Alternative News

North Carolina Court To Decide Whether Firemen Can Perform Traffic Stops

"Gordon Shatley, a Chapel Hill Fire Department lieutenant, was responding to a fire alarm when he stopped his fire engine at the intersection of Estes Drive and Fordham Boulevard at 10:30pm on May 27, 2011. To his left he saw a light-colored Mercedes stopped with a window partially rolled down in pouring rain with only parking lights and the interior dome light on. He found it odd. Shatley called the police and followed the vehicle which began weaving toward oncoming traffic. Shatley had the red flashing lights of the fire truck activated and the siren blasted twice. The Mercedes pulled over." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNorth Carolina Court To Decide Whether Firemen Can Perform Traffic Stops

Journal Explores Incentive For False Results In Lab Tests For DUI

"A recent analysis published in the Criminal Justice Ethics academic journal suggests when technicians perform forensic analysis of blood and other evidence for cases such as drunk driving, the results can be influenced by built-in financial incentives to produce a conviction, arguing that even if false conviction rates are very low, a 3 percent error rate could put 33,000 innocent individuals behind bars every year. The primary problem, according to the paper, is that fourteen states reward crime labs with a bonus for each conviction they generate. North Carolina pays a $600 bounty 'upon conviction' to the law enforcement agency whose lab 'tested for the presence of alcohol.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJournal Explores Incentive For False Results In Lab Tests For DUI

6 Ways the U.S. Drug War Intrudes On Your Life, Whether Or Not You Use

"Many Americans who do not use illegal 'drugs' assume exemption from drug war policies. But regardless of how much marijuana you do or don't smoke, the U.S. war on drugs affects nearly everyone. While some prohibition tactics are more obvious than others, the drug war has slyly pushed its way into many corners of American life. Be it at the post office, in the workspace, or behind the counter at Walgreens, the war on drugs has established a nagging presence in the everyday lives of Americans, even those who do not get high illegally. Whether or not you are aware that the drug war is behind these creeping invasions, our drug policy has unequivocally curtailed basic civil rights." Continue reading →

Continue Reading6 Ways the U.S. Drug War Intrudes On Your Life, Whether Or Not You Use

Court: School Officials Accountable for Strip-Searching 10-Year-Old Over $20

"A federal court has agreed to hold school officials accountable for stripping a 10-year-old boy down to his underwear in an aggressive strip-search that included rimming the edge of his underwear, allegedly in an attempt to find another student’s missing $20 bill (which was later found on the cafeteria floor). The Rutherford Institute had challenged the school’s attempt to have the lawsuit against it dismissed, insisting that there is no justification for the school’s decision to so egregiously violate the fifth-grader’s Fourth Amendment rights or for the alleged failure to train school employees in how to appropriately deal with such matters." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCourt: School Officials Accountable for Strip-Searching 10-Year-Old Over $20

NSA slides: Steve Jobs Is ‘Big Brother’ And Smartphone Users Are ‘Zombies’

"A private individual referring to iPhone customers as 'zombies' is one thing. The NSA doing it is quite another. People who don't take an active effort to protect their information are being labeled as sub-human by a government agency. If these smartphones users don't care about the data they're leaking, then they really don't have an 'expectation of privacy' to be steamrolled. That's the argument. As Der Spiegel puts it, the agency is arguing that the smartphone-buying public is 'complicit in its own surveillance.' But they aren't, as one recent decision on acquiring cell phone location data without a warrant pointed out." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNSA slides: Steve Jobs Is ‘Big Brother’ And Smartphone Users Are ‘Zombies’

California poised to implement first electronic license plates

"The idea is that rather than have a static piece of printed metal adorned with stickers to display proper registration, the plate would be a screen that could wirelessly (likely over a mobile data network) receive updates from a central server to display that same information. In an example shown by a South Carolina vendor, messages such as 'STOLEN,' 'EXPIRED,' or something similar could also be displayed on a license plate. A South Carolina company, Compliance Innovations, did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment. Smart Plate Mobile’s founder, Michael Jordan, declined to speak to Ars." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCalifornia poised to implement first electronic license plates

Crypto prof asked to remove NSA-related blog post

"What I've been told is that someone on the APL [Johns Hopkins' Applied Physics Laboratory—motto: 'Enhancing national security through science and technology'] side of JHU discovered my blog post and determined that it was hosting/linking to classified documents. This requires a human since I don't believe there's any automated scanner for this process. It's not clear to me whether this request originated at APL or if it came from elsewhere. All I know is that I received an e-mail this morning from the Interim Dean of the Engineering school asking me to take down the post and to desist from using the NSA logo. He also suggested I should seek counsel if I continued." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCrypto prof asked to remove NSA-related blog post

How eBay Could Rescue Bitcoin From the Feds

"There’s another operation that runs both a marketplace where Bitcoins are bought and sold and a fully compliant money-transmitting business that, observers say, could rescue Bitcoin from its biggest problem. That company is eBay, and the money transmitter is its well-known subsidiary, PayPal. Last week, the company posted a Bitcoin explainer to one of its blogs, and it recently added a new 'Virtual Currencies' section to its online marketplace, not too far down the page from 'Hobo Nickels.' Hours after we asked eBay about it, the section was removed, and when we asked Ramirez to explain why, she said she’d look into it and then stopped answering our messages." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHow eBay Could Rescue Bitcoin From the Feds

If You’re Still Unimpressed With Bitcoin Wait Until You See This ATM

"Where Bitcoin likely feels intractable for some, RoboCoin brings it into the physical world. Suddenly we're dealing with Bitcoin right in front of us in terms that we understand – it's just like any ATM you've used a thousand times before. It builds a bridge between digital and physical currency. The first RoboCoin kiosk will open later this year in Vancouver and will spread quickly thereafter, according to the plan. CEO Jordan Kelley tells us there's already plenty of interest. Check out the video below to see what a sample transaction looks like." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIf You’re Still Unimpressed With Bitcoin Wait Until You See This ATM

Record 90.5 Million Out Of Labor Force; Half A Million Drop Out In One Month

"While the Establishment survey data was ugly due to both the miss and the prior downward revisions in the NFP print, the real action was in the Household survey, where we find that the number of people not in the labor force rose by a whopping 516,000 in one month, which in turn increased the total number of people outside the labor force to a record 90.5 million Americans. And what is even worse, the Labor Force Participation Rate declined from 63.4% to 63.2%: the is the lowest print since August 1978! Whether or not this means the Fed will continue QE at this point is largely irrelevant: what is more relevant is that the Fed so far has failed miserably at its core mandate." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingRecord 90.5 Million Out Of Labor Force; Half A Million Drop Out In One Month