MPs move against surveillance

A House of Commons committee has demanded the government adopt a data minimisation strategy to reduce the risk of Britain becoming a "surveillance society", says Computing.co.uk.

The committee's hard-hitting report, which warns of growing public disquiet over data practices, is aimed primarily at the Home Office and Cabinet Office. A series of government data security breaches have given extra force to the report's conclusions.

The committee called for a reassessment of the Data Protection Act and greater powers for information commissioner Richard Thomas, including "tougher penalties for negligent information-handling" within government and the private sector.

Gary McKinnon's legal team said they will take their fight against his extradition all the way to the European Court of Human Rights on Monday, as the highest court in England began deliberations on whether to turn him over to US authorities, reports The Register.

The London hacker now faces an anxious wait for the judgment on his latest appeal, which is expected to take about two weeks.

During a day-long session of legal nit-picking, five Law Lords heard McKinnon's barrister, David Pannick QC, argue that the US had abused process by trying to strong-arm his client into accepting extradition and pleading guilty.

A Colorado man has been ordered to pay US$6 million in damages and legal fees for spamming thousands of MySpace.com users, says ITWorld.

Scott Richter of Westminster, Colorado, must pay MySpace $4.8 million in damages and $1.2 million in legal fees, a court-appointed arbitrator ruled on Thursday.

Richter, who was once accused of pumping out more than 100 million spam messages per day, had been sued by MySpace in January 2007 in connection with an August 2006 campaign in which MySpace members were hit with unsolicited messages promoting a Web site called Consumerpromotionscenter.com.

A federal district court judge in Washington DC just dealt a setback to an organisation looking for answers about missing White House e-mails, reports The Register.

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly dismissed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) after determining that the target of the suit, the Office of Administration for the Executive Office of the President, did not fit the definition of an "agency" that was required to comply with the FOIA suit.

The suit arose after reports began circulating about shoddy archiving practices and missing back-up tapes for the White House e-mail system. Allegedly missing from White House back-up systems are all e-mails from the period immediately preceding the start of the Iraq War and e-mails from the office of the Vice President during the early days of an investigation into the outing of a CIA agent.