In 2013, Deputy Luis Ortiz was the "school resource officer" at Etiwanda Intermediate in San Bernardino County, California, when he arrested a group of 12- and 13-year-old girls, cuffing them and taking them to jail in a police vehicle; at the time and afterward, Ortiz said he arrested them "to prove a point" because he felt they were "unresponsive and disrespectful" and in his belief, introducing them to the criminal justice system would make them "mature a lot faster."
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A shooting took place in a classroom at North Park elementary school in San Bernardino today, around 10:30am local time. The shooter has been 'taken down,' local TV news is reporting in Southern California. The shooting is reported to have been planned as a murder-suicide. Two fatalities reported as of 11:15am PT. The shooter is said to have been related to the teacher who was shot dead. Two children injured in the shooting incident were airlifted to a nearby hospital. 600 children from North Park are being evacuated to Cal. State Univ. San Bernardino.
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VICE Media, USA Today owner Gannett, and the Associated Press today announced a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the FBI. The news organizations want to how much and who the government paid to hack into the San Bernardino shooters' iPhone, during the government's investigation into last year's mass shooting. Read the rest
The FBI accessed the contents of a San Bernardino terrorist’s phone after receiving help from professional hackers who “discovered and brought to the bureau at least one previously unknown software flaw,” the Washington Post was first to report today. Read the rest
The #FBIvsApple legal case may be over, but the fight over security, privacy, and the right to live free of surveillance has just begun. The Justice Department is expected to drop its legal action against Apple, possibly as soon as today, because an 'outside method' to bypass security on the San Bernardino gunman's iPhone has proven successful, a federal law enforcement official said Monday. Read the rest
Two lawmakers are reported to be planning to unveil details of a major encryption bill Wednesday, as the FBI's battle with Apple continues and a debate grows over what role government should play in regulating technology. Read the rest
Apple said no to the government, and the government is pissed. Read the rest
The iPhone battle between the FBI and Apple isn't about getting help unlocking a terrorist's phone. It's about our government forcing Apple to invent a customized-on-demand version of its iOS operating system, effectively stripped of all security and privacy features. Command performance coding. As security researcher Dan Guido describes it in his widely cited technical explainer blog post, what they're asking for is an 'FBiOS.' Read the rest
After this month's killings, there was widespread reporting (fueled by comments by FBI director James Comey) that Syed Rizwan Farook and Tafsheen Malik had declared their commitment to jihad on Facebook and that the security services failed to note this. Read the rest
UPDATE, 1034am PT: NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton says NYC got the same threats as LAUSD did, and determined it to be a hoax. Bratton says LA authorities are massively overreacting. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck disagrees.
Wouldn't be a Tuesday in America without an incident of mass violence or a threat of one.
“Officials closed all Los Angeles Unified School District campuses Tuesday morning after receiving a 'credible threat' of violence involving backpacks and packages left at campuses,” the Los Angeles Times was among the first to report today. LAUSD is America's second-largest school district, with more than 700,000 students. Read the rest
"We regret that we briefly showed images of photographs and identification cards that should not have been aired without review," said MSNBC after doing precisely that earlier today in San Bernardino.
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The attackers who shot to death some 14 people at a holiday party in San Bernardino had enough ammunition and explosive devices to kill hundreds more people, investigators said today. The FBI is now leading the investigation to figure out whether the attack was terrorism, a workplace grudge, both, or something else. Read the rest
