tools at the disposal
of domestic security officials. The move was authorized in a May 25
memo sent to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff asking his
department to facilitate access to the spy network on behalf of civilian
agencies and law enforcement.
Source: Wall Street Journal (online), August 15, 2007
Secrecy May Shield US Wiretap Program
The administration has
acknowledged it intercepted some U.S. telephone conversations without
warrants as it hunted for terrorists. Whose calls? The government isn’t
saying. And since only those who were spied on have grounds to sue, it’s
almost impossible to mount a successful legal challenge.
Source: Breitbart, August 13, 2007
Lovin’ it: McBranding hooks preschoolers
Preschoolers preferred the taste of burgers and fries
when they came in McDonald’s wrappers over the same food in plain
wrapping, U.S. researchers said, suggesting fast-food marketing reaches
the very young.
Source: Reuters (online), August 6, 2007
Bush Signs Terrorism Law
President Bush
on Sunday signed into law an expansion of the government’s power to
eavesdrop on foreign terror suspects without the need for warrants.
Source: AP News My Way, August 5, 2007
Surveillance Cameras Win Broad Support
Given the chief arguments, pro and con — a way to help
solve crimes vs. too much of a government intrusion on privacy — it
isn’t close: 71 percent of Americans favor the increased use of
surveillance cameras, while 25 percent
oppose it.
Source: ABC News (online), July 29, 2007
From start, Fairness Doctrine was about silencing opposition
While Democrats in Congress claim
they are only seeking balance, accuracy and truth with renewed calls for
the reintroduction of the Fairness Doctrine, history shows government
enforcement of the broadcast rule was selective, heavy-handed and used
purposely to squelch political opposition – by both Democrats and
Republicans.
Source: WorldNetDaily, July 11, 2007
Christian tracts censored at tribute to vets
A Maryland church pastor attending a
July 4th community band concert and fireworks in a city park to honor
veterans is reporting he was told by officials to leave, because he was
handing out Gospel tracts.
Source: WorldNetDaily, July 7, 2007
Now praying gets 7 Christians arrested
The resulting ordinance came under
fire by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Alliance Defense Fund
for being too broad. It allows the city to create prior restraints of
speech on an event-by-event basis, with virtually no predictable limits.
It also criminalizes certain free speech behavior around public events
and authorizes the police to enforce breaches of permits – the penalty
for such breaches being arrest.
Source: WorldNetDaily, July 7, 2007
Fingerprints to Help Single Out Terrorists
Beginning this fall, foreign nationals will have to
submit their 10 fingers for printing, not just two. The government
believes this will give it more chances to catch a terrorist.
Source: ABC News (online), July 2007
U.S. Adds Marshals to Overseas Flights
The U.S. is adding air
marshals to overseas flights because of concerns about potential
terrorism threats originating in Britain and Europe, the homeland
security chief said Sunday.
Source: Breitbart, July 1, 2007
Lieberman calls for wider use of surveillance cameras
“The Brits have got something smart going in England, and
it was part of why I believe they were able to so quickly apprehend
suspects in the terrorist acts over the weekend, and that is they have
cameras all over London and other of their major cities,” Lieberman
said.
Source: The Hill, July 1, 2007
PC mandate gone wild: Christian books yanked
Hundreds of Christian books are
disappearing off the shelves of U.S. prisons under a federal directive
intended to prevent violent inmates from receiving radical Islamic texts, prompting a lawsuit.
Source: WorldNetDaily, June 11, 207
GPS tracking of offenders
The small, blue, waterproof device straps to an offender’s ankle and tracks their movements using GPS technology.
Source: The Morning Deseret News, June 3, 2007
Emergency detention plan: ‘This way to the camps!’
Halliburton’s former engineering
and construction subsidiary has a contingency contract with the
Department of Homeland Security to construct detention facilities in the
event of a national emergency, according to WND columnist Jerome Corsi.
Source: WorldNetDaily, May 30, 2007
Google’s goal: to organise your daily life
Google’s
ambition to maximise the personal information it holds on users is so
great that the search engine envisages a day when it can tell people
what jobs to take and how they might spend their days off.
Source: Financial Times, May 22, 2007
Pentagon to Merge Next-Gen Binoculars With Soldiers’ Brains
U.S. Special Forces may soon have a strange and powerful
new weapon in their arsenal: a pair of high-tech binoculars 10 times
more powerful than anything available today, augmented by an alerting
system that literally taps the wearer’s prefrontal cortex to warn of
furtive threats detected by the soldier’s subconscious.
Wired, May 1, 2007
2006D-0480
– Draft Guidance for Industry on Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Products and Their Regulation by the Food and Drug Administration;
Availability
The deadline for public comment has been extended to 05/29/2007
“The Food and Drug Administration (FDA, we) is announcing the
availability of a draft guidance for industry entitled “Complementary
and Alternative medicine Products and Their Regulation by the Food and
Drug Administration.” In recent years, the use of complementary and
alternative medicine (CAM) products has increased in the United States,
and we have seen increased confusion as to whether certain products used
in CAM are subject to regulation under the Federal Food, Drug, and
Cosmetic Act (“the Act”) or Public Health Service Act “PHS Act”). We
have also seen an increase in the number of CAM products imported into
the United States. Therefore, the draft guidance discusses when a CAM
product is subject to the Act or the PHS Act.”
Christians in bull’s-eye in new ‘hate crimes’ plan
A fast-tracked congressional plan
to add special protections for homosexuals to federal law would turn
“thoughts, feelings, and beliefs” into criminal offenses and put
Christians in the bull’s-eye, according to opponents.
Source: WorldNetDaily, April 26, 2007
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