national

The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI believe they don't need a search warrant to review Americans' e-mails, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and other private files, internal documents reveal.

Government documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and provided to CNET show a split over electronic privacy rights within the Obama administration, with Justice Department prosecutors and investigators privately insisting they're not legally required to obtain search warrants for e-mail. The IRS, on the other hand, publicly said last month that it would abandon a controversial policy that claimed it could get warrantless access … Read more

Alexander Graham Bell is known for inventing the telephone; but for someone so associated with sound, it's curious that no one living has actually ever heard the tenor of his voice.

However, as of Wednesday, anyone can hear what he sounded like. New technology has brought a 128-year-old recording made by Bell back to life, according to Smithsonian magazine.

The artifact, a wax and cardboard disc, has most likely been unplayable for at least a century. According to Smithsonian, Bell worked on several different ways to record sound, including using foil, wax, glass, paper, plaster, metal, and cardboard. Not … Read more

It appears that when Dish wants something it doesn't give up.

After making a surprise bid of $25.5 billion to acquire Sprint on Monday -- which would snatch the mobile provider from the hands of Japan's SoftBank -- Dish submitted a filing to the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday claiming a SoftBank acquisition of Sprint wouldn't be good for U.S. national security.

According to Reuters, Dish requested that the FCC suspend the review of SoftBank's possible buyout of Sprint. In the filing, Dish claimed that Softbank didn't have the "existing in-market infrastructure&… Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Electrosensitive community moving to a secluded town in Green Bank, Va.

- Facebook fixes comment threads for Pages and public figure.

- A promising 'Home' for the Facebook obsessed.

- Five ways to get more out of Facebook Home.

- Prepare a digital will for your Google accounts.

- Roger Ebert's Twitter lives on.

- Microsoft exec reportedly leaves job following testy Xbox tweets.… Read more

STANFORD, Calif.--When I walked onto the Stanford University campus this week and into the Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Lab, I was greeted by a short, gray robot waving his two long arms -- he was looking for a high-five.

All around me robots of all sizes were roaming the floor. I was trapped -- in the future. … Read more

A controversial data-sharing bill won the approval of a key congressional committee today without privacy amendments, raising concerns that the National Security Agency and other spy agencies will gain broad access to Americans' personal information.

The House Intelligence committee, by a vote of 18 to 2, adopted the so-called CISPA bill after an unusual session closed to the public where panel members debated and voted on the proposed law in secret.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who proposed three unsuccessful privacy amendments, said afterward she was disappointed her colleagues did not limit the NSA and other intelligence agencies from collecting sensitive … Read more

Google has undertaken what appears to be a legal first: an open court challenge by a major Internet company to a warrantless electronic data-gathering technique used by the FBI.

The company asked U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco last week to grant a "petition to set aside legal process" in response to a national security letter it received from the FBI.

National security letters allow FBI officials to send a secret request to Web and telecommunications companies requesting "name, address, length of service," and other information about users as long as it's … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Makerbong? 3D printing is getting stoned.

- Bloomberg's next ban may be loud headphones.

- A petition to change the national anthem to R. Kelly's 2003 hit "Ignition (Remix)."

- 404 Archive News: 404 Redditor fanbanlo posted a link to download 1,217 archived episodes of the show. Canoy took care of a search for all 404 episodes on CNET.… Read more

Google today became the first Internet company to shed light on a highly secret -- and controversial -- warrantless electronic data-gathering technique used by the FBI.

The technique allows FBI officials to send a secret request to Web and telecommunications companies requesting "name, address, length of service," and other information about users as long as it's relevant to a national security investigation. No court approval is necessary, and disclosing the existence of the FBI's request is not permitted.

Because of that legal prohibition, Google was able to disclose only the numerical ranges of requests it receives … Read more