The Washington Post reports on a lawsuit by employees at the Food and Drug Administration over the privacy of their personal e-mail. The story is a good reminder that technology can allow employers to see and record whatever you do on a work computer. There can be questions as to the legality of employers doing so in various cases, such as this one:

The Food and Drug Administration secretly monitored the personal e-mail of a group of its own scientists and doctors after they warned Congress that the agency was approving medical devices that they believed posed unacceptable risks to patients, government documents show.

The surveillance — detailed in e-mails and memos unearthed by six of the scientists and doctors, who filed a lawsuit against the FDA in U.S. District Court in Washington last week — took place over two years as the plaintiffs accessed their personal Gmail accounts from government computers.

Information garnered this way eventually contributed to the harassment or dismissal of all six of the FDA employees, the suit alleges. All had worked in an office responsible for reviewing devices for cancer screening and other purposes.

Copies of the e-mails show that, starting in January 2009, the FDA intercepted communications with congressional staffers and draft versions of whistleblower complaints complete with editing notes in the margins. [...] Read more »

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 »

CNet reports on a ruling concerning encryption technology and the privacy of data on individuals’ computers:

American citizens can be ordered to decrypt their PGP-scrambled hard drives for police to peruse for incriminating files, a federal judge in Colorado ruled today in what could become a precedent-setting case.

Judge Robert Blackburn ordered a Peyton, Colo., woman to decrypt the hard drive of a Toshiba laptop computer no later than February 21–or face the consequences including contempt of court.

Blackburn, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that the Fifth Amendment posed no barrier to his decryption order. The Fifth Amendment says that nobody may be “compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,” which has become known as the right to avoid self-incrimination. [...]

Ramona Fricosu, who is accused of being involved in a mortgage scam, has declined to decrypt a laptop encrypted with Symantec’s PGP Desktop that the FBI found in her bedroom during a raid of a home she shared with her mother and children (and whether she’s even able to do so is not yet clear). [...] Read more »