The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), those defenders of online free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights, have begun an action to tell Google to protect reader privacy. Please sign the petition and send a clear message to Google CEO Eric Schmidt to protect reader privacy.

You shouldn't be forced to pay for digital books with your privacy. Tell Google it needs to develop a robust privacy policy that gives you at least as much privacy in books online as you have in your neighborhood library or bookstore. Google must:

• Protect your reading records from government and third party fishing expeditions by responding only to properly-issued warrants and court orders, and by letting you know if someone has demanded access to information Google has collected about you.
• Make sure that you can still browse and read anonymously by not forcing you to register or give personal information and by deleting any logging information for all services after a maximum of 30 days.
• Separate data related to Google Book Search from any other information the company collects about you, unless you give it express permission.
• Give you the ability to edit and delete any information collected about you, transfer books from one account to another without tracking, and hide your "bookshelves" or other reading lists from others with access to your computer.
• Keep Google Book Search information private from third parties like credit card processors, book publishers, and advertisers.

And since Google is clearly angling itself as a "library" -- even publishing a "Google librarian newsletter"! -- I would ask all who submit an EFF petition to include the American Library Association's (ALA) Library Bill of Rights and a link to the ALA Intellectual Freedom Manual, which states:

Privacy is essential to the exercise of free speech, free thought, and free association. The courts have established a First Amendment right to receive information in a publicly funded library. Further, the courts have upheld the right to privacy based on the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. Many states provide guarantees of privacy in their constitutions and statute law. Numerous decisions in case law have defined and extended rights to privacy.

In a library (physical or virtual), the right to privacy is the right to open inquiry without having the subject of one’s interest examined or scrutinized by others. Confidentiality exists when a library is in possession of personally identifiable information about users and keeps that information private on their behalf.

Protecting user privacy and confidentiality has long been an integral part of the mission of libraries. The ALA has affirmed a right to privacy since 1939. Existing ALA policies affirm that confidentiality is crucial to freedom of inquiry. Rights to privacy and confidentiality also are implicit in the Library Bill of Rights’ guarantee of free access to library resources for all users.
--Privacy: an interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights

John Gilmore is an open software proponent, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and perhaps most importantly an Archive-It partner (as an independent researcher). His Archive-It collections focus on open access to government information and policy as well as free and open source software.

John has been archiving sites related to wiretapping and the National Security Agency since 2007. Describing the reasons for creating this collection, John says:

"I'm trying to record and make searchable some documents related to the controversy over NSA wiretapping domestically without warrants, or with general warrants, which the Fourth Amendment outlaws. " 

This collection demonstrates how the recent change in administration has opened up further crawler access to the National Security Agency (NSA) website. Previously, most NSA web content was blocked to the Archive-It crawler (as well as other crawlers) using the robots.txt exclusion protocol. Looking at their old exclusion list, for example this one from 2008 you can just how much of their website was blocked from crawler access. (all the directories listed could not be accessed).

Since January 17, 2009 however crawlers have access to much more content.

At the Internet Archive, we have noticed similar changes in other .gov websites including www.whitehouse.gov (compare this version from 2006 to the current exclusion list).

Its exciting to know that moving forward John and other Archive-It partners will be able to collect more complete snapshots of government websites.

-Molly and Lori

Last Wednesday was a pretty dark day for me and millions of other constitution-loving people when Congress passed the the FISA Amendments Act that included retroactive immunity for US telecommunications companies who'd participated in the Bush administration's illegal warrantless wiretapping program of US citizens.

Well, a little ray of sunshine just broke through those dark clouds when, according to Threat Level (Wired News blog), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit Thursday (along with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)), challenging the constitutionality of the act. The ACLU contends (.pdf) that the expanded spying power violates the Constitution's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.

If you can afford it, please consider donating to one or both of those orgs (link to EFF, ACLU) so they can keep up the good fight! (disclosure: I'm a proud EFF member!).

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald has more including a podcast interview with Jameel Jaffer, the Director of the ACLU's National Security Project.

[Thanks BoingBoing!]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has posted the first set (1,138 pages) of documents on the FBI's misuse of national security letter authority that they received from a freedom of information act request. The first of many sets of documents can be viewed here. EFF will release more documents next month and periodically over the coming months as they receive them. Read the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General report revealing extensive misuse of NSLs ("A Review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Use of National Security Letters" [PDF]) that led to the EFF's FOIA request.

• More than 350 pages describing investigative missteps that the FBI considered disclosing to the Intelligence Oversight Board, which receives reports on intelligence gathering activities that violate guidelines, laws, or presidential orders. (See Parts 4, 5, and 6 of the FOIA documents, all PDFs.) These pages detail numerous NSL-related blunders -- most often agents making typographical errors that resulted in receipt of information about the wrong people, and ISPs handing over too much (or wrong) data to the FBI. The Bureau usually did not refer these matters to the Intelligence Oversight Board, often chalking them up to administrative errors or third-party mistakes. The FBI also decided against opening internal investigations into many of the incidents.
• The FOIA documents show, however, that several cases were forwarded to the Board between April 2005 and February 2007. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was copied on these referrals, despite congressional testimony in April 2005 that he was unaware of any civil liberties violations arising from the PATRIOT Act, and a March 2007 speech in which he claimed to be “upset” and "concerned" by the inspector general's findings.
• Copies of more than 60 "exigent letters" [PDF] sent by FBI headquarters to three telecomunications companies. The inspector general determined that the FBI's use of these short form letters, which cryptically asked for telephone records because of unspecified "exigent circumstances," circumvented the law and violated FBI guidelines and policies.
• A government proposal [PDF] to expand the NSL provision of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act written after the inspector general's report was released.
• Various model NSLs, which give us a good sense of what the demands look like, and memos providing guidance on proper use of NSL authority. (See Parts 1 and 2 of the FOIA documents, both PDFs.)

3 in one day! I hope this makes up for the fact that we don't have a guest blogger this month. But rest assured, we've got someone in line for August!

[Thanks BoingBoing!]