Privacy and Security Law Blog : Privacy & Security Law Blog : Davis Wright Tremaine LLP : Seattle, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, Portland and Anchorage Law Firm

Posted by Ronald London

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (i.e., for North and South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia) has affirmed a Virginia federal court’s dismissal of an anti-spam advocate’s complaint that hypertechnical “violations” of the Controlling the Assault of Non?Solicited Pornography and Marketing, or “CAN-SPAM,” Act entitled him to damages. The ruling is a potential blow to “professional plaintiffs” and other advocates who use the CAN-SPAM Act and/or state laws to sue for damages and/or broker settlements with senders of commercial emails. The decision also may have application to similar tactics by telemarketing foes who use the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and related laws in a like fashion.

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Posted by Peter Mucklestone

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) recently issued guidance in question and answer format designed to help mutual funds in meeting their obligations to file suspicious activity reports (SARs). SARs are reports that identify and describe transactions that raise suspicions of illegal activity. Mutual funds must commence filing SARs with FinCEN with respect to transactions occurring after October 31, 2006.

The mutual fund SAR reporting requirement applicable to mutual funds is intended to be uniform with reporting requirements already established for other financial institutions, such as banks, broker-dealers, casinos, and money services businesses.

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Posted by Lance Koonce

If you are wondering why the boxes of your favorite nasal decongestant have been replaced by laminated cards that, quite frankly, aren't as easy to swallow and don't have the same efficacy as those little red pills, you can thank the Patriot Act for the inconvenience.

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In a lawsuit testing the limits of the Transportation Security Agency's (TSA) authority to screen passengers without disclosing the nature of the screening, Plaintiff/Petitioner John Gilmore is seeking Supreme Court review of a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in which that court held that petitioner lacked standing to challenge anything other than the identification-or-search requirement, rejecting Gilmore’s due process claim that he received inadequate notice of the identification-or-search requirement. The Court held that petitioner had "actual notice" of the identification or-search requirement (in particular, "several airline personnel . . . told him that in order to board the aircraft, he must either present identification or be subject to a ‘selectee’ search."). Several organizations have amicus briefs on behalf of Gilmore. (See here, here, and here).

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Posted by Randy Gainer

81% of U.S. businesses surveyed this year reported that, in the previous 12 months, at least one of their laptops or other portable electronic devices had been lost or stolen. U.S. Survey: Confidential Data at Risk, 5 Privacy & Security Law Report 1162 (2006). When a laptop is lost or stolen, unencrypted data on the computer can easily be accessed. Even if a user name and password are needed to sign on to the laptop, the hard drive can be removed in a few seconds and all data on the hard drive can be copied to another computer or to a storage device in minutes.

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Posted by Ronald London

The Federal Trade Commission announced that it has reached a settlement with mortgage services company USA Home Loans Inc., and its telemarketer USA First Investment Group, Inc., over alleged violations of the agency’s Telemarketing Sales Rule (“TSR”) relating to calls made to individuals on the National Do-Not-Call Registry (“NDNCR”). The two companies and their principals agreed to more than $500,000 in civil penalties, all of which are suspended except for $53,000 to be paid by USA Home Loans, and to an injunction prohibiting them from engaging in future violations of the NDNCR rules. The settlement resolves allegations that the companies called consumers whose telephone numbers appear on the NDNCR, and that they placed the calls without paying the required annual fees for NDNCR access.

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Posted by Bruce E.H. Johnson

Privacy International has issued its annual Privacy and Human Rights Study analyzing privacy protections around the world. The study ranks the United States near the bottom for privacy protections, calling it an "extensive surveillance society." 

In failing to provide privacy rights, the U.S. is in very interesting company, as one news account noted:

Privacy International ranked 36 nations around the globe, including all European Union nations and other major democracies, and determined that in categories such as enforcement of privacy laws, the U.S. is on par with countries like China, Russia and Malaysia.

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