Roundup of Privacy Stories from Thanksgiving Holiday
Here are a few stories of interest from the last few days:
WHAS11: Louisville police reveal use of GPS tracking, sometimes without a warrant
WHAS11 in Louisville, Kentucky, reports on the warrantless use of GPS (a location-tracking technology) by police. (For more on the legality of warrantless GPS tracking by law enforcement, read a great analysis of the case People v. Weaver (pdf), in which New York’s highest court held that police needed a warrant to attach a GPS tracker to the suspect’s car and monitor him for more than two months; an amicus brief (pdf) in a DC Circuit Court of Appeals case by the ACLU of the National Capital Area and the Electronic Frontier Foundation; and a recent editorial from the New York Times concerning GPS and how it affects individual privacy rights.)
GPS Tracking devices are being used by Louisville Metro Police on the vehicles of some suspects, at times without a court order. The warrantless tracking raises concerns about whether such use is constitutional, according to a leading criminal law professor.
Police acknowledged the use of the tracking devices after WHAS11 News brought a U.S. Attorney’s Office news release that cited Metro Police’s use of them to LMPD’s attention. The Justice Department apparently did not know that the use of such devices in Louisville had never been revealed. [...]
Metro Police have now revealed to WHAS11 News, that for about 30% of their GPS tracking cases this year, they did not get a judge to sign off on a warrant first.
Telegraph (UK): Police arrest so they can boost DNA database, warns watchdog
The Telegraph reports warnings from the Human Genetics Commission that, in the United Kingdom, “Officers will arrest individuals for ‘everything’ because they then have to power to take DNA samples, even if they wouldn’t have been detained under other circumstances.” HGC is an independent UK government advisory body.
Some background: As of September 2008, the UK National DNA Database contained genetic profiles and linked DNA samples from 4.5 million individuals; and, as of March 2008, “857,366 people on the National DNA Database did not have a current criminal record,” according to a UK official.
In a major review of the system, [HGC] said police should no longer be allowed to automatically take DNA samples for everyone they arrest and called for new rules on when it was right to do so.
It suggested the growth in the programme, which is the largest of its kind in the world, stemmed from a pledge in 2000 by Tony Blair, the then Prime Minister, to have the DNA of every criminal within three years. [...]
[HGC] also questioned the effectiveness of the database in helping to solve crimes and called for a detailed examination of its success.
A spokeswoman from the UK Home Office (similar to the US departments of Justice and Homeland Security) said, ”DNA samples are taken on arrest for recordable offences carrying a prison sentence. The Government is clear that this is the right threshold for taking and retaining DNA.”
Government Information Security: Chair of Privacy Board Says Congress Unlikely to Reform Privacy Act
Government Information Security has an interview about privacy issues with Dan Chenok, chairman of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board. In May, the board sent a letter to Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, calling for an overhaul of federal privacy laws and regulations, including the Privacy Act of 1974. The board sent a report, “Toward A 21st Century Framework for Federal Government Privacy Policy, in which it said: “Inattention by policymakers to the underlying problems, and relatively little White House guidance, has meant that privacy policy is left to the individual agencies. There has been a lack of government-wide direction, and only a few privacy leaders in key agencies have been empowered by their internal leadership to fill the policy vacuum.”
Now, Government Information Security reports, Chenok says, “The odds privacy legislation would be enacted next session are not high.”
Sen. Daniel Akaka, the Hawaiian Democrat who chairs a subcommittee with oversight over federal privacy policy, has expressed interest in revising the Privacy Act, but no legislation has been introduced. “There isn’t a lot of other recent legislative groundwork in this arena,” Chenok says.
Associated Press: Activist group posting 573,000 9/11 pager messages
The Associated Press reports that Wikileaks, an activist group, “has begun posting 573,000 pager messages purportedly sent on Sept. 11, 2001, from ‘Second World Trade Center tower collapses’ to ‘I’m ok & love you..xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox.’” Some of the pager messages “were sent by federal and local officials, but most appear to be from regular people, including frantic New Yorkers trying to reach loved ones in and around the World Trade Center.”
Wikileaks says its goal is to promote transparency by putting leaked documents online. Its repository includes manuals, lawsuits and numerous government documents.
Daniel Schmitt, a Wikileaks spokesman from Berlin, said the pager messages were submitted to the site anonymously several weeks ago. [...]
Most of the pages come from three companies, Metrocall, Skytel and Arch.
USA Mobility Inc., which merged Arch and Metrocall systems in 2004, issued a statement Wednesday saying it was “troubled to learn that paging messages, including communications involving government officials, appear to have been intercepted and publicly disclosed in clear violation of federal criminal law.”
“We hope and expect that persons who engage in unlawful electronic surveillance will be apprehended and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” the statement said.
ABC News (Australia): Clubbers to have fingerprints scanned
ABC News in Australia reports, “Party-goers in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley will soon be forced to have their fingerprints scanned before entering some of the precinct’s most popular nightclubs.” (In July, Australia’s Privacy Commissioner warned bars and clubs that scan the IDs of their customers that they must abide by the country’s privacy laws.)
Cloudland, The Family, Press Club, Birdie Num Nums and the Empire will be the first to roll out the new scheme, which Valley Liquor Accord chairman Danny Blair says will provide safer entertainment venues for patrons.
“What actually happens is, you come up to the counter, scan your ID and a camera will take an image,” he said.
“Next time you come in, instead of scanning your ID all the time, you just have to scan your fingerprint.
Privacy questions were raised by Terry O’Gorman from the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties.
“Even with the police they can only demand [fingerprints] in certain situations when a person is arrested, and even when police get fingerprints under statute they’re under very heavy obligation to ensure privacy safeguards are in place.
“There will be absolutely no privacy safeguards in place to ensure fingerprint materials being collected by pubs and clubs.”
Valley Liquor Accord chairman Danny Blair said, “We’ve still got to abide by all of the laws at the moment with keeping people’s data in privacy laws.”
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