In the mix...new organizational structures, giant list of data brokers, governments sharing citizens' financial data, and what IT security has to do with Lady Gaga

1) More on new kinds of organizational structures for entities that want to form for philanthropic purposes but not fit into the IRS definition of a nonprofit. 2) CDT shone a spotlight on Spokeo, a data broker last week.  Who are other data brokers? Don't be shocked, there are A LOT of them.  What they do, they mainly do out of the spotlight shone on companies like Facebook, but with very real effects.  In 2005, ChoicePoint sold data to identity thieves posing as a legitimate business.3) The U.S. has come to an agreement with Europe on sharing finance data, which the U.S. argues is an essential tool of counterterrorism.  The article doesn't say exactly how these investigations work, whether specific suspects are targeted or whether large amounts of financial data are combed for suspicious activity.  It does make me wonder, given how data crosses borders more easily than any other resource, how will Fourth Amendment protections in the U.S. (and similar protections in other countries) apply to these international data exchanges?  There is also this pithy quote:

Giving passengers a way to challenge the sharing of their personal data in United States courts is a key demand of privacy advocates in Europe — though it is not clear under what circumstances passengers would learn that their records were being misused or were inaccurate.

4) Don't mean to focus so much on scary data stuff, but 41% of IT professionals admit to abusing privileges.  In a related vein, it turns out a disgruntled soldier accused of illegally downloading classified data managed to do it by disguising his CDs as Lady Gaga CDs.  Even better,

He was able to avoid detection not because he kept a poker face, they said, but apparently because he hummed and lip-synched to Lady Gaga songs to make it appear that he was using the classified computer’s CD player to listen to music.

The New York Times is definitely getting cheekier.