News & Commentary

State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) announced today that Governor Schwarzenegger signed his Senate Bill 362, which would prohibit employers and others from forcing anyone to have a radio frequency identification (RFID) device implanted under their skin. The bill will go into effect on January 1, 2008.

Last November we learned that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been secretly compiling data on millions of innocent Americans. According to the Washington Post, the DHS has been using its Automated Targeting System (ATS) originally developed for cargo security to generate "terrorist" risk ratings on American travelers. This past August the DHS proposed a rule that would continue the controversial ATS program. In response, the ACLU has filed comments with the DHS urging that the program be scrapped because it violates not only federal law but the privacy of all innocent Americans traveling internationally.

The ATS draws information on travelers from government databases, airline passenger information, and other sources. It then uses it to analyze each person's background or behavior, and assigns them a numeric "terrorist" risk rating.

Until recently, the scope of information collected by the ATS was all but unknown. Things have become clearer since the Identity Project succeeded in getting the Department of Homeland Security to hand over ATS records on several travelers.

Over the last week, Americans in places as far as upstate New York and as nearby as downtown San Francisco have noticed ads on billboards and taxi cabs for Google's new service, Google 411.

In case you missed it on our National ACLU blog, here is an entry written by the ACLU's Catherine Crump about the government's latest attempt to censor the Internet.

A controversial new program to use spy satellites for domestic surveillance has been postponed due to concerns brought to the attention of Congress by the ACLU and other civil liberties groups.

The latest go-round in this campaign of misinformation is the new story DNI Mike McConnell was trying to sell on the Hill. He claims that the loophole in FISA was responsible for a delay in surveilling Iraqi insurgents that had kidnapped American soldiers. Which loophole? Why the very same one that the Protect America Act "fixed." Turns out, this

The federal Real ID Act doesn't have many friends these days. Eighteen states have passed legislation rejecting the law, Congress has refused to put any money into implementing it, and just this week New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer announced he, not the Feds, would determine New York's drivers license policy, with officials in his administration indicating the state might opt out of the Real ID program altogether.

The few remaining cheerleaders for this national ID system, which promises to be a nightmare for privacy and identity security, have resorted to classic doublespeak to try to salvage Real ID's reputation. On the Department of Homeland Security blog Wednesday, Secretary Michael Chertoff claims Real ID would actually pr

While some corporations see fair use as a thorn in the side, suing on everything from reverse engineering of software (Sony v. Connectix) to linking thumbnail images in internet searches (Perfect 10 v. Amazon.com), and stress the economic importance of strong copyright protection , it makes sense that fair use pumps significant funds into the economy.

Without fair use, our knowledge based economy simply could not function as it does. For example, fair use permits search engines, like Google, to provide a vast array of information without infringing. So absent fair use, the search engines we use each day to access information would not be able to run.

If fair use didn't exist, it would be illegal to replay a copyrighted television show on a VCR or through services like TIVO (Sony v. Universal City Studios) and newspapers and magazines could not include quotes from books in their reviews.

Indeed, it would be hard to imagine a world without fair use. Fair use enables major recording artists, li

Earlier, Verizon told NARAL it does not accept programs from any group "that seeks to promote an agenda or distribute content that, in its discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users." Never mind that you have t