Privacy

When the Austrian government passed a law this year allowing police to install closed-circuit surveillance cameras in public spaces without a court order, the Austrian civil liberties group Quintessenz vowed to watch the watchers.

Members of the organization worked out a way to intercept the camera images with an inexpensive, 1-GHz satellite receiver. The signal could then be descrambled using hardware designed to enhance copy-protected video as it's transferred from DVD to VHS tape.

Ford Motor Co. informed about 70,000 active and former white-collar employees that a computer with company data, including social security numbers, was stolen from a Ford facility.

In an e-mail sent to "Affected U.S. Salaried Employees," Joe Laymon, group vice president for human resources, told staffers that their personal information may have been compromised, though the company had "no evidence that there has been identity theft or misuse of employee information."

During the 9/11 hearings, administration officials asserted the "wall" between domestic and foreign intelligence agencies was in part responsible for the terrorist attack. Whether or not that was the case, that "wall" has come down in the years since, to the point where some are starting to think about rebuilding.