Warantless Wiretapping Gets Oversight?
Read about it here.
The question is, what will happen now that it's being monitored by the court that should have been monitoring it in the first place? Why is Bush allowing this? It can only be because he thinks they won't do anything about it.
.... [Click here to read the rest of this post]Tags: Big Brother, George Bush, Warantless WiretappingBest Buy Fights the Devil
Sixwise gives and in-depth review of Best Buy's plan to "actively…eliminate " what they call "devil" customers. I've written about this before, but I like how they list specific actions that could land you on the "blacklist".
Most notably, this is the advent of .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Tags: Angels and Demons, Big Brother, Market LiesPretexting Becomes Illegal
From the Ars Technica article:
Under the new law, anyone attempting to "knowingly and intentionally" acquire the phone records of a third party by making false representations to a phone company or selling such illegally obtained records will face up to ten years in prison and fines. Is it just me or does this seem really wrong? Why did we have to make a law about .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Tags: Congress, RegulationFBI Aren’t Snooping Alone – CIA and Military Take and Keep Info
Here's a snippet from Ars Technica about how it's not just the FBI abusing power these days. From the article:
Wired's Ryan Singel adds a bit more to the story with the tidbit that the Pentagon plans to hang on to the records and feed them .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]Federal Trade Commission Seeks Public Comment on ID Theft
From the FTC website:
Notice for public comment: The Federal Identity Theft Task Force, chaired by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and co-chaired by Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras, is seeking public comment on ways to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of federal government efforts to reduce identity theft. What could I tell .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Tags: FTC, FTC Task Force, Identity TheftPASS Card Has RFID Too
EPIC reports that the Department of Homeland Security is creating a passport-like system that will be required for travelers between the US, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda. This "passport" will contain RFID and very little security. From the article:
The federal government has been increasingly using RFID technology .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]Spy Coins?
CNN posted an article about tiny transmitters embedded in some Canadian coins and planted on contractors with security clearance. From the article:
In a U.S. government warning high on the creepiness scale, the Defense Department cautioned its American contractors over what it described as a new espionage threat: .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]City Surveillance Cameras Show Slaying
Schneier reports on a murder that was captured on a city camera system. He clearly thinks that such systems are pointless though the article seems to present it as being good (it caught a thief after all).
By using the worst possible scenario, however unlikely, it becomes easy to scare people into supporting something you personally want. When .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Tags: Big Brother, Camera Surveillance, CamerasHow’s The Cloned Meat Taste?
Sixwise reports on the FDA approval of cloned meat and milk. Most notably, there will be no notification required. Quoted from the article:
"When they deny us mandatory labels, they don't just deny us the right to choose", said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety (CFS). "They also deny .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]E-voting in Trouble Again
According to EFF:
Colorado-based Ciber, Inc., the largest laboratory that tests software used in U.S. voting systems, has been temporarily banned from approving new systems following problems discovered last summer by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC).
The EAC found that Ciber was not following proper quality- control procedures and could not document that it was conducting all .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
