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OMB sponsors online discussion of privacy issues
OMB sponsors online discussion of privacy issues, By Nancy Ferris, FCW, October 23, 2008.
The Office of Management and Budget has asked the National Academy of Public Administration to hold a public discussion this month of health care privacy issues through an interactive Web site. The “National Dialogue on Health Information Technology and Privacy” will take place the week of Oct. 27 at www.thenationaldialogue.org.The site is also using Twitter (use tag #nationaldialogue) and Youtube (see: http://www.youtube.com/user/natldialogue). "A panel of academy fellows will review the postings and produce a report in December with recommendations for the new administration." Continue reading
Why the Viacom YouTube Suit Is Important To Documents Librarians
As you probably know, early this month, a judge ordered Google, which owns YouTube, to turn over to Viacom records of which users watched which videos on YouTube. (Google Told to Turn Over User Data of YouTube by Miguel Helft, New York Times, July 4, 2008.) As the Times noted, "The amount of data covered by the order is staggering, as it includes every video watched on YouTube since its founding in 2005. In April alone, 82 million people in the United States watched 4.1 billion clips there.... Some experts say virtually every Internet user has visited YouTube." What relevance does this have for documents librarians and government-information-using-citizens? Simply, this: whenever an information provider collects and retains records of information use it puts the privacy of information users at risk regardless of its own intentions. As an editorial in the Los Angeles Times said yesterday:
...the lawsuit illustrates how YouTube threatens its users' privacy simply by collecting and retaining so much data. Just because Viacom isn't interested in users' identities doesn't mean that other copyright holders, law enforcement agencies or aggrieved parties won't be. Stanton's order is a reminder that websites shouldn't retain personally identifiable data any longer than the law or their services require. Google argues that the data enable it to improve its services, combat fraud and personalize offerings. Its approach, though, reflects an engineer's habit of hoarding information for the sake of as-yet-unimagined features, not the cautious practices of a privacy-conscious company.See also Will GPO guarantee user privacy? Can it? Nevada Library Assn presentation: Privacy Privacy: "I have nothing to hide" Privacy and the "Terrorist Surveillance Act" Continue reading
-- Why is YouTube hoarding data?, Los Angeles Times, July 10, 2008.
Police State 2.0 is ready for export to a neighborhood near you
A new, in-depth story by Naomi Klein examines "Golden Shield," China's prototype for a high-tech police state. She says that China is building its systems with the help of U.S. defense contractors, that the global homeland-security business is bigger than Hollywood and the music industry combined, and that the U.S. Government is mining China's experiences for ideas for its own surveillance programs.
- China's All-Seeing Eye, by Naomi Klein, Rollingstone, May 29, 2008. "Like everything else assembled in China with American parts, Police State 2.0 is ready for export to a neighborhood near you."
Klein says that the United States is providing China's rulers with something even more valuable than surveillance technology: "...the ability to claim that they are just like us. Liu Zhengrong, a senior official dealing with China's Internet policy, has defended Golden Shield and other repressive measures by invoking the Patriot Act and the FBI's massive e-mail-mining operations." And, the Chinese rationalize surveillance of their own citizens the same way many do in the United States: "If you are a law-abiding citizen, you shouldn't be afraid... The criminals are the only ones who should be afraid." (See also: Privacy: "I have nothing to hide" and Privacy and the "Terrorist Surveillance Act.")
Klein notes that human-rights activists say that although the surveillance tools used by China and the U.S. are the same, the political contexts are radically different. "China has a government that uses its high-tech web to imprison and torture peaceful protesters, Tibetan monks and independent-minded journalists." But she also notes that Guantánamo Bay, the erosion of the Fourth Amendment prohibition against illegal searches and seizures, and the fact that the U.S. currently has more people behind bars than China despite a population less than a quarter of its size all mean that "the lines are getting awfully blurry."
What relevance does this have for government information specialists? As we at FGI have pointed out before, when the only "authentic" copy of government information is available from government-controlled computers rather than from privacy-protecting libraries, the freedom to read is eroded and the infrastructure for government spying on what you are reading is enabled. (See also: Will GPO guarantee user privacy? Can it?.)
See also: China's Golden Shield: Corporations and the Development of Surveillance Technology in the People's Republic of China, by Greg Walton, October 2001, Rights & Democracy.
Continue readingSenators Ask FBI to Explain Flawed ‘National Security Letter’ to Internet Archive
Senators Ask FBI to Explain Flawed 'National Security Letter' to Internet Archive, By Ryan Singel, Wired Blog, May 15, 2008.
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators is asking FBI head Robert Mueller to explain why the feds sought records from the Internet Archive, a digital library, using a controversial administrative subpoena known as a National Security Letter, which is intended for a communications service providers.... Specifically, they asked Mueller if the FBI actually believed that the Internet Archive was an communications service provider. If it were, FBI agents could get subscriber records using an NSL under the auspices of the Electronic Communications Protection Act. But if the Internet Archive is a library, that subpoena would be inapplicable and possibly illegal. That would mean that the NSL should be reported to the Intelligence Oversight Board as a possible violation of law. The senators are asking Mueller if the Internet Archive subpoena actually was reported to the board.Continue reading
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