law

I've been flying a lot lately and it's become harder to find security lines that don't have nude body scanners.

They seem to be proliferating like Zuckerbergs at Google.

Worse, they become ever more spectacularly demeaning, as people take up a submissive pose -- like bending over at the proctologist's -- and hope it will be over quickly.

One assumes that all the powers that were, be, and are were happy with these things.

It appears not. For the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is grousing that the TSA … Read more

How many people, on seeing a man lying the road at 2 a.m., would go over to ask if he's all right?

How many would just walk on by and assume the man was just another drunk?

And how many would take a picture and tweet it with an amused caption?

This research seems relevant on hearing the story of a teen who saw a man lying in the road at 2 a.m. in Edinburgh, Scotland.

He chose option No. 3.… Read more

I am not sure that all's well that ends well.

Sometimes, you just want things to end and then decide if all can ever be well.

This might be the case with the Highers brothers.

Twenty-five years ago, they were convicted of the murder of Robert Karey at his Detroit home. They say they're innocent.

In 2009, a friend called Mary Evans happened to think of the Highers brothers when she was posting something to the Northeast Detroit Alumni Facebook page.

She told My Fox Detroit: "(All) I said was it's too bad or it's … Read more

The Austrian group Europe versus Facebook, which has been a thorn in the social-networking giant's European side ever since it brought various privacy issues to light and spurred an investigation by Ireland Data Protection Commissioner Billy Hawkes, just got a rather unpleasant text message. The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) has made it quite clear it does not have the time to talk to the group, even though the duo has been working together for months with the goal of getting Facebook to care about privacy.

You might think all of this isn't a big deal, … Read more

LAS VEGAS -- Got a Wi-Fi network? If someone, say Google or the government, sniffs your open network, you may think you're legally protected. Don't be so sure.

It remains unclear whether the law protects your unencrypted Wi-Fi from interception, because there are differing interpretations and lack of court precedent, Kevin Bankston, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said in a session at Defcon yesterday.

The federal wiretap statute prohibits sniffing of contents of communications by a device unless the contents are readily accessible to the general public. If the network is password-protected you're … Read more

Cell phone videos and photos have increasingly brought law enforcement activities to the public eye, such as the killing of Oscar Grant in Oakland, Calif., and crowd control tactics during the Occupy Wall Street protests. But this has also meant that police are more wary of camera-toting citizens.

However, Washington D.C.'s police chief, Cathy Lanier, recently announced that cops are going to have to learn to live with people recording and snapping photos of them, according to DCist. In a six-page General Order, Lanier outlines specific do's and don'ts that her staff must adhere to when … Read more

You may find there is something quite perplexing about the story of Antone Forrest Deedward Owens.

He was arrested this week for a crime that is troubling to fathom.

For, according to the Associated Press, Owens allegedly broke into people's homes with one sole purpose.

It wasn't to steal jewelry or cars. It wasn't to take away flat screens or entire home cinemas.

No, it was to sit in these people's homes and watch porn on their computers.

His urge was so strong that the 21-year-old Oregon man allegedly sometimes broke in while the occupants were … Read more

Judge Colin Birss seems to have character. First, he declared that Samsung couldn't possibly have copied the iPad because Samsung's products are simply "not as cool."

This week, though, he ordered Apple to run ads on its UK Web site and in advertisements in British newspapers saying that Samsung wasn't a copycat.

There seems to be no firm direction, though, as to the actual copy of these ads. So I thought I'd give Apple a little help.

These are a little unpolished, but I hope they serve to offer the company some positive direction. … Read more

Again, the temptation of holding someone else's personal things seems to have been too great for one employee of Best Buy.

Sophia Ellison needed her photos and contacts transferred from an old iPhone to a new one.

According to WTOP radio, she hired the services of a Best Buy Geek Squad employee at Fair Oaks in Fairfax, Va.

Promising to transfer her data, the employee -- called George -- allegedly offered to buy her old iPhone for $60. He also allegedly promised to wipe away all the photos and videos that were on it. And, no, she says that … Read more