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What About the Right to Have a Father? 8-26-10

ars technica: Obama admin wants warrantless access to cell phone location data by Timothy B. Lee:

A Maryland court last week ruled that the government does not need a warrant to force a cell phone provider to disclose more than six months of data on the movements of one of its customers. Two defendants had been accused of armed robbery, and a key piece of evidence against them was data about the movements of the pair's cell phones. The defendants had sought to suppress this location evidence because the government did not get a warrant before seeking the data from network providers. But last Thursday, Judge Richard D. Bennett ruled that a warrant is not required to obtain cell-site location records (CSLR) from a wireless carrier.

Courts all over the country have been wrestling with this question, and the government has been on something of a winning streak. While one court ruled last year that such information requests violate the Fourth Amendment, most others have reached the opposite conclusion.

The Obama administration laid out its position in a legal brief last month, arguing that customers have "no privacy interest" in CSLR held by a network provider. Under a legal principle known as the "third-party doctrine," information voluntarily disclosed to a third party ceases to enjoy Fourth Amendment protection. The government contends that this rule applies to cell phone location data collected by a network provider.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Mormon leaders have put up a virtual firewall in their massive genealogical database to block out anyone who attempts to access the names of hundreds of thousands of Holocaust victims the church has agreed not to posthumously baptize....

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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Mitt Romney faces a tough sell in the Deep South. With Mississippi and Alabama primaries coming up next Tuesday, there's concern that he's too slick, not really a conservative. In a region where the evangelical vote is important, some are skeptical about his Mormon faith....

Measures as simple as getting patients to write down the time of their doctor's appointment themselves can cut non-attendance rates, a study suggests.

Hospital consultants should consider working weekends to cut the spike in deaths on Saturdays and Sundays, a doctors' leader says.

A senior Indian police officer is run over and killed by a vehicle carrying illegally quarried stones in northern Madhya Pradesh state, police say.

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MOBILE, Ala. (AP) -- U.S. Coast Guard officials say they have recovered the body of the fourth crewmember that had been missing since a helicopter crashed in Mobile Bay in Alabama....

China's cyber warfare skills pose a threat to the United States military in the event of a conflict, says a report for the US Congress.

Could the Cloud crash?

In Japan towns that were badly affected by the tsunami are now getting the chance to experience and play traditional djembe drums from Africa

Who owns these blue suede shoes?

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- A man armed with two semiautomatic handguns entered the lobby of a psychiatric clinic at the University of Pittsburgh on Thursday and opened fire, killing one person and wounding several others before he was shot dead, apparently by campus police, the mayor said....

Patrick Kane, 14, has a bionic arm and leg after limb loss from severe blood poisoning as a baby. We follow him for a day to find out about life with a bionic body.

The Freemasons are rebranding themselves as a modern, open organisation. But can this male-dominated body cast off its secretive image and win over a sceptical public?

Consumer price inflation in China falls to a 20-month low as food price rises ease, giving policymakers room to stimulate growth.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi alter their fizzy drink recipe in the United States to avoid having to put a cancer warning label on the bottle.