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When the Chief of Police Violates Privacy

Tom Casady is currently the Chief of Police for Lincoln, Nebraska.  As a child of Lincoln, I enjoy reading his fantastic blog called, “The Chief’s Corner.”  I was recently alarmed when I read an article written by Tom that rehashed the offensive/silly/inappropriate email usernames people use to inquire about employment with the Lincoln Police Department.  I was shocked to see the email usernames of applicants revealed in public on Tom’s blog because that is in the least a violation of privacy for those making an inquiry, and perhaps, even a more serious ethical violation of a vested public city official.  I was unable to find the recent article that shocked me, but doing a search on Tom’s site led me to a dead link for this page written on December 2, 2008 where Tom Casady revealed live email usernames of the inquirers — figuring our the entire email address is not that hard and often doing a Google search on a unique username alone can reveal a lot.  I have blurred the email addresses contained in that article:

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Peeping by Business Card

We already know that there are cameras all around us. You are hardly ever private when you use social networking sites. You know about how your criminal past may easily come back to haunt you. But did you know that dropping a seemingly harmless slip of paper could also open a door to destroy your privacy?

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Your Privacy is Leaking

Social Networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, MySpace and Twitter all hope to create a feeling of loyal warmth and human companionship — but is something more nefarious lurking just out of sight beneath the surface intimacy?

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Your ID Card, Your Criminal Record

You are driving to the mall with your children and you find yourself going just a touch over the speed limit. It’s okay, you think to yourself, because you’re going with the flow of traffic. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a police squad car in your rear view mirror. No worries – they have every right to be on the road and there’s no reason to think you’re being followed. Only when you see the car start to flash its lights does the worry commence.

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Peeping Google

First we had NASA spying on Athens to help “fight the fire” and now we have Google being used to peep in on the tragic life of kidnapped-but-found-again Jaycee Lee Dugard — but all in the name of “newsgathering.”  Are we in any way offended that Google’s maps can be so easily used to dig into the private lives of others?

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Of Skanks and Agent Provocateurs

Two purely bizarre stories made news this week and in a strange and discomforting way — they’re both about the same, clinging, issue that razzle us every day:  Do we own our identity in public?  The first case concerns Hal Turner, a vile-spewing blogger from New Jersey, who claimed he was paid by the FBI to spread his ugly messages of hate. 

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Your Picture is Being Taken

Your picture is being taken. There are hundreds of thousands of phones, many of them iPhones, being sold every month that have the capability of taking high quality digital images and it’s nearly impossible to tell when your picture is being taken.  You could be waiting for a train and someone is waiting with you, taking pictures of you without you realizing it. This is one of the first photos I took. I was waiting for a train and people were standing all around me, also absentmindedly
waiting for a train. I wondered what was the chance that I could take photos of people without their noticing.

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Panopticonic Consumerism or Mad Marketing?

Jamie Grace wrote this article.

The journalist Pete Warren noted in an article for The Guardian (UK) earlier this month that Google have duly noted, anticipated and are working toward solving the major problem that exists in attempting to link mobile Internet technology, social networking and online advertising. Google have developed their Orkut social networking application specifically for mobile phones – and so hope to dominate the most powerful form of advertising yet commercially developed – and in future, perhaps the most invasive as well as the most lucrative.

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Ian Kerr and UK Data Snooping

Ian Kerr was getting paid to snoop on his fellow citizens in the UK.  Such a violation of personal privacy is not allowed for profit.

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Modern Liberty and Sectarian UK ID Card Schemes

Jamie Grace wrote this article.

On Saturday the 28th of February at the Institute of Education in London, the UK consensus on a fight-back against intrusions into privacy finally gets going with the inaugural Convention on Modern Liberty.

Continue reading → Modern Liberty and Sectarian UK ID Card Schemes