Arizona is poised to become one of the first states to maintain a massive statewide DNA database.

(more…)

The former cop accused of being the notorious “Golden State Killer” made a dramatic first court appearance on Friday afternoon in a wheelchair.

Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was shackled to the chair with h...

Faced with the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken out full-page ads in several British and American newspapers to apologize and promise “to do better.”

Business Insider reports:

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took out full page ads in several British and American newspapers to apologize for the Cambridge...

A Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court ruling was declassified and released this week.

The ruling reveals that the Obama administration engaged in widespread violation of NSA surveillance rules. The Obama administration was reprimanded by the FISA court for illegal searches that constitute “very serious Fourth Amendment issue.”

According to previously classified documents,...

A Florida man suspected of voyeurism has been ordered to surrender his cell phone password to police.

The Daily Dot reports:

A Florida court has ruled that police can compel individuals to hand over the passcode to their phones. The judgment has serious implications in how the Fifth Amendment is applied to...

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Federal agents have persuaded police officers to scan license plates to gather information about gun-show customers, government emails show, raising questions about how officials monitor constitutionally protected activity.”

The activity revealed in the emails suggests that the known incidents are limited to border control and occurred in...

In August, I wrote about a proposed rule in Alabama whereby Alabama’s Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Board wanted personal information on beer buyers.  The requirement that private citizens who buy beer for personal consumption provide...

The Associated Press, Gannett Co., and Vice Media LLC have filed a suit against the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to gather details how agents hacked into the phone of one of the San Bernardino shooters.

The Justice Department

Back in March, Alabama’s governor, Robert Bentley, signed into law legislation that will legalize brewers’ direct sale of beer to customers for home consumption.

Alabama.com reported at the time:

The new law will:

• Allow breweries that make less than 60,000 barrels per year to directly sell up to 288 ounces of its beer per...

One day before Apple and prosecutors were to face off in court, the U.S. Department of Justice was granted a request to cancel the Tuesday hearing on whether Apple should assist the FBI in bypassing security measures in a locked iPhone used by a San Bernardino terrorist.

The hearing was cancelled by U.S....

In the latest round of legal battles between Apple and the FBI over accessing data in an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists, Apple has fired back at...

A legal fight between Apple and the FBI is highlighting some critically important issues in the debate between privacy and security.

After the San Bernardino attacks, an iPhone 5C belonging to one of the two shooters, Syed Rizwan Farook, was among the evidence gathered by the FBI. The FBI obtained a warrant to search...

Today, a controversial cybersecurity bill aimed at making it easier for corporations to prevent hacking attacks advanced in the Senate with bipartisan support.

The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) in its current form would make it possible for corporations to share information about cyberattacks with each other—or the goverment—without having to...

Today the Senate voted 67-32 to pass the USA-FREEDOM Act, a piece of surveillance (read: privacy!) reform legislation meant to extend key provisions of the PATRIOT Act, which expired Sunday night.

The USA-FA passed the House with supermajority, bipartisan support, but found a more hostile crowd waiting when it arrived in...

Privacy advocates cheered when Apple announced last month that an updated encryption scheme would disallow Apple from bypassing user passcodes at the request of law enforcement officials armed with search warrants.

Now, the Justice Department is fighting back against these updates, and they’re using an ancient tactic to do it.

The Wall Street...

A Texas appeals court has struck down a law allowing police officers to conduct warrantless blood tests on suspected drunk drivers.

The law borrows concepts from the Texas Transportation Code and other statutes, and has both attorneys and Fourth Amendment advocates up in arms over what it means to conduct an...