Penny Dean and Your Rights

Two New York lawmakers are working to draft a bill that would propose a social media check before a gun purchase.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and state Sen. Kevin Palmer’s proposal would allow authorities to review three years of social media history and one year of internet search history of any person seeking to purchase a firearm.

“A three-year review of a social media profile would give an easy profile of a person who is not suitable to hold and possess a fire arm,” Adams explains.

If you’re white, live in the United States, and a distant relative has uploaded their DNA to a public ancestry database, there’s a good chance an internet sleuth can identify you from a DNA sample you left somewhere. That’s the conclusion of a new study, which finds that by combining an anonymous DNA sample with some basic information such as someone’s rough age, researchers could narrow that person’s identity to fewer than 20 people by starting with a DNA database of 1.3 million individuals.

In the United States, we normally have a clear separation of powers: the legislative branch makes the laws, the judicial branch interprets them, and the executive branch enforces them. But every now and then, when one branch isn't around to help, another has to step in. Or, in this case, run down.

Read more at http://www.kentuckynewera.com/multimedia/video/news/youtube_c2674705-960...

A Southwest Side man said he didn't have time to think as he sprang into action and opened fire on another man who had allegedly shot a police officer in suburban Cicero on Thursday.

"You think a lot of things after that, you know. He could have tried to get somebody else car and try to run away," said the man, who wished to remain anonymous.

For journalists, researchers and the general public, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention serves as an authoritative source of information about Americans’ health, including estimates of how many people are killed or injured by guns. The agency’s most recent figures include a worrying uptick: Between 2015 and 2016, the number of Americans nonfatally injured by a firearm jumped by 37 percent, rising from about 85,000 to more than 116,000. It was the largest single-year increase recorded in more than 15 years.

There is a staggering amount of data on our smartphones. So it's no surprise investigators want access to those phones as easily as possible. And we want our privacy. So smartphone companies, like Apple, have attempted to make phones as secure as possible, with passcodes, fingerprints, and now, facial recognition software.

People could face up to five years' in jail if they do not give their laptop password or mobile phone PIN to the authorities under proposed changes to the law.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton introduced the new laws to the Parliament, saying they are needed to help police and spies catch criminals who are hiding behind encryption technology.

But civil libertarians say the changes go too far.

LOS ANGELES – A Sierra Madre man who until earlier this year served as a lieutenant in the Pasadena Police Department has agreed to plead guilty to two federal felony offenses related to the illegal sale of more than 100 firearms over the course of three years.

Vasken Kenneth Gourdikian, 48, who resigned from the Pasadena Police Department in March after a 22-year career, has signed a plea agreement that was filed this morning in United States District Court.

Before you give the police a DNA sample, read an alarming new study of crime laboratories published this summer, the largest study of its kind.

Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology gave the same DNA mixture to about 105 American crime laboratories and three Canadian labs and asked them to compare it with DNA from three suspects from a mock bank robbery.