Encryption called threat to police
WASHINGTON – Federal law enforcement officials warned Wednesday that data encryption is making it harder to hunt for pedophiles and terror suspects, telling senators that consumers’ right to privacy is not absolute and must be weighed against public-safety interests.
The testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee marked the latest front in a high-stakes dispute between the Obama administration and some of the world’s most influential tech companies, placing squarely before Congress an ongoing discussion that has shown no signs of an easy resolution.
FBI and Justice Department officials have repeatedly asserted that encryption technology built into smartphones makes it harder for them to monitor and intercept messages from criminal suspects.
Gun in pier shooting was BLM ranger’s
SAN FRANCISCO – The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said Wednesday a gun stolen from one of its rangers was used in the shooting death of a woman walking on a popular San Francisco pier.
The BLM-issued handgun was taken from the ranger’s car while he was in San Francisco on business, agency spokesman Dan Wilson said.
It was immediately reported to the San Francisco Police Department, he said.
Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, who has been deported to his native Mexico five times, told television news stations he found the gun on the pier and it accidentally fired.
Nigerian militants offer to trade girls
LAGOS, Nigeria – Nigeria’s Boko Haram extremists are offering to free more than 200 young women and girls kidnapped from a boarding school in the town of Chibok in exchange for the release of militant leaders held by the government, a human rights activist has told The Associated Press.
The activist said Boko Haram’s current offer is limited to the girls from the school in northeastern Nigeria whose mass abduction in April 2014 ignited worldwide outrage and a campaign to “Bring Back Our Girls” that stretched to the White House.
The new initiative reopens an offer made last year to the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Associated Press
