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Following up on my previous post about iOS 4 powered devices logging your every move, I just noticed this story from Time:

The Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has accused the MSP of using devices to extract information from the cellphones of drivers they've pulled over without the owner's knowledge, thereby violating Fourth Amendment rights. Mark Fancher, an ACLU attorney told reporters that cellphones "can contain information that many people consider to be private, to be beyond the reach of law enforcement and other government actors... There is great potential for abuse here by a police officer or state trooper who may not be monitored or supervised on the street."

These devices, the Cellbrite UFED, have been in use since before 2008. It doesn’t matter if you password protect your phone or not – it will retrieve the data in about 30 seconds. What 4th amendment?

The police aren’t the only ones you have to worry about either. Curious spouses, private investigators or anyone at all. The data is stored in your phone in very unsecure manner. Got a stalker? Great – just let him grab your phone in a bar. Now he’ll know everywhere you have been and can figure out a pattern.

All we can hopeful now is that some one in Congress will take notice and do the right thing. Steve Jobs needs subpoenaed and forced to answer about this egregious invasion of privacy. If he refuses to answer there, then it’s time for the DOJ to take action. This isn’t an issue of right or left, but rather right or wrong.

Andrew Breitbart got a special surprise at CPAC this weekend:

Blogger Andrew Breitbart has been sued by former U.S. Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod who contends her reputation was damaged by Breitbart's posting last year of an edited video.

The New York Times reports today Breitbart was served with the lawsuit at CPAC Saturday. Sherrod contends in the suit that a video clip he posted last year "has damaged her reputation and prevented her from continuing her work."

Salon adds the following:

Sherrod argues in the lawsuit that the clip "damaged her reputation and prevented her from continuing her work." Breitbart, meanwhile,denounced the suit, saying he "categorically rejects the transparent effort to chill his constitutionally protected free speech."

(emphasis added)

I just love the conservative definition of “free speech”. What’s funny is if you follow Breitbart on Twitter, there’s been more than one instance where someone says something about him and he threatens a lawsuit. He’s a typical right-wing thug, that thinks he has constitutional protections, yet people he disagrees with don’t.

I am wishing Shirley all the luck in the world with this lawsuit. She deserves it. Breitbart has lower journalistic standards than the worst of the checkout rag magazines.

We have heard for months the chest beating of Darrell Issa, the incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Now it’s gone from chest beating to down right slander:

The Republican congressman who is taking over responsibility for congressional oversight calledPresident Obama's administration "one of the most corrupt administrations" on Sunday and predicted that the investigations he is planning over the next two years could result in about $200 billion in savings for U.S. taxpayers.

It sounds to me like Issa has already passed judgment without as much as a hearing or seeing evidence. The really makes for an impartial judge (NOT!).

And while on this subject, something that really irks me is that Republicans love using the power of Congress to enact oversight on the administrative branch, but when the administrative branch enacts oversight on the legislative branch, generally through the DOJ and criminal investigations, they label it as a “political witch hunt”.

It’s also funny how Republicans, like Issa, warned against investigating George Bush, warning the Democrats would suffer the same way Republicans did when investigating Clinton. Yeah that whole premise went the way of common sense in Washington. Of course I also blame the Democrats for falling for that whole BS line. But perhaps President Obama should take a page from the George Bush playbook and start claiming executive privilege on everything. Let that happen and you can bet the Republicans will be crying foul instantly.

Don’t you just love a little domestic drama?

Sen. John McCain's wife Cindy appears in a new ad that harshly criticizes the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, and government officials and religious leaders generally, over what she and others describe as complicity in the bullying that has led to a rash of highly-publicized suicides among gay youth.

The Republican senator from Arizona has spearheaded opposition to legislative repeal of the military's ban on openly gay servicemembers in the upper chamber, vowing to filibuster if necessary a bill similar to the one that passed the House earlier this year. In the ad from the NOH8 campaign -- an activist group formed in response to Proposition 8, the California ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage -- Cindy McCain seems to be suggesting that her husband is partly responsible for the bullying that has claimed a number of gay teens' lives.

"Our political and religious leaders tell LGBT youth that they have no future," Mrs. McCain says in the ad, which features her alongside celebrities such as Denise Richards and Gene Simmons. "They can't serve our country openly."

Get ready to be pissed to the point of wanting to break stuff:

A Morgan Stanley wealth manager will not face felony charges for a hit-and-run because Colorado prosecutors don't want him to lose his job.

Martin Joel Erzinger, who manages more than $1 billion in assets for Morgan Stanley in Denver, is being accused only of a misdemeanor for allegedly driving his Mercedes into a cyclist and then fleeing the scene, Colorado's Vail Dailyreports. The victim, Dr. Steven Milo, whom Erzinger allegedly hit in July, suffered spinal cord injuries, bleeding from his brain and, according to his lawyer Harold Haddon, "lifetime pain."

The reason for the reduced charges?

“Felony convictions have some pretty serious job implications for someone in Mr. Erzinger's profession, and that entered into it," Hurlbert said. "When you're talking about restitution, you don't want to take away his ability to pay."

"We have talked with Mr. Haddon and we had their objections, but ultimately it's our call," Hurlbert said.

So the guy is to well off to face what the law wants?

Can America seriously remove the stick from her ass?

A $4 rubber bracelet meant to raise breast cancer awareness has done that and more: Students nationwide are wearing the "I (heart) boobies" wristbands, and running afoul of school administrators.

Schools from California to Florida have banned the bracelets because they believe the "boobies" language is inappropriate.

The bracelets are marketed by a California-based nonprofit created to raise breast cancer awareness among youth. The Keep A Breast Foundation has sold 2 million of the bracelets so far, with the money going to breast cancer research and education programs

This is the product of some awesome marketing and raising money for a very good cause, but how dare our children know about a term like “boobies”. Don’t you remember that as one of George Carlin’s 7 words you can’t say on television?

As technology rules more of our lives, stories like this will become much more common place:

An electronic monitoring system tracking sex offenders, parolees and others shut down, leaving authorities in 49 states blind to offenders' movements for about 12 hours, authorities said Wednesday.

A system operated by Boulder, Colo.-based BI Incorporated unexpectedly hit its data storage capacity Tuesday morning, which blocked notifications to prisons and other corrections agencies on about 16,000 people being tracked, BI spokesman Jock Waldo said.

Tracking devices continued to record movement, but corrections agencies couldn't immediately view the data. The company has substantially increased its data storage capacity and hasn't heard of any safety issues, Waldo said. People being monitored were unaware of any problems.

And the article leaves you wondering about the credibility of the company charged with monitoring criminals, who in large part want to prey on our children. They reached a “data storage capacity”? Don’t they monitor their own hardware? Even Windows warns you when your hard drives are getting full. There are also tons of tools to monitor if you are reaching your peak on bandwidth.

All that makes this statement even more frustrating:

It looks like Dove World Outreach Center is in for some financial turmoil:

The controversial Florida pastor who threatened to burn Korans on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is expected to be billed at least $200,000 by the city of Gainesville for costs associated with the stunt.

Pastor Terry Jones, who got international attention with his on-again, off-again plan to burn 200 copies of Islam's holiest book, said the costs would essentially bankrupt his 50-member church, the Dove World Outreach Center.

"That would be impossible for us to pay," Jones said. "That would bankrupt us, of course."

It will be interesting to see how some of Jones’ supporters on the right defend him now. Will they back Jones or the city of Gainesville? Talk about a wingnut dilemma!