The Federal Trade Commission is looking at setting guidelines on behavioral targeting, which is when ads on an internet site are based on the internet habits of that site’s user. Behavioral targeting uses companies that track the internet activities of potential consumers, which raises privacy questions.

The ...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been under fire from Congress for misusing its power to issue “national security letters.”  The letters enable the FBI to subpoena information such as telephone and credit card bills from U.S. citizens if deemed relevant to intelligence activities.

The ...

The Washington Post’s Robert O’Harrow, Jr. reports on “fusion centers”—information-sharing networks run by state government’s in the name of fighting terrorism. The Department of Homeland Security has given a total of $254 million in the last four years to enable these centers to collect a ...

That’s what the Wall Street Journal’s Evan Perez reports this morning. Last week FBI Director Robert Mueller admitted to Congress that the feds had abused their subpoena power of citizens’ personal financial information without receiving the approval of a judge. But an audit by Justice Department Inspector General ...

Siobhan Gorman of the Wall Street Journal has put together a powerful overview of the National Security Agency's information-gathering activities, and those of domestic security agencies, including the FBI.  Gorman notes that the NSA's efforts "have evolved to reach more broadly into data about people's communications, travel and finances in ...

A federal advisory committee led by the Treasury Department has put the brakes on plans by Bain Capital of Boston and the Chinese company Huawei Technologies to purchase the U.S. manufacturer of Internet routing equipment 3Com, as Steven Weisman reports in the New York Times.  The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, is responsible for reviewing foreign investment projects that would enable foreign entities to own more than 10 percent of a U.S. company.

A non-classified Rand Corporation study commissioned by the Army, completed in 2005, offered across-the-board criticism of the Army's planning, troop deployment, and war prosecution efforts, including decisions made by Gen. Tommy Franks, who oversaw the Iraq invasion and the immediate post-war strategy, and then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.  It also targeted ...

A lawsuit is being filed against the Customs and Border Protection division of the Department of Homeland Security over searches and confiscations of laptop computers, phones, and PDAs at the nation's airports.  Ellen Nakashima reports in the Washington Post that travelers have had laptops seized (and never returned) and cell ...

In 2007, President Bush signed a law requiring federal agencies to respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests within 20 days or refer disputed requests to an ombudsman.  The measure was an apparent breath of fresh air for journalists and public interest organizations eager to investigate government performance.  Now ...

Michael Isikoff of Newsweek interviews the former head of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), J. William Leonard, who tells how the Office of the Vice President and its legal counsel, David Addington, abruptly stopped turning over relevant administration documents to the National Archives, and then attempted simply to abolish the ISOO.