Who You Love Shouldn't Matter When You Serve: Via Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Jene Newsome served nine years in the Air Force. She was recently discharged under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy after she was outed by South Dakota's Rapid City Police Department.

On November 20, 2009, the Rapid City Police Department came to serve a warrant on Jene Newsome's wife. Jene and her wife, Cheryl, were just married in Iowa a few weeks before the police came knocking on their door.

When the police entered the house, they saw the marriage certificate sitting on the kitchen table. The marriage certificate didn't have anything to do with Cheryl's arrest; one of the officers just saw it as an opportunity to out Jene and end her career. [ Read more ... ]

Rove: Champion of "traditional" divorce: Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald.

(updated below)

Karl Rove is an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage, citing "5,000 years of understanding the institution of marriage" as his justification.  He also famously engineered multiple referenda to incorporate a ban on same-sex marriage into various states' constitutions in 2004 in order to ensure that so-called ""Christian conservatives" and "value voters" who believe in "traditional marriage laws" would turn out and help re-elect George W. Bush.  Yet, like so many of his like-minded pious comrades, Rove seems far better at preaching the virtues of "traditional marriage" to others and exploiting them for political gain than he does adhering to those principles in his own life:

Karl Rove granted divorce in Texas

7-Eleven Hack From Russia Led to ATM Looting in New York: Via Threat Level.

Flashback, early 2008: Citibank officials are witnessing a huge spike in fraudulent withdrawals from New York area ATMs — $180,000 is stolen from cash machines on the Upper East Side in just three days.  After a stakeout, police arrest one man walking out of a bank with thousands of dollars in cash and 12 reprogrammed cards. A lucky traffic stop catches two more plunderers who’d driven in from Michigan. Another pair are arrested after trying to mug an undercover FBI agent on the street for a magstripe encoder. In the end, there are 10 arrests and at least $2 million dollars stolen.

The wellspring of the dramatic megaheist turns out to be more prosaic than imagined: It started with a breach of the public website of America’s most famous convenience store chain: 7-Eleven.com. [ Read more ... ]

The Joys of Airstrikes and Anonymity: Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald.

Each time the U.S. bombs a new location in the Muslim world, the same pattern emerges.  First, officials from the U.S. or allied governments run to their favorite media outlet to claim -- anonymously -- that some big, bad, notorious, "top" Al Qaeda leader "may have been" or "likely was" killed in the strike, and this constitutes a "stinging" or "devastating" blow against the Terrorist group.  These compliant media outlets then sensationalistically trumpet that claim as the dominant theme of their "reporting" on the attack, drowning out every other issue.  [ Read more ... ]

FBI Linguist Guilty of Leaking Classified Documents to Blog: Via Threat Level.

An Israeli-American lawyer who worked as an FBI linguist pleaded guilty Thursday to providing an unidentified blogger with classified documents derived from U.S. communications intelligence.

Shamai Kedem Leibowitz, 39, of Silver Spring, Maryland, pleaded to one felony count of disclosing to an unauthorized party five documents that were classified “secret” that he obtained through his work with the FBI.

Leibowitz leaked the documents to the unnamed blogger in April 2009. The blogger — identified as “Recipient A in court filings — then wrote a post based on the classified documents.

“As a trusted member of the FBI ranks, Leibowitz abused the trust of the FBI and the American public by using his access to classified information for his own purposes,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard A. McFeely in a press release. [ Read more ... ]

Court Silences CIA Operative Despite Yellowcake Scandal: Via Threat Level.

Valerie Plame Wilson cannot publicize details of her work as a CIA operative, even though a government official already outed her as an agent in an attempt to discredit her husband, Joseph C. Wilson, a federal appeals court says.

Plame Wilson, who served as chief of the unit responsible for weapons proliferation issues related to Iraq, argued that confidentiality agreements she signed to win her employment more than two decades ago should be nullified. The CIA has prohibited her from discussing her pre-2002 employment in her 2007 memoir, Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House.

She maintained the confidentiality agreement should be set aside because government officials leaked to the press that she was an agent. Also, as part of a battle to obtain retirement benefits, her 20-year-employment status became part of the congressional record.

Given that she has been revealed as a operative, the First Amendment allows her to sidestep her confidentiality agreement, she argued.

But the appeals court, in siding with a lower court and a CIA review board prohibiting her from describing her work prior to 2002, said the nation’s national security could be compromised (.pdf) by the disclosures she’d planned in her book. In addition, the court said, it was irrelevant whether it was widely known that she was working under cover. [ Read more ... ]

Federal Reserve Chairman Hit by High-Tech Pickpocket Ring: Via Threat Level.

Identify theft isn’t just for the little people.

Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke and his wife are among the victims of the tech-savvy pickpocket and ID theft ring Cannon to the Wiz, Newsweek reported Tuesday.

Threat Level readers will remember that Wiz is a national ring of some 200 light-fingered scammers that kept police around the country on their toes for at least two years. The group was led by Clyde Austin Gray Jr., 52, of Waldorf, Maryland, who went by the names “Big Head” and “Poochie.” Gray pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy to commit bank fraud in a scheme that resulted in losses of at least $2.1 million from 10 financial institutions. Nine other co-conspirators have been charged to date. [ Read more ... ]

'I just bought your hard drive' - Via The Red Tape Chronicles - MSNBC.com:

One year ago, Hank Gerbus had his hard drive replaced at a Best Buy store in Cincinnati. Six months ago, he received one of the most disturbing phone calls of his life.

"Mr. Gerbus," Gerbus recalls a stranger named Ed telling him. "I just bought your hard drive in Chicago."

Gerbus, a 77-year-old retiree, was alarmed. He knew the old hard drive was loaded with his personal information -- his Social Security number, account numbers and details of his retirement investments. But that's not all. The computer also included data on his wife, Roma, and their children and grandchildren, including some of their Social Security numbers.

In June 2005, when Gerbus took his computer to Best Buy for repairs after a hard drive crash, he knew the drive was a potential hot potato. So when a clerk there told him it had to be replaced, he asked for the damaged hardware back.

No dice. The replacement was done for free, under warranty, and Gerbus was told the old drive had to be sent to a repair center in Chicago to fulfill warranty terms. [ Read more ... ]

The Denver Post - Alcohol surveys spur complaints: The Gilpin County Sheriff's Office was apologizing Monday after a weekend effort to help a research group led to complaints about what appeared to be a DUI checkpoint - but wasn't.

Sheriff's officials who participated in the stops now acknowledge that the nonprofit organization requesting voluntary DUI and drug tests from drivers was overly persistent, according to complaints.

"It was like a telemarketer that you couldn't hang up on," said Gilpin County Undersheriff John Bayne. [ Read more ... ]

Government Busts Identity Theft Ring That Targeted Forbes 400 Richest -- ID Theft:
A 24-year-old Russian and four co-conspirators are accused of stealing $1.5 million by obtaining victims' personal identifying information.

[...]

Government authorities arrested and indicted five members of an alleged identity theft ring that was targeting billionaires from Forbes magazine's ranking of the 400 richest Americans.

Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau announced on Thursday that the defendants -- four of whom were arrested Thursday and are in custody in Michigan, Texas, Florida, and Kentucky -- have been charged with stealing $1.5 million and attempting to steal another $10.7 million from their victims' financial accounts. Another defendant, Igor Klopov, was arrested in May and is in custody in New York. [ Read more ... ]

The Tribune Democrat, Johnstown, PA - Newspaper objects to police seizure of newsroom computer: NEW CASTLE, Pa. — The New Castle News said Friday it will file a court protest against the unannounced seizure by authorities of a newsroom computer that police say was used to illegally record phone conversations with two local public officials about a proposed police training facility.

The News’ petition will ask that the city police department return the computer immediately, saying it is important to the daily production of the paper and could be subject to indiscriminate search of sensitive news files.

Sgt. Kevin Seelbaugh confiscated the computer the afternoon of July 25 after District Justice Melissa A. Amodie issued a search warrant to determine if News reporter Pat Litowitz had recorded conversations with Northwest Lawrence Regional Police Chief Jim Morris and Mahoning Township Supervisor Francis Exposito without informing them beforehand. [ Read more ... ]

Yahoo Outed Chinese Dissident Knowing Investigation Was Political, Documents Show :

Following on yesterday's post about a newly unearthed document that contradicts Yahoo's statement to Congress about its involvement in China's jailing of a dissident, the same human rights group has translated emails in another case, showing that Yahoo turned over emails about a democratic political movement that led to political persecution by China.

Wang Xiaoning, whose poignant story Luke O'Brien told for Wired several months ago, is now serving a 10-year sentence for 'subversion,' following an investigation that involved subpoenas to Yahoo's China office. [ Read more ... ]

RIAA v. Santangelo Default Judgment Vacated: NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "It was reported last week that at the July 13th status conference in Elektra v. Santangelo II, the default judgment taken by the RIAA against Patti Santangelo's daughter, Michelle, was vacated by Judge Stephen C. Robinson. This has now been confirmed in papers filed by the RIAA's lawyers in which they indicated that the Judge vacated the default judgment because he prefers cases to be decided on their merits, rather than by default (pdf). [ Read more ... ]

Soft on Crime - New York Times: "When he was running for president, George W. Bush loved to contrast his law-abiding morality with that of President Clinton, who was charged with perjury and acquitted. For Mr. Bush, the candidate, "politics, after a time of tarnished ideals, can be higher and better."

Not so for Mr. Bush, the president. Judging from his decision yesterday to commute the 30-month sentence of I. Lewis Libby Jr. --- who was charged with perjury and convicted --- untarnished ideals are less of a priority than protecting the secrets of his inner circle and mollifying the tiny slice of right-wing Americans left in his political base. [ Read more ... ]

Librarians Describe Life Under An FBI Gag Order : "Life in an FBI muzzle is no fun. Two Connecticut librarians on Sunday described what it was like to be slapped with an FBI national security letter and accompanying gag order. It sounded like a spy movie or, gulp, something that happens under a repressive foreign government. Peter Chase and Barbara Bailey, librarians in Plainville, Connecticut, received an NSL to turn over computer records in their library on July 13, 2005. Unlike a suspected thousands of other people around the country, Chase, Bailey and two of their colleagues stood up to the Man and refused to comply, convinced that the feds had no right to intrude on anyone's privacy without a court order (NSLs don't require a judge's approval). That's when things turned ugly.

The four librarians under the gag order weren't allowed to talk to each other by phone. So they e-mailed. Later, they weren't allowed to e-mail.

After the ACLU took on the case and it went to court in Bridgeport, the librarians were not allowed to attend their own hearing. Instead, they had to watch it on closed circuit TV from a locked courtroom in Hartford, 60 miles away. 'Our presence in the courtroom was declared a threat to national security,' Chase said. [ Read more ... ]

Google Zooms In Too Close for Some - New York Times: "Ms. Kalin-Casey, who manages an apartment building here with her husband, John Casey, was a bit shaken when she tried a new feature in Google's map service called Street View. She typed in her address and the screen showed a street-level view of her building. As she zoomed in, she could see Monty, her cat, sitting on a perch in the living room window of her second-floor apartment.

'The issue that I have ultimately is about where you draw the line between taking public photos and zooming in on people's lives,' Ms. Kalin-Casey said in an interview Thursday on the front steps of the building. 'The next step might be seeing books on my shelf. If the government was doing this, people would be outraged.' [ Read more ... ]

Yahoo Sued for Giving User Information to China: "taoman1 wrote with news of a CNN article about a suit brought against Yahoo! for alleged aiding in human rights violations. The World Organization for Human Rights USA has filed suit against the search company for (so the suit claims) assisting in torture by revealing information that led to the arrest of dissidents. 'The lawsuit cites federal laws that govern torture and other violations of international law. [ Read more ... ]