ThePrivacyMovement

The United States, Canada, and 27 European countries will celebrate the second annual Data Privacy Day. Participating organizations include Intel, International Association of Privacy Professionals, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario and others. Here is a link to Intel’s website about it.

This is a hopeful ray of sunshine in a dark internet world of data harvesting, marketing and spam. If companies like Intel continue to support this cause then we have a brighter future.

Happy U.S. presidential inauguration day! Did you take off a few minutes of work to watch the inauguration? I wasn’t going to, was planning to just catch videos on the news sites or YouTube later, but then I did, and I’m glad; it was so historical and memorable!

To celebrate, how about I tell you that NIST just made a great new document available…

—–

New Guidelines for Safeguarding Personal Data

The American Civil Liberties Union is hoping a kinder, gentler Obama administration will disclose secret documents detailing the legal basis for the previous administration’s rationale for supporting torture and warrantless surveillance.

The memos are being sought from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, the White House’s legal adviser. The Bush administration had refused the ACLU’s bid to obtain the documents via a Freedom of Information Act request.

But last week, President Barack Obama announced his administration would roll back the secrecy that surrounded the Bush Administration, and called on government agencies to err on the side of openness and release information whenever possible.

“Releasing the memos would allow the public to better understand the legal basis for the Bush administration’s national security policies; to better understand the role that the OLC played in developing, justifying and advocating those policies; and to participate more meaningfully in the ongoing debate about national security, civil liberties and human rights,” the ACLU wrote the Office of Legal Counsel on Wednesday…

http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired27b/~3/tcQ7DLrCPlc/aclu-demands-ea.html

—–

U.S. Consulate in Israel Auctions Sensitive Information

http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired27b/~3/g-1sLT-kNDg/us-consulate-in.html

I was at an ISACA meeting earlier this week, and over lunch I got into an interesting conversation with a group there about whether or not streaming video feeds were going to be allowed or blocked at the firewall during the inauguration of Barack Obama as U.S. president this coming Tuesday. Some views were that it was an historic event, that most people would not be working any way, and that to maintain goodwill with personnel the streaming videos would be allowed. Others said they would block the streaming video to maintain workable bandwidth, but they were setting up TV monitors throughout the facilities to allow personnel to view if they so chose to; allowing no network impact to others in the company who continued to work.

—–

Random thoughts: Network or security changes on inauguration day (1/20)?

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/RebeccaHeroldOnCompliancePrivacyAndInformationSecurity/~3/515363688/random_thoughts_network_or_sec.htm

Another case where an insider is able to avoid security precautions and access data gathered for other purposes. From the New York Times:
A New York City police sergeant pleaded guilty on Wednesday to illegally entering a federal database and giving information from a terrorist watch list to an acquaintance to use in a child-custody case in [...]

—–

New York Times: Sergeant Pleads Guilty to Misusing Terror-Watch Database

http://www.privacylives.com/new-york-times-sergeant-pleads-guilty-to-misusing-terror-watch-database/2009/01/16/

The Recording Industry Association of America on Friday urged a U.S. judge to stay her Wednesday decision allowing for the first time an internet broadcast of a federal trial court proceeding, in this case pretrial oral arguments in an RIAA file sharing lawsuit….

—–

RIAA Appealing Decision Allowing Internet Broadcast of File Sharing Court Hearing

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wired27b/~3/2QRai6oVmDQ/riaa-appealing.html

Bullies Worse than Predators On Social Networks

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wired27b/~3/tnx-4d5Lo2Y/bullies-worse-t.html

Online Burger Promotion Pulled After Going Too Viral

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wired27b/~3/qszuZvdGOck/online-burger-p.html

The internet will get a chance to watch live as lawyers spar in a Recording Industry Association of America file sharing lawsuit this month, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner of Massachusetts granted over-the-internet coverage for a Jan. 22 motions hearing in the RIAA’s lawsuit against Boston University student Joel Tenenbaum and others. The defendants are seeking to dismiss allegations they shared copyrighted music over peer-to-peer networks.

The RIAA opposed the broadcast, requested by the defendant’s attorney, Charles Nesson, a Harvard University legal scholar. On Wednesday, the judge called the RIAA’s position “curious.”

“At previous hearings and status conferences, the Plaintiffs have represented that they initiated these lawsuits not because they believe they will identify every person illegally downloading copyrighted material. Rather, they believe that the lawsuits will deter the Defendants and the wider public from engaging in illegal file-sharing activities. Their strategy effectively relies on the publicity resulting from this litigation,” she ruled.

The ruling is groundbreaking. Federal trial courts rarely, if ever, permit still pictures or live feeds from their courtrooms, though appeals courts are more open. Most states allow some type of photography, and vest the decision
exclusively with the judge presiding over the case.

Many state judges began barring cameras in court following the O.J. Simpson murder
trial. But Judge Gertner is an outspoken proponent of cameras in the courtroom, and she noted that the law does not prohibit them.

“Nothing in the local rules of the District Court of Massachusetts, the policies of the Judicial Council for the First Circuit, life, or logic suggests that this motion should be denied,” she
ruled(.pdf).

In September 2007, Gertner
testifiedon Capitol Hill that “public proceedings in the 21st century necessarily mean televised proceedings.” She said “the vast majority of the American public get information about courts through screens — television or the internet.”

The internet feed will be provided by
Courtroom View Networkand will be funneled to the
Berkman Center for Internet and Societyat Harvard Law School, which will broadcast the hearing live. Trial in the case is scheduled for March 30. Cameras have only been granted for the 2 p.m. Eastern, Jan. 22 hearing….

—–

In Internet First, RIAA File Sharing Hearing to Be Webcast

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wired27b/~3/EuAVtZUnJDQ/riaa-court-hear.html