A senior Bush administration official on Tuesday played down claims by rights activists that the federal government assigns terror risk scores to millions of people who enter or leave the United States. The U.S. Automated Targeting System, or ATS, a computerized program that collects personal data on travelers and retains it for up to 40 years, has come under fire in recent weeks from rights activists who say it violates privacy laws and a congressional funding ban.
It's not every Election Day that voters can cast a ballot to banish thousands of people to the hinterlands, but Californians did just that last month, and eagerly so. Seventy percent voted to ban registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park, effectively outlawing them from many residential areas in the state. The crackdown on residency applies to all registered sex offenders, including those convicted of a misdemeanor, such as indecent exposure. Most notably, felony sex offenders will now be tracked 24 hours a day, seven days a week, via GPS (global positioning system), even after they're out of prison and off parole. The state senator and advocates behind the proposition call the GPS devices a necessary and vital tool to control sexual criminals.
In what appears to be one of the largest computer security breaches ever at an American university, one or more hackers have gained access to a UCLA database containing personal information on about 800,000 of the university's current and former students, faculty and staff members, among others. UCLA officials said the attack on a central campus database exposed records containing the names, Social Security numbers and birth dates � the key elements of identity theft � for at least some of those affected. The attempts to break into the database began in October 2005 and ended Nov. 21, when the suspicious activity was detected and blocked, the officials said.
A revised version of a report from the Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee, a subcommittee of the Privacy Office of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was cleared for publication at a Dec. 6 meeting of the committee in Miami Beach, Fla. The report, titled "The Use of RFID for Human Identification," will now be sent to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, as well as the DHS's chief privacy officer.
The next generation of international travel security is already here, but whether the new passports will fly with travelers is still up in the air. The passports that the U.S. State Department started issuing in August contain embedded computer chips that transmit data about their holders to remote electronic "readers." That technology is part of a broader area of the security business known as "track and trace." Despite the growing popularity of the systems, they're not without controversy. When attached to important documents like passports, the wireless computer chips that contain personal data have sparked worries about identity theft, despite layers of technology designed to thwart thieves.
The Senate passed legislation last night that would make it a federal crime to obtain a person�s telephone records without permission, an act known as pretexting. The measure, which was approved by unanimous consent last night and is similar to a bill passed earlier in the House, imposes a fine of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to 10 years for duping telephone companies into divulging the calling records of private individuals. The penalties can go up under special circumstances, like cases involving domestic abuse.
Malaysia's government, hoping to thwart car thieves, will embed license plates with microchips containing information about the vehicle and its owner, a news report said Saturday. With the chips in use, officials can scan cars at roadblocks and identify stolen vehicles, the New Straits Times reported. The "e-plate" chip system is the latest strategy to prevent car thieves from getting away with their crimes by merely changing the plates, the report said.
Larry Overley, president of Landtech Contractors, doesn't have to wonder whether his employees are where they are supposed to be during the work day. Global Positioning System transmitters in each of the 50 trucks the landscaping company operates let him know where they are. "It cuts down on guys leaving the job site. It helps us with our payroll costs because guys can't fudge on their time sheet. We know when they get to the job, and we know when they leave the job," he said. The company is one of a growing number using GPS to keep track of workers, said Chad Orvis, an attorney with the Mountain States Employers Council, which advises businesses on human-resources practices.
A newly revealed system that has been assigning terrorism scores to Americans traveling into or out of the country for the past five years is not merely invasive, privacy advocates charge, it's an illegal violation of limits Congress has placed on the Department of Homeland Security for the last three years. The Identity Project, founded by online rights pioneer John Gilmore, filed official objections to the Automated Targeting System, or ATS, on Monday, calling the program clearly illegal. The comment cited a little-known provision in the 2007 Homeland Security funding bill prohibiting government agencies from developing algorithms that assign risk scores to travelers not on government watchlists. By cloaking this prohibited action in a border issue ... the Department of Homeland Security directly and openly contravenes Congress' clear intent," wrote project members Edward Hasbrouck and James Harrison.
Bill Clinton's identity was hidden behind a false name when he went to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital two years ago for heart surgery, but that didn�t stop computer hackers, including people working at the hospital, from trying to get a peek at the electronic records of his medical charts. Powerful forces are lobbying hard for government and private programs that could push the nation�s costly and inefficient health care system into the computer age. But the legislation has bogged down, largely because of differences over how to balance the health care industry�s interest in efficiently collecting, studying and using data with privacy concerns for tens of millions of ordinary Americans.
A new, free service lets you take control of who you wish to talk to on the phone. And its creators believe it could become the next wave of virtual communication. PrivatePhone is a free phone-number and voice-mail service created by NetZeroVoice. All calls go straight to voice mail and you are alerted to the new message via e-mail or through a text message on your cell phone. Users can check the message over the phone or online.
Without notifying the public, federal agents for the past four years have assigned millions of international travelers, including Americans, computer-generated scores rating the risk they pose of being terrorists or criminals. The travelers are not allowed to see or directly challenge these risk assessments, which the government intends to keep on file for 40 years. The scores are assigned to people entering and leaving the United States after computers assess their travel records, including where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered.
Sky Harbor International Airport here will test a new federal screening system that takes X-rays of passenger's bodies to detect concealed explosives and other weapons. The technology, called backscatter, has been around for several years but has not been widely used in the U.S. as an anti-terrorism tool because of privacy concerns.
