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Wikipedia Changes Policy After Poster Is Exposed

Mar 8, 2007
The popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which draws its content from countless anonymous contributions, will institute safeguards following revelations about the identity of one of its most industrious contributors. Ryan Jordan, under the name "Essjay," wrote thousands of articles for the site while claiming to be a theology professor but was exposed by The New Yorker as a 24-year-old college dropout.

Tax Dollars to Fund Study on Restricting Public Data

Jul 8, 2006
According to USA Today: "The federal government will pay a Texas law school $1 million to do research aimed at rolling back the amount of sensitive data available to the press and public through freedom-of-information requests." Seriously, this s*#t just got ridiculous; the Bush administration is already the most secrecy-crazed in the 20th century. Now it needs more layers of secrecy?
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Bush Condemns, Keller Defends Bank Data Story

Jun 26, 2006
President Bush said the N.Y. Times' disclosures about the administration's bank data-mining program did "great harm to the United States of America." The Times' editor, Bill Keller, said "nobody should think that we made this decision casually, with any animus toward the current administration, or without fully weighing the issues."

Feds Secretly Reviewed Bank Data to Fight Terror

Jun 23, 2006
Under a post 9/11 Bush administration program, CIA agents officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database called SWIFT, examining banking transactions involving thousands of Americans without specific warrants in each case. (This program is working in parallel with the NSA's warrantless eavesdropping system) The N.Y. Times has the scoop The Washington Post has government officials confirming the story

EU Court Blocks Airline Data-Sharing Agreement

May 30, 2006
Post 9/11, the U.S. penned a deal demanding that airlines submit 34 pieces of passenger information including names, addresses and credit card info. The EU Parliament has opposed the deal from the beginning, arguing that it does not guarantee adequate data protection, and now the European Court of Justice has annulled it. Washington has threatened big fines for noncompliance in the past. Privacy? Data protection? How un-American!

Feds Tracking ABC News Phone Calls in Leak Hunt

May 16, 2006
A "senior law enforcement official" has told ABC News that the government, in trying to root out confidential sources, is tracking the phone numbers the news organization calls Maybe we should just start calling him George "Big Brother" Bush Update: An official acknowledges its "backtracking" of journalists' phone records .