Tech coalition pushes for major rewrite of federal privacy law

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Date: March 29, 2010 11:41:30 PM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Tech coalition pushes for major rewrite of federal privacy law

Dave,

IPers may be interested in this article about a new coalition that will be announced tomorrow to call for a 
(long-overdue) update to the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20001393-38.html

I'm told the coalition will include Google, Microsoft, AT&T, Loopt, CDT, ACLU, EFF, and conservative/libertarian/free 
market groups including Americans for Tax Reform, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise 
Institute, and Citizens Against Government Waste.

The coalition will announce four principles, which I tried to summarize in the article:
> First, police may obtain "communications that are not readily accessible to the public only with a search warrant." 
> Second, police may access "location information regarding a mobile communications device only with a warrant." Third, 
> additional privacy protections would be extended to legal requests for outgoing and incoming call records, which are 
> known as pen registers and trap and trace devices.
> Fourth, police may use "subpoenas only for information related to a specified account or individual"--which would bar 
> a subpoena to AT&T asking for information about anyone connecting to one cell site at a certain time, or prevent a 
> subpoena to Google asking for anyone searching for "weaponized anthrax" on a specified date.

One question is whether the Obama White House will side with the coalition members or the FBI and Justice Department, 
which have defended warrantless tracking of cell phones as recently as last month in oral arguments before the Third 
Circuit in Philadelphia:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10451518-38.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10453214-38.html

President Obama said in 2008 that he "will strengthen privacy protections for the digital age":
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/technology/Fact_Sheet_Innovation_and_Technology.pdf

Soon we'll see whether the president's talk was just for campaign show.

-Declan





-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com