March 4, 2009 - 6:02am
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the D.C. chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a brief in the federal appeals court in Washington on behalf of Antoine Jones of Waldorf, Md. Jones was sentenced to life in prison last year after he was convicted in what authorities say was the largest seizure of cocaine ever in the Washington area - 213 pounds.
But his lawyers say the case was built in part on information from a GPS device secretly attached to Jones' car and that police should have obtained a warrant first.
Dan Prywes, the lawyer who filed the brief on behalf of the ACLU, said such satellite technology makes it all too easy for police to engage in Big Brother-type surveillance unless the courts rein them in.
"Most people are aghast at the notion that police - without any showing of probable cause - could track them wherever they go by using an electronic eye in the sky," said Prywes, an attorney with the Bryan Cave law firm, which worked on the case on a pro bono basis.
Jones' trial lawyers also tried to have the tracking evidence tossed out of court, but U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle allowed the jury to hear it.
Prosecutors argue that GPS tracking is no different than physical surveillance conducted by police.
"Because Jones lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whereabouts of his vehicle, the placement of the GPS device was proper, even in the complete absence of a court order," prosecutors wrote in their legal briefs dating to 2006.
Channing Phillips, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney in Washington, did not immediately return a call Tuesday seeking comment on the most recent court filings.
Generally, courts have ruled that people do not have the same expectation of privacy in their cars that they have in their homes. In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police could place radio "beepers" in a car without a warrant, though in its opinion the court warned about all-encompassing "dragnet-type" technology.
Prywes said the precision of GPS tracking is far more intrusive than the "beepers" the court confronted a quarter century ago, and that the law needs to be revisited.
Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University, said the guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court on issues like these is muddled.
"These cases are very interesting because they raise a classic tension between technology and privacy," he said. "The Supreme Court has often had to alter its privacy doctrine to adjust for technological advances."
It is not entirely clear how often police agencies use GPS tracking, and how often they do so without a warrant.
In northern Virginia, several police agencies reported using warrantless GPS tracking hundreds of times over a three-year period, according to a defense lawyer who accumulated the date through Freedom of Information Act requests.
A few courts across the country have considered similar challenges. The New York Supreme court is considering a similar case, and in 2003 the Supreme court in Washington state ruled that, under the state's constitution, police must obtain a warrant before attaching GPS tracking to a car.
http://wtop.com/?sid=1615905&nid=25
This kind of fries me. They will say that the budget that the President sent up is too much (and it is by about 3 trillions dollars). But i bet when the smoke clears the budget that they sent to him is for more the 3.6 Trillion dollars.
Lawmakers tear into $3.6 trillion budget plan
WASHINGTON — Republicans attacked President Obama's proposed $3.6 trillion budget Tuesday as offering "red ink as far as the eye can see," and Democrats even suggested that the president might be trying to solve too many problems at once.
As administration officials trekked to Capitol Hill to defend Obama's budget, they were met with skepticism from both sides of the aisle because of the huge changes the president has promised to make in taxes, health care, energy and education.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, in separate appearances, stuck to the administration line that the president's budget would benefit 95% of working Americans.
Higher taxes for affluent Americans would not come until 2011 once "we are safely into recovery," Geithner told the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.
"I'm confident this is the right path for the country," he said.
But Republicans disagreed.
"The president's budget increases taxes on every American, and does so during a recession," Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., told Geithner.
Camp also complained about provisions that would limit the size of charitable deductions that could be taken by families earning more than $250,000 a year.
Orszag faced similar questioning before the House Budget Committee.
He acknowledged under questioning by Republicans that Obama has proposed the largest peacetime budget in history as a percentage of the nation's economy, at 27%.
He also admitted that it would double the size of the national debt in eight years, from $10 trillion last year to $20 trillion in 2016.
Still, Orszag said, "this budget is not a big-spending budget," noting spending would drop to 3.1% of the nation's economy by 2019, the lowest level since 1962.
But lawmakers challenged the projections.
"The numbers in this budget are staggeringly high," said Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., top Republican on the House Budget Committee.
They will be even higher, he said, if the administration's economic assumptions prove too optimistic, as many Republicans say they will. Obama's budget projects a lesser decline in the nation's gross domestic product this year and a more robust increase next year than most economists and the Congressional Budget Office.
Orszag defended the economic assumptions because they were made more recently than others — after a two-year, $787 billion fiscal stimulus plan that's intended to boost the economy was enacted. He acknowledged, however, that the economy has worsened since those assumptions were made.
The budget director also defended projected deficits of $500 billion to $700 billion annually even after the economy recovers, noting that would represent only about 3% of the nation's economy. This year's estimated $1.75 trillion deficit is more than 12% of the economy.
Unlike his predecessor, President Bush, Obama chose to include all the spending that's likely to occur this year in his budget.
That includes the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a tax cut to spare 20 million Americans from being hit by the alternative minimum tax and a measure holding doctors harmless from projected cuts in Medicare payments.
"I could make the deficit look a lot smaller by playing those games," Orszag said.
The key to the budget, Orszag said, is "bending the curve" on spiraling health care costs.
The budget includes $634 billion as a "down payment" on overhauling the nation's health care system, which Orszag said should be more than half of what's needed. Half that money would come from Medicare savings, the other half from raising taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year.
Orszag said initiatives begun in the budget, such as studying the comparative effectiveness of medical treatments, expanding the use of information technology in doctors' offices and hospitals, and stressing prevention and wellness should reduce health care costs over the long term.
He said the administration will talk more about its plans for health care at a White House summit on Thursday.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-03-03-congress-budget_N.htm
Amazon unveils Kindle Application for iPhone
March 4, 2009 - 7:36am
By RACHEL METZ AP Technology Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - You may not have the latest $359 Kindle electronic book reader from Amazon.com, but if you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, a new application will let you access the same content on your Apple device.
In a bid to increase its slice of the e-book market, the Seattle-based online retailer plans to roll out a free program Wednesday that brings several of the Kindle's functions to the iPod and iPhone's smaller screen.
The program, which can be downloaded from Apple's online application store, lets iPhone and iPod Touch users read the same electronic books, magazines and newspapers that Kindle owners can buy on Amazon.com. As with the Kindle, the iPhone app lets users change the text size on the screen, and add bookmarks, notes and highlights.
The application does not connect to the Kindle store, however, so users must access the Web browser on their iPhone, iPod or computer to buy the content.
If you happen to have a Kindle and an iPhone, Amazon's program will handily sync the two so you can keep your place in the same book on both devices.
The Kindle program isn't the first e-book reader for the iPhone, but it marks the first time Kindle content is available on a cell phone _ a move Amazon recently said it would be making, and something that rival Google Inc. is also doing.
It arrives a few weeks after Amazon unveiled the second-generation Kindle, which has the same price tag as its predecessor but is skinnier and includes updated features like more storage space for books and a longer battery life.
Amazon has been working on the application for several months, said Ian Freed, who is Amazon's vice president for the Kindle. Freed said the company sees the software as a way to introduce non-Kindle owners to the device, potentially turning them into Kindle buyers. (Amazon does not say how many Kindles it has sold.) It also gives Kindle owners an additional way to read their content while on the go, he said.
He added that the new application will show books in color that were developed that way. This is unlike the Kindle 2, which has a 6-inch screen that only shows content in shades of gray.
The application does not include the text-to-speech feature Amazon built into the latest Kindle, which can read books aloud, sparking concerns among authors worried it would undercut separate audiobook sales. Amazon said Friday it will let copyright holders turn off text-to-speech on any book.
http://wtop.com/?nid=108&sid=1615773
Spike in Fatal H5N1 Indonesian Cases Raises Concerns
Recombinomics Commentary 14:37
March 3, 2009
Krisnamurthi had little details about the latest deaths, saying only that two were siblings from the city of Bogor and the others were women from Bekasi and Surabaya.
Republika also reported on Tuesday that two more deaths from the disease occurred at the weekend near the capital Jakarta -- a 5-year-old girl from Depok, and an 8-year-old boy from Bekasi.
The above comments from wire reports describe 4 more confirmed H5N1 fatal cases near Jakarta and describe 2 more recent suspect fatal cases in the same general area. However, additional local reports describe a fatal case in Tangerang, which was said to have been lab confirmed, suggesting that there are at least 7 fatal H5N1 infections in the areas surrounding Jakarta, which are in addition to the two fatalities reported for Tangerang and Bekasi last month.
Details on these cases are somewhat lacking because of the news blackout that delays reporting. WHO generally follows with situation updates, but these updates come after Indonesian announcements and trail disease onset dates by weeks or months.
The familial cluster in Bogor was described in local media reports and the two sisters died in late January. In addition, the patient in Surabaya also died in January, but paramedics linked to the hospital in Surabaya were reported as hospitalized in critical condition, raising concerns that the H5N1 confirmed fatal case directly or indirectly infected the paramedics (see updated map).
The recent seven confirmed or suspect fatalities follow the news blackout last year, which followed a series of additional clusters. The announcement of the blackout was accompanied by claims that the lower number of confirmed cases was due to more rapid treatment. However, the rapid treatment would not lower the number of infections, unless there was significant human to human transmission. Collection of samples after the start of treat may low the number of lab confirmed cases because of a lower viral titer linked to treatment. Rapid treatment could lead to a lowered cases fatality rate, but there is little evidence in the confirmed cases. Historically the case fatality rate for human H5N1 in Indonesia is approximately 80%. However, the rate for confirmed cases reported this year is 100% for the six cases, all of which were on Java. Indeed, it has been over a year since a recovered H5N1 case was reported on Java. Since that cluster in February of 2008, all 10 reported cases last year were fatal. Thus, for Java the case fatality rate has been at 100% for all 16 of the most recent reported H5N1 cases.
This high case fatality rate strongly suggests that milder cases are not report, either because they test negative because of titers lowered by treatment, or they are not tested at all because they are misdiagnosed or self medicated at home, which has been described for many suspect cases. Indeed, many of the fatal cases die within hours of being transferred to an infectious disease hospital after local treatment at home, clinics, or smaller local hospitals and fatally infected family members linked to lab confirmed cases have been misdiagnosed as having lung inflammation, dengue fever, or typhus. The recent Tangerang case was diagnosed as dengue fever, and the recent Bogor case was diagnosed as having dengue fever and typhus prior to lung x-rays and reports of contact with dead or dying poultry, which then led to the H5N1 diagnosis.
The spike in H5N1 cases in the Jakarta area increases concerns that the number of H5N1 in Indonesia in general and the Jakarta area in particular, are markedly higher that the recently announced confirmed cases.
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/03030901/H5N1_Indo_Spike.html
Flu strain proves resistant to medication: report
A virulent strain of influenza sowing misery across the United States is proving resistant to what had been until recently the most effective anti-viral drugs, according to a study released Monday.
A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that the H1N1 subtype of influenza A viruses commonly proved resistant to the popular drug oseltamivir.
Oseltamivir, sold commercially in the United States as the drug Tamiflu, is produced by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche, and is the main antiviral remedy on the market.
But during the 2007-2008 flu season last year, the Tamiflu-resistant strain of the virus accounted for fully one in five cases of flu in the United States.
Preliminary data during the current 2008-2009 influenza season shows that the virus's resistance to the Tamiflu continues to be high and that the drug-resistant strain of the flu continue to have a high incidence.
Equally worrying is the virulence of this particular strain of flu. Data last year for 99 individuals infected with oseltamivir-resistant influenza found that five of the patients had to be hospitalized, four of whom died.
The authors wrote that the worrisome development "has highlighted the need for the development of new antiviral drugs and rapid diagnostic tests that determine viral subtype or resistance."
In an editorial accompanying the study, David Weinstock of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, and Gianna Zuccotti of Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital said that the findings also show that researcher can never become complacent when treating the scourge.
"New surprises await in the perpetual struggle with influenza," they wrote.
"One thing is certain -- the organism will continue to evolve."
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.17135f1da1b9956707046861571187da.c31&show_article=1
Elementary blots out 'In God We Trust'
An elementary school in Tennessee, after successfully rebuffing an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit over religious expression on campus, has nonetheless ordered the words "God Bless the USA" and "In God We Trust" covered up on student-made posters in the hallway.
Administrators at Lakeview Elementary School in Mt. Juliet, Tenn., told parents that the posters, promoting the See You at the Pole student prayer event, mentioned "God" and are therefore precluded by school board policy and prohibited in the hallways as inappropriate.
Attorneys
with the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance defending religious liberty, filed a lawsuit today on behalf of 10 parents and their children, seeking an injunction against banning private religious expression on student-made posters.
"Christian students shouldn't be censored for expressing their beliefs," said ADF Senior Counsel Nate Kellum in a statement. "It's ridiculous as well as unconstitutional to cover up these references to God and prayer – one of which is the national motto itself – on posters announcing a student-led activity."
Further, Kellum surmised, "School officials appear to be having an allergic reaction to the ACLU's long-term record of fear, intimidation, and disinformation, despite a previous court ruling at this very school that said students can observe these types of events on school property."
In 2006, lawyers from the ACLU sued the school to stop it from recognizing religious events, including See You at the Pole and the National Day of Prayer.
In May 2008, a U.S. District Court judge refused to grant the ACLU's request.
This year, each poster, made on personal time without the use of any school funds or supplies, included the disclaimer: "See You at the Pole is a student-initiated and student-led event and is not endorsed by Lakeview Elementary or Wilson County schools."
Nevertheless, the lawsuit states, the school's assistant principal told parents – upon advisement from the principal and director of schools for the county – that Scripture verses and phrases mentioning "God" would not be permitted on the posters. Even "come pray" was deemed in violation of school policy for using the word "pray."
With the date of the "See You at the Pole" event only a few days away, rather than asking the students to make new posters, the school provided green slips of paper to obscure the offending words.
WND contacted Lakeview Elementary's vice principal, but she declined to comment until she could familiarize herself with the details of the lawsuit.
Attorneys from ADF contend the disclaimer statement on the posters was more than enough to release the school from any perceived endorsement of the "God" messages, and that burying the words behind green paper constitutes a clear violation of First Amendment rights. "The Constitution prohibits government officials from singling out religious speech for censorship," Kellum said, "but this is exactly what Lakeview school officials did when they ordered these words to be covered."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/?pageId=90674
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