Loss of Privacy

From the New York Times:

An overlapping array of justices were divided on the rationale for the decision, with the majority saying the problem was the placement of the device on private property.

But five justices also discussed their discomfort with the government’s use of or access to various modern technologies, including video surveillance in public places, automatic toll collection systems on highways, devices that allow motorists to signal for roadside assistance, location data from cellphone towers and records kept by online merchants.

You can read the opinion at the supreme court [pdf] .

From LiveLeak:

The U.S. Marine Corps said it is investigating the origins of a video posted on the Internet that claims to show Marines urinating on the corpses of insurgents.

The video, which surfaced on Web sites Wednesday, portrays four Marines in combat gear laughing as they urinate while standing over three bodies of Taliban militants, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

From TMZ:

In the video, one of the urinating men can be heard saying, “Have a great day, buddy.”

Another guy jokes about the situation … saying, “Golden like a shower.”

The mystery person who posted the video included a caption that reads, “scout sniper team 4 with 3rd battalion 2nd marines out of camp lejeune peeing on dead talibans.”

The Marines have said they will investigate fully.

Not sure I like the inclusion of Nazi references in the video, but, overall, it’s a good video.

From PBS:

Miles O’Brien reports on the safety of the latest backscatter body-scanning machines that are widely used in American airport security.

Hari Sreenivasan caught up with Miles this week to get some behind-the-scenes intelligence on the piece. What do we know about the ionizing radiation emitted by these scanners? Why are such security devices outlawed in the European Union? And what would it take for a terrorist to beat one?

Watch Behind the Backscatter on PBS. See more from PBS NEWSHOUR.

More at EPIC.

We host a discussion on policing and the Occupy Wall Street movement with Chuck Wexler, director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which helped organize calls among police chiefs on how to respond to the Occupy protests, and with Norm Stamper, the former police chief of Seattle, who recently wrote an article for The Nation magazine titled “Paramilitary Policing from Seattle to Occupy Wall Street.” “Trust me, the police do not want to be put in this position. And cities really need to ask themselves, is there another way to handle this kind of conflict?” Wexler says.

Stamper notes, “There are many compassionate, decent, competent police officers who do a terrific job day in and day out. There are others who are, quote, ‘bad apples.’ What both of them have in common is that they ‘occupy,’ as it were, a system, a structure that itself is rotten. And I am talking about the paramilitary bureaucracy.” We are also joined by Stephen Graham, author of “Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism,” and by retired New York Supreme Court Judge Karen Smith, who worked as a legal observer Tuesday morning in New York after the police raided the Occupy Wall Street encampment.

“I was there to take down the names of people who were arrested… As I’m standing there, some African-American woman goes up to a police officer and says, ‘I need to get in. My daughter’s there. I want to know if she’s OK.’ And he said, ‘Move on, lady.’ And they kept pushing with their sticks, pushing back. And she was crying. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he throws her to the ground and starts hitting her in the head,” says Smith. “I walk over, and I say, ‘Look, cuff her if she’s done something, but you don’t need to do that.’ And he said, ‘Lady, do you want to get arrested?’ And I said, ‘Do you see my hat? I’m here as a legal observer.’ He said, ‘You want to get arrested?’ And he pushed me up against the wall.”

Transcript.