Supreme Court, not having been attacked by anthrax for 11 years, sides with Constitution

Justices decide firmly for privacy in their first ruling on government use of digital technology to monitor people….

The Supreme Court confronted for the first time the government’s growing use of digital technology to monitor Americans and ruled strongly in favor of privacy.

The court said the Constitution generally barred the police from tracking an individual with a GPS device attached to a car unless they were issued a warrant from a judge in advance. But the ruling could limit a host of devices including surveillance cameras and cellphone tracking, legal experts said.

“I would guess every U.S. attorney’s office in the country will be having a meeting to sort out what this means for their ongoing investigations,” said Lior Strahilevitz, a University of Chicago expert on privacy and technology.

Even the justices who most often side with prosecutors rejected the government’s view that Americans driving on public streets have waived their right to privacy and can be tracked and monitored at will. At least five justices appeared inclined, in the future, to go considerably beyond the physical intrusion involved in putting a GPS device on a car and rule that almost any long-term monitoring with a technological device could violate an individual’s right to privacy.

Until now, prosecutors and police have believed as long as they were tracking a person who was out in public, they could use GPS devices, cellphone tracking, facial recognition cameras or computer data mining to gather a dossier on an individual without a search warrant. A majority of the justices aggressively rejected that idea Monday.

Although the justices agreed on the outcome, they quarreled over how to approach the issue and how far to go.

Five justices, led by Antonin Scalia, said the police violated the 4th Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches when they attached the device to a vehicle’s bumper and monitored its movements. …

http://news360.com/article/40279112

This may be why it was so difficult to find a gps for a car this Christmas. Garmin makes one small enough, btw, but it hasn’t worked very well.

JFK Library to Release Last of His Secret Tapes

President John F. Kennedy’s library is releasing 45 hours of privately recorded meetings and phone calls, providing a window into the final months of his life.

The tapes include discussions of conflict in Vietnam, Soviet relations and the race to space, plans for the 1964 Democratic Convention and re-election strategy. There also are moments with his children.

On one recording, made days before Kennedy’s assassination, he asks staffers to schedule a meeting in a week. He tells them he’s booked for the weekend, with no time to meet with an Indonesian general then, either.

“I’m going to be up at the Cape on Friday, but I’ll see him Tuesday,” JFK tells staffers.

The tapes, being released Tuesday by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, are the last of more than 260 hours of recordings of meetings and conversations JFK privately made before his assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. …

http://news360.com/article/40279916

They are not releasing about 30 min due to national security concerns. Who do you think he was going to meet? Did he mention aliens? His plan to disband the intelligence agency?

Girl awakes ‘unscathed’ after ice fall drama

A six-year-old girl who was rescued by her mother after becoming trapped under ice in a creek in southern Sweden last week has awoken after her extended ordeal apparently unhurt.

Mom rescues daughter trapped under ice (16 Jan 12)

The girl awoke after four days in an induced coma at the intensive care ward at Kalmar hospital in southern Sweden on Saturday and is reported to have expressed a wish to go home.

“The crisis is over and we are very happy,” the girl’s father said according to the Kvällsposten daily.

The girl and her older brother were playing near the shoreline of a creek in Flygsfors near Orrefors in southern Sweden before venturing out on the ice when it suddenly gave way, sending both of them crashing into the icy water.While the girl’s brother managed to pull himself out of the water and make it back to shore, he was unable to help his sister and instead ran back to his house to alert his mother about the accident.

By the time the mother arrived, the 6-year-old girl had drifted under the ice about 20 metres away from the hole where she and her brother had fallen in.

However, the mother was able spot the girl through the clear ice, around three to four metres from shore.

Several passers-by were able to come to the aid of the girl, including attempts to resuscitate her.

The girl had another stroke of luck on the way to hospital when the ambulance in which she was being transported passed by another ambulance carrying an anaesthetist.

The girl was quickly put to sleep and her body temperature cooled in order to protect her organs. After four days, doctors at the hospital took the decision to take her off a respirator and wake her up.

The doctors now believe that despite having spent such a long period under the ice the girl has not sustained any serious injuries.

The six-year-old has now been moved from intensive care to a regular ward and is reported to have enjoyed ice cream in her hospital bed on Saturday.

“She was still in shock, but recognised us and said that she wanted to go home. It was one of the most wonderful things I have ever heard her say,” her father told the newspaper. …

via Girl awakes ‘unscathed’ after ice fall drama – The Local.

‘Extinct’ monkey rediscovered in Indonesia jungle

Miller’s grizzled langur was thought to be extinct, but scientists in Borneo capture images of creature using camera traps

Scientists working in the jungles of Indonesia have rediscovered a large grey monkey so rare that many had believed it was extinct.

The scientists were baffled to find the Miller’s grizzled langur in an area well outside its previously recorded home range.

A team of experts set up camera traps in the Wehea forest, on the eastern tip of Borneo island, in June, hoping to capture images of clouded leopards, orangutans and other wildlife known to congregate at several mineral salt licks.

The pictures that came back caught them by surprise – groups of monkeys none had ever seen.

With virtually no photographs of the species in existence, the scientists faced a challenge to confirm their suspicions, Brent Loken, a PhD student at Simon Fraser University in Canada and one of the lead researchers, said. The only images available were museum sketches.

“We were all pretty ecstatic. The fact that, wow, this monkey still lives, and also that it’s in Wehea,” Loken said.

The team of local and international scientists published their findings in the American Journal of Primatology on Friday

via ‘Extinct’ monkey rediscovered in Indonesia jungle | Environment | The Guardian.