[Infowarrior] - Justice Department opposes digital privacy reforms

[Richard Forno]

April 6, 2011 3:39 PM PDT

Justice Department opposes digital privacy reforms

by Declan McCullagh

The U.S. Justice Department today offered what amounts to a frontal attack on proposals to amend federal law to better protect Americans' privacy.

James Baker, the associate deputy attorney general, warned that rewriting a 1986 privacy law to grant cloud computing users more privacy protections and to require court approval before tracking Americans' cell phones would hinder police investigations.

This appears the first time that the Justice Department has publicly responded to a set of digital privacy proposals unveiled last year by a coalition of businesses and advocacy groups including AT&T, Google, Microsoft, eBay, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Americans for Tax Reform.

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http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20051461-281.html