Legal and Legislative News

[First]  [Previous] |    1593     1594     1595     1596     1597     1598     1599     1600     1601     1602    | [Next]  [Last] of 1623 page(s)

Senatorial Meddling

National Review

February 7, 2006

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales went before the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday to confront some of the staunchest critics of the Bush administration's terrorist-surveillance program.

That program involves warrantless National Security Agency monitoring of al Qaeda's international communications, some of which go into or out of the United States. For nearly two months, leading Democrats and some Republicans have lambasted the program as heedless of civil liberties and illustrative of the president's placing himself "above the law." The law they have in mind is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA), which governs most domestic monitoring of terrorists and spies, and outside whose strictures the NSA program operates.

Gonzales defends spying Senators challenge attorney general, charge Bush went too far

Lowell Sun Online

by Evan Lehmann

February 7, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The administration's domestic surveillance program is lawful, Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales told senators, disputing Sen. Edward Kennedy's claims that President Bush illegally ordered wiretapping of Americans' phone lines.

Gonzales' statements, made during a daylong appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, promise to deepen the impasse between the administration and its critics regarding the program's legal justification.

First-Grader Suspended for Sexual Harassment

ABC News

by Gitika Ahuja

February 7, 2006

Boy's Mother Says He's Too Young to Even Understand the Accusation

A first-grader was suspended from Downey Elementary School in Brockton, Mass., after school officials said he sexually harassed a female schoolmate. The young boy is accused of touching a fellow first-grader's skin underneath the rear waistband of her pants.

Q&A: NSA Eavesdropping: Privacy vs. National Security?

The New York Times

by Lionel Beehner

February 5, 2006

President Bush has defended his post-9/11 decision to grant the National Security Agency powers to wiretap without warrants as "vital" to protecting the United States from terrorist attacks.

Critics, however, charge the program violates the separation of powers delineated in the U.S. Constitution, as well as Fourth Amendment protections from illegal search and seizure and the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). FISA established a secret court to grant surveillance warrants to intelligence agencies monitoring communications between Americans on U.S. soil and suspected terrorists abroad.

FAQ: When Google is not your friend

CNET News

by Declan McCullagh

February 3, 2006

FAQ Google's recent legal spat with the U.S. Department of Justice highlights not only what information search engines record about us but also the shortcomings in a federal law that's supposed to protect online privacy.

It's only a matter of time before other attorneys realize that a person's entire search history is available for the asking, and the subpoenas begin to fly. This could happen in civil lawsuits or criminal prosecutions.

Grocery store manager accused of felony theft

Lincoln Journal Star

January 28, 2006

Lincoln police arrested a grocery store shift manager who allegedly found a way to withdraw cash from a store cash register without it showing up on his bank statement.

Police believe 21-year-old Andy Price got $2,810 in cash from the store by swiping his card twice quickly and asking for cash back. The store where he worked, SunMart at 2145 S. 17th St., was out the money.

365,000 lose health files to thief

Oregon Live

by JOE ROJAS-BURKE and JOSEPH ROSE

January 26, 2006

Medical privacy advocates expressed horror over Providence Health System's revelation Wednesday that a car thief had walked away with the medical records of 365,000 patients across Oregon and Washington.

The thief who smashed the window of a Plymouth Voyager parked outside a Milwaukie home last month seized a trove of records containing names, addresses, Social Security numbers and intimate health information from patients receiving home services from Providence. Records of Providence hospital or clinic patients were not stolen. The records, some dating to 1987, were stored on computer disks and digital tape that a Providence employee took home and left in his car overnight. Providence officials said certain employees routinely took home records to provide readily available backup.

FTC imposes $10M fine against ChoicePoint for data breach

Computerworld

by Jaikumar Vijayan

January 26, 2006

The FTC has imposed a $10 million fine against data aggregator ChoicePoint Inc. for a massive data security breach that resulted in the compromise of about 160,000 consumer records last year.

In addition to the penalty, which FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras described as the largest ever levied by the agency, ChoicePoint has been asked to set up a $5 million trust fund for individuals who might have become victims of identity theft as a result of the breach. As part of its agreement with the FTC, Alpharetta, Ga.-based ChoicePoint will also have to submit to comprehensive security audits every two years for the next 20 years. "This is an important victory for consumers," Majoras said. "This tells companies that they must protect sensitive consumer information. They must guard the front door as well as guard the back door against hackers."

Teenage hacker facing court case for data theft

Taipei Times

January 22, 2006

A 17-year-old high-school student identified only by his surname Hung has been named as one of the masterminds behind the nation's three main hacker groups, local media reported yesterday.

According to a report in a Chinese-language newspaper, the China Times, Hung is suspected of having hacked his way through a firewall at the Web site of the well-known magazine Information Security to steal customer, member and commercial information on several occasions since last November. The magazine reported the intrusion and theft of information to the police. According to the newspaper report, the case was submitted to the juvenile court in Nantou County after Hung admitted to having entered the magazine's Web site. The paper said he was questioned by investigators at his school following his final exam last Friday.

Review of more than 700 appeals finds problems throughout the justice system

The Mercury News (CA)

by Fredric N. Tulsky

January 22, 2006

The Mercury News began its investigation in late 2002, as concerns emerged about the quality of justice in a series of high-profile cases.

To test how the system worked more broadly, the newspaper reviewed the records of five years of criminal jury trial appeals decided by the California 6th District Court of Appeal -- 727 cases in all. In addition, the newspaper uncovered about 200 cases of questionable conduct that were not part of the study period, by reviewing files and interviewing lawyers.

[First]  [Previous] |    1593     1594     1595     1596     1597     1598     1599     1600     1601     1602    | [Next]  [Last] of 1623 page(s)