From today's "Hodes Hotline Update":

I opposed the FISA legislation because I believe it does not strike the proper balance between protecting civil liberty and security as it undermines essential rights of US citizens to be free from warrantless government surveillance. We must not compromise the fundamental constitutional rights of our citizens.

It is never acceptable to violate our Bill of Rights. It is my top priority to protect our country and keep us safe—and our intelligence services have the tools to do that right now. At the same time, I have consistently opposed any legislation that grants retroactive immunity for telecommunication companies that cooperated with the Bush administration’s apparently illegal warrantless wiretapping program. This legislation provides de facto immunity without real accountability.

If we give a free pass to the government to invade our privacy outside the boundaries of the Constitution, we give up the freedom for which so many Americans have fought and died.

(emphasis added by me)

Thank you Congressman Hodes for your efforts!

From the EFFector:

For the last two months, your phone calls and letters have helped hold back the dangerous surveillance bills in Congress. These bills threaten vigorous judicial oversight of the illegal NSA spying program and let the government off the hook for breaking the law.

Without exaggeration, these bills represent the greatest expansion of government surveillance power ever considered by Congress.

Now various Senators are trying to rush these bills through at the last minute, prior to Congress' October recess. Even if you have called your Senator about these bills before, it is critical that you do so again now and help stop the illegal surveillance: http://action.eff.org/fisa.

A few months ago, I chose Qwest as my long-distance provider because they were the one company that chose to take a stand against the NSA's warrantless spying. Thus I am dismayed to learn that they are now calling for mandatory data retention laws:

Jennifer Mardosz, Qwest's corporate counsel and chief privacy officer, applauded efforts by politicians to force broadband providers to engage in so-called "data retention," which Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said will aid in investigations into terrorism and child exploitation. This appears to be the first time a broadband provider has called for data retention laws.

[...]

Qwest's enthusiastic endorsement of mandatory data retention could make it politically easier for members of Congress to enact new laws even if other companies remain staunchly opposed.

Great.... And what measures will be taken to ensure that our private data remain secure, only to be accessed when authorized by the appropriate legal authority based on probable cause? Or is that irrelevant?

Well, you and I already knew that. But now it's official!

DETROIT - A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless surveillance program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.

"Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution," Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion.

Break out the champagne!!!

I finally heard back from Microsoft regarding that whole potential violation of my privacy thing. After having six weeks to sort things out, they said:

We haven't been able to reproduce the problem in house except for once. We're still looking into it. We may want to have you work with one of our testers to run a netmon trace if you're up for that.

I'm not sure I can be bothered at this point. But I'll leave it up to y'all: Am I up for it? Convince me that it's worth it.

Excellent news:

San Francisco - A federal judge today denied the government's motion to dismiss the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF's) case against AT&T for collaborating with the NSA in illegal spying of millions of ordinary Americans. This allows the case to go forward in the courts.

[...]

EFF filed the class-action suit against AT&T in January, alleging that the telecommunications company has given the National Security Agency (NSA) secret, direct access to the phone calls and emails going over its network and has been handing over communications logs detailing the activities of millions of ordinary Americans.

As regular readers of Grain of Salt know, Office 2007 has been trying desperately to get past my firewall and send my full name back to Redmond -- a practice in stark contrast to the assurances given in their privacy policy.

While they were quite responsive and concerned initially, it's been six weeks with no improvement: Outlook and OneNote keep trying to phone home -- and if anything, they're trying much more frequently, sometimes several times a day! Ya know, I don't find this stuff amusing anymore. So I'm opting out of CEIP. I think you should as well. Especially if you don't use ZoneAlarm and myVAULT to keep track of when your personal information is being transmitted behind your back.

David Lazarus reports that AT&T updated their ironically named "privacy policy" to include statements regarding:

1. who owns the personal information of its customers (hint: It's not the customers.)
2. what they will do with respect to video content viewed by its customers (hint: You better be watching wholesome stuff!)

The former didn't surprise me, but the latter did. Lazarus explains:

The Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 stipulates that cable and satellite companies can't collect or disclose information about customers' viewing habits.

The law is silent on video services offered by phone companies via the Internet, basically because legislators never anticipated such technology would be available.

AT&T's Britton said the 1984 law doesn't apply to his company's video service because AT&T isn't a cable provider. "We are not building a cable TV network," he said. "We're building an Internet protocol television network."

Way to exploit a loophole.... Now the question is, what will the cable and satellite providers do: Try to get the law changed to prevent the AT&Ts of the world from tracking viewing habits, or try to get the law changed so that they can track customers too?

Via Boing Boing.

The ACLU is hosting a live webcast on the NSA spying issue.

This evening, Sunday, June 11 at 7 PM ET (4PM PT), go to:

www.aclu.org/presidentialpower

Watch a live webcast of our third Town Hall meeting on Spying, Secrecy and Presidential Power. During the event, web viewers can submit their questions for the expert panel.

Panelists will include:

• John W. Dean, former White House Counsel
• Ann Beeson, ACLU Associate Legal Director
• James Bamford, spying expert and ACLU v. NSA plaintiff
• Nazih Hassan, CAIR-MI, ACLU v. NSA plaintiff

This live event comes on the eve of arguments in our landmark NSA lawsuit, the first ever hearing before a federal court on the president's illegal spying program.

Via Bring it On!.

UPDATE: The archive of the webcast is now available on the ACLU site.

Last night I blogged about Outlook 2007's apparent decision to phone home with my name. This morning I had a comment from Microsoft's Ben Canning and have been emailing back and forth ever since with Ben and several of his colleagues who clearly want to get to the bottom of this. These individuals seem to value my privacy and security as much as I do. And they seem to take their (company's) responsibility to protect my information quite seriously. That means a lot to me. Thanks guys! And thanks Microsoft!