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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has launched a new campaign in an effort to shed light on the U.S. government`s electronic surveillance programs. The program uses the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) as a springboard to introduce information requests and litigation that it hopes will show the extent of government monitoring of Web, e-mail, and other electronic communications. "We`re really in the very early stages of the process. The first step is initializing our very early requests and in the first month we might be filing some lawsuits based on lack of response," said David Sobel, senior counsel on the FOIA Litigation for Accountable Government (FLAG) project. The project aims to uncover surveillance, database, and data mining activities by the United States government in recent years. Some groups that Sobel says have already been contacted with requests are the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Education. "It`s a fairly wide variety, particularly in a post 9/11 world where the government is interested in first collecting large amounts of information and then analyzing it," said Sobel. Passed by congress in 1966, the Freedom Of Information Act calls for the public availability of all records kept by government agencies. It contains exemptions, however for such things as trade secrets, matters of national security, and individuals` private personal information. Sobel characterized the campaign as an ongoing research project. "It`s really investigative in nature, to ferret out things the government would prefer the people would not be scrutinizing," said Sobel. The project is targeting government organizations for now, but Sobel said that private companies too could become involved in the litigation. David Greene, executive director of the First Amendment Project said that the project has a good chance of disclosing electronic surveillance activities, but expects that FLAG will have a hard time challenging the government...

With Linux making deeper inroads into corporate data centers, the LinuxWorld Conference ` Expo gave attendees some firsthand information about how open source is maturing to handle more critical business workloads. "The question of whether to use Linux isn`t an issue anymore," says Eric Clapsaddle, Unix systems administrator at Kohl`s department stores in Menomonee Falls, Wis., who made his first trip to the conference this year. "It`s not, `Can I do it on Linux?` It`s, `How do I do it on Linux?`" Addressing that question, the show -- which organizers say drew some 11,000 people, about the same as last year -- was focused on how Linux can support real business tasks. The bulk of the sessions and keynotes dealt with higher-level technologies such as virtualization, management, security, services-oriented architectures and grid computing, rather than lower-level discussions about the merits and drawbacks of Linux itself. Meanwhile there were product announcements from a range of companies. FiveRuns and Open Country unveiled open source systems management products; open source collaboration vendors Zimbra and Scalix showed off updated wares; and open source storage companies Zmanda and Cleversafe launched software and an open source project. Systems vendors such as HP, IBM and Oracle also had news. HP expanded its Linux repertoire, announcing formal support for Debian, while IBM and Oracle talked about widening their support for Linux and open source with services and preconfigured packages. But the real thrust of the show was around helping I.T. managers make better use of Linux and open source by integrating it into heterogeneous data center environments wherever it makes the best business sense. "From now on it`s really all about mainstreaming," says Michael Dortch, principal business analyst and I.T. infrastructure management practice leader at the Robert Frances Group. "It`s not about open source vs. proprietary. It`s all part...

IBM/Lotus says the next release -- Version 7.5 -- of its Sametime real-time collaboration server will be the last one that uses Domino for its underlying platform components. Sametime relies on a platform to provide its directory, data and security model, and through Version 7.5, that platform has been Domino. The next version will run on standards-based middleware. IBM announced in January it was developing a Sametime Linux client based on its Eclipse framework, and a Linux desktop client for Sametime is set to be released this month as part of Sametime 7.5. The company says it will release in the first half of 2007 a yet-to-be-named version of Sametime whose platform will be based on components of WebSphere, IBM`s DB2 database and the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. The new version will align with IBM`s service-oriented architecture and Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE) middleware infrastructure. It will be the first version to run on Linux and will give IBM a real-time client and server that support the open source operating system. Users won`t have to build a full J2EE, multitier environment, IBM officials say; instead, the Sametime install routine will run as usual and load only the WebSphere and DB2 components that support the server. "The benefits of having the IBM standards architecture under this are great in terms of support for [the Tivoli management platform] and exploiting the work of DB2 and WebSphere," says Art Fontaine, senior offering manager for IBM/Lotus. "Once we get to that next evolution of the back end, we have opportunities to start moving in different directions." The move also dovetails with IBM`s developing Workplace strategy, a set of J2EE-based components that add collaboration features to WebSphere middleware. "When you say something like, this is the last Domino version of Sametime, I kind of...

In the wake of multiple high-profile laptop thefts and data breaches, some I.T. shops are launching new initiatives to ensure that sensitive corporate data stored in spreadsheets and business intelligence tools remains secure. The security efforts are taking on a new urgency as more workers gain access to BI tools and spreadsheets used for BI functions. Several recent incidents -- including the inadvertent exposure of sensitive data for about 5,000 customers by Verizon Wireless that was disclosed last week, and the theft of a laptop from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs that contained personal information from some 26 million veterans -- involved unsecured spreadsheets. Users and analysts said that spreadsheets are often the most common method used to analyze corporate data and are increasingly used as a front-end to more advanced BI systems. However, in most cases the ubiquitous application and the more traditional BI tools have not yet received the same security scrutiny as transactional systems and Web applications, they said. Mayur Raichura, director of information services at The Long ` Foster Cos., met last week with various executives, including the company`s chief financial officer and controller, to kick off an I.T. security initiative that will place a heavy emphasis on securing BI data. "There is a tremendous amount of BI data that seems to be in the hands of a lot more employees than [there was] five years ago," Raichura said. "The average user outside of I.T. doesn`t have a clear understanding of the implications of what they do in terms of downloading data." In addition, the Fairfax, Va.-based real estate company has historically had "no policies on how this data is given to [employees] and what they do with it once they are given it," he added. At the meeting, Raichura and his fellow executives decided to hire a corporate chief security...