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]

The Villagers Revolt Against Google Street View

When a couple in Pennsylvania objected to Google Street View, they sued. (And lost.) On the other side of the Pond, those upset by the mapping program that provides 360-degree views at street level got physical.

AFP reports the story with the following headline "Angry British villagers stop Google maps car." We love that AFP refers to them as "villagers." It makes us think of the Google Street View car as Frankenstein stumbling into town and the denizens of Broughton, England, warding the car off with torches and pitchforks.

BBC News reports that Paul Jacobs was the man to get the townfolk riled up enough to stand in the street and block the passage of the Google Street Maps car with its huge rooftop-mounted camera:

Resident Paul Jacobs was one of the first residents in the village, which is part of Milton Keynes, to challenge the Google car.

Mr Jacobs said he saw the vehicle driving past his home on Wednesday and his first reaction was one of anger.

"I don't have a problem with Google wanting to promote villages. What I have a problem with is the invasion of privacy, taking pictures directly into the home," he said.

The article goes on to say that there had been three burglaries in the town recently, and that Jacobs and other residents feared Street View photos would help criminals plan future burglaries.

This strikes us as a bit illogical. If the Street View feed were live, it could certainly be argued that it could assist with criminal activity. But it's not. And the photo quality (at this point) is not good enough to allow a user to see into someone's home, and decide whether there are electronics or valuables worth taking.

The "villagers" likely cite safety concerns because it seems like the most sensible argument. But in fact, we suspect the motivation comes from a more basic (and emotional) desire for privacy that we all -- to greater and lesser extents -- have.

Angry British villagers stop Google maps car [AFP]
Residents challenge Google camera [BBC]

Headlines Under Surveillance: 03.31.09

* People are worried about privacy! Or at least they claim they are in this survey. Over 90 percent of TRUSTe survey respondents said online privacy is an important issue to them, but only 28 percent said they were bothered by the tracking of their online behavior for ad-targeting. So what does online privacy mean to them? [New York Times]

* Maybe this is what they are scared of: Electronic Spy Network Focused on Dalai Lama and Embassy Computers. [Threat Level/Wired]

* A judge in Pennsylvania rules that teenage sexting falls within minors' constitutional rights. [Reuters]

* Newsweek Editor and Securing the City author Christopher Dickey (who we saw speak in February) has a self-aggrandizing blog which pointed us to this article on public input being solicited by the NYPD on the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative. [City Limits via The Shadowland Journals]

* Speaking of the LMSI, Brian Lehrer had Ali Winston, the City Limits article author, on his show to talk about the 3,000-security-camera Initiative. [WNYC]

* Yuck. Giving Nudists everywhere a bad name. [St. Petersburg Times]

Privacy Field Trip We'd Like to Take: The National Cryptologic Museum

The January/February issue of The Atlantic Monthly had a two-page spread titled, "Then and Now," a diagram comparing U.S. data from 2000 and 2008. In 2008, we watched 200 hours more television per person than in 2000. Gold was three times as expensive (the price is even higher now). Our credit card debt was 50 percent higher. There were 16.4 percent cell-phone-only households compared to 4.2 percent in 2000. Etc. Etc.

Anyway, lots of alternately depressing and interesting factoids like that. What caught our eye from a privacy perspective was the number of visits to the NSA's Cryptologic Museum. In 2000, 65 school groups paid them a visit, compared to 134 in 2007.

From the museum's website:

The National Cryptologic Museum is the National Security Agency's principal gateway to the public. It shares the Nation's, as well as NSA's, cryptologic legacy and place in world history. Located adjacent to NSA Headquarters, Ft. George G. Meade, Maryland, the Museum houses a collection of thousands of artifacts that collectively serve to sustain the history of the cryptologic profession. Here visitors can catch a glimpse of some of the most dramatic moments in the history of American cryptology: the people who devoted their lives to cryptology and national defense, the machines and devices they developed, the techniques they used, and the places where they worked. For the visitor, some events in American and world history will take on a new meaning. For the cryptologic professional, it is an opportunity to absorb the heritage of the profession.

The museum's been around since 1993, but it's kind of in the middle of nowhere as far as D.C. tourist destinations go. Most people do not tend to wander far from the Mall. The Spy Museum is conveniently located near the Verizon Center in tourist central near Gallery Place/Chinatown metro.

So, why did the museum get so popular between 2000 and 2007? The museum's curator, Patrick Weadon, tells us that educational programs only got their start at the museum in 2000:

Over the years we have worked very hard to develop a wide range of cryptology-related classes, scavenger hunts, and briefings to appeal to all age groups. Although we do not formally "advertise" our educational programs, we do reach out to local schools; over time, word has spread about the interesting, unique, educational, and most importantly, FUN programs that we offer.

The museum gets 50,000 to 60,000 visitors a year. We hope to take a field trip there ourselves in the near future. We're not sure what we'll actually find there in terms of exhibits. The museum's website is annoyingly cryptic.

Headlines Under Surveillance: 03.22.09

We're launching a new feature here at the Not-So Private Parts. A weekly round-up of articles that dealt with privacy issues. Here's the first round-up:

* After an evening spent in New York night court last year, we discovered that anyone charged with a felony has to submit a DNA sample to a NYPD database. (Note: Just charged. Not convicted.) That made us want to write an article on DNA privacy... but Jeffrey Rosen beat us to it: "Genetic Surveillance for All: What if the FBI put the family of everyone who has ever been convicted or arrested into a giant DNA database?" [Slate]

* Tim Berners-Lee is having an Oppenheimer moment. Berners-Lee, one of the original founders of the World Wide Web, has concerns about privacy and snooping online. [AFP]

* Google has rolled out a new advertising program: "interested-based advertising." It uses your cookies (the history of sites you have visited) to choose ads keyed to your interests. Privacy advocates don't like sharing their cookies with the Google monster. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has worked with Google to create a program for those who want to keep their cookies in a private cupboard. [EFF Deeplinks]

* Facebook has changed its template again, much to the dismay of just about everyone. Most people are talking about the annoying layout, but the changes go beyond aesthetics. Facebook made a big change in privacy settings. Facebook used to be a world where you had to have a link to someone in order to view their profile-- either you were a friend, alumni of the same school, or living in the same city. There was no way around that. Now Facebook will allow users to drop any semblance of privacy. [Epicenter/Wired]

* Back in February, a government official on the other side of the Pond said of privacy and security: "Finding out other people's secrets is going to involve breaking everyday moral rules." In a recently published public policy paper, former UK security chief Sir David Omand argues that privacy rights in the UK must be sacrificed for security's sake. [Guardian]

Bubba Facebook Update: Bubs Accepted Our Friend Request!

We mentioned in our last post that we had requested Bubba Waring, of fetal Facebook fame, to be our friend on the social networking site. We are excited to report that he confirmed our friendship:

Australia-based Bubs has less than 100 friends on Facebook. We feel honored to be among them, but are surprised that (1) the 1-year-old Bubs already has 95 friends and (2) that he (or more likely, his mom) accepted a friend request from a random 20-something American lady. We can now see photos, status updates, and even his phone number. It's like being invited into the family's virtual living room.

We are happy to see a status update from Bubs that indicates he is recovering from a cold. We're contemplating writing on his wall to say so...

The Little Ones Get Little Privacy

It's hard to find anywhere truly private these days. Even the womb is subject to prying eyes. According to Ubergizmo, 57,000 babies in the UK have their own social networking sites. Parents set up profiles for their children while they are still fetuses in some cases, setting ultrasonic images as their profile pics and updating their statuses as appropriate, e.g., Baby Bubba is kicking.

An Australian couple was one of the first to put their fetus, Bubba Waring, on Facebook back in 2007 and got lots of news coverage.

The idea of having your whole life played out on Facebook strikes me as incredibly creepy. I checked Facebook to see what Bubba Waring is up to these days. The profile for "Bubs Waring" is now set to private so I couldn't take a close look at it, but the child in the profile photo looks about 2. He's carrying a red ball. Very cute. I requested to "add as friend."

World Net Daily brings us another more recent privacy issue for the little ones. The privacy of their DNA is not getting the respect it deserves in Minnesota:

Nine families have filed a lawsuit against Minnesota's health department over its practice of collecting DNA from newborns and then keeping and using the private information...

Agency spokesman John Stine said the lawsuit was being reviewed, but he confirmed the department takes the blood samples from about 70,000 infants annually, and unless the parents specifically choose to opt out of the program, their children's DNA is saved...

The case alleges "as of December 31, 2008, Defendant Minnesota Department of Health had stored 819,282 dried blood spot baby samples; had stored 1,567,133 records of the results of newborn genetic screening; and had used 52,519 dried blood spot samples for research."

Our notions of privacy are changing all the time. There is certainly much that is generational and cultural. But if kids today are born to ready-made social networking profiles and their DNA on file, it seems like expectations for some kinds of privacy will be almost nonexistent.

Unborn Have Their Own Social Networking Page [Ubergizmo]
Parents sue state over babies' DNA [World Net Daily]