Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law had a hearing entitled: “Protecting Mobile Privacy: Your Smartphones, Tablets, Cell Phones and Your Privacy.” It was a remarkably scattered affair, and I blogged three key—and very distinct—elements of it on the Cato@Liberty blog: The Department of Justice used this “mobile privacy” [...]
San Francisco’s Entertainment Commission will soon be considering a jaw-dropping attack on privacy and free assembly. Here are some of the rules the Commission may adopt for any gathering of people expected to reach 100 or more: 3. All occupants of the premises shall be ID Scanned (including patrons, promoters, and performers, etc.). ID scanning [...]
Boeing subsidiary Narus reports on its Web site that it “protects and manages” a number of worldwide networks, including that of Egypt Telecom. A recent IT World article entitled “Narus Develops a Scary Sleuth for Social Media” reported on a Narus product called Hone last year: Hone will sift through millions of profiles searching for [...]
Today, China renewed Google’s license to do business in the country, reports The Washington Post. The announcement means that Google will maintain its presence in the country for the foreseeable future. Google will likely meet criticism, but this is good news nonetheless for Chinese Internet users. The rapidly unfolding Google-China saga has made headline after [...]
No, I’m not here to tell you more about the “supersized” FTC. Berin has done yeoman’s work to highlight that issue, among other things with the PFF event you can review here. On TechDirt, Mike Masnick wrote this morning about how the feds are itching to regulate the Internet. This is about the direct government [...]
Here’s a great conversation at Slate.com about Shane Harris’ new book The Watchers. We’ll be having the author here at Cato on March 10th for a similar discussion of his book and the growth of the surveillance state. Register here.
Fellow TLFer Julian Sanchez has written (twice) at Cato@Liberty on the big school-using-laptops-to-spy-on-kids case. Indulging my contrarian habit, I’m taking a little bit of a different view, though not necessarily an inconsistent one. While it seems error to me that the school district issued laptops with a potentially invasive security system, failing to fully inform [...]
If you have a mobile phone, that’s the upshot of an argument being put forward by the government in a case being argued before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals tomorrow. The case is called In the Matter of the Application of the United States of America For An Order Directing A Provider of Electronic [...]
February 13, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
