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Government

One Tip Enough To Put Name On Terrorist Watch List 446

Posted by Soulskill from the brb-gotta-make-a-phone-call-or-two dept.
Frosty P writes "As a result of the US Government's complete failure to investigate credible warnings about 'Underwear Bomber' Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from none other than Abdulmutallab's father, senior American counterterrorism officials say they have altered their criteria so that a single-source tip can lead to a name being placed on the watch list. Civil liberties groups warn that it is now even more likely that individuals who pose no threat will be swept up in America's security apparatus, leading to potential violations of their privacy and making it difficult for them to travel. 'They are secret lists with no way for people to petition to get off or even to know if they're on,' said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union."
Google

Stallman Worried About Chrome OS 393

Posted by CmdrTaco from the fear-the-cloud dept.
dkd903 noted that Stallman is speaking out about the risks of Chrome OS and giving up all your local data into the cloud, pushing people into "Careless Computing." Which is a much more urgent concern than something like calling it GNU/Chrome OS.
Government

Judge Declares Federal Healthcare Plan (Partly) Unconstitutional 1505

Posted by timothy from the urge-us-to-go-and-buy dept.
healeyb writes "In a surprise move, US District Judge Henry E. Hudson issued a ruling today that the universal healthcare law that was pushed through by the Obama administration is unconstitutional. Specifically, he invalidated the section of the law that requires all citizens to purchase healthcare insurance, arguing that it does not fall under the purview of Commerce Clause of the Constitution, as has been asserted by the government. The ruling represents the first major setback for President Barack Obama on an issue that will likely end up at the Supreme Court. Two other courts have shot down challenges to the law."
The Internet

The Pirate Bay Co-Founder Starting P2P-DNS 309

Posted by CmdrTaco from the whacamole-is-fun dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Pirate Bay Co-Founder, Peter Sunde, has started a new project which will provide a decentralized p2p based DNS system. This is a direct result of the increasing control which the US government has over ICANN. The project is called P2P-DNS and according to the project's wiki, this is how the project is described: 'P2P-DNS is a community project that will free internet users from imperial control of DNS by ICANN. In order to prevent unjust prosecution or denial of service, P2P-DNS will operate as a distributed and less centralized service hosted by the users of DNS. Temporary substitutes, (as Alpha and Beta developments), are being made ready for deployment. A network with no centralized points of failure, (per the original design of the internet), remains our goal. P2P-DNS is developing rapidly.'"
Firefox

Apple, Microsoft, Google Attacked For Evil Plugins 293

Posted by CmdrTaco from the also-wear-more-hats dept.
nk497 writes "A Mozilla exec has attacked Apple, Microsoft and Google for installing plugins without users' permission. 'Why do Microsoft, Google, Apple, and others think that it is an OK practice to add plug-ins to Firefox when I'm installing their software packages?' Asa Dotzler asks. 'That is precisely how a Trojan horse operates... These additional pieces of software installed without my consent may not be malicious but the means by which they were installed was sneaky, underhanded, and wrong.' He called on them to 'stop being evil.'"
Security

Next Step For US Body Scanners Could Be Trains, Metro Systems 890

Posted by timothy from the how-to-radicalize-americans dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Hill reports that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says terrorists will continue to look for US vulnerabilities, making tighter security standards necessary. '[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through,' Napolitano said in an interview with Charlie Rose. 'I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime.' Napolitano added she hoped the US could get to a place in the future where Americans would not have to be as guarded against terrorist attacks as they are and that she was actively promoting research into the psychology of how a terrorist becomes radicalized. 'The long-term [question] is, how do we get out of this having to have an ever-increasing security apparatus because of terrorists and a terrorist attack?' says Napolitano. 'I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful.'"
XBox (Games)

Xbox Live Enforcement — No Swastika Logo 473

Posted by Soulskill from the pursuing-the-rare-double-godwin dept.
itwbennett writes "It's one of those questions that really should never come up, but as blogger Peter Smith points out, Stephen Toulouse, the head of Xbox Live enforcement, is used to fielding all sorts of strange questions. Recently, one of those questions was apparently 'Can I use a Swastika as my logo in Call of Duty: Black Ops?' When Toulouse responded with the obvious answer ('No, of course you can't, we'll ban you.') he was met with some pushback by people he refers to as 'contrarians' and 'internet pundits' who decided to educate him on the long and storied history of the swastika as a symbol of good fortune and how just because the Nazis used it, it doesn't make the symbol itself a bad thing. Toulouse covers the topic on his blog in a post titled Context and it's an interesting read if for no other reason than to get a peek inside the day-to-day issues the Xbox Live Enforcement team deals with."
Microsoft

Time To Dump XP? 1213

Posted by CmdrTaco from the wasn't-that-ship-date dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Gartner is saying it's time to plan your migration now (if you havent already done it). I for one know my company still has loads of users still on XP, citing training costs (time and money) rather than software license fees. Is my company alone in wanting to stay in the 1990s or is Windows 7 the way forward?"
Privacy

Routine DNA Tests For Newborns Mean Looming Privacy Problems 268

Posted by timothy from the let's-just-size-you-for-your-uniform dept.
pogopop77 writes "CNN has an interesting story about how newborn babies in the United States are routinely screened for a panel of genetic diseases. Since the testing is mandated by the government, it's often done without the parents' consent. However, many states store that DNA information indefinitely, and even make it available to researchers with little or no privacy safeguards. Sometimes even the names are attached! Here is information on state-by-state policies (PDF) of the handling of the DNA information."

Comment BART cops will get to kill more people (Score 1) 1235

by muckdog (#26624005) Attached to: New Law Will Require Camera Phones To "Click"
Seeing how the BART cops were trying to confiscate cell phone cameras of onlookers that took pictures of BART cop Johannes Mehserle murdering Oscar Grant who was handcuffed on the ground. If those people with cell phone cameras were not there Johannes Mehserle would not be getting charged with murder. The thin blue line would be covering up the murder and claim that Oscar Grant was resisting arrest. As far as I am concern all of the cops that were confiscating phones should also be tried for accessory to murder after the fact. Right now cameras used by citizens seem to be the only effective means of stopping police brutality. Legislating that phones click will have a chilling effect on citizens exposing police brutality. Perverts will just use a normal camera or old cell phone to do what they want to do.

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