Not only a waste of time and money, but now a constitutional waste of time and money.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=23742

DC Circuit Holds that New Airport Screening Security Measures Comply With the Fourth Amendment

July 15, 2011 by Dissent

Orin Kerr writes:

The new airport screening measures involving millimeter wave technology and backscatter technology — together with the opt-out of a pat-down — have received a great deal of public attention. Back when the new measures were first widely introduced, I blogged about why a Fourth Amendment challenge to the new practices was an uphill battle. Today, the DC Circuit handed down an opinion in EPIC v. Department of Homeland Security holding that the new practices comply with the Fourth Amendment.

Read more on The Volokh Conspiracy, and see Eugene Volokh’s post on the administrative law aspects of the decision.

For its part, EPIC has a more optimistic headline, Federal Appeals Court: TSA Violated Federal Law, Must Take Public Comment on Body Scanners.

Win a battle, lose a war. They want Google (News) to pay if they link to news on their site, but they don't want Google (Search) to stop linking...

Belgian Newspapers Delisted On Google

"After being ordered by the Belgian courts to 'remove from its Google.be and Google.com sites, and in particular, cached links visible on Google Web and the Google News service, all articles, photographs and graphics of daily newspapers published in French and German by Belgian publishers,' Google had removed all traces of the newspapers in question from all its search services. The newspapers, however, are crying foul, and alleged that it was done in retaliation for being sued for copyright violations."

[From Article 2:

The newspapers filed a lawsuit against Google in 2006 claiming the web giant had no right to post links to their articles on Google News without payment or permission. They won, and a Belgian appeals court upheld their victory in May.

Time to re-thing “Copyright lawsuits for fun and profit?” The fine is trivial in relation to an hour of law firm billing.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/judge-fines-righthaven-5000/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

Judge Fines Righthaven $5,000

A Las Vegas federal judge has sanctioned copyright troll Righthaven to the tune of $5,000 for making misrepresentations to the court.

U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt of Nevada last month ordered Righthaven to explain why Hunt should not sanction it for trying to “manufacture standing.” (.pdf)

You don't have to be a master of strategy to know getting out your message (Army good, budget cuts bad) is worth while. It is also a way to find those little packets of dissent that you could fan into the next “Arab Spring”

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/07/darpa-wants-social-media-sensor-for-propaganda-ops/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

Pentagon Wants a Social Media Propaganda Machine

You don’t need to have 5,000 friends of Facebook to know that social media can have a notorious mix of rumor, gossip and just plain disinformation. The Pentagon is looking to build a tool to sniff out social media propaganda campaigns and spit some counter-spin right back at it.

On Thursday, Defense Department extreme technology arm Darpa unveiled its Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) program. It’s an attempt to get better at both detecting and conducting propaganda campaigns on social media. SMISC has two goals. First, the program needs to help the military better understand what’s going on in social media in real time — particularly in areas where troops are deployed. Second, Darpa wants SMISC to help the military play the social media propaganda game itself.