Using an iPhone to secretly record a conversation is not a violation of the Wiretap Act if done for legitmate purposes, a federal appeals court has ruled. “The defendant must have the intent to use the illicit recording to commit a tort of crime beyond the act of recording itself,” (.pdf) the ...

Federal authorities announced Tuesday they will not prosecute administrators connected to a webcam spying scandal at a suburban Philadelphia school district. Prosecutors and the FBI opened an inquiry following a February privacy lawsuit accusing Lower Merion School District officials of spying on students with webcams on the 2,300 district-issued Macbooks. The ...

The U.S. did not use military surveillance planes to siphon the cell phone calls of the Times Square car bomb suspect earlier this year, according to responses to FOIA requests by Threat Level. In May, Faisal Shahzad was arrested for allegedly attempting to set off a car bomb in Times Square. ...

The owner of an internet service provider who mounted a high-profile court challenge to a secret FBI records demand has finally been partially released from a 6-year-old gag order that forced him to keep his role in the case a secret from even his closest friends and family. He can ...

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the police can’t covertly track a suspect’s car using a GPS device for an extended period of time without getting a warrant. The ruling in the D.C. Court of Appeals overturned the conviction of a suspected cocaine dealer, saying that the use of a ...

A directional antenna is set up for a demonstration by security researcher Chris Paget, center. (Photo: Dave Bullock) LAS VEGAS — A security researcher created a cell phone base station that tricks cell phones into routing their outbound calls through his device, allowing someone to intercept even encrypted calls in the ...

A webcam scandal at a suburban Philadelphia school district expanded Tuesday to include a second student alleging his school-issued laptop secretly snapped images of him. The brouhaha commenced in February, when a student of Lower Merion School District was called into an administrator’s office. Sophomore Blake Robbins was shown a picture ...

A former NSA executive who is fighting government charges of leaking classified information was part of a group that pursued several sanctioned paths to report concerns about an agency spy program, but was repeatedly frustrated by the government’s inaction, according to a report Wednesday. Thomas Drake, now reduced to working at ...

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal appeals court provided no clear indication Tuesday whether it would uphold a voter-approved measure requiring California authorities to take a DNA sample from every adult arrested on felony accusations. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments for about an hour, ...

We’re not sure what’s more humorous: That California Rep. Jane Harman, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, maintains two unencrypted Wi-Fi networks at her residence, or that a consumer group sniffed her unsecured traffic in a bid to convince lawmakers to hold hearings about Google. A representative for Consumer Watchdog ...