Surveillance cameras rejected from Cambridge by City Council despite officials trying to argue they will not be used to spy on residents.
Although one argument was that they will be used to monitor evacuation routes in an emergency it is not clear why the cameras should be on in non-emergency situations. Another problem is that it would be impossible to tell how the cameras are being used.
(Image: of Banksy's One Nation Under CCTV)
An apparent role model for alleged fraudster Bernie Madoff, Charles Ponzi joined the select group whose name has become immortalized in the language.
BU professor Mitchell Zukoff wrote Ponzi's biography and has been widely cited as people seek to understand the Madoff scandal
But, if you organize a Ponzi scheme what is your exit strategy if the scam can't be sustained and most don't last more than a year.
Some hope to disappear, some seem resigned to be caught and some intend to go straight and cover up the scam.
If you can't beat them pay them to join you.
The MBTA has now hired the students it was formerly suing for exposing the glaws in teh Charlie Card system
Harvard law professor Charles Nesson is defending BU student Joel Tenebaum in a file-sharing suit brought by the RIAA and he wants the trial to be streamed online.
This would be another round of bad publicity for the RIAA even as it is backing away from trials themselves and other media companies like those in the movie industry are using RIAA strategy as a negative example.
Gatehouse Media is suing the parent of Boston.com for linking to its articles as Boston.com tries to compete with GateHouse's hyperlocal sites.
GateHouse Media Inc., the owner of 125 local newspapers across
Massachusetts, sued the Boston Globe's parent today for linking to
GateHouse articles on the Globe's new local websites.
GateHouse sites have been more adventurous with social media like YouTube clips but their parent company has been suffering like other newspaper publishers.
Alex Beam considers what it means for the RIAA now that Charles Nesson is defending a BU grad student accused of illegal downloading.
Most people pay the money and run. But Tenenbaum and his mother, Judie, a family lawyer for the state of Massachusetts, chose to fight the RIAA in court, representing themselves. This summer, Judge Nancy Gertner - another of Boston's outsized legal personalities - found more than 130 defendants like Tenenbaum clogging her court, practically all of them without lawyers. "There is a huge imbalance in these cases," Gertner said at a status hearing. "The record companies are represented by large law firms with substantial resources. The law is also overwhelmingly on their side. They bring cases against individuals who don't have lawyers, who don't have access to lawyers, and who don't understand their legal rights."
How Elena Kagan has helped Harvard Law School overcome its daunting reputation for dysfunctionality,
and start to make it a more attractive place to attend and work and not just have graduated from.
The Boston City Council violated the Massachusetts open meeting law according to the state Appeals Court. Dan Kennedy has some interesting observations.
Harvard's Berkman Center will be hosting a panel discussion on internet policy issues called: The Uncertain Internet: Core Net Values for the [TBD] Administration. The discussion will be on October 9.
Now
is a critical moment for defining and reinforcing the best features of
our communications platforms. What do we value about the internet and
what should be the focus of the next administration? This event will
be a discussion exploring the Net’s benefits and its increasing
vulnerabilities. How do we maintain the network we know, and
anticipate the network it is becoming? What issues emerge in the era
of "cloud computing" and the mobile internet? How do we ensure
broadband for everyone? What can be done to promote open networks and
open devices? Join us for a wide-ranging discussion with leaders from
the legal, technical, and political fields.
The panel will include:
Info:
When: Thursday, October 9, 6:00 PM
Where: Austin East Classroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law
School
Cost: Free and open to the public, no RSVP required.
The battle between summer-residents and year-rounders over the disappearing Sconset beach and whether a fortune should be spent to preserve its quickly eroding shoreline.
"But if the scientists are right, if the sea levels continue to rise incrementally and storms become not only more frequent but also more powerful, maybe the only thing Nantucket property owners can do is allow nature its destiny. Jim O'Connell, a coastal geologist for the Sea Grant program at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, believes that Nantucket's fate is sealed. "I did a lecture out there last year," he says. "I showed aerial and ground photos and talked about what I was seeing and what the data showed. I began with a picture of the open ocean and announced, 'In 8,000 years this will be your island, and until you get to that point, every house is going to enjoy a spectacular ocean view.' I got only a few chuckles."
(Image: Wikimedia)
Why did the MBTA sue the MIT students who exposed their Charlie Card problems and not the vendor of their system. A plausible theory:
“As Chris stated in his own article, “…Doesn’t this seem backwards to you? Shouldn’t the MBTA be suing the vendor who sold them the flawed system? Security problems go away by mandating independant security testing before a product is accepted, not by trying to get security researchers to be quiet. This is a good example of how the reactive approach doesn’t work. The flaws are still in the system and suing researchers has just shined a bright light on them…” - Unfortunately, in a typical bean-counter response to a threat to the profit model, this comes down to protecting an expensive investment and in a free market economy, the investment many times wins over blatant, slap-you-in-the-face logic.
Although to the observer it makes more sense to attack the source of the problem, profits reside in the path of the easiest hill to overcome. I would speculate that it was determined the three MIT researchers were the less likely candidates to put up any relevant fight equaling less expense long-term in costly litigation as opposed to a well-funded vendor who would be adamant and ferocious about protecting their own bottom-line. This means that from a budget perspective, the corporation will traditionally move towards the least cost initiative counting on their shark-like aggressiveness to payoff - they didn’t count on the MIT students to be resilient, spiny blowfish… ouch.
This fits in with Bruce Schneier's essay on the MBTA issue that we posted about recently.
While many people are applauding the revival of the individual tinkerer, it can get you into trouble with local authorities as one Marlboro man found out.
None of the
materials found at 81 Fremont St. posed a radiological or biological
risk, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.
No mercury or poison was found. Some of the compounds are potentially
explosive, but no more dangerous than typical household cleaning
products.
All potentially hazardous materials were removed
from the house, which the Deebs have owned since 1988. A cleanup
company, contracted by DEP, is continuing to test the chemicals in a
lab.
“Ultimately,
they will be disposed of,” said DEP spokesman Joseph M. Ferson, who
said the city’s Department of Public Works is making sure nothing
seeped into the sewer lines.
Mr. Deeb declined to comment
yesterday. Authorities say he has patents pending and had been using
his basement as a science lab to conduct experiments, possibly for
many years.
While Providence's North Burial Ground has opened up to an art exhibit, as we wrote about recently, Providence's Swan Point Cemetery is not a friendly spot for visitors coming to see horror writer and Providence native H. P. Lovecraft's monument and perhaps photograph it.
“Matt sez, "One of my favorite writers, Caitlin R. Kiernan, was the subject of verbal abuse, profanity and homophobic remarks from some sort of security guard when she and her companion went to visit H.P. Lovecraft's grave. The guard attempted to make them delete all of the photographs they had taken, despite the absence of any policy forbidding it. Are cameras like catnip for abusive, power-mad rent-a-cops now?"
((Image: H.P. Lovecraft's grave: Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike photo: StrangeInterlude, Flickr).
Great news although some experts say the overall rise in species
population doesn't take into account issues with particular groups of
whales, like the 1000 or so who feed from Cape Cod Bay north to Maine. (Image: NOAA)
A federal judge refused to extend the MBTA's injunction against 3 MIT students who discovered security issues with the MBTA's fare card system.
Many had expected Tuesday's hearing to hinge on First Amendment issues and what amounts to responsible disclosure on the part of computer security researchers. Instead, O'Toole based his ruling on the narrow grounds of what constitutes a violation of the CFAA.
On that basis, he said MBTA lawyers failed to convince him on two points: The students' presentation was meant to be delivered to people, and was not a computer-to-computer "transmission." Second, the MBTA couldn't prove the students had caused at least $5,000 damage to the transit system. Lawyers for the MBTA claimed Tuesday they had proof the students had violated the law, but stopped short of specifying what they did.
WBZ says they can't publish the titles of the free movies shown on Friday nights at the Hatch Shell because of copyright issues. While giving hints is cute and free is nice, what actual non-paranoid purpose is served by this?
Dan Kennedy points out that it shouldn't be a surprise that Judge Douglas Woodlock issued the injunction in the case of the MBTA students who hacked the Charlie Card.
"For those of you with long memories, you may recall that Judge Woodlock is a piece of work. During the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Woodlock ruled that a cage set up by officials for the use of protesters was "an offense to the spirit of the First Amendment" — but then declined to do anything about it."
Last week we wrote about Zackary Anderson's warcart used in research into security flaws in the MBTA's Charlie Card that would allow the cards to be copied or value to be added without payment. Anderson and two other MIT students were due to give a presentation on the issues at the DEFCON hacker convention. Now the MBTA has sued the 3 students to prevent the presentation from going forward.
"The lawsuit surprised many DEF CON attendees, who are accustomed to
relatively cordial relations with software companies who are informed
of security holes. It also surprised the students, who said they had
until then gotten positive reactions from the MBTA. (More below)
Continue reading "MBTA Tries to Cover Up Charlie Card Vulnerabilities Exposed by MIT Students" »
Boston owns 210 acres of land in Burlington and Woburn that was given to the city on the death of the owner Mary Cummings. She wanted Boston to use it as a "public pleasure ground."
Boston doesn't really do anything with it, although Boston officials thought about developing it, before deciding they couldn't under Cummings' will. Now residents of Burlington and Woburn are trying to get control of the land and actually turn it into a real park.
"The residents, organized as Friends of Mary Cummings Park, filed a complaint last week with Attorney General Martha Coakley's Public Charities Division alleging that city officials have neglected the land, abused a trust fund by using it to pay legal and survey work, and plotted to sell the valuable tract near Route 128 for a residential development.
Residents complain that last year the city ripped out handsome, hand-carved welcome signs neighbors placed on the property at their own expense, while keeping "No Trespassing" signs posted around the property.
The organization is asking Coakley's office to strip the city of its oversight responsibilities and to place the park in the hands of local and state park advocates."
Boston does not want to give up the land for reasons that aren't totally clear. Although perhaps Boston officials hope they can develop the land at some future point or that it will otherwise have value. In the meantime it doesn't look like there is money to pay for what would be other towns' parks.
Boston seems to be doing a terrible job handling the land and undoubtedly has other priorities. Hopefully the the Friends of Mary Cummings Park will be able to turn the land into an actual park and not just a placeholder.
Vermont has the "highest percentage of Bosnian immigrants in any state" and they are following the arrest and trial of Radovan Karadzic closely.
"About 1,500 Bosnians resided in Vermont during the 2000 U.S. census,
accounting for approximately 0.2 percent of Vermont's population -- the
highest percentage of Bosnian immigrants in any state.
[One Bosnian immigrant Namir] Puric said
about two-thirds of the Bosnians living in Vermont are Muslim; the rest
are Serbian, often belonging to the Serbian Orthodox Church."
(Image: Wikimedia Commons)
Another student at MIT faces felony charges related to hacking. At MIT hacking refers to the tradition of elaborate practical jokes that students put together and the related exploration of campus buildings without permission.
"Two MIT Police officers responding to a motion-triggered alarm just before midnight on Saturday, June 7 found Short, along with fellow MIT graduate student Harold S. Barnard and Brandeis University graduate student Marina Dang, in a normally locked caged room in the basement of Building NW16. Short now faces charges of breaking and entering at night with intent to commit a felony and possession of burglarious instruments."
The arrest following a hacking arrest in 2006 has raised some concerns about MIT's policies toward the hacking tradition on campus. At the same time administrators distinguish between different areas of the campus.
"In expounding on appropriate boundaries for hacking, [Committee on Discipline Chair Sheila] Widnall drew a
division between traditional hacking locations and locations that might
pose a greater danger. “There are spaces at MIT that in some sense are
historic and may belong to the community,” she said. “And there are
some spaces that are damn dangerous.”
"She especially singled out
laboratories as examples of dangerous locations. With regards to the
Plasma Science and Fusion Center, of which NW16 is a part, she noted
the high voltages and highly expensive equipment that is required for
the research there."
Image of a firetruck on MIT's Great Dome from the MIT Hack Gallery)
Jonathan Zittrain who helped found Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and is now a professor at Oxford will return to Cambridge tonight to discuss his new book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It:
"With the unwitting help of its users, the generative Internet is on a path to a lockdown, ending its cycle of innovation—and facilitating unsettling new kinds of control.
IPods, iPhones, Xboxes, and TiVos represent the first wave of Internet-centered products that can’t be easily modified by anyone except their vendors or selected partners. These “tethered appliances” have already been used in remarkable but little-known ways: car GPS systems have been reconfigured at the demand of law enforcement to eavesdrop on the occupants at all times, and digital video recorders have been ordered to self-destruct thanks to a lawsuit against the manufacturer thousands of miles away. New Web 2.0 platforms like Google mash-ups and Facebook are rightly touted—but their applications can be similarly monitored and eliminated from a central source. As tethered appliances and applications eclipse the PC, the very nature of the Internet—its “generativity,” or innovative character—is at risk."
There's a free reception as well.
Info:
Friday, April 18
6:00pm
Langdell North Classroom, Langdell Hall
Harvard Law School
Map:
Map Cost: Free
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court says nakedness in Harvard Square is a violation of state law.
"The SJC ruled today that the state’s open and gross lewdness law is legit. The law was challenged by a Cambridge woman, Ria Ora, who was arrested for dancing naked in Harvard Square."
Ora's naked dance was a protest against Christmas commercialization.
Given the number of buskers and leaflet passers in Harvard Square nakedness is probably one of the only ways to get any real attention.
Harvard Law professors Yochai Benkler (left)and Cass Sunstein will discuss the pros and cons of a digital age in a discussion moderated by MIT media professor Henry Jenkins and called Our World Digitized: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly:
"Much discussion of our impending digital future is insular and without nuance. Skeptics talk mainly among themselves, while utopians and optimists also keep company mainly within their own tribal cultures. Today’s forum challenges this unhelpful division, staging a conversation between two of our country’s most thoughtful and influential writers on the promise and the perils of the Internet Age."
It could be a good discussion; too often the person bringing up any negative points is someone with shallow arguments like Andrew Keen.
Info:
Thursday, April 10, 2008
5-7 p.m.
Bartos Theater
MIT
Cambridge, MA
Star Simpson's professors at MIT suggest a letter they wish MIT's president would write:
"The Institute should have acted faster to provide the media with a reasonable understanding of the kind of engineering and electronic art that are part of our research and teaching, some of which interfaces with the world of design and fashion. In that regard, we thank Professor Rosalind W. Picard ScD ’91 of the Media Lab for her efforts with the press and in court. As Professor Picard pointed out in an affidavit, Ms. Simpson’s sweatshirt falls in the category of “wearable electronics” that are “harmless, safe and commonplace in society.” I myself would add that similar clothing is available in many retail outlets, including some airport terminal shops. According to an interview in the Boston Globe, Professor Picard’s own wardrobe includes wearable electronics such as blouses with LEDs, circuit boards, wires and batteries, and she expects colleagues in her field to wear their electronic designs."
***
"Two years ago, in April 2006 after Campus Preview Weekend, Mr. Bryan G. Nance, Director of Minority Recruitment in the Admissions Office, described Star Simpson as “a perfect fit for MIT,” and he wrote: “Star, Welcome to the MIT family!”
Star Simpson is still part of the “MIT Family.” As such, we stand by her."
Her trial on the bizarre charge of possessing a "hoax device" begins May 23.
Star Simpson, the MIT student who is accused of bringing a hoax bomb to Logan when she wore a lit sign, will go to trial.
"If it goes to trial, the student, Star Simpson, as well as other students from MIT are expected to testify that she had been wearing the device to attract attention at a college career fair."
***
"[Her lawyer] denied that the device could have been confused with an incendiary device and said Simpson had a First Amendment right to express herself by wearing it. He said yesterday that an airport clerk had asked Simpson to turn off the device's blinking lights while she was inside the terminal and that Simpson complied by unplugging its battery."
It still seems hard to believe that they really believe she was trying to fool anyone. It must be hard to admit they made a mistake. (Image: Alex Hornstein)
After Roxanne Quimby grew Burt's Bees into a giant business (and sold it to Clorox) she searched for a mission in life and found it in buying vast swathes of land in Maine for a future national park:
"Most of Roxanne's red rectangles are east of the park. She is stitching her own crazy quilt. These are plots of land she has bought. There are others she hopes to buy. Some are scattered and separate. By bargaining and swapping, she is trying to put together a whole. In concert with RESTORE, what she has in mind is a national park. "I feel like my reason for being put on this earth will have been fulfilled because this will live on after me. A park is a demonstration that there is something in America that I can love," she says, her counterculture philosophy re-emerging. "It's very democratic: A Mexican immigrant or a millionaire, for 10 bucks, they both get the same experience.""
In the process Quimby has stepped into the contentious feuding over whether the future of Maine is the declining forest industry or a growing tourist economy which depends on outsiders.
"By the summer of 2007, Roxanne Quimby had spent $39 million to purchase
80,000 acres of wilderness. Nearly 65,000 acres of it lies between
Baxter State Park and the East Branch of the Penobscot River. To her
mind, a park is the only reasonable destiny for this land: "If we leave
this to chance, we will not have the opportunity to make decisions
about what happens next."
In the process of making these purchases, Roxanne gobbled up hunting grounds, snowmobile trails, and some beloved primitive camps that families and hunters had passed down through generations. "I own it now," she proclaimed. "Buying the land also means I am buying the right to call the shots."
Lawrence Lessig, the founder of Creative Commons and author of books like Free Culture and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (both downloadable at those links) will be speaking at a free event at Harvard on April 4th discussing his new project Change Congress.
"Change Congress is a movement to build support for basic reform in how
our government functions. Using technological and internet tools, both
candidates and citizens can pledge their support for basic changes to
reduce the distorting influence of money in Washington. The Change
Congress community will link candidates committed to a reform with
volunteers and contributors who support it.
Change Congress organizes citizens to push candidates to make four
simple commitments:
1. No money from lobbyists or PACs
2. Vote to end earmarks
3. Support publicly-financed campaigns
4. Support reform to increase Congressional transparency
"
Important Info:
Friday, April 4, 2008
5:00 p.m.
Ames Courtroom, second floor of Austin Hall on the Harvard Law School
Campus (map)
Free and Open to the Public
An appeal by newcomer Super Duck Excursions continues the business identity dispute over the use of duck name and logo in reference to the popular amphibious tours originated by Boston Duck Tours almost 15 years ago in Boston.
"Boston Duck Tours, the company that uses amphibious World War II vehicles for its city sightseeing tours, continues to defend its name as it begins its 2008 season Monday.
Boston Duck Tours, which has been operating since 1994, won a court case last summer against Super Duck Excursions, which was formerly named Super Duck Tours. It was forced to change its name and logo -- a cartoon duck -- due to customer confusion."
But Super Duck Excursions is appealing the decision and hopes to use its old name duck logo once again despite not using actual "duck" vehicles but Hydra-Terra vehicles.
Although the video game industry has been doing pretty well in Massachusetts, the legislature is focusing on them for some tough treatment with a new bill being proposed and discussed on March 18th:
"HB1423
attempts to restrict the sale of video games with violent content to
minors, making the sale of such titles illegal. No similar law is
currently in effect as pertains to video games, movies, music or
literature with violent content.
The bill, taking the “games-as-porn” approach, is titled such
because it uses the rational that sexually explicit material and
violent video games are equally harmful to minors. If this bill is
passed, it would officially change the legal definition of content that
is “harmful to minors” to include anything that “…depicts violence in a
manner patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult
community, so as to appeal predominantly to the morbid interest in
violence of minors; is patently contrary to prevailing standards of
adults in the county where the offense was committed as to suitable
material for such minors; and lacks serious literary, artistic,
political or scientific value for minors.”"
"* This bill would violate the First Amendment rights of video game
developers and the public for whom we make video games. In particular,
on Monday a federal appeals court confirmed a ban on a similar law in
Minnesota. (http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9895920-7.html).
The bill is a waste of taxpayers' money.
* The video game industry has an effective rating system in place
to distinguish which games are no appropriate for minors. In particular,
it's more effective and provides far more information than the ratings
system in place for movies.
* ----. The
Massachusetts game industry is booming, employs thousands of people
and provides many hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the
Massachusetts economy. H. 1423 sends the wrong message, that
Massachusetts does not welcome the video game development industry."
Mayor Menino says he supports the bill but it looks likely to be overturned given its similarity to other laws that have been overturned around the country.
Law prof Eugene Volokh reminds us that prostitution (indoors) is legal in Rhode Island:
"“A lot of people don’t realize that prostitution is legal in Rhode Island if you do it indoors,” State Police Inspector Stephen Bannon testified. In an accompanying letter, State Police Supt. Col. Brendan P. Doherty noted that under current law, “persons are free to solicit sex for money in newspapers and/or over the Internet as long as the conduct that is agreed upon takes place in private.”"
When is assassination productive? According to research produced by Harvard economist Ben Olken the assassination of an autocratic ruler is more likely to produce change than that of a democratic leader. Olken has also shown that the price of bribes increases when there are fewer extortionists in much the same way that a company might be able to charge higher prices when it has fewer competitors.
Eve LaPlante will discuss her ancestor Samuel Sewall, the judge in the Salem Witch Trials and the book she has written about him on March 16.
Info:
March 16, 2 p.m.
Hunneman Hall
Brookline Main Library
361 Washington St.
Brookline, MA
University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein who has become a public intellectual with books on subjects from constitutionalism to the impact of the internet to the capacity of humans to make bad decisions will be calling Harvard home from now on joining other interesting new hires like Yochai Benkler.
Comcast hired people off the street to pack the recent FCC hearing at Harvard Law School.
"Comcast — or someone who really, really likes Comcast — evidently bused in its own crowd. These seat-warmers, were paid to fill the room, a move that kept others from taking part."
And now they admit having done so.
"Comcast spokeswoman Jennifer Khoury said that the company paid some
people to arrive early and hold places in the queue for local Comcast
employees who wanted to attend the hearing.
Some of those
placeholders, however, did more than wait in line: They filled many of
the seats at the meeting, according to eyewitnesses. As a result,
scores of Comcast critics and other members of the public were denied
entry because the room filled up well before the beginning of the
hearing.
Free Press campaign director Timothy Karr said that he showed up at the hearing 90 minutes early, only to find the room "75 percent full." "The only reason these people were in the room, it seemed to me, was to keep seats warm and exclude others," Karr said."
(Photo of sleepers at the hearing - Free Press)
An FCC hearing on net neutrality is going on today at Harvard Law School and still continuing with all the FCC commissioners and a variety of interesting experts like Tim Wu. If you are constrained from attending you can follow David Weinberger's liveblogging of the event.
'“They must be conducted in an open and transparent way,” said Kevin J.
Martin, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, at a hearing
on network neutrality and network management here Monday. “While
networks may have reasonable practices, they obviously cannot operate
without taking some reasonable steps but that does not mean they can
arbitrarily block access to certain services.”
"The Commission has been considering complaints made by Vuze, BitTorent
and several consumer groups that Comcast has violated a policy
statement issued by the commission in 2005 that permits Internet
service providers to engage in “reasonable network management.” The
term has become a focal point in the revived debate over what is called
network neutrality."
Toscanini's tax controversy makes the NY Times after donations help the store re-open while the donation request sparks complaints from taxpayers.
"[Sam] Mehr [a Toscanini employee who set up the donation website], who first tasted Toscanini’s ice cream as an
elementary-school student and has helped invent flavors like summer
blue lemon (blueberry ice cream with lemon zest) and plum and red wine
sorbet, said even he felt ambivalent about the outpouring of cash.
“There are a lot of nonprofit organizations that ethically the money could be better suited for,” he said. “But food is something that people really, really care about. Food is a really integral part of our lives, and people do not want to see Toscanini’s go.”
What happens if you just drive through the EZPass without one of those little boxes. Well, in Maine, not much until you get near the 1300th (!) drivethrough.
"Derek M. Theriault, 28, was charged Friday with racking up roughly 1,300 toll-evasion violations totaling $1,797.50, the Portland Press-Herald reported."
On the eve of the Super Bowl Senator Arlen Spector, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee is calling NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to Washington to explain why the NFL destroyed the evidence in the Patriots spying case.
"When Mr. Specter was asked if he could envision a situation in which
employees of the Patriots or the N.F.L. were called to testify before
the committee, he said he wanted to take the investigation 'one step at
a time.'”
“'It could,' Mr. Specter said. 'It’s premature to say
whom we’re going to call or when. It starts with the commissioner. He
had the tapes, and he made the decision as to what the punishment could
be. He made the decision to destroy them.'"
Logan is one of 10 U.S. airports beginning to use new 10 finger fingerprint scanners for all foreigners arriving at the airport.
The London Times reports that there have been claims of false identifications made by the scanners:
" Miguel Espinoza brought a lawsuit against Identix in 2004 after his prints were wrongly assigned to a convicted murderer. The case was dismissed after the judge ruled that human error, and not the scanner, had caused the mix-up, but human-rights groups say overdependence on technology will continue to put travellers at risk."
There have also been increasing concerns that fingerprint evidence may not be as reliable as once thought.
One MIT student, of 19 who recently received settlement letters from the RIAA regarding alleged file-sharing, is planning to fight the RIAA and is expressing disappointment that MIT isn't doing as much as other universities against the RIAA's efforts.
"Nineteen members of the MIT community have been asked by the
recording industry to preemptively settle lawsuits for allegedly
downloading music illegally on peer-to-peer networks, according to a
Jan. 10 Recording Industry Association of America press release."
"One
MIT student who has received a letter from the RIAA said last week that
he planned not to settle and that he would fight the RIAA’s attempts to
learn his identity. To date, no MIT students are known to have gone to
court — all have paid the pre-litigation settlement or have settled
after the RIAA has sent a subpoena to MIT" (via Slashdot)
