The number of Americans being secretly wiretapped or having their financial and other records reviewed by the government has continued to increase as officials aggressively use powers approved after the Sept. 11 attacks. But the number of terrorism prosecutions ending up in court -- one measure of the effectiveness of such sleuthing -- has continued to decline, in some cases precipitously. The trends, visible in new government data and a private analysis of Justice Department records, are worrisome to civil liberties groups and some legal scholars. They say it is further evidence that the government has compromised the privacy rights of ordinary citizens without much to show for it. The emphasis on spy programs also is starting to give pause to some members of Congress who fear the government is investing too much in anti-terrorism programs at the expense of traditional crime-fighting. Other lawmakers are raising questions about how well the FBI is performing its counter-terrorism mission.
A hacker broke into Chile's government sites mining data from six million people which he then posted on the Internet on two popular servers for several hours, the El Mercurio daily have said. The personal data included names, street and email addresses, telephone numbers, social and educational background, and was taken from Education Ministry, Electoral Service and state-run telephone companies' websites from late Saturday to early Sunday.
According to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner's annual report, which was published this morning, 1,037 new complaint investigations were initiated last year, up from 658 in 2006. The Data Protection Commissioner Billy Hawkes attributed the substantial increase in cases to a rise in complaints in relation to unsolicited text (SMS) messages. A total of 390 complaints about unsolicited text messages were received in 2007, equivalent to 38 per cent of all complaints received.
EPIC filed a �friend of the court� brief (pdf) today in federal appellate court urging support for opt-in safeguards for telephone customers. The brief was filed on behalf of consumer and privacy organizations, technical experts, and legal scholars. At issue is the Federal Communications Commission�s Order that protects consumers' telephone record information, which the National Cable and Telecommunications Association has challenged. "Consumers have a legitimate expectation of privacy with respect to sensitive personal information such as whom they call on a telephone," the brief said. "An opt-out policy would provide neither adequate protection for consumer data nor sufficient notice to consumers."
NCTA v. FCC, Electronic Privacy Information Center, May 6, 2008.
D.C. Council members bypassed by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty in his plans to consolidate thousands of city cameras have moved to block funding for the program until it is better regulated. "That's what we're trying to do," said council member Phil Mendelson, chairman of the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary, which agreed last week to remove funding for the program in the fiscal 2009 budget. The Fenty administration's Video Interoperability for Public Safety program will consolidate roughly 5,200 cameras operated by District agencies into one network managed by the city's Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.
Speaker Pro Tem Bob Robson's latest battle against identity theft was signed into state law April 16. HB2587 requires creditors to verify a consumer's address before extending credit if the address differs from the one on record and verify the identity of a consumer if they do not use consumer credit reports. "Identity theft is all too prevalent in Arizona and companies need to take every reasonable step to prevent this fraud," Robson, R-Chandler, said.
Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe. The warning comes from the head of the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Viido) at New Scotland Yard.
Independent investigators on Monday alleged that Gov. Matt Blunt or his top aides ordered state computer technicians to destroy copies of e-mail messages that might have been politically damaging. The accusations came in a 26-page lawsuit (pdf) filed in Cole County Circuit Court by Mel Fisher, the former head of the Missouri Highway Patrol, who is leading the investigation into the Blunt administration�s handling of public records.
The D.C. government is launching a system today that would tie together thousands of city-owned video cameras, but authorities don't yet have the money to complete the high-tech network or privacy rules in place to guide it. The system will feature round-the-clock monitoring of the closed-circuit video systems run by nine city agencies. In the first phase, about 4,500 cameras trained on schools, public housing, traffic and government buildings will feed into a central office at the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. Hundreds more will be added this year. Civil libertarians and D.C. Council members say the network is being rushed into place without sufficient safeguards to protect privacy.
