CDT makes it easier to file privacy complaints

As part of its new “Take Back Your Privacy” privacy initiative, CDT has launched a Privacy Complaint Tool to facilitate consumers filing complaints with the Federal Trade Commission about web sites or products or services that they believe are violating privacy.

CDT’s Privacy Complaint Tool makes it easy for you to file a consumer privacy complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) — and to tell your friends so that they can be wary of that company or file their own complaints.

If you add their Privacy Complaint Tool bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar, you can simply click on the bookmarklet and then fill out the form that opens in a new window. The tool gives you a choice of filing a complaint with the FTC or sharing it with your friends via Twitter, Facebook, Digg, or email.

The tool does not directly submit your complaint to the FTC, however. According to CDT’s description:

If you choose to file your complaint with the FTC, it will be added to a database maintained by CDT. Approximately once each month, we will transfer collected complaints to the FTC. We are working with the FTC to streamline the process and automate the transfer.

All complaints that are shared with the FTC are placed in the Consumer Sentinel Network, a non-public online database that is used by thousands of civil and criminal law enforcement authorities worldwide. The FTC does not bring individual lawsuits; it may use your complaints as a starting point in investigations of companies that are regularly violating consumer privacy.

The Privacy Complaint Tool privacy policy can be found here. To install it, you just drag the button to your bookmarks toolbar.

Concerned about what CDT might do with the information you enter in the form? Here’s their existing privacy policy for the tool:

This tool is governed my CDT’s Web Site Privacy Policy with the following additions:

• CDT will receive the complaints submitted with this tool and will submit them to the FTC on a monthly or quarterly basis. Within one month of when we submit the complaints, we will remove your name, email address, and any other contact information you provide from our database. We will never retain your name or contact information for longer than four months. As outlined in CDT’s Web Site Privacy Policy, we will not use or share your name, email address, or any other contact information you provide.
• The FTC will receive and store your complaint. You can find the FTC’s Privacy Policy here.
• If you share your complaint on Facebook, Twitter, or Digg, you will be taken off of CDT’s Web site and on to the appropriate social networking site(s). This will not result in cookies being placed on your computer by our Web site, but may result in cookies being placed by the social networking site(s). None of the information you provide when you log in to the social networking site(s) is transmitted to or logged by CDT.
  • You can find Facebook’s Privacy Policy here.
  • You can find Twitter’s Privacy Policy here.

You can find Digg’s Privacy Policy here.

Privacy groups: Add privacy into Google Book Search

Cindy Cohn of EFF writes:

Today EFF along with the ACLU and the privacy authors and publishers they represent, the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries and the Association of College and Research Libraries, CDT, EPIC, SFLC, Professor James Grimmelman sent a joint letter to Google urging it to include privacy protections along with its reconsidered Google Book Search Settlement.

The Court considering the Google Book Search case granted the parties more time to renegotiate the settlement. The Court had received approximately 435 submissions about the settlement by both class members and amici. The American Library Association did a helpful analysis that estimates that 390 of the submissions object to the settlement and another 8 submissions support the settlement but with significant reservations. Shortly thereafter, the Department of Justice weighed in with serious reservations as well, leading the plaintiffs to seek the extension. The Court will still meet with the parties for a status conference on October 7.

Read more on EFF.

Feds improperly seized results of MLB drug tests

Federal officials improperly seized a list of 104 Major League Baseball players who tested positive for steroids in 2003, the 9th Circuit ruled. Agents had a search warrant for drug-test results for 10 players, but found a list of 104 players who had tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003. Officials used the longer list to get more search warrants, copied the entire computer directory and recorded all the players’ names.

The government should have taken only the results of the 10 players listed on the search warrant, the 9th Circuit ruled.

The case springs from the 2004 raid on a Long Beach, Calif., testing facility, during the investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, which was suspected of providing steroids to players.

Read more on Courthouse News.

This case is about much more than baseball. As the court points out, it has implications for the seizure of electronic records and the issues that arise when the government seizes more than what a warrant specifies.

This case is about a federal investigation into steroid use by professional baseball players. More generally, however, it’s about the procedures and safeguards that federal courts must observe in issuing and administering search warrants and subpoenas for electronically stored information.

[...]

Throughout, we take the opportunity to guide our district and magistrate judges in the proper administration of search warrants and grand jury subpoenas for electronically stored information, so as to strike a proper balance between the government’s legitimate interest in law enforcement and the people’s right to privacy and property in their papers and effects, as guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.

You can read the court opinion and dissenting opinion here (pdf)

Update: The Sacramento Bee also has coverage of this decision, as does Threat Level. I expect that there will be a lot of coverage on this decision.

Update 2: See Simple Justice and The Volokh Conspiracy for some good commentary and analysis of the decision.

Does CDT oppose a National ID?

It was good of Ari Schwartz to respond last week to my recent post querying whether the Center for Democracy and Technology outright opposes a national ID or simply “does not support” one.

Ari says CDT does oppose a national ID, and I believe that he honestly believes that. But it’s worth taking a look at whether the group’s actions are consistent with opposition to a national ID. I believe CDT’s actions — most recently its support of the PASS ID Act — support the creation of a national ID.

Read more of Jim Harper’s commentary on Cato@Liberty.

CDT report on privacy concerns surrounding “Einstein”

The Center for Democracy & Technology today released a report outlining a series of privacy and legal questions that surround the government computer monitoring system known as “Einstein.” The report calls on the Administration to release information about the legal authority for Einstein, the role of the nation’s top spy agency, the National Security Agency, in its development and operation, and the impact of Einstein on the privacy.

CDT’s Report on Einstein Cybersecurity System [PDF], July 28, 2009:
http://www.cdt.org/security/20090728_einstein_rpt.pdf

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