FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler emphasizes “choice” in new privacy proposal

As we wrote last week, the FCC is considering new privacy rules for Internet service providers (who can see quite a bit about what we do on the Internet). Tom Wheeler recently sat down and discussed his proposal with NPR. From the story:

Wheeler’s plan, expected to be formally proposed on March 31, would let consumers opt out of programs allowing ISPs to use the data to offer you other services themselves, but would require explicit opt-in consent for data to be shared with third parties.

And one interesting question is how this may factor into the prices that ISPs would then charge consumers, given the value of the private information. For instance, AT&T has an ultra-fast high-speed Internet offering that allows subscribers to opt out of Web tracking for an extra fee.

“What we’re saying is that we want to empower consumers,” Wheeler says. “First you empower consumers to say, ‘Do I want my information used?’ Then you empower consumers to say, ‘Is there a value that I put on my information?’ and work some kind of a deal with the Internet service provider to reflect that value.”

Read more of our coverage on AT&T’s “pay-for-privacy” broadband program.

“A video that every potential juror should see”

Police body-worn camera footage can provide an incomplete and misleading record of events. Jay Stanley of the ACLU analyzes two videos of the same arrest: footage from a nearby surveillance camera, and footage from a body camera worn by one of the officers. The videos, which you can see here, tell very different stories. Stanley writes that

[T]he main reason I think this is a video everyone should watch is that the view provided by the surveillance camera is strikingly different from — and clearer than — the view provided by the body camera. The surveillance camera is higher up and, unlike the bodycam, captures the wide-angle of the scene. This is an important reminder of the limitations of cameras worn on the body of officers who are in the thick of the action.

…

[T]he divergence between the two video streams that captured the arrest serves as an important lesson and reminder of the limits of video evidence, as well as the need for skepticism toward police accounts of what such videos portray.