Matthew Renda | Courthouse News Service SAN JOSE (CN) — A senior staff attorney with the ACLU shed light on the closure of a longstanding FOIA case involving the government’s attempts to shield documents about its use of location-tracking “Stingray” devices in Northern California on Monday. The ACLU of Northern California sued the Department of … Read more
Nicholas Iovino | Courthouse News Service Police do not need a warrant to acquire cellphone-location data from wireless companies, the en banc Fourth Circuit ruled Monday, dealing a blow to privacy rights. The full court heard the case after its three-judge panel split the other way on the issue last year in United States v. … Read more
Evidently police in Baltimore have been using a Stingray to spy on phones, but if reports are correct, the police tried to conceal the fact that they were using it. The stingray is a device that can enable police and other malicious agents to scoop up private data from your smartphone without you even knowing … Read more
John Vibes | The Free Thought Project South Padre Island, TX — It was recently reported that spring break celebrations will be monitored by police drones. For generations, college students have been able blow off some steam during spring break in relative safety. Even in the past, students who went on vacation to party, had a better … Read more
Matt Agorist | The Free Thought Project Washington D.C. — Under a Freedom of Information Act request, a Pentagon inspector general made public a report last week, admitting to the use of drones to spy on U.S. citizens.+ The missions were non-military in nature, meaning they were used for domestic spying purposes. Naturally, the Pentagon … Read more
Matt Reynolds | The Free Thought Project RIVERSIDE, Calif. (CN) – The federal government on Friday told a federal judge it doubted that Apple is really concerned about the privacy of millions of iPhone users, and that the tech giant’s resistance to unlocking terrorist Syed Farook’s iPhone is driven by “marketing concerns.” In a motion … Read more
John Vibes | True Activist A facial recognition company called Face Forensics has recently announced the rollout of a new tattoo detection system and database which could help them track citizens by their body art. The new technology was developed in response to an overwhelming demand from law enforcement agencies, who wanted another tool in … Read more
2015/11/09 John Vibes | True Activist This week, a 29-year old German man was arrested at Frankfurt Airport after police noticed that he had microwaved his ID to disable the microchip inside. Microwaving ID’s is actually extremely common among German and other EU citizens who are concerned about their privacy. The man, who has not … Read more
Max Chantha | November 7, 2015 WASHINGTON – While an automated policing system that predicts where and when crime will occur sounds like an Orwellian fantasy, it may be closer to reality than we think. Seattle’s fledgling Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) is an automated system that aims to predict crimes based on merging historical … Read more
John Vibes | The Free Thought Project 2015/10/07 Madison, WI — Thomas Smith, 27, was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for leaving negative remarks on a local police department’s Facebook page back in 2012. After fighting the charges with his own lawsuit, Smith was recently awarded a $35,000 settlement because his rights were violated … Read more
2015/08/09 WASHINGTON, DC — When it comes to spying on your private life and habits, it’s not just the NSA that should concern you, but the local police station down the street. The surveillance technology used by local police is getting better and better. They can track license plates, track identities with facial recognition software, … Read more
Michael Heise | FilmingCops.com The police aren’t making too many friends these days. It seems like there isn’t a day that goes by where some tragic and outrageous story comes out involving the the cops and somehow violating somebody’s rights, or even killing them. But, no matter how much we see this behavior, no matter … Read more