Spy Bill Passes House, Telco Immunity Likely
by Chloe Albanesius, PC Magazine
The House on Friday approved a bill that will provide immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated with the government's warrantless wiretapping program provided those companies can prove to a federal court that they did so at the direction of the White House .
The measure, which re-authorizes the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) until 2012, was approved by a vote of 293 to 129 after months of back and forth between Democrats, Republicans, and the Bush administration.
Finger scans let kids touch and go
By Karen Thomas, USA TODAY
Biometrics? In kindergarten? It's a big word for a little world.
Several schools are testing new technology that allows students to buy lunches or check out library books by simply placing their finger on a touch-pad. The computer then debits money from a student's account, or registers a book to the student.
No frets about lost lunch money
Even ''packers'' are more at ease this year at Penn Cambria's K-2 school in Pennsylvania, where a new scanning system allows kids to pay for lunches with a swipe of their finger.
Take regular lunch-packer Austin ''Zeke'' Adams, 7, who just last week bought white milk to go with his salami sandwich. Easy as pie, he says of the new scanners. ''I wait until all the other kids are done. I put my finger down on it -- use the pointy finger -- and in just a little while, the red light shuts off.''
His milk money, he says, ''comes from my bank account somewhere.''
Judge: President Can't Just Make Up His Own Wiretapping Rules Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein Alternet.org
A federal judge in California ruled yesterday that the President can't just make up his own rules for wiretapping. Only the FISA law passed by Congress can authorize domestic spying, according to the ruling:
WASHINGTON — A federal judge in California said Wednesday that the wiretapping law established by Congress was the “exclusive” means for the president to eavesdrop on Americans, and he rejected the government’s claim that the president’s constitutional authority as commander in chief trumped that law.
The judge, Vaughn R. Walker, the chief judge for the Northern District of California, made his findings in a ruling on a lawsuit brought by an Oregon charity. The group says it has evidence of an illegal wiretap used against it by the National Security Agency under the secret surveillance program established by President Bush after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The Justice Department has tried for more than two years to kill the lawsuit, saying any surveillance of the charity or other entities was a “state secret” and citing the president’s constitutional power as commander in chief to order wiretaps without a warrant from a court under the agency’s program. [NYT
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ID card fingerprint errors fear byBBCnews.com
The Biometric Assurance Group (BAG) says officials may struggle to cope with the number of false matches, which could run into tens of thousands.
Getting clear prints from the over-75s may also prove difficult, it adds.
The government says it is carrying out research into the issues raised - but it rejects BAG's call for iris scans to be used as a back-up to fingerprints.
When the ID scheme was first proposed iris scans were expected to be part of the biometric data stored on the cards.
But the government has now rejected this on cost grounds.
