Media Coverage - Old Coverage
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Three Arrested After Traffic Camera Aimed At Passersby
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Images from a traffic camera that was used instead to monitor passersby near the University of Alabama led to the arrests of three people allegedly misbehaving on the street, police said Tuesday, Associated Press and NBC13.com (September 17, 2003)
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Activist Gets Year in Jail for Hosting, Link to Bomb Site
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The Online Policy Group (OPG) today condemned the sentencing on August 4 of political activist Sherman Austin to one year in jail for hosting a website describing bomb-making and for linking from his RaiseTheFist.com website to that website, Online Policy Group (August 5, 2003)
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Bill Aims to Curb Net Censorship
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Would-be Internet censors in places such as China and Myanmar could have a tougher time restricting the free flow of information, according to a measure that the U.S. House of Representatives approved, CNET News.com (July 17, 2003)
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UK Government Gets Bitten by Microsoft Word
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The British government is unlikely to use Microsoft Word for creating official documents which are to be released publicly, after the authors of the controversial dossier put out by Britain in February this year were identified by examining the information contained in a Word version of the file, Sydney Morning Herald (July 2, 2003)
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Report: Web Privacy Policies Confuse Net Surfers
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"Privacy policies" that explain a company's Web surveillance habits have done little to dispel confusion among Internet users about how they are tracked online, according to a report, Reuters (June 25, 2003)
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Spam E-Mail Is Reaching Most Children, Study Says
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Four out of every five children receive inappropriate spam e-mail touting get-rich-quick schemes, loan programs and pornographic materials, according to a study released on Monday by Internet security provider Symantec Corp, Reuters (June 9, 2003)
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Privacy Bill Adversely Affects Free Online Speech
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Japan's Internet community is concerned that the privacy-protection bill currently before Parliament could be
abused to restrict freedom of speech and shut down search engines and personal Web sites, Contra Costa Times (April 27, 2003)
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Placing People Before Profit
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Fruchterman's nonprofit, Benetech, has an answer: the Martus Human Rights Bulletin System, a simple database program that helps human rights observers in often low-tech field offices avoid losing their records of police brutality, rapes and other abuses, San Francisco Chronicle (April 14, 2003)
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Activists Turn to Privacy Rights
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On Tuesday, six protesters dressed in business suits entered the San Francisco offices of Autonomy, a British software firm that has contracts with intelligence agencies and the Office of Homeland Security. While others marched outside, the six were swiftly arrested and ushered out of the Howard Street building, Mercury News (April 12, 2003)
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War on Electronic Privacy
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At a party related to the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference, members of the radical party of the European Union's parliament mixed with representatives from human rights group Privaterra and the Open Society Institute and Robert Guerra, a director at Privaterra, explained how his organization goes out into the field to help vulnerable human rights workers use encryption technologies to protect their e-mail, publications and computer use from government snoops, San Francisco Chronicle (April 10, 2003)
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Secure Software Will Help Human Rights Workers
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"The best weapon against innocence being murdered is more information, more quickly, more accurately to the right people who can make a difference," said Jim Fruchterman, the soft-spoken president and chief executive of the nonprofit that created Martus, Palo Alto-based Benetech Initiative, Associated Press via Kansas City Star (March 12, 2003)
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California Research Center at Heart of Data-Mining Storm
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A Defense Department-funded project at the Palo Alto Research Center aims to develop a "privacy firewall" that weeds out identifying information in searchable databases while providing government analysts with enough information to try to identify terrorists, Government Executive Magazine (March 11, 2003)
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Abusive Emailer Jailed for 18 Months
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A radio listener who hounded a veteran presenter with anti-semitic email messages during a six-year campaign of harassment was yesterday jailed for 18 months, The Guardian (March 4, 2003)
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State Supreme Court Hears Chat Room Anonymity Case
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In Pennsylvania, online privacy advocates recently defended the right to anonymous online speech, while opponents argued chat-room comments defamed a superior court judge, North East Pennsylvania News (March 3, 2003)
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Big Brother Knows When You've Got Mail
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Given the continuing assault on cyber freedoms by the Bush administration and Congress, activist Will Doherty warns there's only one way to ensure your online privacy: "If there's anything you're trying to keep private, you should avoid putting it online", Philadelphia Gay News (January 3, 2003)
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Pentagon Data Mining: Just Say 'No'
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Unless you have been living in a cave, you're aware of the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, the goal of which is to accumulate every bit of transactional online data worldwide and use data mining techniques to provide intelligence information, InfoWorld (November 22, 2002)
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Common-Sense Rules Can Protect Children on the Net
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Congress can pass all the laws it wants and civil-liberties groups can challenge those laws, but regardless of what the government does, it's up to parents and kids themselves to assure a safe passage while online, Mercury News (November 20, 2002)
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U.S. Hopes to Check Computers Globally
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A new Pentagon research office has started designing a global computer-surveillance system to give U.S. counterterrorism officials access to personal information in government and commercial databases around the world, Washington Post (November 12, 2002)
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Europeans Outlaw Net Hate Speech
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The Council of Europe has adopted a measure that would criminalize Internet hate speech, including hyperlinks to pages that contain offensive content, Wired News (November 9, 2002)
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Online Angst
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Confidence about privacy remains a major concern for Internet users, according to the newly issued consumer Internet barometer, CBS News (October 16, 2002)
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A Kiddie GPS for the Masses?
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You are a parent with the jitters; you go to RadioShack and buy a casing for your teen's cell phone that tells you his or her whereabouts at all times; you simply log on to a website for a map of the phone's location, Wired News (October 12, 2002)
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FBI Misused Secret Wiretaps, According to Memo
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The FBI illegally videotaped suspects, improperly recorded telephone calls and intercepted e-mails without court permission in more than a dozen secret terrorism and intelligence investigations, according to an internal memorandum obtained by a member of Congress, Washington Post (October 10, 2002)
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Cybercafe Crackdown May Trip Up Leering Boys
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Shahid Masood is a bit down on the Internet these days, although he has never seen anyone who looks like a terrorist at the cybercafe he owns in Pakistan, Lahore Journal via New York Times (July 27, 2002)
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Internet Extends Legal Reach of National Governments
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Police in Italy didn't care that five Web sites they deemed blasphemous and thus illegal were located in the United States, where First Amendment protections apply, Associated Press via SiliconValley.com (July 21, 2002)
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Hacker Group Targets Net Censorship
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Some of the world's best-known hackers unveiled a plan this weekend to offer free software to promote anonymous Web surfing in countries where the Internet is censored, especially China and Middle Eastern nations, Reuters via CNET News (July 14, 2002)
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Retiree Stuck in Netter's Prison
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A 70-year-old man has been in jail for more than three months for refusing to delete from his website addresses and other personal data of employees at the retirement home that evicted him, Associated Press via Wired News (June 6, 2002)
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'Soft Talk: Readers Say They Never Agreed to Share Info
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They contend that Microsoft Corp. changed certain settings in Hotmail, the company's free e-mail service, to share their e-mail address and other data with Microsoft-affiliated Web sites, Eastside Journal (June 3, 2002)
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Ashcroft: Old Rules Aided Terrorists
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Saying that the FBI's own rules have provided terrorists with a "competitive advantage," Attorney General John D. Ashcroft unveiled new guidelines yesterday that will permit agents to more freely conduct surveillance at political rallies and religious gatherings, surf the Internet and mine commercial databases for information, Washington Post (May 31, 2002)
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Shamed FBI's Snooping Powers Increased
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The FBI was given the green light to carry out surveillance in mosques or other religious buildings and to surf the internet for signs of criminal activity under guidelines unveiled yesterday, The Guardian (May 31, 2002)
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New FBI Rules Not Welcomed by All
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Civil liberties groups warned that new terror-fighting guidelines for the FBI could result in a return to the days of domestic spying, CBS (May 31, 2002)
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EU Law Turns ISPs Into Spies?
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A broad coalition of civil liberties groups [including OPG!]
is urging the European
Parliament to reject a proposal that would require European
countries to retain detailed information on citizens' phone and
Internet use for policing purposes, Wired News (May 29, 2002)
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Memo Reveals FBI E-Mail Snafu
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The FBI destroyed evidence gathered in an investigation involving Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network after the FBI's e-mail wiretap system mistakenly captured information to which the agency was not entitled, Associated Press via CBS (May 29, 2002)
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Documents Reveal Carnivore Deficiencies
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A privacy watchdog group on Tuesday made public internal FBI documents that discuss failures of the agency's Carnivore online surveillance technology, CNET News (May 28, 2002)
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You've Got Warrants!
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In pursuing sex predators -- and more
recently, suspected terrorists -- law
enforcement routinely relies on search
warrants to harvest e-mail evidence from
Yahoo and Hotmail Web server, The Recorder via Law.com (May 22, 2002)
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Yahoo's 'Opt-Out' Angers Users
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Yahoo advised its users that their account preferences had been changed, by Yahoo, to indicate that they wanted to receive advertising solicitations through spam, snail mail and telephone, Wired News (April 2, 2002)
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Ex-Lawmaker Settles Lesbian Defamation Suit
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A former Hollister, Calif., city councilman reached a settlement with the lesbian owners of the town's weekly newspaper, the Pinnacle, after he admitted to authoring several anti-gay attacks against them, their paper and their leading columnist, Gay.com (May 10, 2001)
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Wiretapping on Personal Computers on Rapid Rise
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Wiretappings by investigative agencies into PC (personal computer) communications networks, including the Internet, are rapidly increasing, a government tally showed yesterday, Korea Herald (March 23, 2001)
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Schools' Net Nanny Mines Student Data for Profit
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Hillsborough County schools hired a company to keep students away from rough stuff on the Internet...[but the company] provides information about the students to those who can reach the kids on their own, Tampa Tribune (January 14, 2001)
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Fear Comes to Hollister
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In a case that pits the privacy of anonymous website authors against protections against potential defamation, gay owners of a small-town weekly sue to discover who is tormenting them, San Francisco Chronicle (December 10, 2000)
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U.S. Embraces European Computer Crime Proposal
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The United States has endorsed the gist of a controversial European drive to tighten cybercrime laws over the protests of privacy, civil liberties and human rights advocates, Reuters via fitug.de (December 4, 2000)
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FBI Gets Carnivore Approval
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A review by a private contractor of the FBI's Carnivore e-mail surveillance tool concludes that the FBI should continue to use the system, but raised the possibility that it could be abused to grab more data than a court allows, Wired News (November 22, 2000)
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Software to Track E-Mail Raises Privacy Concerns
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Marketers call them pixel tages and say they are used to gauge the success of e-mail campaigns, while privacy advocates prefer a more ominous name -- Web bugs, New York Times (November 22, 2000)
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Review Released on Web Wiretap
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A report on Carnivore, released last night by the Justice Department, did not satisfy critics of the system, who said a study of the system's specifications did not get to the heart of privacy issues raised by Carnivore, New York Times (November 22, 2000)
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AOL Endorses New Opt-Out Online Privacy Laws
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AOL recommends weaker opt-out online privacy protections for consumers in testimony to Senate panel debating privacy legislation, Reuters via mediaislandgroup.com (October 3, 2000)
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The Great Privacy Swindle
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An opinionated overview of current cyber-policy issues, Hightower Lowdown via mai.flora.org (September 25, 2000)
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"Cat" Scanning Device May Track Users Online
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Privacy advocates are investigating the device, known as the CueCat, and its ability to snoop on consumers while swiping bar codes printed in catalogs and magazines or on products, CNET News (September 20, 2000)
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Carnivore to Continue Munching
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Despite protests from legislators and privacy activists, the FBI will continue using the electronic communications surveillance technology while an external review is in process, Wired News (September 7, 2000)
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Internet Trysts and STDs
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Followup to stories raising privacy issue related to syphilis contact tracing of participants in the AOL SFM4M chatroom, PlanetOut (July 26, 2000)
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