Privacy

Police Blotter is a regular CNET News report on the intersection of technology and the law.

What: Florida man appeals a first-degree murder conviction based on circumstantial evidence, including Google searches related to gunshot wounds.

When: State appeals court rules on January 23, 2009.

Outcome: Appeal denied and conviction upheld.

What happened, according to court documents and other sources: On the evening of August 17, 2002, Justin Barber was shot four times while walking on a deserted beach in Florida. Bullets hit his left hand, his left shoulder, the base of his neck, and his chest. His wife April was … Read more

Someone at the White House appears to be listening to those of us in the privacy community.

For the third time in just six days, the Obama administration has modified the White House Web site privacy policy in response to criticism from the blogosphere.

When the site launched on January 20, it exempted YouTube from federal anticookie tracking rules that would have otherwise cast a legal shadow over the use of embedded videos on the White House blog.

Reacting to criticism from the blogosphere, the White House first modified its Web site on Friday to limit the cookie exposure to … Read more

The Connecticut attorney general's office on Friday served MySpace a subpoena demanding that MySpace hand over the identities of registered sex offenders it claims the social-networking site discovered and subsequently removed from its roster of members.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal also told CNET News that his office is reviewing independent research about registered sex offenders said to still populate the site. Blumenthal declined to comment on whether he plans to take further action.

Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace's chief security officer, said in a statement provided via e-mail that MySpace was using "state of the art technology to … Read more

Just 12 hours after this blog highlighted the privacy problems associated with the White House's use of embedded YouTube videos, the Obama team rushed to deploy a technical fix that significantly protects the privacy of many (but not all) of the site's visitors.

Since its launch three days ago, President Obama's White House Web site has included several embedded YouTube videos. While this certainly demonstrates that the 44th president is Web 2.0 savvy, the decision to embed YouTube videos has also enabled the Google-owned video-sharing site to sneakily collect data on the millions of people who … Read more

Update: 12 hours after posting this story, the White House (partially) reversed itself. The rather dubious YouTube-only waiver from federal Web privacy rules has been maintained, but the White House Web site has been updated to limit the exposure of visitors to YouTube's tracking efforts to only those people who actually click the "play" button on a YouTube video. For more details on the new changes, read this blog post.

The new Web site for Obama's White House is already drawing attention from privacy activists and tech bloggers. While the initial focus has been on the … Read more

President Barack Obama will be able to keep his beloved BlackBerry, an aide confirmed on Thursday, making him the first U.S. president to use e-mail regularly.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that, thanks to a "compromise," his boss will be able to keep a security-enhanced BlackBerry and use it for e-mail.

That will, Gibbs said, allow Obama to continue to keep in touch with people and avoid getting "stuck in a bubble." (The new Washington insider test: Do you know the president's secret e-mail address?)

Gibbs didn't offer details, but … Read more

By Declan McCullagh and Stephanie Condon

news analysis Months after being sworn in as president, George W. Bush sat down with reporters and his wife, Laura, for a technology-themed event: a relaunch of the Whitehouse.gov Web site, which previously had been rather dilapidated.

Bush and his aides proudly demonstrated the new features, including photo essays, better access for the disabled, and a kids' area with details about the First Pets. The president said the Web site would let Washington become "more accessible" and let Americans "participate in the process."

Less than two weeks later, the … Read more

A secret federal appeals court has ruled that federal agencies can be authorized to conduct warrantless e-mail and telephone surveillance without violating the U.S. Constitution.

In a 29-page redacted opinion (PDF) released Thursday, the court ruled that presidents do not need to obtain warrants to conduct "foreign intelligence for national-security purposes"--which is effectively at least a partial endorsement of President Bush's views on expansive executive powers.

The central question in this case was how the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on "unreasonable searches and seizures" applies to intelligence agencies wishing to compel AT&… Read more

Police Blotter is a regular CNET News report on the intersection of technology and the law.

What: Google searches for phrases including "hit-and-run" nab California investment banker who claimed he believed he killed a deer instead of a person.

When: California appeals court rules on January 14, 2009.

Outcome: Conviction upheld.

What happened, according to court documents and other sources: At about 9:00 p.m. on January 11, 2005, 55-year-old Gurdeep Kaur was dropped off on Moraga Boulevard, across the street from her home near Lafayette, Calif. She was on her way back from Terzetto Cuisine, an … Read more