Breaking: Clinton Gave Staffers Clintonemail.com Addresses Too

from the it's-turtles-all-the-way-down dept

Clinton’s personal aide, Huma Abedin, and her communications adviser, Philippe Reines, regularly used unofficial email accounts for work-related email, former colleagues said.

Filed Under: clinton, clintonmail, email, foia, hillary clinton, huma abedin, transparency

There Is No Way That Hillary Clinton Didn't Know She Was Supposed To Use A Government Email Account

from the this-makes-no-sense dept

Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record.

Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act.

That scandal unfolded well into the final year of Bush's presidency, then overlapped with another email secrecy scandal, over official emails that got improperly logged and then deleted, which itself dragged well into Obama's first year in office. There is simply no way that, when Clinton decided to use her personal email address as Secretary of State, she was unaware of the national scandal that Bush officials had created by doing the same.

That she decided to use her personal address anyway showed a stunning disregard for governmental transparency requirements. Indeed, Clinton did not even bother with the empty gesture of using her official address for more formal business, as Bush officials did.

Filed Under: email, hillary clinton, personal email accounts, public records, scandals, transparency

Cars Are Delivering Tons Of Driving Data To Manufacturers With Minimal Security And Even Less Transparency

from the introducing-the-2015-Lexus-CI dept

Nothing's driving the acquisition of data faster than, well, driving. As new technology makes its way into vehicles, so does the apparent desire to harvest information about the vehicle itself. Between the outside harvesting (automatic plate readers that gather plate/location data, as well as photos of vehicle occupants) and the "inside" transmissions, there's very little any number of unknown entities won't know about a person's driving habits. And that's not even including what's transmitted and collected by drivers' omnipresent smartphones and their installed apps.

Sen. Edward Markey has expressed some alarm at the amount of data being collected (and distributed) by vehicle manufacturers. His office has produced a report [pdf link] showing that while many manufacturers are involved in collecting data, very few of them seem concerned about the attendant risks. Even worse, many respondents to his office's questionnaire seem to show very little understanding of the underlying technology and most have not made an effort to fully inform customers as to how much is being collected or how it's being distributed.

Drivers of today's connected cars aren't going to like the report's findings.

Nearly 100% of cars on the market include wireless technologies that could pose vulnerabilities to hacking or privacy intrusions.

Of the 16 automobile manufacturers that responded to the letter, 13 of them addressed these questions in some way. Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz, and Mazda did not respond to the question at all, and five other manufacturers provided general responses that addressed the question as a whole instead of providing specific responses to the questions’ sub-parts.

[...]

Seven of the manufacturers stated that they use third-party testing to verify their security measures, while 5 stated that they do not and 4 did not respond to this part of the question.

[...]

The manufacturers were also asked about how they secure this type of software delivery [updates/patches]. Each manufacturer responded with descriptions of how they provide such software through authorized dealers with the appropriate tools. Automobile security experts consulted by Senator Markey’s staff said that all of the responses are similar in that they presume a malicious actor could not access or acquire the technologies that mechanics have. They state that software updates for systems should be cryptographically verified by the ECU being updated in order to effectively prevent intrusions.

In the case of on-board storage, no manufacturer described any security system to protect that data, and several of them noted that no security measure is needed since accessing data would require a hardwire connection.

Regarding security measures to protect data that is wirelessly transmitted outside the vehicle, only 6 responses were received. Of those, 5 provided vague responses naming encryption, passwords, or general IT security practices, and only 1 specifically mentioned that they designed their systems to limit the transfer of personally identifiable information.

Filed Under: cars, data, privacy, smart cars, transparency

If We're Going To Fix Copyright, We Need Much More Transparency

from the a-necessary-factor dept

Most requests came from publishers, distributors, collective rights organizations, service providers and intermediaries (57% altogether), while it was more difficult to get directly to the group most often referred to in public debate: The authors. The results of the copyright consultation with many authors’ responses demonstrate that the interests of collecting societies and individual authors can differ significantly.

Meetings requested

Meetings taken

Filed Under: acta, copyright, copyright reform, julia reda, tafta, tpp, trade agreements, transparency, ttip, ustr

USTR Still Insists That 'Listening' Is 'Transparency' Even As It Keeps Details Completely Secret

from the buy-a-fucking-dictionary dept

• Listening: People ---- information -----> USTR
• Transparency: USTR --- information ----> The Public

The Administration is working to cast a wide net to draw in the views of the public and to share information at every step of the negotiating process. To that end, for the negotiations currently ongoing, the Administration has:

• Solicited public comments on negotiation aims, priorities and concerns, including through the Federal Register.
• Held public hearings inviting input on the negotiations.
• Organized first-of-a-kind stakeholder events where the negotiations are suspended so that a diverse group of stakeholders can meet with negotiators. These sessions are open to the public and provide a valuable opportunity for U.S. negotiators to hear and respond to critiques and suggestions.
• Shared information on the current status of negotiations through blog posts, trade policy updates, press releases, statements, conference calls with stakeholders and the press, and tweets.

Filed Under: fast track, listening, tafta, tpp, trade promotion authority, transparency, ustr

The Cable Industry's Latest Lame Argument: We're Burying Sneaky Fees In Your Bill As Part Of An Effort To Be More Transparent

from the when-price-gouging-is-altruism dept

"In a statement, Comcast spokesman Steve Kipp said the charge is due to broadcast “retransmission costs,” which have more than doubled in recent years. "Beginning in 2014, we will itemize a portion of broadcast retransmission costs as a separate line item to be more transparent with our customers about the factors that drive price changes," he said. “In 2014, we will not increase the price of Limited Basic or Digital Preferred video service, and adjustments to other video service prices will be lower than they would have been without the Broadcast TV Fee.”

"Dennis Johnson, a Time Warner Cable spokesman, defended the higher modem-rental cost by pointing out that the fee for Internet access hasn't gone up — yet. The company's last increases for various Internet service levels was in March. "There is no change in the price of Time Warner Cable Internet plans, although speeds have increased," Johnson said..."Our fees paid to local broadcast channels have soared 60% the past two years alone, and the cost of cable sports networks has increased 91% since 2008," Johnson said. "We think it's important to show customers the impact of these rising costs through a specific item on their bill," he said of the charge for sports channels."

"The rising cost of sports programming isn’t new, but it’s escalating dramatically, and we think that it’s important to show customers the impact of these rising costs through a specific item on their bills,” Amirshahi said in an e-mail. Cablevision, in a statement, said that their rate increases are “only a fraction of the rising costs of sports and other programming."

Filed Under: false advertising, fees, retransmission, transparency
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

European Commission Announces Major Transparency Initiative For TAFTA/TTIP

from the now-it's-your-turn,-USTR dept

Filed Under: cecilia malmstrom, eu, eu commission, negotiating documents, tafta, transparency, ttip

DOJ Secretly Helped Kill FOIA Transparency Bill That Was Based On Its Own Public Policy

from the most-transparent-administration-in-history dept

We've long known the Justice Department's stance on transparency has been hypocritical and disingenuous. But they've really outdone themselves this time. Last week, the agency secretly helped kill a bipartisan Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reform bill that was based word-for-word on its own policy.

First, a little background: In a surprise to some, the very modest FOIA Improvements Act died in Congress last Thursday, despite virtually unanimous support in both houses. The bill was completely uncontroversial. It merely would have upgraded agencies' ability to accept FOIAs electronically and codified existing policy—mainly President Obama's now infamous January 20, 2009 memo in which he ordered federal agencies to operate under a "presumption of openness."

All Speaker John Boehner had to do on the last day before Congress adjourned for the year was bring the bill up for a vote, and it would've been whisked through to the President's desk. A similar bill had already passed the House unanimously earlier in the year.

Yet for some unknown reason at the time, he didn't. On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported on the inside story behind the last-minute death of the bill, and the blame centers on the Justice Department:

According to House aides, some lawmakers balked at the legislation because several agencies, including the Justice Department, warned that those making information requests would use the "foreseeable harm" requirement as the basis for frequent lawsuits.

The "foreseeable harm" section referred to by the Post would force federal agencies to justify withholding information if they wished to do so. Essentially, they would have to show the information would cause "foreseeable harm" if released. Not exactly a tall order. But what makes the Justice Department's objection so shocking is that this "foreseeable harm" provision would not deviate at all from the Justice Department's own policy. In fact, it was based on it.

In a March 19, 2009 memo to all federal agencies, Attorney General Eric Holder himself wrote that the Justice Department would carry out Obama's aforementioned transparency order by rescinding the Bush DOJ's more restrictive FOIA rules and designating new ones. From that moment on, Holder declared:

[T]he Department of Justice will defend a denial of a FOIA request only if (1) the agency reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm an interest protected by one of the statutory exemptions, or (2) disclosure is prohibited by law.

Now read full text of the provision in the just-killed FOIA reform bill that the Justice Department allegedly objected to:

An agency shall withhold information under this section only if a) the agency reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm an interest protected by an exemption described in subsection or other provision of law; or b) disclosure is prohibited by law

As can be seen, the two passages are virtually identical. How does the Justice Department think this provision will lead to more lawsuits it would have to defend if they're not supposed to be defending those lawsuits in the first place?

The Justice Department is objecting to making its own supposed policy the law, and confirms what many have long believed: the agency does not want to—or have to—comply with its own FOIA rules.

The DOJ has repeatedly been criticized for failing to enforce, and downright ignoring its own FOIA guidance for years, and their stance on transparency in general has been incredibly hypocritical. For example, Holder has claimed he wanted the torture report to be public as soon as possible, meanwhile fighting in court to prevent the release of any documents on its own torture investigation. Likewise, he's claimed the Justice Department supports a federal shield law so reporters can protect their sources, while at the same time destroying the already-existing reporter's privilege in the Fourth Circuit

But this most recent development is just beyond the pale.

We had a feeling that the Justice Department was behind the initial delay in getting the bill passed months ago after receiving a tip from a knowledgeable source. In July we filed a FOIA request for emails between the Justice Department and the offices of the FOIA bill's co-sponsors John Cornyn and Patrick Leahy that discuss the agency's position on the bill. We've been waiting six months and still have gotten no response.

Now we know why.

Reposted from Freedom of the Press Foundation

Filed Under: doj, foia, obama administration, transparency