The department also met yesterday with a group of privacy experts.

The protection of phone records falls into a legal gray area, privacy experts say.

Privacy experts say the issue is a broader one: being able to choose whether to participate at all.

The challenge, privacy experts say, is to find ways to give people choices that are meaningful and easy to exercise.

Privacy experts said they were heartened by the court ruling.

Surveillance technologies are easy to buy and even easier to abuse, privacy experts say.

Now that they have started thinking about the fund-raising issue, privacy experts say, it raises real concerns.

For the most part, however, Americans have reacted with a collective shrug, many privacy experts said.

Privacy experts and advocates for victims of domestic violence are backing this position.

Privacy experts have warned that plugging information into an online form could lead to problems.