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A federal judge has struck down a Florida law prohibiting the publication of a police officer’s name, phone number or address, calling the statute an unconstitutional restraint on speech. The decision leaves Arizona, Colorado and Washington state with similar laws on the books. Florida authorities said Wednesday they were mulling whether to appeal. Robert Brayshaw, a 35-year-old apartment manager, brought the challenge to Florida’s law after he was briefly jail in 2008 for posting personally identifying information of a Tallahassee police officer on RateMyCop.com — a 2-year-old website that lets users rate and comment on the uniformed police officers in their community. RateMyCop uses public records requests to gather the names and, in some cases, badge numbers of thousands of uniformed cops at police departments around the country, and allows users to post comments about police they’ve interacted with. The site’s launch in 2008 drew cries of outrage from police, who complained that they’d be put at risk if their names were on the internet.
from threat level:
Yahoo prevailed Friday over Colorado federal prosecutors in a legal battle testing whether the Constitution’s warrant requirements apply to Americans’ e-mail.
Saying the contested e-mail “would not be helpful to the government’s investigation,” (.pdf) the authorities withdrew demands for e-mail in a pending and sealed criminal case. For the moment, the move ends litigation over the hotly contested issue of when a warrant under the Fourth Amendment is required for Yahoo and other e-mail providers to release consumer communications to the authorities.
The brouhaha concerned a 1986 law that already allows the government to obtain a suspect’s e-mail from an internet service provider or webmail provider without a probable-cause warrant, once it’s been stored for 180 days or more. The government contended, and then backed off Friday, that it could get e-mail less than 180-days old if that e-mail has been read by the owner, and that the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections don’t apply.
Yahoo was backed (.pdf) by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Google and the Center for Democracy & Technology in challenging the government’s position. It defied a court order to turn over those e-mails to the feds in a Colorado criminal probe that is under seal. Litigation over the topic ensued, and the government blinked in a legal standoff highlighting antiquated privacy laws.
Had the courts adopted the government’s position, (.pdf) the vast majority of Americans’ e-mail would be accessible to the government without probable cause, whenever law enforcement believes the messages would be relevant to a criminal investigation, even if the e-mail’s owner was not suspected of wrongdoing.
Still, the government’s move does not resolve the privacy issue, but merely instead delays it for a later day.flashback: fcc loses net neutrality battle against comcast
from 9news:
Federal prosecutors have charged a former Transportation Security Administration employee with attempting to sabotage terror watch list computers. Douglas Duchak, 46, of Colorado Springs, faces two charges of attempting to damage protected TSA computers.
Duchak pleaded not guilty and was released from custody. The suspect allegedly tried to send a virus into the computer system's servers, after learning he would be terminated, 9Wants to Know confirms. The computer system includes the government's no-fly list.
Duchak worked at the TSA's Colorado Springs Operation Center where the government loads computers with data received from the federal government's Terrorist Screening Database and the U.S. Marshal's Service Warrant Information Network, according to a U.S. Attorney's office spokesman.
Duchak worked at the Colorado Springs Operations Center from August 2004 to Oct. 23, 2009 as a data analyst.
Federal prosecutors say Duchak was not successful in his attempt to introduce a virus into the computer system, but if he had been successful it "would have caused damage affecting a computer used by the United States government in furtherance of national security," according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
"Prosecution of the defendant is critical to protecting the integrity of the government's security databases," said U.S. Attorney David M. Gaouette. Duchak is expected to appear in Denver federal court Wednesday afternoon. If convicted, he faces 10 years in prison for each count. This case was investigated by the TSA, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.
"While this threat was an attempted internal attack on a cyber based system by a U.S. citizen, the FBI will invest the time, resources, and hard work necessary to pursue prosecution of these cases," FBI Special Agent in Charge of the Denver office Jim Davis said. "The tampering with a computer that is used as a tool to protect National Security of the United States will not be tolerated," he said.
google admits street view trespassing, hit with crippling $1 fine* 
military ready for war in cyberspace* 
from ap: The sun may be about to put on a colorful light show. That's because of two minor solar storms that flared on Sunday and are shooting tons of plasma directly at Earth. Scientists said residents of northern regions - from Maine to Michigan and anywhere farther north around the globe - may see unusual northern lights. Usually only regions closer to the Arctic can see the aurora of rippling reds and greens, but solar storms pull them south. The federal Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo., said the plasma will likely arrive late Tuesday night or early Wednesday. The storms are not much of a threat to satellites or power grids. Until recently, the sun was in a phase with few storms.
