Privacy Archives

The State Department has sent out a memo to all employees in its Consular Affairs-Passport division telling them they can't read leaked confidential documents posted by WikiLeaks on their 'personal time.'

The memo was obtained by Gawker, which published it late Wednesday.

Other agencies have left open the question of whether employees were permitted to browse WikiLeaks on non-work computers. Preventing employees from viewing the classified material while not in a federal workplace could be illegal, Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law with expertise in whistleblower protection and national security, told Nextgov Tuesday.

The State Department memo states: "Although legitimate reasons may exist for certain individuals in their official capacities to review 'Wikileaks documents,' with few exceptions, PPT employees have not been assigned work or projects related to 'Wikileaks documents,' . . . Accordingly, PPT employees shall not access any classified documents . . . during business hours or on their personal time."

The Homeland Security Department, GSA and Federal Protective Service said Wednesday the "see something, say something" campaign will be expanded to 9,000 federal buildings owned or leased by GSA nationwide.

In the coming weeks, public awareness materials for the campaign will be posted in buildings and signage will be posted at FPS guard stations at each facility. An existing national network of FPS call centers will answer any calls to the phone number posted on the sign, 877-4FPS-411, according to a DHS news release.

"Homeland security begins with hometown security and every citizen -- including government employees -- plays a critical role in ensuring America's safety and security," said DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. "Our partnership with FPS and GSA to expand the 'If You See Something, Say Something' campaign to our nation's federal buildings is a crucial step in helping the millions of people who work in or visit our federal buildings every day identify and report suspicious activity indicators of terrorism, crime and other threats."

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York City started the see something, say something campaign as a way for the public and employees to identify and report indicators of terrorism, crime and other threats. It was recently expanded to partners including Walmart, the Mall of America, Amtrak and the Metropolitan Washington Area Transit Authority.

The Transportation Department is examining technology that could potentially block people from using cell phones while driving.

In a discussion Tuesday on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in response to the growing number of deaths and injuries related to distracted driving that "there's a lot of technology out there now that can disable phones and we're looking at that."

While cell phones jammers are banned, technology from companies such as Zoomsafer, tXtBlocker and iZup could be used to disable a phone when a vehicle exceeds a certain speed, according to the MSNBC report.

But Paul Atchley, a scientist at the University of Kansas told MSNBC that those programs often do not work and consumers can find loopholes.

Many states prohibit either talking on a cell phone or texting while driving. In 2008 nearly 20 percent of all crashes in the U.S. involved some type of distraction and nearly 6,000 people died from crashes involving a distracted driver, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

As online holiday shopping swings into full gear, the FBI is reminding consumers how to avoid scams.

In a news release, the bureau told consumers to be wary of e-mails or text messages that indicate a problem with financial accounts. Often the websites those messages link to appear legitimate, but they are not, and any information entered could be compromised.

FBI also warned shoppers to be careful on auction websites. Criminals will post advertisements for products they do not have and sometimes products purchased could be stolen, the bureau said.

Among other tips were:

• Do not respond to unsolicited e-mail


• Only open attachments from known senders


• Avoid filling out forms contained in e-mail messages


• Contact the actual business to verify that an e-mail is genuine

If you do receive a suspicious e-mail, you can file a complaint here with the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

But the best advice, which is ages old, comes from the FBI itself: "If a deal looks too good to be true, it likely is."

The Air Force has issued a warning on its internal website to troops not to reveal their location through social media tools, such as Facebook.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the service is concerned about new features on sites such as Facebook and Foursquare that could show the enemy exactly where U.S. forces are located in war zones.

"Careless use of these services by airmen could have devastating operations security and privacy implications," read the warning, sent to senior commanders, according to AP. Commanders were asked to spread the word to troops.

The Army, which has the majority of the nearly 145,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, intends to issue a similar warning next week.

The Transportation Security Administration came under fire from Internet users on Nov. 17 for being too slow to moderate and post readers' comments onto its blog, a sign the site is being read closely.

An impatient reader, noticing that comments weren't coming through, posted to Reddit on Tuesday, "The TSA is censoring all comments on their blog. Do you think we hurt their feelings?"

Forbes' Andy Greenberg rode on readers' anger on Wednesday morning:

The fact that the TSA blog has seemingly blocked all comments on its best venue for defusing immense public anger over these new security measures seems especially disingenuous given that it's long had a "Delete-O-Meter" on the bottom right of the blog site. As a transparency measure, that plug-in is meant to offer a count of comments deleted by the site's administrator. It hasn't moved in the last twelve hours-it seems Blogger Bob is simply not approving new comments, rather than flat-out deleting anything.

That nudge just might have prodded the site's Blogger Bob into action. A flood of comments -- mostly rabid rants -- went up late Wednesday afternoon.

The site has become a vibrant roasting platform for the agency, which has come under scrutiny for its security screening procedures and full-body scanners. The traffic and chatter climaxed with the surge of media interest around the TSA oversight hearing on Wednesday.

A post that went up as a forum for readers to "comment on things that are way off topic with the current post" amassed more than 605 responses in a day. Blogger Bob's patient explanation of why "opting-out of advanced imaging technology and the pat-down doesn't fly" prompted more than 350 comments in two days.

Not content with just the official blog, readers have found other creative ways to satisfy their anger. Rogue TSA Twitter accounts have mushroomed online, including "Agent Smith" of the handle @TSAgov, who tweeted today,

Google is not in the clear yet. Although the Federal Trade Commission in late October ended its investigation of Google Street View cars' collection of Internet users' personal communications, the Federal Communications Commission launched a probe earlier this week.

The FCC is examining whether Google broke federal laws when its cars, which take pictures of buildings along city streets, accidentally collected passwords, e-mail messages and Web addresses of users on unencrypted Wi-Fi networks.

Google is being investigated across the United States and around the globe over the breach. The Web giant also is likely to face questions from lawmakers when Congress returns next week, Politico reports.

Politico quotes FCC's enforcement bureau chief as saying the agency is looking into whether Google violated the communications act. "As the agency charged with overseeing the public airwaves, we are committed to ensuring that the consumers affected by this breach of privacy receive a full and fair accounting," the chief, Michele Ellison, said.

Massachusetts has alerted a website operator that he could face jail time for failing to take down data released to him through a freedom of information request.

According to a Thursday report in The Boston Globe, Massachusetts' Department of Transitional Assistance sent Michael Morisy, cofounder of MuckRock.com, a website devoted to open records, a letter earlier this week warning him failure to remove the data could result in fines or imprisonment.

The acting general counsel of DTA told Morisy the agency released the information -- which concerns how much money in food stamps has been spent at Massachusetts businesses over the past five years -- erroneously. She said she was not threatening him, but alerting him of possible ramifications, as told to her by the Agriculture Department, Boston.com reported.

Morisy has consulted with an attorney and it is unclear what action the state might or might not take. The data remains on the website.

An employee at the General Services Administration accidentally sent the names and Social Security numbers of the agency's staff to a private e-mail address, The New York Times reported on Saturday. GSA, which employs more than 12,000 people, is going to pay for one-year of credit monitoring and up to $25,000 in identify threat insurance coverage, according to the news report.

The breach occurred when a worker apparently accidentally transmitted the file containing the personal data while seeking "work-related assistance." The computer that received the data was scrubbed clean by GSA technicians.

The Times reports there is a discrepancy between when employees were notified and the breach. Although the breach occurred in late September, GSA employees told the Times they did not learn of the breach until early November, putting them "at greater risk."

The inspector general is investigating he incident.

Big Brother is watching social networking sites, documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation reveal.

EFF reported the documents reveal two forms of tracking: First, surveillance of social networks to investigate applicants for citizenship, and second, the Homeland Security Department's use of a "social networking monitoring center" to collect and analyze public communication during the period of President Obama's inauguration.

A May 2008 memo (obtained by the EFF through a Freedom of Information Act request) by officials at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a unit of DHS, encourages security employees to "friend" citizenship petitioners on social networking sites as a means of ferreting out fraud.

"Many of these people accept cyber-friends that they don't even know," the document says. "This provides an excellent vantage point for FDNS (Office of Fraud Detection and National Security) to observe the daily life of beneficiaries and petitioners who are suspected of fraudulent activities."