police

A federal judge has ruled that border agents cannot seize a traveler's laptop, keep it locked up for months, and examine it for contraband files without a warrant half a year later.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in the Northern District of California rejected the Obama administration's argument that no warrant was necessary to look through the electronic files of an American citizen who was returning home from a trip to South Korea.

"The court concludes that June search required a warrant," White ruled on June 2, referring to a search of Andrew Hanson's … Read more

Police in Cumbria in the U.K. have been using Twitter to give updates to citizens on a gunman's shooting spree.

According to the Telegraph, which first reported on the news, Cumbria police tweeted a message at 1 p.m. local time on Wednesday alerting citizens that a gunman was on the loose in the town of Whitehaven. It also included a link to a statement written by law enforcement discussing the issue.

Cumbria police continued to use Twitter to update followers on what was happening. By the time the whole ordeal was over, police announced on their Twitter … Read more

They tell me you're never alone in Arizona. Somebody, somewhere, is always there to keep an eye on you, just in case you might be the sort of person who might do, or simple be, something undesirable.

So those of an equitable state, which may even include some from within the state of Arizona, might find their breakfast muffin slipping down more slowly when I reveal that Arizona has this week made a huge stand against excessive surveillance.

Has the state decided that, after all, it might not be wise to stop every car containing Lopez look-alikes (that's … Read more

Imagine you're caught speeding and a police car signals for you to stop. You sit quietly in your car, until there's a knock at the window. It's a green man with three heads and some yellow dribble coming from one of his noses.

Oh, I know I'm exaggerating a little. I blame that on the world's excitement that we might now know what the iPhone 4G will look like. Well, there's also the delightful fact that new speed cameras, ones that connect to satellites in outer space, are being tested on the roads of the United Kingdom.

According to the BBC, the peeps at PIPS Technology, heretofore known as developing fine license plate recognition systems, have turned more than a head or two toward creating a new system that will couple their existing amusements with an ability to track your average speed over long distances.

The new SpeedSpike system connects to GPS satellites that clearly have nothing better to do than help your local council discover whether you have just slipped down a motorway at an average of 74 mph rather than the stipulated 70. And I say "motorway" because PIPS is testing its imaginative system in the U.K.

As I understand it, some funster at PIPS worked out that if you could photograph someone's license plate at points A and B, you could work out how quickly they got from A to B and therefore what their average speed might, indeed, have been.

So motorists on two lucky stretches of road--one in Southwark, South London (nice cathedral, otherwise dreary), the other on the A374 in Cornwall, at the very bottom left of England (perhaps someone at PIPS has a country house down there)--are to be the first to enjoy that feeling of being watched from a completely new angle.… Read more

If you had a one-ton boat for which you no longer had any use, what would you do?

Would you give it to a former lover, the one who sailed off with your heart, your favorite books, and your Social Security number? Or would you offer it to some charity, in the hope that they would come to pick it up in a very large truck?

For some reason, a man in Santa Rosa County, Fla., chose none of these routes. Instead, according to the Pensacola News Journal, he dumped the boat in a subdivision that didn't yet enjoy … Read more

An Ohio man is trying to beat a speeding ticket through an unusual defense: claiming that his cell phone's GPS records show he was driving under the speed limit.

Jason Barnes received two points on his license and a $35 fine for allegedly driving 84 mph in a 65 mph portion of Interstate 75 in March 2009. But he says that his employer uses GPS tracking on his Verizon Wireless phone to detect speed limit violations--and those logs prove he wasn't speeding.

So far, Barnes hasn't had much luck. An Ohio appeals court ruled last Monday that … Read more

The organization responsible for bringing high-tech equipment to the police has published its strategy for the next three years.

In the Science and Innovation strategy, published on Wednesday, the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) laid out a number of new technologies it would begin using. These include mobile fingerprinting, wearable video devices, and digital forensics.

"By applying modern science on the front line, police officers are detecting criminals faster, staying on the beat for longer and making decisions based on better evidence about what works," NPIA chief executive Peter Neyroud said in a statement.

Read more of "… Read more

Last week Ford announced its new Police Interceptor model, which is based on the new Taurus and is replacing the outgoing Crown Victoria model. Recognizing that Ford's Police Interceptor won out against the previously popular Chevrolet Caprice patrol vehicle, we took a stroll through the history of police vehicles.

Police have always been at the forefront of automotive technology, incorporating telecommunications gear and computers long before similar devices found their way into civilian cars. Motorola sold the first two-way radio for police cars in 1940, and it wasn't until the '60s that Citizens' Band radio came … Read more