The device in question is the Stingray, a suitcase-size device that mimics cell phone towers and allows users of the technology to locate a mobile phone. The FBI has used Stingrays without a court order over the objection of civil libertarians who say it’s a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against illegal searches by the government. Now, the Secret Service has been given similar authority when there is a “nonspecific threat to the president or another protected person.”   read more

Over a period of eight years, railroads were the subject of more than 2,000 retaliation complaints made by whistleblowers to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. BNSF and Union Pacific had the most railroad complaints, 409 and 360, respectively, from October 2007 through June 2015. Railroads, in fact, made up seven of the top 10 on OSHA’s list of most whistleblower reports. After BNSF and Union Pacific, were CSX, Norfolk Souther, Canadian National, Amtrak and Metro-North.   read more

The Republican plan to shutter the offices, where voters obtain the most commonly used form of identification under new voting laws, has been blasted by Democrats and civil rights advocates. They argue the move was made to help disenfranchise minority voters who tend to vote Democratic in elections. Of the counties with the highest percentage of non-white registered voters, eight had their license offices closed and they were closed in every county where blacks make up 75% of registered voters.   read more

Inmates’ families will get a break from wildly inflated telephone charges now that the federal government has put new restrictions on the billion-dollar prison telephone business. The FCC has approved a plan that drastically cuts how much companies charge for phone calls by inmates to their families and others. It is capping calls at 11 cents per minute for a 15-minute phone conversation from state and federal prisons, starting next year. Jails would be allowed to charge a bit more.   read more

“Not much shakes me in this business – baby murder, sex assault, I’ve done it all,” said David Gaeger, an attorney whose client was taken to Homan Square in 2011 after being arrested for marijuana. “It’s a scary place. There’s nothing about it that resembles a police station. It comes from a Bond movie or something.” The facility keeps no booking information or any other records. “The reality is, no one knows where that person is at Homan Square,” said professor Craig Futterman.   read more

The city agreed to pay Ashley Overbey $63,000 after police used a stun gun on her after she had reported a burglary at her home. But after posting comments about her case on a website, Baltimore officials withheld $31,500 of her settlement. “I was completely devastated,” she said. The restrictions have a “chilling effect” on victims of police misconduct, said lawyer Scott Greenwood. “It kind of defeats the purpose of these types of lawsuits,” said attorney Jeffrey Neslund.   read more

For his efforts, Folta received a $25,000 grant from Monsanto to fund his travel and “outreach.” But once news of the grant became publicized, the University of Florida donated the money to charity. Another expert brought on board by Monsanto was professor Bruce M. Chassy, who received a grant to support “biotechnology outreach and education activities.” Chassy’s activities included efforts to persuade the EPA to abandon a plan to tighten the regulation of certain pesticides.   read more

Millions of Americans have had their DNA stored at popular genealogy companies Ancestry.com or 23andMe. But doing so comes with the risk that their genetic samples will be turned over to law enforcement conducting investigations, even with no evidence tying them to a crime. Both companies have privacy policies that claim to protect DNA from unauthorized use. But these policies contain exemptions buried within them that state they will deliver DNA samples to police requesting them.   read more

Rubens and Graves “inappropriately used their positions of authority for personal and financial benefit,” said the VA’s IG. The two senior executives “gamed VA’s moving-expense system for a total of $400,000” using “questionable reimbursements.” The scheming has caught the attention of Congress, which planned to investigate the VA and learn how it allowed Rubens and Graves to pull off what the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs called a “shockingly unethical misuse of funds.”   read more

"The vast majority of news stories made no mention that Iraqi and Afghan civilians might also have been harmed by the U.S. military’s burning of waste,” wrote Bonds. “When journalists describe the pollution itself, how it billowed over military bases and covered living quarters with ash and soot, such accounts never mention that this pollution would not have stopped at the cement barricades...at base boundaries, but must have also settled over civilians’ homes and the surrounding landscapes.”   read more

The union representing workers at the National Weather Service (NWS) has filed a legal complaint against the agency’s recent introduction of employee nondisclosure agreements, claiming managers are trying to “gag” staff from talking about internal issues. The NWS’ nondisclosure orders forbid disclosing information about activities related to workforce planning, settlement of grievance disputes and the collective bargaining process.   read more

Criminal prosecutions of corporations declined by nearly 30% from 2004 to 2014. The hands-off approach by the Obama administration began at the end of the Bush years, when Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip told federal prosecutors in 2008 “take into account the possible substantial consequences to a corporation’s employees, investors, pensioners and customers” when thinking of going after a company. There were 21% fewer corporate prosecutions in the five years after the Filip memo.   read more

It was revealed at trial that DuPont knew of the potential toxicity of C8 since the 1950s. Even DuPont’s defense witnesses presented damning testimony. One employee admitted he had 400 parts per billion of C8 in his blood, about 100 times the national average. “I knew there were a lot of other people who had much higher levels, and so I didn’t think mine was anything to worry about,” he said. “Everything is toxic.” Another ex-employee said he had a possibly cancerous spot on his kidney.   read more

Texas cardiologist Darren McGuire was on the FDA committee that approved Pradaxa. He later disclosed that he received “personal fees from [Pradaxa manufacturer] Boehringer Ingelheim,” paying him between $75,000 and $134,994 over a three-year period. FDA advisory committee member Sanjay Kaul, a medical professor at UCLA and cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, also received payments from Boehringer Ingelheim in 2013 totaling more than $21,000, and $75,000 a year later.   read more

The accusations were contained in nearly 6,000 pages of complaints and arrest statistics. ACLU lawyer James Lyall said the “records paint a disturbing picture of lawlessness and impunity, in which the agency continually operates without any regard for accepted best practices, and agents commit widespread abuses knowing they won’t be held accountable.” Rep. Grijalva said, “People make the complaints, but their complaints go nowhere. There’s no acknowledgment, absolutely no response."   read more

Common symptoms include heart problems such as palpitations and chest pain; allergic reactions; or trouble swallowing. More than 2,000 people wound up being hospitalized every year on average from taking supplements. Of the 23,000 ER visits, more than 50% were made by women. Weight loss and energy products were responsible for more than half the ER trips among all patients aged 5 to 34. “What we’re seeing from this study is that the system has failed,” said Harvard's Dr. Pieter Cohen.   read more