Tag: Privacy

Sen. Ron Wyden Pushes Intelligence Community to Protect Data From Online Advertising Data Collection

Senator and veteran privacy advocate Ron Wyden recently sent a letter to the Acting Intelligence Community Chief Information Officer urging him to protect intelligence community computers and personnel from threats posed by the sale and misuse of online advertising data. The letter emphasized that advertising companies operate in an unregulated market where they can “collect vast amounts of sensitive information about users, their movements, web browsing, and other online activities” and then offer that information “for sale to anyone with a credit card.” Senator Wyden previously led an investigation that uncovered the ways advertising companies were selling so-called “bidstream” data to firms in China, Russia, and other high-risk foreign countries. The sale of bidstream data poses both privacy and national security risks because that data includes precise location information of Americans as well as their device identifiers and browsing histories. In the letter, Sen. Wyden sought information on how, if at all, the intelligence community protects data from online advertisers, including through the use of ad blocking technologies. EPIC has repeatedly raised concerns over the collection of vast amounts of data online and has joined a growing coalition of groups in their call to Ban Surveillance Advertising.

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Congress consumer protection FTC

House Passes the Consumer Protection and Recovery Act

The House of Representatives passed the Consumer Protection and Recovery Act (H.R. 2668) Tuesday on a 221-205 vote. The bill explicitly authorizes the Federal Trade Commission to seek monetary relief for injured consumers in federal court and to require bad actors to return money obtained through illegal actions. The amendment to the FTC Act restores a key piece of the FTC’s Section 13(b) power, which the FTC previously used to obtain restitution and disgorgement for wronged consumers until the Supreme Court recently limited this authority in AMG Capital Management v. FTC. On Monday, the House Rules committee voted to advance the bill to a floor vote, with House Democrats stating that “the urgency is not hypothetical” during the hearing. President Biden also supports the Act. EPIC has long advocated for the FTC to implement meaningful financial penalties against companies who harm consumers through unlawful data and privacy practices and for the creation of a Data Protection Agency to protect consumers against data abuse. Recently, EPIC published a report that highlights the FTC’s unused authorities and urges the FTC to make full use of the tools in its statutory toolbox.

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(Psst: The FTC wants me to remind you that this website contains affiliate links. That means if you make a purchase from a link you click on, I might receive a small commission. This does not increase the price you’ll pay for that item nor does it decrease the awesomeness of the item. ~ Daisy)

by Joanna Miller

This time of year is when my garden has been active for months, and my worst gardening mistakes become evident. Every year I tell myself, “I’m going to do THIS next year, and things will turn out better!” And they usually do, though I reliably manage to make some utterly different mistake the next time around. I thought it might be helpful for beginning gardeners (and possibly entertaining for experienced gardeners) to compile some of the biggest mistakes I’ve made over the years.

Mistake #1: Not Doing the Research

My first gardens were in the Chicago suburbs. I never made any big mistakes there because it’s really easy to grow things. My first big gardening mistakes came in Houston, where it’s pretty easy to grow things too. If you don’t start off making assumptions. I made a lot of assumptions.

It didn’t occur to me to read the seed packets or Gulf Coast-specific gardening books during my first year of gardening in Houston. I just did exactly what I’d done in Chicago.

My First Year of Gardening Yielded Exactly Four Tomatoes.

I started reading up on tomatoes and did a little better the following year, though my cucumbers tasted awful. Like the tomatoes I’d planted too late, and the hot weather made them almost inedible. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of reading up on plants and knowing your growing zone. Especially if you’ve moved cross-country or are gardening for the first time. Timing and varieties are so different from place to place.

Gardening is challenging for anyone, anywhere. Sometimes you have to make changes and adjust. Dennis revamped his entire garden and got great results. Read more about that here.

Mistake #2: Assuming the Critters Won’t Get In

Another mistake I made in Houston was assuming that property boundaries were inviolate. We had a nice privacy fence and no pets, so I didn’t plan for any kind of animal protection other than bird netting. I was pretty disappointed when neighborhood cats started using my garden as a litter box. Aside from the disgust factor, cat poop is also dangerous for pregnant women to handle due to some diseases they spread. And this was right in the middle of my childbearing years. 

We got some plastic sheeting from Home Depot and wrapped it around posts at the corners of the garden. It was only about two feet high, so it was still easy for me to step over. But, the cats must have disliked the smell because that stopped them.

Daisy knows all about the…

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facial recognition surveillance

EPIC, Coalition Call on Retailers to Ban Facial Recognition in Stores

EPIC and a coalition of privacy and civil liberties groups are calling for stores to stop using facial recognition technology. The new campaign tracks which major retailers use or are considering using facial recognition and aims to pressure these entities to stop. Corporate use of facial recognition is especially concerning because, according to Sen. Ron Wyden, government agencies are already buying surveillance information from corporations to evade warrant requirements. EPIC has joined a number of coalitions urging a ban on facial recognition including: an international letter opposing the technology, a statement of concerns on police use of FR, and EPIC’s Ban Face Surveillance campaign. EPIC recently endorsed legislation that would ban federal law enforcement use of facial recognition and pressure state law enforcement to do the same.

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EPIC, ACLU, & EFF Urge Court to Prohibit Wholesale Forensic Cell Phone Searches When Probable Cause is Limited

EPIC has filed an amicus brief with the ACLU and EFF in United States v. Morton urging the full Fifth Circuit to prohibit invasive forensic searches of cell phones when law enforcement only has probable cause to search some of the data on the phone. In Morton, police obtained a warrant to search the defendant’s cell phone for evidence of an alleged drug crime, but instead conducted a forensic search of the phone’s full contents and uncovered evidence of an entirely unrelated crime. A Fifth Circuit panel ultimately found that the search violated the Fourth Amendment because it reached a type of data on the phone that was not likely to contain evidence of the specific crime being investigated. EPIC, ACLU, and EFF applauded the panel’s recognition that “the scope of cell phone searches must closely adhere to the probable cause showing, lest authority to search a device for evidence of one crime mutate into authority to search the entirety of the device for evidence of any crime—a prohibited general search.” The groups argued that, in an age when “Americans’ dependency on smartphones has, intentionally and inadvertently, resulted in our phones containing vast troves of our personal information, strict limits on searches and seizures are necessary to preserve privacy” and that technological and administrative convenience “is no justification for discarding the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause and particularity requirements.” EPIC regularly files amicus briefs challenging unconstitutionally broad cell phone searches, including forensic searches of entire cell phones.

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President Biden Signs Executive Order Requiring More Scrutiny of Tech Mergers and Data Privacy

President Biden today signed a wide-ranging executive order with the aim of promoting competition. EPIC has long argued that market consolidation in online platform threatens privacy. The Executive Order aims to address the ways in which dominant tech firms are undermining competition and reducing innovation in three ways: 1) greater scrutiny of mergers, especially by dominant internet platforms, with particular attention to the acquisition of nascent competitors, serial mergers, the accumulation of data, competition by “free” products, and the effect on user privacy; 2) encouraging the FTC to establish rules on “unfair data collection and surveillance practices that may damage competition, consumer autonomy, and consumer privacy”; and 3) encouraging the FTC to establish rules barring unfair methods of competition on internet marketplaces. More than a decade ago, EPIC urged the FTC to block Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick. EPIC said that the acquisition would enable Google to collect the personal information of billions of users and track their browsing activities across the web. EPIC correctly warned that this acquisition would accelerate Google’s dominance of the online advertising industry and diminish competition. The FTC ultimately allowed the merger to go forward. EPIC has since repeatedly warned FTC that other mergers posed similar risks to consumer privacy and competition, including Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp.

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Competition Executive Order Requires Dept. of Transportation to Address Drone Privacy

The Executive Order signed today by President Biden addressing competition in the American economy requires the Department of Transportation to address drone privacy. “[G]iven the emergence of new aerospace-based transportation technologies, such as low-altitude unmanned aircraft system deliveries, advanced air mobility, and high-altitude long endurance operations,” the Executive Order reads, the Secretary of Transportation shall ensure that the Department of Transportation take action to “facilitate innovation that fosters United States market leadership and market entry to promote competition and economic opportunity and to resist monopolization, while also ensuring safety, providing security and privacy, protecting the environment, and promoting equity.” EPIC has long highlighted the privacy and civil liberties implications of aerial surveillance technology and has called on Congress to “establish drone privacy safeguards that limit the risk of public surveillance.”

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If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

(Psst: The FTC wants me to remind you that this website contains affiliate links. That means if you make a purchase from a link you click on, I might receive a small commission. This does not increase the price you’ll pay for that item nor does it decrease the awesomeness of the item. ~ Daisy)

by Jayne Rising

Why do you need good OPSEC in the garden? Well, when SHTF, rest assured hungry and unprepared neighbors will look upon your preps with great desire. And that includes your garden. 

For those new to the world of prepping, OPSEC means Operational Security. The term is military in origin and means, in the vernacular, to keep your preps secret. The Organic Prepper has many articles stressing the importance of good OPSEC. 

So how can we maintain good OPSEC in the garden? 

Fences are one obvious method. Fences make it a bit more difficult for nimble (thieving) feet as well. But there are more subtle ways to hide a garden, most notably the idea of edible landscaping.

One note for clarity: I am NOT advocating tearing up functional garden space in favor of edible landscaping. I AM suggesting a way to turn otherwise unproductive spaces, such as front and street-facing side yards, into productive food areas. This method can also work for apartment and condo dwellers, who may be dealing with property management/condo associations who want to see flowers growing, not food.

There are also many edible plants growing in city yards that most people have no idea are edible. Some are very decorative. Be aware, however, that some are considered noxious weeds. Your municipality may fine you for growing them. As always, I suggest some research into your municipalities’ regulations.

Identifying edible plants to use as landscaping

A plant identification app in addition to books on local plants might also be helpful. My favorites are Picture This ( app ) and a book called Midwest Foraging. I would suggest obtaining a book on foraging in your specific area.

The suggestions below are by no means an exhaustive list. Most of the plants listed as examples in this article are from my yard. I discovered these plants one year when I couldn’t garden due to health issues. I decided to get to know my yard and the plants growing there. If there’s a plant that you love, look it up! Or take your favorite plant ID app and check out what’s in your yard. You may be wonderfully surprised.

Fill deck containers with edible beauty for good OPSEC in the garden!

Some, like the humble hosta, are both traditional and edible. The best part is: few people know that! So it’s possible to decorate the more visible spots in the yard with a food source hiding in plain sight. Rapini, aka broccoli raab, is tasty, nutritious, and in warm climates,…

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Austrian school economists have long demonstrated that monopolies only tend to form as a result of government intervention, and “natural monopolies” have virtually never actually existed. Nonetheless, we are continually told by political and academic “experts” that unregulated economies inevitably give rise to monopolies, business trusts, and cartels, all of which they assure us have disastrous consequences for ordinary people. Therefore, we are told, governments are justified in taking forceful action to prevent monopolies from developing or to break them apart.

In this debate, the interventionists frame themselves as opposing the anticompetitive forces of large corporations having too much control over the lives of ordinary people. It is noteworthy, then, that these same interventionists support similar kinds of anticompetitive practices, and the increased control over people’s lives they entail, when they are employed by governments instead.

To that end, the leaders of the G-7 nations have recently gathered to propose a global minimum corporate tax that would allow national governments to exert a form of monopoly power of their own over the taxation of business within their borders. A major element of the proposal, if brought to fruition, is the requirement that every nation impose a minimum corporate tax rate of at least 15 percent. The clear purpose of this part of the proposal is to eliminate the so-called race to the bottom in corporate taxes, which is a euphemism for high-tax nations’ hopes of shielding themselves from competition from nations with low tax rates seeking to attract businesses away from them.

For this proposal to have its intended effect, several nations outside of the G-7 would need to voluntarily raise their corporate tax rates. Ireland, for example, sets corporate taxes at 12.5 percent, and a substantial part of its tax base is located there specifically because it is a comparative tax haven. Other parts of the proposal therefore appear to be intended to induce low-tax nations like Ireland, who are not likely keen on raising their tax rates and losing the main attraction they have for multinational companies headquartering there, to participate. For example, the proposal would also redirect the payment of corporate taxes to ensure that the world’s largest companies pay some taxes to the nations where they do business, rather than where they are physically located. These provisions appear designed to compensate low-tax nations for the loss in tax base they will surely suffer if they adopt the G-7 proposal.

In short, wealthy nations know they can only tax businesses so much before those businesses find it profitable to move to competing jurisdictions with lower tax rates, and the G-7 leaders are now openly seeking to collude with other nations to put a stop to that competition. There is little meaningful distinction between this and the alleged anticompetitive practices of private businesses—complete with “kickbacks” promised to cooperating participants—that the same governments continually vilify.

Governments Still Oppose Private Monopolies

Despite this apparent embrace of monopolistic practices, the federal government still seeks to purge what it sees as private monopolies…

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Federal Court Rejects Challenge to Census Privacy Protections

A federal court has rejected an effort by Alabama to scrap the Census Bureau’s system for protecting personal data collected in the 2020 Census. Earlier this year, Alabama filed a lawsuit challenging the Bureau’s deployment of differential privacy, in which controlled amounts of statistical noise are added to published census data to prevent individuals from being identified and linked with their census responses. The Bureau recently demonstrated that sophisticated “attacks” can identify tens of millions of people from published census data unless robust privacy safeguards are implemented. Alabama sought a preliminary injunction blocking the Bureau’s use of differential privacy, but the court denied that motion this week and dismissed many of the claims in the case. Alabama said that it does not plan to appeal this week’s ruling, but the case may develop further after the Bureau publishes redistricting data in August. EPIC filed an amicus brief in the case arguing that differential privacy is “the only credible technique” to guard against reidentification attacks. EPIC also argued that differential privacy “is not the enemy of statistical accuracy,” but rather “vital to securing robust public participation in Census Bureau surveys[.]” EPIC has long advocated for the confidentiality of personal data collected by the Census Bureau. In 2004, Bureau revised its “sensitive data” policy after an EPIC FOIA request revealed that the Department of Homeland Security had improperly acquired census data on Arab Americans from following 9/11. In 2018, EPIC filed suit to block the citizenship question from the 2020 Census, alleging that the Bureau failed to complete several privacy impact assessments required under the E-Government Act.

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