To Fight Book Bans, Illinois Passes a Ban on Book Bans; The New York Times, June 13, 2023

Orlando Mayorquin, The New York Times; To Fight Book Bans, Illinois Passes a Ban on Book Bans

"Taking a new tack in the ideological battle over what books children should be able to read, Illinois will prohibit book bans in its public schools and libraries, with Gov. J.B. Pritzker calling the bill that he signed on Monday the first of its kind.

The law, which takes effect next year, was the Democratic-controlled state’s response to a sharp rise in book-banning efforts across the country, especially in Republican-led states, where lawmakers have made it easier to remove library books that political groups deemed objectionable.

“While certain hypocritical governors are banning books written by L.G.B.T.Q. authors, but then claiming censorship when the media fact-checks them, we are showing the nation what it really looks like to stand up for liberty,” Mr. Pritzker, a Democrat, said at a bill-signing event at the Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago.

The law directs public libraries in the state to adopt or write their own versions of a library bill of rights such as the American Library Association’s, which asserts that “Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”"

Facebook pays $550m settlement for breaking Illinois data protection law; The Guardian, January 30, 2020

Alex Hern, The Guardian; Facebook pays $550m settlement for breaking Illinois data protection law

"Facebook has settled a lawsuit over facial recognition technology, agreeing to pay $550m (£419m) over accusations it had broken an Illinois state law regulating the use of biometric details...

It is one of the largest payouts for a privacy breach in US history, a marker of the strength of Illinois’s nation-leading privacy laws. The New York Times, which first reported the settlement, noted that the sum “dwarfed” the $380m penalty the credit bureau Equifax agreed to pay over a much larger customer data breach in 2017."

Illinois Issues: The Battle Over Transparency And Privacy In The Digital Age; NPR Illinois, July 13, 2017

Daisy Contreras, NPR Illiois; Illinois Issues: The Battle Over Transparency And Privacy In The Digital Age

"Privacy experts like John Verdi from the Future of Privacy Forum says that he believes much of the debate between opponents and proponents comes from the nature of the topic, which is in of itself a complicated issue because of the patchwork of legislation across different states.

“It is a vastly complicated space, where you have potential benefits from data to consumers, to businesses, to the economy — to governments. And you also have real concrete privacy and security risks for individuals.”...

For the time being, some consumers and privacy advocates like Carolyn Parrish, just want website owners and app developers to establish consensus about what might be considered too much data sharing and to establish ground rules for transparency with consumers.  “Giving people greater visibility into what’s happening behind the scenes—it’s useful. Knowledge is helpful to people to help them make educated choices.”"

ILLINOIS ADVANCES “RIGHT TO KNOW” DIGITAL PRIVACY BILLS; Electronic Frontier Foundation, May 22, 2017

Adam Schwartz, Electronic Frontier Foundation; ILLINOIS ADVANCES “RIGHT TO KNOW” DIGITAL PRIVACY BILLS

"EFF supports Illinois legislation (SB 1502 and HB 2774) that would empower people who visit commercial websites and online services to learn what personal information the site and service operators collected from them, and which third parties the operators shared it with. EFF has long supported such “right to know” legislation, which requires company transparency and thereby advances digital privacy."

Putting Lincoln Online Is No Easy Political Task; New York Times, 3/12/16

Editorial Board, New York Times; Putting Lincoln Online Is No Easy Political Task:

"One of the most ambitious research projects on Abraham Lincoln ever attempted — giving scholars, history buffs and students online access to every document Lincoln ever wrote or read — is being threatened by an absurd and intractable political and budget morass in the Illinois statehouse.

Someone — Gov. Bruce Rauner, perhaps — had better cut through the mess soon to guarantee the continued operation of the long-running, nationally respected project before Illinois becomes the Land of Lost Lincolniana. Managers of the project, the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, warn that it is being starved of money, with five of its 12 staff scholars already cut and its future in considerable doubt.

The digitization project, eagerly supported by Lincoln specialists and private donors, has so far found, annotated and published scores of thousands of freshly uncovered documents, adding to the universe of Lincoln materials. It began in the 1980s researching Lincoln’s legal career, then grew far bigger in scope as the Internet arrived. It will be “the Grand Central of all things Lincoln,” says Harold Holzer, a Lincoln scholar and writer concerned about its future."