schwit1 writes The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000. Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far, according to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the Innocence Project, which are assisting the government with the country’s largest post-conviction review of questioned forensic evidence. The cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death. Of those, 14 have been executed or died in prison, the groups said under an agreement with the government to release results after the review of the first 200 convictions. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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FBI Overstated Forensic Hair Matches In Nearly All Trials Before 2000
Indian police recently purchased five drones so they could dump pepper spray on protesters during political demonstrations. Read more… 
Transparency, thy name sure as hell ain’t Hillary Clinton. During her time as Secretary of State, Clinton went to extreme lengths to ensure that her emails would stay private. Not only did she exclusively use a personal email address, she even rigged up her own homebrew computer server that routed back to her house instead of relying on government email servers. Read more… 
Security consultant Mark Burnett has just published 10 million passwords along with their corresponding usernames. It’s a thoughtful offering to other researchers—but a legally risky move given the current legal situation surrounding hacking. Read more… 
schwit1 writes The Federal Bureau of Investigation is taking the position that court warrants are not required when deploying cell-site simulators in public places. Nicknamed “stingrays, ” the devices are decoy cell towers that capture locations and identities of mobile phone users and can intercept calls and texts. The FBI made its position known during private briefings with staff members of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). In response, the two lawmakers wrote Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson, maintaining they were “concerned about whether the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have adequately considered the privacy interests” of Americans. According to the letter, which was released last week: “For example, we understand that the FBI’s new policy requires FBI agents to obtain a search warrant whenever a cell-site simulator is used as part of a FBI investigation or operation, unless one of several exceptions apply, including (among others): (1) cases that pose an imminent danger to public safety, (2) cases that involve a fugitive, or (3) cases in which the technology is used in public places or other locations at which the FBI deems there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
Following several days of continuous connectivity problems , an internet researcher is reporting that North Korea’s internet has gone dark . Whether it’s a cyber attack or a routine outage remains unclear. Read more… 
