One topic that will likely get a fair amount of discussion on this new blog will be the infamous USA PATRIOT Act. As the creators of Environymity are coming from a Canadian university environment, we hope to present some interesting perspectives on the PATRIOT Act and other actions coming from US legislation.
A few basics about the PATRIOT Act: The USA Patriot Act (more formally known as the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA Patriot Act) of 2001 (Public Law 107-56, 115 STAT.272, H.R. 3162)) has been in force since October 24, 2001. A wide-ranging piece of legislation that amends other laws, its most reported features is Section 215, which allows authorities such as the FBI and prosecutors to more easily get a court order or use national security letters to access personal records of any sort without disclosure; those from whom records have been seized are not permitted to inform anyone but their legal counsel that this has occurred. Here's some more information about Section 215 from the ACLU: http://action.aclu.org/reformthepatriotact/215.html
Environymity is hosted on Blogger. Blogger is owned by Google. Google is an American-based company. As an American-based company, any information stored by Google is susceptible to seizure under the PATRIOT Act. Agents of the US federal government could grab any and all information connected to this blog and we would almost certainly never know about it. Now, this may not be that much of a concern in terms of Environymity; as a blog, all the information about the creators and posters that has been given to Blogger is publicaly accessible, even without PATRIOT Act authority (however, we would still have no idea that the data had been taken). But what about other situations, where personal information is stored on US-based servers (or on servers of susiduaries of US companies; these, too, fall under the PATRIOT Act) and is supposedly private...
So, something to think about...
Andrew
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