Keyword: link

NY Times: Police Are Using Phone Tracking as a Routine Tool

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NY Times: Police Are Using Phone Tracking as a Routine Tool

From the article: “The practice has become big business for cellphone companies, too, with a handful of carriers marketing a catalog of “surveillance fees” to police departments to determine a suspect’s location, trace phone calls and texts or provide other services. Some departments log dozens of traces a month for both emergencies and routine investigations.”

DefenseTech: Cyber Terrorism Now Tops List of U.S. Security Concerns

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DefenseTech: Cyber Terrorism Now Tops List of U.S. Security Concerns

From the article: In the shadow of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States finds itself facing a different threat from terrorists. Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Janet Napolitano recently stated that, “The U.S. has become ‘categorically safer’ since 9/11, but cyber-terrorism now tops the list of security concerns.”

Betabeat: As Banks Start Nosing Around Facebook and Twitter, the Wrong Friends Might Sink Your Credit

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Betabeat: As Banks Start Nosing Around Facebook and Twitter, the Wrong Friends Might Sink Your Credit

From the article: “A new wave of startups is working on algorithms gathering data for banks from the web of associations on the internet known as “the social graph,” in which people are “nodes” connected to each other by “edges.” Banks are already using social media to befriend their customers, and increasingly, their customers’ friends. The specifics are still shaking out, but the gist is that eventually, social media will account for at least the tippy-top of the mountain of data banks keep on their customers.”

WSJ: Surveillance Company Says It Sent Fake iTunes, Flash Updates

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WSJ: Surveillance Company Says It Sent Fake iTunes, Flash Updates

From the article: “The Wall Street Journal unveiled on Saturday the “Surveillance Catalog” – an online database containing highlights from surveillance industry marketing documents. The documents show dozens of companies making and selling everything from “massive intercept” gear that can gather all Internet communications in a country to “hacking” tools that allow governments to break into people’s computers.”

AP: US Launches ‘virtual’ Embassy For Iran

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AP: US Launches ‘virtual’ Embassy For Iran

From the article: “More than three decades after the bricks-and-mortar U.S. embassy in Tehran was shuttered and diplomatic relations with Iran were severed following the Islamic revolution and hostage crisis, the Obama administration has opened a virtual embassy for Iran to encourage dialogue with the Iranian people.”

Federal Reserve Board: Polarization, Immigration, Education: What’s Behind The Dramatic Decline in Youth Employment?

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Federal Reserve Board: Polarization, Immigration, Education: What’s Behind The Dramatic Decline in Youth Employment?

From the abstract: “This paper presents updated trends in teen employment and participation across multiple demographic characteristics, and argues that, in addition to immigration, occupational polarization in the U.S. adult labor market has resulted in increased competition for jobs that teens traditionally hold. Testing various supply and demand explanations for the decline since the mid-1980s, I find that demand factors can explain at least half of the decline unexplained by the business cycle, and that supply factors can explain much of the remaining decline.”

PewResearch: Old Prosper Relative to Young With 47:1 Age-Based Wealth Gap

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PewResearch: Old Prosper Relative to Young With 47:1 Age-Based Wealth Gap

According to the report: “As a result of these divergent trends, in 2009 the typical household headed by the older adult had $170,494 in net worth, compared with just $3,662 for the typical household headed by the younger adult. People generally accumulate wealth as they age, so it is not unusual to find large age-based gaps on this measure. However, the current gap is unprecedented. In 1984, the age-based wealth gap had been 10:1. By 2009, it had ballooned to 47:1.”

TPMIdeaLab: FTC To Monitor Google’s Privacy Practices For Next 20 Years

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TPMIdeaLab: FTC To Monitor Google’s Privacy Practices For Next 20 Years

From the article: “The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Monday finalized a landmark settlement with Google in which the company has agreed to be audited for its privacy practices for the next 20 years … The commission charged that Google engaged in unfair and deceptive practices in 2010 when it launched Google Buzz by leading users of its Gmail system to believe that they could easily opt-out of the social network. The controls that would enable them to do that were ineffective, the FTC charged at the time. Also the tools that Google created to enable users to limit the sharing of users’ personal information were confusing and difficult to find, the agency alleged.”

AP: Census Data Shows Recession Takes Big Toll on Young Adults

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AP: Census Data Shows Recession Takes Big Toll on Young Adults

From the article: “Young adults are the recession’s lost generation. In record numbers, they’re struggling to find work, shunning long-distance moves to live with mom and dad, delaying marriage and raising kids out of wedlock, if they’re becoming parents at all. The unemployment rate for them is the highest since World War II, and they risk living in poverty more than others – nearly 1 in 5.”

NY Times: Pirate Party Wins 8.9 Percent of Vote in Berlin

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NY Times: Pirate Party Wins 8.9 Percent of Vote in Berlin

From the article: “By winning 8.9 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election in [Berlin], these political pirates surpassed — blew away, really — every expectation for what was supposed to be a fringe, one-issue party promoting Internet freedom. The Pirates so outstripped expectations that all 15 candidates on their list won seats … The question that members of Germany’s political establishment are now asking after the insurgent party stormed the statehouse is this: Are the Pirates merely the punch line to a joke, a focus of protest, a reflection of electoral disgust with all established political parties — or an exciting experiment in a new form of online democracy?”

NY Times: FTC Urges Update to Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act

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NY Times: FTC Urges Update to Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act

From the article: “the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday proposed long-awaited changes to regulations covering online privacy for children … The proposed revisions expand the definition of “personal information” to include a child’s location, along with any personal data collected through the use of cookies for the purposes of targeted advertising. It also covers facial recognition technology.”

LA Times: More Domestic Surveillance Is A Key 9/11 Legacy

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LA Times: More Domestic Surveillance Is A Key 9/11 Legacy

From the article: “U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies now collect, store and analyze vast quantities of digital data produced by law-abiding Americans. The data mining receives limited congressional oversight, rare judicial review and almost no public scrutiny. Thanks to new laws and technologies, authorities track and eavesdrop on Americans as they never could before, hauling in billions of bank records, travel receipts and other information. In several cases, they have wiretapped conversations between lawyers and defendants, challenging the legal principle that attorney-client communication is inviolate.”

AP: Documents Show NY Police Watched Devout Muslims

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AP: Documents Show NY Police Watched Devout Muslims

From the article: “The New York Police Department compiled lists of mosques and Muslim businesses it saw as potential security risks for reasons that included endorsing conservative religious views or having devout customers … That effort has benefited from federal money and an unusually close relationship with the CIA, one that at times blurred the lines between domestic and foreign intelligence-gathering.”

Bloomberg: U.S. Files Antitrust Complaint to Block AT&T / T-Mobile Merger

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Bloomberg: U.S. Files Antitrust Complaint to Block AT&T / T-Mobile Merger

“The U.S. government sued to block AT&T’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA Inc., saying the deal would “substantially lessen competition” in the wireless market … the U.S. is seeking a declaration that Dallas-based AT&T’s takeover of T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG, would violate U.S. antitrust law.”