Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Court rejects plea to block taping of police


The Supreme Court has rejected an Illinois prosecutor's plea to allow enforcement of a law aimed at stopping people from recording police officers on the job.
The justices on Monday left in place a lower court ruling that found that the state's anti-eavesdropping law violates free speech rights when used against people who tape law enforcement officers. The law sets out a maximum prison term of 15 years.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in 2010 against Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez to block prosecution of ACLU staff for recording police officers performing their duties in public places, one of the group's long-standing monitoring missions.
Opponents of the law say the right to record police is vital to guard against abuses.

Dotcom: We've hit the jackpot

A fresh legal bid to throw out the case against Kim Dotcom in the United States is being made after claims of an FBI double-cross.
Evidence has emerged showing the Department of Homeland Security served a search warrant on Mr Dotcom's file-sharing company Megaupload in 2010 which he claims forced it to preserve pirated movies found in an unrelated piracy investigation.
The 39 files were identified during an investigation into the NinjaVideo website, which had used Megaupload's cloud storage to store pirated movies.
When the FBI applied to seize the Megaupload site in 2012, it said the company had failed to delete pirated content and cited the earlier search warrant against the continued existence of 36 of the same 39 files.
The details emerged after the US District Court in East Virginia allowed partial access to the FBI application which led to the shutdown of the Mega family of websites.
Other information from the case to emerge this week includes a collection of photographs from the day of the raid at Mr Dotcom's Coatesville property on January 20 this year. The High Court released the material after applications from the Herald.


Friday, November 16, 2012

PSA: Transition to CyanogenMod.org


We at CM are very trusting of our members, showed by both respect and permissions granted to those people we consider part of the team. Last month, this trust was violated in a substantial way. In the spirit of openness, here is what happened.
CM’s history is well established, with Cyanogen releasing his original ROM for the G1 on XDA forums. Back then, there was no “CyanogenMod” in terms of the organization and structure that we have today. The builds were hosted on Steve’s personal machine, the original server was a donation of spare kit from Phaseburn. And due to the small size (and lack of funds), the CyanogenMod.com domain was bought by a third-party back in 2009 and donated to CM, when CM was a much smaller project and had no online presence besides XDA.

Ocean still suffering from Fukushima fallout


Radioactivity is persisting in the ocean waters close to Japan's ruined nuclear power plant at Fukushima Daiichi.
New data presented at a conference held on 12–13 November at the University of Tokyo show that levels of radioactivity in the sea around the plant remain stable, rather than falling as expected. Researchers believe that run-off from rivers, as well as continued leaks from the plant, may be partially to blame. But contaminated sediment and marine organisms also seem to be involved.
The level of contamination is not likely to pose a significant health risk to humans. But it could have long-term economic consequences for fishermen along Japan's east coast.

Read more: http://www.nature.com/news/ocean-still-suffering-from-fukushima-fallout-1.11823

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Earthquakes In Myanmar(Burma) 2012-11-11

3 killed, 29 injured in Myanmar earthquake in northern part: state TV


SAGAING, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- At least three people were killed, 29 injured and four went missing in Sunday morning's 6.8-magnitude strong earthquake that struck northern part of Myanmar, state TV said in a breaking news in the afternoon.
Of the three victims, two are from Kyauk Myaung in Sagaing region and one is from Singu in Mandalay region.
Strong quake strikes Myanmar, at least 12 feared dead
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — A strong earthquake struck Myanmar, also known as Burma, on Sunday, collapsing a bridge and a gold mine, damaging several old Buddhist pagodas and leaving as many as 12 people feared dead.
No casualties or major damage were reported in the nearest major population center, Myanmar's second-biggest city of Mandalay, about 72 miles south of the quake's epicenter near the town of Shwebo.

Myanmar Earthquake 2012: 6.8 Magnitude Quake Kills At Least 12

YANGON, Myanmar — A strong earthquake of magnitude-6.8 struck northern Myanmar on Sunday, collapsing a bridge and a gold mine, damaging several old Buddhist pagodas and leaving as many as 12 people feared dead.
A slow release of official information left the actual extent of the damage unclear after Sunday morning's strong quake. Myanmar has a poor official disaster response system, despite having lost upwards of 140,000 people to a devastating cyclone in 2008.
Myanmar's second-biggest city of Mandalay reported no casualties or major damage as the nearest major population center to the main quake Mandalay lies about 117 kilometers (72 miles) south of the quake's epicenter near the town of Shwebo.