Wyden pledges to put a hold on Big Brother spying act, other news

DHS has a cell phone sniffer? And more technology news

License plate readers, drones and the Katz test

Late last week the Congressional Research Service published a report, "Drones in Domestic Surveillance Operations: Fourth Amendment Implications and Legislative Responses." I haven't gotten a chance to read through the entire thing yet, but a couple of interesting things jump out right off the bat.

Among them:

Militarized police encounter few protesters in Tampa

The federal government flooded Tampa with $50 million for weapons, high-tech CCTV cameras and other police and surveillance costs associated with this week's Republican National Convention.

NYPD’s Domain Awareness System raises privacy, ethics issues

A couple of weeks ago AP reported that the NYPD and Microsoft jointly developed a surveillance platform for the police department called "Domain Awareness System." The story was short on details, but told us "the program combines city-wide video surveillance with law enforcement databases" "to track both criminals and potential terrorists."

Tampa City Council restricts speech in advance of RNC

^{_{Police at the RNC in 2008, credit Andrew Ciscel}}

Today in WTF: MBTA gives embarrassing video of woman’s fall to the press

Someone's brief embarrassing misfortune is now a national story, thanks to the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA).

"Boston Woman on Scooter Has Escalator Spill"

Special security events leave a lasting mark

It's now pretty well established: if your city plays host to a major "National Special Security Event" like a major party convention or global summit, your police department will probably gain broad new powers to restrict or intimidate dissent and tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of

Biometrics nightmare: coming to a street corner near you

05/29/2012

Think you can escape the biometrics matrix because you've never been arrested, or because you are a US citizen? Not so fast.