Suspicious spouses used to have to shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars on private investigators to keep tabs on their significant other, but a new feature from General Motors' OnStar division can do it for just over a dime a day.
The new service, dubbed Family Link, allows owners of OnStar-equipped vehicles from Chevrolet, GMC, Buick and Cadillac to track a family member through the OnStar website and receive email and text alerts when the vehicle arrives at a location or at a specific time.
OnStar vice president of subscriber services, Joanne Finnom, says Family Link is something subscribers have been asking for, and last year the company responded, enlisting 4,500 OnStar customers to test the service. Family Link was a hit, with Finnom saying the testers "told us it provides them peace of mind by staying connected to their family when they're on the road."
Family Link is being pitched to parents who want to keep tabs on their kids – the latest in a long series of products targeting minors with no legal recourse – but it could be used to track anyone driving an OnStar-equipped vehicle enrolled in the service. But with all location tracking services, the privacy and security implications are murky at best.
OnStar representative Cheryl McCarron concedes that, "We are depending on subscribers to tell other family members that they've enabled the service on the vehicle," but that's an obvious leap in trust, not to mention the security issues surrounding multiple family members having access to a shared account with one username and password.
Account security aside, the larger issue is maintaining a balance between anonymity and security, and as Higgins points out, "It's important to remember that you can provide a service that is valuable and useful and still be violating people's privacy."
http://jalopnik.com/5897429/gm-will-let-you-spy-on-your-spouse-for-just-pennies-a-day
OnStar’s Family Link enables spousal spying and parental monitoring.
http://endthelie.com/2012/03/30/onstars-family-link-enables-spousal-spying-and-parental-monitoring/#axzz1qcYvTZZx
Favorite Quotes
Friday, March 30, 2012
"Trooper of the Year" admits to violating procedure, 100's of convictions could be overturned.
Utah - A police officer who was named 'Trooper of the Year 2007' for making more than 200 DUI arrests could see her cases overturned after she admitted violating standard procedure.
Lisa Steed admitted in court this week that she had removed her microphone during a 2010 DUI stop so her superior wouldn't know what she was doing.
This is not the first time Steed's actions on DUI stops have got her into trouble.
"The cumulative facts may well have a significant ripple effect across every case she's touched," Salt Lake City attorney Joseph Jardine told ABC News. "This could become the basis for overturning multiple convictions in the past."
"The credibility of an investigating officer is paramount. If you can't trust the cop at their word, there's very little left that you can trust with an investigation," Jardine said.
"It's hard to say why she would do it specifically," Jardine said. "Is it pressure from her past achievements? Is it her desire to outdo the other officers in the state? Is it for advancement? Is it for all of the above? Who knows?"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2122397/Lisa-Steed-Trooper-year-admits-violating-DUI-procedure.html
http://www.kvor.com/rssItem.asp?feedid=118&itemid=29823388
Lisa Steed admitted in court this week that she had removed her microphone during a 2010 DUI stop so her superior wouldn't know what she was doing.
This is not the first time Steed's actions on DUI stops have got her into trouble.
"The cumulative facts may well have a significant ripple effect across every case she's touched," Salt Lake City attorney Joseph Jardine told ABC News. "This could become the basis for overturning multiple convictions in the past."
"The credibility of an investigating officer is paramount. If you can't trust the cop at their word, there's very little left that you can trust with an investigation," Jardine said.
"It's hard to say why she would do it specifically," Jardine said. "Is it pressure from her past achievements? Is it her desire to outdo the other officers in the state? Is it for advancement? Is it for all of the above? Who knows?"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2122397/Lisa-Steed-Trooper-year-admits-violating-DUI-procedure.html
http://www.kvor.com/rssItem.asp?feedid=118&itemid=29823388
Thursday, March 29, 2012
District Attorney's want a person's DNA if they're suspected of a felony and to expand their wiretapping abilities.
Boston, MA - The state's district attorneys are pressing Beacon Hill lawmakers to make key changes to Massachusetts' crime laws before the end of their formal session in July.
The district attorneys want lawmakers to expand the state's wiretapping laws, which haven't been updated since 1968 — before the arrival of cellphones, the Internet and social media. They say the changes would help ease the police's reliance on witnesses who can be subject to intimidation.
Prosecutors also want to be able to take DNA swabs of anyone arrested for a felony. Under current state law, DNA samples can only be taken after a conviction.
The district attorneys said under their proposal DNA samples would be taken at the time of arrest and could be used for other investigations, but wouldn't be entered into the FBI's Combined DNA Index System — or CODIS — until after a conviction.
The House and Senate last year passed versions of the so-called "three strikes" measure, which would require any person convicted of a third violent felony to serve out the entirety of his or her sentence and be ineligible for parole.
The revised measure would reduce some of the categories of violent felonies that would be covered by the three strikes proposal. It also calls for shrinking the zone around schools in which drug offenses carry minimum sentences and removes a provision approved by the Senate that would give enhanced wiretapping powers to state prosecutors.
Opponents said the district attorneys are overreaching both by trying to expand the wiretapping law and seeking DNA samples before conviction.
"It's just not a print of your thumb, it tells about your family history, your medical record, your predisposition to diseases," said Ann Lambert of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts said of the DNA swab. "It's a seizure of your information about you when you haven't been convicted of anything."
Conley said that investigators now can only get DNA samples after a conviction. The individual convicted can delay providing that sample for up to a year.
http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/03/district_attorneys_in_massachu.html
The district attorneys want lawmakers to expand the state's wiretapping laws, which haven't been updated since 1968 — before the arrival of cellphones, the Internet and social media. They say the changes would help ease the police's reliance on witnesses who can be subject to intimidation.
Prosecutors also want to be able to take DNA swabs of anyone arrested for a felony. Under current state law, DNA samples can only be taken after a conviction.
The district attorneys said under their proposal DNA samples would be taken at the time of arrest and could be used for other investigations, but wouldn't be entered into the FBI's Combined DNA Index System — or CODIS — until after a conviction.
The House and Senate last year passed versions of the so-called "three strikes" measure, which would require any person convicted of a third violent felony to serve out the entirety of his or her sentence and be ineligible for parole.
The revised measure would reduce some of the categories of violent felonies that would be covered by the three strikes proposal. It also calls for shrinking the zone around schools in which drug offenses carry minimum sentences and removes a provision approved by the Senate that would give enhanced wiretapping powers to state prosecutors.
Opponents said the district attorneys are overreaching both by trying to expand the wiretapping law and seeking DNA samples before conviction.
"It's just not a print of your thumb, it tells about your family history, your medical record, your predisposition to diseases," said Ann Lambert of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts said of the DNA swab. "It's a seizure of your information about you when you haven't been convicted of anything."
Conley said that investigators now can only get DNA samples after a conviction. The individual convicted can delay providing that sample for up to a year.
http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/03/district_attorneys_in_massachu.html
Another shaken baby case called into question.
CA - A senior pathologist in the Los Angeles County coroner's office has sharply questioned the forensic evidence used to convict a 51-year old woman of shaking her 7-week-old grandson to death, identifying a host of flaws in the case.
The new report by the pathologist, James Ribe, details eight "diagnostic problems" with the coroner's 1996 ruling that the child had died from violent shaking or a forceful blow to the head. Ribe wrote that he saw little evidence that the infant had been attacked, noting "the complete absence of bodily trauma, such as face trauma, grab marks, bruises, rib fractures, or neck trauma."
In Ribe's view, the injuries to the child's brain were relatively minor and could have been caused by the birth process. He also noted the baby's lungs were speckled with tiny blood spots called petechiae, which are often linked to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and suffocation, and pointed out that Glass had been sleeping face down on an "unsafe sleep surface" – a couch cushion – on the night of his death.
In the decade and a half since Smith was convicted, much has changed in the world of forensics. The National Academy of Sciences in 2009 issued a lengthy report highlighting flaws in the country's coroner and medical examiner system and criticizing the techniques used in law enforcement crime labs.
Among doctors there's an increasing awareness of ailments and conditions that can mimic the typical symptoms of child abuse — bleeding and bruising. The leading textbook on pediatric head injuries now includes two chapters on these mimics; they range from sickle cell anemia to congenital brain malformations to unintentional damage caused by the use of forceps or vacuums during birth.
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/29/149576627/new-evidence-in-high-profile-shaken-baby-case
The new report by the pathologist, James Ribe, details eight "diagnostic problems" with the coroner's 1996 ruling that the child had died from violent shaking or a forceful blow to the head. Ribe wrote that he saw little evidence that the infant had been attacked, noting "the complete absence of bodily trauma, such as face trauma, grab marks, bruises, rib fractures, or neck trauma."
In Ribe's view, the injuries to the child's brain were relatively minor and could have been caused by the birth process. He also noted the baby's lungs were speckled with tiny blood spots called petechiae, which are often linked to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and suffocation, and pointed out that Glass had been sleeping face down on an "unsafe sleep surface" – a couch cushion – on the night of his death.
In the decade and a half since Smith was convicted, much has changed in the world of forensics. The National Academy of Sciences in 2009 issued a lengthy report highlighting flaws in the country's coroner and medical examiner system and criticizing the techniques used in law enforcement crime labs.
Among doctors there's an increasing awareness of ailments and conditions that can mimic the typical symptoms of child abuse — bleeding and bruising. The leading textbook on pediatric head injuries now includes two chapters on these mimics; they range from sickle cell anemia to congenital brain malformations to unintentional damage caused by the use of forceps or vacuums during birth.
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/29/149576627/new-evidence-in-high-profile-shaken-baby-case
Tell Congress to protect your social networking information.
A growing number of employers and schools are demanding that job applicants, employees and students hand over private information from their private social networking accounts such as Facebook. Student athletes are forced to “friend” a coach or administrator. Job candidates have scroll through their Facebook page with an interviewer. Students face demands for their password so they can be quizzed on their sex life by school administrators.
It’s an egregious violation of personal privacy and it is often happening in situations where people feel powerless to resist. That is why Congress needs to step in. We need a bright line rule - if it’s behind a password, that means keep out, whether you’re an employer, a school or the government.
Click the link below & send it to your Senators and Representative now, asking them to support legislation to protect private social networking information.
https://secure.aclu.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=4264&s_subsrc=120323_FBpassword_bor
It’s an egregious violation of personal privacy and it is often happening in situations where people feel powerless to resist. That is why Congress needs to step in. We need a bright line rule - if it’s behind a password, that means keep out, whether you’re an employer, a school or the government.
Click the link below & send it to your Senators and Representative now, asking them to support legislation to protect private social networking information.
https://secure.aclu.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=4264&s_subsrc=120323_FBpassword_bor
Many states oppose national ID drivers' licenses.
Remember that time when Congress passed a law that
tried to create a national database of drivers' information and turn drivers'
licenses into national identification cards? And remember how groups from across the
political spectrum joined forces to tell Congress, the president, and their
state lawmakers that they objected to this law, known as Real ID, calling it an unfunded mandate
that trampled on states' rights, decrying its lack of sufficient protections and
potential to increase racial discrimination, worrying about its negative impact
on the Amish and other religious denominations, fretting that it would create an
expansive and cumbersome new bureaucracy or facilitate the tracking of
individuals? Opposition to Real ID united everyone from the National Governors
Association to the ACLU to the American Conservative Union, the Mexican American
Legal Defense and Educational Fund and National Organization for Women to Gun
Owners of America, to name a few.
If you've been fishing in your pocket trying to find your national ID card, stop. Twenty-five states, either through statute or legislative resolution, rejected the act or said they would not comply with Real ID, and 15 states have laws prohibiting compliance with Real ID. Since the federal government's only recourse under the statute would be to bar citizens of those states from using their drivers' licenses to enter federal buildings or board airplanes, which would bring air travel to a grinding halt, Real ID implementation has been delayed and delayed and delayed and delayed. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security, in whose jurisdiction Real ID falls, only has four full-time staffers working on its implementation.
http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/yes-states-really-reject-real-id
If you've been fishing in your pocket trying to find your national ID card, stop. Twenty-five states, either through statute or legislative resolution, rejected the act or said they would not comply with Real ID, and 15 states have laws prohibiting compliance with Real ID. Since the federal government's only recourse under the statute would be to bar citizens of those states from using their drivers' licenses to enter federal buildings or board airplanes, which would bring air travel to a grinding halt, Real ID implementation has been delayed and delayed and delayed and delayed. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security, in whose jurisdiction Real ID falls, only has four full-time staffers working on its implementation.
http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/yes-states-really-reject-real-id
Big Brother wants to put devices in all new cars to monitor people for possible DUI's.
Safety advocates and alcohol interests are squaring off over legislation intended to reduce alcohol-related traffic deaths through the use of devices that prevent drunken drivers from starting their cars.
Tucked into the Senate’s transportation bill is a provision that directs the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to study “more widespread deployment of in-vehicle technology” that would prevent drunken driving.
The idea is to develop some kind of nonintrusive technology based around touch or breathing that would be able to sense when a driver is drunk and disable the car. Technology on the market now — called “ignition interlocks” — require a driver to blow into a Breathalyzer device attached to the car’s dashboard and then wait 30 seconds until the sample is analyzed. Only then will the car start.
The research is trying to develop a “far less intrusive” technology more acceptable to the general public, which consumers eventually would be able to choose as an option on a new car — similar to picking leather seats or a sunroof.
Sarah Longwell, managing director of the American Beverage Institute, a group that represents alcohol distributors and restaurants that serve alcohol, said the provision is the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent that could lead to mandating these devices on all new cars.
“They’re developing it for all cars as original equipment. The bill doesn’t mandate anything, but ultimately that’s what they want,” Longwell said.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74485.html
Tucked into the Senate’s transportation bill is a provision that directs the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to study “more widespread deployment of in-vehicle technology” that would prevent drunken driving.
The research will be carried out by the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety, a collaboration between NHTSA and the automobile industry.
The idea is to develop some kind of nonintrusive technology based around touch or breathing that would be able to sense when a driver is drunk and disable the car. Technology on the market now — called “ignition interlocks” — require a driver to blow into a Breathalyzer device attached to the car’s dashboard and then wait 30 seconds until the sample is analyzed. Only then will the car start.
The research is trying to develop a “far less intrusive” technology more acceptable to the general public, which consumers eventually would be able to choose as an option on a new car — similar to picking leather seats or a sunroof.
Sarah Longwell, managing director of the American Beverage Institute, a group that represents alcohol distributors and restaurants that serve alcohol, said the provision is the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent that could lead to mandating these devices on all new cars.
“They’re developing it for all cars as original equipment. The bill doesn’t mandate anything, but ultimately that’s what they want,” Longwell said.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74485.html
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
.384 Breathalyzer reading raises concerns over their accuracy.
A 32-year-old Brockton, MA man’s chart-topping .384 blood alcohol reading has rekindled the debate over the reliability of the breathalyzer test, with critics saying anybody blowing that high a level should either be in a coma — or dead.
Noted defense attorney J. Albert Johnson, who has been waging a war against the breath analyzer test for years, said this case is further evidence the test is bogus.
“The breathalyzer remains a fraud and a hoax. It has never worked,” Johnson told the Herald. “If this individual’s blood had been drawn, and it showed .384, the individual would be comatose.”
Johnson said he has seen such a high reading before — but the driver was “comatose or deceased.” He added that anyone pulled over on suspicion of drunken driving should refuse to take a breathalyzer test.
“It’s a phony machine. I’ve been fighting it all my life,” he added.
Dammon McLaren told the Herald last night he disagrees with the staggering score he registered Sunday night after he was pulled over in Providence by Rhode Island state police.
“I don’t feel that’s accurate,” McLaren said from his front porch. “I was coherent when I was talking to officers.”
“You’ve got to be in blackout stage,” Hogan said of a .384 reading. “Something is amok or at least warrants thorough examination.”
Medical experts say anyone blowing a .384 is risking death.
Attorney Lawrence Taylor from CA has been covering Breathalyzer accuracy issues for years on his blog. http://www.duiblog.com/
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20220328breath_analyzer_debate_blows_up_over_amazing_384_reading/srvc=home&position=0
Noted defense attorney J. Albert Johnson, who has been waging a war against the breath analyzer test for years, said this case is further evidence the test is bogus.
“The breathalyzer remains a fraud and a hoax. It has never worked,” Johnson told the Herald. “If this individual’s blood had been drawn, and it showed .384, the individual would be comatose.”
Johnson said he has seen such a high reading before — but the driver was “comatose or deceased.” He added that anyone pulled over on suspicion of drunken driving should refuse to take a breathalyzer test.
“It’s a phony machine. I’ve been fighting it all my life,” he added.
Dammon McLaren told the Herald last night he disagrees with the staggering score he registered Sunday night after he was pulled over in Providence by Rhode Island state police.
“I don’t feel that’s accurate,” McLaren said from his front porch. “I was coherent when I was talking to officers.”
“You’ve got to be in blackout stage,” Hogan said of a .384 reading. “Something is amok or at least warrants thorough examination.”
Medical experts say anyone blowing a .384 is risking death.
Attorney Lawrence Taylor from CA has been covering Breathalyzer accuracy issues for years on his blog. http://www.duiblog.com/
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20220328breath_analyzer_debate_blows_up_over_amazing_384_reading/srvc=home&position=0
City of Boston pays $170,000 to man who legally recorded the Boston police.
Boston, MA- Simon Glik, a Boston attorney wrongly arrested and prosecuted for using his cell phone to record police officers forcefully arresting a man on the Boston Common, has reached a settlement with the City of Boston on his civil rights claims. The settlement requires the City to pay Glik $170,000 for his damages and legal fees.
Mr. Glik was forced to defend himself against criminal charges of illegal wiretapping, aiding the escape of a prisoner, and disturbing the peace. After a judge threw out those charges, Glik filed a civil rights suit against the city and the arresting officers in federal court in Boston, aided by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and Boston attorneys Howard Friedman and David Milton. This settlement resolves that case.
The settlement follows a landmark ruling last August by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, declaring that the First Amendment protects the right to record police carrying out their duties in a public place, Glik v. Cunniffe 655 F.3d 78 (2011). The First Circuit's ruling is binding only in MA, NH, ME, RI, & Puerto Rico, but its persuasive reasoning has been cited by courts and lawyers nationwide facing the recurrent issue of police arresting people for filming them.
The MA wiretap statute prohibits only secret recording of audio. The First Circuit in Glik's case affirmed that an arrest under the statute for openly recording the police would violate not only the 1st. Amendment right to gather information but also the 4th. Amendment's guarantee against false arrests.
In Massachusetts, Wunsch said Attorney General Martha Coakley and police chiefs should be informing officers not to abuse the law by charging civilians with illegally recording them in public.
The cases are the courts’ concern, said Coakley spokesman Harry Pierre. “At this time, this office has not issued any advisory or opinion on this issue.’’
http://aclum.org/news_3.27.12
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/boston-pays-170k-to-settle-cell-phone-recording-lawsuit.ars
http://necir-bu.org/investigations/police-fight-cellphone-recordings-2/police-fight-cellphone-recordings/
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/03/city-of-boston-loses-landmark-case.html
Another Chapter in the war on cameras.
Simon Glik's arrest in 2007 for videotaping police engaged in a drug arrest near Boston Common led to a serious of lawsuits that effectively raised the troubling issue of barriers to recording public officials, particular cops, to national prominence. In the end Glik was victorious as the court ruled that the right to record police or public officials in public extends beyond journalists.
http://boston.com/community/blogs/less_is_more/2012/03/another_chapter_in_the_war_on.html
As a result: Charges were dropped against the driver and prosecutors are investigating whether Coral Springs police officers Nicole Stasnek and Derek Fernandes filed false documents relating to the extraordinary encounter.
None of this would have happened if the driver — Susan Mait, a 60-year-old widow from Coral Springs — hadn’t dropped her phone to the floor of her SUV while the cops yanked her from the vehicle. Unbeknownst to any of them, the phone was still connected to a GEICO customer service rep, who, following company policy, recorded everything that happened.
The audio tape, made public this week, depicts a starkly different exchange than what Stasnek and Fernandes described in their reports and during questioning under oath.
The recording catches Stasnek cursing out Mait (although the officer later denied it), giving no advance warning that Mait was about to be cuffed for resisting arrest (although the officer testified that she had done so three times), and later hashing out a plan with her fellow officer to make sure their stories jibed (they did).
The explosive recording prompted prosecutors to drop all outstanding charges against Mait — and focus their attention on the officers.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/27/2717756/broward-driver-busted-by-cops.html
Mr. Glik was forced to defend himself against criminal charges of illegal wiretapping, aiding the escape of a prisoner, and disturbing the peace. After a judge threw out those charges, Glik filed a civil rights suit against the city and the arresting officers in federal court in Boston, aided by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and Boston attorneys Howard Friedman and David Milton. This settlement resolves that case.
The settlement follows a landmark ruling last August by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, declaring that the First Amendment protects the right to record police carrying out their duties in a public place, Glik v. Cunniffe 655 F.3d 78 (2011). The First Circuit's ruling is binding only in MA, NH, ME, RI, & Puerto Rico, but its persuasive reasoning has been cited by courts and lawyers nationwide facing the recurrent issue of police arresting people for filming them.
The MA wiretap statute prohibits only secret recording of audio. The First Circuit in Glik's case affirmed that an arrest under the statute for openly recording the police would violate not only the 1st. Amendment right to gather information but also the 4th. Amendment's guarantee against false arrests.
In Massachusetts, Wunsch said Attorney General Martha Coakley and police chiefs should be informing officers not to abuse the law by charging civilians with illegally recording them in public.
The cases are the courts’ concern, said Coakley spokesman Harry Pierre. “At this time, this office has not issued any advisory or opinion on this issue.’’
http://aclum.org/news_3.27.12
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/boston-pays-170k-to-settle-cell-phone-recording-lawsuit.ars
http://necir-bu.org/investigations/police-fight-cellphone-recordings-2/police-fight-cellphone-recordings/
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/03/city-of-boston-loses-landmark-case.html
Another Chapter in the war on cameras.
Simon Glik's arrest in 2007 for videotaping police engaged in a drug arrest near Boston Common led to a serious of lawsuits that effectively raised the troubling issue of barriers to recording public officials, particular cops, to national prominence. In the end Glik was victorious as the court ruled that the right to record police or public officials in public extends beyond journalists.
http://boston.com/community/blogs/less_is_more/2012/03/another_chapter_in_the_war_on.html
Broward driver busted by cops, exonerated by cellphone.
Florida - The recent real-life case of a stranded motorist-turned-alleged felon, there was one juicy twist: The whole altercation was caught on tape under the most outlandish of circumstances.
None of this would have happened if the driver — Susan Mait, a 60-year-old widow from Coral Springs — hadn’t dropped her phone to the floor of her SUV while the cops yanked her from the vehicle. Unbeknownst to any of them, the phone was still connected to a GEICO customer service rep, who, following company policy, recorded everything that happened.
The audio tape, made public this week, depicts a starkly different exchange than what Stasnek and Fernandes described in their reports and during questioning under oath.
The recording catches Stasnek cursing out Mait (although the officer later denied it), giving no advance warning that Mait was about to be cuffed for resisting arrest (although the officer testified that she had done so three times), and later hashing out a plan with her fellow officer to make sure their stories jibed (they did).
The explosive recording prompted prosecutors to drop all outstanding charges against Mait — and focus their attention on the officers.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/27/2717756/broward-driver-busted-by-cops.html
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
$285,933 armored vehicles to be used in parades etc. in New Hampshire.
The LENCO BearCat whose purchase has caused a stir in Keene, NH over the last few months joins a cadre of armored police vehicles across the state.
New Hampshire State Police, the Nashua Police Special Reaction Team, the Manchester Police SWAT Team, the Central NH Special Operations Unit based in Concord, the Southern NH Special Operation Unit in Derry and the Seacoast Advanced Response Team in Portsmouth all own armored vehicles.
Keene City Council's acceptance of a $285,933 Homeland Security grant to purchase a LENCO BearCat Special Missions for the police department late last year riled some residents, who said it would be a waste of federal funds and/or a militarization of the small city's police department.
After several public hearings, Keene councilors voted again to accept the grant. City Manager John MacLean said the vehicle has been ordered, and will take several months to be built.
Manchester purchased its BearCat in 2007 using a Homeland Security grant, then donated its Peacekeeper, another armored vehicle, to the Central NH Special Operations Unit.New Hampshire State Police, the Nashua Police Special Reaction Team, the Manchester Police SWAT Team, the Central NH Special Operations Unit based in Concord, the Southern NH Special Operation Unit in Derry and the Seacoast Advanced Response Team in Portsmouth all own armored vehicles.
Keene City Council's acceptance of a $285,933 Homeland Security grant to purchase a LENCO BearCat Special Missions for the police department late last year riled some residents, who said it would be a waste of federal funds and/or a militarization of the small city's police department.
After several public hearings, Keene councilors voted again to accept the grant. City Manager John MacLean said the vehicle has been ordered, and will take several months to be built.
Concord Police Sgt. Steve Smagula said before owning the Peacekeeper, officers would have to enter a hostile area using hand shields.
Portsmouth Police Detective Michael Maloney said the Seacoast Emergency Response Team purchased its BearCat several years ago through a Homeland Security grant.
The Southern NH Special Operations Unit also purchased its BearCat with a Homeland Security grant, said Unit Commander and Derry Police Capt. George Feole.
Salem Town Manager Keith Hickey, whose town is a member of the Southern NH Special Operations Unit, said it makes sense for his town to be part of a regional group that owns a BearCat.
The armored vehicles are used in the communities for parades and brought out on National Night Out events as well as Touch-A-Truck events.
http://www.unionleader.com/article/20120326/NEWS07/703269971
Supreme Court ruling concerning plea bargaining might force plea offers to be put in writing.
For years, the nation’s highest court has devoted the majority of its criminal justice efforts to ensuring that defendants get a fair day in court and a fair sentence once a trial is concluded. But in two decisions on Wednesday, the Supreme Court tacitly acknowledged that it has been enforcing an image of the system that is very different from the real, workaday world inhabited by prosecutors and defense lawyers across the country.
"97 percent of federal convictions and 94 percent of state convictions are the result of guilty pleas. Plea bargains have become so central to today’s criminal justice system that defense counsel must meet responsibilities in the plea bargain process to render the adequate assistance of counsel that the Sixth Amendment requires at critical stages of the criminal process." (from page 2 of ruling)
The decisions, endorsed by a 5-to-4 majority and written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, affirm a defendant’s right under the Sixth Amendment to have the assistance of an effective lawyer during pretrial negotiations. Both of the cases before the court involved defendants who failed to take plea bargains after receiving bad legal advice.
"The prosecution and trial courts may adopt measures to help ensure against late, frivolous, or fabricated claims. First, a formal offer’s terms and processing can be documented. Second, States may require that all offers be in writing. Third, formal offers can be made part of the record at any subsequent plea proceeding or before trial to ensure that a defendant has been fully advised before the later proceedings commence." (from page 2 of ruling)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/opinion/a-broader-right-to-counsel.html?ref=us
"97 percent of federal convictions and 94 percent of state convictions are the result of guilty pleas. Plea bargains have become so central to today’s criminal justice system that defense counsel must meet responsibilities in the plea bargain process to render the adequate assistance of counsel that the Sixth Amendment requires at critical stages of the criminal process." (from page 2 of ruling)
Ronald F. Wright, a professor of law at Wake Forest University, said that for generations plea bargains have been the rule rather than the exception, “and the Supreme Court has, until the last two or three years, found a way to ignore that.”
Taken together, the rulings greatly expand the supervisory reach of judges to include plea bargaining, a process that has traditionally been conducted informally and with so little oversight that one law professor, Stephanos Bibas of the University of Pennsylvania, has compared it to a Turkish bazaar.
"The prosecution and trial courts may adopt measures to help ensure against late, frivolous, or fabricated claims. First, a formal offer’s terms and processing can be documented. Second, States may require that all offers be in writing. Third, formal offers can be made part of the record at any subsequent plea proceeding or before trial to ensure that a defendant has been fully advised before the later proceedings commence." (from page 2 of ruling)
The rulings, he added, might also result in requirements that plea offers be put in writing, something that Justice Kennedy noted was already the case in Arizona. While many states require plea agreements to be written and presented before a judge, plea offers are often verbal and made in informal settings.
Supreme Court Ruling: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-444.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/us/stronger-hand-for-judges-after-rulings-on-plea-deals.html?_r=3&ref=usSupreme Court Ruling: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-444.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/opinion/a-broader-right-to-counsel.html?ref=us
FBI admits errors in DNA testing could affect hundreds of cases.
Washington - Two men sent to prison more than 30 years ago are now learning the scientific evidence used against them at trial was wrong. Kirk Odom and Santae Tribble were each convicted in part on testimony their hair was discovered at two different crime scenes in the district. Odom was convicted of rape, Tribble of murder.
But DNA analysis now shows the hair in each case belongs to someone else, a fact that has moved the U.S. Attorney to launch a new review of hundreds of cases.
Kirk Odom and Santae Tribble came forward after reading stories about Donald Gates.
A man who went to prison in part because an FBI agent said his hair was found at the scene of a murder. But DNA evidence proved otherwise and Gates was released from prison in 2009. Odom and Tribble wondered if they could get the same justice.
Attorneys from the public defender’s service began an investigation and have now filed a motion to vacate their convictions.
A stocking was recovered nearby and inside investigators said were hairs from the assailant, one that matched Santae Tribble.
In fact, FBI Special Agent James Hilverda said, "The hair that aligned with Santae Tribble matched in all microscopic characteristics, all characteristics were the same."
But DNA testing now shows the hair did not come from Santae Tribble.
"We are announcing today that we are going to go back and do a sweeping review of cases going back decades,” said U.S. Attorney Ron Machen, “Some in the 70s and 80s and even earlier if we can find the records of cases where hair analysis was used in part to secure convictions."
The U.S. Attorney’s Office just completed another review of more than 200 cases called into question by the wrongful conviction of Donald Gates, a man who went to prison in part due to the hair analysis testimony of an FBI agent.
http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/local/fbi-lab-cases-reveal-dubious-dna-evidence-031612
Are Police Building a Massive DNA Database?
The collection of DNA evidence creates potential problems for the privacy and dignity of citizens. The collection of genetic material indentifying individuals gives the state important information that undeniably creates the potential for abuse. American history is rife with examples of personal information being collected and stored by the state and used for purposes of harassment and blackmail. There is also the possibility that creating a class of “usual suspects” can lead to false prosecutions.
NY- An incomplete DNA deal.
Regrettably, other important reforms sought by the Assembly did not make it into the final bill, leaving unaddressed two of the biggest causes of wrongful convictions: witness misidentification and false confessions. The proposed changes would have mandated the videotaping of police interrogations and “double blind” police lineups so neither the witness nor person administrating the lineup knows the identity of the suspect. Mr. Cuomo says he supports both reforms but had to omit them to reach a compromise on the DNA database expansion. Had he pushed for the videotaping and lineup changes early in the process instead of getting behind the database-only bill favored by Senate Republicans he might have been able to achieve more. Mr. Cuomo has said he intends to revisit the overlooked issues. He should do so soon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/opinion/an-incomplete-dna-deal.html?_r=2&scp=2&sq=DNA&st=cse
But DNA analysis now shows the hair in each case belongs to someone else, a fact that has moved the U.S. Attorney to launch a new review of hundreds of cases.
Kirk Odom and Santae Tribble came forward after reading stories about Donald Gates.
A man who went to prison in part because an FBI agent said his hair was found at the scene of a murder. But DNA evidence proved otherwise and Gates was released from prison in 2009. Odom and Tribble wondered if they could get the same justice.
Attorneys from the public defender’s service began an investigation and have now filed a motion to vacate their convictions.
A stocking was recovered nearby and inside investigators said were hairs from the assailant, one that matched Santae Tribble.
In fact, FBI Special Agent James Hilverda said, "The hair that aligned with Santae Tribble matched in all microscopic characteristics, all characteristics were the same."
But DNA testing now shows the hair did not come from Santae Tribble.
"We are announcing today that we are going to go back and do a sweeping review of cases going back decades,” said U.S. Attorney Ron Machen, “Some in the 70s and 80s and even earlier if we can find the records of cases where hair analysis was used in part to secure convictions."
The U.S. Attorney’s Office just completed another review of more than 200 cases called into question by the wrongful conviction of Donald Gates, a man who went to prison in part due to the hair analysis testimony of an FBI agent.
http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/local/fbi-lab-cases-reveal-dubious-dna-evidence-031612
Are Police Building a Massive DNA Database?
The collection of DNA evidence creates potential problems for the privacy and dignity of citizens. The collection of genetic material indentifying individuals gives the state important information that undeniably creates the potential for abuse. American history is rife with examples of personal information being collected and stored by the state and used for purposes of harassment and blackmail. There is also the possibility that creating a class of “usual suspects” can lead to false prosecutions.
As the New York Civil Liberies Union noted in a statement following the passage of the new legislation, the bill “does nothing to address the increasingly apparent inadequacies of the state’s regulatory oversight of police crime labs, nor does it establish rigorous statewide standards regarding collection, handling and analysis of DNA evidence to catch or prevent error and ensure the integrity of the databank.”
Even more problematically, the law “does too little to ensure that people accused of crimes have access to DNA evidence to prove their innocence.”
Given that the potential of DNA to exonerate the wrongly convicted too often goes unrealized, the failure to ensure that not only the police but also the convicted have access to the data is a problem.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/154667/are_police_building_a_massive_dna_database_/NY- An incomplete DNA deal.
Regrettably, other important reforms sought by the Assembly did not make it into the final bill, leaving unaddressed two of the biggest causes of wrongful convictions: witness misidentification and false confessions. The proposed changes would have mandated the videotaping of police interrogations and “double blind” police lineups so neither the witness nor person administrating the lineup knows the identity of the suspect. Mr. Cuomo says he supports both reforms but had to omit them to reach a compromise on the DNA database expansion. Had he pushed for the videotaping and lineup changes early in the process instead of getting behind the database-only bill favored by Senate Republicans he might have been able to achieve more. Mr. Cuomo has said he intends to revisit the overlooked issues. He should do so soon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/opinion/an-incomplete-dna-deal.html?_r=2&scp=2&sq=DNA&st=cse
The Michael Morton case exposes the power of prosecutors.
It's not every day that a convicted murderer clears his name and then returns to
court to argue that his prosecutor should be prosecuted. But that's what
happened recently in a high-profile case in Texas that raises broader questions
about the power prosecutors have and what happens when they're accused of
misusing it. At the center of this story is a man named Michael Morton. He was
once an ordinary citizen with a wife, a child, a job, and no criminal record
whatsoever. But then he was sent to prison for life.
Back in 1987, Michael Morton was convicted of murdering his wife. Upon being led to prison, he vowed that he was innocent, telling onlookers "I did not do this."
Williamson County District Attorney Ken Anderson prosecuted Michael Morton. He told the jury Morton killed his wife because she wouldn't have sex with him. There was no murder weapon or direct evidence linking Morton to the crime, but Anderson argued persuasively that Morton was violent and unremorseful.
After almost 25 years in prison, DNA evidence proved that Morton was innocent, with samples connecting a different male to his wife's slaying. Morton was freed on Oct. 4, 2011, and "60 Minutes" brought his case into the national spotlight on Sunday.
What finally gave him back his freedom last fall was DNA evidence. After fighting the district attorney's office for five years, The Innocence Project won permission to do DNA testing on a bloody bandana found near the crime scene. On it, the lab found Christine Morton's blood and the DNA of a known felon, Mark Alan Norwood, who's since been arrested for her murder. His DNA has also been matched to the crime scene of another young woman who was murdered after Christine.
Morton sat down with CBS correspondent Lara Logan, and called attention to the argument that prosecutors are given too much power. He explained how he came home in the summer of the 1986 to find his 3-year-old son Eric alone in the yard, and the body of his wife Christine in the bedroom. Right away, police suspected him.
Lara Logan: So just to be clear, from both of you, you believe that Ken Anderson, the prosecutor in Michael's case, willfully, deliberately withheld evidence.
Barry Scheck: We believe that there's probable cause to believe that he violated a court order, withheld exculpatory evidence, and violated other laws of the State of Texas.
Video:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7403194n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57403923/evidence-of-innocence-the-case-of-michael-morton/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/25/michael-morton-60-minutes_n_1378773.html
Prosecutors shouldn't have to be told to follow law.
Page 2A of USA TODAY's March 16 issue was saddening and maddening. One article was about a man who had been wrongly jailed because his prosecutors had concealed evidence ("Justice Dept. agrees to pay $140,000 to man wrongly jailed"). The other was about prosecutor misconduct in the case of then-Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens ("Evidence hidden in Sen. Stevens' corruption case," News).
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/letters/story/2012-03-26/ted-stevens-prosecutorial-misconduct/53794164/1
Colorado revisits law that gives prosecutors wide power to try youths as adults.
DENVER - Colorado is revisiting a law that gives prosecutors the power to charge youths as adults in serious crimes without first getting approval from a judge.
Opponents of the law, which allows district attorneys to use “direct file” in cases of murder, rape and a range of other felonies, say it gives Colorado prosecutors virtually unchecked power over juveniles and has been used too broadly over the years.
Back in 1987, Michael Morton was convicted of murdering his wife. Upon being led to prison, he vowed that he was innocent, telling onlookers "I did not do this."
Williamson County District Attorney Ken Anderson prosecuted Michael Morton. He told the jury Morton killed his wife because she wouldn't have sex with him. There was no murder weapon or direct evidence linking Morton to the crime, but Anderson argued persuasively that Morton was violent and unremorseful.
After almost 25 years in prison, DNA evidence proved that Morton was innocent, with samples connecting a different male to his wife's slaying. Morton was freed on Oct. 4, 2011, and "60 Minutes" brought his case into the national spotlight on Sunday.
What finally gave him back his freedom last fall was DNA evidence. After fighting the district attorney's office for five years, The Innocence Project won permission to do DNA testing on a bloody bandana found near the crime scene. On it, the lab found Christine Morton's blood and the DNA of a known felon, Mark Alan Norwood, who's since been arrested for her murder. His DNA has also been matched to the crime scene of another young woman who was murdered after Christine.
Morton sat down with CBS correspondent Lara Logan, and called attention to the argument that prosecutors are given too much power. He explained how he came home in the summer of the 1986 to find his 3-year-old son Eric alone in the yard, and the body of his wife Christine in the bedroom. Right away, police suspected him.
Lara Logan: So just to be clear, from both of you, you believe that Ken Anderson, the prosecutor in Michael's case, willfully, deliberately withheld evidence.
Barry Scheck: We believe that there's probable cause to believe that he violated a court order, withheld exculpatory evidence, and violated other laws of the State of Texas.
Video:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7403194n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57403923/evidence-of-innocence-the-case-of-michael-morton/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/25/michael-morton-60-minutes_n_1378773.html
Prosecutors shouldn't have to be told to follow law.
Page 2A of USA TODAY's March 16 issue was saddening and maddening. One article was about a man who had been wrongly jailed because his prosecutors had concealed evidence ("Justice Dept. agrees to pay $140,000 to man wrongly jailed"). The other was about prosecutor misconduct in the case of then-Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens ("Evidence hidden in Sen. Stevens' corruption case," News).
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/letters/story/2012-03-26/ted-stevens-prosecutorial-misconduct/53794164/1
Colorado revisits law that gives prosecutors wide power to try youths as adults.
DENVER - Colorado is revisiting a law that gives prosecutors the power to charge youths as adults in serious crimes without first getting approval from a judge.
Opponents of the law, which allows district attorneys to use “direct file” in cases of murder, rape and a range of other felonies, say it gives Colorado prosecutors virtually unchecked power over juveniles and has been used too broadly over the years.
In the process, they contend, teenagers accused of midlevel crimes like robbery and burglary are too often tried as adults and saddled with felony convictions that will stay with them forever, as well as time in adult prisons.
“We have been overcriminalizing youth for many years now. It’s time we stop,” said Representative B. J. Nikkel, a Republican from Loveland and a co-sponsor of legislation that would limit a prosecutor’s authority in such cases.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/us/colorado-revisits-its-juvenile-crime-law.html?src=recg
Monday, March 26, 2012
Police union pays a bounty if a police officer kills someone.
Albuquerque, N.M. - Albuquerque police officers involved in a rash of fatal shootings over the past two years were paid up to $1,000 under a union program that some have likened to a bounty system in a department with a culture that critics have long contended promotes brutality.
Mayor Richard Berry called Friday for an immediate halt to the practice, which was first reported in the Albuquerque Journal during a week in which Albuquerque police shot and killed two men. Since 2010, Albuquerque police have shot 23 people, 18 fatally.
"The administration has nothing to do with how the union conducts their business," Berry said in a statement, "but I was shocked yesterday when made aware of this practice. I cannot stand aside and condone this practice. It needs to end now."
A defiant police union President Joey Sigala said late Friday that the union will continue to financially support officers who have been involved in shootings, despite calls earlier in the day from the mayor and police chief for the practice to stop.
Mayor Richard Berry said in a statement that he was “shocked” to learn of the practice and said it “needs to end now,” while Police Chief Ray Schultz called the payments “troubling.”
A Journal story published Friday revealed that the union had paid more than $10,000 to officers involved in shootings, dating to the start of 2010.
Internal union financial documents obtained by the Journal show that 20 of the officers received union payments. Of those, 16 received $500, two were paid $300, one received $800 and a payment of $1,000 went to one officer.
Although the union said the payments were intended to help the officers decompress from a stressful situation, one victim's father and a criminologist said it sounded more like a reward program.
"I think it might not be a bounty that they want it for," said Mike Gomez, the father of an unarmed man killed by police last year, "but in these police guys' minds, they know they are going to get that money. So when they get in a situation, it's who's going to get him first? Who's going to shoot him first?"
http://www.pressherald.com/news/police-union-gives-payments-to-officers-involved-in-shootings_2012-03-24.html
http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2012/03/24/news/berry-shooting-payouts-must-end.html
Police union statement regarding shooting payments:
http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2012/03/23/abqnewsseeker/officers-involved-in-shootings-receive-union-payments.html
Mayor Richard Berry called Friday for an immediate halt to the practice, which was first reported in the Albuquerque Journal during a week in which Albuquerque police shot and killed two men. Since 2010, Albuquerque police have shot 23 people, 18 fatally.
"The administration has nothing to do with how the union conducts their business," Berry said in a statement, "but I was shocked yesterday when made aware of this practice. I cannot stand aside and condone this practice. It needs to end now."
A defiant police union President Joey Sigala said late Friday that the union will continue to financially support officers who have been involved in shootings, despite calls earlier in the day from the mayor and police chief for the practice to stop.
Mayor Richard Berry said in a statement that he was “shocked” to learn of the practice and said it “needs to end now,” while Police Chief Ray Schultz called the payments “troubling.”
A Journal story published Friday revealed that the union had paid more than $10,000 to officers involved in shootings, dating to the start of 2010.
Internal union financial documents obtained by the Journal show that 20 of the officers received union payments. Of those, 16 received $500, two were paid $300, one received $800 and a payment of $1,000 went to one officer.
Although the union said the payments were intended to help the officers decompress from a stressful situation, one victim's father and a criminologist said it sounded more like a reward program.
"I think it might not be a bounty that they want it for," said Mike Gomez, the father of an unarmed man killed by police last year, "but in these police guys' minds, they know they are going to get that money. So when they get in a situation, it's who's going to get him first? Who's going to shoot him first?"
http://www.pressherald.com/news/police-union-gives-payments-to-officers-involved-in-shootings_2012-03-24.html
http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2012/03/24/news/berry-shooting-payouts-must-end.html
Police union statement regarding shooting payments:
http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2012/03/23/abqnewsseeker/officers-involved-in-shootings-receive-union-payments.html
The Corrections Corporation of America offers cash to privatize state prisons.
If you’re a state official looking to plug up one of those multi-billion dollar state budget holes you may want to talk to the folks in the for-profit prison industry.
The Corrections Corporation of America is offering states tons of cash. All state officials have to do is close their prisons and sign on the dotted line.
CCA, the nation's largest operator of for-profit prisons, has sent letters recently to 48 states offering to buy up their prisons as a solution for "challenging corrections budgets."
So what’s in it for CCA?
The company is asking for a 20-year management contract. They also want assurances that their prisons would remain at least 90 percent full regardless of crime rates. This is the kind of deal politicians dream about. Not only to they get to cover their tracks in terms of which hole the state’s money disappeared into, they also get to play the “tough on crime” candidate during elections.
CCA is now a giant on Wall Street. Share holders have seen revenues increase by 500 percent since the mid-1990s. The company capitalized on the expansion of state prison systems in the '80s and '90s as the result of the war on drugs by contracting with state governments to build or manage new prisons to house an influx of minor drug offenders.
But as drug abuse has changed in rates and nature, CCA has turned most of its lobbying power to advocate for locking up undocumented immigrants
.
So what is a state prison system worth? According to CCA it’s an even $250 million.
By getting the prisons at bargain prices and using political influence and lobbyists to advocate longer sentences and “tougher” crime laws, CCA could do very well in terms of keeping profits high for its shareholders.
"We believe this comes at a timely and helpful juncture and hope you will share our belief in the benefits of the purchase-and-manage model," reads the letter from Harley Lappin, CCA's chief corrections officer, who was a former director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The prison sale for quick cash plan is sure to attract those who rode into office on promises of balanced budgets and reductions in government spending. Whether or not tax payers will be paying more or less for private prisons instead of state run prisons remains to be seen.
http://www.apbweb.com/humor-frompages-menu-77/2207-qwell-pay-cash-for-your-prisons-todayq.html
A new lawsuit for alleged brutality against CCA.
Couer D'alene, ID - Guards at a private prison instigated - and watched - a gang fight that left him brutally beaten and unconscious, says a man who claims that Corrections Corporation of America guards "foster" brutality between inmates, and conceal injuries in the prison's "in-house" medical center.
Jacob Clevenger sued Corrections Corporation of America, CCA Western Properties, and Philip Valdez, warden of the CCA's Idaho Correctional Center, in Federal Court.
Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America is the largest private corrections company in the country, managing 60 prisons with a total of 90,000 beds.
Clevenger, who claims he was beaten senseless in the prison, claims CCA "has allowed and even fostered systemic conditions of brutality, peril and injuriousness at the ICC."
Clevenger claims that ICC warden Philip Valdez has refused to hire enough correctional officers, to adequately train the ones he does hire, and failed to pursue "reasonable policies of personnel discipline and retraining in cases where correctional officers have contributed to or facilitated inmate violence or injury."
He claims that correctional officers at ICC "have acted, and feel empowered to act, with impunity when they deliberately disregard or derogate inmate safety."
He claims there is a "code of silence" by which "staff are conspicuously not encouraged to report prisoner or personnel misconduct, and are furthermore not provided adequate training in how to do so".
The complaint continues: "Defendants CCA and Valdez have operated the ICC's 'in house' medical unit so as to purposefully conceal the incidence and extent of inmate injuries suffered as a result of the facility's recurrent violence~ through official medical unit policies, such as the omission of any X-rays of severe assault injuries, the defendants act to obfuscate the extent of the systemically dangerous conditions at their facility.
"For years, defendants CCA and Valdez have possessed actual and constructive knowledge of these illegal and dangerous conditions at ICC. However, in direct derogation of their state and federal duties of care, they have avoided and refrained from taking reasonable measures to abate them."
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/03/26/44997.htm
Court Filing: http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/03/26/CCA.pdf
The Corrections Corporation of America is offering states tons of cash. All state officials have to do is close their prisons and sign on the dotted line.
CCA, the nation's largest operator of for-profit prisons, has sent letters recently to 48 states offering to buy up their prisons as a solution for "challenging corrections budgets."
So what’s in it for CCA?
The company is asking for a 20-year management contract. They also want assurances that their prisons would remain at least 90 percent full regardless of crime rates. This is the kind of deal politicians dream about. Not only to they get to cover their tracks in terms of which hole the state’s money disappeared into, they also get to play the “tough on crime” candidate during elections.
CCA is now a giant on Wall Street. Share holders have seen revenues increase by 500 percent since the mid-1990s. The company capitalized on the expansion of state prison systems in the '80s and '90s as the result of the war on drugs by contracting with state governments to build or manage new prisons to house an influx of minor drug offenders.
But as drug abuse has changed in rates and nature, CCA has turned most of its lobbying power to advocate for locking up undocumented immigrants
.
So what is a state prison system worth? According to CCA it’s an even $250 million.
By getting the prisons at bargain prices and using political influence and lobbyists to advocate longer sentences and “tougher” crime laws, CCA could do very well in terms of keeping profits high for its shareholders.
"We believe this comes at a timely and helpful juncture and hope you will share our belief in the benefits of the purchase-and-manage model," reads the letter from Harley Lappin, CCA's chief corrections officer, who was a former director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The prison sale for quick cash plan is sure to attract those who rode into office on promises of balanced budgets and reductions in government spending. Whether or not tax payers will be paying more or less for private prisons instead of state run prisons remains to be seen.
http://www.apbweb.com/humor-frompages-menu-77/2207-qwell-pay-cash-for-your-prisons-todayq.html
A new lawsuit for alleged brutality against CCA.
Couer D'alene, ID - Guards at a private prison instigated - and watched - a gang fight that left him brutally beaten and unconscious, says a man who claims that Corrections Corporation of America guards "foster" brutality between inmates, and conceal injuries in the prison's "in-house" medical center.
Jacob Clevenger sued Corrections Corporation of America, CCA Western Properties, and Philip Valdez, warden of the CCA's Idaho Correctional Center, in Federal Court.
Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America is the largest private corrections company in the country, managing 60 prisons with a total of 90,000 beds.
Clevenger, who claims he was beaten senseless in the prison, claims CCA "has allowed and even fostered systemic conditions of brutality, peril and injuriousness at the ICC."
Clevenger claims that ICC warden Philip Valdez has refused to hire enough correctional officers, to adequately train the ones he does hire, and failed to pursue "reasonable policies of personnel discipline and retraining in cases where correctional officers have contributed to or facilitated inmate violence or injury."
He claims that correctional officers at ICC "have acted, and feel empowered to act, with impunity when they deliberately disregard or derogate inmate safety."
He claims there is a "code of silence" by which "staff are conspicuously not encouraged to report prisoner or personnel misconduct, and are furthermore not provided adequate training in how to do so".
The complaint continues: "Defendants CCA and Valdez have operated the ICC's 'in house' medical unit so as to purposefully conceal the incidence and extent of inmate injuries suffered as a result of the facility's recurrent violence~ through official medical unit policies, such as the omission of any X-rays of severe assault injuries, the defendants act to obfuscate the extent of the systemically dangerous conditions at their facility.
"For years, defendants CCA and Valdez have possessed actual and constructive knowledge of these illegal and dangerous conditions at ICC. However, in direct derogation of their state and federal duties of care, they have avoided and refrained from taking reasonable measures to abate them."
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/03/26/44997.htm
Court Filing: http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/03/26/CCA.pdf
More Americans are in jail than were In Stalin's rule.
There are now more Americans in jail -- 6 million -- than there were in Stalin's Gulag, reports Fareed Zakaria, in a column called "Incarceration Nation."
And it's not just a relative population thing.
The U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000 citizens.
What's to blame?
The "War on Drugs."
More than half of America's 6 million prisoners are in jail for drug convictions, with 80% of those in jail for "possession."
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-americans-in-jail-2012-3
And it's not just a relative population thing.
The U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000 citizens.
What's to blame?
The "War on Drugs."
More than half of America's 6 million prisoners are in jail for drug convictions, with 80% of those in jail for "possession."
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-americans-in-jail-2012-3
Big Brother infiltrating college campuses.
Since 9/11, the homeland security state has come to campus just as it has come to America’s towns and cities, its places of work and its houses of worship, its public space and its cyberspace. But the age of (in)security had announced its arrival on campus with considerably less fanfare than elsewhere — until, that is, the “less lethal” weapons were unleashed in the fall of 2011.
Today, from the City University of New York to the University of California, students increasingly find themselves on the frontlines, not of a war on terror, but of a war on “radicalism” and “extremism.” Just about everyone from college administrators and educators to law enforcement personnel and corporate executives seems to have enlisted in this war effort. Increasingly, American students are in their sights.
Universities have struck multimillion-dollar deals with multinational private security firms like Securitas, deploying unsworn, underpaid, often untrained “protection officers” on campus as “extra eyes and ears.” The University of Wisconsin-Madison, in one report, boasts that police and private partners have been “seamlessly integrated.”
Elsewhere, even students have gotten into the business of security. The private intelligence firm STRATFOR, for example, recently partnered with the University of Texas to use its students to “essentially parallel the work of… outside consultants” but on campus, offering information on activist groups like the Yes Men.
Step by step, at school after school, the homeland security campus has executed a silent coup in the decade since September 11th. The university, thus usurped, has increasingly become an instrument not of higher learning, but of intelligence gathering and paramilitary training, of profit-taking on behalf of America’s increasingly embattled “1 percent.”
Yet the next generation may be otherwise occupied. Since September 2011, a new student movement has swept across the country, making itself felt most recently on March 1st with a national day of action to defend the right to education. This Occupy-inspired wave of on-campus activism is making visible what was once invisible, calling into question what was once beyond question, and counteracting the logic of Repress U with the logic of nonviolence and education for democracy.
For many, the rise of the homeland security campus has provoked some basic questions about the aims and principles of a higher education: Whom does the university serve? Whom does it protect? Who is to speak? Who is to be silenced? To whom does the future belong?
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/22/big_brother_on_campus/singleton/
Today, from the City University of New York to the University of California, students increasingly find themselves on the frontlines, not of a war on terror, but of a war on “radicalism” and “extremism.” Just about everyone from college administrators and educators to law enforcement personnel and corporate executives seems to have enlisted in this war effort. Increasingly, American students are in their sights.
Universities have struck multimillion-dollar deals with multinational private security firms like Securitas, deploying unsworn, underpaid, often untrained “protection officers” on campus as “extra eyes and ears.” The University of Wisconsin-Madison, in one report, boasts that police and private partners have been “seamlessly integrated.”
Elsewhere, even students have gotten into the business of security. The private intelligence firm STRATFOR, for example, recently partnered with the University of Texas to use its students to “essentially parallel the work of… outside consultants” but on campus, offering information on activist groups like the Yes Men.
Step by step, at school after school, the homeland security campus has executed a silent coup in the decade since September 11th. The university, thus usurped, has increasingly become an instrument not of higher learning, but of intelligence gathering and paramilitary training, of profit-taking on behalf of America’s increasingly embattled “1 percent.”
Yet the next generation may be otherwise occupied. Since September 2011, a new student movement has swept across the country, making itself felt most recently on March 1st with a national day of action to defend the right to education. This Occupy-inspired wave of on-campus activism is making visible what was once invisible, calling into question what was once beyond question, and counteracting the logic of Repress U with the logic of nonviolence and education for democracy.
For many, the rise of the homeland security campus has provoked some basic questions about the aims and principles of a higher education: Whom does the university serve? Whom does it protect? Who is to speak? Who is to be silenced? To whom does the future belong?
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/22/big_brother_on_campus/singleton/
Friday, March 23, 2012
The U.S. gov't. will now store information about Americans with no ties to terrorism for up to five years.
Washington - The U.S. intelligence community will now be able to store information about Americans with no ties to terrorism for up to five years under new Obama administration guidelines.
Until now, the National Counterterrorism Center had to immediately destroy information about Americans that was already stored in other government databases when there were no clear ties to terrorism.
“Following the failed terrorist attack in December 2009, representatives of the counterterrorism community concluded it is vital for NCTC to be provided with a variety of datasets from various agencies that contain terrorism information,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in a statement late Thursday. “The ability to search against these datasets for up to five years on a continuing basis as these updated guidelines permit will enable NCTC to accomplish its mission more practically and effectively.”
The new rules replace guidelines issued in 2008 and have privacy advocates concerned about the potential for data-mining information on innocent Americans.
“It is a vast expansion of the government’s surveillance authority,” Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said of the five-year retention period.
The government put in strong safeguards at the NCTC for the data that would be collected on U.S. citizens for intelligence purposes, Rotenberg said. These new guidelines undercut the Federal Privacy Act, he said.
“The fact that this data can be retained for five years on U.S. citizens for whom there’s no evidence of criminal conduct is very disturbing,” Rotenberg said.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, voiced concerns about how the guidelines would interact with proposals to give the government greater access to telecommunications information in order to protect critical infrastructure from hackers.
Journalist Marcy Wheeler summed the new guidelines up nicely saying, “So…the data the government keeps to track our travel, our taxes, our benefits, our identity? It just got transformed from bureaucratic data into national security intelligence.”
Disturbingly, “oversight” for these expansive new guidelines is being directed by the DNI’s "Civil Liberties Protection Officer" Joel Alexander, who is so concerned about Americans’ privacy and civil liberties that he, as Marcy Wheeler notes, found no civil liberties concerns with the National Security Agency’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program when he reviewed it during President George W. Bush’s administration.
As other civil liberties organizations have noted, the new guidelines are reminiscent of the Orwellian-sounding “Total Information Awareness” program George Bush tried but failed to get through Congress in 2003—again in the name of defending the nation from terrorists. The program, as the New York Times explained, sparked an “outcry” and partially shut down Congress because it “proposed fusing vast archives of electronic records — like travel records, credit card transactions, phone calls and more — and searching for patterns of a hidden terrorist cell.”
http://endthelie.com/2012/03/23/national-counterterrorism-center-gets-insane-new-power-over-private-data-on-americans/#axzz1pnBOEmpX
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/us/politics/us-moves-to-relax-some-restrictions-for-counterterrorism-analysis.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=eric+holder&st=nyt
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/are-we-safer/new-counterterrorism-guidelines-allow-u-s-to-hold-americans-data-longer/
Until now, the National Counterterrorism Center had to immediately destroy information about Americans that was already stored in other government databases when there were no clear ties to terrorism.
“Following the failed terrorist attack in December 2009, representatives of the counterterrorism community concluded it is vital for NCTC to be provided with a variety of datasets from various agencies that contain terrorism information,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in a statement late Thursday. “The ability to search against these datasets for up to five years on a continuing basis as these updated guidelines permit will enable NCTC to accomplish its mission more practically and effectively.”
The new rules replace guidelines issued in 2008 and have privacy advocates concerned about the potential for data-mining information on innocent Americans.
“It is a vast expansion of the government’s surveillance authority,” Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said of the five-year retention period.
The government put in strong safeguards at the NCTC for the data that would be collected on U.S. citizens for intelligence purposes, Rotenberg said. These new guidelines undercut the Federal Privacy Act, he said.
“The fact that this data can be retained for five years on U.S. citizens for whom there’s no evidence of criminal conduct is very disturbing,” Rotenberg said.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, voiced concerns about how the guidelines would interact with proposals to give the government greater access to telecommunications information in order to protect critical infrastructure from hackers.
Journalist Marcy Wheeler summed the new guidelines up nicely saying, “So…the data the government keeps to track our travel, our taxes, our benefits, our identity? It just got transformed from bureaucratic data into national security intelligence.”
Disturbingly, “oversight” for these expansive new guidelines is being directed by the DNI’s "Civil Liberties Protection Officer" Joel Alexander, who is so concerned about Americans’ privacy and civil liberties that he, as Marcy Wheeler notes, found no civil liberties concerns with the National Security Agency’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program when he reviewed it during President George W. Bush’s administration.
As other civil liberties organizations have noted, the new guidelines are reminiscent of the Orwellian-sounding “Total Information Awareness” program George Bush tried but failed to get through Congress in 2003—again in the name of defending the nation from terrorists. The program, as the New York Times explained, sparked an “outcry” and partially shut down Congress because it “proposed fusing vast archives of electronic records — like travel records, credit card transactions, phone calls and more — and searching for patterns of a hidden terrorist cell.”
The new rules are silent about the use of commercial data — like credit card and travel records — that may have been acquired by other agencies. In 2009, Wired Magazine obtained a list of databases acquired by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, one of the agencies that shares information with the center. It included nearly 200 million records transferred from private data brokers like ChoicePoint, 55,000 entries on customers of Wyndham hotels, and numerous other travel and commercial records.
National Counterterrorism Center Guidlines:
http://epic.org/privacy/profiling/2012-NCTC-Guidelines.pdf
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/intel-community-can-now-keep-info-about-americans-with-no-ties-to-terrorism-for-up-to-5-years/2012/03/22/gIQAHnUMUS_story.htmlNational Counterterrorism Center Guidlines:
http://epic.org/privacy/profiling/2012-NCTC-Guidelines.pdf
http://endthelie.com/2012/03/23/national-counterterrorism-center-gets-insane-new-power-over-private-data-on-americans/#axzz1pnBOEmpX
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/us/politics/us-moves-to-relax-some-restrictions-for-counterterrorism-analysis.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=eric+holder&st=nyt
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/are-we-safer/new-counterterrorism-guidelines-allow-u-s-to-hold-americans-data-longer/
Law enforcement agencies across the U.S. are monitoring groups that oppose government policy.
New York – Undercover NYPD officers attended
meetings of liberal political organizations and kept intelligence files on
activists who planned protests around the country, according to interviews and
documents that show how police have used counterterrorism tactics to monitor
even lawful activities.
The infiltration echoes the tactics the NYPD used in the run-up to New York's 2004 Republican National Convention, when police monitored church groups, anti-war organizations and environmental advocates nationwide. That effort was revealed by The New York Times in 2007 and in an ongoing federal civil rights lawsuit over how the NYPD treated convention protesters.
The monitoring was carried out by the Intelligence Division, a squad that operates with nearly no outside oversight and is so secretive that police said even its organizational chart is too sensitive to publish. The division has been the subject of a series of Associated Press articles that illustrated how the NYPD monitored Muslim neighborhoods, catalogued people who prayed at mosques and eavesdropped on sermons.
Investigators with his Cyber Intelligence Unit monitor websites of activist groups, and undercover officers put themselves on email distribution lists for upcoming events. Plainclothes officers collect fliers on public demonstrations. Officers and informants infiltrate the groups and attend rallies, parades and marches.
The document provides the latest example of how, in the name of fighting terrorism, law enforcement agencies around the country have scrutinized groups that legally oppose government policies. The FBI, has collected information on anti-war demonstrators. The Maryland state police infiltrated meetings of anti-death penalty groups. Missouri counterterrorism analysts suggested that support for Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, might indicate support for violent militias — an assertion for which state officials later apologized. And Texas officials urged authorities to monitor lobbying efforts by pro Muslim-groups.
The result of those efforts, however, was that people and organizations can be cataloged in police files for discussing political topics or advocating even legal protests, not violence or criminal activity.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-03-23/nypd-liberal-groups/53722732/1
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/03/documents_show_nypd_infiltrate.html
NYPD document: http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/nypd/dci-briefing-04252008.pdf
The infiltration echoes the tactics the NYPD used in the run-up to New York's 2004 Republican National Convention, when police monitored church groups, anti-war organizations and environmental advocates nationwide. That effort was revealed by The New York Times in 2007 and in an ongoing federal civil rights lawsuit over how the NYPD treated convention protesters.
The monitoring was carried out by the Intelligence Division, a squad that operates with nearly no outside oversight and is so secretive that police said even its organizational chart is too sensitive to publish. The division has been the subject of a series of Associated Press articles that illustrated how the NYPD monitored Muslim neighborhoods, catalogued people who prayed at mosques and eavesdropped on sermons.
Investigators with his Cyber Intelligence Unit monitor websites of activist groups, and undercover officers put themselves on email distribution lists for upcoming events. Plainclothes officers collect fliers on public demonstrations. Officers and informants infiltrate the groups and attend rallies, parades and marches.
The document provides the latest example of how, in the name of fighting terrorism, law enforcement agencies around the country have scrutinized groups that legally oppose government policies. The FBI, has collected information on anti-war demonstrators. The Maryland state police infiltrated meetings of anti-death penalty groups. Missouri counterterrorism analysts suggested that support for Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, might indicate support for violent militias — an assertion for which state officials later apologized. And Texas officials urged authorities to monitor lobbying efforts by pro Muslim-groups.
The result of those efforts, however, was that people and organizations can be cataloged in police files for discussing political topics or advocating even legal protests, not violence or criminal activity.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-03-23/nypd-liberal-groups/53722732/1
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/03/documents_show_nypd_infiltrate.html
NYPD document: http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/nypd/dci-briefing-04252008.pdf
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Highlight app. reveals too much personal information.
Highlight is part of an emerging trend: Several somewhat similar
location-based social apps have appeared recently, with names such as Banjo,
Glancee, Kismet and Sonar.
As you employ the app, you get notifications of Highlight
users within a football field or so of your location. You can check out their
profile photos, see if you have mutual friends and common interests, and view a
tiny map that shows their recent location. You tap a person's entry for profile
details. The closer a person is, and the more interests, friends or history you
have in common, the more likely you'll be notified of their presence. But it's
possible that you'll be made aware of someone with whom you don't share friends
or interests, simply because Highlight finds them interesting.
If someone catches your eye, you can send them a direct
message, or choose to "highlight" them. You are notified if someone highlights
you and whenever a Facebook friend joins Highlight.
To use Highlight on your iPhone — no Android version yet —
you must log into Facebook. (To spread the word, Highlight invites you to invite
your Facebook friends.) The company says using Facebook helps ensure people are
who they say they are and also lets you see the friends users have in
common.
You can make your profile visible to everyone on Highlight
or to friends of friends only. Within the app's settings, you can also write a
blurb that lets people know why you're there (for example, "I help start-ups").
Most of the people who showed up in my Highlight feed skipped that part.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/edwardbaig/story/2012-03-20/highlight-app/53673820/1
Why should Americans be thrown in jail for being critical of politicians?
The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday in a case involving the arrest of a Colorado man who was thrown in jail after telling Vice President Cheney in 2006 that the Bush administration's policies in Iraq were "disgusting."
Environmental consultant Steven Howards is suing the Secret Service agents who arrested him, contending that the arrest violated his First Amendment rights because it was nothing more than retaliation for the views he expressed to the vice president. The case pits the need for protecting public officials against the rights of citizens to express their views to the people elected to represent them.
What makes this case doubly fascinating is the fact that even the Secret Service agents involved in the arrest do not agree on what happened. The agents who actually saw the encounter testified they saw no threatening action.
In contrast, the agent who made the arrest, Virgil Reichle, accused the others of covering up, and some of Reichle's fellow agents have testified that he asked them to change their reports to match his. All have acknowledged that if any of these accusations is true, it would amount to a crime under federal law.
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/21/148606249/confronting-the-vp-may-be-impolite-is-it-a-crime
Environmental consultant Steven Howards is suing the Secret Service agents who arrested him, contending that the arrest violated his First Amendment rights because it was nothing more than retaliation for the views he expressed to the vice president. The case pits the need for protecting public officials against the rights of citizens to express their views to the people elected to represent them.
What makes this case doubly fascinating is the fact that even the Secret Service agents involved in the arrest do not agree on what happened. The agents who actually saw the encounter testified they saw no threatening action.
In contrast, the agent who made the arrest, Virgil Reichle, accused the others of covering up, and some of Reichle's fellow agents have testified that he asked them to change their reports to match his. All have acknowledged that if any of these accusations is true, it would amount to a crime under federal law.
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/21/148606249/confronting-the-vp-may-be-impolite-is-it-a-crime
Touch DNA becoming more popular with law enforcement.
A thief wearing gloves walks into a parking lot, perhaps using the cover of night, smashes a car window and takes what's inside the vehicle, all in a matter of minutes.
It's the general technique for many car burglaries, and thousands of them occur in Harris County every year. Besides shattered glass, often there's not much visible evidence left at the scene, leaving investigators with few clues to catch the culprits.
But sometimes it's what investigators cannot see that helps solve many of these types of crimes.For the last few years, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences aided area law enforcement in solving property crimes by testing evidence for "touch DNA" - microscopic skin cells containing DNA that naturally rub off when an object, like a car steering wheel, is touched. The technology can be used even if the suspect is wearing gloves because there's a high likelihood the skin cells were transferred onto the gloves when the perpetrator was slipping them on.
"It was a pretty incredible tool for us to have to identify some of these suspects," said Sgt. Terry Wilson, of the Harris County Sheriff's Office auto-theft division. "These (burglary of a motor vehicle) cases are some of the hardest cases for law enforcement to solve because there's almost never any eyewitnesses. There's very rarely any good evidence left behind, fingerprint evidence and things like that, and once we started recovering some of this DNA, it was pretty exciting there for a while."
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Investigators-using-touch-DNA-to-solve-property-3397341.php
New York state set to add all convict DNA to its database.
New York is poised to establish one of the most expansive DNA databases in the nation, requiring people convicted of everything from fare beating to first-degree murder to provide samples of their DNA to the state.
On Tuesday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and state lawmakers were putting the finishing touches on a deal to establish a so-called all-crimes DNA database, a move that is supported by all of the state’s 62 district attorneys and 58 sheriffs, as well as 400 police chiefs. New York already collects DNA from convicted felons and some people convicted of misdemeanors, but prosecutors say collecting DNA from all people convicted of misdemeanors will help them identify suspects of more violent crimes, and, in some cases, exonerate people wrongly accused.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/nyregion/dna-database-pensions-and-redistricting-are-part-of-talks-on-major-albany-deal.html?_r=3&hpw
http://www.empirestatenews.net/News/20120320-1.html
EFF reminds Court forced warrantless DNA collection violates the fourth amendment.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/03/eff-again-reminds-court-forced-warrantless-dna-collection-violates-fourth
Are Police Building a Massive DNA Database?
http://www.alternet.org/rights/154667/are_police_building_a_massive_dna_database_/
It's the general technique for many car burglaries, and thousands of them occur in Harris County every year. Besides shattered glass, often there's not much visible evidence left at the scene, leaving investigators with few clues to catch the culprits.
But sometimes it's what investigators cannot see that helps solve many of these types of crimes.For the last few years, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences aided area law enforcement in solving property crimes by testing evidence for "touch DNA" - microscopic skin cells containing DNA that naturally rub off when an object, like a car steering wheel, is touched. The technology can be used even if the suspect is wearing gloves because there's a high likelihood the skin cells were transferred onto the gloves when the perpetrator was slipping them on.
"It was a pretty incredible tool for us to have to identify some of these suspects," said Sgt. Terry Wilson, of the Harris County Sheriff's Office auto-theft division. "These (burglary of a motor vehicle) cases are some of the hardest cases for law enforcement to solve because there's almost never any eyewitnesses. There's very rarely any good evidence left behind, fingerprint evidence and things like that, and once we started recovering some of this DNA, it was pretty exciting there for a while."
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Investigators-using-touch-DNA-to-solve-property-3397341.php
New York state set to add all convict DNA to its database.
New York is poised to establish one of the most expansive DNA databases in the nation, requiring people convicted of everything from fare beating to first-degree murder to provide samples of their DNA to the state.
On Tuesday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and state lawmakers were putting the finishing touches on a deal to establish a so-called all-crimes DNA database, a move that is supported by all of the state’s 62 district attorneys and 58 sheriffs, as well as 400 police chiefs. New York already collects DNA from convicted felons and some people convicted of misdemeanors, but prosecutors say collecting DNA from all people convicted of misdemeanors will help them identify suspects of more violent crimes, and, in some cases, exonerate people wrongly accused.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/nyregion/dna-database-pensions-and-redistricting-are-part-of-talks-on-major-albany-deal.html?_r=3&hpw
http://www.empirestatenews.net/News/20120320-1.html
EFF reminds Court forced warrantless DNA collection violates the fourth amendment.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/03/eff-again-reminds-court-forced-warrantless-dna-collection-violates-fourth
Are Police Building a Massive DNA Database?
http://www.alternet.org/rights/154667/are_police_building_a_massive_dna_database_/
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Will the CIA be able to spy on you through your TV or refrigerator?
When people download a film from Netflix to a flatscreen, or turn on web radio, they could be alerting unwanted watchers to exactly what they are doing and where they are.
Spies will no longer have to plant bugs in your home - the rise of 'connected' gadgets controlled by apps will mean that people 'bug' their own homes, says CIA director David Petraeus.
The CIA claims it will be able to 'read' these devices via the internet - and perhaps even via radio waves from outside the home.
Everything from remote controls to clock radios can now be controlled via apps - and chip company ARM recently unveiled low-powered, cheaper chips which will be used in everything from fridges and ovens to doorbells.
The resultant chorus of 'connected' gadgets will be able to be read like a book - and even remote-controlled, according to CIA CIA Director David Petraeus, according to a recent report by Wired's 'Danger Room' blog.
Petraeus says that web-connected gadgets will 'transform' the art of spying - allowing spies to monitor people automatically without planting bugs, breaking and entering or even donning a tuxedo to infiltrate a dinner party.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2115871/The-CIA-wants-spy-TV-Agency-director-says-net-connected-gadgets-transform-surveillance.html
Big Brother wants students to reveal their drinking/drug use habits.
"Whether they're seeking care for a nasty hangover or a twisted
ankle, Cornell University students can expect health center doctors to
ask about their drinking habits.
Deborah Lewis, Cornell’s alcohol projects coordinator, said it’s
important to screen high-risk drinking among college students. If
doctors identify dangerous habits, she said, they can intervene and
point that student toward counseling or other resources. And that means
asking the questions even if a student has symptoms -- say a runny
nose -- that don't suggest a drinking problem.
Cornell’s effort is part of a national movement to more
aggressively identify risky drinking in colleges and intervene with
helpful programs, but not everyone is thrilled. Dan Kuhr, a Cornell
junior studying in Switzerland this spring, finds the policy
unnecessary and annoying. “I don't want to be screened for alcoholism
when all I need is a simple antibiotic,” he wrote in an e-mail to Inside Higher Ed.
The World Health Organization and the U.S. government have long
encouraged alcohol screening to be a routine part of a doctor’s visit,
but Cornell and other colleges instituted policies last year as part of
the Dartmouth Learning Collaborative on High-Risk Drinking. The collaborative is a group of 32 institutions applying public health principles to college alcohol use."
If students’ survey answers reveal likely alcohol abuse, they may be referred to a health center counselor or an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. It's similar to a movement that Cornell has embraced that provides depression screening to students seeking out general medical care.
The debate isn’t whether colleges should help students address dangerous drinking habits – everyone agrees they should. But, at least at Cornell, opinions vary as to whether students should be asked to disclose last Friday’s Jager bombs when being treated for athlete’s foot.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/03/20/more-health-centers-screening-every-client-alcohol-abuse
The debate isn’t whether colleges should help students address dangerous drinking habits – everyone agrees they should. But, at least at Cornell, opinions vary as to whether students should be asked to disclose last Friday’s Jager bombs when being treated for athlete’s foot.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/03/20/more-health-centers-screening-every-client-alcohol-abuse
Citizens Alert app. disguised as a public service app. will spy on citizens.
Your smart phone can tell you the moment someone comments on your Facebook status. But how about if there's an escaped prisoner on the loose in your neighborhood, or if you're about to drive into a severe storm?
That's the vision of Jim Bender, the CEO of Ping4, a Nahsua-based technology startup, and he's getting high-profile backing from both Gov. John Lynch and Manchester police. http://ping4.com/
Bender introduced the Citizens Alert smart-phone application at a State House press conference Monday attended by the governor and city police officials.
Ping4's app, which is free and is available for Android and iPhone devices, uses a phone's geo-location features to provide users with public safety alerts, which are supplied by participating agencies. That's the vision of Jim Bender, the CEO of Ping4, a Nahsua-based technology startup, and he's getting high-profile backing from both Gov. John Lynch and Manchester police. http://ping4.com/
Bender introduced the Citizens Alert smart-phone application at a State House press conference Monday attended by the governor and city police officials.
Ping4 App. Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Ping4App
For now, only the Manchester Police Department is using the system, but Bender said Ping4 is running trials with the University of New Hampshire and many other police departments in the state. He said the company is in talks with “hundreds” of agencies in New England and beyond.
“The idea was born in Manchester, but it's going to be global,” Bender said.
“What we decided in going with citizen alerts, from police or a university, metro traffic or the National Weather Service, for example, we can drive downloads locally,” Bender said.
Bender stressed that users would be able to control the kind of alerts they receive by choosing the things they wanted to subscribe to, and he said the company has dealt with privacy concerns.
“This is absolutely not an issue,” he said. “For anyone who downloads the app, nobody knows who you are or where you are. They could subpoena us all day, we don't have it.”
Some privacy advocates have raised concerns about the use of geo-location data by app providers. While such apps are required to get users' consent to use their location, they don't have to disclose how and when location information is used, and some studies have shown that not all apps get user consent.
http://www.unionleader.com/article/20120319/NEWS07/703199951
http://www.policemag.com/Channel/Technology/News/2012/03/19/N-H-Department-Deploys-Notification-Smartphone-App.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+POLICE-All+%28POLICE+Magazine%29
Ping4 press conference with Manchester, NH police dept.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwYh1kVrWlg
Protesters being forced to have their iris's scanned as a condition of early release.
Protesters and their legal advisers were surprised yesterday to learn that the size of their bail was being affected by whether defendants were willing to have the distinctive patterns of their irises photographed and logged into a database.
Police and courts have been photographing irises since 2010, once at booking and once on arraignment. The practice is a response to a couple of instances in which mistaken identity allowed someone facing serious charges to go free by impersonating another defendant up on minor charges.
The idea of the state collecting distinctive biometric information from people who haven't even been charged with a crime yet, much less convicted of one, makes civil libertarians nervous, though, and over the last two years they've pushed back. Unlike fingerprints, they argue, no law was ever passed to require iris photographs -- it's just a policy. And while police regularly tell arrestees that the photographs are mandatory, and that failing to be photographed will prolong their stay in jail, defendants have often refused to comply without serious consequence.
That appears to be changing. Yesterday, a defense lawyer had told Judge Abraham Clott she was under the impression that her client -- not affiliated with Occupy Wall Street, facing charges of marijuana possession -- was not legally bound to submit to an iris photograph. Clott responded in no uncertain terms: Iris photographs may be optional in the sense that the court can proceed without them if it has to, he said, for example if the photographic equipment breaks down. But they are not optional for defendants.
Judge Clott wasn't going it alone in this strict interpretation. National Lawyers Guild NYC President Gideon Oliver said that a memo, presumably from the Office of Court Administration has been circulated to judges, instructing them that iris photographs are mandatory.
Even if iris photographs could be made mandatory, though, they should never be used in setting bail, said Moira Meltzer-Cohen, a third-year law student who helps run Occupy Wall Street's bail services. "In New York, bail can only legally be set for a single purpose: to ensure that defendants appear at their next hearing," she said.
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/03/as_occupy_arres.php
http://endthelie.com/2012/03/20/ows-activists-bail-affected-by-refusing-iris-scans-after-brutal-crackdown/#axzz1pepUdmNY
Police and courts have been photographing irises since 2010, once at booking and once on arraignment. The practice is a response to a couple of instances in which mistaken identity allowed someone facing serious charges to go free by impersonating another defendant up on minor charges.
The idea of the state collecting distinctive biometric information from people who haven't even been charged with a crime yet, much less convicted of one, makes civil libertarians nervous, though, and over the last two years they've pushed back. Unlike fingerprints, they argue, no law was ever passed to require iris photographs -- it's just a policy. And while police regularly tell arrestees that the photographs are mandatory, and that failing to be photographed will prolong their stay in jail, defendants have often refused to comply without serious consequence.
That appears to be changing. Yesterday, a defense lawyer had told Judge Abraham Clott she was under the impression that her client -- not affiliated with Occupy Wall Street, facing charges of marijuana possession -- was not legally bound to submit to an iris photograph. Clott responded in no uncertain terms: Iris photographs may be optional in the sense that the court can proceed without them if it has to, he said, for example if the photographic equipment breaks down. But they are not optional for defendants.
Judge Clott wasn't going it alone in this strict interpretation. National Lawyers Guild NYC President Gideon Oliver said that a memo, presumably from the Office of Court Administration has been circulated to judges, instructing them that iris photographs are mandatory.
Even if iris photographs could be made mandatory, though, they should never be used in setting bail, said Moira Meltzer-Cohen, a third-year law student who helps run Occupy Wall Street's bail services. "In New York, bail can only legally be set for a single purpose: to ensure that defendants appear at their next hearing," she said.
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/03/as_occupy_arres.php
http://endthelie.com/2012/03/20/ows-activists-bail-affected-by-refusing-iris-scans-after-brutal-crackdown/#axzz1pepUdmNY
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Big Brother wants our license plates to have RFID chips so they can monitor us 24/7.
Connecticut- A lobbyist for the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) industry has convinced Connecticut legislators to consider implanting spy chips on the state's license plates. Last Wednesday, the state Senate Transportation Committee voted unanimously to pass a bill asking the Department of Motor Vehicles to create a report on the implementation of RFID for motor vehicle registration by January 1.
Implanting the chips on license plates would enable real-time monitoring of all vehicles by positioning tracking stations at key points throughout the state. The main interest behind the bill is to generate automated ticket for drivers whose vehicle registration, emissions or insurance certification may have lapsed for a day or two. RFID makes photo enforcement systems far more accurate. Instead of having optical character recognition software identify vehicles from a picture of a license plate -- often guessing when images are unclear -- the chips would broadcast vehicle identity to nearby stations under all weather conditions.
Former astronaut Paul Scully-Power brought the idea to the attention of lawmakers. Scully-Power stands to profit significantly should the technology be adapted at the state level, as he is the former CEO of Mikoh Corporation and SensorConnect Inc, both of which sell RFID solutions. Scully-Power's written testimony to highlighted how legislators would fare equally well by adopting the technology.
"There are two main reasons for the Department of Transportation to adopt this type of program," Scully-Power wrote in his testimony. "One, to validate that every vehicle conforms to state regulations. Two, to provide considerable income to the state by identifying vehicles that are violating the existing laws of Connecticut.... The state would collect $29,619,500 per year or $79,858,500 in the same three-year period compared to the $594,000 it was able to collect."
The financial estimates were based on the number of uninsured drivers the system could hit with $100 tickets. The system also would increase the profitability of red light cameras, which the legislature is currently considering authorizing.
"An RFID program would be phased in gradually and then expanded to accomplish other policing tasks without having to change equipment," Scully-Power wrote. "The second phase would be to implement speeding violations."
http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2012/ct-sb288.pdf
Implanting the chips on license plates would enable real-time monitoring of all vehicles by positioning tracking stations at key points throughout the state. The main interest behind the bill is to generate automated ticket for drivers whose vehicle registration, emissions or insurance certification may have lapsed for a day or two. RFID makes photo enforcement systems far more accurate. Instead of having optical character recognition software identify vehicles from a picture of a license plate -- often guessing when images are unclear -- the chips would broadcast vehicle identity to nearby stations under all weather conditions.
Former astronaut Paul Scully-Power brought the idea to the attention of lawmakers. Scully-Power stands to profit significantly should the technology be adapted at the state level, as he is the former CEO of Mikoh Corporation and SensorConnect Inc, both of which sell RFID solutions. Scully-Power's written testimony to highlighted how legislators would fare equally well by adopting the technology.
"There are two main reasons for the Department of Transportation to adopt this type of program," Scully-Power wrote in his testimony. "One, to validate that every vehicle conforms to state regulations. Two, to provide considerable income to the state by identifying vehicles that are violating the existing laws of Connecticut.... The state would collect $29,619,500 per year or $79,858,500 in the same three-year period compared to the $594,000 it was able to collect."
The financial estimates were based on the number of uninsured drivers the system could hit with $100 tickets. The system also would increase the profitability of red light cameras, which the legislature is currently considering authorizing.
"An RFID program would be phased in gradually and then expanded to accomplish other policing tasks without having to change equipment," Scully-Power wrote. "The second phase would be to implement speeding violations."
http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2012/ct-sb288.pdf
Police turning to social media to find suspects & witnesses.
Police investigators in Cincinnati stumbled upon an online video last year
showing an act of armed robbery, helpfully taped by the perpetrators themselves.
The analysts at the city's Real Time Crime Center found the
footage on a Facebook page while using the popular social-media site to
investigate another crime. The suspects were eventually arrested.
"We were looking at friends and friends of friends of the
suspects (in the other case), and we just happened to run across it," says Lt.
Lisa Thomas, who heads the center that was founded two years ago to monitor the
Internet and the cameras installed across the city. "You have guys who are
bragging about their crimes online."
With more netizens flaunting their actions and thoughts in
the open, social media has become a mainstay in police work. Police departments
and federal agencies are aggressively seeking information from social-media
companies, beefing up their budgets and providing training to dig for online
clues left by criminals and victims in targeted investigations.
They can and do routinely order social-media companies to
shut down a Twitter or Facebook page, for example, immediately after a crime has
been committed or have relevant information archived before any changes can be
made. "It's no different than physical evidence," says Bob Hopper, manager of
the Computer
Crimes section at the National
White Collar Crime Center.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-03-18/social-media-law-enforcement/53614910/1
Monday, March 19, 2012
Police department's claim they can't release public records as it might supply terrorists with information is disgraceful.
Washington, DC - A District of Columbia judge has ordered the release of documents related to police policies in a blistering ruling that accused the department of making “transparently false” statements in an effort to keep the records private.
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund requested policies and special orders showing how police in the nation’s capital exercise their authority.
The nonprofit advocacy group submitted a public records request in 2008, then sued the following year after the department refused to provide the records. Two department officials, including Assistant Chief Patrick Burke, said in sworn statements that releasing the requested documents would endanger the public and risked supplying criminals and terrorists with information that could hinder investigations.
The officials had said they determined the documents had to be withheld because there was no logical or meaningful way to exempt certain portions.
But Superior Court Judge Judith Macaluso sharply criticized that blanket response as “melodramatic” and “transparently false,” and said she had “great concern with the credibility” of the two officials, according to a transcript of last Friday’s hearing.
The judge also lambasted a lawyer for the city who submitted the statements, threatening to call his boss, Attorney General Irvin Nathan, if the office made a similar mistake again. The lawyer, Chad Copeland, apologized at the hearing and said he recognized he had erred.
“You can’t just make things up and sign under penalty of perjury, and that’s what they’ve done in this case,” Verheyden-Hilliard, who said the refusal to provide the documents amounted to “really appalling conduct.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-judge-orders-police-to-release-policy-documents-in-ruling-that-chastises-department/2012/03/15/gIQA1eGKES_story.html
City refuses to turn over investigation into officer misconduct.
Yakima, WA. - A Yakima police officer is accused of misconduct and put on paid leave. City officials won’t turn over reports explaining why.
After learning earlier this month that Sgt. Erik Hildebrand had been placed on leave, the Yakima Herald-Republic filed a public records request March 9 seeking a copy of the police department’s internal investigation of the officer.
But city officials refuse to release it, saying an exemption in the state Public Records Act allows them to retain records in an active investigation.
http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2012/03/17/city-refuses-to-turn-over-investigation-into-officer-misconduct
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund requested policies and special orders showing how police in the nation’s capital exercise their authority.
The nonprofit advocacy group submitted a public records request in 2008, then sued the following year after the department refused to provide the records. Two department officials, including Assistant Chief Patrick Burke, said in sworn statements that releasing the requested documents would endanger the public and risked supplying criminals and terrorists with information that could hinder investigations.
The officials had said they determined the documents had to be withheld because there was no logical or meaningful way to exempt certain portions.
But Superior Court Judge Judith Macaluso sharply criticized that blanket response as “melodramatic” and “transparently false,” and said she had “great concern with the credibility” of the two officials, according to a transcript of last Friday’s hearing.
The judge also lambasted a lawyer for the city who submitted the statements, threatening to call his boss, Attorney General Irvin Nathan, if the office made a similar mistake again. The lawyer, Chad Copeland, apologized at the hearing and said he recognized he had erred.
“You can’t just make things up and sign under penalty of perjury, and that’s what they’ve done in this case,” Verheyden-Hilliard, who said the refusal to provide the documents amounted to “really appalling conduct.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-judge-orders-police-to-release-policy-documents-in-ruling-that-chastises-department/2012/03/15/gIQA1eGKES_story.html
City refuses to turn over investigation into officer misconduct.
Yakima, WA. - A Yakima police officer is accused of misconduct and put on paid leave. City officials won’t turn over reports explaining why.
After learning earlier this month that Sgt. Erik Hildebrand had been placed on leave, the Yakima Herald-Republic filed a public records request March 9 seeking a copy of the police department’s internal investigation of the officer.
But city officials refuse to release it, saying an exemption in the state Public Records Act allows them to retain records in an active investigation.
http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2012/03/17/city-refuses-to-turn-over-investigation-into-officer-misconduct
DHS considers yawning, being fidgety or having goose bumps can make you a potential terrorist.
The office of Homeland Security is warning
that apparently innocuous behaviour in passengers could be a sign that they are
a terrorist.
A presentation released by the New Jersey office of the agency warns that passengers yawning, developing goose bumps and appearing fidgety could all be potential terrorists.
The presentation titled Terrorism Awareness and Prevention says it aims to educate the public on recognizing potential threats in any environment including at work and in the community as well as how to report them.
It says the 'signs will become particularly evident in a person's eyes, face, neck and body movements,' the department lists some of the following descriptions as warning signs to watch out for.
If an individual has a cold stare, 'trance-like gaze' or wide 'flashbulb eyes,' they may be a terrorist, according to the report.
If they seem to exaggerate yawning in conversation, repeatedly touch their face or ears, or excessively watch a clock or fidget, these may be indicators of a terrorist.
The culture of citizen spying and pervasive paranoia in the United States is getting to the point of patent absurdity, yet somehow many American nonsensically seem to continue to treat it as gospel.
With this culture of voluntary surveillance expanding into the world of smartphones, it will only be easier for the government to encourage people to report any and all activity as suspicious and potential indicators of terrorism.
NJ- Office of Homeland Security & Preparedness pdf.
http://info.publicintelligence.net/NJ-TerrorismAwareness.pdf
http://rt.com/news/terrorist-security-behavior-yawn-835/
http://rt.com/news/fbi-terrorists-guide-security-171/
http://endthelie.com/2012/03/21/homeland-security-pretty-much-all-bodily-movement-is-an-indicator-of-potential-terrorism/#axzz1pkoC2AUf
A presentation released by the New Jersey office of the agency warns that passengers yawning, developing goose bumps and appearing fidgety could all be potential terrorists.
The presentation titled Terrorism Awareness and Prevention says it aims to educate the public on recognizing potential threats in any environment including at work and in the community as well as how to report them.
It says the 'signs will become particularly evident in a person's eyes, face, neck and body movements,' the department lists some of the following descriptions as warning signs to watch out for.
If an individual has a cold stare, 'trance-like gaze' or wide 'flashbulb eyes,' they may be a terrorist, according to the report.
If they seem to exaggerate yawning in conversation, repeatedly touch their face or ears, or excessively watch a clock or fidget, these may be indicators of a terrorist.
The culture of citizen spying and pervasive paranoia in the United States is getting to the point of patent absurdity, yet somehow many American nonsensically seem to continue to treat it as gospel.
With this culture of voluntary surveillance expanding into the world of smartphones, it will only be easier for the government to encourage people to report any and all activity as suspicious and potential indicators of terrorism.
NJ- Office of Homeland Security & Preparedness pdf.
http://info.publicintelligence.net/NJ-TerrorismAwareness.pdf
http://rt.com/news/terrorist-security-behavior-yawn-835/
http://rt.com/news/fbi-terrorists-guide-security-171/
http://endthelie.com/2012/03/21/homeland-security-pretty-much-all-bodily-movement-is-an-indicator-of-potential-terrorism/#axzz1pkoC2AUf
Why you should guard your personal data at all costs.
From general wiretapping to data retention to face recognition to mass tracking of individuals, the same pattern is evident: people demanding their right to privacy are treated as criminals who are obstructing justice just for the sake of it.
Never in history have authorities been so carelessly curious about the people they are supposed to work for, and taken so much information from them by force. The doctrine is evident: “Your private data may be useful to us, therefore, we shall take it by force; who cares if you are inconvenienced by us digging through your online habits in depth”.
Imagine that the authorities have access to your daily movements, everything you’ve said and everybody you’ve talked to for the past couple of years. (They do, or are seeking to have that access.) How would a hypothetical future… administration… be able to use this against you? Could they conceivably see any patterns?
You know, it doesn’t matter if you haven’t broken a single law. What matters is how your data is interpreted.
“Any data collected must be assumed to leak and be used against the citizen in the worst conceivable way. If this worst conceivable way is not acceptable in a democratic society, then the data may not be collected in the first place.”
http://falkvinge.net/2012/03/17/collected-personal-data-will-always-be-used-against-the-citizens/
What privacy advocates don't get about data tracking
on the web.
Rather than caring about what they know about me, we should care about what they know about us. Detailed knowledge of individuals and their behavior coupled with the aggregate data on human behavior now available at unprecedented scale grants incredible power. Knowing about all of us - how we behave, how our behavior has changed over time, under what conditions our behavior is subject to change, and what factors are likely to impact our decision-making under various conditions - provides a roadmap for designing persuasive technologies. For the most part, the ethical implications of widespread deployment of persuasive technologies remains unexamined.
Using all of the trace data we leave in our digital wakes to target ads is known as "behavioral advertising." This is what Target was doing to identify pregnant women, and what Amazon does with every user and every purchase. But behavioral advertisers do more than just use your past behavior to guess what you want. Their goal is actually to alter user behavior. Companies use extensive knowledge gleaned from innumerable micro-experiments and massive user behavior data over time to design their systems to elicit the monetizable behavior that their business models demand. At levels as granular as Google testing click-through rates on 41 different shades of blue, data-driven companies have learned how to channel your attention, initiate behavior, and keep you coming back.
The goals of the companies collecting the data are not necessarily the same as the goals of the people they are tracking. Another is that, as we establish norms for dealing with personal and behavioral data we should approach the issue with a full understanding of the scope of what's at stake. To understand the stakes, our critiques of ad tracking (and the fundamental asymmetries it creates) need to focus more on power and less on privacy.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/its-not-all-about-you-what-privacy-advocates-dont-get-about-data-tracking-on-the-web/254533/
Never in history have authorities been so carelessly curious about the people they are supposed to work for, and taken so much information from them by force. The doctrine is evident: “Your private data may be useful to us, therefore, we shall take it by force; who cares if you are inconvenienced by us digging through your online habits in depth”.
Imagine that the authorities have access to your daily movements, everything you’ve said and everybody you’ve talked to for the past couple of years. (They do, or are seeking to have that access.) How would a hypothetical future… administration… be able to use this against you? Could they conceivably see any patterns?
You know, it doesn’t matter if you haven’t broken a single law. What matters is how your data is interpreted.
“Any data collected must be assumed to leak and be used against the citizen in the worst conceivable way. If this worst conceivable way is not acceptable in a democratic society, then the data may not be collected in the first place.”
http://falkvinge.net/2012/03/17/collected-personal-data-will-always-be-used-against-the-citizens/
What privacy advocates don't get about data tracking
on the web.
Rather than caring about what they know about me, we should care about what they know about us. Detailed knowledge of individuals and their behavior coupled with the aggregate data on human behavior now available at unprecedented scale grants incredible power. Knowing about all of us - how we behave, how our behavior has changed over time, under what conditions our behavior is subject to change, and what factors are likely to impact our decision-making under various conditions - provides a roadmap for designing persuasive technologies. For the most part, the ethical implications of widespread deployment of persuasive technologies remains unexamined.
Using all of the trace data we leave in our digital wakes to target ads is known as "behavioral advertising." This is what Target was doing to identify pregnant women, and what Amazon does with every user and every purchase. But behavioral advertisers do more than just use your past behavior to guess what you want. Their goal is actually to alter user behavior. Companies use extensive knowledge gleaned from innumerable micro-experiments and massive user behavior data over time to design their systems to elicit the monetizable behavior that their business models demand. At levels as granular as Google testing click-through rates on 41 different shades of blue, data-driven companies have learned how to channel your attention, initiate behavior, and keep you coming back.
The goals of the companies collecting the data are not necessarily the same as the goals of the people they are tracking. Another is that, as we establish norms for dealing with personal and behavioral data we should approach the issue with a full understanding of the scope of what's at stake. To understand the stakes, our critiques of ad tracking (and the fundamental asymmetries it creates) need to focus more on power and less on privacy.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/its-not-all-about-you-what-privacy-advocates-dont-get-about-data-tracking-on-the-web/254533/
Friday, March 16, 2012
Public records lawsuits against the police will cost taxpayers $300,000 in WA.
Seattle, WA- Newly obtained documents show the Seattle Police Department is willing to lose hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars in lawsuits to keep police records a secret.
The department believes a public records fight over thousands of dash cam videos could carry a heavy price tag this year, according to the city's own internal documents.
SPD sued attorney James Egan after he requested police videos.
Documents Egan obtained show the department may be fighting a losing battle by trying to keep such records secret. He uncovered a city graph that shows since 2007, the city has made a growing number of payouts for failure to release public records.
"That was a surprise," Egan said, "That was a shocker."
The department has already paid out more than $100,000, and this year it expects the amount to nearly triple with a projected loss of at least $300,000.
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Documents-show-city-could-pay-out-300K-in-public-records-lawsuits-142563655.html
The department believes a public records fight over thousands of dash cam videos could carry a heavy price tag this year, according to the city's own internal documents.
SPD sued attorney James Egan after he requested police videos.
Documents Egan obtained show the department may be fighting a losing battle by trying to keep such records secret. He uncovered a city graph that shows since 2007, the city has made a growing number of payouts for failure to release public records.
"That was a surprise," Egan said, "That was a shocker."
The department has already paid out more than $100,000, and this year it expects the amount to nearly triple with a projected loss of at least $300,000.
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Documents-show-city-could-pay-out-300K-in-public-records-lawsuits-142563655.html
Prosecutorial discovery demands reform.
A court-appointed special prosecutor's report made public on Thursday details findings that U.S. Justice Department attorneys intentionally withheld information from the defense in the bungled prosecution of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.
The Stevens investigation and prosecution "were permeated by the systematic concealment" of key evidence that would have been beneficial to his defense and "seriously damaged the testimony and credibility" of the government's key witness, former Veco chief Bill Allen, the report said.
The 514-page report, by Washington lawyer Henry Schuelke, was released Thursday by order of U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who presided over Stevens' 2008 trial and hired Schuelke to evaluate whether anyone on the Stevens prosecution team should be charged with criminal contempt of court.
Schuelke did not recommend criminal charges. He said the problems he found did not rise to the legal level of criminal contempt because the judge never issued any direct order the attorneys disobeyed.
(click on link below to read the 514 page report)
http://media.thenewstribune.com/smedia/2012/03/15/08/12/1fPqVX.So.7.pdf
"Were there a clear, specific and unequivocal order of the Court which commanded the disclosure of this information, we are satisfied that a criminal contempt prosecution would lie," he wrote.
"We conclude, however, that the record demonstrates that Judge Sullivan admonished the Government to 'follow the law' and did not issue a clear, specific and unequivocal order such that it would support a finding by a District Court, beyond a reasonable doubt, that (the contempt law) had been violated," the report found.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/03/15/2067970/stevens-prosecutors-intentionally.html
NACDL calls for discovery reform:
The Supreme Court's holding in Brady v. Maryland requires the prosecutor to disclose to the defense all information favorable to the accused, pertaining to either the determination of guilt or imposition of sentencing. As many commentators have observed, the rule of Brady is simply not the rule in our courts. The resulting injustice - as evidenced by persistent claims and findings of the suppression of favorable information and actual wrongful convictions - calls for real change. NACDL supports codification of the prosecution’s obligation to provide discovery to the defense of all information favorable to the accused.
http://www.nacdl.org/discoveryreform/
The Stevens investigation and prosecution "were permeated by the systematic concealment" of key evidence that would have been beneficial to his defense and "seriously damaged the testimony and credibility" of the government's key witness, former Veco chief Bill Allen, the report said.
The 514-page report, by Washington lawyer Henry Schuelke, was released Thursday by order of U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who presided over Stevens' 2008 trial and hired Schuelke to evaluate whether anyone on the Stevens prosecution team should be charged with criminal contempt of court.
Schuelke did not recommend criminal charges. He said the problems he found did not rise to the legal level of criminal contempt because the judge never issued any direct order the attorneys disobeyed.
(click on link below to read the 514 page report)
http://media.thenewstribune.com/smedia/2012/03/15/08/12/1fPqVX.So.7.pdf
"Were there a clear, specific and unequivocal order of the Court which commanded the disclosure of this information, we are satisfied that a criminal contempt prosecution would lie," he wrote.
"We conclude, however, that the record demonstrates that Judge Sullivan admonished the Government to 'follow the law' and did not issue a clear, specific and unequivocal order such that it would support a finding by a District Court, beyond a reasonable doubt, that (the contempt law) had been violated," the report found.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/03/15/2067970/stevens-prosecutors-intentionally.html
NACDL calls for discovery reform:
The Supreme Court's holding in Brady v. Maryland requires the prosecutor to disclose to the defense all information favorable to the accused, pertaining to either the determination of guilt or imposition of sentencing. As many commentators have observed, the rule of Brady is simply not the rule in our courts. The resulting injustice - as evidenced by persistent claims and findings of the suppression of favorable information and actual wrongful convictions - calls for real change. NACDL supports codification of the prosecution’s obligation to provide discovery to the defense of all information favorable to the accused.
http://www.nacdl.org/discoveryreform/
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