"The American Civil Liberties Union today said that a disclosure that the FBI sometimes wiretaps the wrong number in terrorism investigations only underscores the need to place safeguards in the Patriot Act against abuse. Congressional negotiators are currently working to reconcile differing bills to reauthorize the law."

"New Zealand Customs and Auckland International Airport have begun shopping for self-service border control kiosks that look set to spell the end of face-to-face checks by Customs staff on all visitors, speeding up border checks for "trusted travellers"."

""In the old days, all you had to do is clip some monitoring device onto the mainframe and you'd have it," said Ron Cowles, vice president at Gartner. "But now everything gets packetized, which makes it a lot more difficult. These are the kinds of issues that the commission will be working through, and the FCC's final order will have to address this.""

"After receiving hundreds of requests from Americans asking to know what personal information the government has obtained about them, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) told passengers that it "does not have the capability to perform a simple computer-based search" to locate individual records."

"The European Parliament rejected plans from the UK for an EU-wide data retention regime yesterday. But it lacks the power to stop them becoming law so instead it is hoping to divert support towards an alternative proposal from the Commission."

"The European Parliament on Tuesday rejected a proposal by European Union governments to retain telephone and e-mail data for up to three years for use in anti-terrorism investigations, raising concerns about civil liberties."

"The FCC admits it's on shaky legal ground, but is pressing ahead with a plan to force all providers of Internet access to allow monitoring of Internet telephony."

"The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) has said that he is not yet convinced by the arguments put forward in favour of a European directive on data retention, and has set out strict conditions any such law would have to meet if it's to be considered acceptable by his office. EDPS Peter Hustinx published his commentary on the proposed directive today."

"The European Commission's plan to store details of emails and telephone calls to combat terrorism does not respect the fundamental right to privacy, the EU's top adviser on data protection said on Thursday."

"... He spoke last week at the biometrics conference in Virginia about a report he recently prepared on privacy laws in several countries. "The challenge with biometrics is the perception by some that in and of itself it's a disclosure of something personal," he said."

"STATE and territory leaders say they are confident of achieving tougher anti-terrorism laws without compromising civil liberties. Prime Minister John Howard and the leaders meet in Canberra on Tuesday to discuss proposed new laws including allowing terrorist suspects who have never been charged to be electronically tagged for up to a year."

"... For nine months in 2003 and 2004, Sister McPhee also took on the task of clearing her name from the government's no-fly list, an endeavor that proved fruitless until she called on a higher power, the White House."

"The government's program to match all airline passenger names against terrorist watch lists should not move forward into the testing phase, an advisory committee to the Transportation Security Administration said in a report released yesterday."

"A federal jury on Thursday awarded $2.45 million to an Egyptian-born doctor after finding that a Lawrence County apartment manager who searched his home and called police hours after the 9/11 terrorist attacks had violated his privacy rights."

"A federal appeals court has put a hold on a Connecticut judge's ruling that had lifted a gag order on Connecticut librarians who received an FBI demand for records about library patrons under the Patriot Act."

"The US government is shelving plans to collect information on air travelers from commercial databases to identify potential terrorists on passenger lists, a newspaper reported on Thursday."

"This is the second of a three-part series looking at the effect and controversy over the Patriot Act and its second revision that awaits President Bush's signature."

"The European Commission will propose on Wednesday that telecommunications operators and Internet service providers should be compensated for the extra costs of collecting and storing call data to help law enforcement officers track terrorists."

"According to a new study performed by UConn's Center for Survey Research and Analysis (CSRA), a majority of Americans support the PATRIOT Act despite knowing little of the specific provisions made in it."

"Muslim groups and civil libertarians demanded an apology from Gov. Mitt Romney on Friday for his comments about wiretapping mosques and monitoring foreign students. But the governor refused, saying he was only advocating for improved homeland security."