Another PATRIOT Act Ruling

On Dcember 15, a US federal appeals court (2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals) ruled that recipients of National Security Letters should not be gagged (metaphorically) unless disclosure adversely affects “an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.” This upholds a lower court ruling from September 2007. Seems like a good thing to me.

Here's a link to more info:

http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2008/december2008/gagchallengeupheld.cfm

Andrew

Canada backpedals on sharing personal database with U.S.

This article goes back a couple of weeks. I missed it completely but it was just brought to my attention. It's an interesting intersection of issues: the housing of personal information of Canadians in the United States and the question of border security. There's a variety of different URLs for the article; here's one:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2008/11/30/7584591-cp.html

Andrew