Blog Entries

Survey: Do you favor the use of whole-body scanners? by Charlie Leocha

June 2, 2009 - 11:42am

Please complete a quick survey about your views on the usage of whole-body scanners at security checkpoints at U.S. airports. These new scanners show anatomical details as small “as the sweat on your back.” CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE SURVEY.

Reprinted from Tripso

Carolina high-schooler jailed under secret charges

May 4, 2009 - 1:00am

UPDATE: The mother has backed off her claim the secret charges are directly related to the USA PATRIOT Act. The case is still sealed. MORE

The FBI is holding a 16-year-old North Carolina boy incommunicado in an undisclosed detention facility in Indiana. Details are sketchy, but the USA PATRIOT Act is being cited as a basis to hold Ashton Lundeby without any kind of public hearing. Presumably, this homeschooled student has been deemed an "enemy combatant." The available evidence indicates that the family's IP address had been hijacked to send threatening messages and the family is completely innocent. That young Lundeby is still being jailed without trial is completely outrageous.

Feds Helped State Police Track Activists

April 28, 2009 - 2:49pm

From Our friends at Defending Dissent:

Feds Helped State Police Track Activists

FBI workers spy on teen girls' dressing room

April 22, 2009 - 4:59pm

Why does the FBI have a mall in small-town West Virginia wired with cameras?! Not to mention the dressing rooms?! Hopefully these questions will be answered as the story develops.

Here's an excerpt from the AP story:

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) - Two FBI workers are accused of using surveillance equipment to spy on teenage girls as they undressed and tried on prom gowns at a charity event at a West Virginia mall.

'Cybersecurity Act' would give President, Commerce Sec. control of Internet

April 22, 2009 - 4:05pm

Should President Obama have the power to shut down domestic Internet traffic during a state of emergency?

Senators John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) think so. On Wednesday they introduced a bill to establish the Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor—an arm of the executive branch that would have vast power to monitor and control Internet traffic to protect against threats to critical cyber infrastructure. That broad power is rattling some civil libertarians.

The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (PDF) gives the president the ability to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any "critical" information network "in the interest of national security." The bill does not define a critical information network or a cybersecurity emergency. That definition would be left to the president.