Millions of Americans are not yet aware of how NSTIC, a proposal for a national online identity system, will affect all citizens and non-citizens private interactions and the US business culture. To date, the only information set forth to the public on the extent and application of program is a 36 page proposal.

Extending the deadline is necessary to create an informed consent or dissent from American Internet users, to better inform constituents and the US Congress of what the NSTIC program is and how it works.

Amazon.com filed a lawsuit on Monday to fend off a sweeping demand from North Carolina's tax collectors: detailed records including names and addresses of customers and information about exactly what they purchased.

The lawsuit says the demand violates the privacy and First Amendment rights of Amazon's customers. North Carolina's Department of Revenue had ordered the online retailer to provide full details on nearly 50 million purchases made by state residents between 2003 and 2010.

Our friends at ACLU have put up a petition to Google to not enter into a data-sharing agreement with the military. Check out the interactive petition form here.

March 1, 2010

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

In November 2009, many of the undersigned organizations wrote to you to express our concern over the lack of nominations to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB). We write again, with increased urgency, to encourage you to appoint individuals immediately.

Last night, the U.S. Senate passed -- on unanimous consent and no recorded vote -- a measure to renew some expiring police-state provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act for another year. The U.S. House is scheduled to vote on the extension tonight. The White House has promised to sign the bill.

Call your Congressman's office (the Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121) today and urge a NO vote.

Background here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR201002...

REDWOOD CITY — It's now up to a San Mateo County Superior Court judge to decide whether to set a legal precedent on the powers police have to search a person's cell phone following arrest.

After nearly three and a half hours of testimony and arguments Thursday afternoon on the legality of Daly City police officers' search of an identity theft suspect's iPhone, Judge John Runde said he will consider the case and issue a ruling.

Declan McCullagh has the story on the latest in back-door spyware demanded by US police agencies:

CNET has reviewed a survey scheduled to be released at a federal task force meeting on Thursday, which says that law enforcement agencies are virtually unanimous in calling for such an interface to be created. Eighty-nine percent of police surveyed, it says, want to be able to "exchange legal process requests and responses to legal process" through an encrypted, police-only "nationwide computer network."

By Bruce Schneier, Special to CNN

Google made headlines when it went public with the fact that Chinese hackers had penetrated some of its services, such as Gmail, in a politically motivated attempt at intelligence gathering. The news here isn't that Chinese hackers engage in these activities or that their attempts are technically sophisticated -- we knew that already -- it's that the U.S. government inadvertently aided the hackers.

In order to comply with government search warrants on user data, Google created a backdoor access system into Gmail accounts. This feature is what the Chinese hackers exploited to gain access.