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America’s Top Consumer Protection Cop Needs Better Weapons in its Arsenal

by Jonathan Dunn
February 5, 2010
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz urged Congress to give the FTC the tools it needs to effectively protect consumers, particularly against financial fraud, in the 21st century economy at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing yesterday. The FTC is the top cop on the beat, but it is hard to police without adequate weapons. Specifically, Leibowitz urged Congress to grant the FTC (1) aiding and abetting authority; (2) Administrative Procedures Act (APA) rulemaking authority; (3) civil penalty authority; and (4) independent litigating authority.
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More Thoughts from State of the Net 2010

by Erica Newland
February 5, 2010

One of the most highly anticipated panels at last week’s State of the Net Conference was the Judith Krug Memorial Intellectual Freedom Panel, entitled “Global Free Expression: Will the Internet Reign or Get Reined In?”. Held less than one week after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s widely-lauded speech on global Internet freedom and less than one month after Google announced that after suffering cyberattacks traced to the Chinese mainland it would no longer censor search results in China, the panel was a timely and fitting tribute to long-time free speech advocate Judith Krug.

Ms. Krug, the late Director
of the Office of Intellectual Freedom of the American Library
Association, the Executive Director of ALA's Freedom to Read
Foundation, and longtime member and former Chair of CDT's Board of
 Directors, dedicated her life to the fight against censorship, in libraries and online. She was instrumental in taking the defense of free speech and the First
Amendment to the online world and she fought side-by-side with CDT – successfully – for those freedoms all the way to the Supreme Court.

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The Internet and 21st Century Statecraft

by Adam Rosenberg
February 4, 2010
CDT President Leslie Harris' ABC News column examines two remarkable events in the development of the Internet that took place in January: Google taking a principled stand against Chinese censorship and Secretary of State HIllary Clinton's speech elevating the Net to major foreign policy player.
 
Harris' column looks at the what must happen next, now that the world has been put on notice through Clinton's speech that global Internet freedom is now a major foreign policy objective. Harris writes:
Clinton's speech was just the starting point for a wider discussion about the U.S. government's role in keeping the Internet open, innovative and free. The fight for global Internet freedom will involve a complex calculus of challenges and obstacles. But it is a fight we can't afford to shirk and one we dare not turn our backs on.
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CDT Health Privacy Project Director Deven McGraw Honored

by Brock N. Meeks
February 4, 2010

CDT's Health Privacy Project Director Deven McGraw today received the HIPAA Summit Distinguished Service Award in recognition of her efforts to address the complex privacy issues associated with the growing use of health IT.

Organizers of the HIPAA Summit said in a statement:
 

Ms. McGraw is active in efforts to advance the adoption and implementation of health information technology and electronic health information exchange to improve health care. She was one of three persons appointed by Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, to serve on the Health Information Technology (HIT) Policy Committee, a federal advisory committee established in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

 

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"Three Strikes and You're ___?": Two Thoughts from State of the Net

by Andrew McDiarmid
January 30, 2010

The plenary panel at this week’s State of the Net conference was a debate on if and when it is appropriate to cut off Internet access to repeated copyright infringers. Provocatively titled “Copyright Strikes: When Has a Pirate Graduated to Exile?,” the panel was designed to raise hackles on each side of the debate. On one hand many object to the use of “pirate” to describe copyright infringers; on the other hand, proponents of graduated response policies insist that they do not amount to “exile” from the Internet. John Morris represented CDT on the panel, articulating the serious concerns about proportionality and due process that expedited suspensions raise. You can watch the entire discussion on CDT’s ustream channel.

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"Exploring Privacy" with the FTC

by Sean Brooks
January 29, 2010
At the second in a series of "Exploring Privacy" roundtables held by the Federal Trade Commission, academics, privacy advocates and companies pushed hard for the FTC to take up the reigns of regulating abuses of consumer trust and violations of consumer privacy on the Web.
 
Here are four key points gleaned from today's FTC Privacy roundtable sessions:
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Thoughts from State of the Net 2010

by Jonathan Dunn
January 29, 2010
Wednesday's State of the Net 2010 conference was a significant opportunity to move Internet policy forward. The notion that we must continue to keep the Internet open, innovative and free was reinforced in many of the day’s breakout sessions that I attended. I would like to highlight two examples here. First, during the “Clouding Internet Policy” panel, CDT’s Jim Dempsey emphasized the need to expand traditional Fourth Amendment protections against government surveillance of data in the cloud. Of particular significance is the need to reform the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (commonly referred to as ECPA) to strengthen protections for data stored in the cloud, including non-public social networking information, mobile location information, and transactional data. For example, although I would like to believe I have the same high level of privacy protection when I create a document on Google Docs as I do on my personal computer’s physical hard drive, I probably do not in reality. That this may, in fact, be the case is particularly shocking and disturbing. If we do not properly protect data in the cloud, consumer confidence in cloud computing will unfortunately suffer. CDT is working hard to update ECPA so it properly reflects today’s state of the net.
 
Second, the need to develop trust in an open and free Internet was a primary focus of the “Debating the Framework for Online Privacy” session that I attended in the afternoon. During this panel discussion, CDT’s Ari Schwartz emphasized the need to establish comprehensive privacy protections for personal information and I do not think many would disagree with this goal.
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Today is Data Privacy Day

by Adam Rosenberg
January 28, 2010
Today is Data Privacy Day – an international celebration of the dignity of the individual expressed through their personal information. This is exactly what "Take Back Your Privacy" is all about as we work with supporters, businesses and legislators to increase user control of their personal data.
 
To help celebrate Data Privacy Day, we urge you to do any number of the following activities to show your support for protecting digital privacy:
  • Visit www.dataprivacyday2010.org and get involved by hosting an awareness event or activity
  • Sign up three friends to the "Take Back Your Privacy" campaign
  • Download our campaign badge and post it on your website or blog to show your support
  • Write a letter to lawmakers urging them to pass meaningful and privacy legislation 
Change will not happen unless you raise your voice and demand it. It's your data and your information – you have the right to decide how that information is used. Stand up and celebrate Data Privacy Day and take back your privacy!
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CDT Comments to FCC

by Adam Rosenberg
January 28, 2010

CDT recently filed two sets of comments with the FCC about building privacy protections into a national broadband plan.  These comments were highlighted in a blog post on BoingBoing by Jessamyn West.  Check it out.

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FTC Roundtable: Technology's Impact on Privacy

by Brock N. Meeks
January 28, 2010

In her opening remarks at the second of the FTC’s roundtables in its Exploring Privacy series, FTC Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour was characteristically observant in noting that the mobile space is “crying out for greater privacy.” She reminded us of the 100,000 mobile apps that have been developed for just one mobile platform (the iPhone) among many, but aptly noted that “there’s no app” to give users greater control over their mobile data and the ways that data generated by mobile devices can be used for consumer tracking. Across all the most popular mobile applications platforms (including iPhone and Android), there are nearly 3000 location-based applications, and surely only a fraction, if any, are designed to enhance location privacy rather than invade it.

CDT's Alissa Cooper is participating today on a panel at the workshop that will focus on the privacy implications of mobile computing.  In comments submitted to the FTC in advance of today's workshop, a section highlighting the privacy implications of mobile computing, saying:
 

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