News & Commentary

A federal court today struck down the amended Patriot Act's National Security Letter (NSL) provision. The law has permitted the FBI to issue NSLs demanding private information about people within the United States without court approval, and to gag those who receive NSLs from discussing them. The court found that the gag power was unconstitutional and that because the statute prevented courts from engaging in meaningful judicial review of gags, it violated the First Amendment and the principle of separation of powers.

Earlier this week, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruled in support of freedom of speech for bloggers. The FEC dismissed complaints against the DailyKos and a blog site critical of former Representative Mary Bono.

Judge Walker of the Northern District of California heard arguments yesterday on the ACLUs of California case against Verizon for allegedly providing the NSA with California customers' phone records without their consent and without a warrant, court order, or legal process.

The online social networking service Facebook is a popular way to build and maintain groups of friends, family, and colleagues online. Many of the site's users post photo albums of their lives for friends and family. Even more include significant personal information on their own individual profile page- information such as age, relationship status, hobbies, job information, and even address and phone number.

In May and June of this year, we had several blog posts about privacy concerns associated with the new Google Street View service. See here.

The Street View photographs included identifiable people and license plates and the procedures for requesting take-down of that information was more difficult than it should have been.

There was not a direct link from the image to request take-down and Google asked for a significant amount of personal information in order to complete the process and show that you were the actual person or owner of the car that was photographed. See here.

San Francisco – California cities are moving quickly to install video surveillance cameras on public streets and plazas without regulations, with little or no public debate, and without an evaluation of their effectiveness, according to an ACLU report released today.

The public overflowed the courtroom and late-comers filed into an adjoining video room, members of the press hovered around the courthouse, and oral argument lasted an hour and forty five minutes- that was the scene yesterday afternoon as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard the government's appeal in Hepting v. AT&T.

The outcome in the lawsuit Hepting v. AT&T, being heard today by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, will be important to the various challenges to illegal spying of Americans.

Under the Watchful Eye: The Proliferation of Video Surveillance Systems in California (Full Report)Under the