FLE

FAA urged to open domestic skies to unmanned aerial vehicles The U.S. Forest Service's law enforcement branch recently bought two four-foot long unmanned aerial vehicles to patrol federal land in California in search of marijuana growers with links to Mexican drug cartels, agency officials say. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department wants to use a three-pound aerial drone to watch criminal suspects. Police departments in Florida and North Carolina have similar plans for small drones. Although the term unmanned aerial vehicle often refers to the U.S. military's Predator drone, with its 49-foot wingspan and complement of Hellfire missiles, technological advances have led to small, low-flying UAVs more closely resembling model airplanes. Federal agencies and local police department are increasingly considering such drones as affordable tools for various law enforcement tasks. Even as interest soars, though, Federal Aviation Administration safety concerns and its refusal to rush through new rules for drones in domestic airspace is largely blocking civilian use, frustrating industry groups and some in Congress. The House-passed FAA reauthorization bill mandates that the agency is allowed to skip a long rule-making process and decide within six months if some UAVs can fly safely in U.S. civilian airspace....
Secret Data in FBI Wiretapping Audit Revealed With Ctrl+C Once again, supposedly sensitive information blacked out from a government report turns out to be visible by computer experts armed with the Ctrl+C keys -- and that information turns out to be not very sensitive after all. This time around, University of Pennsylvania professor Matt Blaze discovered that the Justice Department's Inspector General's office had failed to adequately obfuscate data in a March report (.pdf) about FBI payments to telecoms to make their legacy phone switches comply with 1995 wiretapping rules. That report detailed how the FBI had finished spending its allotted $500 million to help telephone companies retrofit their old switches to make them compliant with the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act or Calea-- even as federal wiretaps target cellphones more than 90 percent of the time. This isn't the first time the Justice Department has made such an error. In 2007, a U.S. attorney referred to Threat Level's own David Kravets (then at the AP) as a hacker for discovering similar hidden information in a Balco steriod case filing. As far back as 2003, a report on minorities in the Justice Department was also vulnerable. The gaffes may seem humorous, but tell that to confidential informants, for whom such a slip-up could be fatal. In fact, all one needs to do is open the Calea report with Adobe Reader or Foxit reader, and highlight the tables and cut and paste them into a text editor, something Blaze discovered accidentally when trying to copy a portion of the report into an e-mail to a student. Some of the tidbits considered too sensitive to be aired publicly? The FBI paid Verizon $2500 a piece to upgrade 1,140 old telephone switches. Oddly the report didn't redact the total amount paid to the telecom -- slightly more than $2.9 million dollars -- but somehow the bad guys will win if they knew the number of switches and the cost paid....
Real ID deadline comes and goes with zero states on board The original May 11 deadline for Real ID compliance has come and gone, but not a single state has implemented the program, which calls for uniform standards for state-issued ID cards and a system that would provide the federal government with broad access to state identification records. The Real ID Act, which was squeezed into a 2005 military spending bill and passed with virtually no discussion or debate in Congress, has met with heavy resistance from civil liberties advocates and state governments. The implementation costs have far exceeded the original meager estimates and the federal government is providing virtually no cash to support the initiative. A growing number of states are determined to defy Congress and have passed bills rejecting Real ID implementation. All 50 states have been granted extensions from the Department of Homeland Security, ensuring that their citizens will still be permitted to board planes and enter government buildings. Given the nature of the extended deadlines, some speculate that the Bush administration wants to avoid a direct confrontation with the states and that the next president could pressure Congress to institute some changes to the Real ID program....
Drug Cartels to Mexican Police: 'Join Us or Die' Drug cartels are sending a brutal message to police and soldiers in cities across Mexico: Join us or die. The threat appears in recruiting banners hung across roadsides and in publicly posted death lists. Cops get warnings over their two-way radios. At least four high-ranking police officials were gunned down this month, including Mexico's acting federal police chief. Mexico has battled for years to clean up its security forces and win them the public's respect. But Mexicans generally assume police and even soldiers are corrupt until proven otherwise, and the honest ones lack resources, training and the assurance that their colleagues are watching their backs. Here, the taboo on cop-killing familiar to Americans seems hardly to apply. Police who take on the cartels feel isolated and vulnerable when they become targets, as did 22 commanders in the border city of Ciudad Juarez when drug traffickers named them on a handwritten death list left at a monument to fallen police this year. It was addressed to "those who still don't believe" in the power of the cartels....
City cameras to catch every car Almost every car travelling into Manchester is being snapped by a new network of police surveillance cameras, it has emerged. Each day, 600,000 motorists' journeys are being captured, and police will store the data for five years to help combat terrorism, crime and car theft. But civil rights campaigners said they believed it was another step closer to a "Big Brother" state. Police said the new system would bring "enormous benefits". Manchester is the first city outside London to use Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras in this way. Police will store details of the licence plate, colour of car and a time stamp on a central computer. The cameras have been installed on the 12 major routes into the city....
Phila. judge likely to grant NRA request A Philadelphia judge appeared poised yesterday to grant the National Rifle Association's request to block enforcement of recently enacted city gun laws, with a final decision almost certainly headed for the state's high court. Previous rulings by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court established "that the state regulates firearms, not the city," Common Pleas Court Judge Jane Cutler Greenspan told city attorneys during a hearing yesterday. Mayor Nutter and City Council staked their positions in April by drafting five new laws that limit handgun purchases to one a month; ban certain assault weapons; require the reporting of lost or stolen firearms; prohibit gun possession for people subject to protection-from-abuse orders; and allow removal of guns from "persons posing a risk of imminent personal injury" to themselves or others. The NRA, two city gun shops, and others obtained a temporary restraining order a week after Nutter signed the laws, and yesterday's hearing was to determine whether Greenspan would grant a permanent injunction....