law

The suicide last week of Internet activist Aaron Swartz has led a Democratic congresswoman from Silicon Valley to call for reforms to computer fraud laws linked to his death.

Swartz, who championed open access rights to documents on the Internet, was arrested in July 2011 and accused of stealing 4 million documents from MIT and Jstor, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers.

He had faced $4 million in fines and more than 50 years in prison if convicted. Critics of the prosecutors in the case accused the feds of unfairly trying to make an example out of the … Read more

Two characteristics about the modern world are entirely clear: Facebook isn't private and people's brain functions have sunk below those of a cabbage.

When these two collide, the result is usually a court case.

So it transpired with the brainwave that struck 32-year-old Scott Woodburn.

He was caught speeding by British police, which was something of a nuisance. He had accumulated so many points that this latest offense would mean he might have his driver's license taken away.

And who wants that?

So, as the Daily Mail reports, Woodburn did what any righteous and cool citizen would … Read more

I've always found cats to be remarkably selfish beings.

They lick you when they want something. When they get it, they're off, without so much as a goodbye nuzzle.

Yet I would like to bring you the story of perhaps the most altruistic cat in the world.

This cat was prepared to risk all four limbs and nine lives in order to get someone out of jail. The question now is: who?

For prison guards in Arapiraca, Brazil, were immediately suspicious when they saw the cat sauntering along, minding its own business and crossing the prison gate.

Kitty … Read more

We are all driven by compulsions.

They circumvent our normal thinking systems. They propel us toward the objects of our desire. They force us, at times, to pay a terrible price.

Please, therefore, offer sympathy to Richard Almaraoui, a 35-year-old man from Norfolk, U.K., who appears to be driven to steal other people's things.

So much so that after a previous offense he was ordered by a court to wear an electronic tag.

These things tend to monitor your whereabouts in a fairly accurate way. Perhaps, then, it's best not to burgle a stranger's home, as … Read more

It has now been firmly established -- by Randi Zuckerberg, no less -- that Facebook is the home of human decency.

How is it possible, then, that 18-year-old Jacob Cox-Brown of Astoria, Ore., did not receive the message?

For, according to KGW.com, Cox-Brown had the indecent temerity to post this to his Facebook page: "Drivin drunk... classsic ;) but to whoever's vehicle i hit i am sorry. :P."

This was, indeed, a classsic (sic) example of misbegotten sharing.

For police -- who had concluded that not one but two vehicles had been struck by an unknown driver … Read more

Sometimes the lure of Snapchat, Facebook, and Miley Cyrus' latest blouse can be too much.

It can lead you to iniquities. It can lead you to dishonoring your own family.

At least this is alleged to be the case in Placer County, Calif., where two teenage girls stand accused of spiking milkshakes in order to get online.

You might imagine that getting online doesn't normally involve involuntary unconsciousness. It normally results in it.

Police say, however, that one of the girls had parents with rules. As The Sacramento Bee describes it, the Internet was shut down at 10 p.… Read more

Six states have officially made it illegal for employers to ask their workers for passwords to their social media accounts. As of 2013, California and Illinois have joined the ranks of Michigan, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware in passing state laws against the practice, according to Wired.

With Congress not being able to come to agreement on the Password Protection Act of 2012, individual states have taken the law into their own hands. Both California and Illinois agreed on password protection laws in 2012, but the laws didn't go into effect until yesterday.

The laws are designed to prohibit … Read more

It's a curious business when Best Buy employees ask you for your receipt as you leave the store.

But never so curious that you want to physically assault them.

However, as CBS St. Louis reports, at the Fairview Heights Best Buy in St. Louis, an altercation allegedly occurred when a 61-year-old employee asked a couple if he could inspect their receipt.

Latoya Thompson, 38, allegedly found the request somewhat offensive. The result was that she has been charged with disorderly conduct and her 39-year-old husband Hickey with felony aggravated battery, after the employee was allegedly beaten to the ground.… Read more

This morning, I saw a uniformed cop jaywalking with two lady friends who seemed not to be his next of kin. Well, this is Miami.

He hesitated for a moment and then seemed to think: "Well, why not?"

I found it charming to see an officer of the law bend the rules in such a human way.

I wonder, though, whether the fellow officers of an NYPD Internal Affairs sergeant found it equally charming when he allegedly bought an iPhone from them. For $15.

As the New York Daily News reports it, Sgt. Victor Leandry allegedly paid the $… Read more