"A case that began with reports of suspicious activity in northeast Wisconsin forest land last spring may be headed for the US Supreme Court. That's because a US district court judge ruled in the case last fall that it was okay for the DEA to enter the rural property without a warrant and install surveillance cameras that were used to help convict five members of a family on charges they were growing marijuana." Continue reading →
"With a population of just 350 people, what Chappell Hill lacks in size -- it more than makes up for in flair. 'You never know who’s sitting in this bank,' said Ed Smith, president of the Chappell Hill Bank. 'If you’re coming in to rob it, I think you’re going to be in a world of hurt.' That’s because the person standing next to you could be packing heat. You see, the Chappell Hill Bank is the first in the nation that actually welcomes legally concealed handguns." Continue reading →
"A 5-year-old kindergartner who told classmates she was going to shoot them, and then herself, with her pink bubble gun, was grilled for three hours by Mount Carmel school officials without her mother’s knowledge, then suspended, a family attorney said. The girl was initially kicked out for 10 days in what the school categorized as a 'terroristic threat,' according to the kindergartner’s mother and confirmed by the family attorney. That suspension was reduced to two days and labeled as a 'threat to harm others.'" Continue reading →
"The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider whether a suspect's refusal to answer police questions prior to being arrested and read his rights can be introduced as evidence of guilt at his subsequent murder trial. Salinas' lawyer argued that his client deserved a Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, even though he had not been under arrest or read his rights under the landmark 1966 decision Miranda v. Arizona. Last April, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction but noted that federal appeals courts are split as to whether 'pre-arrest, pre-Miranda silence is admissible as substantive evidence of guilt.'" Continue reading →
"Responding to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Department of Justice (DOJ) turned over a bundle of documents that are completely blacked out. The lawsuit was filed after the DOJ ignored a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking information on how the agency interpreted a 2011 Supreme Court decision that bans law enforcement from using GPS technology to track Americans without a warrant. The Department responded to the lawsuit with 111 pages of attorney memos, but only two pages are legible. The rest are covered by large black rectangles that blot out all useful information." Continue reading →
"On This Week in Tech, Leo Laporte, who is understandably worried, suggests that podcasters get together and fight this patent, instead of being picked off one by one. This may be a good strategy, but another thing podcasters should do is reevaluate their (typical) support for IP—for patent and copyright." Continue reading →
"Internet tycoon Kim Dotcom will launch a new file-sharing site at his Auckland mansion on Sunday, exactly a year after armed police arrested him at the same venue in the world’s largest online piracy case. Dotcom’s new venture, mega.co.nz, aims to recreate the success of his Megaupload empire, which boasted 50 million daily visitors and accounted for four percent of all Internet traffic before it was shut down after the police raid. Details of the planned service are scarce, but the site promises to use state-of-the-art encryption methods that mean only users, not the site’s administrators, know what they are uploading." Continue reading →
"A US prosecutor at the center of a controversy over the handling of a case involving an Internet activist who committed suicide has defended the government’s actions as 'appropriate.' Assistant US Attorney Carmen Ortiz expressed regret over the death of Aaron Swartz, who was accused of illegally copying and distributing millions of academic articles from a database but said prosecutors were merely doing their job." Continue reading →