Well, isn't this intriguing. In a boon for privacy and civil rights advocates, the federal government recently discovered that they can't actually collect text messages from people they're wiretapping if they own an iPhone and are texting someone else with an iPhone via iMessage. As CNN reports, an internal memo circulated just last month amongst the DEA discusses how iMessages are hardware encrypted, and are not being collected in any readable fashion with other text message data.

This means they would need someone at Apple itself to cooperate with them, should they need to decrypt some messages, or they would need to break into a suspect's physical phone hardware.

Texting has been frequently at the center of court cases during the last decade in challenges to the federal wiretapping law. The Federal Wiretap Act was first passed in 1968 and updated in 1986, but there remain tons of gray areas surrounding computer communications and texts. Essentially, though, gaining access to a person's texts via a telephone service provider falls under the provider exception, in which law enforcement officers with a valid court order can direct the service provider to hand over this data.

iMessage has been around since 2011, but it seems the feds are only recently catching on that it inhibits their ability to access text data.

Update: Well, it seems that this memo may have been purposely leaked by the DEA, and it remains ever possible that the feds could go to Apple directly to gain access to the messages. As TechDirt adds, "in fact, in many ways iMessages may be even more prone to surveillance, since SMS messages are only stored on mobile operators' servers for a brief time, whereas iMessages appear to be stored by Apple indefinitely." [TechDirt]

[CNN]

Probably not surprising to anyone who prefers metallic headwear: government requests for Twitter users' account information has been on the rise ever since the short-winded social network started publishing this data in July of 2012. Since then, government or law enforcement requests for information have jumped up by 20% in the past six months from 849 to 1009. In 69% of those requests July and December, Twitter willingly handed over information. 75% of the time, affected users were never notified that Twitter had received a request for their account information.

Twitter's official policy is to notify users when a government or law enforcement agency has made a request, but 20% of the requests are issued under seal — meaning a court has legally prohibited them from telling you that they've been digging around those illicit DMs you've been sending. (If you're not sending illicit DMs or planning a revolution, you're probably not using Twitter right.) Another 56% were not under seal, but users weren't notified either because the request was improper or because they determined it was a potentially life-threatening emergency. [Note: see update below for break down.]

The vast majority (about 80%) of information requests comes from the U.S., which Twitter says is because they're located in San Francisco. If you're paranoid or just finished the latest season of Homeland, you might also assume that's actually because literally anyone in America could be a terrorist. As one former CIA analyst-turned-tech consultant told the New York Daily News, "I would strongly suspect that they have much better access than we are hearing [...] Twitter is definitely being monitored. Anything out there I’d take with a grain of salt. Anyone posing as a terrorist could really be an intelligence expert.”

So, if you needed one, now you have a good reason not to tweet with terrorists.

Copyright notices, on the other hand, remained pretty constant around 3,300 notices sent — most of those being Cease and Desist requests from movie studios asking Twitter to take down tweets linking to pirated movie sites.

Update Jan. 31: We heard back from Twitter on at least one clarification. Of the 56% of information requests that were not under seal, but did not require notifying users: 10% were determined to be emergencies.

[Twitter Blog]
[NYDaily]

At about 12:51 p.m. today, a man reportedly approached a U.S. marshal outside the SF Federal Building at Golden Gate and Larkin, made anti-government statements, said his backpack contained explosives, and left the scene.

SFPD's bomb squad responded to the marshal's 911 call and are currently investigating the backpack, which was recovered around 2:44 p.m. Additionally, an SFist source says that SFPD sent in robots to deal with the backpack.

The incident has caused several street closures in Civic Center, including Golden Gate Avenue between Van Ness Avenue and Hyde Street, Polk Street between McAllister and Turk streets, and Larkin Street between McAllister and Turk streets.

A shelter-in-place was declared for workers in the state and federal buildings on each side of Golden Gate Avenue between Polk and Larkin streets.

[BCN]
[CBS SF]

The ideas of April approacheth, which means it's time to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, otherwise known as filing your taxes. This year the ides are even pushed back three days, giving you that much longer to procrastinate. If you feel confident as a DIY sort, you can electronically file for free directly with the IRS and California, or use several different software packages. There are of course plenty of pros available to help, including the three big national tax prep chains. Or if a Lady Liberty-clad dancer seems a bit menacing, lower-income folks can free tax assistance from this United Way-sponsored program. Just be sure to file your taxes (or an extension) on time - we don't want to have to bake you a cake with a hacksaw in it to spring you from jail.

Stubborn big-government naysayers, listen up: when Spare the Air says do not burn Duraflame logs, the mean do not burn Duraflame logs. Take, for example, Mike, a reader from San Carlos, who sent us the following letter about getting busted from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District after lighting a Duraflame on Christmas.

Mike writes:

Hi,

Found your name/email on a story about Duraflame suing Spare the Air. Figured this might be a good place to start.

2 years ago, on Christmas day, I dared to have a fire in my fireplace, probably a Duraflame, while the kids opened Christmas presents. A regular Rockwell moment.

A month later, I got a notice from spare the air that we were in violation. Wow - what a shocker, seriously. I had never heard of this organization, and who drives around on Christmas day issuing violations? Oh wait, I think I know...

Now, 15 months later, these folks decide to offer me a settlement of a my civil disobedience, for only $400 I can make this go away. You've got to be freaking kidding me! 15 months later, they decide to blackmail me? Oh, the letter says it could be up to a million dollar fine.

Thanks

Mike

Below: pertinent documents sent to Mike from Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

Last week we called your attention to this gentleman who used his two minutes of public comment at the Board of Supervisors meeting to creep us out and predict Judgement Day for February 9th, 2011 based on whatever formula he just came up with the Dead Sea Scrolls or something. He has obviously captured our attention ever since we started gluing ourselves to SF Government TV a couple weeks ago, but as SFist commenter jbwinste pointed out, this guy is no stranger to these meetings around the Bay Area.

Acting on that tip, we dug up footage from a 7-hour long San Jose City Council meeting on April 27th of this year. (Don't worry, we edited it down to the important part, embedded below.) Besides learning that the capital of Silicon Valley allows a generous three minutes of speaking time in their "Open Forum" section, we finally found our man tucked in at the end just before the City Council takes their recess.

As if going to the DMV wasn't harrowing enough, Amber Yust, a 23-year-old software engineer, had a particularly vile experience when she went to change register her sex denotation at the San Francisco Department of Motor Vehicles: One or the government employees called her an "abomination."

The Chronicle reports:

A few days after Amber Yust visited the Department of Motor Vehicles in San Francisco to register her sex change from male to female, she got a letter at home from the DMV employee who had handled her application.

Homosexual acts, he informed her, were "an abomination that leads to hell."

The same day, Yust said, a DVD arrived from a fundamentalist church warning of eternal damnation for anyone "possessed by demons" of homosexuality. The DMV employee's letter had referred her to the church's website as a source of "critical information for your salvation."

And, if that wasn't bad enough, "the DMV had kept the employee on in 2009 even after he refused to process another transgender woman's name-change application."

The employee has been identified as Thomas Demartini.

" 'I feel really vulnerable,' " Yust explained to The Chronicle. "It's 'scary that someone who's part of a government agency is able to take my personal information and get in touch with me. I don't think anyone could feel safe going to a DMV where they knew someone like that was working.' "

Although the DMA has not (yet) formally apologized, a regional manager gave a meager mea culp for the Demartini's "unprofessional and disrespectful behavior." Yust has since filed a damage claim before she moves forward with a lawsuit.

Update: Read Demartini's abominable letter below.