First Sentence for Violating Privacy Law
353922
Lying in a hospital bed, gravely ill from leukemia and weakened by chemotherapy, Eric Drew began to get mail thanking him for opening credit accounts he knew nothing about.
409691
By HOWARD FISCHER, CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES  PHOENIX - Facing a choice between privacy and fighting crime, state senators on Thursday chose the latter.
706675
By Elise Ackerman, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Jun. 17--Nicole Wong is the point person for growing criticism of  Google's privacy practices.
466879
Also: Privacy: The problem that won't go away. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
636574
Judge says law violates free speech, orders blocking stopped.
286257
A congressional inquiry into online data brokers has raised concerns that federal and local law enforcement may be skirting privacy laws to obtain calling records
79357
Paper files exempt The Government's planned two-year jail sentence for information thieves will not apply to people who steal or trade in personal information from most manual filing systems. Apart from some Government files, the penalties will only apply to electronic databases.â¦
615126
A proposed law would require companies to keep detailed data about peopleâs Internet and phone use.
16397
The case was one of the first in which a judge in the United States had ruled that a restraining order had been violated by contact made through MySpace.
527796
(InfoWorld) - A U.S. district judge has struck down a part of the anti-terrorism-inspired Patriot Act that requires telephone and Internet service providers to turn over records to the government without telling customers. Judge Victor Marrero, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, ruled Thursday that the Patriot Act provision that allows the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation toÂ obtain ISP and telecom subscribers' billing, calling, and Web surfing recordsÂ without court approval violates the U.S. Constitution. Marrero ordered the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice to stop issuing so-calledÂ national security letters, or NSLs, requiring ISPs to turn over subscriber records. The NSL program prohibited ISPs from telling customers that they were being investigated. Marrero delayed the order pending a DOJ appeal of his decision. The NSL program under the Patriot Act violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as a restraint on free speech, the judge said in his 107-page order. The program also bypasses judicial oversight of the requests, Marrero said. The NSL program could allow the FBI to unmask the identity of Internet users posting anonymous comments, obtain all of the e-mail messages of an Internet user, and even find out all the Web sites a user has visited, Marrero said. "In light of the seriousness of the potential intrusion into the individual's personal affairs and the significant possibility of a chilling effect on speech and association -- particularly of expression that is critical of the government or its policies -- a compelling need exists to ensure that the use of NSLs is subject to the safeguards of public accountability," the judge wrote. The DOJ is reviewing the decision and considering its options, a spokesman said. The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit against the DOJ and FBI, praised Marrero's decision. "Courts have a constitutionally mandated role to play when national security policies infringe on First Amendment rights," Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, said in a statement. "A statute that allows the FBI to silence people without meaningful judicial oversight is unconstitutional." The U.S. Congress passed the Patriot Act less than two months after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Congress, under pressure from President George Bush, reauthorized the Patriot Act in 2006. Many civil liberties groups have criticized the law for being overly broad and targeting innocent U.S. residents. Marrero in 2004 ruled that the NSL provisions of the Patriot Act violated the Constitution because they amounted to unreasonable search and seizure. After the 2006 revisions to the Patriot Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sent the case back to Marrero for a ruling on whether the NSL provisions were still unconstitutional. The FBI's use of the NSL program, which existed before the Patriot Act, has ballooned since the law was passed, Marrero noted. In 2000, the FBI issued about 8,500 NSL requests, and the number of requests rose to 56,000 in 2004, he wrote. The NSL program's "most troubling" aspect, Marrero wrote, is that it attempts to bypass judicial review of law enforcement requests. The program "reflects an attempt by Congress and the executive to infringe upon the judiciary's designated role under the Constitution," he wrote.
698482
Socialite and heiress begins term for violating probation, lawyer says.
538454
By The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.  Sep. 25--Local governments violate Virginia's Freedom of Information Act with impunity, ordinarily protected from penalty by compliant local judges and by the unwillingness of people to sue city leaders to force them to follow the law.
159077
Try not to smile: A top spammer may be sentenced to hard time.
308926
WASHINGTON -- Using video cameras to record films in movie theatres would become a federal crime punishable by up to six years in prison under a bill passed yesterday by the House.
395194
In a case of snooping parents vs. their children, a mother&#39;s eavesdropping on a telephone conversation between the woman&#39;s daughter and her daughter&#39;s boyfriend violated the children&#39;s privacy, the state Supreme Court ruled yesterday.
608445
In some instances, this privacy software may tell you that you're protected when you aren't.
259195
Country with world's biggest network of surveillance cameras has worst record for the protection of privacy