Charlie Savage reports: After a Somali-American teenager from Minneapolis committed a suicide bombing in Africa in October 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began investigating whether a Somali Islamist group had recruited him on United States soil. Instead of collecting information only on people about whom they had a tip or links to the teenager,…
Category: Govt
UK councils get ‘Al Capone’ power to seize assets over minor offenses
Sean O’Neill reports: Draconian police powers designed to deprive crime barons of luxury lifestyles are being extended to councils, quangos and agencies to use against the public, The Times has learnt. The right to search homes, seize cash, freeze bank accounts and confiscate property will be given to town hall officials and civilian investigators employed…
LA Council Insists On Security Breach Penalty As It Oks Move To Google’s ‘Cloud’
The Los Angeles City Council voted today to move the city’s 30,000 email users to a system provided by Google, but only after a provision that the city be compensated if there is security breach in the data held on Google’s servers. Consumer Watchdog had said that the security provisions for the Google “cloud computing”…
Editorial: Privacy and the Patriot Act
In the aftermath of 9/11, legislators cut legal corners to protect the nation. Congress should amend that now by revising certain expiring provisions of the law. Along with the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and the Bush administration’s illegal eavesdropping on U.S. citizens, the USA Patriot Act came to symbolize the excesses of the post-9/11 war…