amendments

Privacy groups target Google Flu Trends

Google's recent announcement that it may have found a way to predict U.S. flu trends has led to the inevitable expressions of concern from some privacy groups.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center and Patient Privacy Rights sent a letter this week to Google CEO Eric Schmidt saying if the records are "disclosed and linked to a particular user, there could be adverse consequences for education, employment, insurance, and even travel." It asks for more disclosure about how Google Flu Trends protects privacy.

In reality, Google is releasing precisely zero personally identifiable information about its users.

Instead, … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 842: Forking Google

Google has joined the OpenID crowd, but just like Microsoft and Yahoo, you can't use the OpenID on Google, but you can use Google credentials other places. Unlike Microsoft and Yahoo though, Google has decided to tweak the OpenID implementation a little to make it better. That means that it's nonstandard and won't work for all standards-compliant OpenID servers. Bullies. We also admire the new DRM-free music store from clothing retailer, Hot Topic. Really.

Listen now: Download today's podcast Episode 842

TiVo to stream Netflix http://newteevee.com/2008/10/29/october-surprise-tivo-to-stream-netflix/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10078711-1.html… Read more

A great day for individual freedom

Thursday was a great day for all of us in the United States of America.

In its ruling on the case District of Columbia v. Heller, our Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment to the US Constitution means what it plainly says: the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right.

In its decision (available here, along with the dissenting opinions), the Court rejected decades of mendacious propaganda from… Read more

Let go of my texts--all 75,000 of them! The 9th Circuit speaks

Being an attorney with an iPhone, I've wondered about the privacy of my SMS-text messages and whether they can be withheld from prying eyes. I don't mean that dinner date across from you, but in a larger sense. Think about what we've all begun to say via text messages: Carrie Underwood got dumped this way and Detroit's mayor was brought down by his text messages, for example. Like it or not, texting has become a communication medium that is here to stay, meaning that the contents of those messages are also susceptible to legal discovery, i.… Read more

Feds appeal loss in PGP compelled-passphrase case

It's time to take another look at the intriguing case of United States v. Boucher, which may set the ground rules for whether or not criminal defendants can be compelled to divulge encryption passphrases.

When I last wrote about the Boucher case, the U.S. Department of Justice was refusing to comment on the matter. Here's my original article from last month for background.

The case arose because federal agents believe Boucher has child pornography on his laptop, and obtained a warrant to search it. But part of the hard drive was PGP-encrypted, and the Feds obtained a … Read more

DOJ: No comment on forcing encryption passphrases

The U.S. Department of Justice won't say when it believes an American citizen should be forced to divulge his or her PGP passphrase.

We've been trying for the last two days to get the DOJ to answer this question, which became an important one after last week's news about a judge ruling a criminal defendant can't be forced to divulge his passphrase on Fifth Amendment grounds.

The Fifth Amendment, of course, protects the right to avoid self-incrimination.

In the case of U.S. v. Sebastien Boucher, federal prosecutors think that the defendant has child pornography … Read more

Judge: Man can't be forced to divulge encryption passphrase

A federal judge in Vermont has ruled that prosecutors can't force a criminal defendant accused of having illegal images on his hard drive to divulge his PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) passphrase.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerome Niedermeier ruled that a man charged with transporting child pornography on his laptop across the Canadian border has a Fifth Amendment right not to turn over the passphrase to prosecutors. The Fifth Amendment protects the right to avoid self-incrimination.

Niedermeier tossed out a grand jury's subpoena that directed Sebastien Boucher to provide "any passwords" used with his Alienware laptop. "… Read more

Appeals court overturns law targeting 'sexually explicit' photos

A federal appeals court has struck down, on First Amendment grounds, a long-standing requirement forcing people who produce "sexually explicit" images to keep detailed records about their operations.

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday (click for PDF) that the "2257" record-keeping requirements--which bedeviled the adult industry because they apply even to Web sites that "reproduce" sexually explicit material--are overly broad and violate Americans' free-speech rights.

Tuesday's ruling is a remarkable win for adult publishers, not just because of the weighty nature of the regulations but also because the lawsuit has … Read more

Court attempts to hide FBI threats to innocent man's family

An open government is central to democracy; most people would argue that certain information must be kept secret to protect national security and to preserve privacy rights, but the government should not be able to remove important details simply because they might make them look bad. In Higazy v. Templeton, a recent case before the U.S. Court of Appeals 2nd circuit, the decision was posted on the web last Thursday, but removed almost immediately.

During the brief time the opinion was online, Howard Bashman from How Appealing managed to save a copy that he has posted online.

After being … Read more