Weekly Daily Brickbats Archive 2009 July 29-31

The British government has told communications companies to keep track of all Internet contacts anyone makes—emails, visits to social network sites, websites visited—and organize them in case law enforcement needs the information. The government says people should not worry because the databases will merely record contacts, not the content of those communications.

Agnes Lawless had a bad day. First, she was rear-ended by a hit-and-run driver. Shortly afterward, she was in a convenience store when a man approached her from behind and grabbed her neck. As she pulled away, he jammed a gun in her neck so hard it left a bruise. The man was Alberto Lopez Sr., an on-duty police officer and the father of the driver who had hit her car. Lopez arrested Lawless for assaulting him and later testified that when he ordered Lawless and friends to the floor, she "freaked out" and begin hitting him. Fortunately, for Lawless, the store's security cameras showed exactly what happened and charges against her were dismissed.

The Department of Homeland Security is investigating racist posts on a newspaper's website that were traced to Internet protocol addresses at that agency. The posts came in response to a story about the arrests of Mexican immigrants in western New York.