From Wired.com:
Former National Security Agency director Bobby Ray Inman lashed out at the Bush administration Monday night over its continued use of warrantless domestic wiretaps, making him one of the highest-ranking former intelligence officials to criticize the program in public, analysts say.
“This activity is not authorized,” Inman said, as part of a panel discussion on [...]
Archive of entries posted on May 2006
Ex-NSA Chief Assails Bush Taps
ISP snooping plans take backseat
From News.com:
A prominent Republican in the U.S. Congress has backed away from plans to rewrite Internet privacy rules by requiring that logs of Americans’ online activities be stored.
Wisconsin Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said through a representative this week that he will not be introducing that legislation after all. [...]
New York park goers to get free Internet Wi-Fi
From Yahoo! News:
New York’s Central Park and a number of other public spaces will become public Internet hubs starting this summer when the city’s parks begin offering free wireless net access, the city government said.
We expect Central Park to be launched in July, and the rest of the parks in the late summer,” the Department [...]
Library of Burned Books to Recall Nazi Barbarism
From Deutsche Welle:
A German foundation plans to create a “library of burned books” to honor authors persecuted by the Nazis.
It has been 73 years since the Nazis instituted their public book burnings in more than 50 cities. About 10,000 so-called “un-German” titles went up in flames and disappeared from public life. Most of the authors [...]
Summary of 4/24 Meeting with EPA
On April 24, Emily Sheketoff (ALA), Doug Newcomb (SLA), and Mary Alice Baish (AALL) met with representatives of the EPA to express the library community’s concern over the budget reduction for the regional EPA libraries and the premature dismantling of the libraries before the budget had even passed. Below are the notes from that [...]
Speakers at Convocation on Humanities Warn About Privatization of Materials
From the Chronicle of Higher Education: (registration required)
A joint convocation held by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Association of American Universities to assess the state of the humanities drew over 200 scholars and administrators — as well as two prominent Congressional advocates for arts and letters — to a hotel here on [...]
Bellsouth Denies Providing NSA Data
From the Wall Street Journal: (registration required)
BellSouth Corp. yesterday denied turning over bulk calling records to the National Security Agency, amid uproar over the alleged role of phone companies in U.S. surveillance efforts. The Atlanta-based company also said the agency had never contacted it to provide massive amounts of information about domestic calls.
GOP skepticism over NSA program widens
From News.com:
A Republican senator on Monday questioned whether the federal government should be using its resources for large-scale data-mining efforts such as those associated with the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program.
Speaking at a privacy seminar here at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire said the latest revelations that [...]
FBI Counterterrorism Unit Spies on Peaceful, Faith-Based Protest Group
“The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Georgia today released new evidence that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is using counterterrorism resources to spy on peaceful faith- and conscience-based advocacy groups. School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch) and its multinational faith-based network is the latest organization uncovered by the ACLU to have [...]