U.S. Supreme Court to Weigh Cell Phone Searches by Police

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: REUTERS/JONATHAN ERNST

Photo Credit: REUTERS/JONATHAN ERNST

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether police can search an arrested criminal suspect’s cell phone without a warrant in two cases that showcase how the courts are wrestling to keep up with rapid technological advances.

Taking up cases from California and Massachusetts arising from criminal prosecutions that used evidence obtained without a warrant, the high court will wade into how to apply older court precedent, which allows police to search items carried by a defendant at the time of arrest, to cell phones.

Cell phones have evolved from devices used exclusively to make calls into gadgets that now contain a bounty of personal information about the owner.

The legal question before the justices is whether a search for such information after a defendant is arrested violates the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which bans unreasonable searches. The outcome would determine whether prosecutors in such circumstances could submit evidence gleaned from cell phones in court.

Digital rights activists have sounded the alarm about the amount of personal data the government can now easily access, not just in the criminal context, but also in relation to national security surveillance programs.

Read more from this story HERE.

Jackson: Gun Owner Unarmed, Unwelcome in Maryland

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

John Filippidis, silver-haired family man, business owner, employer and taxpayer, is also licensed to carry a concealed firearm.

He’d rather he didn’t feel the need, “but things aren’t like they used to be. The break-ins, the burglaries, all the crime. And I carry cash a lot of the time. I’m constantly going to the bank.

“I wanted to be able to defend my family, my household and the ground I’m standing on. But I’m not looking for any trouble.”

Filippidis keeps his gun — a palm-sized Kel-Tec .38 semiautomatic, barely larger than a smartphone in a protective case — in one of two places, always: in the right-hand pocket of his jeans, or in the safe at home.

“There are kids in the house,” Filippidis says, “and I don’t think they’d ever bother with it, but I don’t want to take any chances.” He’s not looking for any trouble, after all…

Read more from this story HERE.

Gideon Bibles Removed After Atheist Group Pressures U of Wisconsin

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The University of Wisconsin-Extension has agreed to remove all Gideon Bibles from 137 guest rooms at its conference center after an atheist group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), complained, arguing that the Bibles in the bedrooms constituted state endorsement of Christianity.

“After attempting to end the practice for several decades, the Freedom From Religion Foundation has persuaded University of Wisconsin-Extension in Madison to remove Gideon bibles from its 137 guest rooms,” the group said in a Jan. 15 statement. “In November, the complainant who encountered the bible at the Lowell Center on the UW-Madison campus complained to Madison-based FFRF, a state/church watchdog and the nation’s largest association of freethinkers (atheists and agnostics).”

Back on Nov. 4, FFRF staff attorney Patrick C. Elliott sent a letter to Chancellor Ray Cross, head of the University of Wisconsin Colleges and University of Wisconsin-Extension. (See FFRF Letter.pdf)

In the letter, Elliott wrote, “It is our understanding that guest rooms in the Lowell Center contain bibles from Gideons International. We were contacted by a concerned complainant who informs us that the bibles are in every guest room. We understand that the bibles include a statement noting that they were placed by Gideons International.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Report: Obamacare to Blame as Job Opportunities Slip in Michigan (+video)

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Were it not for Obamacare, there would be at least 1,000 more workers in West Michigan, according to a new report.

The report, released Thursday by researchers at Grand Valley State University, found that companies are opting out of hiring and cutting hours due to President Obama’s signature health-care law.

“Firms are choosing not to hire more workers in reaction to the Affordable Care Act,” said Grand Valley economics professor Leslie Muller, who conducted the research with colleague Paul Isely, in a statement.

Read more from this story HERE.

Housing Activists Fear Obama Will Choke Mortgages, Add $1,400 in Fees

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Top administration aides are pushing for President Obama to endorse a new mortgage scheme in his State of the Union address that housing advocates fear would kill mortgages to low income Americans and add up to $1,400 in fees to every new loan.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan and Obama economic aide Gene Sperling urged a key senator to press the president to support the plan that would replace mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with another organization, according to the activists.

The legislation, dubbed Corker-Warner, after sponsors Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Mark Warner, R-Va., would replace the two mortgage outfits with a privately capitalized system. The duo believe that it would protect taxpayers from future economic downturns.

Sources say that Donovan and Sperling asked Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, to help get the president to back the Corker-Warner plan and mention it in his State of the Union address to Congress. Johnson has been skeptical of the Corker-Warner bill, saying he wants changes in it. A Republican House member has a dueling plan.

Read more from this story HERE.

NSA Collects Millions of Text Messages Daily in ‘Untargeted’ Global Sweep

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Dave Thompson/PA

Photo Credit: Dave Thompson/PA

The National Security Agency has collected almost 200 million text messages a day from across the globe, using them to extract data including location, contact networks and credit card details, according to top-secret documents.

The untargeted collection and storage of SMS messages – including their contacts – is revealed in a joint investigation between the Guardian and the UK’s Channel 4 News based on material provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The documents also reveal the UK spy agency GCHQ has made use of the NSA database to search the metadata of “untargeted and unwarranted” communications belonging to people in the UK.

The NSA program, codenamed Dishfire, collects “pretty much everything it can”, according to GCHQ documents, rather than merely storing the communications of existing surveillance targets.

The NSA has made extensive use of its vast text message database to extract information on people’s travel plans, contact books, financial transactions and more – including of individuals under no suspicion of illegal activity.

Read more from this story HERE.

Who Read 1,582-Page $1.1T Spending Bill? Congressman: ‘Nobody Did’

/10 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

When asked whether he read the 1,528-page, $1.1 trillion government spending bill before he voted for it yesterday, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said, “Nobody did!”

On Capitol Hill on Thursday, CNSNews.com asked Blumenauer: “The omnibus bill yesterday, it was 1,582 pages, did you have a chance to read all the pages before voting on it?”

Blumenauer laughed and said: “Nobody did!”

“Nobody did?” said the CNSNews.com reporter.

“Nope,” said Blumenauer.

Read more from this story HERE.

China Now Owns a Record $1.317T of U.S. Government Debt

/0 Comments/in , /by

chinese-flag-nationalChina stepped up its purchases of U.S. government debt late last year, increasing its holdings of Treasurys to an all-time record of $1.317 trillion in November, government data released this week revealed.

The statistics underscore how reliant the U.S. and Chinese economies are on one another even as political tensions occasionally emerge.

According to figures inadvertently released Wednesday evening on the U.S. Treasury Department website, China’s holdings of Treasurys increased by 0.9% in November to $1.317 trillion, up from $1.305 trillion in October. Year-over-year, China’s holdings rose 11.3% from $1.183 trillion.

The $1.317 trillion figure exceeds China’s previous record high in July 2011 of $1.315 trillion, according to the government data.

Read more from this story HERE.

Shot Show: Police Officers Explain Why Millennials Make Terrible Cops

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Police departments across the country are struggling with staffing shortages as a result of a weak economy, hiring freezes, furloughs, layoffs, and cutbacks to salaries, benefits, and retirement incentives.

According to Police Chief Magazine, “Such difficulties spurred 7,272 applications to the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Hiring Program, requesting $8.3 billion to support more than 39,000 sworn-officer positions. Altogether, both the supply of and demand for qualified officers are changing in a time of increasing attrition, expanding law enforcement responsibilities, and decreasing resources.” The problem is not new, either. The Anniston Star reported in December 2013:

Since the late 1990s the nation has seen a decrease in the number of people interested in becoming police officers. A 2006 article on police officer recruitment published in Police Chief Magazine said an estimated 80 percent of the nation’s 17,000 law enforcement agencies had positions they could not fill. A separate report, Hiring and Keeping Police Officers, published in 2004 by the National Institute of Justice said 20 percent of agencies experienced officer weakness as a result of recruitment and fiscal problems.

One particular question being discussed by the National Tactical Officers Association (NTOA) at the annual National Shooting Sports Foundation’s SHOT Show in Las Vegas this year is how local law enforcement can recruit and retain quality individuals to their departments’ SWAT teams. An NTOA seminar on this question was well attended by SWAT team officers from all over the country, from cities including Chicago, Santa Barbara, Washington D.C., and Palm Beach.

As baby-boomers in departments look toward retirement, issues surrounding differences among officers who grew up as Generation X-ers or Millennials appear to be surfacing. Veteran SWAT officers within the group of attendees say that too many new recruits look at SWAT as a “stepping stone” or “résumé builder” to other areas of law enforcement, so finding new recruits who are willing to stay on SWAT teams for the long haul is becoming more difficult.

Read more from this story HERE.

Google Announces Contact Lens Glucose Monitor

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Google has announced that it is testing a prototype for a contact lens that would help people with diabetes manage their disease.

In a press release distributed Thursday, the company said that the lens it is designing would measure glucose in tears continuously using a wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor. Google says that using the lenses would be a less invasive method of measuring glucose levels than finger-pricking.

It also claims that the more frequent testing would consequently reduce the risks associated with infrequent glucose testing such as kidney failure and blindness.

The contact lenses were developed during the past 18 months in the clandestine Google X lab that also came up with a driverless car, Google’s Web-surfing eyeglasses and Project Loon, a network of large balloons designed to beam the Internet to unwired places.

“We wondered if miniaturized electronics — think chips and sensors so small they look like bits of glitter, and an antenna thinner than a human hair — might be a way to crack the mystery of tear glucose and measure it with greater accuracy,” Google said in its press release.

Read more from this story HERE.