News & Commentary

A report released today evaluating San Francisco's surveillance cameras concludes that the cameras have failed in their mission of reducing violent crime in the city. Following an outside evaluation of the City's ill-advisory video surveillance program, independent researchers at the University of California Berkeley issued today's report.

'tis the season for private browsing, or so it seems. Apple's Safari Web browser led the pack in introducing a "private browsing mode" in 2005; in recent months, the other browsers on the market have finally followed suit, with Google's recently-released Chrome and beta versions of Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer adding similar features.

YouTube has been making news this week, mostly about its recently-announced policy that makes "sexually suggestive" or "profane" content harder to access on the site. These new censorship policies which impact access to protected speech have triggered significant backlash among the YouTube user community as well as concerns that YouTube is suppressing some forms of content simply in order to "clean[] up its act to persuade Madison Ave. that the site is advertiser-friendly."

By Rachel MyersACLU Nationwide

Microsoft recently announced the Windows Sensor and Location Platform, a component of the next release of the Windows operating system that allows applications to access sensors, including location sensors. Tracking a user's location, and sharing that information with any application that requests it, carries serious privacy concerns. Other tools, such as Mozilla Geode, allay some of these concerns by giving the user control over whether and how location information is shared with Web sites. Windows, unfortunately, does not currently provide such controls, forcing the user to choose between eschewing location-aware applications entirely and giving every application complete knowledge of her present location.

Search users trust companies like Google to keep the contents of their search private. Recently, Google threatened that trust in using search queries to track flu outbreaks. Even though the motivation for this use may be wholly altruistic, and the information may be entirely aggregate without any personal identifiers, this still demonstrates that Google considers search queries Google property to be used as the company sees fit and not private communications from individual users.

Recently, Mozilla introduced Geode, an extension for the Firefox browser that can determine where you are and share that information with Web sites and other services. This allows Web sites to deliver location-based services, which, as we recently discussed, carry serious privacy concerns. Geode's privacy policy mitigates some of these concerns, but ultimately our ability to control location information depends on the policies and practices of the Web sites with which we share this information.

For the third time in four years, voters in California rejected a measure that would have endangered the health and safety of pregnant teenagers. Proposition 4 represents a third strike against mandatory parental notification laws and the harms they cause.

All Mary Scott wanted was a quiet place to raise her girls. With high-ranking schools, low crime rates and plenty of affordable housing, Antioch seemed to fit the bill. That was before the police tried to run her out of town.