A Peculiar Blog

The new privacy policy at the White House website says, among other things, that it doesn’t use long term tracking cookies in accordance with a ruling prohibiting the use of long term “persistent” cookies by federal agencies.

On Jan 14, Eric Holder, the new attorney general, testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Holder said the Obama administration is going to defend the 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that immunizes telecommunications companies from lawsuits over their involvement in the Bush administration’s illegal surveillance of the telephone and Internet communications of ordinary Americans.

If anybody ever had any doubt that the NSA, under orders from President Bush, were engaged in a massive illegal warrantless wiretapping scheme they can put those doubts to rest.

Ever buy an iPhone? Have you ever wished that you could be free to use it with services other than AT&T that it comes locked to? If so, you’re not alone. There are literally thousands of people that want to be able to unlock their phones so that they can run software of their own choosing and connect to the provider of thier choice. The problem is that under current rules, people who do so face lawsuits under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

According to a NYTimes article, The Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance court (FISA) has going to issue a ruling that validates the Bush administration’s claim that the President does have the power to order the wiretapping of international phone calls and intercept email messages without any court order.