[Sigifp-l] Information policy web articles 3/7/03

[Terrence Maxwell]

PRIVACY

Airline Screening Proposal Fails Privacy Act Test.
<http://www.cdt.org/>
'CDT has filed comments with the Transportation Security Administration 
expressing serious concerns about its new airline screening system. CDT 
explained that the TSA's Privacy Act Notice is vague and lacking in data use 
and retention guidelines.'

ACLU Admits Another Privacy Gaffe.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2355-2003Feb25.html>
The ACLU sent  'an e-mail newsletter that inadvertently contained the names 
and e-mail addresses of the hundreds of groups and individuals who received 
it. The gaffe came just weeks after the group was chided by New York State 
Attorney General Eliot L. Spitzer for exposing the names, phone numbers and 
other details of about 91 people who bought merchandise in 2001 from an ACLU 
site online.'

Going to Extremes to Fight Spam.
<http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,57867,00.html>
The two co-founders of AvantGo (avantgo.com) launched a new spam filter that 
takes the most drastic anti-spam approach possible: Users only receive 
e-mail from people on a list of pre-approved senders.

Snack Companies Fined $185,000 For Violating Kids' Online Privacy.
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/29527.html>
Snack companies Hershey Foods and Mrs Fields Cookies have been fined $85,000 
and $100,000 respectively for violating children's privacy on their 
websites.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Congress Targets P2P Piracy on Campus.
<http://news.com.com/2100-1028-986143.html>
Key politicians chided universities for not doing enough to limit 
peer-to-peer piracy and called unauthorized copying a federal crime that 
should be punished appropriately.

U.S. Crime-Fighters Seize Web Sites.
<http://news.com.com/2100-1023-986225.html>
Federal police have adopted a novel crime-fighting tactic: seizing control 
of domain names for Web sites that allegedly violate the law.'  This story 
is a follow on from last week's "Feds Weed Out Drug Paraphernalia Sites" 
article.

Lexmark Case Update.
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/29526.html>
Lexmark has gained an early success in its Digital Millennium Copyright Act 
(DMCA) case against an obscure maker of toner cartridge chips.

The High Cost of Recycling.
<http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Technology&storyId=665629>
A company that recycled single-use cameras must pay Fuji Film Co. nearly $23 
million for patent infringement, a federal judge ordered.

Who Holds the Patent on Internet Transactions?
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/pcworld/20030227/tc_pcworld/109572>
A retired electronics engineer from Florida claims to have invented the way 
in which secure transactions are processed on the Internet, and opening 
arguments were heard in his lawsuit asking for license fees from two 
technology companies.
Amazon Gets Patent for Online Chat.
<http://www.techzonez.com/comments.php?id=1330&catid=1>
'Amazon.com has received a patent for an online retailing chat technology, 
marking the company's latest push to appeal to more consumers by adding 
customer-centric features.'

Lindows v Windows.
<http://www.techzonez.com/comments.php?id=1409>
'A federal court has ordered Microsoft to produce more than 300 boxes of 
evidence to support its claims in a trademark suit against software startup 
Lindows.com, pushing back the jury trial in the case from April until 
December.'

CENSORSHIP / SPEECH

National Groups Urge Court to Overturn Harry Potter Ban.
<http://www.freeexpression.org/newswire/potter.pdf>
National groups and author Judy Blume asked a federal judge here to return 
J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books to the library shelves of a western 
Arkansas school district.

Pledge Ban Set For March 10 in Nine States.
<http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/03/03/pledge.of.allegiance.reut/index.html>
A ruling by a U.S. appeals court could force millions of students to stop 
reciting the Pledge of Allegiance within days if the controversial decision 
is not overturned by a higher court.

INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION POLICY

Pushing The Envelope.
<http://www.dfn.org/voices/qatar/musachat.htm>
Imad Musa, US based producer of Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based news service 
talks about the controversial station.  Transcript of previous DFN Chat.

DVD Jon Update.
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/29543.html>
'Norwegian teenager, Jon Lech Johansen, is to be tried again by an appeal 
court this summer despite being cleared of cyber piracy crimes earlier this 
year.'

US Plan to Bug Security Council: the text.
<http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,905954,00.html>
The text of the memorandum detailing the US plans to bug the phones and 
emails of key Security Council members.
Original story: http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,905936,00.html

Read Before You Judge.
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/29531.html>
Google has found itself at the center of a censorship row after it removed a 
link to a "sickening paedophile site" after pressure from councilors in 
Chester, England.  However, the site in question is far from a pedophile 
site.

Compiled by Dylan Thomarie
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