When you are convicted of a criminal offense, you carry that conviction with your indefinitely, sometimes for the rest of your life. But sometimes, people who have never even been arrested find themselves being disqualified from a job due to a criminal record. A lengthy report from the New York Times discusses why this happens and what’s being done to protect those folks who simply want to work. [Read more…]
Massachusetts Town Rejects State Funding for License Plate Scanners
In a first for the state, and possibly the first nationwide, a town has rejected state funding for police to purchase automatic license plate scanners (ALPR) due to privacy concerns. [Read more…]
Appeals Court Sides with ACLU in Cell Phone Tracking
Law enforcement agencies across the country are gathering information from suspects’ cell phones without warrants. They may not be reading your text messages or viewing your call list, but they are tracking your locations. A U.S. Appeals Court ruled this week that the Justice Department must tell the public how it is using this information in some cases. [Read more…]
Could the Feds Force ISPs to Store Your Data For Law Enforcement?
Do you think you can enjoy some anonymity as you surf the web? Do you believe you should be afforded privacy in the context of your emails or chats? Well it seems that if some on Capitol Hill get their way, all Internet traffic and content could be tracked under a federal law, all in the name of law enforcement. [Read more…]
Increased Video Surveillance on Cops Forces Accountability
When the videotaped beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles hit the world in 1991 there was shock and outrage like never before. But since that time, many similar videos have come to light as nearly everyone carries a phone with video capabilities, poised to shoot when something goes awry. But, not everyone thinks this increased surveillance is good. [Read more…]
Prescription Drug Use Monitoring by Police?
Could your legal and legitimate private medical records, such as what prescriptions you take, be freely available to police? That is what one state’s law enforcement agency is after, and the trend could spread. [Read more…]
Privacy Rights Under Assault and Undefended
American students and citizens as a whole are being trained to not expect any privacy, and that the government has near complete authority to know where you are at what you are doing at all times. That’s the opinion of many privacy and civil liberties experts, and it is a chilling view. Our countries founding fathers would be shocked to see how much freedom we have willingly or unknowingly ceded to the government.
This post at pogowasright outlines the many ways that students across the US are being monitored and surveilled constantly, and learning to accept it as the norm.
After last week’s ruling that police can track your car without a warrant broke, maybe the public’s awareness of these issues will increase, but right now it is a battle we are losing inch by inch, every day.
Worth the read.
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(Via balloon juice)
More on the surveillance state from Glenn Greenwald, and an article on ever present police cameras and scanners.
