Set a schedule to dump useless info

Apr 1, 2013 6:49 AM CDT

Should hacked firms be cybercops?

Apr 1, 2013 6:19 AM CDT

Feds use little-known StingRay device to track cellphones; is a warrant required?

The device is called a StingRay, and it mimics cellphone towers to connect with wireless phones, enabling authorities to track suspects. It is now at the center of a legal battle as lawyers argue the federal government is using the technology without the proper authority. Use of the StingRays raises…

Mar 28, 2013 12:22 PM CDT

Drug dog sniff outside home is search, SCOTUS says; Scalia opinion relies on curtilage concept

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that police conducted a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when they used a police dog to sniff for drugs on the porch of a home. Conservative Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas joined with three of the court’s liberals to form…

Mar 26, 2013 2:41 PM CDT

ACLU suit: Rights of contacts are violated when police search arrestees’ cell phones

The American Civil Liberties Union is taking a new tack in a suit challenging police searches of arrestees’ cell phones. The California Supreme Court ruled in the 2011 case People v. Diaz that arrestees’ Fourth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution are not violated by police searches of their cell…

Mar 21, 2013 2:58 PM CDT

DC Circuit requires CIA to give some drone strike information to judge in ACLU lawsuit

A federal appeals court has ruled that the CIA must give some information about its drone strike records to a federal judge overseeing a case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Friday in a panel opinion (PDF)…

Mar 18, 2013 2:20 PM CDT

Secret passenger audio recordings are now playing in a NY cab; were they obtained legally?

A New York artist who drives a cab is raising some eyebrows and legal questions with his latest art project. Daniel Wilson secretly recorded his passengers’ conversations and assembled the audio highlights into a 37-minute collage that he played in the back of his cab during New York’s Armory Arts…

Mar 18, 2013 12:04 PM CDT

Collecting customer ZIP codes violates state privacy law, Massachusetts high court rules

Massachusetts’ top court has ruled that consumers whose ZIP codes are retained by retailers in the state can sue for a violation of state privacy law. The decision issued Monday by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court paves the way for a would-be class action against Michaels Stores, the Patriot Ledger…

Mar 13, 2013 11:15 AM CDT

Google to pay $7M over Street View data scoop, critics call huge sum a pittance for Web giant

In one of the largest settlements ever reached over an Internet privacy violation involving unauthorized access into consumer accounts, Google has agreed to pay $7 million to a coalition of state attorneys general over what the search engine goliath has called an inadvertent data scoop during the compilation of photographs…

Mar 12, 2013 7:31 PM CDT

Tipster tells police missing man was hospitalized; staff refused to say due to privacy law

When worried friends reported an 81-year-old man was missing from his home on Monday, one of the first things police in Salem, Ore., did was contact local hospitals. There was no sign of Thomas Dill there, so authorities and friends kept searching. After two days, an anonymous tipster told police…

Mar 11, 2013 4:17 PM CDT

Appeals court limits border searches of laptops that contain ‘most intimate details of our lives’

In an 8-3 ruling, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has put restrictions on the ability of border agents to search laptop computers. The majority (PDF) says U.S. border agents must first have grounds to suspect wrongdoing before using technology to unlock passwords and search computers, the…

Mar 11, 2013 11:39 AM CDT

Woman who sued Google over ‘Levitra’ link to her name loses in 7th Circuit

A federal appeals court has tossed a lawsuit by a Wisconsin woman who claims Google violated state misappropriation laws by linking her name to erectile dysfunction drugs through its Google Suggest feature. In an opinion issued on Wednesday, the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found no violation of…

Mar 7, 2013 2:53 PM CST

Scalia and Kagan appear most skeptical about DNA collection from arrestees

Justice Antonin Scalia appeared unimpressed with the statistics on Tuesday when the U.S. Supreme Court debated the constitutionality of collecting DNA samples from those arrested for serious crimes. Scalia commented after Maryland’s chief deputy attorney general, Katherine Winfree, offered some statistics, report the National Law Journal, the New York Times…

Feb 27, 2013 2:59 PM CST

Lawyers, journalists have no standing to challenge foreign surveillance law, SCOTUS rules

A group of plaintiffs that includes lawyers and legal organizations has no standing to challenge a foreign surveillance law, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a 5-4 opinion. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the majority opinion (PDF) finding that the plaintiffs had not established an injury in fact…

Feb 26, 2013 4:41 PM CST

Chemerinsky: Does the Fourth Amendment still fit the 21st Century?

Updated: Once more in Maryland v. King, which was argued Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court is asked to apply the Fourth Amendment to the technology of the 21st century. The issue is whether the Fourth Amendment is violated when a state, without a warrant, collects and analyzes DNA taken from…

Feb 25, 2013 3:00 PM CST