Free Republic

The interesting part is the lower right hand of the pictorial.

From yesterday’s New York intermediate appellate court decision in Foster v. Svenson (paragraph breaks added): [Snip]... Defendant photographed the building’s residents surreptitiously, hiding himself in the shadows of his darkened apartment. Defendant asserts that he did so for reasons of artistic expression; he obscured his subjects’ faces, seeking to comment on the “anonymity” of urban life, where individuals only reveal what can be seen through their windows. After approximately one year of photography, defendant assembled a series of photographs called “The Neighbors,” which he exhibited in galleries in Los Angeles and New York.

In a brief filed late Wednesday, Microsoft said the federal government’s legal argument for seizing user emails stored overseas “rewrites” an almost 30-year-old law to “reinterpret” it in a way it was never meant to be used.At the heart of the issue is a government warrant for Microsoft user emails stored on a server in Dublin, Ireland, which the government claims are relevant to an ongoing drug trafficking investigation. To justify the seizure of the data outside of U.S. territory, the government is basing its argument on legislation born out of the Reagan era.“The statute in this case, the Electronics...

I like most of the policies Cruz is pursuing, but I feel uncomfortable receiving a signed email from him to an email address I only share with family asking for money. What's up with that?

Retail chain RadioShack is looking to cash in the information it holds on its customers as part of its bankruptcy sale. According to Hilco Streambank, personal data including over 65 million customers' names and physical addresses, as well as 13 million email addresses, has been made available to the highest bidder. All this despite the fact that the company's online privacy policy quite clearly states: We will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to anyone at any time. We will not use any personal information beyond what is necessary to assist us in delivering to you the services...

Bankrupt consumer electronics retailer RadioShack Corp. (RSHC), has listed personal data of millions of its customers for sale. The RadioShack assets listed for sale includes more than 65 million customer names and physical addresses and 13 million email addresses. Hilco Streambank is the advisory firm that is taking care of disposition of RadioShack's assets in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy auction. According to reports, the auction for the personal data of customers has been concluded with hedge fund Standard General winning the auction. However, the deal still requires approval from a bankruptcy court and it looks like RadioShack will also face...

Most of the likely Republican presidential candidates are supportive of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. But Americans who identify as Republican or lean that way appear to disagree. That’s according to a new survey from Pew Research, released on Monday, gauging post-Snowden attitudes on digital privacy and surveillance. Of respondents who were familiar with the NSA spying revelations, 70 percent of Republicans and those leaning Republican said they were losing confidence that the agency’s surveillance programs served the public interest. Just 55 percent of Democrats and those leaning Democratic said they had lost faith.... But the strong majority of...

The superintendent of the Watchung Hills Regional High School District in New Jersey has confirmed that she sent an email to fellow superintendents Tuesday about her concern that education publishing giant Pearson is “monitoring” children’s social media accounts for possible leaks about the Common Core-aligned PARCC tests.

The first person infected with Ebola in the United States, nurse Nina Pham, said she was used for publicity purposes by her hospital, which also invaded her privacy and did not properly train her, the Dallas Morning News reported on Sunday. Pham, 26, told the newspaper that chaos hit the Dallas hospital when it admitted Thomas Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States after he contracted it in Liberia. Nurses were ill prepared and received little guidance on how to treat Ebola or protect themselves.

(TNS) -- Pick another issue -- maybe any other issue -- and they'd be at each other's throats. But on Monday, the Minnesota Tea Party Alliance shared a stage with Occupy Minnesota, with the American Civil Liberties Union and an anti-Affordable Care Act advocacy group, with liberal DFLers and conservative Republicans. These unnatural allies agreed on one thing: limiting the ability of government to access electronic data. "There won't be many opportunities for you to see a group this ideologically diverse and bipartisan," said state Sen. Branden Petersen, R-Andover. Petersen, a Republican with libertarian leanings, wants to amend Minnesota's constitution...

President Obama talked a surprising amount of common sense on his trip last week to Silicon Valley, where he spoke at a "cybersecurity" gathering at Stanford University. But he undermined some noteworthy remarks about strong encryption--we need it, he said--with the kind of fear-monger hedging that has become almost every politician's refuge from telling the hard truth.... The first was Obama's clear statement that he, personally, favors ubiquitous strong encryption. He thinks everyone should use it but hedges that by saying law enforcement needs a way to break into communications and data.... [W]e need leaders who'll tell the truth--that we...

Summary:The Apple boss said people have entrusted the company with their most personal bits of information. "We owe them nothing less than the best protections we can possibly provide." Apple chief executive Tim Cook said that there should not have to be a trade-off between national security and personal privacy. In a speech as part of a cybersecurity summit hosted by The White House at Stanford University, the Apple boss said history has shown that sacrificing rights to privacy can have "dire consequences" on society. "We risk something far more valuable than money. We risk our way of life," he...

In September 2013, Oklahoma passed a bill safeguarding student data, and since then, student and family data privacy issues have received greater attention in state houses, largely because of increased data collection requirements and availability of data. There is also a growing need to provide parents with timely, relevant data to make informed choices regarding schooling options. To successfully navigate data privacy issues, it is important to consider existing policies and safeguards in place at the federal level. These safeguards include several significant and far-reaching policies such as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Children’s Online Privacy Protection...

....the 24-year-old apparently decided to order some Papa John’s (Editor’s Note: Their butter dipping sauce and chicken tenders are divine). Then things got ugly. According to Azalea, Papa John’s was her “favorite pizza” until one of their drivers took it upon him/herself to distribute her number to their family members. Naturally, she took to Twitter to voice her frustrations to her 4.2 million followers in 140 characters or less: . @PapaJohns was my favorite pizza but the drivers they use give out your personal phone number to their family members.

Why worry about Big Brother? It's your big Samsung TV that's watching you. Oh, and listening to you. That seems to be the conclusion from reading the privacy small print offered by the company. (Samsung's motto: TV has never been this smart.) It concerns the voice-recognition feature, vital for everyone who finds pressing a few buttons on their remote far too tiresome. The wording, first spotted by the Daily Beast, first informs you that the company may "capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features." This...

Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition. Left: Samsung SmartTV privacy policy, warning users not to discuss personal info in front of their TV Right: 1984

For four years, hidden cameras recorded Madison Reed's most private moments, beginning when she was just 13 years old. The cameras, placed by a neighbor in the teenager's bedroom and in a beach house, are now gone, but the painful memories remain. "It's disgusting," Madison said. "I don't like to think about it, but I think about it all the time. Like all day." According to law enforcement investigators, Bradley McCollum, a family friend, set up a camera at his Clatsop County beach house in 2010 to secretly record Reed as she visited with McCollum's family. In 2014, he added...

Sen. Marco Rubio wants Congress to permanently extend the authorities governing several of the National Security Agency's controversial spying programs, including its mass surveillance of domestic phone records. The Florida Republican and likely 2016 presidential hopeful penned an op-ed on Tuesday condemning President Obama's counterterrorism policies and warning that the U.S. has not learned the "fundamental lessons of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001." Rubio called on Congress to permanently reauthorize core provisions of the post-9/11 USA Patriot Act, which are due to sunset on June 1 of this year and provide the intelligence community with much of its...

Privacy advocates say the Obama administration needs to make more changes to protect consumer privacy on the government’s health insurance website. The administration reversed course Friday and scaled back the release of personal information from HealthCare.gov, after The Associated Press reported that such details as consumers’ income and tobacco use were going to private companies with a commercial interest in the data.The episode could become a blemish on what’s otherwise shaping up as a successful open enrollment season for the second year of expanded coverage under President Barack Obama’s health care law. Lawmakers continue to insist on a full explanation....

This thread is intended to provide awareness that all of our healthcare patient PHI data(personal healthcare information), medical records, prescriptions, etc. is increasingly shared among hundreds of thousands of healthcare entities that are exempt from HIPAA PHI distribution restrictions. You are not permitted to opt out via a consent form. Cash payment for healthcare services is also frequently recorded, as well. This is a 2+ Billion dollar a year business that is largely unregulated. Healthcare records have huge repercussions that can impact an individual's ability to attain employment and insurance. Healthcare records also influence government and law enforcement action. Many...