4 Apps to Help Parents Set Limits on Children’s Cell Phones 31JUL18

IF I had kids I would definitely have one of these. I think schools should require parental controls on phones that shut the phone down with access permitted for emergencies only. Kids should not be able to make or receive calls, text or access anything on the internet during the hours they are supposed to be at school. This from Credo Mobile.....

4 Apps to Help Parents Set Limits on Children’s Cell Phones

Four parental control apps to help protect children on their phones

Kids and phones. It’s a quandary for parents. You want your kids to have a phone so you can stay in touch, but you don’t want your kids using their phone to access sites you find unacceptable or spend every waking hour playing Fortnite.

Here’s a solution: parental controls.

These are apps you install on your child’s phone and your phone (or computer) so you can monitor and manage their activity. They enable you to supervise web behavior, limit screen time and view your child’s activity.

Most of these apps work better on an Android phone than an iOS phone due to Apple’s restrictions on third-party apps. But Apple just announced that iOS 12 (due for release this fall) will include a free feature called Screen Time that will allow you to manage all of a child’s iOS devices. This is in addition to the app-blocking and web-filtering options already in the Restrictions section of the main settings of iOS phones. To learn more about the variety of parental controls for iOS devices – current and future – check out the Apple Familiespage.

With the right parental control app, you can filter web access and prevent kids from going to certain websites while overseeing the sites they do visit. You can block kids from using particular apps, such as social media or messaging apps. Some parental controls automatically block new apps a child tries to install unless you first approve.

Most parental controls enable you to restrict the time of day and/or the number of hours a child can spend on a device and limit hours of web usage. Most also include location-tracking features that let you see where kids are and where they’ve been. Parental control apps allow you to see who children communicate with and what they say by relaying call and text logs to you. A lot of parental controls let you manage social media activity as well.

Most parental control tools now also enable “geofencing,” which means you can define a safe geographic area for your child and get an alert if your child leaves that area.

Here are 4 of the best parental control tools out now.

Please note: App creators’ views and values are their own and are not endorsed by CREDO Mobile. Before downloading any app, please confirm that it meets your personal standards for corporate ethics and protection of privacy.

Boomerang

Boomerang is mobile-only, which means you can’t manage a child’s activity from a PC or Mac, but this is a solid, easy-to-use app for Android and iOS phones and tablets. It lets you set flexible weekday and weekend schedules to limit screen time. You can choose to shut down certain apps at a specific time of day – or pause a device entirely for all but emergency uses. You can filter web content, review browsing activity and search history, and approve or block new apps before they’re installed. Boomerang’s built-in safe browser automatically filters inappropriate sites. You get regular reports of who is texting your child and who is being texted, with alerts when inappropriate words are used. You can also capture and read all text messages. With call blocking, you can limit incoming and outgoing calls to saved contacts only and review call logs. Location tracking and location alerts are included as well.

$30.99 per device per year for up to 10 devices, $15.99 per year for individual devices. No free version.

Net Nanny

Net Nanny has been around since 1996 and is among the most popular and comprehensive parental control tools. It enables you to filter online content in 18 different categories. You can also control the number of hours kids spend on the internet each day. You can monitor social media activity and even censor profanity on sites while still allowing kids to visit them. You’ll receive alerts when children visit inappropriate websites as well as weekly usage reports. Net Nanny offers preset user profiles or you can customize settings for individuals. It works with Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices.

$39.99 per year for one device, $12 per year per device for up to 5 devices, $9 per year per device for up to 10 devices. No free version.

Norton Family Premier

Norton is the web security expert, and its Norton Family app has a wide range of features. You can monitor the sites kids visit and block the sites you choose. You can set screen-time limits by time of day or days of the week. You can see the search terms kids are using and what YouTube videos they’re watching. You’ll receive a detailed report of online activity via email or your Norton web dashboard as well as instant email alerts when kids visit blocked websites. Norton also includes social media monitoring, mobile app supervision and blocking, instant device locking, text supervision, and location tracking in real time with 30-day reports. The app works on Windows and Android, with limited iOS and no Mac support.

$49.99 for a 1-year subscription with no limit on the number of devices. No free version.

Qustodio Parental Control

PC Magazine’s top-rated tool, Qustodio, lets you keep track of a child’s phone activity from your own phone or PC in real time. It works on iOS, Android and Kindle devices. It includes web-filtering, screen-time limits and reporting features, as well as location tracking, call tracking and blocking, social media monitoring, game and app time limits and blocking, and text monitoring in which you can see who is being texted and read the messages. There is also a panic button for emergencies.

$49.45 per year for up to 5 devices, $87.25 per year for up to 10 devices or $124.15 per year for up to 15 devices. There is also a free edition that includes web filtering only.

A new phone is an exciting time for a kid. If you’re shopping for a new smartphone for a child now, we have a wide range of choices at the CREDO Mobile. And all phones and plans purchased through CREDO Mobile help support CREDO Action and CREDO Donations.

So when should children have their first phone? The average young American gets a smartphone at the age of 10 and spends over 4.5 hours a day on it, not including texting and talking. But there is a lot of evidence to indicate that all this screen time is not good for young brains.

But saying no to a young person who’s adamant for a smartphone is not easy. If you find yourself in that situation, look into the Wait Until 8th campaign, which advocates keeping kids off smartphones until they reach the eighth grade. It has a lot of helpful advice for parents on how to talk to children about smartphones.

And if you find that your child really does need a cell phone before eighth grade, we hope this parental control information is helpful to you.

SIGN THE WE THE PEOPLE PETITION Make Unlocking Cell Phones Legal & Law Change Makes It Harder To Unlock Cellphones 20FEB13

KOW-TOWING to the greed of the cell (mobile) phone service providers the government, specifically the head of the Library of Congress,  has made it illegal for us to unlock the phones we have purchased. To protect the profit margins of verizon and at&t and all the others we can not switch providers and use the phone we have already paid for, you have to buy a new phone if you are going to change your service provider. This is wrong, and there is a petition on the We The People website calling on Pres Obama to pressure the Library of Congress to reverse their decision and give us back the freedom to change our cell phone service providers whenever we want using the phone we have purchaced. Sign the petition here http://wh.gov/yA9n

by LAURA SYDELL

Listen to the Story

Morning Edition

3 min 56 sec

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Maybe you don't like your mobile phone carrier, but you like your phone and you want to keep it but change providers. An obscure change in federal law makes it illegal to switch without permission from your carrier.

If you have, for example, AT&T, in order to switch to T-Mobile you have to unlock the phone, and AT&T can now stop you from doing that.

The change in the copyright law has some people upset, and they're petitioning the White House for a fix.

Sina Khanifar, who is backing the petition, has been personally affected by the rules. In 2005, he left California to go to school in England.

"I had taken a phone from here in California with me. While I was there, I couldn't use it," he said.

Khanifar had a Motorola Razr. The phone was locked into AT&T's network, but there was no AT&T in England, so Khanifar figured out a way to unlock his phone and connect it to a British carrier. He started a business selling the unlocking software to other travelers who might be stuck the way he was.

"It was great. It was helping me pay my college tuition," he said. Until one day, "I got a cease-and-desist letter from Motorola."

Khanifar said the letter charged him with violating copyright law. He faced up to five years in prison for unlocking his phone. An American civil liberties group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, stepped in to help him.

The group petitioned the copyright office in Washington, D.C. EFF staff attorney Mitch Stoltz said "the copyright office created a legal shield for people who are unlocking their cellphones."

But the shield only lasts for three years at a time. Then the Copyright Office, which is part of the Library of Congress, has to renew it.

Gayle Osterberg, a spokesperson from the Library of Congress, says during the last review they determined it was OK for companies to decide when to unlock a phone. So the shield wasn't renewed.

"The evidence showed that the market has changed," she said. "There are a wide variety of new phones that are already available unlocked, and cellphone carriers have relaxed their unlocking policies."

Now, if you buy a phone from AT&T and get a two-year contract, even when that contract is up, you will still have to ask permission from AT&T to change your phone to a new carrier.

Khanifar, who still travels a lot, started a petition to the White House against the rule change.

"It really just runs counter to sort of your common-sense intuition about this kind of thing," he said. "Once you bought it, you should be able to do what you want with it."

The U.S. carriers see it differently. In a statement, the CTIA, a trade group for the wireless industry, said when customers buy a phone with a two-year contract, they get a discount. So the carrier should be able to prevent them from going elsewhere.

Outside an Apple store in San Francisco, a lot of iPhone users, including Emil Sarkisov, found the reasoning perplexing.

"Once my contract is up — and I'm not going to give up my phone when I give back the contract, right? — I still keep the phone," he said. "So why can't I do whatever I want with it?"

Other cellphone users outside the store were concerned about what they would do when they travel. Calvin Su said using an American carrier is expensive outside the U.S., so he usually unlocks the phone and connects to a local carrier. Su worries that he won't be able to do that anymore.

"It will have a negative impact for me," he said.

Su can join the people who are signing the petition to the White House. The petitioners have until Friday to get 100,000 signers; they have 80,000 so far.

The White House can't tell the Library of Congress what to do, but it can put pressure on the library and Congress to change the law.

http://www.npr.org/2013/02/20/172466684/why-unlocking-a-cellphone-could-land-user-in-jail?ft=3&f=1001&sc=nl&cc=nh-20130220

TEXTING, PHONES, DRIVING AND ANOTHER DEATH OF SOMEONE I KNOW 10NOV12

 I sent the following e mail to my family, I am also sending it to all my friends because I do not want any of you to go through this. This is the second person I've known to be killed because of people driving and using their phones. My Aunt Lynn was killed two years ago by a person who was talking on their phone and driving. So please, DO NOT TALK ON YOUR PHONE OR TEXT WHILE DRIVING!

I am just heartsick and also angry. Friends of Jen, Ted and Katie, members of their church, lost their son, Levi, just 21 years old, in a car accident last night. Jen asked me to send this out asking that you please pray for his parents, Diane and Terry,  they are having a really hard time dealing with this. I am angry because he had just sent a text his Mom, while driving, telling her he was almost home when he lost control of his car and slammed into a tree. He and his friend (and I am sorry but I don't know the other boy's name) were both killed. Such a horrible waste, so tragic, and probably would have not happened had he not been texting and driving. Please keep these families in your prayers, and please remember this tragic lesson for yourselves and share it with others, because there isn't a phone call that has to be made or answered, or a text read or sent, that can't wait until you are not driving.
Craig

Cellphone Ban Proposed For Drivers By National Transportation Safety Board 12DEZ11

MY Aunt Lynn was killed on 14 MAR 2010 by someone who lost control of their car while talking on their cell phone while driving. The driver who T-boned my aunt's car walked away from the accident. Politicians that allowed this behavior to be legal then and still are just as guilty of killing her and hundreds of others as the drivers themselves.

By John Crawley
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. safety investigators called on Tuesday for a nationwide ban on texting and cell phone use while driving, a prohibition that would include certain applications of hands-free technology becoming more common in new cars.
The National Transportation Safety Board recommendation covers portable devices only but still goes beyond measures proposed or imposed to date by regulators and states, most of which already ban texting while behind the wheel.
"When it comes to using electronic devices, it may seem like it's a quick call or a quick text or a tweet, but accidents happen in the blink of an eye," said NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman. "No emails, no texts, no calls. It's worth a human life."
More than 3,000 people were killed in distracted driving crashes in the United States in 2010, according to Transportation Department figures.
Most motorists participating in a Transportation Department survey released last week acknowledged few situations in which they would not use a cell phone or text while behind the wheel although they supported measures to curb the practice.
The five-member NTSB recommendation to states for a ban, except in an emergency, stemmed from an investigation of a Missouri chain-reaction crash that killed two people last year, an accident blamed on a driver who was texting.

The panel's action follows nearly 10 years of investigating transportation accidents linked in some way to distraction and is not binding. But the safety board has long been effective at articulating national transportation safety priorities and its views can be influential in legislative or regulatory decisionmaking.
Congress has shown no interest in banning cell phone use or texting while driving. So far 35 states and the District of Columbia ban texting while driving, but fewer than a dozen prohibit using a cell phone.
The Transportation Department has waged an aggressive public campaign on the issue under Secretary Ray LaHood that has included limited bans.
"There's no call or text message that's so important that it can't wait," LaHood said.
LaHood has raised concerns about distracted driving and hands-free technology with automobile companies but has not prompted federal action or asked industry to stop putting it into new vehicles.
Cell phones and communication technology is ubiquitous and sweeping bans like the one proposed by the NTSB are considered difficult to enforce, experts have said.
This is one reason why federal and state restrictions so far have focused on the most obvious distraction - texting - or targeted individual groups, like truckers or federal workers.
The auto industry has invested heavily in hands-free communications technology, like Bluetooth, that is now available in most 2012 models sold in the United States as standard or optional equipment.
"It actually is a big decisionmaker for some consumers," said Jesse Toprak, a vice president of TrueCar.com, who noted that Ford Motor, in particular, has been aggressive in using it to attract younger buyers who may not otherwise have considered one of their cars.
Ford referred inquiries to the industry's trade group in Washington, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which said it was reviewing the NTSB recommendation.
"What we do know is that digital technology has created a connected culture in the United States and it's forever changed our society: consumers always expect to have access to technology, so managing technology is the solution.
"Features that are integrated into the vehicle, and are designed by automakers are engineered to be used in the driving environment. That means it's designed to be used in a way that helps drivers keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel," the group said.
The trade association representing carriers, suppliers, and manufacturers of wireless products said texting while driving is "incompatible with safety."
CITA-The Wireless Association deferred to individual states on "what they believe are the most appropriate laws" and said it has always encouraged industry to develop tools that would create safer driving.
(Editing by Christopher Wilson)

REGISTER YOUR PHONES FOR THE DO NOT CALL LIST

I called, it is a registry run by the FTC (Fed Trade Commission). You must call from the phone you want registered. Took less than a minute.

• REMEMBER: Cell Phone Numbers Go Public this month.
• REMINDER..... all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies.... YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS
  
• To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888-382-1222.
  
• It is the National DO NOT CALL list It will only take a minute of your time.
• It blocks your number for five (5) years.
• You must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked.

Stop Apple's iPhone Kill Switch 22JUN11

STEVE Jobs missed his calling, missed his place in history actually. He would have been a Wunderkind in hitler's reich, helping the nazis really control everyone and everything. But we know better, and don't have to tolerate his abuses of privacy and civil rights and liberties. Click the link to tell apple to drop their plans for the kill switch on their phones and i pads. 

ActNow: Stop Apple’s iPhone Kill Switch

Think you own your smartphone? Think again.
Apple wants to patent a kill switch technology that can detect when people are using their phone cameras and give corporations the power to shut them down.¹
Think that’s bad? Imagine what would happen if this tool fell into the hands of repressive regimes. Thousands of people across the Middle East have used cellphone cameras to document government abuses.
This kind of technology would give tyrants the power to stem the flow of videos and crack down on protesters with impunity.
Sign our letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs: Demand that Apple stop developing technology that harms democracy and free speech.
Apple says this new technology was designed to stop concertgoers from taking unofficial video at live events. But you can bet that governments and corporations will use it  in other, more dangerous ways – to silence the voices of protesters, political opponents or anyone else they dislike.
As Steve Jobs obviously knows, smartphones have become extensions of ourselves. They are incredibly powerful tools for communication, education, political expression, community organizing and just plain fun.
Tell Steve Jobs that WE control our phones: Neither Apple nor anybody else can dictate what we photograph and film with them.
Earlier this year, researchers discovered that iPhones recorded your every move for the past year in a hidden but unprotected file.² The public was outraged, and Apple soon announced that it was updating its software to better protect users.
We must stop Apple again. This new camera-blocking technology is a pre-emptive strike against free speech. If activated, it would be immensely harmful to our rights to connect and communicate.
Please take action now to urge Steve Jobs to pull the plug on this censorship technology.
Thanks,
Josh Levy
Online Campaign Manager
Free Press
www.freepress.net
1. “Is Apple Launching a Pre-emptive Strike Against Free Speech?” Huffington Post, June 22, 2011:  http://act2.freepress.net/go/4692?akid=2596.9767049.5AiSFn&t=7
2. “Got an iPhone or 3G iPad? Apple is recording your moves,” O’Reilly Radar, April 20, 2011: http://act2.freepress.net/go/4627?akid=2596.9767049.5AiSFn&t=9

FACES OF DISTRACTED DRIVING

My Aunt Lynn was killed in a car accident on 14MAR10 because a person was talking on his cell phone while driving and lost control of his car and crashed into hers. This video is part of a series from the U.S. Dept of Transportation on the deadly problem of distracted driving.....please share with family and friends and coworkers....
 
On November 10, 2009, 17-year-old Alex Brown was killed when she crashed her truck on a rural road while she was on her way to school. She was texting at the time of the crash.

To honor Alex's memory, her family -- Jeanne, Johnny Mac, and 12-year-old Katrina -- formed an anti-distracted driving advocacy group, the Remember Alex Brown Foundation.

For more information, please visit www.distraction.gov. To share your story, upload a video to YouTube and email the link to faces@distraction.gov.

What Happens to Your Phone When You Recycle It? from MOJO 15NOV10

GREAT information from Mother Jones on recycling your old phones.....

— Flickr user Nemo's Great Uncle / Creative Commons

I'm thrilled that my phone contract is up in February. I've been coveting the iPhone, which will be a welcome change after two years of toting around a clunky, barely web-enabled dinosaur. But when I upgrade to a smart phone, what will become of my dopey old dumb phone?
This very question is the subject of the The Story of Electronics, the latest installment of sustainability expert Annie Leonard's engaging Story of Stuff Project. The eight-minute film explains that today's consumer electronics are "designed for the dump": After about two years, most gadgets are either obsolete or broken, and they're usually cheaper to replace than to repair. Technology is advancing at so fast a pace that every two years, the number of transistors placed on a circuitboard doubles, increasing computer memory and processing speed. (This continuing trend was first noticed in the late 1960s and is called Moore's Law.) Until that rate slows, or manufacturers begin to make cell phones with standardized replaceable parts, you'll still have to get a new phone every two years just to keep pace with technology.
More than 130 million cell phones in the US alone are retired every year, the USGS estimates. Not great news for the planet, considering phones contain substances harmful to humans and the environment, like cadmium, lead, and beryllium (all carcinogins), as well as arsenic. So what's the best way to make sure your old phone's not leaking chemicals into the ground?

Most major wireless carriers participate in "take-back" programs, which allow you to send your dead phone back where it came from for free—or sometimes even a cash rebate. Once a cell phone arrives at a take-back facility, if it's still workable and a relatively recent model, it's likely going to get refurbished and resold, either on the consumer market or to a charity. (Verizon's HopeLine program, for example, donates phones loaded with 3,000 free minutes to domestic violence victims.) Other refurbished phones are sold in Latin America and Africa, to people who don't mind using a secondhand, behind-the-times phone.
If your phone is really kaput, it will either get broken down and sold for parts or passed on to a smelter, where the entire phone is melted down and the liquids are separated to be reconstituted. (This process is sometimes called "above-ground mining.") Smelters harvest the little bits of valuable metals (gold, copper, iron, silver, zinc, nickel, platinum, tin) used in the circuitboards and soldering. In one metric ton of old cell phones without batteries (about 8,800 individual phones), there's an estimated 308 pounds of copper, 7 pounds of silver, and half a pound of gold. The smelting process, also used to melt down recycled aluminum cans, does generate some greenhouse gases and slag (the discarded silica and metal oxides used to isolate liquid metal). But overall, the environmental and monetary costs of smelting down existing metals are lower than mining, transporting, and refining new ore. For example, one ton of gold ore only contains .18 ounces of pure gold, while there's about 40 times that amount in one ton of cell-phone circuitry.
Breaking cell phones up and separating the parts is the process that most people are leery of. Annie Leonard points out that workers in China and Africa often dismantle electronics' harmful insides without proper personal or environmental protection: For example, in the town of Guiyu, China, 1.5 million pounds of e-waste are dismantled every year—often by workers without gloves—and leftover junk is disposed of in open fires.
Unfortunately, there's no easy way to find out if your cell-phone carrier exports items abroad to be broken, because many of them work with third-party companies—three of which I tried unsuccessfully to contact by, um, telephone. (I did reach a T-Mobile rep who said his company works with a Dallas-based recycler called Touchstone that separates phone components in the US. He also said 70 percent of the phones T-Mobile receives go on to be refurbished.) Newer phones like smart phones may be heavier than old candy-bar-style phones, but they contain a lot more electronics in a smaller package.
The good news: Cell phones are getting more environmentally friendly. Today's phones are made with considerably less cadmium and lead than older models, and they're also getting lighter. The average phone weighs around 4 ounces, minus the battery—about half of what it weighed in 2000. Recycling rates are also improving: In 2003, fewer than 1 percent of owners recycled their phones, but now it's closer to 20 percent. Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas) recently introduced the Responsible Electronics Recycling Act (H.R. 6252). It would outlaw sending e-waste to developing nations, but it's still hanging out with the House Committee of Energy and Commerce.
You can help minimize waste by opting for a refurbished phone (available through all major carriers) instead of a new one. Once you're done with your phone, there are a number of recycling systems you can participate in. To reduce the carbon footprint from ground transportation and reclamation, I prefer programs that handle large volumes of cell phones. Best Buy has kiosks in nearly every store where you can drop off your used electronics. The program doesn't export any non-working phones or components to developing countries, and it requires third-party partners to submit documentation of environmental compliance. If you're looking to make a few bucks off your phone, check out GreenPhone.com, which gives you cash for your old unit; offers you a free, printable shipping label; and will plant a tree every time you recycle a phone. The folks over at Earth911 recommend this website to see if your local recycling outfit is certified as an "e-Steward"—which requires strict control over exporting overseas, "full accountability for the entire downstream recycling chain," and disclosure on any airborne toxins released during the smelting process. If none of these float your boat, you can see an extensive list of drop-off and mail-in recycling programs at the EPA's eCycle site.
Got a burning eco-quandary? Submit it to econundrums@motherjones.com. Get all your green questions answered by visiting Econundrums on Facebook here.

Jen Phillips is the editorial coordinator at Mother Jones. For more of her stories, click here or follow her on Twitter, @the_hip_hapa. Get Jen Phillips' RSS

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ACLU ONLINE NEWSLETTER 5NOV10

ARTICLES and actions on paycheck fairness, gene ownership, Amazon and privacy, cell phone tracking, fbi monitoring, religion, Bagram and more. Read, participate and share!

Enough Already! Let's Pass Paycheck Fairness! Who Owns Your Genes? You Do. Victory! Federal Court Upholds Amazon Users' Privacy and Free Speech Rights Cameras in the High Court: It's About Time Warrantless Cell Phone Tracking Unconstitutional, Federal Judge Finds Civil Liberties Minute: The FBI and Your Online Habits ACLU Challenges Discriminatory Arizona School Tuition Program Government Can Keep Basic Facts about Bagram Prisoners Secret, Federal Court Rules Civil Liberties Minute: The FBI and Your Online Habits Do you mind if your online habits are monitored and recorded by the FBI? >> Listen to the podcast. ACLU Challenges Discriminatory Arizona School Tuition Program Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in an ACLU case challenging an Arizona tax credit-funded school tuition program under which most of the state-funded, private school scholarships are unconstitutionally awarded on a religiously discriminatory basis. Under the challenged program, Arizona scholarships are awarded by School Tuition Organizations (STOs). These organizations are certified and closely supervised by the state and financed exclusively by state income tax revenues. Taxpayers can direct their tax payments to the STOs for a 100 percent tax credit, rather than pay the Department of Revenue — essentially costing the taxpayers nothing. The cost is borne entirely by the state's general fund. Since its passage in 1997, the tuition tax credit scheme has been dominated by religious discrimination. More than half of over $50 million awarded by STOs in 2009, for example, was awarded by STOs that required students to attend religious schools in order to receive scholarships. The Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization, a petitioner in this case, states that its goal is "to further Christian education by effectively implementing the provisions of [the program] for the benefit of Christian school students and their families." "The decision to award scholarships in Arizona rests entirely in the hands of taxpayer-funded, state-sanctioned organizations, the majority of which are religious in nature," said Daniel Mach, Director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. "The government should have no role in supporting programs that play favorites when it comes to religion." "By appointing religious organizations to disburse scholarships that are funded completely with tax revenues and allowing those organizations to grant scholarships based on the religion of applicants, the state is unconstitutionally engaging in religious discrimination," said Paul Bender, lead counsel, who argued the case for the plaintiffs. "We are hopeful that the Court will see that this is not a program of private taxpayer charity but a government spending program that supports religious discrimination." >> Learn more about this case. back to top Government Can Keep Basic Facts about Bagram Prisoners Secret, Federal Court Rules The Defense Department can continue to withhold key information from the public about the hundreds of detainees imprisoned by the U.S. military at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, according to a federal court ruling last month. The ruling came in an ACLU Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Defense Department and the CIA for records related to the detention and treatment of prisoners at Bagram (now known as Parwan). The Defense Department has released the names of the 645 prisoners who were detained there as of September 2009 but has kept secret other vital information, including their citizenship, how long they have been held, in what country they were captured and the circumstances of their capture. The ACLU charged that the Defense Department is improperly withholding these basic facts about Bagram prisoners and their detention, and asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to order the Defense Department to turn over the information. In denying the ACLU's motion, the court also ruled that the CIA did not act improperly when it refused to even confirm or deny whether the CIA had records about the rendition and interrogation of Bagram detainees. The U.S. military has announced its intention to transfer control of Bagram prison to the Afghan government next year. However, media outlets have reported that the Obama administration intends to maintain control over a portion of the prison and to continue detaining some prisoners in U.S. custody there, including non-Afghan terrorism suspects captured outside of Afghanistan and prisoners considered "enduring security threats." "The public has a right to know how long the U.S. has kept people locked up in military detention and under what circumstances," said Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "The lack of transparency about these key facts is even more disturbing considering the possibility that the U.S. will continue holding and interrogating prisoners at Bagram well into the future. Unfortunately, today's ruling will allow the government to continue hiding this vital information." >> Learn more about the ACLU's FOIA lawsuit. back to top Do you know somebody who would be interested in getting news about the ACLU and what we're doing to protect civil liberties? Help us spread the word about ACLU Online — forward this newsletter to a friend.

November 5, 2010 Enough Already! Let's Pass Paycheck Fairness! Now is the time to end wage discrimination once and for all. Tell your senators to support the Paycheck Fairness Act today. When the Senate comes back to Washington on November 15 to finish its post-election work, one of the very first issues they will be voting on will be the Paycheck Fairness Act — legislation to finally achieve equal pay for men and women in the workplace. It's been 47 years since the passage of the Equal Pay Act, and yet, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, women, on average, make only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. The figures are even worse for women of color. African American women only earned approximately 61 cents and Latinas only 52 cents for each dollar earned by a white male. Chronic wage discrimination can deprive a woman of between $700,000 and $2 million over her career. The House already passed this legislation. And the Senate is scheduled to vote on it as soon as November 17! We are very close to passage in this Congress, but we may not get another chance to finally close the wage gap for a very long time. That's why it's so important to let your senators know that you care about equal pay today. >> Take action: With less than two weeks remaining to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act in this Congress, we need our Senators to act now! back to top Who Owns Your Genes? You Do. Tell Congress your genes aren't for sale! The U.S. government filed a friend-of-the-court brief last week in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) challenging patents on human genes. The government agreed with our stance that isolated DNA is not patentable. The ACLU and PUBPAT filed the lawsuit in May 2009 challenging the patents held by Myriad Genetics on the human genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, which are associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. The lawsuit charged that the patents stifle diagnostic testing and research that could lead to cures and that they limit women's options regarding their medical care. A federal court ruled in March 2010 that the patents on BRCA1 and 2 are invalid, and Myriad is appealing that ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. According to the government's brief, "The chemical structure of native human genes is a product of nature, and it is no less a product of nature when that structure is 'isolated' from its natural environment than are cotton fibers that have been separated from cotton seeds or coal that has been extracted from the earth." "We are extremely gratified that the government has agreed with us that genes are products of nature and therefore not patentable," said Sandra Park, staff attorney with the ACLU Women's Rights Project and a lawyer on the case. "Gene patents restrict patients' access to their own genetic information and chill important research. The lower court correctly found that no one should be able to patent human genes, and we are confident the appeals court will uphold that decision." >> Take action: Tell Congress your genes aren't for sale! back to top Victory! Federal Court Upholds Amazon Users' Privacy and Free Speech Rights Last month, a federal district court in Seattle ruled that the North Carolina Department of Revenue's (NCDOR) demands for detailed information about the purchases of Amazon.com customers violated the Constitution and the federal Video Privacy Protection Act. NCDOR had asked for the records as part of a tax audit of Amazon. Amazon provided the agency with detailed information regarding the items purchased, including the dates of purchase, amount of purchases, and county to which the items were shipped — this being the only information, North Carolina has acknowledged, needed to assess sales taxes. Amazon did not turn over records revealing its customers' identities and linking customers to specific purchases, even though the requests called for such information. After North Carolina refused to back down from its demand for user information and Amazon sued, the ACLU intervened on behalf of several North Carolina residents who feared that disclosure of the books, movies, music, and other items they had purchased would reveal highly personal and intimate details of their lives. The court agreed that the government has no right to know such personal information. We applaud the court's ruling, the latest in a line of decisions making clear that the First Amendment limits the government's ability to seek information about individuals' reading, listening, or viewing choices. The court concluded, as we argued, that even the prospect of the government tracking these choices is harmful because it might cause any of us to fear buying perfectly legal materials online. Requesting information about what people are purchasing online causes real harm to real people, and it is unconstitutional in these circumstances. The ACLU will continue to fight against government requests for information that is so personal and private — and is so fundamental to our society. back to top Cameras in the High Court: It's About Time >> Urge your Senator to support the bill allowing broadcast television coverage of Supreme Court proceedings. Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Warren Burger once said: "People in an open society do not demand infallibility from their institutions, but it is difficult for them to accept what they are prohibited from observing." Yet despite this sentiment and the benefits of transparency in government, television cameras are still banned from open Supreme Court proceedings. This session alone, the court is scheduled to hear cases involving vital issues related to free speech, immigration, the establishment clause, and state secrets. Additional access to the court would allow Americans the opportunity to gain a better understanding of these issues and the debates surrounding them. Isn't it time the court moved into the 21st century and allowed the American people to witness first-hand the discussions surrounding these truly monumental issues? In a move to correct this outdated situation, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) introduced a bipartisan bill that would allow broadcast television coverage of open Supreme Court proceedings. The bill has advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and now awaits a floor vote. >> Take action: Urge your Senator to support the bill allowing broadcast television coverage of Supreme Court proceedings. back to top Warrantless Cell Phone Tracking Unconstitutional, Federal Judge Finds In August, a New York federal court found that law enforcement agents are constitutionally obligated to get a warrant based on probable cause before obtaining historical cell phone location information. And in September, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals held that judges may order the government to get a warrant for cell phone location information based on probable cause. However, the 3rd Circuit also held that judges are not obligated to require probable cause and cautioned that they should only require the government to meet this high standard on rare occasions. Now, another court has joined the fray. In a detailed opinion citing documents obtained through litigation by the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation, Judge Stephen Smith of the Southern District of Texas held that "warrantless disclosure of cell site data violates the Fourth Amendment." A few aspects of the opinion are worth noting: According to Judge Smith, "the Government seeks continuous location data to track the target phone over a two month period, whether the phone was in active use or not." This is notable because the cell tracking applications we have seen previously only sought location information for those moments when an individual actually made a phone call. The government is now asking for a great deal more information, and consequently, its requests are now more invasive than we previously thought. Cell tracking information has grown to be more accurate over time. In fact, it is because of these "refinements in location-based technology" that Judge Smith concludes that requests for cell tracking information trigger the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. The Fourth Amendment requires the government to get a warrant and show probable cause to obtain historical cell tracking information. The court reached this conclusion both because cell tracking reveals information about constitutionally protected spaces, such as the home, and because the prolonged nature of such surveillance is very invasive. The ACLU agrees with Judge Smith that the government should be required to obtain a warrant and show probable cause before obtaining cell tracking information. As powerful new technologies enhance the ability of government agents to track our every move, it becomes all the more important that the courts hold the government to a rigorous standard it's able to access such sensitive information. back to top Join us on...

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MY AUNT LYNN WAS KILLED IN A CAR ACCIDENT SUNDAY EVENING part 2 14MAR10

I went to Pennsville, NJ last Friday with my sister Jennie and her daughter Katie for our Aunt Lynn's funeral. We met Mom and Dad and Uncle Ralph and Aunt Pat at the hotel. Lynn was Mom's and Ralph's sister. It was a beautiful day, Spring making a welcome appearance, and I know Aunt Lynn loved that because she loved Spring and being in the county with all the trees and flowers and wildlife. We, the family, had a chance to see Aunt Lynn before the funeral, it was good to be able to see her here one last time, though it was, and is still hard to believe it was her funeral. A lot of people came to pay their respects to Aunt Lynn and her family. And it was good to be with family, good to see cousins I haven't seen for too long, though I wish it had been for another reason. The preacher had a very good message and was a great comfort to us. Aunt Lynn's wish is that she be cremated, and some of her ashes be scattered around Uncle Bill's grave and the rest be scattered along her favorite trail on Skyline Drive. She went there at least twice a year to commune with nature and refresh her soul. We will join her kids when they make the journey, probably on Mother's Day.
The young man that caused the accident that killed Aunt Lynn is in his early twenties. He was talking on his phone while driving. I believe he is being charged with vehicular homicide. I feel sorry for him too, he will have to live the rest of his life knowing his carelessness killed another person. He may have to spend some time in prison. I hope and pray he has faith and family to help him deal with this.
I am guilty of talking on my phone while driving but no more. Period. I will not answer my phone while driving and if I call someone's cell phone and they are driving I will end the call and they can call me back or I will call them back when they get to their destination. I will not risk putting another family through this.
So many friends have been so supportive of me and my family through this, I can only say thank you from the bottom of my heart and that I love you all so very much.