Top Headline Comments 5-29-12

Happy Tuesday. I hope you had a good holiday weekend.

In the news...

The Google Street View scandal isn't what you think it is, owing to bad reporting. Journalists haven't got a clue what Google did, so you see sensationalist reporting like the Daily Mail piece that RD linked yesterday, which claims that Google "downloaded" emails, text messages, photographs and documents from unlocked wi-fi networks. That word "downloaded" is a gross mischaracterization because it implies that Google went into unlocked systems and took the data; in other words, a virtual trespass.

In fact, what Google did was simply record everything that unlocked wifi networks transmitted while the Google Street View car was in range (see also the FCC report). Those unlocked transmissions may have contained emails, text messages, photographs and documents, or they may not. But no trespass was required. The users were broadcasting that data to the world, unlocked and unprotected. If you're yelling out the window at your kids, I'm perfectly within my rights to hear you if I'm standing on the sidewalk. And that's just what Google did.

Speaking of dumb journalists, the BBC apologizes for using a logo from Halo's United Nations Space Command instead of of the actual UN logo during a broadcast about the Syrian atrocities.

Romney on the support of Birther Trump: "You know I don’t agree with all the people who support me and my guess is they don’t all agree with everything I believe in. . . . But I need to get 50.1 percent or more and I'm appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people."

Erick Erickson has more to say on SWATting.

TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt, a defense attorney of some repute, reviews the Zimmerman evidence and provides the "most likely scenario" for what she believes happened. It is what you think it is.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 06:46 AM

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