Posts Tagged ‘msnbc-com’
FBI intends to trawl controversial immigration program
Over at Open Channel, msnbc’s investigative blog, I’ve posted a look at some internal federal documents that shed more light on Secure Communities, the ICE program that opponents say is meant to round up and deport all illegal immigrants. The FBI, it appears, is more closely involved than we previously knew for sure.
FBI intends to trawl controversial ICE program (Alex Johnson/Open Channel)
Foreign computer tech comes pre-infected for your convenience
Over at Technolog, I’ve posted a followup on amazing comments at yesterday’s House cybersecurity hearing, during which a top official of the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that computer hardware and software is already being imported to the United States preloaded with spyware and security-sabotaging components.
U.S. official says pre-infected computer tech entering country (Alex Johnson/Technolog)
Reporting: Challenges to red light cameras span U.S.
Cross-posted from msnbc.com, where it originally appeared. To read it in context, with all information boxes and art, click here.
In more than 500 cities and towns in 25 states, silent sentries keep watch over intersections, snapping photos and shooting video of drivers who run red lights. The cameras are on the job in metropolises like Houston and Chicago and in small towns like Selmer, Tenn., population 4,700, where a single camera setup monitors traffic at the intersection of U.S. Highway 64 and Mulberry Avenue.
One of the places is Los Angeles, where, if the Police Commission gets its way, the red light cameras will have to come down in a few weeks. That puts the nation’s second-largest city at the leading edge of an anti-camera movement that appears to have been gaining traction across the country in recent weeks.
A City Council committee is considering whether to continue the city’s camera contract over the objections of the commission, which voted unanimously to remove the camera system, which shoots video of cars running red lights at 32 of the city’s thousands of intersections. The private Arizona company that installed the cameras and runs the program mails off $446 tickets to their registered owners.
The company’s contract will expire at the end of July if the council can’t reach a final agreement to renew it.
Opponents of the cameras often argue that they are really just revenue engines for struggling cities and towns, silently dinging motorists for mostly minor infractions. And while guidelines issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration say revenue is an invalid justification for the use of the eyes in the sky, camera-generated citations do spin off a lot of money in many cities — the nearly 400 cameras in Chicago, for example, generated more than $64 million in 2009, the last year for which complete figures were available.
Federal camera guidelines
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says red light cameras and other automated traffic controls should:
• Reduce the frequency of violations.
• Maximize safety improvements with the most efficient use of resources.
• Maximize public awareness and approval.
• Maximize perceived likelihood that violators will be caught.
• Enhance the capabilities of traffic law enforcement and supplement, rather than replace, traffic stops by officers.
• Emphasize deterrence rather than punishment.
• Emphasize safety rather than revenue generation.
• Maintain program transparency by educating the public about program operations and be prepared to explain and justify decisions that affect program operations.
Source: Speed Enforcement Camera Systems Operational Guidelines, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Los Angeles hasn’t been so lucky.
Reporting: Prices soar on the used car lot
Cross-posted from msnbc.com, where it originally appeared. To read it in context, with all information boxes and art, click here.
When Debra Neel went to check out used Jeeps recently in Indianapolis, she left with a bad case of sticker shock.
“We were looking around $4,000 or $5,000 for a good used car for a teenager,” but “you can’t find them anymore,” Neel said. That was readily confirmed by Bob Falcone, president of Falcone Volkswagen, Subaru & Saab in downtown Indianapolis.
Falcone said that a couple of years ago, Neel might have been able to get the 12-year-old Jeep she was considering at her $4,000 to $5,000 price point. The 2000 model on the lot, after all, has almost 90,000 miles on it and gets only 16 miles to the gallon.
Its price tag today: $13,900.
“It’s unbelievable,” Falcone acknowledged. He said the used car market is the strongest it has ever been in his 34 years in business.
Prices to soar 30 percent year over year
Dealers and automotive analysts say it’s the same across the country. A variety of factors, including the nation’s weak economic recovery, high gasoline prices and the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, have converged in recent weeks to send demand for used vehicles skyrocketing and supply plummeting, said Jeremy Anwyl, chief executive of Edmunds.com, which tracks new and used car prices.
Reporting: Deadly virus hits horse circuit
Cross-posted from msnbc.com, where it originally appeared. To read it in context, with all information boxes and art, click here.
Alice Rieckman has spent most of her life as a horsewoman. She runs Rieckman’s Arabians, a horse farm in Kennewick, Wash. Horses are constantly being brought in for training sessions and care or heading out for shows, but right now, none are being allowed into or out of the farm.
Washington is one of nine Western states where equine herpes virus 1, or EHV-1, has spread since it was first detected in early May at the National Cutting Horse Association Western National Championship show in Ogden, Utah. So far 75 horses have been infected, 12 of which have been put down, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
None of the horses are at Rieckman’s Arabians, but Rieckman is taking no chances. She has quarantined the farm to make sure no horse that could have been at the show or exposed to one of them can endanger her animals.
“It really would be devastating to lose one or to have them get sick, because they can’t help themselves,” she said. “You know, they depend on us to keep them well.”
With the opening of the summer horse season under way, breeders, owners and exhibitors are deeply concerned. The National Cutting Horse Association has canceled all events nationwide through mid-June, hoping to to keep the virus in check.
Reporting: Police on radio scanner apps: That’s not a 10-4
Police Scanner is available for $2.99 in the iPhone App Store.
This report was cross-posted on msnbc.com’s Technolog blog. Read it in context here.
Matthew A. Hale, 29, was arrested last week in Muncie, Ind., after he allegedly fled the scene of a failed stickup at a pharmacy.
Police accused Hale of being the getaway driver for an accomplice who was supposed to rob the pharmacy. But Hale drove off when things went sour, only to be stopped and arrested shortly thereafter, they said. Bail was set this week at $25,000 on felony charges of attempted armed robbery.
It’s all pretty run-of-the-mill stuff, except for one thing: How did Hale know the heist was falling apart inside the pharmacy as he sat outside in the car?
How did he know to take off?
Matthew Hale, it turned out, had a smartphone — specifically, a Droid from Verizon Wireless. And on that Droid he had an app that he used to monitor Muncie police radio traffic, Detective Jim Johnson said.
If you’re one of the millions of smartphone users who’ve downloaded scanner apps with names like iScanner, PoliceStream and 5-0 Radio Police Scanner, pay attention:
You might be breaking the law.
Reporting: Conservative student group becomes a lightning rod beyond campuses
Barely three years old, Youth for Western Civilization has attracted a small but fast-growing following with its anti-multicultural, anti-illegal immigration message. It’s also drawn the scrutiny of critics who say it’s white nationalism with a fresh young face. Thanks to its discipline in advocating a small number of simply stated positions and a new-media-savvy communications strategy, YWC may be radically refreshing the template for political organizing in American higher education.
Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)
Bin Laden compound could yield big intelligence harvest
“Thousands of documents” recovered from Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan could help the U.S. “destroy al-Qaida,” U.S. officials told NBC News. …
U.S. officials would not discuss details of what might be in the papers and on the computer drives, including whether the material was encrypted. But in an interview with NBC News’ Brian Williams, CIA Director Leon Panetta said, “The reality is that we picked up an awful lot of information there at the compound.” …
Panetta confirmed that relatives of bin Laden were in Pakistani custody and said the U.S. had been assured that it would “have access to those individuals.”
Panetta said that combined with the computer data, “the ability to continue questioning the family” could yield significant leads “regarding threats, regarding the location of other high-value targets and regarding the kind of operations that we need to conduct against these terrorists.”
Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com with Jim Miklaszewski and Robert Windrem of NBC News)
Osama bin Laden killed in Pakistan, Obama says
Osama bin Laden, the Saudi extremist whose al-Qaida terrorist organization killed more than 3,000 people in attacks on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, was shot and killed Sunday in a U.S. military operation in Pakistan, and the U.S. has recovered his body, President Barack Obama announced Sunday night.
“Justice has been done,” the president declared as crowds formed outside the White House to celebrate, singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “We Are the Champions,” NBC News reported.
Obama said bin Laden, 54, whom he called a terrorist “responsible for the murder of thousands of American men, women and children,” was killed in Pakistan earlier in the day after a firefight at a compound in the city of Abbottabad in a military operation that was based on U.S. intelligence.
Other U.S. officials said one of bin Laden’s sons and two of his most trusted couriers also were killed, as was an unidentified woman who was used as a human shield.
The news immediately raised concerns that reprisal attacks from al-Qaida and other Islamist extremist groups could follow soon.
“In the wake of this operation, there may be a heightened threat to the U.S. homeland,” a U.S. official said. “The U.S. is taking every possible precaution. The State Department has sent advisories to embassies worldwide and has issued a travel ban for Pakistan.”
Police in New York, site of the deadliest attack on Sept. 11, said they had already begun to “ramp up” security on their own.
Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com with Bill Dedman and JoNel Aleccia of msnbc.com and NBC News dispatches)
Reporting: Bible edits leave some feeling cross
Easter may sound a little different this year.
It’s purely a coincidence, but U.S. Catholics and Protestants alike are being introduced this Easter season to separate “official” updated translations of the Christian Bible, which arrive in the year the magisterial King James Version celebrates its 400th birthday.
But with millions of dollars in publishing revenue and the trust of millions of churchgoers hanging in the balance, the new versions aren’t being met with universal acceptance.
While the changes may seem small, they are resounding throughout Christianity, whose many denominations formed or broke off from others over clashing interpretations of God’s word.
The two new translations touch on some of the most sensitive issues behind those differences, particularly on the inequality of women in society and on the divinity status of Mary and — by extension — the birth of Jesus.
Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)
Alex Johnson - Journalist at Large 