When Congress failed to pursue several pieces of privacy legislation proposed or introduced in 2010, many in the surveying and mapping professions breathed a sigh of relief. A proposed draft of legislation introduced in May by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), which was intended to protect personal privacy, would have unintentionally limited the data that could be collected for a broad range of geospatial applications. The language in the bill was far too vague. A similar bill with equally ambiguous language -- HR 5777, the Best Practices Act -- was introduced in July by Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), but it, too, stalled out. It appeared that all the concern about these proposals had merely been false alarms. However, new threats loom on the horizon ...

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