Obama may have closed the flag@whitehouse.gov address, but he’s looking to lift the ban on “cookies” when people visit government sites.
A ban on such tracking by the federal government on Internet users has been in place since 2000, however, the White House Office of Management and Budget now wants to lift the ban citing a “compelling need.”In fact, according to the Electronic Privacy and Information Center, federal agencies have already negotiated agreements and contracts with social networking sites like Google, YouTube, SlideShare, Facebook, AddThis, Blist, Flickr and VIMEO to collect information on visitors for federal web sites. All of these private companies are known to have agreements with federal agencies, but the public has never seen them.
In public comments submitted to the Office of Management and Budget, EPIC notes it has obtained documents that show federal agencies have negotiated these contracts with the private sector in violation of “existing statutory privacy rights.” Those agencies include: Department of Defense, Department of the Treasury, and the National Security Agency.
Granted, this comes from World Nut Daily, but blind squirrel and all …. Still … from Federal Computer Week
The rules against using Web tracking tools were enacted to protect people’s privacy, according to the notice. However, persistent cookies improve the user’s experience on a site. They are the technology that makes it possible for a Web site to remember each visitor’s preferences and information. They also are necessary for sophisticated analysis tools, which provide managers with useful information about how visitors use the site.Vivek Kundra, the federal chief information officer, said several policies and statutes need to be re-evaluated as the government adopts emerging technologies such as Web 2.0 and cloud computing. Speaking at the Open Government and Innovations Conference on July 21, Kundra said cookie policies and the Paperwork Reduction Act both may need to be modified.
Web tracking by federal agencies has been prohibited since 2000 unless an agency head approves the use of tracking technologies due to a compelling need, according to the Federal Register notice.
Cookies have an important function in the design of the modern Internet, but raise legitimate privacy concerns that remain unadressed, especially within the context of government websites. The advantage of having website statistics may not outweigh the privacy cost.
via Ace even the ACLU is alarmed.
“Americans rely on the information from the federal government to research politics, medical issues and legal requirements. The OMB is now asking to retain the personal and identifiable information we leave behind,” said Christopher Calabrese, Counsel for the ACLU Technology and Liberty Project.
The White House responds
“This privacy issue has recently received some attention in the media. We want to make it clear that the current policy on Federal agencies’ use of cookies has not changed,” Federal CIO Vivek Kundra and Michael Fitzpatrick, associate director of the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, wrote on the White House blog Aug. 11. “Moreover, the policy won’t change until we’ve read the public comments that have been submitted to ensure that we’re considering all sides of the issue and are addressing privacy concerns appropriately.”
Well, that makes it all better, doesn’t it?
Comment by LTC John, JD, MA, BA, BSM, etc. on 8/18 @ 8:13 am #
Note that Kundra and Fitzpatrick said nothing will change until they read the public comments. So like most Federal regulatory argle-bargle, they have placed a star on the timeline for when it will happen, not when they will consider whether to do it or not.
Comment by McGehee on 8/18 @ 8:19 am #
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who posted comments to the White House “feedback” form using that address and causing it to be spammed by WH propaganda.
Comment by McGehee on 8/18 @ 8:20 am #
…although, if the White House website had been able to set cookies they might have been able to find out who was doing that.
Comment by happyfeet on 8/18 @ 8:30 am #
I have no problem with cookies –
what I have a problem with is the gay-assed IRS not being able to make its own tax e-filing software available on its site, and I imagine it would need cookies to do that -
Comment by Celtic Dragon on 8/18 @ 8:55 am #
They have no problem waiting to read the comments, after which the negative commentators will find themselves inundated with AxelSpam and IRS audit notices…
Comment by cranky-d on 8/18 @ 9:11 am #
They will read the comments, and do whatever they want to anyway. It’s how business is done these days in our great land. They know what’s good for us proles.
Comment by geoffb on 8/18 @ 9:26 am #
It seems that they shut down the “flag” email only to enlarge the scope of the operation. Internet Snitch Brigade disabled, but…
Comment by geoffb on 8/18 @ 9:38 am #
This is backwards for a supposedly free nation. The cookies need to be on all of the Government bureaucrats and Representatives computers feeding the data to a site on the internet that all can access to see what they have been up to. See how they like that. Exceptions for some for national security reasons of course.
As with the Healthcare Bill, our betters need to know everything about us while shielding themselves from all scrutiny or even criticism.
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 8/18 @ 11:44 am #
Cookies!!!!
I wonder if there’s a “Tax-payer Dollar Monster”?
Oh. Never mind.
Comment by bour3 on 8/18 @ 11:46 am #
Ew, blind squirrel, I do like that phrase. I don’t imagine a blind squirrel would live very long, though, even if they did manage to find an occasional nut.
The only problem I have with cookies are the smart asses who conceal their own identities in my cookie bin. Otherwise, it’s easy enough to remove them. This president, I don’t know, he’s a little bit too clever by half, and I believe that might be his undoing.
For example, renaming things euphemistically in an attempt to fool us whereby socialized medicine becomes single-payer healthcare. When that so miserably fails to fly single-payer is renamed coop, or would that be coöp, lets go with co-op. Gee, this renaming business is tricky. O, be some other name! But that which is a crap sandwich by another name would be as foul. T’would reek as bad and make your visage scowl.
Wanna hear something? OK, goes like this: I’m listening, vewee ca’efuwee, to the others’ position when stated clearly because I am sooo interested in understanding their point of view. But my mind plays tricks on me. The guy being interviewed seemingly an intelligent and smartly dressed well-presented fellow says, ” … when 40 million people are excluded from access to health care…” and my brain automatically inserts, “from whose bum did you pull that figure?” How that number is elastic! Then my brain automatically inserts with no effort on my part and separate from my attempt to pay attention, “Have you examined how that bum-pulled figure you’re throwing out for the sake of polemics breaks down; illegals, young and healthy and not interested, too lazy or disinterested to seek insurance, people who’d rather spend their income otherwise, people who wait for emergencies to act?” And that pretty much canceled out my ability to listen any further. I cannot control this blocking action my brain performs automatically.
If I were to ever contact this White House, and I cannot imagine why I would bother, I would use the computer of a liberal friend. “Hey, mind if I check my email?” Then dash of my letter.
Comment by geoffb on 8/18 @ 12:29 pm #
OT: HR 3200 Starting at the middle of page 501 of the pdf version of HR 3200.
Both of these to be part of the Social Security System “title XI of the Social Security Act”
So now there are at least three entities, one already established in the Stimulus Bill (Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research) and two more in the new bill, set up to evaluate “Comparative Effectiveness”, that wonderful euphemism for the rationing of heathcare spending. The panels which shall decide who gets what treatment, drug, medical device under a single payer system.
Comment by Spam Heap on 8/18 @ 12:30 pm #
etags is a much more subtle tracking mechanism.
Comment by Aresay on 8/18 @ 12:41 pm #
Don’t be folled by the old switch-a-roo, http://stopthepresses2.blogspot.com/2009/08/obama-pulls-plug-on-flagwhitehousegov.html
Comment by dicentra on 8/18 @ 12:46 pm #
Otherwise, it’s easy enough to remove them
Only if you know what a cookie is and where to find them in your browser. If you do, that puts you in the top 10% or so of the population.
etags is a much more subtle tracking mechanism.
OK, even I don’t know what they are.
Comment by Makewi on 8/18 @ 1:04 pm #
Having worked as a programmer on federal government owned websites I can tell you that the no cookie rule can deny you some simple solutions that can end up forcing your user to, for example, remember to save the emails that the website sent them. I’d be for lifting the ban on a case by case basis.
Comment by JD on 8/18 @ 1:21 pm #
Remember Teh Outrage! over Bush spying on people’s library books?
Comment by JD on 8/18 @ 1:24 pm #
Geoffb – Excellent point. We are supposed to be watching them, not the other way around.
I went to that new site, and it is vomit inducing.
Comment by dicentra on 8/18 @ 1:46 pm #
Slightly OT for the thread but indeed topical:
PhRMA Gets the Lando Calrissian Deal
Comment by psycho... on 8/18 @ 1:59 pm #
This is not a thing to care about. It’s one of those fake-libertarian kabuki shows ACLU/EFF types put on instead of actually opposing the state. If this were some real shit, you wouldn’t be hearing about it, from either “side.”
The government knows who you are and what you’re doing, if it cares. Make it — or yourself — so it doesn’t. (Those aren’t compatible plans.) This is all b.s.
However, anti-anti-cookie-ban, sort of: There’s nothing cookies can do that can’t be done differently, if the browser (the person, not the thing) is a somewhat knowing participant. They’re just a way of hiding how stuff gets done, whether for convenience, reliability (or a mistaken presumption of it), or sometimes some evil plot. If anyone shouldn’t be hiding shit from you, it’s the feds…I guess.
And even the convenience-only pro-fed-cookie arguments are basically arguments from laziness, e.g. (no offense):
Don’t send them anything. You can’t rely on people to keep information, even if they don’t know they’re keeping it — or don’t know how, since that information is stored in a mystery box they don’t understand and frequently wreck. Skip straight to “Who was your favorite teacher?” or whatever. Don’t add a “point of failure,” however minor, that’s outside your control.
However however, doesn’t matter. Important things:
‘cism!
Comment by dicentra on 8/18 @ 2:10 pm #
‘cism!
Well, yes. I’m an inveterate ‘ist who only objects to Obama’s policies because I can’t deal with his subdermal pigmentation. The fact that he doesn’t need to use as much sunscreen as I do is a dealbreaker, ya know.
Polimom, via Hot Air:
Comment by dicentra on 8/18 @ 2:11 pm #
Rats!
Here’s the Lando Calrissian link.
Comment by JD on 8/18 @ 2:12 pm #
When someone tells me that I am working against my own self-interest, all I hear them say is “STFU and give me even more of your money as I know how to spend it better than you know how to earn it”
Comment by dicentra on 8/18 @ 2:34 pm #
Over at One Cosmos, Gagdad Bob explains the appeal of Leftism:
Comment by mojo on 8/18 @ 3:00 pm #
It’s not the cookies per se, it’s what it’s possible to track using them. Your userID and such? Perfectly fine. Your browsing history? Also cool, if restricted to THIS site. Your email address, bank transfer code and account number? NOT SO GOOD…
Comment by Makewi on 8/18 @ 5:36 pm #
And even the convenience-only pro-fed-cookie arguments are basically arguments from laziness, e.g. (no offense):
Your a smart guy, but even someone as smart as you should realize that you can’t know everything. No offense.
Comment by Spam Heap on 8/18 @ 7:15 pm #
tracking with etags: http://arctic.org/~dean/tracking-without-cookies.html
Comment by Spam Heap on 8/18 @ 7:17 pm #
implementation using Spring framework: http://www.infoq.com/articles/etags
Comment by happyfeet on 8/18 @ 7:52 pm #
I don’t understand what fish
Comment by JD on 8/18 @ 8:58 pm #
Notice how the lying fucking lying fascist always shows up after another moonbat shows its ass?
Comment by geoffb on 8/18 @ 10:06 pm #
She also gives the version of the video that cuts 4 minutes off the footage. Full version is here.
Comment by meya on 8/18 @ 11:50 pm #
“She also gives the version of the video that cuts 4 minutes off the footage. ”
I hadn’t seen that. Thanks. She appears stubbornly ignorant. Lets hope foxnews makes a hero out of this heil hitler IDF fool.
Comment by JD on 8/18 @ 11:55 pm #
For meya to claim someone else is stubbornly ignorant, it caused a warp in the space time continuum, and black holes across the universe started sucking things into them.
Comment by Nolanimrod on 8/19 @ 12:12 pm #
re: http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=15225#comment-769390
Bour3,
Do you remember one Mitch Snyder and his homeless numbers? Adjusted for inflation they’re about the same.
Comment by dicentra on 8/19 @ 12:28 pm #
If you give a fish a cookie…
Comment by sdferr on 8/20 @ 6:15 pm #
… you still won’t be able to teach it how to bake.