John Bresnahan reports: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has rejected a Senate plan to include amendments to the Patriot Act in a larger Pentagon funding bill covering the soaring cost of the war in Afghanistan, arguing that to do so would lead to a “revolt on the left,” according to Democratic insiders. Pelosi’s decision, announced…
Category: Surveillance
Keeping Uncle Sam from spying on citizens
Elinor Mills reports: During the first Gulf War, Greg Nojeim went to Washington National Airport to observe Arab Americans being pulled out of lines and put through security checks that weren’t required of other passengers. The evidence he gathered was used by his employer, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, to sue Pan Am World Airways on…
OH Court: Cell phone searches require warrant
Stephen Majors of the Associated Press reports: Police officers must obtain a search warrant before scouring the contents of a suspect’s cell phone unless their safety is in danger, a divided Ohio Supreme Court ruled Tuesday on an issue that appears never to have reached another state high court or the U.S. Supreme Court. The…
Privacy challenge to data-storage law reaches German constitutional court
A controversial law forcing communications companies to keep records of customers’ phone and internet use for six months was to be scrutinised on Tuesday by the constitutional court after 34,000 people lodged appeals against the law. Germany’s highest court, based in Karlsruhe in the state of Baden-Württemberg, was to examine 60 separate legal questions regarding…