The dirty truth about DNA results and why the FBI doesn't want the information made public.

Typically, law enforcement and prosecutors rely on FBI estimates for the rarity of a given DNA profile—a figure can be as remote as one in many trillions when investigators have all thirteen markers to work with. In Puckett’s case, where there were only five and a half markers available, the San Francisco crime lab put the figure at one in 1.1 million—still remote enough to erase any reasonable doubt of his guilt. The problem is that, according to most scientists, this statistic is only relevant when DNA material is used to link a crime directly to a suspect identified through eyewitness testimony or other evidence. In cases where a suspect is found by searching through large databases, the chances of accidentally hitting on the wrong person are orders of magnitude higher.

The reasons for this aren’t difficult to grasp: consider what happens when you take a DNA profile that has a rarity of one in a million and run it through a database that contains a million people; chances are you’ll get a coincidental match. Given this fact, the two leading scientific bodies that have studied the issue—the National Research Council and the FBI’s DNA advisory board—have recommended that law enforcement and prosecutors calculate the probability of a coincidental match differently in cold-hit cases. In particular, they recommend multiplying the FBI’s rarity statistic by the number of profiles in the database, to arrive at a figure known as the Database Match Probability. When this formula is applied to Puckett’s case (where a profile with a rarity of one in 1.1 million was run through a database of 338,000 offenders) the chances of a coincidental match climb to one in three.
Such coincidental matches are more than a theoretical possibility, as Chicago police can attest. In 2004, detectives investigating a string of robberies on the city’s North Side found some skin cells that the culprit had left behind at one crime scene, which contained six DNA markers. When they ran this profile against Illinois’s offender database, they found it matched a woman named Diane Myers. There was just one problem: when the burglaries in question were committed, Myers was already in jail, serving time on drug charges.

Indeed, the little information that has come to light about the actual rate of coincidental matches in offender databases suggests the chances of hitting on the wrong person may be even higher than the Database Match Probability suggests. In 2005, Barlow heard that an Arizona state employee named Kathryn Troyer had run a series of tests on the state’s DNA database, which at the time included 65,000 profiles, and found multiple people with nine or more identical markers. If you believe the FBI’s rarity statistics, this was all but impossible—the chances of any two people in the general population sharing that many markers was supposed to be about one in 750 million, while the Database Match Probability for a nine-marker match in a system the size of Arizona’s is roughly one in 11,000.

Barlow decided to subpoena Troyer’s searches, believing the finding would be helpful for a case she was working on. To her surprise, she discovered that Troyer had unearthed not just a couple of pairs who shared nine identical markers, but 122. "That was a ‘wow’ moment," Barlow recalls.

As it turns out, these findings were no fluke. Searches of databases elsewhere have revealed similarly unsettling numbers. In 2006, for instance, a Chicago judge ordered a search of the Illinois database, which contained 233,000 profiles. It turned up 903 pairs with nine or more matching DNA markers. Among geneticists and statisticians, these findings have eroded faith in the FBI’s DNA rarity statistics, which were based on data from just 200 or 300 people and are used by crime labs across the country. Laurence Mueller, an ecology and evolutionary biology professor at University of California, Irvine, told me that anyone who knows statistics finds the figures "laughable."

Rather than try to sort out the disparities between its numbers and database findings, the FBI has fought to keep this information under wraps. After Barlow subpoenaed the Arizona database searches, the agency sent the state’s Department of Public Safety a cease-and-desist letter, warning that its conduct was "under review." Eventually, the Arizona attorney general obtained a court order to block Barlow’s distribution of the findings. In other instances, the FBI has threatened to revoke access to the bureau’s master DNA database if states make the contents of their systems available to defense teams or academics. Agency officials argue they have done so because granting access would violate the privacy of the offenders (although researchers generally request anonymous DNA profiles with no names attached) and tie up the FBI’s computers, impeding investigations. These justifications baffle researchers. In the December 2009 issue of the journal Science, dozens of biologists, geneticists, and forensic experts urged the FBI to change its secretive policy, saying that there was no way that allowing a handful of researchers to run database searches, each of which takes only a few minutes, would hamper investigations. They also dismissed the agency’s privacy concerns, saying, "The government frequently releases sensitive information under controlled conditions to verified researchers." Krane of Wright State University, who was the letter’s lead author, believes the real reason the FBI has blocked access is to avoid revealing the shortcomings in its own system. "Analysis of the offender database is sure to expose the misconceptions and errors in the method the FBI used to arrive at its rarity statistics," he told me.




Link: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1003.bobelian.html

Recover lost images & files from your web browser

Ever seen a picture online that you're kicking yourself for not saving, especially now that it's been removed? There's a good chance it may still be saved on your computer; all you need to do is familiarize yourself with your browser's cache.
Lifehacker highlighted how to recover images in Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari, but the browser landscape has changed a little since then. Luckily, recovering images from Firefox hasn't really changed, and popular alternatives like Chrome and Opera all have similar recovery methods.

Link:
http://lifehacker.com/5477287/recover-recently-deleted-web-content-via-your-browsers-cache

Cyber security experts claim online banking is not safe.

Ask your bank how safe it is to do business online and it may tell you it's more secure than traditional banking. But cyber security experts would disagree. "That's a lie," says Joseph Menn, who reports on cyber security for the Financial Times.
"The banks are stuck because they've been telling people it's safe, and the fraud they're on the hook for has gone up four-fold in six months," Menn says.
"The banks have been kidding people about all this because they save money when people bank online."

Link: http://wtop.com/?nid=111&sid=1894237

Cryptome. org has posted guides from social media websites that law enforcement agencies request.

Cryptome.org has a new website link, I updated the link today.

Cryptome.org has posted more guides for law enforcement requesting subscribers’ information. The latest batch of guides posted includes Facebook, AOL, Skype, Cox Communications, Ning, myYearbook, Stickam, two from the US Postal Service, and Yahoo’s Records Preservation Letter. The guides indicate what types of information the entity collects and retains on users and in some cases, the retention period for data or costs of services provided to law enforcement.

Link: http://cryptomeorg.siteprotect.net/

"Please rob me" website, reminds people not to post their travel plans etc. on social networking sites.

"PleaseRobMe does a fairly good job of reminding people that when you put that information out there, you don't know who's following you and paying attention to where you are," said Ginger McCall, staff counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "It opens you up to physical attacks."

McCall said she's already seen social media used by people to stalk victims and carry out abuse.

Representatives from Twitter and FourSquare did not return calls for comment.

The dangers are real. In October, police in Los Angeles arrested what was called the Bling Ring, a band of teenagers that broke into the homes of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom and others, making off with more than a million dollars in loot.

"The group used social-networking sites and celebrity Web sites extensively" to track their victims' whereabouts, said Los Angeles police Detective Brett Goodkin, without elaborating which sites were used.

The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you're definitely not... home. So here we are; on one end we're leaving lights on when we're going on a holiday, and on the other we're telling everybody on the internet we're not home. It gets even worse if you have "friends" who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address.. on the internet.. Now you know what to do when people reach for their phone as soon as they enter your home. That's right, slap them across the face.

The goal of this website is to raise some awareness on this issue and have people think about how they use services like Foursquare, Brightkite, Google Buzz etc. Because all this site is, is a dressed up Twitter search page. Everybody can get this information.

Links:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/02/18/MNMQ1C3A0V.DTL
http://pleaserobme.com/

Does the new Facebook privacy settings allow your personal information to be compromised?

Although sold as a "privacy" revamp, Facebook's new changes are obviously intended to get people to open up even more of their Facebook data to the public. The privacy "transition tool" that guides users through the configuration will "recommend" — preselect by default — the setting to share the content they post to Facebook, such as status messages and wall posts, with everyone on the Internet, even though the default privacy level that those users had accepted previously was limited to "Your Networks and Friends" on Facebook (for more details, we highly recommend the Facebook privacy resource page and blog post from our friends at the ACLU, carefully comparing the old settings to the new settings). As the folks at TechCrunch explained last week before the changes debuted:

The way Facebook makes its recommendations will have a huge impact on the site's future. Right now, most people don't share their content using the 'everyone' option that Facebook introduced last summer. If Facebook pushes users to start using that, it could have a better stream of content to go against Twitter in the real-time search race. But Facebook has something to lose by promoting ‘everyone' updates: given the long-standing private nature of Facebook, they could lead to a massive privacy fiasco as users inadvertently share more than they mean to.

At this point there's no "if" about it: the Facebook privacy transition tool is clearly designed to push users to share much more of their Facebook info with everyone, a worrisome development that will likely cause a major shift in privacy level for most of Facebook's users, whether intentionally or inadvertently. As Valleywag rightly warns in its story "Facebook's New ‘Privacy' Scheme Smells Like an Anti-Privacy Plot"

Facebook users say the site's new privacy settings are "materially deceptive, confusing and ineffective" at guarding personal information from prying eyes. The federal class action claims that since November 2009 the new settings have provided less control over personal information, exposing their Facebook friends, pictures, organizations they support and products they use to snooping by virtually anyone, "including hackers, scammers, criminals, sociopaths and the like."


The complaint quotes "Internet expert" Jason Calacanis as saying, "Yes, Facebook is tricking us into exposing all our items so that those personal items get indexed in search engines - including Facebook's - in order to drive more traffic to Facebook."





Links:
http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/02/16/FacebookCA.pdf
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/facebooks-new-privacy-changes-good-bad-and-ugly

Is the CIA & the NSA spying and collecting data from social networking sites?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the CIA, the US Department of Defense, Department of Justice and three other government agencies on Tuesday for allegedly refusing to release information about how they are using social networks in surveillance and investigations.

The third board member of Facebook is Jim Breyer. He is a partner in the venture capital firm Accel Partners, who put $12.7m into Facebook in April 2005. On the board of such US giants as Wal-Mart and Marvel Entertainment, he is also a former chairman of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). Now these are the people who are really making things happen in America, because they invest in the new young talent, the Zuckerbergs and the like. Facebook’s most recent round of funding was led by a company called Greylock Venture Capital, who put in the sum of $27.5m. One of Greylock’s senior partners is called Howard Cox, another former chairman of the NVCA, who is also on the board of In-Q-Tel. What’s In-Q-Tel? Well, believe it or not (and check out their website), this is the venture-capital wing of the CIA. After 9/11, the US intelligence community became so excited by the possibilities of new technology and the innovations being made in the private sector, that in 1999 they set up their own venture capital fund, In-Q-Tel, which “identifies and partners with companies developing cutting-edge technologies to help deliver these solutions to the Central Intelligence Agency and the broader US Intelligence Community (IC) to further their missions”.


Link:
http://www.infowars.com/the-cia-and-nsa-want-you-to-be-their-friend-on-facebook/

OUI checkpoints are a cash cow for some states.

An examination by the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley, has found that in 2009, impoundments at checkpoints generated an estimated $40 million in towing fees and police fines statewide. Cities like Oakland, San Jose, San Rafael, Hayward and Redwood City divide the revenue with towing companies.

While there is an economic benefit for strapped cities, it comes at a cost to taxpayers. In the last fiscal year, $30 million was authorized to pay overtime for officers working on the drunken-driving crackdowns. That money came from federal taxpayers through the California Office of Traffic Safety, which contracts with the University of California, Berkeley, to help distribute the money.

The Investigative Reporting Program reviewed hundreds of pages of city financial records and police reports, and analyzed data from sobriety checkpoints during the past two years. The data revealed that police departments across the state are seizing a growing number of vehicles from unlicensed drivers. In the last fiscal year, the police seized approximately 24,000 such cars at sobriety checkpoints, up from 17,900 in 2008 and 15,700 in 2007

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/us/14sfcheck.html?hp

Tips on how to avoid email phishing attacks.

1.) Never, Ever Click a Link to Your Bank or Financial Institution From Email.
2.) Never Give Out Your Email Password.
3.) Use Strong Passwords and Secret Questions.
4.) Do Not Buy Anything from an Email You Didn't Ask For.
5.) Do Not Give Out Your Personal Info or Social Security Number.
6.) Learn to Use a Modern Browser's Security Features.
7.) Ignore Web Site Popups Saying You Have a Virus.

Links:
http://loginhelper.com/email/phishing-flow-chart/
http://loginhelper.com/login-security/identify-phishing-attacks/
http://lifehacker.com/5420356/the-complete-guide-to-avoiding-online-scams-for-your-less-savvy-friends-and-relatives

No reasonable expectation of privacy for anyone using a cell phone, that is what the Obama administration is asking for.

Even though police are tapping into the locations of mobile phones thousands of times a year, the legal ground rules remain unclear, and federal privacy laws written a generation ago are ambiguous at best. On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the topic will hear oral arguments (PDF) in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices.

In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in their--or at least their cell phones'--whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that "a customer's Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records" that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.

Those claims have alarmed the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, which have opposed the Justice Department's request and plan to tell the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that Americans' privacy deserves more protection and judicial oversight than what the administration has proposed.

"This is a critical question for privacy in the 21st century," says Kevin Bankston, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who will be arguing on Friday. "If the courts do side with the government, that means that everywhere we go, in the real world and online, will be an open book to the government unprotected by the Fourth Amendment."


Link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10451518-38.html

Will the police be allowed to read anyone's emails?

Anyone with an e-mail account likely knows that police can peek inside it if they have a paper search warrant.

But cybercrime investigators are frustrated by the speed of traditional methods of faxing, mailing, or e-mailing companies these documents. They're pushing for the creation of a national Web interface linking police computers with those of Internet and e-mail providers so requests can be sent and received electronically.

CNET has reviewed a survey scheduled to be released at a federal task force meeting on Thursday, which says that law enforcement agencies are virtually unanimous in calling for such an interface to be created. Eighty-nine percent of police surveyed, it says, want to be able to "exchange legal process requests and responses to legal process" through an encrypted, police-only "nationwide computer network."

The survey, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, is part of a broader push from law enforcement agencies to alter the ground rules of online investigations. Other components include renewed calls for laws requiring Internet companies to store data about their users for up to five years and increased pressure on companies to respond to police inquiries in hours instead of days.

But the most controversial element is probably the private Web interface, which raises novel security and privacy concerns, especially in the wake of a recent inspector general's report (PDF) from the Justice Department. The 289-page report detailed how the FBI obtained Americans' telephone records by citing nonexistent emergencies and simply asking for the data or writing phone numbers on a sticky note rather than following procedures required by law.

Link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10446503-38.html

Google Buzz posts a person's contact information on their public profile page.

For private investigator's looking for information, Google's Buzz could be a goldmine.
"Whether you call it a huge privacy flaw or just an annoyance, Google Buzz can put the contacts you automatically follow—a.k.a. those you most frequently email or chat—on a public profile page.
Google Blogoscoped's Philipp Lenssen felt he had to avoid following certain Buzz contacts, as he didn't want to expose his social circle to the wider net. He's right—by default, if you haven't touched your Google Profile, once you set up Buzz, those you're following, and those following you, are shown on your profile page in a right-hand link list.

Link: http://lifehacker.com/5469388/stop-google-buzz-from-showing-the-world-your-contacts

Could carrying Arabic flash cards get you detained at an airport?

A federal agent sizing up Nick George might peg him as Most Likely To Be Recruited By The CIA. He's a physics major at a top college, he minors in Middle Eastern studies, speaks Arabic, has lived in Jordan and is adventurous enough to have backpacked through Sudan and Egypt.
At Philadelphia International Airport last August, his interest in the world got him handcuffed.
The Wyncote native was detained for five hours after Transportation Security Administration screeners grew suspicious about something in his pockets.
Arabic-language flash cards.

Security technologist Bruce Schneier was less polite.

"This is just stupid," he said. "There's no other way to explain it. Someone saw these Arabic language cards and just freaked. It should have taken TSA 15 seconds."

The problem, he said, was that there is no cost to the security agent for doing the wrong thing. "If I detain someone and he's not a terrorist, nothing happens to me. I'm probably praised. If I let him go, and he is, my career is over. The TSA incentive is to overreact. Terrorism can't do this to us. I think only we can do this to ourselves."




Link:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20100210_Daniel_Rubin__TSA_suspicious_of_an_interest_in_the_world.html

Could "Familial DNA" testing become the norm across the country?

Police in at least two states are increasingly using a DNA crime-solving technique that some legal experts say amounts to guilt by association: If your brother, father, uncle or son has been in trouble with the law and is in a DNA database because of it, you, too, could fall under suspicion.

The technique is known as a "familial DNA" search. And in what is believed to be a precedent-setting case, Denver police used it to help catch the burglar who left a drop of blood on a passenger seat when he broke a car window and stole $1.40 in change.

A growing number of law enforcement agencies nationwide are considering whether to adopt the technique, which scientists say holds great promise.

"How can we look a rape victim in the face and say, 'We could have prevented your rape if we had looked at this evidence?'" said Fredrick Bieber, a Harvard medical professor who co-wrote a research paper suggesting familial DNA searches could solve up to 40 percent more crimes in which DNA evidence is present.

The conventional way of using DNA to identify the perpetrator of a crime is to gather blood, semen or other genetic material at the scene and run it through a database of criminals to see if it yields an exact match. But that approach isn't helpful if the perpetrator is not in the database.

That is where a familial DNA search comes in. It entails looking through the database for a near-match - that is, for a close male relative of the perpetrator. Police can then use that information to zero in on whoever committed the crime




Link:http://www.buffalonews.com/260/story/950713.html

167 Colorado DUI tests flawed, how many other tests across the country have similar issues?

The number of flawed Colorado Springs police DUI tests has doubled to 167 since a crime lab audit last year discovered that some blood-alcohol results were inflated, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported.

The Police Department launched internal and external investigations after reporting Dec. 11 that a routine audit revealed errors in 82 initial cases.

El Paso County prosecutor Frederick Stein confirmed the doubling of flawed cases to The Gazette, but he could not say yet what the impact of the erroneous tests might be on prosecution of those criminal cases. He said the district attorney's office hopes to have a report compiling those outcomes within the next two weeks.

A quote from the DUI blog:
"If blood specimens aren’t refrigerated, they will ferment — causing alcohol to be produced in the blood samples. So…167 DUI convictions based on false test results and rising — in just one city during one year. How many similar errors have gone undetected or unreported in other cities during that one year alone? How many tens of thousands of citizens across the country have been convicted of drunk driving based upon similar false evidence?"




Links:http://www.duiblog.com/
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/22400202/detail.html

The IRB Exchange "The Investigators Network" is a great website for private investigators to post questions.

Private Investigators will find this website useful, investigators can exchange ideas, share industry news, post your conference or association photos, ask for advice from other professionals, discuss topics impacting the industry, and make new contacts with colleagues in the investigation, bail, process serving, and recovery businesses from around the nation.
It's free to join.

Link: http://irbsearch.ning.com/

Hiring a private investigator does not violate a restraining order.

A man who hired a detective to trail his wife to a motel where she was having an affair with a local priest was not stalking her, an Orange County, N.Y., judge has ruled.
Forced to resign after her husband turned over a recording of her and the priest to officials at the church where she worked, the wife accused her husband of violating an order of protection requiring him to stay away from her home and place of employment.
But Family Court Judge Debra J. Kiedaisch, who was sitting in the Supreme Court's integrated domestic violence part, held that the husband, who only handed over the tape at the urging of church officials, had the right to gather evidence to defend himself in a divorce proceeding.
"The hiring of a professional licensed private investigator in a matrimonial action to gather evidence is for a proper and legitimate purpose," the judge wrote in Anonymous v. Anonymous.
After the wife filed for divorce in November 2008, her husband countered that she was having an affair.
On Feb. 26, 2009, the court issued an order of protection, directing the husband to stay at least 1,000 feet away from his wife's residence or place of employment, except for court-ordered visitation or to attend church.
While the wife did not contest the affair, she accused her husband of violating the order of protection by hiring the investigator.
She also claimed he had not been legally bound to turn over the DVD, which she claimed caused her to resign from her post at the church and amounted to harassment. Judge Kiedaisch disagreed.
"Under the circumstances, the hiring of the private investigator, in and of itself, was not an unlawful intrusion upon the rights of the wife secured by the order of protection," she said.

Link:
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202441790642&src=EMC-Email&et=editorial&bu=Law.com&pt=LAWCOM%20Newswire&cn=NW_20100202&kw=Snooping%20by%20Detective%20%27Legitimate%27%20Part%20of%20Divorce%20Process%2C%20Judge%20Finds&hbxlogin=1

Most people use the same passwords for numerous accounts.

For years computer security experts have been preaching that users should never share the same password across their connected lives -- at online banking sites, at Amazon, on their Web mail services, even on their cell phones. Apparently, most people ignore that advice.
A new study by security firm Trusteer found that 73 percent of Web users take their online banking password and use it at other Web sites. And about half of all consumers utilize the same password and user name at online banking sites and other sites.
"I must say I was very surprised,” said Amit Klein, chief technology officer of Trusteer. “It is surprisingly sad that such a large portion of users use their banking credentials at other sites. ... It exposes those users to attacks that would otherwise be impossible. I thought that people would take banking credentials more seriously, but it turns out that in this digital age, this is not the reality."
When consumers use the same password across multiple sites, hacking becomes trivially easy. If a criminal breaks into a smaller Web site -- say a site created by a local grocery store -- and grabs a cache of passwords, their next step is always the major banking Web sites. When you consider that 40 percent of U.S. consumers' checking accounts are tied up in the four largest banks, odds are good that the stolen credentials will work for in one of them.

Link:
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2010/02/for-years-computer-security-experts-have-been-preaching-that-users-should-never-share-the-same-password-across-their-connecte.html#posts

Gangs are using Facebook or Twitter to boast about their criminal exploits.

LOS ANGELES -- When a gang member was released from jail soon after his arrest for selling methamphetamine, friends and associates assumed he had cut a deal with authorities and become a police informant.
They sent a warning on Twitter that went like this: We have a snitch in our midst.
Unbeknownst to them, that tweet and the traffic it generated were being closely followed by investigators, who had been tracking the San Francisco Bay Area gang for months. Officials sat back and watched as others joined the conversation and left behind incriminating information.
Law enforcement officials say gangs are making greater use of Twitter and Facebook, where they sometimes post information that helps agents identify gang associates and learn more about their organizations.
"You find out about people you never would have known about before," said Dean Johnston with the California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, which helps police investigate gangs. "You build this little tree of people."
In the case involving the suspected informant, tweets alerted investigators to three other gang members who were ultimately arrested on drug charges.
Tech-savvy gangsters have long been at home in chatrooms and on Web sites like MySpace, but they appear to be gravitating toward Twitter and Facebook, where they can make threats, boast about crimes, share intelligence on rivals and network with people across the country.
"We are seeing a lot more of it," Johnston said. "They will even go out and brag about doing shootings."


Link:
http://www.suntimes.com/technology/2024451,gangs-twitter-facebook-recruit-020210.article

Flex Your Rights is a great watchdog website for everyone interested in protecting your civil rights.

Flex Your Rights (FYR), a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit, was launched in 2002. Our mission is to educate the public about how basic Bill of Rights protections apply during encounters with law enforcement. To accomplish this, we create and distribute the most compelling, comprehensive and trustworthy know-your-rights media available.
The founder, Steven Silverman, was previously a campus organizer for the campaign to repeal the Higher Education Act’s aid-elimination penalty. The law blocks financial aid to low-income students reporting drug convictions. As part of his work, Silverman prompted students to describe the details of the police stops and searches leading to their minor drug arrests.
A disturbing pattern emerged, and various legal and law enforcement experts confirmed his conclusion: The vast majority of people are mystified by the basic rules of search and seizure and due process of law. Consequentially, they're likely to be tricked or intimidated by police into waiving their constitutional rights, resulting in a greater likelihood of regrettable outcomes.
The sum of these outcomes flow into all major criminal justice problems -- including racial and class disparities in search, arrest, sentencing and incarceration rates.
In order to ensure that constitutional rights and equal justice are upheld by law enforcement, we must build a constitutionally literate citizenry. For example, a citizen who properly "flexes" her rights in the face of police misconduct will be poised to counter with a convincing police complaint or civil action.
Frustrated by the lack of innovative and accessible know-your-rights information, Silverman developed this website and lectured at conferences and universities. Playing the role of “Officer Friendly”, he donned a cop uniform and engaged volunteers in typical police situations. These role-playing lectures greatly enhanced the know-your-rights educational experience, but a more versatile and cost-effective approach was needed.

Link: http://flexyourrights.org/

The International Association for Identification, provides many useful links and information for attorney's and private investigators.

"Professional development is crucial in maintaining our skills and abilities, as well as furthering our knowledge. The issue is that when budgets require downsizing, the first item, usually, to be trimmed or cut is training and research. Forensic practitioners are required to keep abreast of technological advancement and assure the judicial and public communities that best practices are being implemented in our disciplines and practices. Today's IAI has grown into the most prestigious professional association of its kind in the world, with more than 7,000 members from the United States and many other countries. The advancement of forensic disciplines through education continues to be one of the top priorities of the Association."

Link: http://www.theiai.org/

$60 Billion lost to health care fraud each year, according to Attorney General Eric Holder.

Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday pledged to apply more pressure on health-care fraudsters who siphon billions of dollars from the federal fisc each year.

Holder, speaking at a health-care fraud summit at the National Institutes of Health, said he would push to strengthen a Cabinet-level team devoted to the effort, as well as beef up anti-fraud strike forces around the country. Holder also said he would ask Congress for more funding and legislation targeting fraud, and reach out to the private sector — one of the aims of Thursday’s summit.

The Attorney General said more than $60 billion in public and private health-care spending was lost to fraud each year. Holder, joined by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, brought the oft-cited estimate to life with a bit of pop-culture.

“That is a staggering amount of money,” Holder said in prepared remarks. “It’s half the entire economy of Secretary Sebelius’s home state of Kansas. It’s more than the net worth of America’s eight largest private foundations. And it’s 33 times the amount of money that Avatar — now the highest-earning movie of all time — has made at the box office.”


Link:
http://www.mainjustice.com/2010/01/28/health-care-fraud-losses-33-times-avatar-box-office-gross/