Researcher: Police increasingly peeping at e-mail, instant messagesby Jeremy Kirk, IDG News ServiceMacWorld Apr. 17, 2011 |
All-Indian Crew On Ship That Crashed Into Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Signs Executive Order to Punish 'Antisemitic Rhetoric' on College Campuses
RFK Jr Names Nicole Shanahan as VP Pick
Israel 'Admits It May Not Be Able to Destroy Hamas,' Blames America
Israeli Lawyer Who Pushed 'Hamas Mass Rapes' Hoax Accused of Scamming Donors
Law enforcement organizations are making tens of thousands of requests for private electronic information from companies such as Sprint, Facebook and AOL, but few detailed statistics are available, according to a privacy researcher. Police and other agencies have "enthusiastically embraced" asking for e-mail, instant messages and mobile-phone location data, but there's no U.S. federal law that requires the reporting of requests for stored communications data, wrote Christopher Soghoian, a doctoral candidate at the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University, in a newly published paper. "Unfortunately, there are no reporting requirements for the modern surveillance methods that make up the majority of law enforcement requests to service providers and telephone companies," Soghoian wrote. "As such, this surveillance largely occurs off the books, with no way for Congress or the general public to know the true scale of such activities." Read More |