Privacy Alert: Verizon to track people with super cookies...

There are so many wireless choices, people should choose someone besides Verizon.

The wireless carrier announced the shift via an update on its website, according to The Verge. Unlike most cookies, which originate from an individual site or group of sites, Verizon’s identifier tracks subscribers as they move around the Internet for the sake of the company’s Relevant Mobile Advertising and Verizon Selects ad programs.
The AOL Advertising Network has a presence on some 40 percent of websites, and affiliated parties could potentially build more detailed profiles of Verizon customers as a result. The carrier bought AOL in May.

Here is why you might not want to stay at Motel 6

If this report is true, it seems like a violation of guest privacy at the least.

CopBlock sums it up more bluntly:
The popular hotel chain, Motel 6, has recently decided to partner with the police to violate the rights of their guests. Without the consent of the guest, or even informing them whatsoever, Motel 6 employees will now turn over the guest information to the police, who will then run a background check on the subject. And, as a policy, the motel chain is not even bothering to inform guests at check-in. They are not told about the hidden layer of screening – yet they are subjected to it. As of now, guests who check-in at Warwick’s Motel 6 will not be told theirnames are on a list that goes to the police station every night. Alerting motel guests that local police know their whereabouts “is not a normal process of our check-in,” said Victor Glover, a vice president of safety and security for G6 Hospitality, the parent company for Motel 6. Cue the predictable excuses: “If you aren’t doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide.””

Giving the government the ability to track the location of citizens who are not engaged in crime is scary.

Obama administration to stop giving your personal HealthCare.gov information to their cronies...

They claimed it was OK because they would never sell your information. Instead, they gave it away to their cronies for free. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is reversing itself after an outcry over consumer privacy on HealthCare.gov, the government’s health insurance website.
The Associated Press confirms that the administration made changes to the website to scale back release of consumers’ personal information to private companies that analyze Internet performance and sell ads.
The AP reported earlier this week that HealthCare.gov was sending out personal data such as age, income, ZIP code, tobacco use and whether a woman is pregnant.
That prompted lawmakers to demand an explanation. Privacy advocates called for immediate changes.
Administration officials at first defended the practice, saying the outside companies only used the data to analyze the workings of HealthCare.gov and make improvements for consumers.

Sad: Obama's privacy board doesn't think you deserve much privacy...

I guess we should consider who appointed them...

Via Ars Technica: 

A White House panel examining the privacy and legal fallout from the massive National Security Agency spying revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden concluded that the snooping was lawful yet "close to the line of constitutional reasonableness."
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Board said that the programs that tap undersea cables and acquire data from ISPs like Yahoo and Google with broad orders from a secret court are "authorized by Congress, reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, and an extremely valuable and effective intelligence tool."
The 191-page report (PDF), released late Tuesday, was largely condemned by civil liberties advocates and scholars.
"Sadly, the board has failed to fulfill its responsibility here, which is to ensure that counterterrorism policies safeguard privacy and civil liberties,” Elizabeth Goitein, a director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “The collection of Americans’ phone calls and e-mails without a warrant is unconstitutional, regardless of whether they are communicating with their next-door neighbor or a suspected terrorist overseas. The board, however, endorsed a ‘foreign intelligence exception’ to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement that is far broader than what any regular federal court has ever recognized. The board's recommendations would leave in place the government’s ability to spy on its citizens—along with their friends, family members, and business partners overseas—without any suspicion of wrongdoing.”

191 pages and no privacy for you.

Busted: Google afoul of Canada’s privacy law

Google is accused of showing user specific ads based on personal heal information.

TORONTO — Google has been caught afoul of the law by displaying web ads linked to a person’s health history, according to Canada’s interim privacy commissioner Chantal Bernier.An investigation by her office backed up a man’s complaints that he was seeing so-called behavioural advertisements based on his web browsing history. After searching for information about devices to treat sleep apnea, he began to see ads for those devices as he browsed the web.While behavioural advertising is not illegal, Canada’s privacy law does not allow consumers to be targeted based on “sensitive personal information,” including their health.Google’s privacy policy outlaws displaying advertisements based on race, religion, sexual orientation or health. But the Mountain View, Calif.-based company acknowledged that some advertisers using its ad-serving platform were not following the policy.

Obamascare: 2,400 people’s private information accidentally sent to wrong person...

The so called "Navigators" are poorly trained and screened it would seem. 

Via The Daily Caller:

An employee of Minnesota’s Obamacare exchange, MNsure, sent an unencrypted file to the wrong person and left 2,400 people’s private information at the mercy of a nearby insurance agent.
One exchange staffer’s simple mistake gave insurance broker Jim Koester access to an Excel document of Social Security numbers, names, addresses and other personal data for whole a list of insurance agents. Luckily for the 2,400, Koester was cooperative — and unnerved.
“The more I thought about it, the more troubled I was,” Koester told the Minnesota Star Tribune. “What if this had fallen into the wrong hands? It’s scary. If this is happening now, how can clients of MNsure be confident their data is safe?”

Declassified documents show NSA violated privacy rules on a massive scale. The NSA claims they were too stupid to understand their software...

Well, this really inspires confidence...

Via The Washington Post:

The National Security Agency for almost three years searched a massive database of Americans’ phone call records in violation of court-approved privacy rules, and the problem went unfixed because no one at the agency had a full technical understanding of how the system worked, according to new documents and senior government officials.

The improper activity went on from May 2006 to January 2009, according to a scathing March 2009 opinion by Judge Reggie B. Walton, a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.[...]

In fact, only numbers in which analysts could prove there was “reasonable articulable suspicion” of a link to foreign terrorists could be queried against the database, according to court-approved rules.
 

Walton said NSA’s explanation for its violation of the court order — that some NSA personnel thought the querying rules applied only to archived data — “strains credulity.” He also expressed consternation at NSA’s inaccurate description of the process it was using to query the database.

Change: Crusading site Groklaw is shutting down over concerns about privacy and government surveillance...

See what Obama hath wrought?

Citing concerns about privacy and government surveillance, Pamela Jones is shutting down her site Groklaw, which for years took on what she and vocal fans saw as wrongheaded legal action in the tech domain.
"There is now no shield from forced exposure," Jones said in final blog post Tuesday. Groklaw depended on collaboration over e-mail, "and there is now no private way, evidently, to collaborate."
Jones, a paralegal, started her site a decade ago taking on the SCO Group's legal attack on IBM and others involving Linux and Unix intellectual property. She rebutted the company's position, detailed the arcana of the lawsuit proceedings, and shared legal filings on which the case rested. Volunteers attended some hearings in person, and collaborative efforts found just any hole that could be poked in SCO's case. The site archives show hundreds of posts since its start in May 2003.
As SCO's case fizzled, Groklaw

What really amuses me is seeing all the liberal talking heads have to defend NSA spying on ordinary Americans and violating their privacy and constitutional rights. 

In honor of Google's no opt-out privacy policy, what does Google's ad server think you are?

Click here and Google will tell you what age and sex they think you are. Plus there is information about what they think you are interested in. Google believes I am a 65+ male based on the websites I have been visiting. I am actually in my early 50's. At least I know why I am seeing those insurance ads. They see my interests as arts and entertainment (Online Image Galleries and video), news, politics, campaigns and travel. They got that part right.

This Didn't Take long: Naked Body Scanner Images Of Film Star Printed, Circulated

Critics warned of privacy concerns with the new naked body scanners. The TSA has been caught lying about the capabilities of these new imaging machines. Great Britain has started requiring selected passengers to submit to the new virtual strip search. Everyone was assured their privacy would be protected, but an Indian film star's privacy was compromised by the use of these new scanners in less than a week.

“I was in London recently going through the airport and these new machines have come up, the body scans. You’ve got to see them. It makes you embarrassed – if you’re not well endowed,” said Khan, referring to how the scans produce clear images of a person’s genitals.

If your privacy isn't violated by these new devices, you may die of cancer due to the increase in radiation exposure.

Obamacare Will Give Thousands of Government Bureaucrats Access to Your Private Medical Records

Remember what happened to Joe Wurzelbacher, better known as "Joe the Plumber," after he asked candidate Barack Obama a tough question? Obama supporters in the Ohio state government searched his records and leaked embarrassing details to the press. Do you want this to be possible with your private medical records?

From the Washington Times:

Privacy rights are under threat in the House's government health care plan. While plowing through the more than 1,000-page Democratic House bill, Declan McCullagh of CBS News uncovered provisions that would allow startling privacy intrusions. The innermost secrets of people's personal lives would be made available to thousands of government bureaucrats.

Section 431(a) requires the Internal Revenue Service to give detailed taxpayer information to the new health choices commissioner and state health programs.

The Social Security Administration also could obtain whatever individual income-tax information it deemed relevant to determine people's eligibility for a "low-income prescription drug subsidy" even if the individual had not applied for it.

Obama's teleprompter fails again

When speaking about Somali piracy today, President Obama said , "We are resolved to halt the rise of privacy in that region." That will terrify those evil pirates.

President Obama: Hold pirates accountable(video via YouTube)