Monday, August 30, 2010

Google Street-View Car Searched by Paris Privacy Regulators
A car used by Google Inc. to collect data for its Street View mapping service was stopped and searched yesterday near Paris, less than a week after France’s privacy regulator criticized the program’s resumption.
The inspection was a result of Google’s decision to begin photographing French streets before officials decided whether the company complied with orders to limit Street View’s data collection, said Yann Padova, secretary general of the National Commission for Computing and Civil Liberties.
The search “was done especially to verify that they stopped collecting Wi-Fi data,” Padova, 43, said in an interview today...

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Update: Facing prison for filming US police
When police arrested Anthony Graber for speeding on his motorbike, the 25-year-old probably did not see himself as an advocate for police accountability in the age of new media.

But Graber, a sergeant with the Maryland Air National Guard, is now facing 16 years in prison, not for dangerous driving, but for a Youtube video he posted after receiving a speeding ticket.

The video, filmed with a camera mounted on Graber's motorcycle helmet designed to record biking stunts rather than police abuse, shows a plain clothes officer jumping out of an unmarked car and pointing a pistol at the motorcyclist.

It does not portray the policeman in a positive light.

After he posted the video on Youtube, police raided Graber's home, seized computers and put him in jail.

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Corrupt Judge Convicts Innocent Videographer
Normally I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about a local election in North Carolina, but now I want to do anything I can to make sure Judge Beth Dixon loses her reelection bid for Rowan County District Court Judge come this November.

Dixon, who has served as District Court Judge since 2002, last week convicted a woman named Felicia Gibson for resisting arrest for refusing to go back inside her house as she stood on her front porch videotaping police making a traffic stop...

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Protect Yourself From RFID
Over 100+ million new credit cards and passports contain tiny two way radios called RFID chips. This increases your risk of being a victim of electronic pickpockets, payment fraud, and identity theft! Protect yourself with our RFID blocking products...
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