Category «Criminal Law»

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 23, 2023

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Google brings privacy washing to Android; Xfinity discloses data breach after recent Citrix server hack; How to Check If Something Online Was Written by AI; and Artificial intelligence can find your location, alarming privacy experts.

Subjects: AI, Criminal Law, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Financial System, Government Resources, Information Management, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines, Search Strategies, Spyware

Israel-Hamas War Project

With our new Israel-Hamas War Project – read the first article here – we are doing what we can to help Truth catch up with Falsehood. Our goal is to document accurate, timely and actionable resources for researchers. We hope that providing this guide will assist policymakers, diplomats, analysts, journalists, scholars, and the public. Improved understanding of the law of war should raise the level of public discussion and facilitate better decision-making at this critical time.

Subjects: Criminal Law, Government Resources, International Legal Research, KM, Legal Research, Military, Refugees, Terrorism

The Tech at ‘Cop Con’: Cigarette Carton Trackers, VR for School Shootings, and ‘Peacekeeper Batons’

Ese Olumhense a reporter at The Markup gives us an overview of how the International Association of Chiefs of Police brings police leadership and tech vendors together at its annual conference, where clear trends about the future of law enforcement emerged.

Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Data Mining, Human Rights, Legal Research, Privacy

Antisemitism has moved from the right to the left in the US − and falls back on long-standing stereotypes

Prof. Arie Perliger, director of the graduate program in Security Studies at the School of Criminology and Justice Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell addresses the fact the the U.S. is currently experiencing one of the most significant waves of antisemitism that it has ever seen. Jewish communities are shaken and traumatized. Jewish and civil rights organizations both in the U.S. and in other Western countries reported a rise in antisemitic incidents following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli military response. The Anti-Defamation League reported that in the first week after Hamas’ deadly attack, in which 1,400 Israelis were killed, antisemitic incidents in the U.S. tripled in comparison to the same week last year. Similarly, London police recorded a 1,353% increase in antisemitic crimes compared with the same period a year earlier. In addition, antisemitic symbols and rhetoric seem to be part of a growing number of protests that erupted around the globe following the escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Subjects: Communications, Comparative/Foreign Law, Conflicts, Criminal Law, Human Rights, Legal Research, Refugees

Predictive Policing Software Terrible At Predicting Crimes

Crime predictions generated for the police department in Plainfield, New Jersey, rarely lined up with reported crimes, an analysis by The Markup has found, adding new context to the debate over the efficacy of crime prediction software. Geolitica, known as PredPol until a 2021 rebrand, produces software that ingests data from crime incident reports and produces daily predictions on where and when crimes are most likely to occur. Aaron Sankin, Investigative Reporter and Surya Mattu, Senior Data Engineer and Investigative Data Journalist examined 23,631 predictions generated by Geolitica between Feb. 25 to Dec. 18, 2018 for the Plainfield Police Department (PD). Each prediction they analyzed from the company’s algorithm indicated that one type of crime was likely to occur in a location not patrolled by Plainfield PD. In the end, the success rate was less than half a percent. Fewer than 100 of the predictions lined up with a crime in the predicted category, that was also later reported to police.

Subjects: Big Data, Civil Liberties, Criminal Law, Data Mining, Privacy, Spyware, Technology Trends

Georgia’s indictment of Trump is a confirmation of states’ rights, a favorite cause of Republicans since Reagan

Prof. Stefanie Lindquist elucidates a critical fact respective to the Trump indictment. All U.S. citizens are actually citizens of two separate governments: They are citizens of the United States as well as citizens of the state in which they live. And they are subject to two systems of law as a result.

Subjects: Criminal Law, Legal Research, United States Law

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, June 30, 2023

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Amazon delays virtual care service’s unveiling after senators raised privacy concern; FBI launches national ‘swatting’ database amid rising incidents; How Do Some Companies Get Compromised Again and Again?; and Does ChatGPT Save My Data? OpenAI’s Privacy Policy Explained.

Subjects: AI, Big Data, Congress, Criminal Law, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Economy, Education, Email Security, Financial System, Health, Healthcare, Legal Research, Privacy

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, May 7, 2023

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: You Can’t Trust Your Browser’s ‘Lock’ to Tell You a Website Is Safe; So long passwords, thanks for all the phish; Amazon Clinic patients must sign away some privacy rights under HIPAA; and Apple and Google Collaborate on Anti-Stalker Tech.

Subjects: AI, Communications, Criminal Law, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Commerce, Health, KM, Privacy, Search Engines, Search Strategies, Social Media

Whistleblowers Are the Conscience of Society, Yet Suffer Gravely For Trying to Hold the Rich and Powerful Accountable For Their Sins

Lawyer, activist, author, and whistleblower Ashley Gjovik states: “I blew the whistle and was met with an experience so destructive that I did not have the words to describe what happened to me. I set out to learn if what happened to me is a known phenomenon and, if so, whether there are language and concepts to explain the experience. I found it is well studied. This article focuses on experiences like mine, where a still-employed whistleblower takes disclosures of systemic issues public due to inaction or cover-ups by the institution. This article does not intend to discount the other varieties of whistleblower experiences; instead, it seeks to explain, expose and validate the turmoil many whistleblowers in similar positions are often forced to endure alone.” Gjovik’s article is an extensively researched and documented history of major whistleblower cases in the United Stated, across sectors and decades.

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Legal Research

Manhattan grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump, showing he, like all other presidents, is not an imperial king

Following news that a Manhattan grand jury had voted to indict Donald Trump, CNN’s John Miller announced on Thursday evening March 30, 3023: “I am told by my sources that this is 34 counts of falsification of business records, which is probably a lot of charges involving each document, each thing that was submitted, as a separate count.” Prof. Shannon Bow O’Brien, a presidency scholar, takes on the concept of the imperial presidency: “Throughout history, many presidents have pushed the boundaries of power for their own personal preferences or political gain. However, Americans do have the right to push back and hold these leaders accountable to the country’s laws. Presidents have never been monarchs. If they ever act in that manner, I believe that the people have to remind them of who they are and whom they serve.”

Subjects: Accounting, Business Research, Criminal Law, Government Resources, Leadership, Legal Research, Public Records, United States Law