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Submission + - Prosecution of journalist collapses after recording disproves police testimony 2

Submitted by Andy Smith
Andy Smith writes: Slashdot reported last September how I was arrested while standing in a field near a road accident, as I photographed the scene for a newspaper. I was initially given a police warning for "obstruction", but the warning was then cancelled and I was prosecuted for resisting arrest and breach of the peace. These are serious charges and I was facing a prison sentence. Fortunately we had one very strong piece of evidence: A recording of my arrest. Not only did the recording prove that two police officers' testimony was false, but it caught one of them boasting about how he had conspired with a prosecutor to arrest and prosecute me. Yesterday the case was dropped, and now the two police officers and the prosecutor face a criminal investigation.

Submission + - Terry Pratchett's Hard Drive Destroyed by Steamroller

Submitted by WheezyJoe
WheezyJoe writes: In accordance with his wishes, a hard drive formerly belonging to author Terry Pratchett has been crushed by steamroller. According to friend and fellow author Neil Gaiman, Pratchett (who died at 66 in 2015) wanted “whatever he was working on at the time of his death to be taken out along with his computers, to be put in the middle of a road and for a steamroller to steamroll over them all.”

According to the article, on August 25, two years after the author's passing, Mr. Pratchett’s estate manager and close friend, Rob Wilkins, posted a picture of a hard drive and a steamroller on an official Twitter account they shared. The pictures posted suggest the steamroller was one powered by actual steam.

Submission + - IRS Is Mining Taxpayer Data On Social Media In Violation of Federal Privacy Laws (typepad.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: This Article examines the privacy issues resulting from the IRS’s big data analytics program as well as the potential violations of federal law. Although historically, the IRS chose tax returns to audit based on internal mathematical mistakes or mismatches with third party reports (such as W-2s), the IRS is now engaging in data mining of public and commercial data pools (including social media) and creating highly detailed profiles of taxpayers upon which to run data analytics. This Article argues that current IRS practices, mostly unknown to the general public are violating fair information practices. This lack of transparency and accountability not only violates federal law regarding the government’s data collection activities and use of predictive algorithms, but may also result in discrimination.

While the potential efficiencies that big data analytics provides may appear to be a panacea for the IRS’s budget woes, unchecked, these activities are a significant threat to privacy. Other concerns regarding the IRS’s entrée into big data are raised including the potential for political targeting, data breaches, and the misuse of such information. This Article intends to bring attention to these privacy concerns and contribute to the academic and policy discussions about the risks presented by the IRS’s data collection, mining and analytics activities.

Comment Re:And so it begins... (Score 1) 407

by MiSaunaSnob (#54036977) Attached to: A Rogue Robot Is Blamed For a Human Colleague's Gruesome Death
i'm going to call bull shit on this. every plant I have ever seen has lock outs for each machine. the lock out is a switch that kills the power to that machine. each motor has a starter unit and a switch... there is not just one big switch for the whole plant. You lock out, You test start from the control panel (or hmi or plc or what have you) and when it does not start then you go in and work on it. lines have to be able to handle having one machine down... if its broke its broke.

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