Privacy Issues:
House Subpoenas Personal Medical Information in Continued Assault on Clean Air Policies
On Aug. 2, the House Science Committee issued a subpoena demanding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency release all underlying data and personal medical information from two crucial studies the agency has relied on in setting air quality standards since 1997. The main study at issue, called the Six Cities Study, was peer reviewed and originally published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1993. Researchers from Harvard tracked thousands of adult Americans over a 16-year period and concluded that there exists a "statistically robust association between air pollution and mortality."
C. Arden Pope, an economist and one of the original authors of the Six Cities Study, has criticized the subcommittee’s actions. Pope reminded the subcommittee that the complete data set was not released because doing so would "undoubtedly violate the confidentiality agreement made with [study] participants."
http://www.foreffectivegov.org/blog/house-subpoenas-personal-medical-information-continued-assault-clean-air-policies.
Global Coalition States Principles to Protect Human Rights from Surveillance
For some time now there has been a need to update understandings of existing human rights law to reflect modern surveillance technologies and techniques. Nothing could demonstrate the urgency of this situation more than the recent revelations confirming the mass surveillance of innocent individuals around the world.
To move toward that goal, today we’re pleased to announce the launch of the International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance. The thirteen principles articulate what international human rights law – which binds every country across the globe – require of governments conducting surveillance in the digital age. The product of over a year of consultation among civil society, privacy and technology experts, the principles have already been co-signed by over hundred organisations from around the world.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/07/thirteen-principles-for-human-rights.
Obama Administration Releases Previously Secret Legal Opinion on NSA’s Associational Tracking Program
The Administration released a White Paper on Friday that summarized its claimed legal basis for the bulk collection of telephony metadata, also known as the Associational Tracking Program under section 215 of the Patriot Act, codified as 50 U.S.C. section 1861. While we’ll certainly be saying more about this analysis in the future, the paper makes one central point clear:
There is no direct authorization for the Associational Tracking Program in section Patriot Act section 215.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/administration-white-paper-associational-tracking-program.
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Open Access:
[University of California] Academic Senate approves open access policy
The Academic Senate of the University of California has passed an Open Access Policy, ensuring that future research articles authored by faculty at all 10 campuses of UC will be made available to the public at no charge. Articles will be available to the public without charge via eScholarship (UC’s open access repository) in tandem with their publication in scholarly journals. Open access benefits researchers, educational institutions, businesses, research funders and the public by accelerating the pace of research, discovery and innovation and contributing to the mission of advancing knowledge and encouraging new ideas and services.
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/29858.
The new policty was criticized, however, for having an "opt-out" option.
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Public Policy:
Diverse Contributors Revisit CIPA: 10 Years Later
Recently the [ALA] Office for Information Technology Policy and [ALA] Office for Intellectual Freedom hosted day-and-a-half symposium to look at how libraries have implemented the requirements of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) over the last 10 years since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law’s constitutionality. Symposium participants reviewed old issues (such as the fact commercial filtering companies decide what is blocked and do not share this information with libraries and schools), as well as new ones (inhibiting user-generated content) that have emerged as the internet and technology tools continue to evolve.
OITP and OIF will produce a final white paper sharing background, key findings and recommendations from the symposium later this fall.
http://www.districtdispatch.org/2013/08/diverse-contributors-revisit-cipa-10-years-later/.
5th Anniversary of Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act: Five Safety Breakthroughs in Five Years
On August 14, 2008, the CPSIA was signed into law after a deliberative process and overwhelming bipartisan support in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. The law includes strong product safety reforms that revitalized the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).
In the five years since CPSIA was passed, there have been five significant safety breakthroughs:
– The SaferProducts.gov database;
– Third-party premarket testing for children’s products;
– The reduction of lead in children’s products through lower lead limits;
– Strong mandatory standards for cribs and other infant and toddler products; and
– A mandatory safety standard for children’s toys.
The CPSIA represents the most comprehensive strengthening of product safety laws in a generation.
http://www.foreffectivegov.org/5th-anniversary-consumer-product-safety-improvement-act-five-safety-breakthroughs-five-years.
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Digital History:
Internet Search Engines Drove US Librarians to Redefine Themselves
Although librarians adopted Internet technology quickly, they initially dismissed search engines, which duplicated tasks they considered integral to their field. Their eventual embrace of the technology required a reinvention of their occupational identity, according to a study by University of Oregon researchers. The story of the successful transition — of accommodating a new technology — into a new identity is a good example for professionals in other fields who have faced or currently face such challenges.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130807134506.htm
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Freedom of Information:
Migration Declassified: ICE’s Controversial Secure Communities Program
Recently, Laura Kauer of the Archive’s Mexico/Migration Project launched a new round of Freedom of Information Act requests on what has become one of the most controversial immigration enforcement initiatives in the United States: the Secure Communities deportation program. The data-sharing program requires participating state and municipal jurisdictions to run the fingerprints of arrestees through various federal law enforcement databases to check for immigration violations. More than 90% of those arrested through the Secure Communities are Latino, and approximately 3,600 U.S. citizens have been arrested by ICE through the program. More than one-third (39%) of individuals arrested through Secure Communities reported that they have a U.S. citizen spouse or child, meaning that approximately 88,000 families with U.S. citizen members have been impacted by the program.
http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/migration-declassified-ices-controversial-secure-communities-program/
FreedomHack: A Hackathon for Good
This weekend, August 10-11, coders, hackers, policy experts and journalists will spend 24 hours at a hackathon feverishly working together to develop tools and products that will help those living in the most dangerous parts of the world tell their stories. This is FreedomHack. This hackathon will focus on developing secure tools and products for those who live in parts of Mexico that have been overrun by cartel violence and human rights related issues. Citizen reporters and journalists regularly face threats on their lives and at the very least, censorship on the vital topics they are reporting. FreedomHack will provide these individuals with the tools and the confidence to get their stories out of their town or village and into the global community. This can foster the change and awareness necessary to make a positive impact on the lives of those affected.
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/08/09/opengov-voices-freedomhack-a-hackathon-for-good/.
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Intellectual Property Issues:
Hospitals Say Device Manufacturers Resist Boosting Cybersecurity
Hospital IT and security executives say medical device manufacturers frequently resist or delay boosting the security of their products to protect against cyberattacks. They say that manufacturers cite concerns about FDA medical device regulations and whether adding such security measures would require them to re-submit their devices for approval.
Mac McMillan — co-founder and CEO of CynergisTek — said that every time his company "[goes] into a hospital to conduct a risk analysis we have heard the same consistent story: medical devices running on obsolete software, that are not encryptable, that don’t have antivirus running on them, that aren’t patched or fixed, because the manufacturers won’t allow it."
http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2013/8/7/hospitals-say-device-manufacturers-resist-boosting-cybersecurity.
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The Intersect Alert is a newsletter of the Government Relations Committee, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Special Libraries Association.