[Quote:]

The British Broadcasting Corporation has been barred from running a report about a political financing scandal that has cast a shadow over Prime Minister Tony Blair’s final months, the police said on Saturday.

The government’s highest-ranking lawyer, Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith, obtained a court injunction stopping the broadcast late on Friday after a request by the police, who are investigating whether political parties awarded state honors in return for loans.

The police sought the injunction “because of their concern that disclosure of certain information at this stage would impede their inquiries,” a joint statement from the Metropolitan Police and Mr. Goldsmith said.

The move set off speculation among politicians that officers were planning to bring charges against one or more people.

Two aides to Mr. Blair were recently arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice or conspiring to do so as the investigation appeared to widen into a potential cover-up inquiry.

[Quote:]

The Sabian Mandaeans – one of the oldest religious groups in the world – are facing extinction, according to its leaders.

They claim that Islamic extremists in Iraq are trying to wipe them out through forced conversions, rape and murder.

The Mandaeans are pacifists, followers of Adam, Noah and John the Baptist.

They have lived in what is now Iraq since before Islam and Christianity.

More than 80% have been forced to flee the country and now live as refugees in Syria and Jordan.

Even there they do not feel safe – but they say western governments are unwilling to take them in.

[Quote:]

“The online community now has an opportunity to see the fruits of its labor. Back in December, the Slashdot (‘What Questions Would You Ask an RIAA Expert?’) and Groklaw (‘Another Lawyer Would Like to Pick Your Brain, Please’) communities were asked for their input on possible questions to pose to the RIAA’s ‘expert’. Dr. Doug Jacobson of Iowa State University, was scheduled to be deposed in February in UMG v. Lindor, for the first time in any RIAA case. Ms. Lindor’s lawyers were flooded with about 1400 responses. The deposition of Dr. Jacobson went forward on February 23, 2007, and the transcript is now available online (pdf) (ascii). Ray Beckerman, one of Ms. Lindor’s attorneys, had this comment: ‘We are deeply grateful to the community for reviewing our request, for giving us thoughts and ideas, and for reviewing other readers’ responses. Now I ask the tech community to review this all-important transcript, and bear witness to the shoddy investigation and junk science upon which the RIAA has based its litigation war against the people. The computer scientists among you will be astounded that the RIAA has been permitted to burden our court system with cases based upon such arrant and careless nonsense.’”

One of the slashdot posters summarizes it:

Wow! I just finished reading the ASCII transcript and would be embarassed to bring this case. Just looking at the following facts:

• The “expert” did about 45 minutes worth of work and produced no evidence to support the allegations and produced almost no documentation.
• The “expert” does not fully understand how the software that gathered the evidence functions
• The “expert” does not know if the information he received from the ISP (Verizon/3rd Party) is accurate.
• The “expert” does not know if the clocks were synchronized between the evidence gatherers and the ISP.
• The “expert” can not identify which computer is involved in the allegations.
• The “expert” can not identity what physical person is involved in the allegations.
• The “expert” understands the Internet is insecure and computers can be taken over and remote controlled.
• The “expert” understands there are several methods which could have mistakenly identified the accused, e.g. “ip spoofing”.
• The “expert” either lied under oath or is not really an expert when he said he could not make certain determinations about a computer based soley on the harddrive. He stated he could not tell if the computer had a “wireless network card” by looking soley at the registry without the computer that the registry came from. Huh???? Hint to the “expert”, look for “WLAN” in the Registry, double hint, WLAN=’Wireless LAN’.
• The “expert” could not demonstrate that the files uploaded/downloaded were copyrighted material and simply had a screen shot of some filenames and ip addresses from a 3rd party.
• The “expert” acknowledged that screenshots could be faked.
• The “expert” acknowledged that public IP addresses can change often and could be spoofed

This entire case hinges on screenshots, mystery analysis software “encase”, a questionable expert, and an IP address obtained from an ISP. The evidence in this case doesn’t even make it to the standard of “hearsay” not to mention the fact that the plaintiff lawyer appears to be highly inexperienced with Turets syndrome and keeps blurting “Objection to form.”