Privacy Issues:
Facebook Post by Arizona Hospital Employee Results in Identity Theft
Last week, an Arizona woman filed a police report after a University of Arizona Medical Center-South Campus employee posted a photo on Facebook that included a computer screen displaying the woman’s personal health information. In June, an emergency department employee at the Tucson-based health care provider posted a photo on Facebook that inadvertently displayed a patient’s personal health information. The employee was taking a photo of something else on her work station, according to Green Valley News. The Arizona woman said the Facebook post displayed her name; address; and Social Security number. The affected patient filed the police report after the Arizona Department of Economic Security called and notified her that someone had used her personal information to apply for food stamps.
http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2013/10/22/facebook-post-by-arizona-hospital-employee-results-in-identity-theft.
CIA’s Overclassification Practices Declassified
The Reducing Over-Classification Act of 2010, a byproduct of the 9/11 Commission Report’s finding that overclassification and lack of intelligence sharing led, in part, to the 2001 terrorist attacks, mandated reductions in overclassification. However, the Act failed to define what "overclassification" meant, and missed the larger problem of the current classification system – that too many documents technically meet the standards for classification, but should nonetheless not be classified in the first place. Thanks to "Secrecy vs. Disclosure: A Study in Security Classification (PDF)," a 1976 CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence Monograph, we now know this has long been a flaw of the classification system.
The CIA document (a significant disclosure by the Agency for which they deserve recognition) is an internal history that attempts to be the first "historical development of classification, seeking to isolate its endemic problems and to gain a fresh perspective on a procedure that has become hackneyed for most of us."
http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/cias-overclassification-practices-declassified/.
Mobile Tracking Code of Conduct Falls Short of Protecting Consumers
The field of "mobile location analytics" – where tracking companies work with brick-and-mortar retail stores to collect insights about customer behavior based on fine-grained location information harvested from mobile phones – has taken a small step towards self-regulation with a new code of conduct (PDF) published this week. The industry is likely hoping to calm privacy concerns that have generated public outcry and attracted the attention of legislators. Unfortunately, the published code falls short. It establishes an opt-out system, where users must enter the unique 12-digit MAC addresses of each of their mobile device’s Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chips into a database that tracking companies commit to honoring. Beside the irony of asking the most privacy-conscious consumers to hand over their MAC addresses to tracking companies, the scheme seems unlikely to see much pickup. For one thing, many users may not be aware of this kind of tracking in the first place, much less whether any particular retailer is tracking them. Tracking is invasive, but surreptitious.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/mobile-tracking-code-conduct-falls-short-protecting-consumers.
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Freedom of Information:
Erotic fairytale first book pulled from the New Zealand National Library for being too explicit
A graphic novel that depicts the sexual encounters of fairytale heroines has made history as the first book pulled from the New Zealand National Library catalogue for being too explicit. The book has never been classified by the censor and the decision of the library to self-censor has angered those who say libraries should be champions of literary freedom.
Lost Girls, by English graphic novel writer Alan Moore and his wife, artist Melinda Gebbie, was originally purchased in 2008 for the library’s collection at the request of a member. It was removed from the catalogue after questions were raised over its content. The three-volume book has Wendy, from Peter Pan, Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and Alice from Alice in Wonderland meeting by chance as adults on the eve of World War I. They talk through their sexual experiences, and also violence and drug use.
http://www.dailylife.com.au/entertainment/books/erotic-fairytale-first-book-pulled-from-the-new-zealand-national-library-for-being-too-explicit-20131020-2vud7.html.
Cybersecurity Directive From Bush Kept Secret
President George W. Bush’s presidential directive on cybersecurity is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, a federal judge ruled. The Electronic Privacy Information Center had filed the FOIA request in June 2009, seeking information related to National Security Presidential Directive 54. Bush had sent the confidential document to "a select and limited group of senior foreign policy advisors, cabinet officials, and agency heads on the subject of cybersecurity," EPIC claimed. While the document is classified top secret, portions of it are unclassified. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled Monday, however, that the directive is not an agency record subject to a FOIA request because it did not originate with the National Security Administration.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/10/23/62295.htm.
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Open Access:
ACS Publications announces the large-scale digitization and open availability of data coupled to ACS Legacy Archives Journals
The Publications Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) announced today the completion of a comprehensive undertaking to digitally convert and conserve the Supporting Information for its broadly subscribed ACS Legacy Archives journals collection. This initiative was part of the Society’s commitment to broaden the online accessibility of the Supporting Information and data associated with the ACS Legacy Archives –– a premium collection of nearly half a million original research articles published in ACS journals between the years 1879 and 1995. The digitization effort has generated new Supporting Information files for 40,000 ACS original research articles, and in total comprises 800,000 pages of highly valuable data and underlying research information.
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2013/october/acs-publications-announces-the-large-scale-digitization.html.
The Impact of Opening Up Municipal Campaign Finance Data
What kinds of information municipalities release about campaign finance and how they release it varies widely, but the impacts that come from its release are fairly universal. Every year, as elections take place in municipalities of all sizes across the country, journalists and other watchdogs track campaign finance data to follow the trail of money in politics and contextualize this information for the public. Sometimes, the narratives revealed in this process have led to reforms at the state and local level as people realize, and seek to curb, the influence that money can have on government officials’ decisions. Accessible campaign finance data paves the way for these activities and others, and its potential impact only continues to increase as more transparency and flexibility are built into the data releases.
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/10/25/the-impact-of-opening-up-municipal-campaign-finance-data/.
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Public Policy:
American Workers Can’t Report Health, Safety Violations on the Job Without Fear of Retaliation
A study released today by the Center for Effective Government calls for better protections for workers who report health and safety hazards on the job. "American workers who report health and safety risks need better protections against employer retaliation," said Katherine McFate, President and CEO of the Center for Effective Government. "Federal workplace health and safety laws are weak and outdated and leave workers who experience retaliation without adequate remedy."
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is the agency responsible for enforcing the federal workplace health and safety statute, known as the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act). While the number of workplaces in the U.S. doubled between 1981 and 2011, the number of OSHA inspectors in 2011 was lower than in 1981. As a result, it is even more important for workers to be the eyes and ears of OSHA and report health and safety problems in factories, laboratories, construction sites, and other workplaces. "But too often, when workers raise concerns about health and safety hazards on the job, employers retaliate with reduced hours or dismissal. As a result, it is even more important for workers to be the eyes and ears of OSHA and report health and safety problems in factories, laboratories, construction sites, and other workplaces. But too often, when workers raise concerns about health and safety hazards on the job, employers retaliate with reduced hours or dismissal."
http://www.foreffectivegov.org/american-workers-cant-report-health-safety-violations-job-without-fear-retaliation.
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Take Action!:
Ten Steps You Can Take Right Now Against Internet Surveillance
One of the trends we’ve seen is how, as the word of the NSA’s spying has spread, more and more ordinary people want to know how (or if) they can defend themselves from surveillance online. But where to start? The bad news is: if you’re being personally targeted by a powerful intelligence agency like the NSA, it’s very, very difficult to defend yourself. The good news, if you can call it that, is that much of what the NSA is doing is mass surveillance on everybody. With a few small steps, you can make that kind of surveillance a lot more difficult and expensive, both against you individually, and more generally against everyone.
Here’s ten steps you can take to make your own devices secure.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/ten-steps-against-surveillance.
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The Intersect Alert is a newsletter of the Government Relations Committee, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Special Libraries Association.