Mike Maharrey reports: A Massachusetts House committee has passed a bill that would put limitations on the storage and sharing of information collected by law enforcement agencies using Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) in the state, and place significant roadblocks in the way of a federal program using states to help track the location of millions…
Month: May 2016
Governments Turn to Commercial Spyware to Intimidate Dissidents
Nicole Perlroth reports: In the last five years, Ahmed Mansoor, a human rights activist in the United Arab Emirates, has been jailed and fired from his job, along with having his passport confiscated, his car stolen, his email hacked, his location tracked and his bank account robbed of $140,000. He has also been beaten, twice, in…
For NY lawyer, a 45-year-old surveillance case is her legacy
AP reports: Barbara Handschu barely gave it a thought 45 years ago when she was listed first among plaintiffs in a Vietnam-era lawsuit challenging how New York City police officers conducted surveillance of political activities. “It was a joke. They put me first,” she recalls, chuckling. “I don’t think they thought I’d be the one…
Illinois senator’s plan to weaken biometric privacy law put on hold
Megan Guess reports: Yesterday, Illinois Senator Terry Link filed an amendment to the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) to relax rules on the collection of facial recognition data, and he attached that amendment to an unrelated bill pertaining to unclaimed property. But on Friday morning, the senator’s spokesperson reached out to Ars saying that the bill “had…