Tag Archives: Privacy

Wilmington Police Lied About Cell Phone Tracking

Last month, Sean O’Sullivan of The News Journal wrote an article about various Delaware police departments tracking cell phones without warrants. When questioning the City of Wilmington, O’Sullivan got this response:

In response to an inquiry from The News Journal last week, Wilmington police spokesman John Rago said the department has “not used GPS tracking in the last four to five years.”

Oops, turns out that was a lie. You see O’Sullivan found out via the prosecution of Melvin Wright and Omar Mitchell that Wilmington Police have been indeed using cellphone data without a warrant at the latest in 2011.

Confronted with this fact, Rago said police and law department officials “incorrectly assumed the question dealt specifically with Vice Unit activity and therefore they did not include input from the Criminal Investigation Division. We apologize for the misunderstanding.”

What’s that smell? That’s the smell of bullshit. Obviously this is what spokespeople do, spin answers to make to make their boss or bosses look good. But their original answer was a lie and their followup is just lame.

So-Called Professionals Joke About Co-Worker’s Penis Size

Do you remember how we were told that we shouldn’t worry about the full-body screening equipment because it didn’t show that much detail? We were also told that the people manning the equipment were professionals and the pictures would be discarded. Perhaps not so much…

Rolando Negrin, a TSA employee at Miami International Airport, was arrested for aggravated battery after he attacked a colleague, in response to coworkers poking fun at the size of his penis during a body-scanning machine training session. According to a local NBC report, sources say Negrin became embarrassed and angry by a supervisor’s jokes as he walked through the machine.

A police report obtained by NBC states that Negrin later attacked a colleague with a police baton in a parking lot, and told the victim to kneel down and say “sorry.” After being arrested, Negrin told police that coworkers often made fun of him.

OK, I’ll admit the story is a little bit funny and my first instinct was to laugh about it. Seriously, though, this story is not funny. I’m not going to offer any excuses for Mr. Negrin’s behavior, he was wrong for beating someone. However, it sounds like Mr. Negrin was the victim of months of sexual harassment by co-workers, including his supervisor. I would love to know what actions were taken, if any, by the TSA to stop the harassment and if any punishment will be given to the supervisor who was allowing it to occur.

Want This Job? Give Us Your Google and Facebook Passwords, Please

This is just plain crazy.  Make sure you go see the form — if you were applying for a job in Bozeman, MT, you’d also have to disclose and give them edit access to all of your online life.

Background checks are one thing (and an overused thing at that), but giving up your passwords to Facebook?  MySpace?  YouTube?  Whatever can this accomplish?  And this:

The local TV station picked up the story and, according to city attorney Greg Sullivan they don’t look at, “the things that the federal constitution lists as protected things,” and maintains that no one has removed their name from consideration because of the requirement.

This is BS. Of course they look. But whatever is the point?