U.S. 'may' enact a Privacy Bill of Rights

FutureWatch - The Obama administration plans to ask Congress Wednesday to pass a "privacy bill of rights" to protect Americans from intrusive data gathering, amid growing concern about the tracking and targeting of Internet users. (more)

"...and what about the 18 second flatulence gap?"

GA - A Clayton County Grand Jury meets Wednesday to hear charges against a sheriff's deputy accused of making a recording of another employee in the restroom.

The District Attorney's Office is bringing a proposed indictment charging Sheriff's Deputy and Public Information Officer Alicia Parkes with unlawfully eavesdropping on the job. Parkes is alleged to have made a recording with her cell phone of a co-worker in the bathroom. A half-dozen witnesses are expected to testify. (more)

HBO Announces Cold War Drama with ‘80s Spy Series ‘Reds’

HBO has announced it is developing a new series tentatively titled Reds, inspired by the real-life occurrence of a KGB sleeper agent infiltrating the United States during the 1980s.

The series will be drawn from an encounter writer/director Martyn Burke had while filming a documentary across the United States in the early part of the decade. Unknown to Burke, and the rest of his crew, the soundman they were all working with was actually a colonel in the KGB. Before being found out, the Soviet spy managed to successfully establish a base of operations just outside New York City, and sought to conceal his true identity further by trying to start and raise a family. (more)

Pakistan frees CIA spy charged with murder

Raymond Davis, the CIA spy charged with murder in Pakistan, has been freed after the families of two dead men agreed to drop charges in exchange for financial compensation. (more)

How not to handle your surly survant problems in Maryland...

More bad neighbors.

MD - A 42-year-old city woman accused of recording private conversations of employees at a Salisbury apartment complex has been charged on a warrant for wiretapping.

Cassandra Denise Baytops was arrested in connection with an alleged January wiretapping incident, according to the Salisbury Police Department. An investigation revealed that the suspect made both video and audio recordings of conversations by the victims, then presented the data to another apartment complex employee, police said. Baytops was charged with four counts of wiretapping, then jailed at the Wicomico County Detention Center. Bond was not determined. (more)

Maryland state law requires that all parties to a recording consent to being recorded.

Dom, Le Espion... or, "The guard probably did it."

France - A security agent for Renault has been charged with fraud and accused of inventing industrial espionage claims that led the French carmaker to wrongly suspect — and suspend — three executives, the state prosecutor said Monday...

Preliminary charges of "organized fraud" were filed Sunday against Dominique Gevrey, once employed by the Defense Ministry intelligence service and now a member of Renault's security service, prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin told reporters Monday.

Gevrey had been detained Friday at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport as he prepared to board a flight for Guinea, and has since been jailed. (more)

FutureWatch - Let insurer spy on driving, get a discount

“Romper, bomper, stomper, boo.
Tell me, tell me, tell me do.
Magic Mirror, tell me today.
Did all my friends have fun today?”

More auto insurers are rolling out programs offering discounts to drivers who let the company electronically spy on their driving habits.

Progressive, one of the nation's largest auto insurers, today launches a nationwide ad campaign for its "Snapshot" program, in which drivers can elect to install a small data recorder in their cars that tracks how hard they brake, how far they drive and whether it's day or night driving. Based on the results, drivers can save up to 30 percent on their insurance. Average savings: $150 a year.

Progressive is one of a growing list of insurers with discounts for monitoring:
• Allstate. The Drive Wise program begun last year in Illinois will expand to other states.
• GMAC. Only total mileage is tracked - up to 54 percent off - drive fewer than 2,500 miles a year.
• State Farm. Mileage also is tallied via OnStar mileage for its "Drive Safe & Save" plan in California and Ohio. Texas will be added next month, Illinois later this year.

Although the programs are voluntary, they've raised the eyebrows of privacy advocates. One worry is that the insurers eventually will make the monitoring mandatory. (more)

Lyon May Put Teeth into CA Video Voyeurism Law

CA - Michael Lyon pled guilty today to what he called “criminal conduct which was selfish, impulsive and wrong.” In a deal with prosecutors, he admitted to four counts of felony electronic eavesdropping.

He was arrested last November for videotaping prostitutes in his home without their knowledge. As part of his plea deal, Lyon will have to spend a year in the custody of Sacramento County, but there is a good chance he will be placed in home detention, with an electronic monitoring device attached to his ankle. (more)

Lyon case spurs effort to tighten state's video voyeurism law
Lyons' ugly divorce battle takes a new twist

No, I'm not Mr. Rogers. I'm Mr. Rivard, your neighbor.

MI - The trial for a man who police said broke into his neighbor’s home 10 times over a four-month period continues. Paul Rivard, 36, is also accused of planting a baby monitor in the bedroom of his neighbor’s home to eavesdrop on them. Authorities said he also rearranged items in their home and torched their clothes... If Rivard is convicted, this incident will not be his first home invasion. State prison records show the 36-year-old was paroled in late 2008 after serving 10 years for second-degree home invasion. (more with video)

SpyCam Story #604 - 44 Regrets?!?!

UK - A peeping tom who hid a spy camera in a teddy bear and recorded a woman in a state of undress has walked free from court. Voyeur Paul Littlewood’s secret recordings only came to light after he sexually assaulted his victim by touching her breast over her T-shirt... Prosecutor Sue Jacobs said that was examined and found to contain 612 movie files of which 44 appeared to be taken by either a webcam or a spycam and showed a woman in various stages of undress.

The court heard that Littlewood told police that he had hidden a camera inside a teddy bear but “regretted it straight away” and subsequently destroyed the camera. (more)

From Android to spyDroid in just 299 Cents

A non-stealth mobile phone spy app...

Secret Spy will send you an email with your phone's location, a picture from the camera, call logs, text Messaging logs, and the visited web page history, on demand.

T-shirt extra.

Secret Spy checks your Gmail account every few minutes and waits for you to send yourself a blank email from that same account. When Secret Spy gets that email, it activates and wakes up the phone, takes a picture, and sends that picture along with the phone's logs to your Gmail email address...

Secret Spy does not try to hide itself on the phone. It DOES show up as an entry in your application list. It is only meant for legal uses such as wildlife photography, or for monitoring your house's security. (more) (T-shirt)

From iPhone to Video spyPhone in just 299 Cents

A revamped iPhone videography app from Mirage Labs is crammed so full of features that the developer is promoting it as "the Swiss Army knife of camcorders." Among those militaristic attributes: a "spy cam" setting that lets users make surreptitious recordings.

MultiCorder 2.0, formerly known as Flexicorder, debuted Wednesday in the iOS App Store. The new spy mode lets users select a picture from their photo library to display on screen while making the secret video; a finger swipe up or down the screen automatically ends the recording. (more)

Security Directors: FREE Security White Paper - "Surreptitious Workplace Recording ...and what you can do about it."   

The Giant Ants of Atlanta Meet The Big Bees of Melbourne

The recent post about Uncle Milton's ant farm colonies, complete with The Giant Ants of Atlanta, 

echoed around the world and brought us The Big Bees of Melbourne, from a reader with a sense of humor. 

Very cool! 

Thank you.

Security Director Alert: Tiny GPS Tracker with Real-Time Reporting

Keep track of top executives as they travel. Bonus: SOS button. 

TrackingTheWorld's newest portable real-time GPS tracking device is the WorldTracker Enduro Pro... offers improved GPS sensitivity, and up to 60 day battery life.

Throughout our (GPS Magazine) testing, Enduro Pro's performance was outstanding. The device provided reliable real-time tracking, even in challenging environments, and in areas of marginal cellular coverage.

The Bottom Line
• Exceptional accuracy and battery life
• Small enough to be carried by a child, powerful enough to be used by law enforcement
• Works in extreme weather conditions (-40° to 185°F), IPX-5 Water Resistant
• GeoFencing

• Speed reporting

• SOS / Panic button
• Priced under $200, plus monthly service

Once fully charged, the Enduro Pro can last up to 60 days on a single charge (that estimate is based on updates every 2 hours, and little motion. When set to update more frequently, such as every 2 minutes, battery life drops to a still-impressive 2 weeks on average). 

Location Reports

Reports are accessed via TrackingTheWorld.com. Maps can be viewed as Road view, Aerial view, or Hybrid (Road & Aerial). The map can be zoomed in or out, and panned by dragging the mouse around or using the pan/zoom control in the upper-left corner of the screen.

Tabs along the right side of the map screen allow you to view historical location data for previous days/months, as well as access driving reports, configure GeoFence alerts, and set how frequently Enduro Pro should send location updates (less frequent updates = longer battery life).

Click to enlarge.

The breadcrumbing feature allows you to see where the device has been throughout a given day, as well as the direction of travel and speed the device was traveling. (more)

Bump.com - License Plate Tag or Public Branding

Bump.com, an online start-up, is creating a way for people to ping each other using their license plates. The company’s founder, Mitch Thrower, compares the service to online coupon and location-sharing sites — with one exception. “It’s like a Groupon or Foursquare that you can’t turn off,” he says.

You can’t turn it off because the service will capture your license plate whether you like it or not. But to receive virtual fist-shaking, finger-pointing, or flirty messages from fellow motorists, or the “special offers” from merchants that Thrower hopes will pay his company for access to your in-box, you actually do have to sign up and identify yourself as the owner of your license plate.

The service works by using images of license plates snapped by other people using their cell phone cameras, or by license plate numbers people can send via telephone, a special email address, or a smartphone app. The company has already captured more than 250,000 license plates from a combination of messages sent by beta testers and publicly-available video feeds like cameras at toll booths, according to Thrower.

The site will officially launch at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, next week. (more)