The TSA has announced its intention to expand the VIPR program to include roadside inspections of commercial vehicles, setting up a network of internal checkpoints and rolling out security procedures already active in airports, bus terminals and subway stations to roads and highways across the United States.
Up until now, commercial trucks and other vehicles only were subject to warrantless searches and radiation scans at specially designated "state-owned inspection stations... (more)
It appears that Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division, and their incredibly sloppy domain seizure operations, have moved on to the next phase -- as was promised by both ICE boss, John Morton, and IP Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel. The timing on this one is particularly bizarre -- and politically stupid.
It’s taken a while, but Google has finally caved in to pressure from the entertainment industries including the MPAA and RIAA. The search engine now actively censors terms including BitTorrent, torrent, utorrent, RapidShare and Megaupload from its instant and autocomplete services. The reactions from affected companies and services are not mild, with BitTorrent Inc., RapidShare and Vodo all speaking out against this act of commercial censorship.
A controversial bill handing President Obama power over privately owned computer systems during a "national cyberemergency," and prohibiting any review by the court system, will return this year.
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The Obama administration is developing a "universal Internet ID" program that would watch, track, monitor and potentially control your activity on the Internet. These "trusted identities" are being touted as a way to increase safety and security on the Internet and as a way to eliminate the need for dozens of different usernames and passwords.&nbs... (more)
From a reader: I thought you’d like to see the attached picture. It was taken by a friend of mine in the parking lot of the Stew Leonard’s Supermarket in Yonkers, NY. I guess the DHS now can tell us where and where not to park. The sign was placed near the propane tanks.
Over at the State of the Net conference in Washington DC today, John Morton, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at Homeland Security felt it was time to defend ICE's seizure of domain names. Of course, he did not actually address the many different problems with the details of how they seized the domains. Instead, he just insisted that ICE had no "inte... (more)
Two months ago the United States Government seized more than 80 domains that were allegedly involved in copyright related offenses. Among these sites was the relatively unknown BitTorrent meta-search engine Torrent-Finder. From the start there has been a lot of critique, but the director of ICE has now come out to defend their actions. Unfortunately, his ignorance and hugely misleading comments add yet more black marks to the track record of his office.
ARLINGTON (CBS) -- A blog threatening members of Congress in the wake of the Tucson, Arizona shooting has prompted Arlington police to temporarily suspend the firearms license of an Arlington man.
It was the headline "1 down and 534 to go" that caught the attention. "One" refers to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head in the rampage, while 534 refers to the other members of the U.S. House and Senate.
Police are investigating the "suitability" o... (more)
Liberty Media, the company involved in achieving the largest headline settlement against a BitTorrent user last month, has widened its net to include cyberlocker-based infringement. The movie studio has now filed suit against file-hosting site Hotfile and 1000 of its users. PayPal is also named in the suit alongside calls for it to freeze Hotfile's account. The court is asked to seize Hotfile's domain name.
A lawsuit filed by Liberty Media Holdings 6th January 2011 sets out th... (more)
A U.S. District Court judge has issued a preliminary injunction against two advertising networks and a Whois protection service of a site that offers pirated e-books. Advertising networks Clicksor and Chitika are now prohibited from serving advertisements to the site, while Enom’s Whois Privacy Protection Service was ordered to hand over all personal details of the site’s owner and make the site inaccesible.
Just a few days ago we discussed several strategies that... (more)
The host of the Fox News Channel's "On The Record With Greta Van Susteren" suggested an identification system for Internet users seeking to post and comment at online venues, predicting it would lighten up the national dialogue.
"I guarantee this would tone down the viciousness on the internet (and not step on the First Amendment)" was how she titled a post on her FoxNews.com blog "GretaWire."
It was a response to a wide-ranging national debate on partisan ranco... (more)
We can add another victim to the Tucson tragedy – the right to criticize government without fear of getting a knock on your door from the feds. Despite the fact that shooter Jared Loughner was not politically motivated, the FBI is now compiling a list of Americans deemed a potential threat because they criticized their representative – and targeting them with home visits.
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This week, Japanese police have been carrying out raids all over the country against individuals alleged to have uploaded copyright works to the Internet. In total, 18 people were arrested for sharing movies, anime, music, games and software.
For the last few weeks Japan’s Anti-Counterfeiting Association (ACA) has been busy monitoring the country’s file-sharers looking for copyright infringers. After handing over their findings to the authorities, this week the pol... (more)
