PogoWasRight - Other Privacy News

Bob Barr, a former GOP congressman, is running for president as a Libertarian

Tue, 13 May 2008 06:39:44 -0400

Bob Barr, a onetime Republican congressman from Georgia, on Monday announced his plan to run for president as a Libertarian, promising to rein in federal spending and limit military involvement abroad.... Barr, who left the Republican Party two years ago, is expected to win the Libertarian Party's nomination during its convention this month in Denver.

Source - Los Angeles Time

Related - National Review: Interview

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Sutil's relief after police stop blackmail attempt (updated)

Sat, 10 May 2008 08:52:54 -0400

[Formula 1 driver Adrian] Sutil was thankful to the police for foiling a recent attempt by a blackmailer to get money out of him.

Following the Spanish GP two weeks ago, Sutil was approached by a man asking for money in exchanging for an old computer hard drive of Sutil's that contained private information.

The police were called in and soon caught the blackmailer bringing to an end a trying time for the Force India driver.

"When I came back from Barcelona there was a guy who had the hard disk of my old computer because my father had thrown it away about two years ago," he told Reuters.

Source - Planet F1

Related - Telegraph

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Solove: Understanding Privacy

Fri, 02 May 2008 15:50:51 -0400

Privacy lawyer Dan Solove has a new book out, Understanding Privacy. Here's the publisher's blurb on it:

Privacy is one of the most important concepts of our time, yet it is also one of the most elusive. As rapidly changing technology makes information more and more available, scholars, activists, and policymakers have struggled to define privacy, with many conceding that the task is virtually impossible.

In this concise and lucid book, Daniel J. Solove offers a comprehensive overview of the difficulties involved in discussions of privacy and ultimately provides a provocative resolution. He argues that no single definition can be workable, but rather that there are multiple forms of privacy, related to one another by family resemblances. His theory bridges cultural differences and addresses historical changes in views on privacy. Drawing on a broad array of interdisciplinary sources, Solove sets forth a framework for understanding privacy that provides clear, practical guidance for engaging with relevant issues.

Understanding Privacy will be an essential introduction to long-standing debates and an invaluable resource for crafting laws and policies about surveillance, data mining, identity theft, state involvement in reproductive and marital decisions, and other pressing contemporary matters concerning privacy.

You can Download the first chapter to get a sense of the book, which can be ordered from Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble

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Changing privacy expectations? (commentary)

Thu, 01 May 2008 06:36:30 -0400

As Miriam Simun from our Digital Natives team is off this morning to present our research findings on digital natives and their attitudes towards privacy at the Harvard CRCS Privacy and Security seminar series, news comes from Italy that the Agenzia delle Entrate � the department of revenue - has made available online for all to see citizens� annual incomes, searchable by anyone with an Internet connection. After a few hours the site was up it got clogged with requests, while protests started to come in for the breach of tax payers� privacy. The Garante della Privacy intervened later in the day to stop the data from being released online.

What�s interesting about this story is that one might expect general outrage at the revenue department�s initiative to make such highly personal data public. But a quick look at two online opinion polls published by two of the major national newspapers shows that the outrage is not as widespread as it might be believed.

Source - Corinna di Genarro blog

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Conference: Computers, Freedom, and Privacy

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:29:18 -0400

I just wanted to announce that the preliminary program for the 2008 Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference (in New Haven, CT) has been announced. The theme this year is "Technology Policy '08," and it includes several topical panels for the election year:

Presidential Technology Policy: Priorities for the Next ExecutiveStates as Incubators of ChangeActivism and Education Using Social NetworksNetwork Neutrality: Beyond the Slogans

Discounted early bird registration closes this Friday, but general registration is open until 5/23. The conference is also looking for bloggers!

Source - Concurring Opinions

Thanks to Frank Pasquale for sending this pointer along.

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Hooker's laid bare on show

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:52:04 -0400

So much for the safety of shadows.

A Manhattan hooker interviewed by Diane Sawyer for an ABC special on prostitution was busted by her mom - who recognized her daughter, despite the network's efforts to disguise her.

"I'm mentioning the interview now because last night, I learned that my parents tuned in to ABC that fateful day and promptly recognized me, in spite of the silhouette, the altered voice, the distorted profile, the vague and thoroughly dated details," wrote the hooker, who blogs on wordpress.com under the name "debauchette."

Source - NY Post

Related - Jonathan Turley comments on the potential for a lawsuit.

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"We have met the enemy" (commentary)

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:44:00 -0400

For Earth Day, 1970, cartoonist Walt Kelly created a poster with the now-famous caption, "We have met the enemy and he is us." A year later, Kelly produced a two-panel cartoon strip, part of which appears on the home page of this web site.

While the phrase -- a take-off on a message from a famous military battle, "We have met the enemy, and they are ours" -- became forever associated with Earth Day and the environment, The Pogo Papers included strips with two characters Kelly had introduced to the swamp to satirize McCarthyism, and Kelly used the forward to The Pogo Papers to explain:

"Specializations and markings of individuals everywhere abound in such profusion that major idiosyncrasies can be properly ascribed to the mass. Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle.
"There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blast on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.

"Forward!"

So here we are in 2008, and just as McCarthyism became a plague on our country in the 1950's by capitalizing on fear, uncertainty, and doubt, we continue to allow the erosion of our most basic protections and freedoms in the name of shadowy enemies and threats of attacks. FUD was a wrong-headed strategy in the 1950s and it's still a wrong-headed strategy, yet this administration continues to try to browbeat us into sacrificing liberty and privacy for their notion of security.

Pogo was right. And this site will continue to wave our lone little flag and blast our tiny trumpet in a call to fight the enemies of our privacy and liberty. We welcome the new readers who join us each month, and thank our long-time readers for making this site one of the top-ranked privacy news sites anywhere.

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From DNA of Family, a Tool to Make Arrests

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 06:34:10 -0400

He was a church-going father of two, and for more than 30 years Dennis Rader eluded police in the Wichita area, killing 10 people and signing taunting letters with a self-styled monogram: BTK, for Bind Torture Kill. In the end, it was a DNA sample that tied BTK to his crimes. Not his own DNA. But his daughter's.

Investigators obtained a court order without the daughter's knowledge for a Pap smear specimen she had given five years earlier at a university medical clinic in Kansas. A DNA profile of the specimen almost perfectly matched the DNA evidence taken from several BTK crime scenes, leading detectives to conclude she was the child of the killer. That allowed police to secure an arrest warrant in February 2005 and end BTK's murderous career.

The BTK case was an early use of an emerging tool in law enforcement: analyzing the DNA of a suspect's relatives. Source - Washington Post

Source -

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Fresno chamber seeks data for candidate checks

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:34:35 -0400

The Fresno Chamber of Commerce is causing a stir -- and apparently plowing new political ground -- by asking candidates who want its support to reveal their Social Security and driver's license numbers.

Chamber officials asked for the information so they could conduct background checks on candidates.

[...]

Fresno County Supervisor Susan B. Anderson, who is seeking re-election, provided the information sought by the chamber, "but it does make me feel a little bit uncomfortable. I don't think that people who are running for office should have to give their personal information for endorsements, and no other group has asked for that."

The chamber's request is not new. It has asked candidates for this information for at least the past four years, Smith said. But this is the first time anyone has objected, likely because of the increased attention being given to identity theft, he said.

Source - Fresno Bee

hat-tip, The California Majority Report

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Privacy becoming more elusive for Americans

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:34:00 -0400

Individuals might treasure their personal data like Social Security and credit-card numbers, but identity thieves can buy them cheap and in bulk online.

Credit-card numbers can now go for as little as 40 cents each. A matching name, Social Security number, address, and date of birth cost just $2.00, according to security experts.

Even as the incidences of identity theft reach record highs, the government and private institutions continue to collect record amounts of personal, private data.

And despite all of the rules, regulations, and software innovations in place to ensure that information doesn't fall into the wrong hands, it does, and regularly.

Source - Christian Science Monitor

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Women More Likely Than Men To Surrender Security For Chocolate

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 07:26:47 -0400

Women are four times more likely than men to surrender their computer passwords for chocolate, according to a survey of 576 office workers conducted outside Liverpool Street Station in London by Infosecurity Europe.

Source - InformationWeek

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What a librarian can teach you about privacy

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:07:23 -0400

Librarians will go a long way to defend the privacy of their patrons' reading habits. How far will you go to defend the privacy of your customers' information and your employees' personal data?

In 2003, the chief librarian of the city of Santa Cruz, Calif., was able to warn her patrons about whether the FBI had served a National Security Letter (NSL) demanding information about who was reading what books. She managed that task despite specific provisions in the USA Patriot Act at the time that prohibited librarians or booksellers from revealing to anyone that they'd been issued an NSL.

So, how did the librarian get the word out? By regularly reporting to the library board that no NSL had been issued to any of the city's 10 branches, which was perfectly legal. Everyone knew that if the chief librarian failed to report that nothing had happened, then indeed an NSL had been served.

Source - Computerworld

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