"State corrections officials say the recordings generally were not listened to or provided to law enforcement, though in one case, that did happen. And defense lawyers suspect the problem may be prevalent."
"He is best known for overseeing the case of Paulette Gebara, a four-year-old who was reported missing from her family’s apartment in a Mexico City suburb in 2010. Despite extensive searches and a media coverage, investigators found no trace of the girl for nine days, when her decomposing body was found in her own bed – even though the room had supposedly been sealed by police."
"Japan's public broadcaster sent out a false alert warning of a North Korean missile on Tuesday, just three days after Hawaii residents received an erroneous message about an incoming missile. 'North Korea appears to have launched a missile ... The government urges people to take shelter inside buildings or underground,' the message read, according to a translation from Reuters. The false warning went out just before 7 p.m. in the evening, through broadcaster NHK's Japanese mobile app and website."
"The House of Representatives voted on Thursday to extend the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program for six years with minimal changes, rejecting a push by a bipartisan group of lawmakers to impose significant privacy limits when it sweeps up Americans’ emails and other personal communications. Effectively, the vote was almost certainly the end of a debate over 21st-century surveillance and privacy rights that broke out in 2013 after the leaks by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden."
"Although 'knock-and-talk' policing has become a thinly veiled, warrantless—lethal—exercise by which citizens are coerced and intimidated into 'talking' with heavily armed police who 'knock' on their doors in the middle of the night, the Supreme Court will not make the government play by the rules of the Constitution. The lesson to be learned: the U.S. Supreme Court will not save us. No one is coming to save us: not the courts, not the legislatures, and not the president."
"Tech companies and many cyber security experts have said that any measure ensuring that law enforcement authorities are able to access data from encrypted products would weaken cyber security for everyone. U.S. officials have said that default encryption settings on cellphones and other devices hinder their ability to collect evidence needed to pursue criminals."
"Advocates say camera-mounted drones could help protect officers and others by collecting crucial information during high-risk situations or searches without jeopardizing their safety. For many privacy advocates and police critics, however, the drones stir Orwellian visions of unwarranted surveillance or fears of militarized, weapon-toting devices patrolling the skies. LAPD brass, along with police commissioners, tried to ease those concerns last fall by promising careful restrictions on when the drones would be used, and strong oversight of the pilot program."
"The figure of 24,473 attempts represents about 160 requests per day on average from computers and other devices connected to the parliamentary network – which is used by MPs, peers and staff – between June and October last year. Parliamentary authorities say the majority of attempts are not deliberate."
"Data from 2017 reveals that the idea that there is a 'war on cops' is nothing more than police propaganda, as the number of officers killed in the line of duty dropped to the second-lowest total in more than 50 years. Conversely, there were over 1,000 people killed by cops for the fourth year in a row, according to the website killedbypolice.net, which operates a database of individuals killed by law enforcement officers."
"That plane flying overhead could very well be scooping up your most intimate data, especially if you live in Texas. The Texas National Guard has reportedly equipped two of its RC-26 military aircraft with cell phone data-collecting dragnets, known as dirt boxes. The ability of government agencies to add new modifications to their aerial surveillance capabilities without any real oversight should sound an alarm for all Americans, not just those who live in the Lone Star State."