Last week, there was discussion of HB 2288 (pdf) in Hawaii, a bill that could have lead to the state keeping tracking of all Web sites visited, which would raise numerous privacy and civil liberties questions. Now, Computerworld reports that lawmakers in Hawaii have dropped the legislation:

Lawmakers in Hawaii on Thursday quietly dropped a bill that would have required Internet service providers to collect the detailed browsing histories of Internet users in the state and store the data for at least two years.

The bill, HB 2288, would have required anyone providing access to the Internet in Hawaii to maintain “consumer records” of every Internet user’s subscriber information and data such as the IP addresses, domain names and host names of the sites they visit.

In theory at least, the bill would have covered not only ISPs but also libraries, coffee shops and employers, the Electronic Frontier Foundation noted in a blog post Thursday. [...]

The bill was scheduled to be heard on Thursday before the Hawaii State Legislature’s House Committee on Economic Revitalization & Business (ERB). It was instead tabled, in what appears to have been a response to overwhelming opposition to the bill from many quarters. Read more »

The Constitution Project has released a new report, “Recommendations for the Implementation of a Comprehensive and Constitutional Cybersecurity Policy” (Project pdf; archive pdf), calling on Congress to include strong privacy protections in any cybersecurity legislation it adopts. The report is “endorsed by legal and policy experts (including former federal judges and prosecutors, retired military and intelligence officers, and law school professors) from across the ideological spectrum,” according to a press release.

From the report’s introduction:

It is important that our nation develop and operate cybersecurity programs and policies to reduce or eliminate these vulnerabilities. These programs, however, pose a potential threat to Americans’ privacy rights and civil liberties. As proposals have arisen that would enable the federal government to move toward monitoring all information transferred over private networks, individuals face the risk of being subjected to the equivalent of a perpetual “wiretap” on their private communications and web browsing behavior. Moreover, the debate regarding cybersecurity has been hampered by excessive secrecy surrounding the true nature and scope of the threat and the best mechanisms for protecting against it.

The report details items that could substantially affect individual privacy rights and civil liberties, cybersecurity programs such as Einstein (a Bush-era pilot program, continued under Obama, that seeks to have private telecommunications companies route the Internet traffic of civilian government agencies through hardware and software that would search for and block malicious computer codes; see more here and here) and legislation such as S. 413, the Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act of 2011, which would allow the executive branch to use a “kill switch” to limit Internet traffic in an emergency.

The report also lists recommendations on how to protect privacy rights and civil liberties in cybersecurity programs, including:  Read more »

CNet reports on a new bill in Hawaii, HB 2288 (pdf), which could lead to the state keeping tracking of all Web sites visited:

Hawaii’s legislature is weighing an unprecedented proposal to curb the privacy of Aloha State residents: requiring Internet providers to keep track of every Web site their customers visit.

Its House of Representatives has scheduled a hearing this morning on a new bill (PDF) requiring the creation of virtual dossiers on state residents. The measure, H.B. 2288, says “Internet destination history information” and “subscriber’s information” such as name and address must be saved for two years.

H.B. 2288, which was introduced Friday, says the dossiers must include a list of Internet Protocol addresses and domain names visited. Democratic Rep. John Mizuno of Oahu is the lead sponsor; [...]

Democrat Jill Tokuda, the Hawaii Senate’s majority whip, who introduced a companion bill, S.B. 2530, in the Senate, told CNET that her legislation was intended to address concerns raised by Rep. Kymberly Pine, the first Republican elected to her Oahu district since statehood and the House minority floor leader. [...] Read more »

Saturday, January 28, is International Data Privacy Day. Take the time to think about how privacy is important in your life and how you can protect your rights from being infringed upon. Please also take the time to donate to any number of organizations out there trying to protect your privacy rights.

Visit the official site to find events near your area. Here are a few highlights in the United States and internationally:

Alabama

On Friday, Jan. 27, Cumberland School of Law hosts “Is My Phone Spying On Me or Am I Just An Open Book? An Exploration of Privacy and Mobile Technology.” It will be “a discussion on the legal, ethical, and commercial implications of mobile technology on privacy. Featuring privacy professionals from business, law practice, and the academy, this panel will explore the state of privacy law with respect to mobile technology, the tension between privacy and the utility of data collected from mobile technology, and how organizations handle data collected and transmitted using mobile technology.” Time and location: 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. at Cumberland School of Law at Samford University. For more information: http://cumberland.samford.edu/content/my-phone-spying-me

North Carolina

On Friday, Feb. 3, the UNC School of Information and Library Science and the American Library Association will host “Should Librarians Care About Privacy Anymore?” The free panel/webinar “will feature presentations and panel discussion by Barbara Jones, director of the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom, Anne Klinefelter, associate professor of Law and director of the UNC at Chapel Hill Law Library, Christopher (Cal) Lee, SILS associate professor, Zeynep Tufekci, SILS associate professor, and SILS Dean, Gary Marchionini, as moderator.” Time and location: 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at 08 Peabody Hall, UNC Chapel Hill2 and streaming via webinar. For more information: http://sils.unc.edu/events/2012/data-privacy-webinar  Read more »

In an opinion column at the Washington Post, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley discussing how the United States’ expanding security powers can affect individual privacy and liberties:

Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.

Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves?

While each new national security power Washington has embraced was controversial when enacted, they are often discussed in isolation. But they don’t operate in isolation. They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit. [...] Read more »

Yesterday, Privacy Lives joined others in going dark in protest of the U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). The groups include major sites such as Google, Wikipedia and the Internet Archive (pdf), as well as arts groups such as the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, Dance/USA, Fractured Atlas and National Alliance for Media Art and Culture, and groups such as Doctors Without Borders, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Online News Association and Global Voices. Civil liberties and privacy groups such as Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation also joined the protest.

Why did such a variety of groups speak out against SOPA and PIPA? Simply put: The bills would allow copyright owners to get court orders to block not just content that infringes on their copyrights but copyright owners could block entire Web sites and the bills would allow the U.S. attorney general to block content or Web sites that the Justice Department determines is engaging in criminal copyright infringement. Court orders under SOPA/PIPA would mean: Internet Service Providers would be required to prevent access to the sites, U.S. search engines would have to remove links to the Web sites from their indexes, and payment service firms (PayPal, credit card companies) would be required to cut off funding for the Web sites. And Web sites would have few ways to effectively appeal these court orders.

Privacy Lives and other protesting groups are not supporting theft of intellectual property or copyright infringement. The problem is that the legislation is so broadly written that, as Public Knowledge explains it: “They sweep in every site that includes links, not just the ‘worst of the worst.’ PIPA applies to ‘information location tools,’ a comically over-broad legal concept that includes things such as a ‘directory, index, reference, pointer, or hypertext link.’ Policing every link on a site is an impossible burden for even the best intentioned site.” And EFF says that: “Broad immunity provisions (combined with a threat of litigation) would encourage service providers to overblock innocent users or even block websites voluntarily. This gives content companies every incentive to create unofficial blacklists of websites, which service providers would be under pressure to block without regard to the First Amendment. [...] SOPA gives the government new powers to go after sites that provide information about tools that might be used to bypass the blacklists — even though these are often the same tools used by democratic activists around the world to bypass Internet censorship mechanisms implemented by authoritarian governments like Iran and China.”

Speak out against SOPA and PIPA. Join in the protest to protect our civil liberties. You can sign up at Public Knowledge or EFF. If you can, donate to these groups so they can continue to fight for your rights.