Government

The situation in Egypt is dire. The government, which is facing enormous protests has turned to shutting off communications, most notably the Internet , as a way to silence dissension. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has gone on record ... admonishing the Egyptian Internet blackout , calling it a senseless attempt to bring order to a country at the cost of basic democratic rights. Could an Internet Blackout Happen in the United States? While most Americans have viewed the entire debacle as something that simply couldn't and wouldn't happen in the United States, some political pundits ... (view more)

Ed Vaizey, Britain's Communications Minister, believes that people should be able to demand that inaccurate data is deleted from the Internet. Speaking to the House of Commons, Vaizey said that a mediation service would help make it easier to remove ... misleading information. As an example, Vaizey cited the case of a women's refuge that appeared on Google Street View: pleas from the refuge to have its location removed -- in order to protect the identities of the women living there -- proved futile, and frustrations arose from not having a more straightforward process for getting the information ... (view more)

The United States government is said to be considering plans that would force all communications firms to make their systems available for "wiretapping" in the event of a court order. A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) lawyer says the idea ... would not mean expanding the ability of law enforcement and security officials to demand access to data through the court system. Instead, the changes would deal with cases where court orders are effectively meaningless because the communications firms concerned are unable to hand over the relevant data, either because it can't be intercepted ... (view more)

A recently leaked document (PDF) by La Quadrature du Net reveals that European Union (EU) negotiators want criminal sanctions introduced into the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Chapter 2 of the proposed ACTA treaty states ... that "each party shall provide for effective proportionate and dissuasive penalties" which would include "imprisonment and monetary fines" for those caught in illicit activities such as music file-sharing. (Source: laquadrature.net ) ACTA Treaty: Can Seize, Destroy Your PC, Electronics According to the document, anyone believed to have " ... (view more)

A former presidential advisor has called for the US government to reclassify the legal status of the Internet. It follows concerns that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) may not have the statutory authority to enforce "net neutrality" ... principles or to go ahead with proposed plans to expand Internet access. The FCC has historically sought to uphold the idea of net neutrality. This is the principle that, with the exception of illegal material, all Internet traffic should be treated equally by carriers. This would mean, for example, that an Internet service provider couldn't charge ... (view more)

The U.S. government is being accused of attempting to deliberately take down the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks.org, approximately two years ago. This virtual David versus Goliath war came to life after a 32-page classified document written by ... the Department of Defense (DoD) Intelligence Analysis program was posted on Wikileaks. The document, which was dated March 2008, speaks of the "counterintelligence threat posed to the U.S. Army by the Wikileaks.org website." The document accentuates the fact that there is the "possibility that a current employee or mole within the Department of ... (view more)

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a far-reaching proposal that the U.S. government has insisted was too sensitive to be exposed to the public. Now that the 44-page document (PDF) has been leaked, it's easy to see why the U.S. wanted ... to keep it a secret. (Source: die-linke.de ) ACTA, in its present form, is heralded by the Film and Music industries and their fight against piracy. However, if upheld, citizens will pay a heavy price for their privacy. Gov't Can Search, Seize and Destroy Electronics Former President George W. Bush and current President Barack Obama both favor ACTA ... (view more)

The United States government is in court fighting for the right to track people's location via their cellphone, without warrant. It says the powers are needed to hunt down criminals, but civil rights activists say that tracking shouldn't be allowed ... without ."probable cause." Cellphone Tracking Uses Triangulation The case doesn't involve monitoring conversations or reading text messages, but rather using call records to track a user to within 150 feet. That's usually done by triangulation, which involves finding a cellphone's distance from the three nearest network towers. Cellphone ... (view more)

Contrary to U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) assurances, full body scanners used in U.S. airports can store and transmit digital strip search images of people. The TSA has asserted that these scanners have zero storage capability ... and that any scanned full body images won't be printed, stored or transmitted and will be deleted immediately once viewed. However, those assertions appear to be false. (Source: theregister.co.uk ) Full Body Scanners Have Storage, Transmission Capabilities A redacted 70-page document (PDF) obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) ... (view more)

Here's a New Year's resolution for designers, writers, and generally anyone associated with skin-trade sites in China: get the heck out of your country. According to a recent report, over five thousand arrests were made by the Communist government ... during the past year in an effort to stamp out this kind of web content. The report itself is reliable. How do we know? It came straight from the horse's mouth -- in a statement last week, the Chinese government fully admitted that a sweeping attack against adult-themed content in the country during 2009 had led to the arrest of 5,394 persons and a ... (view more)