Britain: Secrets of 27 Million Mobile Phones Offered to Police, Corporations
May 13th, 2013Via: Sunday Times:
THE data of 27m mobile phone users has been offered for sale to the Metropolitan police, private companies and other bodies, enabling them to track users’ movements.
Ipsos Mori, one of Britain’s biggest research firms, has been caught offering text and call records for sale.
The company has claimed in meetings that every movement by users can be tracked to within 100 metres. This weekend the Met, which has been in talks with Ipsos Mori about paying for some of the controversial data, shelved any deal after being contacted by The Sunday Times.
Documents to promote the data reveal that it includes “gender, age, postcode, websites visited, time of day text is sent [and] location of customer when call is made”.
They state that people’s mobile phone use and location can be tracked in real time with records of movements, calls and texts also available for the previous six months.
The data, obtained by Ipsos Mori in an exclusive deal with EE, Britain’s biggest phone operator, goes beyond anything that the police can get without an application order under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
Experts said that it offered a similar level of data access as the government’s proposed “snoopers’ charter”, which ministers shelved after an outcry over privacy invasion.
Police forces, councils, big businesses and Google are among potential clients for the data. Bernard Hogan-Howe, the police commissioner, is understood to have met representatives from Ipsos Mori on March 22 to discuss the data.
Another meeting was held last Thursday at Scotland Yard and was attended by Mark Rowley, the assistant commissioner in charge of public order and major events for the force.
However, within hours of being contacted by The Sunday Times the Met said it was abandoning the proposal, even though sources said officers had been enthusiastic about the potential for tracking users of pay-as-you-go phones.
Insanity: U.S. Approves Bee Death Pesticide as EU Bans It
May 13th, 2013Via: Natural Society:
Corporate politics is business as usual inside the United States, as I am once again shocked to report the EPA has sided with industry lobbyists over public health in approving a highly dangerous pesticide that the European Union recently decided to ban over fears of environmental devastation. Not only have neonicotinoid pesticides been linked repeatedly to mass bee deaths, also known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), but the continued use of such pesticides threatens other aspects of nature (and humans) as well.
Michigan School District Can’t Pay Teachers; Schools Will Remain Closed Until Further Notice
May 13th, 2013Via: ClickOnDetroit:
A shuttered Michigan school district that says it can’t afford to pay its teachers plans to remain closed until further notice.
The update is posted on the website of Buena Vista School District, located near Saginaw. It hasn’t held classes since May 3.
The district laid off teachers and all but three employees May 7. The district has said it wouldn’t be able to make payroll May 24 because the state put a hold on its funding to recoup about $580,000 for a juvenile detention education program the district no longer operates.
Meanwhile, MLive.com reports Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee of Flint says 91 percent of the district’s students get federal food assistance through free and reduced lunch programs, and he wants to ensure the shutdown doesn’t affect their nutrition.
New Orleans: Mother’s Day Parade Shooting
May 13th, 2013Update: Street Violence?
Via: CNN:
Federal investigators say they have no indication the shooting at a Mother’s Day parade in New Orleans was an act of terrorism.
“It’s strictly an act of street violence in New Orleans,” New Orleans FBI spokeswoman Mary Beth Romig said Monday.
Such parades — local traditions replete with dancing and brass bands — are known as second-lining. They happen most every Sunday, except during the hottest months in summer
Shots were fired from different guns Sunday, and officers saw three suspects running from the scene, police said.
The shooting injured 19 people, including two children, police said. Ten men and seven women were among the victims.
The children were grazed. Other injuries ranged from minor to severe.
—
Via: AP:
New Orleans police vowed to swiftly track down the gunmen who wounded 19 people at a neighborhood Mother’s Day parade, the latest case of violence flaring up around a celebration in the city this year.
Detectives were conducting interviews, collecting any surveillance video they could find and gathering evidence from the scene where gunmen opened fire Sunday on the parade of hundreds of revelers. Cell phone video taken in the aftermath of the shooting shows victims lying on the ground, blood on the pavement and others bending over to comfort them.
IRS Targeted Groups Critical of Government
May 13th, 2013Via: Washington Post:
At various points over the past two years, Internal Revenue Service officials singled out for scrutiny not only groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names but also nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution, according to documents in an audit conducted by the agency’s inspector general.
The documents, obtained by The Washington Post from a congressional aide with knowledge of the findings, show that the IRS field office in charge of evaluating applications for tax-exempt status decided to focus on groups making statements that “criticize how the country is being run” and those that were involved in educating Americans “on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.”
Crap Cannon: Israel Sprays Putrid Liquid for Crowd Control, Collective Punishment
May 12th, 2013Via: Russia Today:
Auditor: 100,000 Dashcam Videos Disappear from SPD Database
May 12th, 2013Your what hurts?
Via: Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
More than 100,000 dashcam videos have disappeared from the Seattle Police Department, prompting city investigators to recommend the department do a better job of tracking and saving those videos.
Bill Gates, Jeb Bush, Oprah and Warren Buffett Meeting on South Carolina Island
May 12th, 2013Via: WBTW:
Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft and one of the richest people in the world, is spending time in the Lowcountry.
WCBD confirmed the American business magnate is at the Sanctuary on Kiawah Island.
Suspicion was raised when nearly 20 very expensive jets were seen lined up at the Charleston International Airport on Johns Island.
Officials with the Beach Company confirmed to WCBD that other big names such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, TV host Oprah Winfrey and Billionaire Warren Buffet flew into the Charleston Executive airport on Johns Island Wednesday night.
Other prominent people said to also be staying there this weekend are Jeb Bush and Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The famous guests were attending a two day long conference led by Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Officials say the meeting was about the foundation Gates and his wife Linda run.
Bloomberg Spied on Market Data Subscribers
May 11th, 2013Via: CNN:
That was the unsettling realization Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) executives came to a few weeks ago when a Bloomberg reporter inadvertently revealed the surveillance capabilities reporters from the news and financial data provider have over users of Bloomberg terminals.
Traders throughout the financial world depend on Bloomberg terminals for real-time data on markets of all kinds as well as news and instant messaging. The machines reportedly rent for $20,000 a year and are used by thousands of subscribers, bringing in a substantial portion of the company’s revenue.
In a recent conversation with a Goldman executive, a Bloomberg reporter mentioned that a partner at the bank hadn’t logged into his terminal recently. This prompted concern from Goldman that Bloomberg journalists could be tracking users on the terminals, a bank spokesman said.
The news was reported earlier by the New York Post.
Bloomberg spokesman Ty Trippet said the company had quickly addressed Goldman’s concerns.
“Limited customer relationship data has long been available to our journalists, and has never included clients’ security-level data, position data, trading data or messages,” he said in an email.
Journalists also couldn’t see what news stories users read and what securities they viewed, though they could access details on when users had logged into their terminals, when they became subscribers and what sorts of functions they were using.
“In light of [Goldman’s] concern as well as a general heightened sensitivity to data access, we decided to disable journalist access to this customer relationship information for all clients,” Trippet said.
Cops Beat Woman For Filming Another Beating
May 11th, 2013Via: Alternet:
Baltimore police beat up a woman and smashed her camera for filming them beating up a man, telling her: “You want to film something bitch? Film this!” the woman claims in court.
