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EPIC
Latest Headlines
Latest Headlines
Texas legislature passes bill requiring warrants for e-mail searches
Texas lawmakers have passed a bill requiring state law enforcement agencies to get a search warrant before they can request businesses to hand over a customer's electronic information. The bill closes a loophole that allows investigators to seize electronic media such as emails with only a subpoena. The bill is a state-level reflection of similar changes lawmakers want to make with national legislation, such as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act .
Third Amendment constrains military cyber operation, argues EPIC lawyer
Alan Butler, EPIC's appellate advocacy counsel, in an article in the American University Law Review ( link at SSRN ) says military cyber operations may easily meet thresholds established by the 18th century constitutional prohibition against soldiers quartering during peacetime in "any house, without the consent of the Owner" and during wartime "but in a manner to be prescribed by law."
Existing privacy law doesn't cover domestic UAV surveillance
Privacy law in the United States tends to be targeted, and as a result "we don't believe that there are actually any federal statutes that would provide limits on drone surveillance," said Aime Stepanovich, an attorney with the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Following passage of a 2012 reauthorization bill, the FAA has worked to streamline procedures for integrating public agency UAVs into the national airspace.
OGIS to focus on FOIA fees, immigration records, says Nisbet
Freedom of Information Act fees and fee waivers are a persistent problem for agency FOIA offices and for requesters, according to Miriam Nisbet, director of the Office of Government Information Services at the National Archives and Records Administration. Immigration records will be another area of attention for OGIS going forward, said Nisbet.
ODNI: updated NCTC guidelines include privacy and civil liberty protections
New guidelines for the National Counterterrorism Center are in place that should safeguard civil liberties and protect privacy, according to an information paper (.pdf) released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The paper further asserts that the National Counterterrorism Center is subject to the oversight of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and must keep the intelligence committees in Congress fully and currently informed of its activities.
Domestic UAVs provoke privacy concerns among panelists
UAVs equipped with sensors such as facial recognition technology create the possibility of continuous and ongoing biometric surveillance, said Laura Donohue, an associate professor of law at Georgetown Law School. Biometrics until now have mostly been collected on an individual basis, such as through fingerprinting after arrest or through biometric identification for access control. A UAV with biometric sensors "changes how we think about public space," she said.
DOJ masks true state of FOIA processing, says National Security Archive
The fields of green in an August Justice Department traffic-light scoring report on agency Freedom of Information Act administration are an exaggeration, says the National Security Archive at George Washington University. "The true state of FOIA in the US is markedly more mixed; the DOJ OIP is engaging in grade inflation," says Nate Jones, archive freedom of information coordinator.
FISA oversight must be more transparent, says ACLU, EPIC
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act should not be reauthorized without considering the lack of transparency into FISA's use against Americans, civil liberties groups told a House subcommittee May 31.
FTC: Privacy legislation needed--if industry doesn't self regulate first
The Federal Trade Commission March 26 published a report it says "is intended to serve as a template for legislative recommendations," in the event that the Obama administration's Consumer Privacy
Court authorized wiretaps up in 2010
The number of federal- and state- court approved interceptions of wire, oral or electronic communications grew by 34 percent in 2010 over the year before, says the administrative office of the United
