The party has branches in 35 countries and they all co-operate via a collective called Pirate Party International. The Australian branch is headed by a University of Western Sydney law student, Rodney Serkowski.
Two people have been successfully prosecuted for refusing to provide authorities with their encryption keys, resulting in landmark convictions that may have carried jail sentences of up to five years. The government said today it does not know their fate. The power to force people to unscramble their data was granted to authorities in October 2007. Between 1 April, 2008 and 31 March this year the first two convictions were obtained.
Applying for a job with the City of Bozeman? You may be asked to provide more personal information than you expected. That was the case for one person who applied for employment with the City. The anonymous viewer emailed the news station recently to express concern with a component of the city's background check policy, which states that to be considered for a job applicants must provide log-in information and passwords for social network sites in which they participate. The requirement is included on a waiver statement applicants must sign, giving the City permission to conduct an investigation into the person's "background, references, character, past employment, education, credit history, criminal or police records."
Sir Richard Dearlove, who led the Secret Intelligence Service from 1999 to 2004, claimed some were an 'abuse' of the law. He attacked the 'loss of liberties' caused by expanding surveillance powers and described some police operations as 'mind-boggling.' The former spy chief joins a growing number of high-profile critics warning that individual freedom and privacy are being seriously eroded by the Government's disproportionate efforts to guard against terrorism.
The Melbourne-based firm has for the past five years monitored websites, online chat rooms, social networking sites, email lists and bulletin boards, the report said. It has gathered intelligence on planned protests and other activities, and many of those on the watch list have broken no laws, the report said.
Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.
Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Although Google argued that turning over the data would invade its users' privacy, the judge's ruling described that argument as "speculative" and ordered Google to turn over the logs on a set of four tera-byte hard drives.
For several years, U.S. officials have been searching and seizing laptops, digital cameras, cell phones and other electronic devices at the border with few publicly released details. Complaints from travelers and privacy advocates have spurred some lawmakers to question the U.S. Customs and Border Protection policy.
The United States and the European Union are nearing completion of an agreement allowing law enforcement and security agencies to obtain private information — like credit card transactions, travel histories and Internet browsing habits — about people on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
The bill, she said, strips “citizens of genetic privacy rights and DNA property rights. It bill also violates research ethics and the Nuremberg Code.
“The public is clueless. S. 1858 imposes a federal agenda of DNA databanking and population-wide genetic research,” Brase continued. “It does not require consent and there are no requirements to fully inform parents about the warehousing of their child’s DNA for the purpose of genetic research.
The criminals in the federal government are now trying to legalize the seizure of computers and other property under the guise of strengthening intellectual property laws. HR 4279 or the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008 which was recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, will give the government draconian powers to do just this.
The state of Minnesota has illegally collected and claims ownership to the DNA of 780,000 children and has provided the DNA of over 42,000 children to genetic researchers without parental consent.
The U.S. government has argued in a pending court case that its authority to protect the country's border extends to looking at information stored in electronic devices such as laptops without any suspicion of a crime.
