News

TV presenter: Piers Morgan told me how to hack

AP - World News - Tue, 2025-05-20 17:28
LONDON (AP) -- A prominent British TV presenter said Wednesday that CNN talk show host Piers Morgan gave him a primer on phone hacking, a revelation that suggests he knew a fair amount about how the shady practice was carried out....

Gingrich stakes his campaign on old Georgia home

AP - Politics - Tue, 2025-05-20 17:28
ATLANTA (AP) -- Newt Gingrich's political career is coming full circle: The state that nourished his rise to House speaker could strike a fatal blow to his presidential ambitions - even by his own admission....

Gingrich stakes his campaign on old Georgia home

AP - Politics - Tue, 2025-05-20 17:28
ATLANTA (AP) -- Newt Gingrich's political career is coming full circle: The state that nourished his rise to House speaker could strike a fatal blow to his presidential ambitions - even by his own admission....

VIDEO: How Syrian activists get message out

BBC - News - Tue, 2025-05-20 17:28
Two Syrian activists talk about their efforts to get footage of the government crackdown out of the country.
Categories: BBC, News

CA7: A cell phone can be searched for its number

FourthAmendment.com - News - Tue, 2025-05-20 17:28

The possibility, not even the probability, of remote wiping of a cell phone with applications for nearly all phones, is enough to justify entering the phone to get its number. The question of a more detailed search is saved for another day. United States v. Flores-Lopez, 10-3803 (7th Cir. February 29, 2012):

This appeal requires us to consider the circumstances in which the search of a cell phone is permitted by the Fourth Amendment even if the search is not authorized by a warrant. Lurking behind this issue is the question whether and when a laptop or desktop computer, tablet, or other type of computer (whether called a “computer” or not) can be searched without a warrant—for a modern cell phone is a computer.

. . .

A modern cell phone is in one aspect a diary writ large. Even when used primarily for business it is quite likely to contain, or provide ready access to, a vast body of personal data. The potential invasion of privacy in a search of a cell phone is greater than in a search of a “container” in a conventional sense even when the conventional container is a purse that contains an address book (itself a container) and photos. Judges are becoming aware that a computer (and remember that a modern cell phone is a computer) is not just another purse or address book. “[A]nalogizing computers to other physical objects when applying Fourth Amendment law is not an exact fit because computers hold so much personal and sensitive information touching on many private aspects of life. ... [T]here is a far greater potential for the ‘intermingling’ of documents and a consequent invasion of privacy when police execute a search for evidence on a computer.” United States v. Lucas, 640 F.3d 168, 178 (6th Cir. 2011); see also United States v. Walser, 275 F.3d 981, 986 (10th Cir. 2001); United States v. Carey, 172 F.3d 1268, 1275 (10th Cir. 1999); cf. United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc., 621 F.3d 1162, 1175-77 (9th Cir. 2010); United States v. Otero, 563 F.3d 1127, 1132 (10th Cir. 2009). An iPhone application called iCam allows you to access your home computer’s webcam so that you can survey the inside of your home while you’re a thousand miles away. “iCam—Webcam Video Streaming,” http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/icam-webcam-videostreaming/id296273730?mt=8 (visited Feb. 6, 2012, as were the other web sites that we cite in this opinion). At the touch of a button a cell phone search becomes a house search, and that is not a search of a “container” in any normal sense of that word, though a house contains data.

A complication in this case is that, remarkably, the record does not indicate the brand, model, or year of the defendant’s cell phone, so we do not know how dumb or smart it is. But does that matter? Even the dumbest of modern cell phones gives the user access to large stores of information.

. . .

We said it was conceivable, not probable, that a confederate of the defendant would have wiped the data from the defendant’s cell phone before the government could obtain a search warrant; and it could be argued that the risk of destruction of evidence was indeed so slight as to be outweighed by the invasion of privacy from the search. But the “invasion,” limited as it was to the cell phone’s number, was also slight. And in deciding whether a search is properly incident to an arrest and therefore does not require a warrant, the courts do not conduct a cost-benefit analysis, with the invasion of privacy on the cost side and the risk of destruction of evidence (or of an assault on the arresting officers) on the benefit side of allowing the immediate search. Toting up costs and benefits is not a feasible undertaking to require of police officers conducting a search incident to an arrest. Thus, even when the risk either to the police officers or to the existence of the evidence is negligible, the search is allowed, United States v. Robinson, supra, 414 U.S. at 235, provided it’s no more invasive than, say, a frisk, or the search of a conventional container, such as Robinson’s cigarette pack, in which heroin was found. If instead of a frisk it’s a strip search, the risk to the officers’ safety or to the preservation of evidence of crime must be greater to justify the search. Campbell v. Miller, 499 F.3d 711, 717 (7th Cir. 2007), citing Mary Beth G. v. City of Chicago, 723 F.2d 1263, 1273 (7th Cir. 1983). Looking in a cell phone for just the cell phone’s phone number does not exceed what decisions like Robinson and Concepcion allow.

Blogger Andrew Breitbart dead at 43

CNN - Top Stories - Tue, 2025-05-20 17:28
Breitbart died of natural causes in Los Angeles, his attorney says. Breitbart gained fame, in part, for his post of U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner's now infamous Twitter photos.
Categories: CNN, News

'Big fall' in planning approvals

BBC - News - Tue, 2025-05-20 17:28
A drop in the number of new homes getting planning permission in England shows why the government must "stand firm" on its planning overhaul, say developers.
Categories: BBC, News

Damage surveyed as new storms form

CNN - Top Stories - Tue, 2025-05-20 17:28
Weary residents may get some good news Thursday as the monster storm system that already battered many Midwestern states and caused a dozen deaths is expected to weaken.
Categories: CNN, News

U.S. woman gets life for killing mother, taking baby

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — A U.S. woman was sentenced to life in prison without parole Thursday for killing a pregnant acquaintance and cutting her baby boy alive from her womb.

Kathy Coy agreed to the sentence in a deal last month in which she avoided a possible death penalty by ...

VIDEO: Pioneering treatment reshaped head

BBC - News - Tue, 2025-05-20 17:28
A man whose skull was partly removed after falling 8 metres from a drain pipe has undergone a pioneering procedure to re-shape his head.
Categories: BBC, News

Man found guilty in Grand Canyon child-abuse case

PHOENIX (AP) — A grandfather who forced his grandsons on two grueling hikes in the Grand Canyon in searing August heat was found guilty of child abuse after a trial in which the three boys described going without food and water and being choked and kicked during the long treks.

Investigators ...

Witchcraft murder couple guilty

BBC - News - Tue, 2025-05-20 17:28
A couple are found guilty of murdering a teenage boy at their London home after accusing him of using witchcraft.
Categories: BBC, News

Ky. woman sentenced for killing expectant mother

AP - U.S. News - Tue, 2025-05-20 17:28
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (AP) -- A Kentucky woman was sentenced to life in prison without parole Thursday for slaying a pregnant acquaintance and cutting her baby boy alive from her womb....
Categories: Associated Press, News, US

Ky. woman sentenced for killing expectant mother

AP - U.S. News - Tue, 2025-05-20 17:28
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (AP) -- A Kentucky woman was sentenced to life in prison without parole Thursday for slaying a pregnant acquaintance and cutting her baby boy alive from her womb....
Categories: Associated Press, News, US

Force asked PC about mental state

BBC - News - Tue, 2025-05-20 17:28
Northumbria Police spoke to PC David Rathband - found dead at his home on Wednesday - last week after concerns were raised about his mental state, it is revealed.
Categories: BBC, News

Russian authorities probe vote-rigging videos

AP - World News - Tue, 2025-05-20 17:28
MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia's top investigative agency has launched a probe regarding videos on Internet that purport to show fraud during the country's presidential election, even though it hasn't taken place yet....

First vote looms on Obama birth control policy

AP - U.S. News - Tue, 2025-05-20 17:28
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate is considering GOP legislation, steeped in election-year politics,to roll back President Barack Obama's policy on birth control coverage....
Categories: Associated Press, News, US

Teen charged as juvenile in Ohio school shooting

CHARDON, Ohio — A teenager was charged Thursday with killing three students in a school shooting, the first step in proceedings that could see him charged as an adult and facing the possibility of life without parole if convicted.

The charges filed in Geauga County juvenile court accuse T.J. Lane, ...

Deadline looms for charges in Ohio school shooting

AP - U.S. News - Tue, 2025-05-20 17:28
CHARDON, Ohio (AP) -- The deadline to file charges in a fatal Ohio high school shooting loomed as students still reeling from the slaying of three teenagers planned a march to return to their school....
Categories: Associated Press, News, US

Conservative activist Andrew Breitbart dies at 43

Pioneering conservative author, blogger and polemicist Andrew Breitbart died suddenly of natural causes at the age of 43, his website Big Journalism confirmed in a posting this morning.

The Los Angeles coroner's office confirmed that Mr. Breitbart died shortly after midnight at UCLA Medical Center, ABC News Radio reported Thursday ...

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