"BioWatch" samplers located in subways & atop buildings are defective.

Washington, DC - For two years, the nationwide BioWatch system, intended to protect Americans against a biological attack, operated with defective components that left it unable to detect lethal germs, according to scientists with direct knowledge of the matter.

The federal official who oversaw installation of the components was quietly shifted to a position with no responsibility for BioWatch, and the entire episode was kept out of public view.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees BioWatch, opened an internal investigation, whose status remains confidential.

In more than 30 cities, BioWatch samplers located atop buildings, in train stations and in other public places suck air through dry filters around the clock. Once a day, the filters are taken to public health laboratories to be analyzed for traces of smallpox, anthrax, plague and other pathogens.

Lab technicians extract genetic material from the filters and then use kits, called assays, to release fluorescent dyes into it. When a laser is shined through the mixture, the dyes are supposed to light up if one of the pathogens targeted by BioWatch is present. The labs originally used a series of separate assays, each designed to detect a specific germ. In 2007, Homeland Security equipped most of the labs with new kits intended to screen for multiple pathogens at the same time.

The aim was to reduce personnel costs and enable faster detection of a biological attack, and thus a speedier response.

But the new components, called "multiplex" assays, triggered false alarms, a recurring problem with BioWatch since the system was put into operation nationwide in 2003.

After scientists at many of the labs voiced concerns, Homeland Security officials, in consultation with microbiologists from other federal agencies, ordered testing of the new assays.

The tests, conducted in secrecy at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, found that the kits were unsuitable for BioWatch, scientists familiar with the matter said. They spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the information.

The multiplex assays could not distinguish between the bacterium that causes tularemia, a potentially deadly condition also known as rabbit fever, and similar but benign organisms called "near neighbors" that are abundant in outdoor environments. The original assays had exhibited the same problem. But the multiplex assays had an additional shortcoming, scientists said: They were found to be far less sensitive to the presence of actual pathogens than Homeland Security officials had presumed.

Some of the scientists familiar with BioWatch said the multiplex assays were put into use without adequate testing to validate their effectiveness.

The assays were designed at the CDC and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and were built to Homeland Security's specifications by a private company, the scientists said.

Richard F. Meyer, a microbiologist who helped develop the multiplex assays while at the CDC and later supervised their installation as a contractor for Homeland Security, defended the kits.

Meyer said the original assays "were past their life cycle and in constant need of repair." Data collected by Livermore scientists, he said, "supported the use of the (new) technology." Meyer acknowledged that he lost his contracting role with Homeland Security because of dissatisfaction over how the multiplex assays performed once installed.

"When you don't agree with those in charge you get pushed aside," he said in an email.

The Los Angeles Times reported in July that BioWatch has been unable to distinguish between dangerous and benign organisms, and that as of 2008, federal agencies had documented 56 false alarms.

In one of those incidents, during the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, BioWatch units signaled the presence of the tularemia bacterium, triggering tense deliberations among local, state and federal officials over what steps should be taken to protect the public.

After follow-up tests found no traces of the germ at the convention site, officials decided not to take emergency measures, and that evening Barack Obama accepted his party's nomination for president on an outdoor stage, as scheduled, before a crowd of more than 80,000 people. Not once have public health officials had enough confidence in a BioWatch alarm to evacuate an area, dispense antibiotics or take any other emergency action.

After considering the potential disruption from false alarms, federal aviation officials shelved plans to install air-sampling units inside the nation's major airports.
http://azdailysun.com/news/national/u-s-biowatch-technology-defective/article_8486933c-422f-5dc1-99fe-e8ecaa47b296.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/08/nation/la-na-biowatch-20120708
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/08/nation/la-na-biowatch-20120908
http://homelandsecuritystudies.blogspot.com/

Biowatch & public health surveillance.

Evaluating Systems for the Early Detection of Biological Threats (The National Academies Press)
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12688

Microsoft funding allows police to acquire license plate scanners & spy gear from the National Fusion Center Association.

A recent post published on the PrivacySOS.org blog directs viewers to a YouTube video produced by PIPS Technology, the self-described world leader in automated license plate recognition, or ALPR, technology. PIPS’ devices are deployed in police cruisers across the US, and in Little Rock, AK, for example, cops say the equipment is well worth the $18,000-per-unit price tag. But while PIPS may be touting their product as something of a must-have for police agencies, the manufacturer is staying silent when it comes to discussing the blatant privacy violations it commits every second its in use.

"It can scan the mall parking lot in a matter of minutes," Sergeant Brian Dedrick, of the North Little Rock Police Department tells Arkansas Matters of his ALPR scanner. "We couldn't even do that three years go."

Sgt. Dedrick is right — ALPRs allow law enforcement to do something that was unheard of only a few years ago.

Lieutenant Christopher Morgon of the Long Beach Police Department in Southern California is one of a few cops interviewed by PIPS in their latest advertisement video picked up by the blog, and he agrees that license-plate scanners let his agency do something that was once unheard of. Before adding ALPR technology to cruisers, cops there could only manually dial-in around 150 license plates in a single shift. By equipping patrol cars with high-tech software and a slew of surveillance cameras, though, Lt. Morgon says today the department does a lot more than that.

“If you dedicated your day to driving around and putting your vehicle in a place where there’s lots of cars, you could read anywhere from 5 to 10,000 plates in that same shift,” Lt. Morgon says, adding that a single cop car can collect data from upwards of three surveillance cameras simultaneously.

Rita Sklar, the director of the local American Civil Liberties Union chapter, tells Arkansas Matters, "I don't think I have a problem” with the scanner themselves. It’s the sharing of information and how easily it can be connected to individuals, not just automobiles that raise concerns.

"It's just one chink in the wall of privacy," she says.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) defends the scanners, though, and notes that while the technology practically commits clean-cut privacy violations, there’s one little step — that single mouse click — that keeps them in the clear:

“A license plate number identifies a specific vehicle, not a specific person,” the IACP notes in their official scanner guidelines. “Although a license plate number may be linked or otherwise associated with an identifiable person, this potential can only be realized through a distinct, separate step (e.g., an inquiry to a Secretary of State or Department of Motor Vehicles data system). Absent this extra step, the license plate number and the time and location data attached to it arenot personally identifying. Thus, even though LPR systems automate the collection of license plate numbers, it is the investigative process that identifies individuals.”

“That's a real stretch. But it is a powerful legal assertion,” PrivacySOS notes. “By arguing that license plate reader data isn't personally identifiable, IACP is implicitly saying that it mustn't be protected as seriously as does personal information about us that doesn't require clicking a mouse — the ‘distinct, separate step.’”

“That's relevant in the real world because it means officers can collect, retain and share this very sensitive information with virtually no restrictions.”

In Long Beach, CA - Lt. Morgon believes that the department has raked in around $3 million in traffic ticket fines after using ALPR scanners for only three years. The LAPD has so far invested $1.8 million on the cameras — and have used them to log more than 160 million data points.
http://rt.com/usa/news/license-plate-police-department-520/

Police acquire license plate scanners and spy gear from fusion centers.

Many of the fusion centers that do exist no longer even allude to “terrorism” in their mission statements. They are all about fighting crime, and their “success stories” are more likely to concern automobile theft and drug rings than anything to do with “national security.” As the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center put it, they need funds to fight gunplay on streets: “That’s terror right there in our community. And that kind of terror is one that’s experienced in big cities and small towns across the state.”

If police departments can invoke fusion centers when they apply to the DHS for grants that they actually spend on license plate recognition systems, electronic records management, cell phone tracking devices, data mining software and “handheld citation issuance units and accessories,” then why not do it? The DC Metro Police got equipment worth $725,000 that way.

At a time when the nation’s schools and infrastructure could have urgently used an infusion of taxpayers’ dollars, funds intended for the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center were spent by the Arizona Department of Public Safety on two Chevrolet Tahoe sports utility vehicles.

The San Diego fusion center, meanwhile, seemed to be staffed with wannabe spies with a voracious appetite for electronic equipment. It used its DHS funds on “shirt-button” and “pinhole” cameras, and got 116 computers and related gadgets for its 80 full-time employees. The 55 flat screen TV’s it purchased for “training purposes” for $75,000 were used instead for “open-source monitoring” (otherwise known as “watching the news.”)

In 2010 an assessment of fusion centers was carried out by the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis and the Program Manager of the Information Sharing Environment (ISE).  The DHS did not willingly share these findings with the Senate Subcommittee. Indeed, they originally said they did not exist.

How did the Members of Congress finally obtain the 2010 assessment? They did so after the DHS obtained the “consent” of a “private, non-governmental organization, the National Fusion Center Association (NFCA), which supposedly had the authority to represent the 68 centers subject to review.” This previously unknown, private agency wrote a letter to the Subcommittee saying it had “authorized” the DHS to share the assessment with Congress.

In the rush to stand-up the department’s intelligence arm, the short-staffed office relied heavily on contractors, such as Booz Allen Hamilton and General Dynamics, which reaped millions of federal dollars.

It is a universe marked by redundancy. Information currently flows from fusion centers into a national “information sharing environment” such as the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN), Protected Critical Infrastructure Information (PCII) Program, and Homeland Secure Data Network (HSDN – for classified data), which all sit alongside the Department of Justice’s Regional Information Sharing System (RISS), the FBI’s Regional Data Exchange and eGuardian, the Naval Investigative Services’ Law Enforcement Information Exchange (LInX) and the Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit’s (LEIU) LEO network (LEIU is a private organization of public law enforcement officials, including chiefs of police).

Led by a former DHS grants official who lobbies for increased federal funding for fusion centers, the NFCA receives funds from Microsoft, ESRI, Thomson-Reuters, Mutualink and other firms that want business with fusion centers. 

Mike Sena, president of the National Fusion Center Association, appeared at the hearing in defense of the work being done by fusion centers. His group lobbies for federal funding in support of fusion center activities, but the Senate investigators uncovered that it is a private organization “funded by corporations who seek to do business with fusion centers,” like Microsoft.

"We look at terrorism as a criminal activity," Sena said. "Oftentimes when we do investigations, the activity that was involved was not somebody out there building the bomb. It was individuals who were involved in criminal activity to raise funds for terrorist organizations,” he added.
http://privacysos.org/node/838
http://www.charityandsecurity.org/news/Senate_Investigation_Fusion_Centers_Do_Not_Help_Counter_Terror_Threaten_Civil_Liberties
http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v24n4/intelligence-fusion-centers.html

download the report, "Federal Support For and Involvement In State And Local Fusion Centers" (.pdf)

download exhibits that accompany the fusion center report (.pdf)

read a statement from Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on the report

National media largely ignores the growing police camera networks in urban areas.

If you’ve attended a Carolina Panthers game or run in an uptown 5K recently, there’s a good chance images of you were captured by Charlotte-Mecklenburg police cameras and stored on department servers.

After beefing up their camera network in advance of September’s Democratic National Convention, police now have access to more than 500 surveillance cameras perched on traffic lights, mounted on buildings and focused on sensitive areas across the city.

But what they don’t have is a rule book giving officers clear guidance on how best to use their expanding power to watch the city’s streets and residents. A team of police officers, technicians and lawyers is literally writing it now, even as department leaders make plans to move the cameras to new corridors and crime-plagued communities.

Civil liberties advocates and civil rights activists worry the cameras will invade the privacy of law-abiding residents and raise the risk of racial profiling in high-crime areas. 

“They’re not going to be in Ballantyne. They’re not going to be on Rea Road or out in Myers Park.

We know where they’re going to be,” said James Ferguson, a prominent Charlotte civil rights attorney. “More likely than not, they will be placed in areas that are labeled high-crime areas, and that becomes a surrogate for racial minority areas.”

Charlotte joins a growing number of cities using surveillance cameras. Chicago, for instance, had an estimated 10,000 cameras by 2011. Baltimore had more than 500, concentrated in the city’s downtown area.

A study by the Urban Institute last year said use of the cameras has spread so fast authorities haven’t been able to do thorough studies of their impact on crime. The Urban Institute study examined camera systems in Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and found that crime did drop in many areas after cameras were installed.

By 2011, when Democrats announced they would hold their presidential nominating convention in Charlotte, police could pull up images from 400 cameras, mostly in the Central Division, which includes uptown.

That number increased to more than 500 cameras by the first day of the convention.

The cameras, typically encased in white plastic, peer out at the world from behind a transparent dome that protects the lens from the elements as well as vandals. They cost between $8,000 and $8,500.

Charlotte’s not the only city to add cameras for a political convention.

Denver’s police department had 13 cameras recording its downtown before the 2008 DNC. By 2010, the department was monitoring more than 100. Tampa Bay bought 119 cameras before the Republican National Convention, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Across the bay, in St. Petersburg, 26 cameras purchased for the RNC have been shelved while the city council decides what to do with them.

The CMPD’s Medlock said some of Charlotte’s newest cameras are focused on the airport and places where high-profile dignitaries stayed during the DNC.

Officers are still deciding which cameras to move, and to where. Medlock said the department will look at crime trends for help. The department isn’t seeking input from the public or from the City Council – steps other departments have taken in setting up surveillance policies.

The department also has to deal with physical constraints, like whether a tree or building blocks a view of a crime hotspot, or whether a camera has access to steady electrical power. Cameras won’t peer into private buildings or homes, police say.

Still, some critics suggest the cameras should be retired entirely.

“There’s nothing that says simply because you have cameras that you have to use them, particularly when you think about the potential for harm when you go out with a solution and look for a problem,” Ferguson said. 

“It’s not just an expectation of privacy, but it’s also a question of to what extent do we allow government intrusion to go unchecked. … We’re talking about using cameras because we’ve got them, not because we need them.”

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/10/27/3626197/expanding-police-camera-network.html#storylink=cpy

The N.C. chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is worried that decisions about how to use the cameras will be made solely behind the walls of the police department, without public oversight or input.

Medlock said he didn’t know the costs of maintaining the network and paying the officers who watch the cameras, which come with a three-year warranty. The Urban Institute study said that in Baltimore, costs from maintenance and vandals exceeded the initial investment.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/10/27/3626197/expanding-police-camera-network.html#storylink=cpy

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/10/27/3626197/expanding-police-camera-network.html

UN whitepaper claims internet users are likely to be terrorists.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, (UNODC) in conjunction with the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force, recently claimed in a white paper entitled The Use of the Internet for Terrorist Purposes that, “The use of the Internet for terrorist purposes is a rapidly growing phenomenon, requiring a proactive and coordinated response from Member States.”

The globalists backing this agenda “by the rule of law” (essentially a United Nations term that suggests US law can be circumvented by way of UN treaty) would love nothing more than to shut down key sections of the internet including alternative news and blogger sites that have the ability to release true and accurate information in near real time.

Richard Barrett, Coordinator of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team Co-Chair of the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force Working Group on Countering the Use of the Internet for Terrorist Purposes wrote:

“The Working Group is confident that the present report will help to identify the legislative areas in which the United Nations can assist in the implementation by Member States of the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy in combating the use of the Internet for terrorist purposes”.

The UNODC white paper claims that:

“Technology is one of the strategic factors driving the increasing use of the Internet by terrorist organizations and their supporters for a wide range of purposes, including recruitment, financing, propaganda, training, incitement to commit acts of terrorism, and the gathering and dissemination of information for terrorist purposes.” broadly including or lumping in what some would say would be the equivalent to internet bloggers, avid readers, researchers or even smartphone users.

In fact, it gets even worse than that as essentially anyone that makes any type of economic transaction on the internet could be a potential terrorist.

Chapter 1, section 2 – Part 14 of the white paper states;

Terrorist organizations and supporters may also use the Internet to finance acts of terrorism. The manner in which terrorists use the Internet to raise and collect funds and resources may be classified into four general categories: direct solicitation, e-commerce, the exploitation of online payment tools and through charitable organizations.

Direct solicitation refers to the use of websites, chat groups, mass mailings and targeted communications to request donations from supporters.

Websites may also be used as online stores, offering books, audio and video recordings and other items to supporters. Online payment facilities offered through dedicated websites or communications platforms make it easy to transfer funds electronically between parties.

Funds transfers are often made by electronic wire transfer, credit card or alternate payment facilities available via services such as PayPal or Skype.

This is extremely frightening as now the average American citizen is defined as a potential terror threat.

With cameras on almost every street corner, internet police, and cyber crime divisions, the “useless eaters” (as Henry Kissinger calls the general populace) could soon be restricted from accessing useful and god given information internet wide, with globalist propaganda being the only line of communication to the masses.

The UNODC also goes on to outline that terrorists are actually trained over the internet and how these platforms “act as a virtual training camp” for terrorists and terror organizations operations.

“These Internet platforms also provide detailed instructions, often in easily accessible multimedia format and multiple languages, on topics such as how to join terrorist organizations; how to construct explosives, firearms or other weapons or hazardous materials; and how to plan and execute terrorist attacks”.

Chapter 1, Sections 18 reads;

18. For example, Inspire is an online magazine allegedly published by Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula with the stated objective of enabling Muslims to train for jihad at home.

It contains a large amount of ideological material aimed at encouraging terror- ism, including statements attributed to Osama Bin Laden, Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri and other well-known Al-Qaida figures.

The fall 2010 edition included practical instructional material on how to adapt a four-wheel-drive vehicle to carry out an attack on members of the public and how a lone individual could launch an indiscriminate attack by shooting a gun from a tower.
The publication even suggested a target city for such an attack, in order to increase the chances of killing a member of the Government.14

This insinuates that any online publication including websites like infowars.com, and other popular alternative news websites are in fact being covertly targeted by counter-terrorism task forces.
Chapter 1, Section C – Part 30 outlines the “use of the internet to counter terrorist activity” calling for counter intelligence operations.

30. Online discussions provide an opportunity to present opposing viewpoints or to engage in constructive debate, which may have the effect of discouraging potential sup- porters. Counter-narratives with a strong factual foundation may be conveyed through online discussion forums, images and videos.

Successful messages may also demonstrate empathy with the underlying issues that contribute to radicalization, such as political and social conditions, and highlight alternatives to violent means of achieving the desired outcomes.

Strategic communications that provide counter-narratives to terrorist propaganda may also be disseminated via the Internet, in multiple languages, to reach a broad, geographically diverse audience.

Section 30 describes how internet operatives will essentially target online comment sections, forums, and other valuable sources of real time information.

Although this is really nothing new as internet police and operatives have been providing counter intelligence operations on the American populace for years.

The white paper also targets file-sharing networks, section (d) 191 in Chapter IV reads;

(d) File-sharing networks and cloud technology 191. File-sharing websites, such as Rapidshare, Dropbox or Fileshare, provide parties with the ability to easily upload, share, locate and access multimedia files via the Inter- net.

Encryption and anonymizing techniques employed in connection with other forms of Internet communication are similarly applicable to files shared via, inter alia, peer- to-peer (P2P) and File Transfer Protocol (FTP) technology.

For example, in the Hicheur case (see para. 20 above), evidence was presented that digital files in support of terrorist activities were shared via Rapidshare, after being encrypted and compressed for security.

Some file-sharing networks may maintain transfer logs or payment information, which may be relevant in the context of an investigation.

The bottom line is that we can all be lumped in as terrorists under these descriptions provided by the UNODC.
http://theintelhub.com/2012/10/27/new-un-white-paper-defines-internet-users-as-potential-terrorists/

Secret Service wants Americans to spy on peoples' Tweets and report them.

 

The Secret Service has expanded its operation to Twitter, urging Americans to report on their fellow citizens whose tweets “concern you.”

“To report a tweet that concerns you, call the nearest field office in your state,” the Secret Service tweeted on Oct. 23.  The agency then links to a list of contact numbers for Field Offices in each state.

The Secret Service sent another tweet on Wednesday, again asking its followers to report tweets.

“Contact your nearest field office with time-sensitive or critical info or to report a tweet,” it said.
The agency has accrued more than 44,000 followers since joining the social media platform on May 9, 2011.  Twitter surpassed 500 million user accounts around the world earlier this year, 140 million of which are in the U.S.

Twitter has become a popular platform for political engagement, as demonstrated by the surge in tweets during the three presidential debates.  Twitter reported that the first match-up between President Barack Obama and his challenger Mitt Romney on Oct. 3 was the “most tweeted-about event in U.S. politics,” with 10.3 million tweets and as many as 158,690 tweets per minute.

“By comparison, during the 2008 debates between Obama and John McCain, only 500,000 tweets were created total during all four debates,” according to PRO OnCall Technologies.  “The first two minutes of the Obama/Romney debate saw two million tweets.”

In September, a North Carolina man was arrested for threatening to kill President Barack Obama on Twitter.

Intelligence agencies’ interest in social media is not a new phenomenon. The FBI and local police have for years regularly monitored and collected information on US citizens on Facebook and Twitter.

The FBI is reportedly attempting to create a system that would automatically monitor social media users. The bureau is attempting to build a network where ‘suspicious’ posts would be flagged and instantly reveal the user’s location to authorities.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/secret-service-asks-americans-report-tweets-concern-you
http://rt.com/usa/news/secret-service-twitter-threat-207/

DHS wants to indoctrinate our children and it begins in kindergaten.

In a blog on the Department of Homeland Security website, Secretary Janet Napolitano said her department is working to develop the next generation of leaders in cybersecurity beginning in kindergarten.

In a blog titled, “Inspiring the Next Generation of Cyber Professionals,” Napolitano said, “In addition, we are extending the scope of cyber education beyond the federal workplace through the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education, involving students from kindergarten through post-graduate school.”

“At DHS, we’re working to develop the next generation of leaders in cybersecurity while fostering an environment for talented staff to grow in this field. We are building strong cybersecurity career paths within the Department, and in partnership with other government agencies,” the secretary said.

DHS also sponsors the U.S. Cyber Challenge, she said, “a program that works with academia and the private sector to identify and develop the best and brightest cyber talent to meet our nation’s growing and changing security needs.”

The National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) noted on its website that the Department of Education and the National Science Foundation are leading the Formal Cybersecurity Education Component.

“Their mission is to bolster formal cybersecurity education programs encompassing kindergarten through 12th grade, higher education and vocational programs, with a focus on the science, technology, engineering and math disciplines to provide a pipeline of skilled workers for the private sector and government,” the website said.

Under a new recruitment initiative, the department is also calling on recent college graduates to embrace the federal government’s cybersecurity vision, under “The Secretary’s Honors Program.” Napolitano’s goal is to recruit entry-level workers to pursue the program, which would educate on cyber-related skills.

“A digitally literate workforce that uses technology in a secure manner is imperative to the Nation’s economy and the security of our critical infrastructure,” NICE said on its website.

“Just as we teach science, technology, engineering, mathematics, reading, writing and other critical subjects to all students, we also need to educate all students to use technology securely in order to prepare them for the digital world in which we live,” the website added.

The entity would consist of a DHS-appointed board of directors, comprised of members from five different federal agencies and 13 members of the private sector. In sum, NISO’s goal would be to establish a point of connection between the government and U.S. businesses to pool information about potential cybersecurity threats and to collaborate on methods to hinder such threats from occurring.

Many civil liberties groups and freedom-minded lawmakers have expressed concern over such legislation, as these policies could lead to austere privacy rights violations. Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a public interest organization working to maintain an open and free Internet, believes a completely privately-run organization would be an effective mode to combat cybersecurity threats, but that governmental involvement could lead to unfortunate civil consequences.

For example, under the purported legislation, if a business shares information on a user’s web activities that it acquired to preclude the user’s account from being hacked, the government would have the ability to use that information for its own purposes, including for criminal prosecutions independent of cybersecurity. While NISO would comprise mostly private-sector members, Nojeim added, companies could have limited say in promulgating rules, granting federal officials unprecedented influence over the entity’s functions.

"Approaches to cybersecurity that would eliminate pseudonymous and anonymous speech online would put privacy at risk, chill free expression and erode the Internet’s essential openness," Nojeim asserted in a May 2009 congressional testimony. "As the founders of our country recognized, anonymity and pseudonymity play essential roles in allowing political views to be aired."
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/dhs-cybersecurity-education-begins-kindergarten
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/computers/item/13433-dhs-proposes-cybersecurity-education-to-begin-in-kindergarten

Do you have any rights if the Coast Guard boards your boat?

Sorry, but when it comes to Coast Guard boardings, you don’t have any rights.

I’m surprised how many boaters don’t know this. The US Coast Guard can board your boat any time they want, and look anywhere they want, without probable cause or a warrant. They can do this on the open sea, or while you’re asleep aboard in your marina at midnight. They can look through your bedsheets, in your lockers, in your bilges, in your jewelry box, or in your pockets. They can do it carrying just their sidearms, or they can do it carrying assault rifles. They can be polite about it or they can be rude, but mostly they’re polite.

If you’re an avid boater you can expect to be boarded every year or two.


I explain this to my guests aboard Condesa, some of whom are lawyers, and I’m met with disbelief:

“But that’s a blatant violation of your constitutional rights! They need probable cause, or a warrant from a judge!”

“Not on a boat, my friend, not on a boat.”

The U.S. Coast Guard Boarding Policy:

Title 14 section 89 of the United States Code authorizes the U.S. Coast Guard to board vessels subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, anytime, any place upon the high seas and upon any waterway over which the United States has jurisdiction, to make inquires, examinations, inspections, searches, seizures, and arrests. The U.S. Coast Guard does not require a warrant to conduct search, seizures, arrests over any United States Waterway or high seas. The U.S. Coast Guard also have full legal law enforcement power on any land under the control of the United States, as needed to complete any mission.

Sweeping powers. In a paper in the William and Mary Law Review, law scholar Greg Shelton says, “In terms of enforcement power, Coast Guard boarding officers are clearly America's "supercops."”

Another law scholar, Megan Jaye Kight, says, "As such, these provisions comprise what has been accurately characterized as 'one of the most sweeping grants of police authority ever to be written into U.S.  law.'"

If you’d like to know a little more detail about the boarding policy, here’s a longer document, meant for the public, in the Coast Guard’s own words.

And here’s an article by a retired Coast Guard captain and Coast Guard legal counsel. The pull quote kind of says it all: “There are two main ways to board a vessel—either with permission, or without.”
I’ve been boarded by the Coast Guard five times. They’ve always been very polite, and I’ve never resisted, thus incurring the penalty of ten years in prison and a $10,000 fine. They asked permission to board, but since they were going to board anyway no matter what I said, I said yes.

In the post-9/11 world the Coast Guard has added duties, and added weaponry. Instead of a couple of sailors in a rubber boat with big Mae West life jackets and sidearms, a common sight is coasties with assault rifles in high speed inflatables with M-240 machine guns mounted bow and stern. Just the presence of all this weaponry make many nervous or afraid.

I’m not someone who sleeps with a copy of the US Constitution under his pillow, but as “the supreme law of the United States of America,” I take it to be the governing document of my relationship with my government. The first ten amendments to the constitution are called the Bill of Rights, and many have died defending them. Here’s what the Fourth Amendment says:

Amendment IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Over the years and many Supreme Court cases, the Fourth Amendment has been interpreted to mean that without a warrant or probable cause law enforcement can’t search your car, your office, your mountain cabin, your pocket, or your wood shed. According to the Constitution, law enforcement personnel can’t search anywhere in your private universe without probable cause or a warrant issued by a judge.

Except your boat: They can board your boat any time they please and look anywhere they want without warning, warrant, or cause, and they do so every day. This is called a “suspicionless search.”
http://www.sailfeed.com/coast-guard-boardings-and-your-fourth-amendment-rights-part-1

Coast Guard boardings & your 4th. Amendment rights part 2.

Why do they board us and search us, and what are they looking for?

If you ever ask why you, in particular, got singled out from all the boats on the water that day, the boarding officer will say these exact words: “I’m not a liberty to say.” Since there is no requirement for probable cause, it’s impossible to know why you got boarded. It’s just bad luck, or maybe they didn’t like the cut of your jib.

Most of what they’re doing is training. Boarding strange vessels on the high seas is a big part of their job, and our boats are good practice. Many coasties don’t come from a boating background—or certainly haven’t been on a sailboat—and they’ve got learn the ropes.

They’re checking our documentation, safety gear, seeing if we’re drunk, and checking for environmental violations. Are we dumping oil/fuel/sewage into our precious waterways? It’s common to check bilges for oily water, and if there’s an automatic bilge pump in that oily water, we’re so busted.

They’re also checking for fisheries violations, people smuggling, arms smuggling, and drug smuggling. Twenty-six percent of Coast Guard activities are related to drug interdiction, and they are looking for illegal narcotics on every vessel during every boarding.

Considering what we’ve come to expect of our Fourth Amendment rights on land--No, officer, you can’t come in my house and have a look around--suspicionless searches of our boats don’t feel right to most of us. I lived aboard for ten years, and I consider my boat to be my private home. The salons, staterooms, and bunks on our boats are just like our living rooms, bedrooms, and beds at home: Ours, personal, private, and not open for random tours or training missions by strangers.

Some argue that because boats don’t have license plates like cars, the Coast Guard has to board us to check our documentation, but boats either have numbers, a name and hailing port, or both, and these can be seen easily. Any confusion with a boat’s identity can be sorted out by radio or by coming within hailing distance. By the way, the average Coast Guard vessel has advanced optical equipment and digital cameras: When you can barely make out individuals aboard their cutter, they’re reading the numbers off your iPhone.

They’re checking our safety gear (for our own safety, of course) but the police can’t randomly inspect our cars for seat belts, air bags, good brakes, or child seats, nor can they enter our homes to check the gas shut-off, the backflow preventer, or the tags on our mattresses.

Most of us have the right safety gear to protect ourselves and our crew, and most sailors have more safety gear than required: The Coast Guard doesn’t require EPIRBs, radios, LifeSlings, harnesses, jacklines, or any number of items that most sailors consider standard equipment.

They’re protecting the environment, but the police can’t perform random smog checks on cars, or enter our homes to make sure we’re not pouring used motor oil down the bath tub drain.
In short, the justifications for suspicionless searches at sea would never stand up on land, where they would seem downright un-American.
http://www.sailfeed.com/coast-guard-boardings-and-your-fourth-amendment-rights-part-2

Redlex traffic systems lawsuit reveals how politicians & police profit from red-light cameras.

The sheriff of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana petitioned a federal judge last week for more time to answer the charges leveled by a red light camera company. Redflex Traffic Systems in August had filed suit demanding Sheriff Newell Normand hand the Australian firm a check for $8 million.

Redflex is irate that its photo ticketing contract was swept up in a parish government corruption scandal two years ago. A new set of government leaders intent on cleaning up the parish decided on January 27, 2010 to suspend the red light camera program. Officials were most concerned about documents that showed Redflex paid a 3.2 percent cut of the firm's profit on each ticket to lobbyist Bryan Wagner, a former New Orleans city councilman, who in turn shared the funds with the wife of District Judge Robert Murphy. Wagner was set to earn an estimated $90,000 a year from this deal. Jay Morris Specter, the lobbyist who hired Wagner on behalf of Redflex, was released from federal prison on October 21, 2010 after serving time on unrelated fraud charges.

While the cameras were active, Redflex issued tickets that generated $20,756,050 in profit which the Australian company placed in a "lockbox" bank account in the sheriff's office name. Redflex expected payment of $4,741,158 and has assessed $2,622,346 in late fees on the sheriff. Redflex cited this lockbox arrangement specified in the contract with the parish as proof that officials had no legal basis to deny payment. 

"Redflex anticipates the sheriff will assert in defense of this complain that the money is being held pending resolution of litigation concerning the automated traffic signal enforcement ordinance in which it is alleged that the ordinance is unconstitutional," Redflex attorney Dominic J. Gianna wrote in a brief to the court. "The agreement does not allow the sheriff to withhold payment to Redflex on this basis."

The photo ticketing firm also decided to tack on claims for additional damages, including a request for all attorney's fees and the full cost of defending the ticketing program from constitutional challenges in three specific court cases in the parish.

"Sheriff's breach of contract has caused and continues to cause Redflex damage in the nature of lost profits under the agreement as well as the loss of future profits," Gianna wrote. "Redflex is concerned that the breach, in conjunction with comments from the sheriff's office officials, will negatively impact Redflex's reputation and ability to obtain future contracts in Jefferson Parish and will negatively impact Redflex's ability to negotiate similar contracts in other parts of the United States. Redflex is therefore entitled to damages for the loss of any future earnings as a direct result of sheriff's breach."

Redflex had issued a demand for payment in March 2010 (read letter), but the money is still being held in escrow. The red light cameras are also installed, but they do not issue tickets.
http://thenewspaper.com/news/39/3933.asp

A State trooper in a helicopter shoots & kills the driver & passenger in a vehicle fleeing law enforcement. (who needs drones?)

(Mors ab Alto, which translates into  “Death from Above”, is a fitting Slogan of the U.S. Air Force’s 7th Bomb Wing. Stationed ironically enough at Dyess Air Force Base in Texas, but not the border patrol or police officers.)

San Antonio, TX. - Two people died Thursday in the Rio Grande Valley after a trooper in a highway patrol helicopter opened fire on a vehicle fleeing law enforcement.

A Texas Department of Public Safety helicopter joined a pursuit initiated by Texas Parks and Wildlife on Thursday afternoon near La Joya in Hidalgo County, DPS spokeswoman Catherine Cesinger said.

A DPS officer “discharged a weapon” during the chase, according to Cesinger's statement.

She confirmed that two people traveling in the vehicle died, one was injured and transported to a hospital, and six others were captured.

Troopers were looking for additional subjects Thursday afternoon and the Texas Rangers are investigating the incident, Cesinger said.

Additional details were unavailable Thursday night.

DPS has taken an aggressive role on the border in recent years, increasing the number of troopers there, deploying boats and dispatching helicopters with designated marksmen armed with powerful rifles.

As a result, the agency has been involved in a large number of high-speed chases — sometimes ending in what troopers call “splashdowns,” when smugglers drive their vehicles into the Rio Grande to escape U.S. law enforcement.

Cartel operatives on the Mexican side often use boats to try to recover contraband from the smugglers' trucks.

The agency's director has said it's been forced into the role because federal agencies aren't doing enough to secure the border and because smugglers have become more aggressive, resorting to splashdowns, using other vehicles to block pursuits and throwing homemade spikes at officers.

But their methods have been questioned, including decisions to shoot at fleeing vehicles from patrol cars and helicopters, a tactic eschewed by other law enforcement agencies.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Trooper-in-copter-fires-on-vehicle-2-killed-3982867.php 
  
ACLU tells UN panel of rampant abuse by out-of-control border patrol.

By Brian Erickson:

Yesterday, I provided testimony at the United Nations as part of a U.N. General Assembly side event that examined human Rights violations at international borders, including the U.S.-Mexico border. The side event, which was chaired by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Mexican government’s ambassador to the U.N. and was attended by representatives of numerous nations, forms part of a growing dialogue within the U.N. and international community that began in March during an expert consultation on the matter and looks to continue at the upcoming Global Forum on Migration and Development. http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Migration/Events/Informalsummaryconclusions2012.pdf

While you may not recognize the names of Carlos Lamadrid or Ramses Barron Torres, civil society and international outcry hopefully means you’re more likely to have heard of 15-year-old Sergio Adrián Hernández Guereca or 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, who was shot seven times in the back by a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent just two weeks ago. These four young men were all under 20 years of age when U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials shot and killed them. Three of them were standing on the Mexican side of our shared border as alleged participants in rock throwing incidents (which appears to justify lethal use of force under CBP policy, a position that would be unthinkable for U.S. police departments to take or if it happened on our Northern border). Two of them were shot multiple times in the back.

One of them, Carlos Lamadrid, was a U.S. citizen.Their deaths form part of a larger trend of deadly use of force incidents by CBP officials—18 to be exact—since January 2010. Of greatest concern, however, is the complete lack of transparent investigations or any form of accountability in the vast majority of these cases. As highlighted in the ACLU’s written testimony provided at the U.N. side event, the ACLU is not alone in calling for improved training and greater oversight mechanisms to bring accountability to our nation’s largest law enforcement agency currently acting with near impunity. http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/10/25/aclu-testifies-at-un-on-border-patrol-killings-and-human-rights-abuses/

The frequency and regularity of CBP’s use of lethal force is alarming and demands a comprehensive, independent investigation of CBP policies and practices, as requested by members of Congress, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Southern Border Communities Coalition of  60 non-governmental organizations, including the ACLU.”
http://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights-criminal-law-reform-national-security/cause-alarm-aclu-tells-un-panel-rampant

Update: State trooper claims he was attempting to disable the vehicle and suspected it was being used to smuggle drugs.

LA Joya, TX - A Texas state trooper who fired on a pickup truck from a helicopter and killed two illegal immigrants during a chase through the desert was trying to disable the vehicle and suspected it was being used to smuggle drugs, authorities said Friday.

The disclosure came a day after the incident that left two Guatemalan nationals dead on an isolated gravel road near the town of La Joya, just north of the Mexico border.

State game wardens were the first to encounter the truck Thursday. After the driver refused to stop, they radioed for help and state police responded, according to Parks and Wildlife Department spokesman Mike Cox.

When the helicopter with a sharpshooter arrived, officers concluded that the truck appeared to be carrying a "typical covered drug load" on its bed and was travelling at reckless speeds, police said.

An expert on police chases said the decision to fire on the truck was "a reckless act" that served "no legitimate law enforcement purpose."

"In 25 years following police pursuits, I hadn't seen a situation where an officer shot a speeding vehicle from a helicopter," said Geoffrey Alpert, professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina. Such action would be reasonable only if "you know for sure the person driving the car deserves to die and that there are no other occupants."

In general, he said, law enforcement agencies allow the use of deadly force only when the car is being used as a weapon, not "just on a hunch," Alpert added.

The Texas Department of Public Safety referred questions about its policy governing the use of deadly force to its general manual, which says troopers are allowed to use such force when defending themselves or someone else from serious harm or death. Shooting at vehicles is justified to disable a vehicle or when deadly force is deemed necessary.

Other law enforcement agencies that patrol the border say they have similar limits on the practice.

For instance, federal Customs and Borders Protection agents "are trained to use deadly force in circumstances that pose a threat to their lives, the lives of their fellow law enforcement partners and innocent third parties," agency spokesman Doug Mosier said.http://www.sfgate.com/news/texas/article/Trooper-fired-from-chopper-to-stop-truck-kills-2-3984508.php#ixzz2AXXnUosb

U.S. citizens harrassed & have there pictures deleted by U.S. border police.

San Diego, CA. – U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s policy and practice of prohibiting the use of cameras and video recorders at or near U.S. ports of entry is unconstitutional, said the American Civil Liberties Union Border Affiliates and the law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP in a lawsuit filed late yesterday. Clients in the case, two U.S. citizens were attempting to document environmental harms and human rights abuses when border agents stopped, detained, and interrogated them and then deleted their photographs. The citizens hope that the court will order the Department of Homeland Security to end its policy of interfering with Americans’ free speech right to take photographs and make video recordings of matters of political and human rights interest.

“The border is not a Constitution-free zone,” said David Loy, legal director of the San Diego ACLU. “Border agents are not above the law, and the law guarantees our right to hold them accountable by documenting their conduct.”

The suit charges that Ray Askins, a U.S. citizen who lives in Mexicali, and Christian Ramirez, a U.S. citizen who lives in San Diego, were stopped in separate incidents on the U.S. side of the border.

Askins was conducting research for a report about excessive pollution caused by the inspection system at the border for an environmental conference when he was stopped. Several border agents told him they would “smash the camera” if he did not delete photos he took of a secondary inspection area at the Calexico Port of Entry. He was attempting to demonstrate that the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) does not make full and proper use of inspection areas, creating longer delays at the border crossing and thus causing more pollution from emissions of vehicles waiting in line to cross. Askins said that the officers who confronted him behaved aggressively even though Askins was not posing a threat or resisting. He was handcuffed and subjected to an invasive and embarrassing physical search. His camera was confiscated and, when it was returned to him, all but one photograph he had just taken at the port of entry had been deleted.

Ramirez, who works for Alliance San Diego, a nonprofit social justice group that, among other things, monitors human rights issues along the U.S.-Mexico border, had just crossed the border when he observed male CBP agents patting down women. He snapped several photos, because it appeared the agents were only searching women. Immediately, two men who appeared to be private security officers approached him, asked for his personal identification documents, and asked him to stop taking photographs. CBP agents soon appeared, confronted Ramirez and his wife, and asked why he was taking photographs.  When he refused, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent said, “Give me one other reason to take you down.” The officer took the Ramirezes’ passports and his phone, and deleted all the photos Ramirez had just taken.

Official CBP security policies prohibit visitors at CBP-controlled facilities from using cameras and video recording devices without prior approval from the senior CBP official or someone she or he designates. The ACLU lawsuit charges that the policies violate the First Amendment and that Americans have the free speech right to document the public operations of law enforcement agencies.
“Americans have a right to chronicle the activities of law enforcement,” said M. Andrew Woodmansee, partner with Morrison & Foerster. “The Department of Justice recently has stated that the right of a citizen to gather information about government officials –including photographs—‘serves a cardinal First Amendment interest in protecting and promoting the free discussion of governmental affairs.’  While the government has an interest in guaranteeing the security of the United States, it should have no role in stifling speech or violating our right to be secure in our person and our papers.”

The lawsuit seeks to stop the government from preventing or interfering with the public’s First Amendment speech rights and asks that Askins receive damages for the violations he experienced.
http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/border-agents-harass-americans-taking-pictures-threaten-smash-cameras

Big brother clamps down on the border.

 The federal government is unconstitutionally prohibiting people from taking photos near border crossings without prior approval from Customs and the border patrol, two U.S. citizens claim in Federal Court.

Plaintiffs Ray Askins and Christian Ramirez say that in separate incidents, border patrol agents harassed and questioned them, seized devices and erased pictures they took at the U.S.-Mexico border.

They sued the Department of Homeland Security, the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the port directors at Calexico and San Ysidro.

 "CBP [Customs and Border Protection] has an unconstitutional policy and practice of prohibiting the use of cameras and video recording devices at or near CBP-controlled facilities, including U.S. ports of entry, without the CBP's prior approval," the complaint states.

"Acting pursuant to this policy and practice, CBP officers violated plaintiffs' First Amendment rights by directing plaintiffs to cease taking photographs and erasing the photographs they did take of CBP personnel and buildings at U.S. ports of entry." Askins says he was taking photos at the Calexico port of entry for a presentation about the environmental impact of traffic congestion on the border.

After taking several photos from the shoulder of a street 50 to 100 feet away a secondary inspection area, Askins says, border patrol officers questioned him, though he had called ahead to ask permission.

When he refused to delete the pictures, the agents threatened to smash his digital camera, Askins says. They handcuffed him and took him to a room in the inspection area, where they patted him down and "unnecessarily squeezed and touched" his groin area, he says.

He later discovered that all but one image had been deleted from his camera.

Ramirez claims he was returning to the United States from the Mexico with his wife via the San Ysidro port of entry in 2010, when it appeared that male border agents were pulling aside a disproportionate amount of women aside and patting them down.

Ramirez, a member of a San Diego human rights group, says he took some photos with his cell phone, then was stopped by border agents, who erased the photos and took his passport.

He claims that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent told him: "Give me one other reason to take you down," after he refused to hand over ID.

"Plaintiffs' cases are not unique," the complaint states. "CBP officers frequently employ these policies and/or practices to deter individuals from documenting potential misconduct by CBP officers and to destroy evidence of such potential misconduct. For example, CBP officers confronted individuals who captured video footage of the killing of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas by CBP officers at the San Ysidro port of entry on May, 28, 2010, and forced the individuals to erase that footage. In another example at the San Ysidro port of entry, on May 4, 2012, CBP officers confronted Kevin Murphy, who captured video footage of several CBP officers pointing weapons at family members in a van, and forced Mr. Murphy to erase the footage by threatening to smash to Mr. Murphy's phone if he did not do so." http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/10/26/51702.htm

Police cite (black) attendees at job training skills class with criminal tresspassing.

Chatanooga, TN. - They came expecting job training. What they didn't expect was a citation for criminal trespassing.

But so many men were cited by police and Chattanooga Housing Authority security personnel that the men began to suspect that the Hope for the Inner City job skills class at College Hill Courts was a setup.

One man got two citations in the same day, said Tonya Rooks, resident council president at the public housing site.

Betsy McCright, executive director of the housing authority, blamed the citations on a misunderstanding and said the housing authority is willing to help the men.

"If not us, then who? We'd like to be a part of it and see this program work," McCright said Tuesday. "Somebody has got to take a chance."

It was just four weeks ago that Vincent Boozer, program director for Hope for the Inner City, appealed to the authority to allow men banned from public housing to attend job training at College Hill Courts.

CHA officials agreed, and class began Oct. 8.

The citations to men on the no-trespassing list began the same day. Some were cited before or after class, others were tracked down in College Hill Courts or elsewhere.

About 15 men attended Jobs for Life on the first day. After they started getting citations, the number dwindled, Rooks said.

The class has several gang members and others who have criminal records. They want to change their lives so much that they gathered birth certificates, school transcripts and other documents needed to enroll in the class, she said.
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2012/oct/24/10-24-a1-police-cite-attendees-at-job-training/?news

Lawsuit accuses Meridian, MS., of operating a “school-to-prison pipeline.”

Meridian, MS.- Federal civil rights lawyers have filed a lawsuit against Meridian, Mississippi and other defendants in which they accuse city officials of operating a “school-to-prison pipeline” that jails students days at a time for minor infractions, without a probable cause hearing.

According to the American Bar Association Journal, the policy mainly affects black students and students with disabilities.

This "school to prison pipeline" claim says students are handcuffed and arrested in school and sent to a youth court and denied constitutional rights for minor infractions like talking back to teachers or violating dress codes. The lawsuit states they are then transported more than 80 miles to the Rankin County youth detention center, reports the Associated Press.

Many students end up on probation, without being provided proper legal representation and without determining whether there is probable cause when a school wants to press charges. For those placed on probation, a future school violation could be grounds for a suspension they must serve while incarcerated in the juvenile detention center.

According to the lawsuit, students can be incarcerated for "dress code infractions such as wearing the wrong color socks or undershirt, or for having shirts untucked; tardies; flatulence in class; using vulgar language; yelling at teachers; and going to the bathroom or leaving the classroom without permission."

Defendants named in the suit include the city of Meridian, Lauderdale County, the two Lauderdale County Youth Court judges, the Mississippi Department of Human Services (DHS) & DHS's Division of Youth Services. The Meridian Public School District is not named as a defendant, but the lawsuit says incarceration is used as a "medium for school discipline,” according to the AP.

CNN reports the lawsuit comes more than two months after the Justice Department informed local and state officials that they had 60 days to cooperate with an investigation or face legal action.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/federal-civil-rights-lawy_n_2018947.html
http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/24/justice/mississippi-civil-rights-lawsuit/index.html

How to figure out an executives' email address.

By Chris Moran (The Consumerist):

Googling Will Only Get You So Far

Sure, some executives’ e-mail addresses can easily be found with a quick Google search. But many of the results you’ll find will be out-of-date because the info changed soon after making its way onto the web, or simply because businesses periodically change their e-mail naming formats.

Identifying the Players

Everyone wants to get that CEO’s e-mail address, but you should really do some research to identify all the top-level executives, especially those with job titles that would at least appear to be relevant to your complaint. So in addition to suits with phrases like “customer relations” under their name, you should also see if there are VPs or regional directors, as these are the people to whom the problem will likely trickle down.

Most larger companies make these names and titles available on their websites. The “About” and “Corporate Information,” and “Investor Information” links usually hidden in small type at the bottom of the homepage are a good place to start.

[NOTE: If you can find the executive's middle name or initial, make note of it. This will come in useful for executives with common names, and for when you have to resort to brute force (see below).]

You should also do some research (usually nothing more than a quick visit to Wikipedia) to make sure you identify the parent company of the brand or subsidiary you’re dealing with.

For example, if you’re going to send an EECB about your Chevy Malibu, you’ll probably want to go to the General Motors site to begin your research.

Which brings us to one last tip for identifying the players: Check to see if there is a corporate site. Say you’re unhappy with Frito-Lay, you should also be going to the PepsiCo site — not the Pepsi brand site — for the info you seek.

Figuring Out Naming Conventions

The fastest way we’ve found to figure out a company’s e-mail naming conventions is to head straight to the “news room” or “press center” pages — where businesses place their press release archives.

(NOTE: We do not recommend that you write these media contacts because you are pretty much guaranteeing that you will not get a response. Heck, many media contacts don’t respond to the actual media unless it’s a request to promote their product.)

Sometimes you’ll see a list of media contacts with actual individual e-mail addresses (as opposed to the generic [email protected]).

If you don’t see that listed, try clicking on a few of the press releases. These notices often have e-mail addresses for the publicist who wrote them, usually at the very top or bottom of the release.

Once you have the publicist’s e-mail address, use it to figure out the company’s naming conventions.
If Jimmy Smith, Social Media Director for Craptastic Enterprises, has the e-mail address of [email protected], then there is a decent chance that CEO Carol Smith will be [email protected], with the same rule applying for the other executives.

Even if the CEO uses a different naming convention, the other executives will likely be the same as the PR flunky, so your EECB stands a chance of getting through.

Unleashing Brute Force

When all else fails, you can always just try all the various standard permutations for e-mail address names: carol.smith, c.smith, smith.c, carol.w.smith, etc.

Before you start launching EECBs blindly, try circling back to Google and searching for the address you’re about to try. Sometimes, you’ll find a match in a company’s archive or in some source you would never have thought to look.

Smarten Up Your Own E-mail

This is a tip about your own e-mail account. Lots of consumers’ e-mail addresses use nicknames instead of their proper name, which is fine when you’re writing people who know you. But most executives at Fortune 500 companies are likely to trash an e-mail sent by someone named “El_Duderino_Shazbot.”

As much is it might pain you, update that name — at least temporarily — to be your proper name. You can always change it back.

Prepare To Be Ignored

Just because you’ve been able to suss out the e-mails you need to arm your EECB, there’s no guarantee it will result in a response, or that the response will please you. It’s a weapon of last resort, one that is best deployed with high spirits but lowered expectations.
http://consumerist.com/2012/10/24/a-guide-to-figuring-out-executive-e-mail-addresses/

Maryland's newest $11.3 million State police barracks houses a crime lab & fingerprint analysis center in the same building.

Visitors to the new Maryland State Police barrack on Col. Henry K. Douglas Drive off Sharpsburg Pike have to be buzzed in to go through the second set of doors at the entrance.

At the duty officer station inside the door, thick bullet-proof glass protects a desk area and protective Kevlar lines the walls around the glass.

High security measures are in place throughout the $11.3 million facility, from a five-layer check point system that one must pass through to reach the building’s crime lab to surveillance cameras inside a drug evidence room that can be monitored at the Maryland State Police headquarters in Pikesville, MD.

“They really did a good job planning for the future,” said James Lehr, a Maryland State Police forensics science supervisor at the facility.

Analysis of finger prints over the years has been conducted in Pikesville, but Hagerstown now has its own fingerprint center, said Lt. Thomas Woodward, who oversees state police in the building.

Fingerprints in the lab can be analyzed through a chemical process, a powder process and a test that uses different light sources, Woodward said.

One benefit to Hagerstown having its own finger print center is that it will be closer to local courts as the region grows, state police officials said.

The local finger print operation, however, is not yet staffed and local finger print analysis is still conducted in Pikesville, Woodward said.

State police are working with the state Department of Budget and Management to address the staffing needs of the new facility, said Sgt. Marc Black, who works in the state police headquarters in Pikesville.

The Hagerstown fingerprint operation is not being staffed at the present because of difficult state budgetary times, Black said.
http://www.herald-mail.com/news/hm-high-security-the-design-plan-with-new-maryland-state-police-barracks-20121018,0,1411840.story

Why we should all be concerned about cell phone privacy.

The feds want the location records of MetroPCS and T-Mobile cell phone customers in Texas without bothering to show that a crime was even committed. The U.S. Attorney in Houston asserts that cell phone users have no reasonable expectation of privacy as to their location, and he wants to have the data without showing a search warrant.

So far, a federal magistrate and a federal judge have said "no."

But the feds persist in a live case before the Fifth Circuit federal appeals court. In Re: Applications of the USA, No. 11-20884. The authorities assert that getting your location from a cell phone company is like asking for your recent charges from a credit card issuer, or requesting your latest transactions from your bank, or getting business records from your landlord.

It's not an invasion of privacy for a routine investigation, they say.

Fortunately the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the ACLU argue the contrary -- that people do, in fact, want their cell phone location to be private. For example, iPhone users raised hell after Apple revealed in 2011 that the phones stored a 10-month record of a user's location. The company revised its operating system to correct the problem.

Months of Data About Your Location

Did you know that every time you use your cell phone to check email, send a text or make a call, your cell phone relays your location to the cell phone company? And that the company keeps your data for months? 88 percent of adult Americans own cell phones, and the average person uses it 50 times a day.

With your location data the feds can build a profile of your social, political and personal life. They will know your movements, habits, relationships, activities and religious affiliation. Shouldn't the government have to show probable cause that a crime was committed? Shouldn't it have to get a search warrant?

In fact:

• Customers don't knowingly or voluntarily disclose their location to cell phone companies. It's generated automatically.


• Customers can't control the type and amount of data collected. The date, the time, the duration and the location of every call are recorded.


• Cell companies keep months of comprehensive location records about customers.


• Customers are not notified when their records are handed over to law enforcement without probable cause.

A recent survey found that 77 percent of cell phone users did not want app developers to know their location, according to Harris Interactive -- much less the federal authorities.

It's time to draw the line: the Fourth Amendment gives you an expectation of privacy about your location when you use your cell phone. This is personal information and the feds should have to show a search warrant to get it.

Regardless of how the Fifth Circuit rules, this issue will have to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. I reported here two months ago that the Sixth Circuit federal appeals court gave the government access to cell phone location records without a warrant. That conflicts with a 2010 decision by the Third Circuit federal appeals court, which required the government to get a search warrant for location records.

Americans are losing their right to privacy every day. Your right to be free of unreasonable searches will be badly damaged if the government can track you down without even showing a crime was committed. Nobody signed up for a two-year contract to be monitored when they got a cell phone.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-bodine/the-legal-battle-over-cel_b_2003190.html

Leaving your turn signal on is not a crime.

Indiana- The familiar sight of a car in the left lane with its turn signal active for miles is no excuse for police to pull the driver over or issue a ticket, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Friday. The state courts had never before considered this particular question until motorist Rodney D. Killebrew II brought it up as a defense to his March 3, 2011 arrest.

On that day, Killebrew had been driving down Apperson Way in Kokomo when Police Officer Chad VanCamp noticed a white Cadillac with its blinker on. VanCamp testified that he believed a Cadillac driving in a straight line with a turn signal on was a sign its driver was impaired. VanCamp conducted a traffic stop and said he detected "an overwhelming amount of air fresheners" in Killebrew's Cadillac. Killebrew replied he had just cleaned the vehicle and thought it needed the freshening. Officer VanCamp ordered Killebrew out of the car and had a drug dog conduct a search. The dog found two small bags of marijuana in the center console.

The three-judge panel took up the question of whether this traffic stop violated the Fourth Amendment. The judges looked to the text of the applicable statute to determine whether Officer VanCamp had reason to believe he witnessed a crime being committed when he saw the turn signal blinking.

"A signal of intention to turn right or left shall be given continuously during not less than the last two hundred feet traveled by a vehicle before turning or changing lanes," Indiana Code Section 9-21-8-25 and 26 states. "A person may not stop or suddenly decrease the speed of a vehicle without first giving an appropriate signal to a person who drives a vehicle immediately to the rear when there is opportunity to give a signal."

The court determined these provisions only dealt with failure to use a signal, not overuse of a signal. 

"We have not found any other statutory language expressly prohibiting Killebrew's use of his turn signal, and the state has not provided us with any," Judge Patricia A. Riley wrote for the court. "Accordingly, we conclude that the legislature did not intend the use of a turn signal through an intersection to be a traffic violation."

The judges were likewise unimpressed with the prosecutors' attempt to claim VanCamp thought Killebrew was impaired after the officer followed the Cadillac for less than a block. At trial, VanCamp admitted it was "common" for old people to drive with their turn signal on.

"If we were to hold that an action equally common among unimpaired drivers could justify a traffic stop, that ruling would be ripe for abuse and would not strike a reasonable balance between the government's legitimate interest in traffic safety and an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy," Judge Riley concluded. "Accordingly, we hold that while driving through an intersection with an activated turn signal might be a legitimate factor in creating a reasonable suspicion that a driver is impaired, such use of a turn signal alone is not sufficient."
http://thenewspaper.com/news/39/3931.asp

Court ruling Killebrew v. Indiana: http://thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2012/in-turnsignal.pdf

The web analytics company Compete, Inc. collected individuals passwords and financial data.

A Web analytics company that tracked the browsing behavior of millions of US consumers has agreed to settle federal charges that it collected credit card numbers, financial account information, and other sensitive data without proper notice.

Boston, Massachusetts-based Compete Inc. agreed to obtain end users' consent before collecting future data on their browsing history, according to a release published on Monday by officials with the Federal Trade Commission. The company also agreed to delete or anonymize the consumer data it has already collected and to provide directions for removing tracking software installed on the computers of many of the people whose data was collected.

The agreement settles charges filed against Compete accusing company officials of failing to adequately describe two products used to collect details about end users' browsing habits. The Compete Toolbar was billed as a way for consumers to get "instant access" to information about the websites they visited. A second software package known as the Consumer Input Panel was billed as a way for consumers to win rewards while expressing opinions about products and services.

"In fact, Compete collected more than browsing behavior or addresses of webpages," FTC lawyers wrote in a civil complaint filed in the case. "It collected extensive information about consumers' online activities and transmitted the information in clear readable text to Compete's servers. The data collected included information about all websites visited, all links followed, and the advertisements displayed with the consumer was on a given webpage."

As long ago as January 2006, the company also captured credit card numbers, social security numbers, passwords, and other sensitive data, because code designed to filter out that data often didn't work properly, FTC officials alleged. After the flaws were publicly disclosed in January 2010, the company upgraded the filters to better screen out such information. The software also began encrypting data in transit to prevent it from being intercepted by third parties.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/web-tracking-firm-settles-charges-it-collected-passwords-financial-data/

TASER donated $300,000 to International Association of Chiefs of Police.

TASER International, Inc., announced Saturday at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Foundation's (IACP Foundation) Sixth Annual Fundraising Gala that it donated $300,000 in funds from its TASER Foundation to an IACP Foundation/TASER Fallen Officer Fund.

The contribution to the International Association of Chiefs of Police Foundation (IACP), the organization's philanthropic arm, represents the latest in a series of controversial relationships Taser has established with police, the primary source of the Arizona-based company's lucrative business.

The rapid deployment of stun guns across the country and questions related to their safety, prompted the IACP in 2007 to publish guidelines for "selecting, acquiring and using'' the devices.

The study, titled "Electro-Muscular Disruption Technology: A Nine-Step Strategy for Effective Deployment,'' was funded by the Justice Department's research arm, the National Institute of Justice.

And as recently as this year, the IACP cited the increasing use of stun guns in a separate report on police use-of-force issues.

IACP and Taser officials said they found nothing wrong with the gift, saying the contribution — the largest-ever to the association foundation — would provide funds to families of officers killed in the line of duty.

But law enforcement and criminal justice analysts said the donation raises questions about the IACP's ability to engage in future reviews involving the technology and whether the contribution represented a de-facto endorsement.

"When you accept that kind of donation, you create an impression that you view the product favorably,'' said Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest police union. "There is an appearance issue here.''

Samuel Walker, a University of Nebraska criminologist who has written extensively on police accountability issues, said the relationship "raises serious concerns."

 "It's like a non-profit (group) taking funds from the tobacco industry and being involved in studies on smoking and lung cancer,'' Walker said.

In 2005, a USA TODAY review found that hundreds of police officers were on the payrolls of companies that supplied equipment to departments across the nation, including their own departments.

The companies included Taser, Armor Holdings, a maker of protective equipment; ASP, a police baton manufacturer; and PepperBall Technologies, a supplier of non-lethal weapon products.

The initial endowment of $1 million came from TASER International, Inc. and the direct contributions of TASER International employees. To date, the TASER Foundation has awarded more than $3 million to more than 1,000 families of fallen law enforcement officers in the United States and Canada.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/10/21/taser-police-chiefs/1627299/
http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=MW&date=20121001&id=15618001