Politico is reporting that Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano are divided over the National Applications Office. There was an uproar last year over the spy-satellite program, which would greatly expand the domestic use of military technology.

Last year, 33 groups sent a letter (pdf) to Congress urging members not to fund the National Applications Office. “Satellite imagery and the other vast capacities at issue are powerful weapons that have been used against our nation’s enemies and that are now poised to be used against our nation’s citizens. Congress must ensure that neither DHS nor any other agency is entrusted with such vast and unsupervised powers,” the groups said.

Members of Congress also questioned the privacy and civil liberty implications of this program. The Government Accountability Office reviewed the Office and reported in November, “DHS lacks assurance that NAO operations will comply with applicable laws and privacy and civil liberties standards.” The GAO noted that DHS had not addressed “significant issues, including the potential for improper use or retention of intelligence information by customers and the potential for overly broad annual memorandums about customers’ planned uses, which may facilitate the acceptance of requests that should be rejected.”

Politico reports: (more…)

BBC News reports that a British court has “limited police powers to keep pictures of protesters in case they go on to break the law.”

Judges said police had been wrong to retain pictures of a lawful arms trade activist who was not suspected of any criminal offence.

The Metropolitan Police said they acted reasonably in retaining pictures of the campaigner, Andrew Wood from Oxford. [...]

The court has told the Met to destroy the photographs if it does not challenge the ruling in the House of Lords. The force has indicated it will not appeal. [...] (more…)

CBS News reports on a story raising questions about the Internet and privacy.

CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy reports a court ruling is expected soon in the case that’s exposed the dark side of the Internet and uncovered the pain of the Catsouras family, who say they’ve been forced to constantly relive the death of their 18-year-old daughter, Nikki, who was killed during a high-speed crash in 2006.

Nikki was driving close to 100 m.p.h. on Halloween night when she clipped another car, flipped across the median and crashed into a toll booth. Very little remained of the Porsche she drove and the condition of Nikki’s body was so disturbing that the coroner would not allow the Catsouras family to identify it.

However, days after the accident, millions of people saw pictures from Nikki’s crash on the Internet after at least one California Highway Patrol dispatcher allegedly e-mailed photos of the scene to friends. From there, the photos spread very quickly and landed on the Internet.

“I didn’t understand it initially,” said Christos Catsouras, Nikki’s father. “I didn’t understand it…[I said] ‘what do you mean there are pictures?’”

The most disturbing photos were of Nikki’s nearly decapitated head. Catsouras said someone e-mailed him one of those pictures.

Update: PC World reports that Google is re-shooting its Japan Street View images amid privacy complaints.

BBC News reports that Google Street View is facing problems in another European country. (Here’s a story on other European countries where Google has had trouble implementing Street View. Also, Canada, which has strong data protection laws, investigated the legality of Google’s Street View photos in September 2007.) 

Greece’s data protection agency has banned Google from expanding its Street View service in the country, pending “additional information” from the firm.

Street View gives users a 360-degree view of a road via Google Maps.

Authorities want to know how long the images would be kept on Google’s database and what measures it will take to make people aware of privacy rights.

A similar street mapping service, run by local ISP Kapou, was also suspended for the same reason.

In a statement, Google said that it had not seen the full details of the The Hellenic Data Protection Authority’s request, but had taken steps to protect people’s privacy.

The New York Times reports on work on the “virtual fence” at the US-Mexico border.

After three years of delays and false starts, construction began this week on a “virtual fence” aimed at stopping illegal immigration and smuggling along the border with Mexico.

The first phase of the $6.7 billion project — a network of towers rigged with cameras, sensors and communications equipment — will cover about 23 miles south of Tucson, in the busiest area for illegal crossing.

Within five years, officials said Friday, the fence is expected to extend along the entire 2,000-mile border except for some 200 miles in the area of Big Bend National Park in Texas, a stretch that is to be addressed later.

PC World has a great article on how to protect your privacy when sharing photographs online.

You probably know that you can find the date and time taken, date modified, and exposure information in your photo’s metadata. You might also know that your photo can tell you what make and model camera you used, and details about the lens and flash. But you might also be storing your name, your home address (see “Photos That Know Where they Were Taken”), and other private or potentially embarrassing information in those files as well, all of which can be seen if you post our photos online. [...]

You can remove all of a photo’s metadata using nothing more than Windows itself, if you have Vista. Just go back to the Details tab of the Properties dialog we discussed earlier. At the bottom of the window, you should see a link that says Remove Properties and Personal Information. Click it and all the metadata will be stripped away from the photo. [...]

If you don’t have Vista, or you’re looking for an even easier metadata removal method, try a program like JPEG & PNG Stripper.