PHILADELPHIA (CN) - A wave of class actions against Google claims the search giant's new privacy policy, which aggregates information the company collects about users across various Google platforms, violates computer fraud and wiretap laws.

At least four class actions claim the new policy, which went into effect this month, is illegal under federal wiretapping law.

Google's corporate slogan is "Don't be Evil."

Google has long maintained a deep trove of information about its users.

Under its old policy, information collected about a consumer through one Google product was segregated from information gleaned from another Google product, plaintiffs say in the class actions.

But they say that all changed March 1, when Google ushered in its new era of digital surveillance: the Era of Commingling.

Under the new policy, data gathered about a consumer through one Google product will be commingled with data collected about that consumer through other Google products, plaintiffs say.

Google announced: "Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you're signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services.
"In short, we'll treat you as a single user across all our products." Read More

A luggage room at one of Logan Airport’s terminals was evacuated Monday morning after a strange odor was detected in a bag.

Authorities cleared out the screening room at terminal A, which serves Delta and Continental Airlines, after security searched the piece of luggage and found a chemical around 8:30 a.m.

It turned out to be camphor, which can be used for a number of things.

The owner of the bag was taken off his flight and questioned. He told investigators he was flying to Beijing, China and was going to use the camphor as rat repellent.

A hazardous material team was called in, along with state police and the fire department, as a precaution.

MassPort spokesman Phil Orlandella told WBZ-TV four TSA employees were taken to the hospital for treatment. more

Maybe now we know the true purpose for that giant domestic spy complex being built by the NSA in Utah.

Attorney General Eric Holder approved a new list of guidelines for how long agencies of the federal government tasked with combatting “terrorism” may retain data gathered about American citizens. Basically, this information may be saved even if it contains no connection to criminal activity whatsoever.

According to the new regulations, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) (headquartered at the Liberty Crossing complex in McLean, Virginia, left) can store and “continually assess” this information “for a period of up to five years.” Before the promulgation of these new guidelines, the NCTC was under instructions to destroy “promptly” (typically defined to mean within 180 days) this cache of material gathered from U.S. citizens if there was nothing related to terrorism found in it.

Speaking fondly of the new time restraints, Paul Rosenzweig, a former official at the Department of Homeland Security, was quoted in the Washington Post saying:

Five years is a reasonable time frame. I certainly think 180 days was way too short. That’s just not a realistic understanding of how long it takes analysts to search large data sets for relevant information.

The Washington Post quoted other “officials” as saying that the new framework has been under construction for more than a year. Read More

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) -- Police in St. Petersburg have detained more than 10 protesters who tried to march down the Russian city's main avenue following an opposition rally.

Several hundred people took part in Sunday's rally in St. Petersburg to express their opposition to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who in May will begin a new six-year term as president.

The demonstrators chanted "Putin is a thief" and "Russia without Putin," two slogans heard at most opposition protests in recent months.

In Moscow, police said they detained about 30 opposition activists near Red Square to prevent them from protesting. Read More

It's the entire point, really. New smart TVs from Samsung boast video cameras with facial-recognition software and microphones with speech-recognition software. They can tell who's in the room, understand spoken commands, and be controlled with gestures. That's great news for those of us who can never find the remote, but made our friends over at HD Guru wonder: is there anyone behind that camera watching us back?

Having an always-connected camera in your home that periodically checks in with Samsung's cloud servers raises all kinds of scary and slightly creepy questions. Is it possible for someone at Samsung, or a third-party app developer, to watch what goes on in your living room? Is the facial-recognition data, along with household members' personal viewing habits, cross-referenced with the TV's serial number and your warranty registration information anywhere? And what happens when someone (inevitably) figures out how to hack these TVs? HD Guru sent these questions, along with others, to Samsung a few weeks ago, and have received no response.

But wait. Can't you even tell when the camera is on? Nope, their tests showed:

"During our demo, unless the face recognition learning feature was activated, there was no indication as to whether the camera (such as a red light) and audio mics are on. And as far as the microphone is concerned the is no way to physically disconnect it or be assured it is not picking up your voice when you don't intend it to do so."

That's... not at all comforting. Source

One of the truths of reporting on China is that few journalists, maybe none, can honestly claim to know what’s going on inside the upper echelons of power.

In other countries, you might see reporters offhandedly refer to their unnamed contacts inside the Prime Minister’s Office, or the White House, or whatever institution they’re covering. Even when I worked in famously enigmatic Russia, I had a few “Kremlin sources” I could occasionally turn to.

Not in China. I know many of the foreign journalists based here, and more than a few of the Chinese ones. None have ever claimed to me, or their readers, that they have a contact inside, or even close to, the decision-making Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China.

Which, often, is to the credit of those who run this country. This is not a place where trial balloons get floated by cabinet ministers trying to build public support and win funding for their pet project, nor are China’s leaders crippled by the constant and public infighting that brought down Canada’s Liberal Party or Britain’s Labour, to name two prominent examples. Read More

(Reuters) - North Korea said on Saturday it will hold a special parliamentary session next month during which the reclusive country's new young leader, Kim Jong-un, is expected to be given a top title aimed at consolidating his grip on power.

The North has planned a series of events next month to mark the centenary of the birth of the state's founder, Kim Il-sung, including a rare ruling party conference and the controversial launch of a ballistic rocket it says will carry a satellite.

Experts say the young Kim, believed to be in his mid to late 20s, could be given two of the countries' senior most titles during the celebrations -- secretary general of the party and chairman of the defense commission.

The North's state media said on Saturday the Supreme People's Assembly, which has the formal mandate to appoint the chief of the National Defence Commission, the state's supreme military body, would meet on April 13.

The Workers' Party conference is also scheduled for the middle of next month. Read More

Beijing (CNN) -- Earlier this week, I got an email from a nephew who lives in Japan.

"The Washington Times is reporting coup rumors in Beijing due to the ouster of Bo Xilai," he wrote. "The article talks about tanks and shooting. Be careful!"

He was referring to a spate of alarming reports about a possible military coup in the Middle Kingdom. There were rumors of tanks entering Beijing, roads blocked and shots being fired in the city.

For days these unsubstantiated rumors circulated on the Internet and Weibo, China's Twitter-like micro-blogging service.

This online hysteria came hard on the heels of the shock dismissal last week of Communist Party politburo member and Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai. Read More

Police in Oklahoma City have launched an investigation after surveillance camera footage emerged which showed officers apparently dragging a mentally ill man face down by his feet.

James Heidebrecht was tased and arrested at Will Rogers World Airport after he became agitated while going through security.

But it was when police removed him from the scene that they apparently went beyond usual practice by dragging him through the airport, an action which has led to one officer having his duties restricted.

Heidebrecht said he needed to give a package to Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, who was speaking in the area, according to KOCO.

But when police questioned him further, he apparently became distressed and caused a disturbance. Read More

Following recent news of the New York Police Department's counter-terrorism surveillance of Muslim communities new information reveals their monitoring stretching back to 2004 on liberal political activists and organizations around the country.

Undercover NYPD officers attended meetings of liberal political organizations and kept intelligence files on activists who planned protests, according to interviews and documents showing how police used counter-terrorism tactics to monitor even lawful activities.

The infiltration echoes the tactics the NYPD used in the run-up to New York's 2004 Republican National Convention, when police monitored church groups, anti-war organizations and environmental advocates nationwide.

That effort was revealed by The New York Times in 2007 and in an ongoing federal civil rights lawsuit over how the NYPD treated convention protesters.

Police said the pre-convention spying was necessary to prepare for the huge, raucous crowds that were headed to the city. Read More

Information about innocent Americans could be stored by the intelligence community for up to five years.

New Obama administration guidelines will allow the National Counterterrorism Centre to hang on to information about people that is stored in other government databases, even when they have no clear links to terrorism.

They replace guidelines issued in 2008 under which the NCTC was required to immediately destroy the data in such situations.

In a statement, the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, said: ‘Following the failed terrorist attack in December 2009, representatives of the counterterrorism community concluded it is vital for NCTC to be provided with a variety of datasets from various agencies that contain terrorism information.

‘The ability to search against these datasets for up to five years on a continuing basis as these updated guidelines permit will enable NCTC to accomplish its mission more practically and effectively.’

But the move has spiked fear among privacy advocates who are concerned about the potential for data-mining information on innocent Americans. Read More