http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=2634
Police told to ignore human rights ruling over DNA database
August 7, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Featured Headlines, Govt, Non-U.S., Surveillance
Chief constables across England and Wales have been told to ignore a landmark ruling by the European court of human rights and carry on adding the DNA profiles of tens of thousands of innocent people to a national DNA database.
Senior police officers have also been “strongly advised” that it is “vitally important” that they resist individual requests based on the Strasbourg ruling to remove DNA profiles from the national database in cases such as wrongful arrest, mistaken identity, or where no crime has been committed.
Read more in The Guardian.
It’s not clear how the letter described in the news story from ACPO is consistent with a June 21 story on how the incoming ACPO chief, Sir Hugh Orde, wants more emphasis on human rights.
How serious is this, really? Is it worthy of Secret Service notice? (Does it return a big “Knock it off, Republican Dog! The Feds are watching and are calling your Mother right now!)
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=2646
Philly cop accused of running criminal background check on Obama
August 8, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Breaches, Govt, U.S.
Philadelphia’s police department is investigating why an officer used his police car’s computer to run a criminal background check on President Barack Obama.
Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said Friday the officer could face discipline for performing the check Wednesday morning. The Secret Service alerted the department after it learned about the incident from National Crime Information Center.
Read more on Huffington Post.
In July, two Georgia police officers were put on paid administrative leave after it was found that they had run an unauthorized background check on the President.
(Related?) Some folks (politicians) got more rights than others?
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=2649
2nd Circuit rebuffs attempt to obtain Spitzer wiretap data
August 8, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Court, Surveillance, U.S.
The New York Times has lost its bid to obtain wiretap information related to former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s involvement in a prostitution ring.
The federal law that permits disclosure of wiretap information on a showing of good cause does not allow disclosure based solely on the news media’s interest in publishing the information, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Friday.
Read more on Law.com.
[From the article:
Four people who either ran or worked for the prostitution ring were charged in the case in March 2008. Once Spitzer was revealed as a client of the ring, he quickly resigned from office, although he was not charged in the case.
… Rakoff, in In re New York Times Co., 600 F.Supp. 2d 504 (S.D.N.Y. 2009), granted the paper's request on Feb. 19, 2009, finding the wiretap applications were "judicial records," and that the press enjoyed a right of access to those records under both common law and the First Amendment that amounted to a "presumption in favor of disclosure."
He found that the presumption was not outweighed by the government's concern about confidentiality because the investigation had been concluded, and that any privacy concerns could be addressed by the redactions.
Finally, the judge said that "there's no reason to believe that Congress intended 'good cause' to be anything other than a synonym for the balancing dictated by the aforementioned constitutional and common law principles."
All Kindle users??? It never hurts to ask, but does he believe his newspapers are important enough to Amazon to demand? If Amazon says no, where will he go? This, coupled with his decision to charge for content, should make for an interesting test case.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/08/07/168255/Murdoch-Demands-Kindle-Users-Info?from=rss
Murdoch Demands Kindle Users' Info
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday August 07, @03:45PM from the another-in-a-long-line-of-bad-decisions dept.
In yet another move to display how antiquated and completely ignorant of digital culture he is, Rupert Murdoch has started demanding that Amazon hand over user info for all Kindle users. This demand comes right after Murdoch just finished negotiating a larger share of revenue from Amazon sales. At least Amazon hasn't decided to comply with this request yet.
"'As I've said before, the traditional business model has to change rapidly to ensure that our journalistic businesses can return to their old margins of profitability,' Murdoch said. 'Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting.'"
[From the article:
"Kindle treats them as their subscribers, not as ours, and I think that will eventually cause a break with us."
Boy, you thought Texting made for dangerous driving...
http://newteevee.com/2009/08/07/apple-to-stream-first-live-concert-to-the-iphone-tonight/
Apple to Stream First Live Concert to the iPhone Tonight
Tonight Apple will produce its first-ever live event streamed to the iPhone: a concert by the electronica band Underworld. Apple has apparently kept the event quiet as it doesn’t want to overwhelm the AT&T network, but if you have an iPhone you can queue it up yourself at iphone.akamai.com or underworldlive.com. The show starts at 9 p.m. PT and the stream is free.
Is there a use for this? Isn't PowerPoint bad enough?
Use PowerPoint Video Converter to Convert PowerPoint Presentations to a Video
Aug. 7th, 2009 By Karl L. Gechlik
There are times that you want to show your PowerPoint presentation to someone quickly and easily. The best way to achieve this is to convert your Powerpoint file into a video file.
With that video file you can post it to YouTube, send it along to another user via email or post it on your blog as a tutorial.
What ever you are going to do with the finished product this free 6.6mb application will make your life MUCH MUCH easier!
To start you need to download and install this application from here.
Amusing (I'll probably waste too much time with this...)
http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/marinetraffic-cargo-ship-tracking/
MarineTraffic: Real Time Yacht, Cruise & Cargo Ship Tracking
MarineTraffic is a cool Google Map mash up that provides you with real time ship tracking. It shows live information about ship movements throughout the world. You can search by ship name or zoom into map to view ships in particular area.
Similar: www.sailwx.info
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