Privacy

Congress put cable TV operators on notice that it would scrutinize their plans to roll out targeted advertising to viewers, questioning whether they would use set-top boxes to monitor what people watch. As part of a broader discussion Thursday of Internet privacy issues, lawmakers at the House subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet brought up cable's newest advertising endeavor, called Canoe Ventures.

One student plays the trumpet and French horn competitively. Another competes with her flute ensemble. A third has been raising his prized market hog for a livestock show. Under a policy adopted by a school district in Redding, Calif., about 200 miles north of San Francisco, those students are subject to random drug tests, like any others participating in competitive activities.

Growing up in West Germany, Lothar Schroeder never knew that terrible sense of violation suffered by people in the communist East at the hands of the secret police who tailed them, bugged their homes and recruited neighbors and even family members to snitch on them. Now he knows. But it's not a totalitarian state doing the snooping this time; it's some of the country's largest corporations -- big names in telecommunications, transportation and retail.

The California Supreme Court appeared divided Wednesday over how to handle a $15.6-million jury verdict won by a model who discovered his face on a jar of Taster's Choice coffee. The case is being closely watched by the entertainment and media industries. The Motion Picture Assn. of America and the Los Angeles Times have sided with Nestle USA Inc.

Some Californians, angry that taxes have just gone up, IOUs are being issued and the state may be on its way over a cliff, find few things more infuriating than a big benefits package enjoyed by a government worker. So some of the 5,100 state and local government retirees who draw more than $100,000 annually are trying to lie low, preferring that the details of their receipts be kept private. And they have asked the courts for help.

The good folk of Broughton don't take kindly to being photographed without permission. Just ask Google. When the search-engine giant sent one of its specially equipped cars to take pictures of the village for its Street View feature, residents swung into action. They stopped the car in its tracks, called the police and quizzed the bewildered driver for nearly two hours before letting him go. "I don't think this guy anticipated how angry people would get," said Edward Butler-Ellis, 28. "We didn't stand there with pitchforks or anything and block the road with bales of hay, but obviously people were agitated.

As a 20-year member of the Writers Guild of America, Jonathan Prince was startled to learn that his union was accusing him of being a scab during the writers strike. But he was even more stunned when he learned that the guild had been relying on a secret informant, code-named Clyde, who he and his attorney said had gained unauthorized access to his private e-mails. Prince, executive producer of recent TV dramas "Cane" and "The Cleaner," was among a dozen writers who were investigated for picking up their pens and working -- or failing to report those who did -- during the 100-day writers strike that began in November 2007.

In the four weeks since director Roman Polanski's arrest, Samantha Geimer has once again found herself in an unwanted spotlight. Phone calls from the media besieged her at home, on her cellphone, at work, seeking comment from the woman who was the 13-year-old victim in the director's sex case three decades ago. Calls have come at all hours of the day, from as far as Germany, Israel and Japan. Every TV network's national morning show called, as did Larry King and Oprah Winfrey.

Re "Do you know who's checking your DNA?," Opinion, Jan. 27 Gail Javitt and Kathy Hudson's opinion piece reinforces a myth that the public should abandon: that individuals have a privacy interest in their DNA. Even if we assume the worst -- that DNA theft is possible and that someone wants to do it -- so what if we know a person's DNA sequence? Of what are we afraid?There are public policy reasons for not giving individuals an unfettered privacy right to their DNA. Much research, including drug development, is focused on finding individuals with rare genetic sequences that may herald cures for serious illnesses.

Re "Ruling did not vindicate Bush's wiretapping," editorial, Feb. 2 The Times is right that the recent decision by the FISA appeals court is narrow, and that it does not ratify the warrantless surveillance program that the Bush administration inaugurated in 2001. But you are off the mark in suggesting that the FISA Amendments Act, enacted in 2008, includes adequate privacy protections. The act gives the executive branch virtually unchecked power to intercept Americans' international e-mails and telephone calls.