Bloomberg broke the story and said that Google is the second company to fight back against NSLs. Challenges are rare — of 300,000 government-issued NSLs since 2000, only a handful of companies have resisted. The letters enables intelligence organizations to send secret requests to Web and telecom companies to gather data that is “relevant” to an investigation. They do not need a judge approval and come with a gag order, so people who receive the requests cannot talk about them.

Google filed a petition to “set aside the legal process,” citing a provision that enables judges to modify or deny NSLs that are “unreasonable, oppressive, or otherwise unlawful.” It is unknown why Google received the request, but in a blog post earlier this month, Google’s director of law enforcement and information security Richard Salgado said the company has been “trying to find a way to provide more information about the NSLs we get — particularly as people have voiced concerns about the increase in their use since 9/11,” and would include data about NSLs in their Transparency Report.

While civil rights groups aren’t always thrilled about how Internet companies use their customers’ private data, they are responding positively to Google’s stance against unwarranted government probes. The Electronic Frontier Foundations attorney Matt Zimmerman told Bloomberg “the people who are in the best position to challenge the practice are people like Google. So far no one has really stood up for their users.”

The FBI’s ability to issue NSLs was expanded under the Patriot Act. In 2007, the Justice Department found “serious misuse” of the FBI’s surveillance powers through its unlawful obtainment of information. Illston, Google, and others are taking steps to challenge the NSLs on the basis that they are “unreasonable, oppressive, and otherwise unlawful.”

Photo Credit: Cliff 1066/Flickr

California State Assemblymember Bonnie Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) has introduced the “Right to Know Act 2013,” which would force businesses to tell consumers what personal data they have and with whom they’re sharing. The bill follows lobbying efforts from privacy groups the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.

“This bill would instead require any business that has a customer’s personal information, as defined, to provide at no charge, within 30 days of the customer’s specified request, a copy of that information to the customer as well as the names and contact information for all third parties with which the business has shared the information during the previous 12 months, regardless of any business relationship with the customer,” reads a portion of the act.

Privacy and data ownership is a hot-button issue within the tech community. Companies ranging from giants like Facebook and Google to small e-commerce startups gather information about user activity and sell them to data brokers or advertising networks to create better-targeted advertising. Many consumers are be uncertain of privacy policies, unaware that their behavior is being tracked, and/or are unsure how to prevent it.

In a blog post supporting the Right to Know Act, the EFF wrote: ”Let’s face it: Most of us have no idea how companies are gathering and sharing our personal data. Colossal data brokers are sucking up personal facts about Americans from sources they refuse to disclose. Digital giants like Facebook are teaming up with data brokers in unsettling new ways. Privacy policies for companies are difficult to read at best and can change in a heartbeat. And even savvy users are unlikely to fend off the snooping eyes of online trackers working to build profiles of our interests and web histories. … The new proposal brings California’s outdated transparency law into the digital age, making it possible for California consumers to request an accounting of all the ways their personal information is being trafficked.”

But “big data” means big money these days. Tech companies can use data to optimize their business strategies, create revenue streams, and attract advertisers (not to mention the lucrative companies that act as data brokers). Chances are the tech community won’t react kindly to this proposal. However, the EFF said that this bill is about transparency and access rather than restrictions, and it does not limit or restrict data sales. Google and Facebook have not yet responded to requests for comment.

The European Union has supported its citizens rights to submit a request to acquire data with its Data Protection Directive. In January 2012, the European Commission met with strong resistance after drafting the General Data Protection Regulation, which said all foreign companies processing data of EU residents had to comply with their regulations. Yesterday, data-protection authorities from Britan, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands launched a joint action against Google after a five-month investigation which found that Google failed to give users information about how their personal data was being used across multiple platforms.

California has a long history of consumer protection laws, but the tech industry is an important part of state’s economy and has sway over legislative decisions. Do people have the right to “habeus data?” Or do businesses have the right to do what they want with the information users give them? Read A.B. 1291.

Photo Credit: http://www.asmdc.org/members/a70/photo-gallery

Saudi Arabia has implemented an electronic tracking system to monitor women and inform their husbands if they leave the country.

According to an Agence France-Press story, a new system implemented last week sends Saudi husbands text messages from the Saudi immigration agency when their wives are flying out of King Khaled International Airport, near Riyahd. Women are not allowed to leave the country without signed permission from their husbands.

Saudi Arabia, which ranked second worst in a Thomson Reuters global survey on women’s rights in mid 2012,  is a notoriously repressive country. Women are banned from driving, required to have a male guardian, just received the right to vote in municipal elections last year, and must cover most of their bodies, traditionally with a burqa or niqab.

“Women and girls in Saudi Arabia are treated as perpetual minors living under male guardianship all their lives – with restrictions on employment, political participation, travel, education, and healthcare,” Yasmeen Hassan, global director of Equality Now, told Trust.org in response to that survey.

Source: Wikipedia

Saudi woman in niqab

Women being denied the right to leave the country without the permission of their husbands is nothing new, though this tracking technology is. But there are no details in the AFP story or any of the other breaking stories on how exactly the Saudi authorities are doing it.

Based on the limited information available, it may not be a tracking system that uses physical devices such as — and I know this is an awful comparison — a LoJack car-tracking system, which would require a significant infrastructure and ramp-up time for distribution of hardware. It sounds like a simpler system at borders and airports whereby immigration authorities ascertain a woman’s identity, look up her husband in a database, and text him manually or via an automated system.

UPDATE: based on the new local report, this is exactly how the system works.

Which is still, of course, appalling to Western mores and requires a government database that matches up women with male guardians — usually husbands or fathers.

Commentators on Twitter are reacting to the news, some, including Ruwayda Mustafah, a female Kurdish activist/commentator, with despair:

Why can't Saudi Arabia do something for women for once where we can actually be proud of it? Instead of the constant humiliation.

—
Ruwayda Mustafah (@RuwaydaMustafah) November 22, 2012

photo credit: zilverbat. via photopin cc