False Sense Of Security

Welcome to the ‘Glock Block’: Oregonians are no longer calling the police, arm themselves instead

"Frustrated by an increase in petty crime, residents of an Oregon neighborhood have decided to arm themselves instead of calling the police. Residents of a Jennings Lodge neighborhood in Clackamas county, Ore., have put up fliers advertising their new policy, calling themselves the 'Glock Block', according to KOIN News. 'This is a Glock Block,' the fliers read. 'We don't call 911. Along with some of her neighbors, Coy Toloman has put up the fliers and gotten a concealed carry permit with the hopes of deterring criminals. While the increase in neighborhood crime is mostly petty, with incidents of vandalism and stolen law ornaments, Toloman has had enough." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWelcome to the ‘Glock Block’: Oregonians are no longer calling the police, arm themselves instead

The Massive Facial Recognition Database That’s Hiding in Plain Sight

"The database isn't limited to just criminals, and it's completely searchable thanks to facial recognition tech. Generally, there's no need for a court order or warrant to make a search, just 'law enforcement purposes,' which is about as vague as it gets. As for reach, 42 states are involved with the system. The State department has its own little database, consisting of some 230 million faces belonging to visa-holding foreigners and passport-holding citizens alike. As video-surveillance becomes more and more common, it's easy to see how this becomes a modern-day fingerprint index of not just criminals but of anyone with an ID." Continue reading →

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Thousands Of Firms Trade Confidential Data With The US Government In Exchange For Classified Intelligence

"In other words, what is going on behind the scenes is nothing more than one vast, very selective, extremely secretive, symbiotic and perfectly 'legal' giant information exchange network, which allows corporations to profit off classified government information either in kind or in cash, and which allows the government to have all the information at its disposal, collected using public and private venues, in order to protect itself, to take out those it designates as targets, or simply said - to get ever bigger. The loser in all of this? You." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThousands Of Firms Trade Confidential Data With The US Government In Exchange For Classified Intelligence

Karl Rove: NSA surveillance is OK because fictional cops do it on TV shows

"'If you don’t like this program, which we now know was accessed 300 times last year, then you’ve got to be against local law enforcement being able to access routinely business records of the telephone company in their local investigations as well,' Rove told Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday. 'You cannot turn on a cop drama on television where there is not somebody who’s pinging somebody’s cell phone or taking a look at the phone calls made from some landline or telephone booth to help solve some crime on television,' he added. 'And it is routinely done in a large scale at the local law enforcement level.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingKarl Rove: NSA surveillance is OK because fictional cops do it on TV shows

Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

"Many senators elected to leave Washington early Thursday afternoon instead of attending a briefing with James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, Keith Alexander, the head of the National Security Agency (NSA), and other officials. Many lawmakers were eager to take advantage of the short day and head back to their home states for Father’s Day weekend. Only 47 of 100 senators attended the 2:30 briefing, leaving dozens of chairs in the secure meeting room empty as Clapper, Alexander and other senior officials told lawmakers about classified programs to monitor millions of telephone calls and broad swaths of Internet activity." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSenators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

Microsoft Waits to Fix Your Software Bugs So the NSA Can Use Them First

"In a move as fiendishly clever as it is galling, Microsoft tells the U.S. government about bugs in its notoriously buggy software before it fixes them so that intelligence agencies can use the vulnerabilities for the purposes of cyberspying. 'That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes,' sources tell Bloomberg's Michael Riley. But still, the biggest software company on Earth is holding off on its blue-screen-of-death problems to turn them into real-life spy features, an impressive feat that will no doubt frustrate consumers." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMicrosoft Waits to Fix Your Software Bugs So the NSA Can Use Them First

3 Reasons the ‘Nothing to Hide’ Crowd Should Be Worried About Government Surveillance

"There are many, many reasons to be concerned about the rise of the surveillance state, even if you have nothing to hide. Or rather, even if you think you have nothing to hide. For those confronted by such simplistic arguments, here are a three counterarguments that perhaps might get these people thinking about what they’re actually giving up." Continue reading →

Continue Reading3 Reasons the ‘Nothing to Hide’ Crowd Should Be Worried About Government Surveillance

Law enforcement demands smartphone ‘kill switch’

"A coalition of law enforcement officials, political leaders and consumer groups, called the Secure Our Smartphones (S.O.S) Initiative, wants a 'kill switch' installed on all new smartphones that would make them useless anywhere in the world if they are reported stolen. They want all smartphones equipped with a kill switch by early next year and they don’t want customers to foot the bill for this security technology. The S.O.S. Initiative is spearheaded by Gascon and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The two prosecutors hosted a 'Smartphone Summit' in New York City on Thursday with the major mobile device manufacturers." Continue reading →

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Police sued after charging girl with making up rape claim about serial rapist

"A woman has sued several police and city officials after she was accused of lying about being raped. Marc Patrick O’Leary was later sentenced to more than 300 years in prison in 2011. In 2008, when the woman was 18, she reported that O’Leary had tied her up and assaulted her. Police found physical evidence that supported her story, and doctors documented abrasions on her wrists and vagina. However, the detectives accused her of fabricating the incident and charged her with filing a false police report. Three years later, O’Leary was arrested and federal agents uncovered hundreds of photos of his victims, including the woman." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPolice sued after charging girl with making up rape claim about serial rapist