Sanford Bail Bond – Investigatory Powers Act signed into UK law by Queen

Source    : The Register News
By            : Alexander J Martin
Category : Bail Bond in Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

Investigatory Powers Act signed into UK law by Queen

IPBill Queen Elizabeth II today signs off on Parliament’s Investigatory Powers Act, officially making it law in the UK. Her Maj not only had the last word on the new legislation — aka the Snoopers’ Charter — she had the first. She publicly announced what the law would be called during the official opening of Parliament after last year’s general election. A first draft of the Investigatory Powers Bill was published six months later, alongside a confession that successive British governments had been issuing secret directives to telcos to intercept Brits’ communications anyway. Many were pleased such secret surveillance was now being explicitly codified.

Prime Minister Theresa May — then Home Secretary — claimed that it only introduced the one new power: “requiring communications service providers to retain internet connection records when given a notice by the Secretary of State.” This is a fancy way of saying ISPs and Wi-Fi hotspot providers will be ordered to log all websites visited by people in the UK. These records include the top level of the URLs visited – such as theregister.com – rather than the full URLs, when the site was accessed, and by whom. Police forces, local councils, intelligence services, government agencies, and more, are authorized to request the data from internet providers. Legal challenges against the bill are already under way, with members of the Don’t Spy on Us coalition continuing their involvement in legal action against the proposed mass surveillance powers. The organisation notes: The UK’s legal regime for bulk surveillance is being challenged in two separate cases at the ECHR, while the data retention regime is being questioned in the UK and EU courts in the Watson (previously Watson-Davis) challenge. We expect both courts to place further demands for safeguards and restraints on the highly permissive UK surveillance regime. There has never existed a single law regarding data retention powers in the UK which has not, in some form or another, been amended due to a legal challenge. Popular opposition to the law has already provoked over 133,000 citizens to sign a petition calling for its repeal, and although that is unlikely to happen, the petition’s motion must now be considered by Parliament.

Those who campaigned against the legislation are disappointed. Bella Sankey, the Policy Director for Liberty, described today as “a sad day for our democracy.” She added: “The Home Secretary is right that the Government has a duty to protect us, but these measures won’t do the job. Instead they open every detail of every citizen’s online life up to state eyes, drowning the authorities in data and putting innocent people’s personal information at massive risk.” Sankey added: “This new law is world-leading – but only as a beacon for despots everywhere. The campaign for a surveillance law fit for the digital age continues, and must now move to the courts.” Jim Killock, exec director at digital rights campaigner the Open Rights Group, agreed: “[Home Secretary] Amber Rudd says the Investigatory Powers Act is world-leading legislation. She is right; it is one of the most extreme surveillance laws ever passed in a democracy. Its impact will be felt beyond the UK as other countries, including authoritarian regimes with poor human rights records, will use this law to justify their own intrusive surveillance regimes.” He continued: “Although there are some improvements to oversight, the Bill will mean the police and intelligence agencies have unprecedented powers to surveil our private communications and Internet activity, whether or not we are suspected of a crime. Theresa May has finally got her snoopers’ charter and democracy in the UK is the worse for it.” ®

Read more : theregister.co.uk/2016/11/29/investigatory_powers_act_2016/

Sanford Bail Bond – 9 Trump Supreme Court Prospects at Conservative Legal Parley

Source    : NBC Washington News
By            : Mark Sherman
Category : Bail Bond in Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

9 Trump Supreme Court Prospects at Conservative Legal Parley

Two Supreme Court justices and nine judges on President-elect Donald Trump’s list of potential high court picks are among more than 1,000 people expected at a gathering of conservative lawyers that has suddenly turned into an impromptu job fair for spots in the new administration. The Federalist Society’s national lawyers’ convention begins Thursday in Washington as a tribute to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, an early supporter of the group and a hero to many of its 40,000 members.

But since Trump’s surprising victory in last week’s presidential race, the meeting has turned into a public audition of sorts for nearly half of the list of 21 people that Trump put forward earlier in the year as prospective Supreme Court nominees. “The mood has changed. Everyone is going to be thinking, ‘Maybe someone here is going to be filling Justice Scalia’s shoes,’ ” said Abbe Gluck, a Yale Law professor who is not a member of the group but who will take part in the conference.

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, familiar figures at these annual meetings, also will speak on Thursday. The Federalist Society got its start on college campuses when Ronald Reagan was in the White House as a way to counter what its members saw as liberal domination of the nation’s law-school faculties. Its influence was pronounced during the presidency of George W. Bush, when its leaders helped rally support for Senate confirmation of Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts. The group was so successful that it spawned copycat liberal organizations.

Speaking at a Federalist Society event in the Bush years was akin to an out-of-town preview of a Broadway show for conservative lawyers who were looking for administration jobs or judgeships, author Mark Tushnet has written. Over the past eight years, the group provided a forum for opponents of President Barack Obama’s court choices and policies, although the Federalist Society itself does not endorse candidates or take policy positions. Some of its leaders backed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s refusal to act on Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to fill Scalia’s seat. That political strategy paid unexpected and huge dividends for conservatives with Trump’s election.

The society’s star again appears to be on the rise. “Anytime there’s a major shift in the power of government, it’s an enormous opportunity for what is probably the collection of the smartest, most talented and most publicly minded lawyers in the country to roll up their sleeves and help advance the cause of constitutional government,” said Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society’s executive vice president. Leo met with Trump in New York on Wednesday and said afterward that Trump has yet to pare down his long list of names of Supreme Court hopefuls.

Among those candidates are nine who will take part in panel discussions in the next few days: state supreme court justices Allison Eid of Colorado, Joan Larsen of Michigan, David Stras of Minnesota and Don Willett of Texas, and federal appellate judges Steven Colloton, Thomas Hardiman, Raymond Kethledge, William Pryor and Diane Sykes. The group says 90 percent of its money comes from individuals and foundations, the rest from corporations. Charles and David Koch, Google and Microsoft are among donors who gave $100,000 or more, according to the society’s annual report for 2015. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and her husband, George, gave between $50,000 and $100,000. George Conway is a New York lawyer and Federalist Society member.

Read more : nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/9-Trump-Supreme-Court-Prospects-Conservative-Legal-Parley-Lawyers-401656016.html

Bail Bond in Sanford – China’s New Cybersecurity Law Rattles Foreign Tech Firms

Source     : Wall Street Journal
By             : JOSH CHIN and EVA DOU
Category :  Bail Bond in Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

China’s New Cybersecurity Law Rattles Foreign Tech Firms

China’s government has approved a broad new cybersecurity law aimed at tightening and centralizing state control over information flows and technology equipment, raising concerns among foreign companies operating in the country. The law, passed by the standing committee of China’s rubber-stamp parliament and made public on Monday, says agencies and enterprises must improve their ability to defend against network intrusions while demanding security reviews for equipment and data in strategic sectors. The law also makes censorship a matter of cybersecurity, threatening to punish companies that allow unapproved information to circulate online. It further requires network operators to provide “technical support” to authorities for national security and criminal investigations.

The law drew criticism from foreign business groups due to the expansive list of sectors that are defined as part of China’s “critical information infrastructure,” making sectors including telecommunications, energy, transportation, information services and finance subject to security checks. China’s lawmakers described the law as necessary to bolster its data security at a time of multiplying threats. A spokesman for the Cybersecurity Administration of China at a press conference Monday dismissed concerns among foreign companies that Chinese demands for “secure and reliable” or “secure and controllable” technologies could exclude their products. “Whenever we bring up secure and reliable…some of our friends, especially our foreign friends, their heads swell up. They see it as synonymous with trade barriers,” said Zhao Zeliang, the CAC spokesman. “This is a misunderstanding, a biased view.”

China, often accused of supporting cyberattacks on other countries while also depicting itself as a frequent victim of hacking, has moved aggressively to bolster cybersecurity since Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power four years ago. Efforts accelerated in 2013, when former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden described extensive U.S. government hacking of Chinese networks. The government was rattled again the following year, when Microsoft Corp. decided to end support for Windows XP, aging software that was widely installed in China. “These issues confronted China quite violently with the reality that they were reliant on foreign technology,” said Rogier Creemers, an expert in Chinese internet and media law at the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands.

The security reviews stipulated in the new law revive concerns among U.S. companies that they will be forced to disclose their source code and other corporate secrets to the Chinese government to prove their equipment is secure, said Jake Parker, vice president of China operations for the U.S.-China Business Council, a trade group representing U.S. companies in China. “We’ve heard from companies that they feel these policies cite national security for protectionist purposes,” Mr. Parker said. The cybersecurity law doesn’t specify what the security reviews will entail. The idea of requiring source-code disclosure was floated in drafts of several Chinese regulations last year, then was removed after strenuous protest from the U.S. and other countries.

Read more : wsj.com/articles/china-approves-cybersecurity-law-1478491064