In a horrifyingly bad ruling, the 6th Circuit appeals court has said that the owner of a prepaid phone has no 4th Amendment rights in protecting his location info from law enforcement. There have been a number of cases touching on this subject, with a few different rulings back and forth, including more than a few in the federal courts that argue tracking someone'... (more)
In June, we underlined the disturbing UK ruling that found Anton Vickerman guilty of "conspiracy to defraud" for operating SurfTheChannel, a TV link indexing website that hosted no infringing content whatsoever. The case raised huge concerns from the very start, when police invited FACT (a private anti-piracy group) to join the raid on the STC... (more)
Former senior intelligence officials have created a detailed surveillance system more accurate than modern facial recognition technology -- and have installed it across the US under the radar of most Americans, according to emails hacked by Anonymous.
Every few seconds, data picked up at surveillance points in major cities and landmarks across the United States are recorded digitally on the spot, then encrypted and instantaneously delivered to a fortified central database center a... (more)
According to Homeland Security News Wire, the federal government considers "extremist domestic organizations" as dangerous, if not more so, than foreign terrorist organizations. The FBI and federal law enforcement are stymied in detecting these groups by the First Amendment and political opposition "suspicious of the government's motives," the we... (more)
This week’s hearing into the January raid against Kim Dotcom’s New Zealand mansion has turned up interesting new evidence today. Under questioning from a defense lawyer, a senior police officer has admitted that top New Zealand officers and members of the FBI watched the raid live via video link. Only adding to the intrigue is the revelation that a secret government unit were present at the pre-raid meeting.
This week Kim Dotcom, police and other officials have been gi... (more)
Google announced today that it will lower the search engine rankings of websites that receive a high number of DMCA takedown requests, independent of whether the linked content is lawful or not. The algorithm change is the result of extensive lobbying efforts by Hollywood and the major music labels, and could severely degrade the rankings of websites such as The Pirate Bay, FilesTube, and even YouTube.
For years entertainment industry groups have lobbied search engines to pena... (more)
We've followed the Al-Haramain case against the US government for a while through all of its ridiculousness. This was the challenge to the government over warrantless wiretapping, which went through crazy twists and turns, because information on the wiretapping was deemed classified -- even though it was published by reporters. The only reason the case exist... (more)
The nightmare week for Demonoid has just reached a huge crescendo, with news coming out of Ukraine that following a massive DDoS attack the site has now been busted by local authorities. Those looking for a U.S. connection to the raid won’t be disappointed – a source in the country’s Interior Ministry says that the action was scheduled to coincide with Deputy Prime Minister Valery Khoroshkovsky’s trip to the United States.
The US Senate is currently debating a dangerous bill that, if passed, would have broad consequences for press freedom and the public's right to know. EFF asks senators to stand up for government transparency and the First Amendment and vote it down.
The bill's provisions, buried in the annual Intelligence Authorization Act, are intended to stop ... (more)
Another day, another article written on behalf of the disrupted, bemoaning the way things are, romanticizing the way things were and recoiling in horror from the touch of the "masses." This one's a particular treat, though, seeing as it's written by Ewan Morrison, the author whose ACTA "expertise" resulted in the "Most Clueless Column Ever." This article's headline is just as shocking: "There will be no more professional writers in the future." Morrison, sees the direness of his particul... (more)
A North Dakota court has preliminarily upheld the first-ever use of an unmanned drone to assist in the arrest of an American citizen.
A judge denied a request to dismiss charges Wednesday against Rodney Brossart, a man arrested last year after a 16-hour standoff with police at his Lakota, N.D., ranch. Brossart's lawyer argued that law enforcement's "warrantless use of [an] unmanned military-like surveillance aircraft" and "outrageous governmental conduct" warranted dismissal of th... (more)
This morning, the US Senate defeated the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, a bill that would have given companies new rights to monitor our private communications and pass that data to the government. The bill sponsors were 8 votes short of the 60 votes necessary to end debate on the bill (vote breakdown here). This is a victory for Internet freedom advocates everywhere. Hundreds... (more)
The Peruvian National Anthem proudly proclaims: "We are free! May we always be so!" Yet the Peruvian Congress is considering a sweeping new computer crime bill that threatens the privacy and online free expression of law-abiding Peruvians. Pe... (more)
A teenager insulted a public figure on twitter. Then he got arrested. Why? Because in the U.K., it's a "criminal offense" to tweet messages that are considered "menacing, offensive, or indecent."
This week, the Senate will be voting on a slew of amendments to the newest version of the Senate's cybersecurity bill. Senators John McCain and Kay Bailey Hutchison have proposed several amendments that would hand the reins of our nation's cybersecurity systems to the National Security Agency (NSA). All of the cybersecurity bills that have been proposed would provide avenues for... (more)
A 4-2 vote during Tuesday's city council meeting made Santa Monica's already restrictive smoking rules even tighter. New tenants of the coastal city will not be allowed to smoke in their residences unless they designate them smoking. Some residents say the ordinance goes too far but consumer protection groups say it's a step toward better public health.
... (more)
Two Texas girls--ages 12 and 13--were arrested earlier this month and charged with online impersonation, a third-degree felony, for creating a fake Facebook account under the name of another student at their school.
According to the Student Press Law Center, which investigated the girls' arrest, officials in Hood County, Texas, are refusing to say whether the girls (who were arrested July 16) are still being detained. The center's reporting suggests that the girls h... (more)
Evidently, TSA isn’t looking for press coverage in its new roll out of checkpoints at train stations.
Citizen journalist Julio Rausseo, a roaming correspondent for WeAreChange.org, was labeled a “terrorist” and threatened with arrest for filming a TSA checkpoint at the Union train station in Chicago.
An Amtrack police official confronted Rausseo, telling him that the government had sent them video of him fil... (more)
It's been "83.5" hours since the shooting took place, so any drugs alleged Dark Knight shooter James Holmes was on should have worn off by now. Yet, in his appearance here in court he looked drugged out of his mind. The shooter of Gabriel Giffords, Jared Lee Loughner, against the wishes of his lawyer was forcibly drugged by the government. Has James Holmes been ... (more)
A federal judge has upheld the practice of police using seized phones to impersonate their owners, reading messages and sending sending entrapping replies to contacts in the phone's memory, without a warrant. The judge reasoned that constitutional privacy rights don't apply to messages if they appear on a seized device -- even if the messages originated with someone who has not been arrested or is under suspicion of any crime:
A federal appeals court held that the pager owner'
