Business Insider reports that Ford executive Jim Farley stated, in a panel discussion: We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you’re doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you’re doing. By the way, we don’t supply that data to anyone. He later retracted that, saying Ford doesn’t […]
Archive | Privacy
Brown v. Buhman isn’t so complicated
By David Kopel on December 14, 2013 4:35 am in Criminal Law, Fourteenth Amendment, Gay Rights, Privacy, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom, Sexual Conduct Restrictions, Sexual Orientation, Supreme Court, Television
To me, today’s decision of the United States District Court for the District of Utah in Brown v. Buhman is much clearer and carefully-reasoned that Orin finds it to be. There may be plenty of blogging on the case, and Eugene’s analysis next week, after he’s had a chance to analyze it, will provide the perspective […]
Planning for the Obsolescence of Technologies Not Yet Invented
By Bryant Walker Smith, guest-blogging on October 4, 2013 6:50 pm in Automation, Drones (UAVs), Privacy, Regulation, Robotics, Self-Driving Cars, Torts
The automated motor vehicles that I have discussed this week are just one example of the remarkable technologies coming to our roads, skies, homes, and even bodies. A decade from now, we’ll marvel at how advanced these new products are. But a decade after that, we’ll marvel at how anachronistic they have become. Rapid technological […]
Domestic Drone Regulation for Safety and Privacy
By Kenneth Anderson on September 8, 2013 1:48 pm in Drones (UAVs), Privacy, Robotics, Uncategorized, Video
Today’s (Sunday, Sep 8, 2013) New York Times has a story by Anne Eisenberg, “Preflight Turbulence for Commercial Drones.” The article combines two crucial topics in connection with drones (remotely piloted aerial vehicles, or unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, but my advice to the industry and USAF is that the People Have Spoken, and it’s “drones”): […]
Using NSA Surveillance Data in the War on Drugs
By Ilya Somin on August 10, 2013 11:45 am in Growth of Government, Privacy, War on Drugs, War on Terror
On Monday, Reuters reported that the Special Operations Division, a secretive unit of the Drug Enforcement Administration is using NSA electronic surveillance data in the War on Drugs, and then deceiving judges and defense lawyers about the source of the evidence when it is used in criminal trials. As various experts quoted by Reuters point […]
Down the Memory Hole?
From Martin v. Hearst Corp. (D. Conn. Aug. 5, 2013): Plaintiff Lorraine Martin was arrested in 2010. At the time, local media outlets ran articles on news websites and in print accurately reporting that she was arrested [for possession of narcotics, drug paraphernalia, and marijuana -EV]. She now sues the owners of those media outlets, […]
France’s NSA-Like Electronic Surveillance Program
Yesterday, the major French newspaper Le Monde published an article revealing that the French government runs a massive electronic surveillance program similar to the US NSA program that has caused massive international controversy. Here is a summary of the revelations in English, published by the left-wing British newspaper The Guardian. For French-speaking readers, the original […]
DoJ Seeks to Keep FISA Court Decision Invalidating NSA Surveillance Under Wraps
There have been some interesting disclosures in the past week or so about the extent of federal government surveillance. Could there be still more to come? On Friday, the Department of Justice filed a motion opposing public release of a 2011 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court decision declaring some aspect of National Security Agency surveillance under the […]
Louisiana Set to Criminalize Publishing That Someone Has a Concealed Carry Permit
The bill is HB8, though there’s a Senate amendment; apparently, the Legislature plans to enact the bill as amended. The bill bars the government from releasing information about who has applied for or gotten a concealed carry permit, and the Legislature certainly can impose such restrictions on the government itself. But then it also criminalizes […]
Labeling Reporters “Criminals,” or Just Complying With the Privacy Protection Act?
There has been a lot of outrage expressed recently over the contents of an affidavit filed in support of a search warrant to search the e-mail accounts of reporter James Rosen. The government’s affidavit offered the view that Rosen violated the law by aiding and abetting the alleged violations of laws prohibiting the disclosure of […]
John Villasenor on Domestic Drones, Airspace Safety, and Privacy Protection
John Villasenor – a professor of engineering at UCLA and a Brookings Institution senior fellow – has a new article at Slate on the domestic use of drones. (The article part of a conference held yesterday at the New America Foundation in conjunction with Arizona State University on domestic drone policy, with many fine participants; […]
Obliviate!
From Nieman v. Versuslaw, Inc. (7th Cir. Mar. 19, 2013) (nonprecedential): Jason Nieman, an insurance-claims professional, … [sued] asserting invasion of privacy and retaliation against Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and VersusLaw, Inc., a legal-research website that provides the public with access to records of judicial decisions for a fee. Nieman alleged that the search engines operated […]
Arrest for “HIPAA Violation” Based on Citizen’s Recording of Encounter Between Police and Another Citizen
By Eugene Volokh on January 9, 2013 11:04 pm in Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Gather Information, Privacy
That’s what the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports: Andrew Henderson watched as Ramsey County sheriff’s deputies frisked a bloody-faced man outside his Little Canada apartment building. Paramedics then loaded the man, a stranger to Henderson, into an ambulance. Henderson, 28, took out his small handheld video camera and began recording…. [A] deputy, Jacqueline Muellner, approached […]
Government Out of Bedrooms, but into Barnyards
By Eugene Kontorovich on December 2, 2012 6:52 pm in Constitutional Law, Fourteenth Amendment, Gay Rights, Libertarianism, Privacy, Sexual Conduct Restrictions, Sexual Orientation, Uncategorized
I should say at the outset that I approach this delicate subject sheepishly, but this development bears noting. In a rare example of a Western country taking steps to restrict previously recognized sexual liberties, Germany is seeking to ban bestiality. (Its supporters call it zoophilia – are opponents zoophobes?) This will presumably put out to […]
The Secret Ballot, and Initiative, Referendum, and Recall Signatures
The Gallaudet incident, in which a university administrator was suspended for signing a referendum petition related to same-sex marriage, leads me to bring up again what I mentioned before: Most of the reasons that support having a secret ballot — rather than the non-secret systems that were used in America throughout most of its first […]