David Kravets reports: The government is urging a federal appeals court not to entertain an appeal from a bank-fraud defendant who has been ordered to decrypt her laptop so its contents can be used in her criminal case. Colorado federal authorities seized the encrypted Toshiba laptop from defendant Ramona Fricosu in 2010 with valid court…
Category: U.S.
Lawmakers to Homeland Security: Social Media Monitoring Threatens Free Speech
Alex Fitzpatrick reports on yesterday’s Congressional hearing: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s monitoring of social media services could be a threat to civil liberties and online free speech, several lawmakers said during a hearing Thursday. According to a report by a civil liberties group called the Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, DHS paid more…
WA state lawmakers tackling controversial DNA bill
Lindsay Cohen reports: A controversial new bill would require suspects to give a DNA sample as soon as they’re arrested, but some people argue the law would be unconstitutional. Opponents of the bill say it could violate Fourth Amendment rights against illegal search and seizure, but supporters say public safety should outweigh that risk. Read…
Should officials be allowed to search students’ bras for drugs? NC Supreme Court hears case
Martha Waggoner of Associated Press has more about the case argued before the North Carolina Supreme Court yesterday involving a student search. From her reporting, it sounds like this was one of those “search everyone” scenarios where there was no reasonable suspicion to search any one student. There also seems to have been discriminatory searching…