Skyshadow writes "Vermont Bookseller Bear Pond Books has announced that they will purge their sales records at the request of customers . This would effectively sidestep typically insideous a provision of the PATRIOT Act which allows government agencies to secretly seize sales records. The store's co-owner, Michael Katzenberg, put it this way: 'When the CIA comes and asks what you've read because they're suspicious of you, we can't tell them because we don't have it... That's just a basic right, to be able to read what you want without fear that somebody is looking over your shoulder to see what you're reading.' Now if only certain other booksellers would show that same conscience, we might have something here."

1:27:06 AM    

 Wacky Neighbor interprets Homeland Security Alerts. via Boing Boing via Michael.

[a klog apart propagandart]

12:51:09 AM    

It is always on, passively listening. The Personal Awareness Assistant prototype from consulting firm Accenture has a speech recognition engine, two small microphones, a small camera and a scrolling audio buffer. But it's more than a recording system. For example, if a user meets someone new and says "it's nice to meet you," the Assistant takes a low-resolution picture of the person being greeted and then, when that person responds, records the name, storing the dated and time-stamped information in an address book.

12:11:31 AM