Big Brother
Andria Simmons
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:57 UTC
A Waffle House employee is suing the Gwinnett County Police Department over what he says was an unprovoked encounter with an officer who stunned him with a Taser.
The department's internal investigation records reveal that the officer used the weapon like a toy with tacit approval from two superior officers.
© Gwinnett County Police Department
From left, Gwinnett County Police Cpl. Gary Miles was fired and Sgts. Chris Parry and Joey Parkerson lost their jobs after Miles allegedly stunned a Waffle House employee with a Taser without provocation.
Ed Morrissey
Hot Air
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:31 UTC
The more Barack Obama learns about George W. Bush, the more he seems to like his predecessor. In yet another reversal from his campaign rhetoric and another broken promise to the Left, the Obama administration has
adopted a Bush administration plan to use the NSA to secure private computer networks. The decision contradicts Obama's earlier position that he would not allow the NSA to have access to private communications networks:
The Obama administration will proceed with a Bush-era plan to use National Security Agency assistance in screening government computer traffic on private-sector networks, with AT&T as the likely test site, according to three current and former government officials.
President Obama said in May that government efforts to protect computer systems from attack would not involve "monitoring private-sector networks or Internet traffic," and Department of Homeland Security officials say the new program will scrutinize only data going to or from government systems.
Chelle Delaney
Portales News-Tribune
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:13 UTC
A 14-year-old Tucumcari girl is recovering at an Albuquerque hospital after being shot in the head with a Taser dart by Tucucmari Police Chief Roger Hatcher. Now, her parents say they want the police department to review its policies for using the Taser.
The girl was hit in the head Thursday by one of two darts fired simultaneously as she was fleeing, Hatcher said. The other dart lodged in her hip.
Hatcher said be believed he had no other option.
Scott Jaschik
Inside Higher Ed
Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:35 UTC
Emory University has been accused repeatedly over the last year of
looking the other way while one of its prominent physicians built extremely close ties to the pharmaceutical industry and -- critics charge -- failed to adequately report those ties as required by university and federal regulations.
But what if you are an Emory professor who happens to differ with the pharmaceutical industry? Then, it appears, Emory watches you closely -- and if you are a blogger, the university can tell you that you must remove the Emory name from your Web site. That's why
a recent post on the J. Douglas Bremner's blog
Before You Take That Pill is called "I Am Removing the Name of My University From This Blog." Bremner is
professor of psychiatry and radiology at Emory and as his blog title suggests (as does his book with the same name), he is an avid critic of the pharmaceutical industry.
Antonia van de Velde
Reuters
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:16 UTC
Brussels - Researchers are using Bluetooth technology to observe the meanderings of tens of thousands of festival-goers at a top European rock festival, hoping their findings will launch a new generation of tracking devices.
The team from the University of Ghent in Belgium believes the research could yield new satellite navigation applications for the retail and security sectors.
"We have installed 36 Bluetooth scanners across the site and along a few surrounding roads, as well as bus stops," the university's Nico Van de Weghe said on Friday of the project at the Werchter festival, northeast of Brussels this weekend.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Wed, 24 Jun 2009 05:08 UTC
Lawsuit Seeks Disclosure of Guidelines Governing Investigations of Americans
Washington, D.C. - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit against the Department of Justice today, demanding the public release of the surveillance guidelines that govern investigations of Americans by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
The FBI's Domestic Investigative Operational Guidelines went into effect in December of 2008 and detail the Bureau's procedures and standards for implementing the Attorney General's Guidelines on approved surveillance strategies.
"The Attorney General's Guidelines are troubling, allowing for open investigative 'assessments' of any American without factual basis or reasonable suspicion," said EFF Senior Counsel David Sobel. "The withholding of the Operational Guidelines compounds our concerns. Americans have the right to know the basic surveillance policies used by federal investigators and how their privacy is -- or is not -- being protected."
Roberto Mancini
The Guardian
Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:00 UTC
A new wiretapping law makes prosecutors' jobs much harder - the grateful mafia will certainly express their thanks in votes
Piero Ostellino is the former editor and journalist of
Il Corriere Della Sera, the most distinguished and conservative of all Italian newspapers. This is how he describes Italy today in the preface to his new book
Lo stato canaglia (
The scoundrel state):
A country paralysed by a huge number of laws and regulations, suffocated by an invasive and slow-witted bureaucratic culture; run by a plethoric, costly, inefficient, and often corrupted, civil service; oppressed by punitive fiscal laws for those who pay their taxes and absent-minded towards those who don't; the prisoner of guild or nepotistic interests; from Rome southwards, in the hands of organised crime. A country in a relentless cultural, economic, political decline. This is Italy today.
Dan Kennedy
Guardian
Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:36 UTC
Those who wish to keep the internet free and open had best dust off their legal arguments. One of America's most influential conservative judges, Richard Posner, has proposed
a ban on linking to online content without permission. The idea, he said in a blog post last week, is to prevent aggregators and bloggers from linking to newspaper websites without paying:
Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion.
Ellen Nakashima
The Washington Post
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:37 UTC
The Obama administration will proceed with a Bush-era plan to use National Security Agency assistance in screening government computer traffic on private-sector networks, with AT&T as the likely test site, according to three current and former government officials.
President Obama said in May that government efforts to protect computer systems from attack would not involve "monitoring private-sector networks or Internet traffic," and Department of Homeland Security officials say the new program will scrutinize only data going to or from government systems.
But the program has provoked debate within DHS, the officials said, because of uncertainty about whether private data can be shielded from unauthorized scrutiny, how much of a role NSA should play and whether the agency's involvement in warrantless wiretapping during George W. Bush's presidency would draw controversy. Each time a private citizen visited a "dot-gov" Web site or sent an e-mail to a civilian government employee, that action would be screened for potential harm to the network.
Tom Burghardt
Global Research
Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:00 UTC
© Unknown
NSA
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates signed a
memorandum on June 23 that announced the launch of U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM). A scheme by securocrats in the works for several years, the order specifies that the new office will be a "subordinate unified command" under U.S. Strategic Command (
STRATCOM).
According to the memorandum, CYBERCOM "will reach initial operating capability (IOC) not later than October 2009 and full operating capability (FOC) not later than October 2010."
Gates has recommended that this new Pentagon domain be led by Lt. General Keith Alexander, the current Director of the ultra-spooky National Security Agency (
NSA). Under the proposal, Alexander would receive a fourth star and the new agency would be based at Ft. Meade, Maryland, NSA's headquarters.
Gates' memorandum specifies that CYBERCOM "must be capable of synchronizing warfighting effects across the global security environment as well as providing support to civil authorities and international partners."
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