Saturday, July 19, 2003

Senate pulls plug on computer dragnets
According to this report from ZDNet Tech News: "The U.S. Senate votes to cut off funding for a computer-surveillance program that would comb credit-card bills and other private records to sniff out suspected terrorists." TIA RIP?
Video cameras will monitor plane passengers  
According to this report from WorldNetDaily: "Airline to keep customers under constant surveillance, record faces." Think about how much of the LB series has to do with flying, pilots and airports, all of that would have to be reconsidered in light of new surveillance technology.

Monday, July 14, 2003

Funding for TIA All But Dead
According to this Wired News report, "The Senate inserts a provision to a key bill that denies all funding to the Terrorist Information Awareness effort. It's a move that would make it much more difficult for the Pentagon to try to establish its massive data-mining spy network." Big Brother loses one, amazing.
Cell Phone Calls Flying High
According to this Wired News report, "A Colorado company is working on a device that would let airline passengers use their cell phones during flight. But, as on the ground, cell-phone calls in yet one more public place could ruffle feathers. By Elisa Batista." Buck would use this all the time I bet.

Sunday, July 13, 2003

New Kind of Snooping Arrives at the Office
According to this New York Times report, "Employers have stepped up their surveillance of employees, often using stealth techniques to peer deep into their computer use. :: I looked into this some time ago and found that this is all perfectly legal, you should assume that you have no privacy at all in the workplace. Many people use their office computers for personal business because the connections are often faster than what you have at home. What you need to realize is that your company IT manager is probably keeping a log of all employee Internet activity. This includes e-mail as well as sites visited. So, you can see, that if companies can do this in the United States, how much more can governments hostile to the spread of the gospel (like China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Nigeria, etc.) do to monitor the Internet activity of citizens. It is only a matter of having the righty spyware.