Headlines Under Surveillance: 04.20.09

* The FBI is adopting the practice of collecting DNA samples from those awaiting trials (who have not actually been proven guilty of anything). The practice is already in place in 15 states; New York is one of them, as we've mentioned before. Privacy advocates are up in arms about this, but we must ask this question. Is DNA fundamentally more private than fingerprints, which are collected on a regular basis? If we had consistent commenters, we would ask you to discuss this in the comments. We imagine a not-so-distant-future world where the collection of DNA samples will be as normal as being fingerprinted currently is. [New York Times]

* A woman suing a debt collector for posting to her MySpace page doesn't address privacy issues in her lawsuit. Her complaint accuses the company of violating collection laws and harassing her with abusive tactics. But privacy concerns leapt to our mind. Social networking sites are increasingly being flooded by those with business interests. Our experiment with signing up for Twitter has led to advertisers (e.g., NYCDailyDeals) outnumbering friends "following" us. Corporate beings getting a hold of our e-mail addresses is fine, but when they're actively trolling and interacting with our social networking profiles, it seems like it's crossing a privacy line. [Courthouse News Service via Threat Level/Wired]

* The Electronic Frontier Foundation calls out Obama for adopting Bush's position on secrecy and wiretapping ordinary Americans. [EFF]

* Even less privacy at the airport. Transportation Security Agency officials plan to replace metal detectors in airports with Total Recall-esque whole-body imaging machines. Screeners may be able to see us naked, but at least we won't have to remove our shoes and belts anymore. [Al's Morning Meeting/Poynter]

* Polls opened last week for Facebook users to determine privacy rights on the site. We wonder whether voter participation on Facebook will be healthier than the anemic participation in American elections. [PCWorld]

* Where we'll be found tomorrow: Privacy Rights and Wrongs: Balancing Moral Priorities for the 21st Century at Fordham University. Deep privacy thinker Daniel Solove of GW will be on the dais. [Danger Room/Wired]