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Gov’t must give up 5 secret surveillance docs for court to review, judge orders

In a key transparency case, a federal judge has ordered the United States government to hand over four orders and one opinion from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) published in secret between 2005 and 2008. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers will then review those documents in private.

The case, known as Electronic Frontier Foundation v. Department of Justice, hinges on which, if any, documents from the FISC should be made public. The original lawsuit (PDF) dates back to October 2011, when the EFF asked the government to handover "all reports, memoranda, guidance, presentations, legal briefs, e-mails or any other record" pertaining to Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act.

Following the Snowden revelations, we've learned that this is the crucial section of US law that governs the routine metadata handover program from Verizon (and presumably other telcos) to the US government. However, EFF v. DOJ case began nearly two years before Snowden.

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Motorcyclist who filmed, uploaded police flight video to serve hard time

Still from seven-minute police evasion video taken from camera mounted on Ali's motorcycle.

In a bizarre (but somewhat unsurprising) twist of fate, a motorcyclist who recorded video of himself speeding away from a police car while wearing a court-ordered GPS anklet for an unrelated offense—and who then proceeded to post the video footage to YouTube—has been apprehended, tried, and sentenced to a four-year prison term.

Hamza Ali Ben Ali, of Plainfield, Illinois, successfully evaded a police officer's attempt to stop his vehicle back in October 2012. Ali then waited two weeks before uploading to YouTube the seven-and-a-half minutes of uncut video footage shot from a camera affixed to his Honda CBR 1000 motorcycle, reports The Chicago Tribune.

The footage shows Ali's motorcycle accelerating away from a police car with flashing lights after the officer signaled for him to stop at a gas station. The video footage then shows the officer break away from the pursuit only to catch up to the motorcyclist before again losing sight of the 31-year-old suspect as he sped away.

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Man who beat NSA in T-shirt parody case wins against Ready for Hillary

The Ready for Hillary organization, a group that's laying the groundwork for a potential presidential campaign by Hillary Clinton, has backed down from its demand that a parody T-shirt and related items be removed from an online store.

The T-shirt reads: "I'm Ready for Oligarchy," a parody of the group's slogan: "I'm Ready for Hillary."

The maker of the shirt, a Minnesota-based activist named Dan McCall, had previously won a bid to make and sell T-shirts parodying the National Security Agency. Paul Alan Levy, McCall's attorney, said that he was informed of Ready for Hillary's intention to drop the demand late Thursday.

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Fitbit developing a Windows Phone 8.1 app

Windows Phone's application gap may be getting a bit smaller. Fitness smartband company Fitbit has confirmed that it's developing an app for Windows Phone 8.1.

The post on its community forum (registration required) via WPCentral offers little information and few details, saying only that "Fitbit is developing an application for Windows Phone 8.1."

The company already has an application for Windows 8.1, so it's possible that Fitbit is taking advantage of one of Windows Phone 8.1's biggest new features for developers: Universal apps, which allow devs to share as much as 90 percent of their code between Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1.

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Preview: An epic history of Android

When the first prerelease versions of Android arrived on the scene in 2007, few imagined the mobile juggernaut that Google's mobile operating system would become. Six years later, Android is incredibly popular and has spawned a massive ecosystem of hardware and software.

How did we get from Android 0.5 to 4.4? Ars has an epic 40,000-word history of Android coming on Sunday night, June 15. In it, we tell the tale of Android's evolution from its prerelease form to the mobile powerhouse it is today.

Coming soon. (video link)

Tune in Sunday night!

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Short-Term Sacrifices Lead To Long-Term Financial Health

Over at Get Rich Slowly, J.D. Roth shares a story of a reader who approached him asking what to do if you're broke but couldn't suffer the idea of a side job. The whole affair is a reminder that if you're looking to dig out of debt or save for the future, you have to make some sacrifices to get to those goals. More »
   
 
 

Fitbay Helps You Find Clothes That Fit Your Body Type Online

One of the biggest problems with shopping for clothes online is that you can't try them on to see if they fit. Fitbay aims to alleviate this problem by only showing you clothes that are available in your size and fit. More »
   
 
 

Stringnote Saves Photos And Video To Evernote With A Double Tap

Android: When you want to record something to Evernote, speed can be of the essence. Stringnote turns your phone's power button into a handy note-taking shortcut. More »
   
 
 

Can Rational Arguments Actually Change People's Minds?

Are we, the human species, unreasonable? Do rational arguments have any power to sway us, or is it all intuition, hidden motivation and various other forms of prejudice? The answer isn't simple, but we may not be irrational creatures after all. More »
   
 
 
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