U.S. Government to Crack Down on Piracy - PCWorld

U.S. Government to Crack Down on Piracy - PCWorld

U.S. President Barack Obama's administration will seek to aggressively enforce its intellectual property laws by putting pressure on countries that don't shut down piracy Web sites and by requiring all government contractors to check for illegal software, the White House announced.

The White House Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, in a 65-page report released Tuesday, said the U.S. government will also step up its efforts to identify foreign Web sites trafficking in pirated goods and will create a database of intellectual property investigations to be shared among law enforcement agencies.

The U.S. government will also seek to protect U.S. intellectual property (IP) through trade agreements, including the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, the report said. Several digital rights groups have complained that officials from the U.S. and other countries have drafted ACTA in secret. More...

Black Citizen’s Guide To Police Confrontation | News One

Black Citizen’s Guide To Police Confrontation | News One

Police brutality has plagued our community ever since anyone with a gun or a Billy club has ever been allowed to use physical force against another person under the guise of “to protect and serve.”

There are many hardworking, good policeman, who have dedicated their lives (and often sacrificed them) to keep law and order in our communities. The job is impossible to understand or sympathize with if you’ve never done it, and is largely under-paid and under-appreciated.

However, this does not excuse the decades-long reality that African-Americans have suffered under the hands of the police in ways that are racist and unfair, and our poor relationship with the police, if not improved, will continue to impede our progress both as a community and as a people.

To that, with much thanks given to the work of the ACLU, here is our BLACK CITIZEN’S GUIDE TO POLICE CONFRONTATION. (Perhaps those young women in Seattle, if they followed these steps would have avoided such an ugly outcome.)

1. Think carefully about your words, movement, body language, and emotions.

2.Don’t get into an argument with the police.

3. Remember, anything you say or do can be used against you.

4. Keep your hands where the police can see them.

5. Don’t run. Don’t touch any police officer.

6. Don’t resist even if you believe you are innocent.

7. Don’t complain on the scene or tell the police they’re wrong or that you’re going to file a complaint.

8. Do not make any statements regarding the incident.

9. Ask for a lawyer immediately upon your arrest.

10. Remember officers’ badge & patrol car numbers.

11. Write down everything you remember ASAP.

12. Try to find witnesses and their names and phone numbers.

13. If you are injured, take photographs of the injuries as soon as possible, but make sure you seek medical attention first.

14. If you feel your rights have been violated, file a written complaint with police department’s internal affairs division or civilian board, or call the ACLU hotline, 1-877-634-5454.

What you say to the police is always important. What you say can be used against you, and it can give the police an excuse to arrest you, especially if you bad-mouth a police officer. More...

Study: Blacks Routinely Excluded From Juries : NPR

Study: Blacks Routinely Excluded From Juries : NPR

Twenty-five years ago, Earl Jerome McGahee was charged with two counts of murder in the deaths of his ex-wife and her friend.

McGahee, an African-American, was tried by an all-white jury in an Alabama county that was more than 55 percent black.

The district attorney dismissed every one of the 24 blacks who qualified to serve on the jury, including Edith Ferguson, who had worked for the Selma, Ala., Police Department for many years. The reason cited for striking Ferguson from being a juror: "low intelligence."

Bryan Stevenson of the nonprofit group Equal Justice Initiative tells NPR's Guy Raz that assertions about intelligence are "one of the most troubling but persistent reasons" given to dismiss potential jurors who are black. Many of those potential jurors are college graduates, Stevenson says.

Last year, McGahee was granted a new trial because of the racially discriminatory jury selection in his original case. But many defendants are not so lucky.

Web Resources

Equal Justice Initiative study on race and jury selection

More...

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Unfortunately in America racial discrimination remains an intractable and often unacknowledged problem. Many people in their naivety think that that Obama's ascendancy to the presidency means that racial discrimination is no longer a current phenomena. Here is another example of how facts show otherwise.

John H. Armwood

Supreme Court Ruling Lets Employers View Worker Text Messages With Reason - PCWorld

Supreme Court Ruling Lets Employers View Worker Text Messages With Reason - PCWorld

The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that employers have the right to search through text messages, including personal ones, sent by workers if they have reason to believe that workplace rules are being violated.

The ruling ( download PDF ) overturns an earlier decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a case involving a California police officer who had claimed his Fourth Amendment rights had been violated when supervisors conducted a search of his text messages. More...

Judge limits DHS laptop border searches | Politics and Law - CNET News

Judge limits DHS laptop border searches | Politics and Law - CNET News

A federal judge has ruled that border agents cannot seize a traveler's laptop, keep it locked up for months, and examine it for contraband files without a warrant half a year later.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in the Northern District of California rejected the Obama administration's argument that no warrant was necessary to look through the electronic files of an American citizen who was returning home from a trip to South Korea.

"The court concludes that June search required a warrant," White ruled on June 2, referring to a search of Andrew Hanson's computer that took place a year ago. Hanson arrived San Francisco International Airport in January 2009.

The Justice Department invoked a novel argument--which White dubbed "unpersuasive"--claiming that while Hanson was able to enter the country, his laptop remained in a kind of legal limbo where the Bill of Rights did not apply. (The Fourth Amendment generally requires a warrant for searches.)

"Until merchandise has cleared customs, it may not enter the United States," assistant U.S. attorney Owen Martikan argued. "The laptop never cleared customs and was maintained in government custody until it was searched..."

This is not exactly a new dispute: two years ago, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection announced that it reserves the right to seize for an indefinite period of time any laptops that are taken across the border. More...

Google Seeks Consolidation of Wi-Fi Snooping Cases - PCWorld

Google Seeks Consolidation of Wi-Fi Snooping Cases - PCWorld

Peppered with lawsuits over its collection of Web traffic data from wireless networks, Google wants all the cases consolidated into one, and for that single case to be heard by a court near its Mountain View, California, headquarters.

In a motion this week with the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, Google requests that the eight "Wi-Fi" lawsuits, as well as any future ones, be rolled into one at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. More...