Judge OK with government prying into personal information

Government officials who rifle through your personal details held in government databases apparently should have little to fear in the way of punishment, according to a federal judge in Ohio.

U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley has dismissed a complaint brought against Ohio state officials who hunted for details about "Joe the Plumber" when the working man confronted then-candidate Barack Obama during his campaign for the presidency in 2008.

The civil-rights lawsuit was filed by Judicial Watch on behalf of Joe Wurzelbacher, aka "Joe the Plumber," against state officials who, reportedly in their pursuit of support for Obama, had state databases searched for information about Wurzelbacher.

However, Marbley dismissed the action, ruling there was no real damage to Wurzelbacher when officials searched police, social services and other databases for his details.

"The implications of this court decision are frightening," said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. "Essentially the court has said that government officials can feel free to rifle through the private files of citizens without fear of being held accountable in court."

He continued, "How can the American people feel comfortable exercising their First Amendment rights when they may be subject to secret searches by politicized bureaucrats in return? It is unconscionable that high-ranking state officials pried into confidential government files to punish Joe Wurzelbacher for asking a simple question.

"Justice was not served with this decision. Judicial Watch will most certainly file an appeal on behalf of Mr. Wurzelbacher," Fitton said.

The case alleged Ohio officials violated Wurzelbacher's constitutional rights by accessing – illegally – confidential information from the state's official archives of information.

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Man found in WI basement covered in BBQ sauce

As reported by NEWSCHANNEL 3:

A couple in Wisconsin telephoned police in the middle of the night after finding a man in their basement covered head to toe in barbecue sauce. 

"He told the officers that it was urban camouflage," said the homeowner.

The homeowners say they woke up to whistling sounds. The husband grabbed his shotgun and headed toward the basement where he found the sauced-up intruder. He held him at gunpoint until police arrived.

The guy told officers he had covered himself in barbecue sauce because he wanted to hide from the government.

He now faces burglary charges.

U.S. authorities able to tap BlackBerry messaging

The BlackBerry -- renown for the security of its messaging -- doesn't offer 100 percent protection from eavesdropping. At least not in the United States.

U.S. law enforcement officials said they can tap into emails and other conversations made using the device, made by Research in Motion, as long as they have proper court orders.

RIM's willingness to grant authorities access to the messages of its clients is a hot-button issue. The United Arab Emirates claims it does not have the same kind of surveillance rights to BlackBerry messages as officials in the United States. It has threatened to clamp down on some services unless they get more access.

The exact details of the dispute remain unclear, but security experts say that many governments around the world enjoy the ability to monitor BlackBerry conversations as they do communications involving most types of mobile devices.

"The ability to tap communications is a part of surveillance and intelligence and law enforcement all over the world," said Mark Rasch, former head of the computer crimes unit at the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Germany: Radioactive Wild boars increase in number

Radioactive wild boars are on the rise in Germany, where they have attacked and frightened residents, even snarling traffic when they gang up on roadways, according to Spiegel International Online and numerous other media reports over the past couple of weeks.

Their radioactivity stems from Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, which happened way back in 1986, but contaminated much of Europe. Apparently the nuclear contamination is still detectable in some animals, including Germany's wild boars.

The Spiegel report mentions that German government payments compensating hunters for lost income due to radioactive wild boar meat have quadrupled since 2007. Last year alone, $555,000 was paid to hunters who found themselves with inedible boar meat, due to its radioactivity. The hunters would have otherwise sold the meat, but it was deemed unfit for human consumption.

But the problem isn't just radioactivity. Despite the contamination, wild boars are multiplying in record numbers.

"In the last couple of years, wild boar have rapidly multiplied," a spokesman from the Environment Ministry told Spiegel Online. "Not only is there more corn being farmed, but warmer winters have also contributed to a boar boom."

The German Hunting Federation supports this claim. During the 2008/2009 hunting season, approximately 650,000 wild boar were shot, breaking previous records for such kills. Only 287,000 were shot the prior season, suggesting that fewer of these animals were around for the competitive hunters to target.

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CIA flight carried secret from Gitmo

Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman report in an AP exclusive:

A white, unmarked Boeing 737 landed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before dawn on a CIA mission so secretive, many in the nation's war on terrorism were kept in the dark.

Four of the nation's most highly valued terrorist prisoners were aboard.

They arrived at Guantanamo on Sept. 24, 2003, years earlier than the U.S. has ever disclosed. Then, months later, they were just as quietly whisked away before the Supreme Court could give them access to lawyers.

The transfer allowed the U.S. to interrogate the detainees in CIA "black sites" for two more years without allowing them to speak with attorneys or human rights observers or challenge their detention in U.S. courts. Had they remained at the Guantanamo Bay prison for just three more months, they would have been afforded those rights.

"This was all just a shell game to hide detainees from the courts," said Jonathan Hafetz, a Seton Hall University law professor who has represented several detainees.

Removing them from Guantanamo Bay underscores how worried President George W. Bush's administration was that the Supreme Court might lift the veil of secrecy on the detention program. It also shows how insistent the Bush administration was that terrorists must be held outside the U.S. court system.

Years later, the program's legacy continues to complicate President Barack Obama's efforts to prosecute the terrorists behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The arrival and speedy departure from Guantanamo were pieced together by The Associated Press using flight records and interviews with current and former U.S. officials and others familiar with the CIA's detention program. All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the program.

Top officials at the White House, Justice Department, Pentagon and CIA consulted on the prisoner transfer, officials said.

"The so-called black sites and enhanced interrogation methods, which were administered on the basis of guidance from the Department of Justice, are a thing of the past," CIA spokesman George Little said.

The American Civil Liberties Union renewed its call for a broad criminal investigation into the detention program Friday.

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Al Franken: Net neutrality is foremost free speech issue of our time

If we learned that the government was planning to limit our First Amendment rights, we'd be outraged. After all, our right to be heard is fundamental to our democracy.

Well, our free speech rights are under assault -- not from the government but from corporations seeking to control the flow of information in America.

If that scares you as much as it scares me, then you need to care about net neutrality.

"Net neutrality" sounds arcane, but it's fundamental to free speech. The internet today is an open marketplace. If you have a product, you can sell it. If you have an opinion, you can blog about it. If you have an idea, you can share it with the world.

And no matter who you are -- a corporation selling a new widget, a senator making a political argument or just a Minnesotan sharing a funny cat video -- you have equal access to that marketplace.

An e-mail from your mom comes in just as fast as a bill notification from your bank. You're reading this op-ed online; it'll load just as fast as a blog post criticizing it. That's what we mean by net neutrality.

But telecommunications companies want to be able to set up a special high-speed lane just for the corporations that can pay for it. You won't know why the internet retail behemoth loads faster than the mom-and-pop shop, but after a while you may get frustrated and do all of your shopping at the faster site. Maybe the gatekeepers will discriminate based on who pays them more. Maybe they will discriminate based on whose political point of view conforms to their bottom line.

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