The age-old business of breaking up has taken a decidedly Orwellian turn, with digital evidence like e-mail messages, traces of Web site visits and mobile telephone records now permeating many contentious divorce cases.
Photo - Jolene Barten-Bolender says she discovered a tracking device in a wheel well of the family car.
Spurned lovers steal each other’s BlackBerrys. Suspicious spouses hack into each other’s e-mail accounts. They load surveillance software onto the family PC, sometimes discovering shocking infidelities.
Divorce lawyers routinely set out to find every bit of private data about their clients’ adversaries, often hiring investigators with sophisticated digital forensic tools to snoop into household computers.
“In just about every case now, to some extent, there is some electronic evidence,” said Gaetano Ferro, president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, who also runs seminars on gathering electronic evidence. “It has completely changed our field.”
Privacy advocates have grown increasingly worried that digital tools are giving governments and powerful corporations the ability to peek into peoples’ lives as never before. But the real snoops are often much closer to home. (more)
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AL - The origin of an FBI investigation of Lawrence County Commission offices, including the seizure of an apparent bugging system, could remain a mystery for months or longer.U.S. Magistrate Judge Harwell G. Davis III placed the search warrant proceeding under seal Tuesday, prohibiting public access to the affidavit, the search warrant and the return of the search warrant. ...FBI agents seized a clock radio purchased from the Alabama Spy Shop from the commission office. Agents seized the following items from Assistant County Administrator Karen Harrison's office: seven video cassettes, a digital display 12-channel receiver, one power supply, audio visual cables, coaxial cables and a receipt and purchase order from Alabama Spy Shop.The bugging system had reportedly been in place since 2004.Cross said he didn't know about the bugging system or why someone would install it. (more)
Chinese and Russian spies are stalking the United States at levels close to those seen during the tense covert espionage duels of the Cold War, the top US intelligence officer warned Tuesday.Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell raised the specter of a new era of clandestine intelligence wars during a House of Representatives hearing on a contentious new law on warrantless wiretapping. (more)
An Ohio man facing a lawsuit from his wife's friend for intercepting her emails using spyware on a household computer filed suit Friday against the spyware maker, arguing the company's ads failed to warn him that using it to monitor his family, including his wife, would violate state and federal laws.
Relying on a federal wiretap law that allows victims of spying to sue for damages, Jeffrey Havlicek argues that Deep Software, the Canadian company that sold him the key logger, should pay him thousands of dollars in damages and pay any claim from the lawsuit filed against him for spying illegally. (more)
In what Singapore's Chief Justice declared was the first time that questions of law have been raised here over the ownership of garbage, the courts allowed an appeal from a group of creditors who had a dump staked out, so as to dig up the dirt on their debtor.Almost daily for six months, a group of private investigators hired by the creditors — various American investment funds — lurked around the common rubbish dump at Orchard Towers.
From a distance, they would watch cleaners deposit bags of trash. And after the cleaner contracted by two companies, Vestwin Trading and Hilltree Enterprise, made his drop-off, the investigators — taking care not to be spotted — moved in to pick up the bag of trash. (more)
Dumpster diving is alive and well. Take precautions. And, yes... the book is real. Buy it here, and find out how dumpster divers are trained!
"If You're Not Spying, You're Not Trying"
by George Solomon, Sports Columnist, The Washington Post
(from an article in which he discusses football spying)
South Africa - Defence Counsel in the Boeremag treason trial on Monday complained bitterly that someone seemed to be listening in on their conversations during private consultations inside the courtroom.One of the defence advocates, Bernard Bantjes, said he had recently found out that private consultations when the court was not sitting were allegedly being recorded, sent to a central computer and then erased once a week.
This was apparently despite recording equipment being switched off when the trial was not in sitting, he said.
Other defence advocates said they had also received complaints before that someone was listening in on their conversations, but chief prosecutor Paul Fick SC said this was the first time he heard of the allegation, and he was equally upset about it. (more)
The NFL is continuing to monitor spying devices after the penalties levied by commissioner Roger Goodell against the New England Patriots.NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said Sunday that new memos on both videotaping and electronic surveillance of signals have gone out to all 32 teams reminding them of bans on the various types of surveillance.''It's nothing new,'' Aiello said. ''We just want to remind people how the rules work.'' (more)
Denmark, ranked five places higher than China at six in the world, are understood to be fuming after rumours they were spied on during tactical sessions behind a two-way mirror wall.
It is understood Denmark had taken photos to provide evidence of the spying but had the camera stolen, and it all came to a head after the dramatic finish to the match when a member of the Denmark staff allegedly punched a Chinese counterpart.
New Zealand, who are in the same group, had been informed of spies at training sessions in Auckland before the World Cup and claim since arriving in China they have regularly been spied on at closed sessions. (more)
from the police blotter...
"7:18 p.m. — Police were asked to check a woman's car because she thought her former boyfriend put a bugging device in it. The officers found nothing." (source)
Unfortunately, most people don't know that professional eavesdropping detection assistance is available. Whenever eavesdropping is suspected consult with one of them, first. For business eavesdropping concerns click here.
NH - Patrolmen and sergeants within the Seabrook Police Department have filed an unfair labor practice against the department to get information on phone-recording devices they say allowed others to secretly record them. (more)
CA - A San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's spokesman said Monday that the department will make no comment on a high-ranking commander's accusation that the sheriff and undersheriff illegally spied on him in his office during a private meeting in late 2006.Sheriff's Cmdr. Gary Hoving filed a $1.25 million claim against the county Friday, alleging Sheriff Pat Hedges and Undersheriff Steve Bolts illegally bugged his office in October 2006.In the claim, Hoving, a 28-year veteran and the third-highest-ranking officer in the Sheriff's Department, accuses Hedges and Bolts of “unlawfully entering” his office in early October 2006 to place a concealed video camera in the ceiling.The claim also alleges that Bolts attached an audio recording device to the common wall between Hedges' and Hoving's office with the intent of recording a “private” meeting between Hoving and Sgt. Jay Donovan.The surveillance and recording equipment was operated from Hedges' office, according to the claim. (more)
The McLaren-Mercedes Formula One team was on Thursday night fined $100m – a sum unprecedented in sport – and thrown out of this year’s F1 constructors’ championship by motor sport’s top judicial body.The FIA World Motor Sport Council took the action after finding the Anglo-German team, which until Thursday night led the competition, guilty of fraudulent behaviour relating to a technical dossier belonging to rival Ferrari which was found in the possession of a senior employee.In a further humiliation for both the McLaren team and DaimlerChrysler, which owns a 40 per cent stake, the council ruled that McLaren’s cars for the 2008 season would be assessed by independent inspectors to establish whether any secrets contained in the 780-page document had been utilised. (more)
Patriots coach Bill Belichick has been fined the league maximum of $500,000, and the team has been ordered to pay $250,000 for illegally taping the New York Jets' sidelines during last Sunday's 38-14 win at the Meadowlands. (Belichick was warned last season when his spy cameraman, Matt Estrella, was caught on the sidelines in Green Bay.) ...
The Jets coach looked beyond paranoid when he put a paper shredder in the locker room to destroy practice plans. Somehow, that almost seems like a smart precaution now. If the Patriots are brazen enough to do this on the road, imagine what they're doing at home. The next team that travels to Foxboro should leave their special teams at home and bring CSI on the trip to sweep for bugs.Think we're kidding? It's already happening. Kevin Murray, who runs a counter-espionage firm in Oldwick, has been hired by several NFL teams to secure team offices during sensitive contract negotiations. "I don't think they're paranoid," Murray said. "Just cautious." (more)
The age-old business of breaking up has taken a decidedly Orwellian turn, with digital evidence like e-mail messages, traces of Web site visits and mobile telephone records now permeating many contentious divorce cases.
