Sci-Tech news

• Warrantless: US Searches Of Phones, Laptops At Airports Rising

  01-05-2019 17:47 via technocracy.news
  Where specific regulations are unclear or missing, TSA/DHS screeners will overstep the larger considerations like the Fourth Amendment that limits warrantless search and seizure and without probable cause. Just because you are in an airport doesn’t mean the Constitution is totally suspended.  ⁃ TN EditorU.S. government searches of travelers’ cellphones and laptops at airports and border crossings nearly quadrupled since 2015 and were being done for reasons beyond cust
  
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• Amazon’s Facial-Recognition Tech ‘Supercharges’ Local Police

  01-05-2019 17:27 via technocracy.news
  Amazon’s says its Rekognition AI system “indistinguishable from magic” but it now offers it for nominal fees to law enforcement at all levels, from local city police and sheriff offices to the FBI. There are currently no national laws regulating the use of facial recognition. ⁃ TN EditorWhen workers at an Ace Hardware here reported that a woman had walked out of the store with an $11.99 tank of welding gas that she hadn’t paid for in her tote bag, an elaborate high-
  
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• DHS To Start ‘Rapid DNA’ Testing At Border

  01-05-2019 16:52 via technocracy.news
  DHS use of DNA testing is a slippery slope for the rest of American society. Even is safeguard policies are put into place to protect American citizens, those policies can just as easily be changed. Thus far, Congress has not entered the discussion. ⁃ TN EditorThe Department of Homeland Security will start a DNA testing pilot program next week to help identify and prosecute individuals posing as families in an effort to target human smuggling, two department officials confirmed to CNN.
  The
  
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