UK To Require Service Providers Monitor And Store Info On Users

from the more-data-isn't-good-data dept

Despite lots of criticism over the plan, UK politicians are moving forward with demands that online service providers store and monitor certain types of internet communications. While the government will be compensating service providers for some of this (your tax dollars at work), it's still a rather large burden on these service providers, and raises all sorts of privacy questions. Oh, and on top of all of that, we've already seen that law enforcement in the UK is struggling to cope with the fact that they're already inundated with too much data. They don't want more data, they need better data. Making service providers hang onto even more data doesn't help the situation, it just opens up the potential for serious privacy invasion.

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YouTube-Using Russian Police Officer Fired For Whistleblowing

from the careful-where-you-whistleblow dept

One of the great things about the internet these days is that it gives a platform for people who had no voice before to speak out. Of course, there are certain risks associated with that. Apparently a police officer in the Russian port of Novorossiisk put up a YouTube video accusing his superiors of corruption. The video got lots of attention (over 200,000 views) leading Russia's Interior Ministor (who is responsible for the police) to start a probe. That probe apparently lasted all of two hours before it ended and the police officer who made the video was fired. Of course, many will assume that this was punishing a whistleblower, which certainly sounds plausible -- though, an argument could also be made that if the guy really was making stuff up, that's pretty bad as well. Either way, it is a reminder that just because you have a platform to speak out (whether legitimately or not), it doesn't mean there aren't consequences for doing so (as unfair as those consequences might be in some cases).

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UK Law Enforcement Tells UK Gov't: Please Don't Kick File Sharers Offline

from the didn't-see-that-coming dept

Those who believe that kicking people off the internet based on accusations of file sharing is an affront to basic due process and civil rights have perhaps an unexpected ally: UK law enforcement and intelligence services have come out against Peter Mandelson's "three strikes and your off the internet" plan. Of course, they're not as concerned about due process and civil rights, as they are about making it more difficult to track down criminals online:

Law enforcement groups, which include the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and the Metropolitan Police's e-crime unit, believe that more encryption will increase the costs and workload for those attempting to monitor internet traffic. One official said: "It will make prosecution harder because it increases the workload significantly."

A source involved in drafting the Bill said that the intelligence agencies, MI5 and MI6, had also voiced concerns about disconnection. "The spooks hate it," the source said. "They think it is only going to make monitoring more difficult."

Enforcement groups are also unhappy that the Government's change of plans has left them little time to draw up a response. Lord Mandelson's intervention came two months after the Government's Digital Britain report, published in June, failed to back disconnection.

So, the government's own plan said no to kicking people off the internet. The police and the intelligence services are saying no to it. Why is Mandelson still supporting it?

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Massachusetts Says Cops Need Warrant To Stick GPS Device On Your Car

from the that-makes-two-states dept

For the past few years, it's become increasingly common for police to put GPS devices on suspects' cars to track where they are. But, that's kicked up a bunch of legal questions concerning whether or not it's legal to do that without a warrant. So far, the courts have not really agreed. Earlier this year, we saw one court (a federal appeals court, 4th circuit) say that police didn't need a warrant, but then, just days later, a court in NY ruled the other way, saying that it was a violation of the 4th Amendment. Now, the state Supreme Court in Massachusetts has weighed in as well, again saying that a warrant is needed to put a GPS device on your car. So that makes NY and Massachusetts as states where police can't randomly stick GPS devices on your car. The other 48 states? Good luck...

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Arrested For Blogging About The Police?

from the where-do-you-draw-the-line dept

A bunch of folks have been submitting this story about a blogger who was effectively arrested for blogging about the police, raising a series of free speech issues. As the article notes, the woman hardly makes for a sympathetic symbol of free speech rights. She appears to be a racist supporter of segregation and also seems to have an obsession with the local drug enforcement task force, posting all sorts of information about what they were doing and who was on the task force. But the question is whether any of it actually broke the law. What led to her arrest was posting home address info -- and a photo of the home -- of an officer on the task force. However, as the article linked above notes, that information was gleaned from public sources that anyone could have looked up had they chosen to do so. Making that a crime doesn't seem to make much sense. The police didn't even charge her with obstruction of justice, but with "identifying a police officer with intent to harass." The problem is such a law is so broad, it raises serious First Amendment issues. The woman isn't exactly a model citizen, but it still seems like a stretch to arrest her for revealing information that is already public.

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Australian Police Start Wardriving; Telling You To Lock Up Your WiFi

from the but-what-if-I-want-it-open? dept

I honestly had to double check the date on this story, because it sounds like something we heard seven years ago about the US Secret Service doing wardriving and alerting open WiFi router owners that their WiFi was open. That was back when there were all sorts of stories about how "evil" it was to have open WiFi, which seems to have finally (thankfully) gone away for the most part. However, Broadband Reports points us to the news that police in Australia are going to start "wardriving" and seeking open WiFi networks in order to knock on your door and tell you to lock them down. They don't seem to note that having an open WiFi network is legal if you want it to be open. Perhaps it's a nice thing to do to alert people who might not know, but it seems like police resources could be spent in a more useful manner.

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UK Police Issue Copyright Takedown Over Speed Camera Photos

from the incentive-to-create? dept

Another day, another example of copyright being misused. This one, sent in by JJ, involves police in the UK demanding that certain speed camera photos be taken offline as copyright violations. They're apparently pissed that a guy who used the photos to prove that the cameras are faulty has posted his story (with the photos) online:

"The content of these photographs are the property of Sussex Police and publication of them is a breach of copyright. They should be removed from the website forthwith. If they are not removed further action may be contemplated."

The real issue is that the guy who posted the photos is one of a growing number of folks who have discovered that, if you know a little bit of math, you can often show that the speed cameras were flat-out wrong.

Copyright is a gov't granted exclusive right solely for the purpose of creating incentives for works that otherwise wouldn't be created. I can't see how that applies to police speed camera photos at all -- which seem to have a different incentive to "create," whether it's to make the roads safer (the official explanation) or to raise money from speeding tickets (the real reason). Neither one of those requires copyright at all. And, of course, posting the images hardly seems like it should be a violation of copyright. The whole thing is obviously being used to stifle free speech because the police department doesn't like it, not because there's any sort of reasonable copyright claim.

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UK Police Learn That More Surveillance Data Doesn't Mean Better Surveillance Data

from the swamped-by-data dept

Way back in 2002, we wrote that with all the efforts (mostly in the UK) to try to allow law enforcement officials to collect more and more surveillance data that more data doesn't mean better data, and in fact, all that data often makes it harder to find the right or necessary data. The trick is to be smarter about surveillance, not just focus on getting more. It appears that police in the UK are finally learning this lesson. Last month, we saw how all that data was leading to mistakes as patterns were being spotted that weren't there. And, now, UK police are discovering that they're missing important information and clues because they're just overwhelmed by garbage data. Of course, this won't stop the increasing collection of data, because no one seems to want to admit that too much data helps bury the needles deeper in the haystack.

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Another Court Says Police Don't Violate The Law In Putting A GPS Device On Your Car

from the tracking-you-in-public? dept

We first discussed this issue way back in 2003, wondering whether it was really a violation of privacy for police to put a GPS tracking device on a suspect's car. In 2005, a court said it was perfectly legal, though there were concerns about what this meant. We're seeing the same concerns as another court has ruled the same way. The reasoning and the logic is effectively the same: if you are traveling on public roads, anyone could (theoretically) drive behind you and see where you are going -- even without a warrant. So is it really a violation of privacy if that tracking is done by a little black box attached to your car instead of a big black box with four wheels?

Of course, the flipside to that, is that if you are driving you can also see (for the most part) if there is another car following you and that other car cannot follow you onto private property that you own. A hidden GPS device is quite different on those points. So while the courts seem to be coming down on the side of this not being a violation of privacy, I can definitely see where privacy advocates are troubled by these rulings. The fact that they effectively suggest the police can simply put a hidden GPS device on any car for no reason at all raises plenty of questions -- especially in an era when information can and is regularly abused.

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Even The Phoenix Police, Responding To Emergencies, Can Get Dinged By Speed Cameras

from the money-in-the-bank dept

Arizona has been one of the bigger supporters of traffic cameras over the years, though there's been quite a bit of backlash there in recent months. It reached quite a level last month with the news that a speed camera operator was shot and killed. Reader Milodon points us to the news that even the police in Phoenix are getting quite upset at speed cameras because they're getting caught by them while on the way to respond to emergencies. Yes, even when the police are responding to an emergency in a police car, lights flashing and everything, they can still get a citation if they're caught speeding by a speed camera. The police department policy is that officers can get cited for being "out of policy" which is 15 mph over the speed limit.

Now, there is a reasonable argument to be made that police speeding can be a danger to others as well -- which is what those who support the policy say. But, you could make an argument that circumstances should determine what's safe in responding to an emergency, rather than a hard and fast policy. Still, even if you agree that police shouldn't speed, it's hard not to see some irony in police getting citations from speed cameras.

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Police Learning To Make Good Use Of Twitter

from the good-for-them dept

With all the stories of police getting worried about new technologies, it's always good to see cases where they seem to be using them appropriately. Rick recently wrote in to point out a story where police in Maine used Craigslist to track down a prostitution ring. Compare that to others who have been blaming Craigslist for prostitution. And, now we're seeing stories about some police departments that are actively using Twitter either to send out emergency alerts to people, or to better connect with the community they're supposed to be protecting. Of course, that story worries about "impostors," but there are ways to deal with that issue. For police looking to make use of the technology, it can be quite useful, and it's great to see some actually realizing that and embracing the technology.

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MIT Police Suspended For Trashing Student Newspaper

from the and-the-online-version? dept

Apparently, two police officers at MIT have been suspended after they decided that students at the university shouldn't see a front page story about another MIT police officer caught dealing drugs -- so they dumped hundreds of copies of the paper in the trash (well, actually a recycling bin -- they may want to censor, but not clog landfills, apparently). Of course, it really makes you wonder what they hoped to accomplish. The MIT paper, The Tech, is available online, including the article in question. Throwing out the papers probably did little (if anything) to stop people from reading about the incident -- and simply ended up calling more attention to questionable activities by MIT police. All of this, of course, highlights yet another nice benefit to online newspapers: people can't throw them out to try to hide what's in them.

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Police Chief Gets Into Car Accident While Checking His Blackberry

from the nice-move dept

Just as politicians and the police have been increasingly cracking down on drivers who are using mobile phones for texting and emailing while driving, a police chief in the Seattle suburb of Federal Way has issued an apology for hitting another car while checking his Blackberry. Apparently it was a minor accident, that occurred when the chief, Brian Wilson, was stopped at a traffic light in an unmarked police car. He started checking his Blackberry and took his foot off the brake, allowing the car to roll forward into another vehicle. The chief says he takes full responsibility for the accident and is mortified... Of course, it sounds like no legal action will be taken even though Washington was the first state to enact anti-texting while driving laws.

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Police Actually Realizing That YouTube And Facebook Are Useful Tools To Catch Criminals

from the about-time dept

There have been so many stories of people blaming YouTube or social networks like MySpace and Facebook when stupid criminals post evidence of their crimes online that some politicians actually have been pushing to pass laws that ban posting evidence of your criminal activities to any of these sites. It's as if politicians want to make the job of police officers that much more difficult by telling criminals to stop incriminating themselves. Sometimes, even the police seem to make this mistake, blaming websites for crimes, even when they're actually great resources for helping to catch criminals.

Luckily, not all police officers think this way. Mark writes in to tell us of a case where police not only used both Facebook and YouTube to track down people setting fires in celebration following the Superbowl, but that the department looks upon those tools as being a useful way to catch criminals:

"We are using this (Facebook) as a crime-fighting tool. It's becoming pretty common."

Sure, this seems like perfectly normal common sense -- but given how we've seen some others react to crimes displayed online in this manner, it's nice to be reminded that some people really do have common sense (though, that clearly does not include the criminals posting such incriminating evidence).

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Cop Caught Slamming Cyclist To The Ground On YouTube Indicted

from the fighting-back dept

Over the summer, you may have seen the video that got passed around quite a bit of a NYC police officer going out of his way to slam a Critical Mass cyclist to the ground. As you may have heard, the officer wrote up a report claiming that the cyclist ignored his commands to stop and tried to steer his bike into the him. From the video, that's obviously false, though the cyclist ended up having to spend a day in jail based on the report:

The good news is that the officer, Patrick Pogan, has now been indicted and charged both with a misdemeanor assault and felony counts for falsifying his report. Obviously, none of this would have transpired if it weren't for the tourist filming what happened and then putting the video up on YouTube. We talk about abuses of power via technology quite often, but it's good to see an abuse of power stopped thanks to technology as well.

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UK Court Dismisses Lawsuit Against Journalist Police Wiretapped

from the protection-of-sources dept

An interesting and important ruling came out of the UK last week, as a journalist had a lawsuit against her thrown out by a judge, because it appears that much of the evidence came from police wiretapping her phone conversations with a source in the police department. The judge ruled that journalists have a right to protect their sources, and the police wiretaps were illegal. I'm not familiar enough with UK wiretapping laws to know if they needed a court's approval for the wiretap in the first place -- but on the whole this seems like a reasonable decision, as the case itself was quite troublesome. Basically, it sounded like the police wanted to plug leaks from within the department, and then bugged the journalist to find out who the leaker was, and with that info charged both the source and the journalist. That certainly seems like an abuse of police power to try to prevent future leaks, so it's good to see the court dismiss the whole thing.

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Canadian Cops Seek To Solve Murder Cases With Online Tips

from the crowdsourcing-investigations dept

Last week, the Toronto Police Homicide Squad launched a new website containing profiles of unsolved murder cases and wanted persons. Each profile contains details of the investigation -- a written synopsis, photos and links to Google maps or even YouTube videos -- and allows visitors to submit tips directly to the police. It serves not only as an appeal for information, but also as a resource for grieving families. Some of the "cold cases" date back decades, and the police are hoping that increased attention on the web (or even from the press on the website launch) might lead to a break in an investigation.

Police have long since used online tools to search for evidence themselves, but we're starting to see them engaging online communities and developing tools and methods to appeal to the public for information through the web. A few years back, a cop from a neighboring city received a lot of press for uploading a surveillance video to YouTube, and now Toronto's Crime Stoppers service has its own YouTube channel and Facebook page. Though, in the surveillance video case, the media coverage of the YouTube angle seemed to help a lot more than the actual video (and comments on some of the Crime Stoppers videos make you wish the comment audio preview was mandatory.) The Toronto police have found a lot of success in solving and preventing crime using these tools, and they recently presented their methods to an Interpol audience.

It's great to see law enforcement embracing the web as a means of two-way communication with the public, though it may take some time before these latest efforts pay off. The new site looks like it could use some more design work, and previous success has involved engaging a largely younger audience on social networks, rather than trying to draw witnesses to a separate site. As long as they continue to experiment, police are bound to find the right methods to make these tools useful.

Blaise Alleyne is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Blaise Alleyne and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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UK Police Create Facebook App For Sending In Tips

from the e-snitch dept

We've heard plenty of stories about police using social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook to catch criminals who brag about their crimes on these social networks, but Alimas points us to a story about how police in Manchester are going much further. They've created a whole Facebook application designed to let people submit information and (they hope) help the police solve crimes. The app has a running news feed of stories about crimes, sometimes with requests for help in getting tips or even identifying people in a surveillance cam video. While some people may think of it as an "e-snitch" program, it's interesting to see the police go this far in trying to tap into a social network, and seems a lot more useful than just trolling social networks for dumb criminals. It's nice to see the police realizing that part of a social network is the two-way communication aspect, rather than just monitoring what's happening.

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Australian Police: Cracking Down On Piracy... Except When The Police Are The Pirates

from the double-standards-much? dept

Just days after Australian police participated in a headline generating raid to stop music piracy, an audit of police computers not only found DVD piracy is rife throughout many police department computers, but the police have decided not to prosecute because the activity was so widespread. Apparently, the fact that unauthorized file sharing is also widespread throughout the wider population doesn't stop the police... but when it's their own doing the sharing, it gets forgiven.

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Police Accountability Is A Good Thing

from the public-scrutiny dept

Jim Lippard points out that a site called Rate My Cop is generating some controversy from Arizona police departments who apparently consider the site an invasion of officers' privacy. The site doesn't have pictures, addresses, or other personal information on the site. It only lists officers' names and the department they work for. But this is still too much for the Tempe police department. "If everybody went home everyday and you had the whole world ranking your job, we do make mistakes, but other days we do great things," said one Tempe police officer. I've have a lot more sympathy for the guy if this wasn't true of a ton of other professions. When I do a stupid blog post, you guys all leave comments saying so. Most restaurants and retail business have complaint cards so customers can complain about bad service. There are a ton of sites where consumers rate hotels, bands, restaurants, books, and a ton of other stuff -- such as rating teachers (although some people do want to make that illegal too). The big difference is that police officers have the force of law behind them, so they need to be held to a higher standard than other professions. The worst thing my blog posts can do is annoy our readers and hurt Techdirt's traffic. When a police officer screws up, the result can be innocent people being harrassed, humiliated, arrested, injured or killed. The cops who do those things are a small minority, obviously. But that's precisely why we need sites like this to help bring some public attention to the few bad apples who are out there.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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