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Attorneys in Baltimore are reviewing hundreds of convictions after an investigation revealed that police there have secretly used cell phone surveillance tools in nearly 2,000 criminal cases. Following a report in USA Today that exposed the extent of the Baltimore Police Department’s use of cell-tracking technology to locate suspects sought in connection with low-level crimes, lawyers in the city’s public defender office now tell the paper they plan to ask the court to toss out “a large number” of convictions.

Whole-of-government data analytics centre will fight crime and expanding waistlines The Australian State of New South Wales has created a whole-of-government data analytics centre.Innovation and better regulation minister Victor Dominello announced the centre yesterday, proclaiming that “Data is one of the greatest assets held by government, but when it’s buried away in bureaucracy it is of little value.” “Whether it’s tackling crime, combatting obesity or addressing housing affordability, we cannot hope to develop solutions to the long-term challenges that our state faces without an effective whole-of-government data sharing platform,” he added.A “specialist government steering committee” is figuring out just what...

I stepped from the warmth of our source's London flat. That February night in 1977, the air was damp and cool; the buzz of traffic muted in this leafy north London suburb, in the shadow of the iconic Alexandra Palace. A fellow journalist and I had just spent three hours inside, drinking Chianti and talking about secret surveillance with our source, and now we stood on the doorstep discussing how to get back to the south coast town where I lived. Events were about to take me on a different journey. Behind me, sharp footfalls broke the stillness. A squad...

Windows 10 is amazing. Windows 10 is fantastic. Windows 10 is glorious. Windows 10 is faster, smoother and more user-friendly than any Windows operating system that has come before it. Windows 10 is everything Windows 8 should have been, addressing nearly all of the major problems users had with Microsoft’s previous-generation platform in one fell swoop. But there’s something you should know: As you read this article from your newly upgraded PC, Windows 10 is also spying on nearly everything you do.

Things got very awkward on Thursday when Chris Matthews asked DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz what the difference was between the modern Democratic Party and Socialism. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was completely stumped. She couldn’t answer the question. We haven’t seen that dazed look since Rachel Dolezal was busted as a fraud. Because, as we all know, there is no difference between today’s Democrat Party and radical Socialism. On Sunday DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was again asked to explain the difference between the modern day Democratic Party and Socialism. Again She failed. “You know Chuck it is always fun to...

From the moment an account is created, Microsoft begins watching. The company saves customers' basic information - name, contact details, passwords, demographic data and credit card specifics - but it also digs a bit deeper... and finding answers is not easy, as one privacy expert exclaimed, "there is no world in which 45 pages of policy documents and opt-out settings split across 13 different Settings screens and an external website constitutes 'real transparency'."

This past week was Alexis de Tocqueville’s 210th birthday. This brilliant Frenchman’s insight into our national character still rings true nearly two centuries after he wrote his famous book “Democracy in America.” Ever insightful and prophetic, Tocqueville understood the dangers of big government. He feared that over time big government would strangle the free will of citizens, diminishing our capacity to think and act for ourselves and reducing us to “a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd.” But he offered solutions! "He hoped that those having read his prescient book would come to...

The artificial intelligence system known as Watson is going to supercompute your health. IBM and CVS announced on Thursday that they will work together to come up with algorithms that use physiological indicators and red-flag behaviors to predict whose health is fine and whose may be on the decline. The first stage of the deal will focus on patients with chronic conditions, such as heart disease and obesity, but after that the sky's the limit. Here's why the deal is poised to shake up the way you think about health care. CVS has 7,600 retail stores, about 1,000 walk-in medical...

... Cortana is a sexy spy in the machine Turn on Cortana, the virtual assistant, and you’re also turning on a whole host of data sharing: To enable Cortana to provide personalized experiences and relevant suggestions, Microsoft collects and uses various types of data, such as your device location, data from your calendar, the apps you use, data from your emails and text messages, who you call, your contacts and how often you interact with them on your device. Cortana also learns about you by collecting data about how you use your device and other Microsoft services, such as your...

A video of a Pinellas County man being told by an inspector that his barbecue smoke cannot leave his property has been viewed more than 4 million times on Facebook. Scotty Jordan, 38, posted the video (caution, it contains profanity) to his Facebook page on Wednesday and by Monday morning it had 4,091,474 views and 86,510 shares. “I didn’t expect it to go this far, but I always believe everything happens for a reason,” Jordan said about the video in a Facebook post early Monday. “God puts situations and life experiences in front of you. It’s up to you to...

A key part of President Obama’s legacy will be the fed’s unprecedented collection of sensitive data on Americans by race. The government is prying into our most personal information at the most local levels, all for the purpose of “racial and economic justice.” Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama’s racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school — all to document “inequalities” between minorities and whites. This Orwellian-style stockpile of statistics includes a vast and permanent network of discrimination databases, which Obama already...

Oregon launches program to tax drivers per mile Never autoplay videos David Hastings is a rare American. This long-time hybrid car owner from Oregon wants to pay higher taxes for roads and bridges and says the current 30 cents per gallon state gas tax barely affects him. "I've been free-loading on the highways for 20 years driving electric cars or hybrid cars, getting at least 40 miles to the gallon. So I haven't been paying my share," Hastings said. Now, Hastings will pay more thanks to OReGO -- the first pay-by-the-mile program in the U.S. Oregon’s Department of Transportation has...

When asked if a sixth grader could get an IUD implanted without parental consent, Take Charge told CNSNews.com: “We encourage all Take Charge providers to offer long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) in their clinics. A young person does not need parental consent to obtain a LARC or any other contraceptive method…If the young person is not choosing abstinence, she would be able to select a LARC and have it inserted without parental consent.”

For years Americans' right to privacy, as granted by the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, has come under threat as the country's surveillance systems have grown. After intelligence leaks by former National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden, however, the NSA's domestic dragnet is finally getting the attention that many people feel it deserves.

Laws have become too vague and the concept of intent has disappeared. When we think about the pace of change in technology, it's usually to marvel at how computing power has become cheaper and faster or how many new digital ways we have to communicate. Unfortunately, this pace of change is increasingly clashing with some of the slower-moving parts of our culture. Technology moves so quickly we can barely keep up, and our legal system moves so slowly it can't keep up with itself. By design, the law is built up over time by court decisions, statutes and regulations. Sometimes...

Multnomah County has the state's highest percentage of global warming believers, according to new figures from Yale University. According to the university's national climate change opinions map, 74 percent of residents believe global warming is happening, while 13 percent don't buy it. The newly released figures are based on a complex statistical analysis of public perceptions about climate change in every state, congressional district and county across the country. Washington, D.C. residents led the nation in climate change affirmation, with 81 percent of residents. Floridians' title as the nation's biggest climate change deniers. Curious what your neighbors think about global...

Dakota County Sheriff Tim Leslie will soon have his deputies obtaining DNA from people arrested and charged for certain violent crimes. This DNA collection will take place before they are convicted – a departure from current Minnesota law. In 2006, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled the practice of gathering DNA, without a warrant, from people charged but not convicted, was illegal. Two years ago, in 2013, the United States Supreme Court ruled the practice was okay – at least in Maryland. In light of that ruling, Dakota County is betting that if their new procedure is challenged in court,...

Representatives on Wednesday pointedly asked a Department of Homeland Security official why the department's multibillion-dollar cyber traffic-monitoring system known as EINSTEIN failed to prevent intruders from breaching the Office of Personnel Management and extracting sensitive files on millions of federal employees. "There's been a lot of criticism...that EINSTEIN didn't work," said Rep. Dan Donovan, R-N.Y. referring to the DHS cyber program that monitors government network traffic. In the case of the OPM breach, he asked witnesses at a House Homeland Security subcommittee hearing, "did Einstein actually do what it was created to do?" It depends on what version of EINSTEIN...

More than two dozen churches around the world have installed a facial-recognition system that monitors which members of the flock have actually shown up for the Sunday sermon. The system is called Churchix and was developed by Israeli software company, Face-six. It continually scans the religious center's CCTV feed and matches congregation members to a pre-existing database of their faces -- reportedly with 99 percent accuracy. Connected fingerprints with faces drawn on them More than two dozen churches around the world have installed a facial-recognition system that monitors which members of the flock have actually shown up for the Sunday...

Facebook's photo-sharing app Moments will not be made available in Europe due to concerns about its use of facial recognition, it has been revealed. The app, which allows users to share mobile-phone photos with friends without posting them publicly, was launched in the US this week. The Irish data regulator said that users must be given a choice about whether they want it, with an opt-in. There is currently no timetable for such a feature, said Facebook. Richard Allen, Facebook's head of policy in Europe said: "We don't have an opt-in mechanism so it is turned off until we develop...