Law Enforcement

The police will always know who you are

Police already have access to visors with built-in face recognition and fugitive spotting. The technology was in prototype stage a few years ago, and was successfully tested when police officers walked into dark cinemas full of people and got so-called People of Interest highlighted directly onto their field of vision. The future is approaching fast, and it’s not all shiny happy rainbow unicorns.

Texas Counties Question Need For Seperate Courts For Cops

A banner sits around the Frank Crowley Courts Building in Dallas, May 13, 2017. (AP/LM Otero)
There’s one new law on the books intended to help police in Texas that has gotten less attention than several others in a year when lawmakers touted their “back the blue” bills. It’s a measure that will allow counties to create pretrial diversion programs for first responders who commit crimes because of job-related mental health issues.

One wiretap order – 3.29 million calls intercepted

US authorities intercepted and recorded millions of phone calls last year under a single wiretap order, authorized as part of a narcotics investigation.
The wiretap order authorized an unknown government agency to carry out real-time intercepts of 3.29 million cell phone conversations over a two-month period at some point during 2016, after the order was applied for in late 2015.

»All your data are belong to US«

The Justice Department on Friday petitioned the US Supreme Court to step into an international legal thicket, one that asks whether US search warrants extend to data stored on foreign servers. The US government says it has the legal right, with a valid court warrant, to reach into the world’s servers with the assistance of the tech sector, no matter where the data is stored.

Despite Legal Requirement, Over 100 Federal Agencies Don’t Report Hate Crimes

Jeremy Christian at a “March for Free Speech” rally in Portland on April 29. Christian was chraged with a double murder and hate crimes, after he cut the throats of two men and stabbed another on a commuter train late on Friday afternoon.(Photo: Doug Brown/The Portland Mercury)
In violation of a longstanding legal mandate, scores of federal law enforcement agencies are failing to submit statistics to the FBI’s national hate crimes database, ProPublica has learned.

The German »Staatstrojaner« mission creep

A new law allowing the German police to hack into mobile phones for even minor crimes, is expected to be passed by the German parliament this week [update: the law has now been passed]. Currently, the use of a “Staatstrojaner” – government trojan – is only permitted in order to prevent future terrorist attacks. Under the new law, the authorities will be allowed to implant surveillance malware to help secure convictions for over 70 types of crime.

Court: Oakland Police Chief Muzzled Investigation Into Rape By His Officers

Oakland Chief of Police Sean Whent speaks during a news conference in Oakland, Calif. In a court filing Wednesday, June 21, 2017. (AP/Ben Margot)
Oakland’s former police chief tried for six months to muzzle allegations that multiple officers sexually exploited an underage girl, and encouraged his department to drop its internal probe of the misconduct, according to a report released Wednesday by a court-appointed monitor.