Deeplinks

EFF welcomes a strong voice in the fight against data retention mandates: on Wednesday, a group of Slovak MPs filed a complaint challenging the constitutionality of Slovakia's mandatory data retention law. The law compels telcos and ISPs to monitor the communications of all citizens including those not suspected or convicted of any crime, and in case law enforcement officials demand them for any reason.

Despite protests from civil society organizations, but with applause from the entertainment lobby, Canada announced on October 9^th that it has officially joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement negotiations. Canada joins the TPP not as an equal partner in the agreement but as a “second-tier” negotiator, which means it will have far less input into the agreement than the countries currently negotiating. Some Canadian politicians did find some of the conditions imposed by the USA and other countries unpalatable, but nobody offered any real details as to why.

The Department of Homeland Security’s 70 counterterrrorism "fusion centers" produce "predominantly useless information," "a bunch of crap," while "running afoul of departmental guidelines meant to guard against civil liberties" and are "possibly in violation of the Privacy Act."

These may sound like the words of EFF, but in fact, these conclusions come from a new report issued by a US Senate committee. At the cost of up to $1.4 billion, these fusion centers are supposed to facilitate local law enforcement sharing of valuable counterterrorism information to DHS, but according to the report, they do almost everything but.