Politics, Government & Public Policy: February 2014 Archives
This is a big deal! Maybe it's time to move back to California? Ninth Circuit holds that California's gun carry prohibition is unconstitutional.
So holds today's Peruta v. County of San Diego (9th Cir. Feb. 13, 2014) (2-1 vote). The court concludes that California's broad limits on both open and concealed carry of loaded guns -- with no "shall-issue" licensing regime that assures law-abiding adults of a right to get licenses, but only a "good cause" regime under which no license need be given -- "impermissibly infringe[] on the Second Amendment right to bear arms in lawful self-defense." The Ninth Circuit thus joins the Seventh Circuit, and disagrees with the Second, Third, and Fourth Circuits. (State courts are also split on the subject.)
It's pretty worrying that government employees at critical agencies are using worse passwords than President Skroob. This laziness and obliviousness is yet another reason why the power of government should be limited rather than all-encompassing.
Some of the federal government's most sensitive data are protected by passwords that wouldn't pass muster for even the most basic civilian email account, according to a new congressional report.Passwords like "password," "qwerty," and users' names have left Homeland Security Department data vulnerable, says a report released Tuesday by the Republican staff of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
And the password fiasco, the report says, is only the tip of the iceberg--plenty of other agencies have lost sensitive data as well.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission left nuclear-plant security details on a shared drive with no protection. Hackers swiped Information on the nation's dams--including their weaknesses and catastrophic potential if breached--from an Army Corps of Engineers database.
