A U.S. judge has ordered Google to comply with search warrants seeking customer emails stored outside the United States, diverging from a federal appeals court that reached the opposite conclusion in a similar case involving Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O).

U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter in Philadelphia ruled on Friday that transferring emails from a foreign server so FBI agents could review them locally as part of a domestic fraud probe did not qualify as a seizure.

The judge said this was because there was “no meaningful interference” with the account holder’s “possessory interest” in the data sought.

“Though the retrieval of the electronic data by Google from its multiple data centers abroad has the potential for an invasion of privacy, the actual infringement of privacy occurs at the time of disclosure in the United States,” Rueter wrote.

Source: Google, unlike Microsoft, must turn over foreign emails: U.S. judge

I guess Rueter finds that invasion of privacy is no meaningful interference.

California electronics maker Vizio will cough up $2.2m after its smart TVs spied on millions of people.

America’s trade watchdog, the FTC, said today the payment will settle a complaint filed by the state of New Jersey accusing Vizio of violating privacy regulations: the biz had collected the viewing habits of 11 million television sets throughout the country without warning or permission.

According to the state attorney general’s federal complaint [PDF], from February 2014 to March 2016, Vizio noted down exactly what its customers were watching and then resold all those records as summaries to third parties – which were mostly advertising companies.

The usage data was not only collected while customers were watching over-the-air or cable TV broadcasts, but also when they were watching DVDs or streaming video from websites and over-the-top services like Netflix.

Vizio harvested surveillance on people and their families so precise, it knew exactly what you were watching, second by second, and even took copies of the watched video, according to prosecutors. Additionally, we’re told, Vizio resold summaries of personal information about its customers it had gathered, including age, marital status, and household income, to advertisers without consent.

Source: Vizio coughs up $2.2m after its smart TVs spied on millions of families • The Register

No mention of the records having to be destroyed though?

Previously, tourists, travelers and visa holders were warned they may have to hand over their online account names and handles so their public profiles can be studied by border agents and immigration officials.

Now Kelly wants to take that further, by demanding passwords from some visa applicants so g-men can log into Twitter, Facebook, online banking accounts, and so on, and rummage around for any eyebrow-raising non-public posts, messages and transactions. If you refuse, you can’t come in.

“We want to say ‘what kind of sites do you visit and give us your passwords,’ so we can see what they do,” Kelly explained, in response to a question from Representative Clay Higgins (R-LA).

“We want to get on their social media with passwords – what do you do, what do you say. If they don’t want to cooperate then they don’t come in. If they truly want to come to America they’ll cooperate, if not then ‘next in line’.”
[…]
Kelly said this invasive vetting of people’s online personas and accounts could take weeks or months, and that applicants would just have to wait until it was done. Representative Higgins said he agreed, and was anxious for Homeland Security and others to start trawling through people’s social media pages. Higgins said handing over such credentials should be mandatory.

Source: Want to come to the US? Be prepared to hand over your passwords if you’re on Trump’s hit list • The Register

The 4th reich keeps getting scarier.

Phone numbers, browser histories, and social media posts are all examples of the sort of data that could be mined from those entering the US under Trump’s “extreme vetting” policy, Department of Homeland Security secretary John Kelly said today.

As Talking Points Memo reported, Kelly held a press conference this afternoon to discuss the president’s new (and massively unpopular) travel ban. When pressed to explain what the “extreme vetting” part of the order could involve, Kelly answered, “It might be certainly an accounting of what websites they visit.” He stressed, however, that the new rules—whatever form they may take—are still “under development.”

“It might be telephone contact information [and] social media,” he continued. “We have to be convinced that people that come here, there’s a reasonable expectation that we don’t know who they are and what they’re coming here for and what their backgrounds are.”

Source: Trump’s ‘Extreme Vetting’ for US Visitors Could Involve Social Media Posts and Browser Histories

Secret FBI rules allow agents to obtain journalists’ phone records with approval from two internal officials — far less oversight than under normal judicial procedures. The classified rules, obtained by The Intercept and dating from 2013, govern the FBI’s use of national security letters, which allow the bureau to obtain information about journalists’ calls without going to a judge or informing the news organization being targeted.

Source: Secret Rules Make It Pretty Easy for the FBI to Spy on Journalists