Free Republic

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A state police report says the Alabama truck driver involved in a March crash that killed himself and 10 others in central Kentucky was talking on a cell phone. Police say Kenneth Laymon of Jasper, Ala., crossed the median of Interstate 65 in central Kentucky on March 26 and slammed into a van carrying Mennonites traveling to a wedding in Iowa.

We now have The Smoking Gun that proves Janet Napolitano, the F.B.I., and the entire national security apparatus of the U.S. government failed to protect its people in regards to the attempted bombing of Times Square by Faisal Shahzad. Napolitano should be immediately fired for dereliction of duty, you ask why, because the U.S. government had Shahzad’s cell phone number yet they did not check to see who he called, who called him, did members of the Taliban or Al Qaeda contact him via that cell phone, all the government did was write the number down, forget about further surveilling...

Oprah Winfrey is trying to raise awareness about the dangers of talking and texting on cell phones while driving. On Friday, the talk show maven hosted a special taping of her show in which she urged people to dedicate their vehicles as "no phone zones." In an appearance on "Good Morning America," Winfrey said: "My plea is to recognize that really it is an addiction. Look, five years ago, 10 years ago we weren't doing this. We used to drive in our cars and reach the destination; think about what we had to do once we got to the destination...

DOVER — Bob and Mary St. Germain say they can’t believe it. Four years after their son, Bryan, used his cellphone to connect to the Internet, the couple is still trying to fight the bill: a nearly $18,000 tab from Verizon. Bryan, now 26, thought his family’s plan included free data downloads. It didn’t, and in August 2006, the St. Germains’ phone bill ballooned to more than 100 times the normal amount. “You can’t print what my husband said’’ when the bill came, Mary St. Germain said. “He was very shocked.’’

SNIPPET: "CLARKSTON, Wash. -- The family of a missing Clarkston woman says Rachel Anderson, 40, was stalked for weeks by an unknown caller to her cell phone. Clarkston Police believe Anderson's disappearance is suspicious." SNIPPET: "The last time anyone saw her was the evening of Friday, April 16. Detectives traveled to Moscow, Idaho and searched a building where Anderson was last seen. Detectives were in touch with Anderson well before she disappeared because she had filed several harassment complaints with police. Her family says for months someone was texting her strange messages, calling her, and then hanging up. They fear...

ORLANDO, Fla.- A Florida juvenile court judge went too far when he found a woman in contempt because her cellphone rang in the courtroom, an appeals court ruled. The appeals panel in Daytona said Michelle McRoy's ringing phone was "annoying" but that does not justify a finding of contempt, The Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel reported Thursday. The court said Circuit Judge Anthony Johnson provided no evidence for his contempt finding and a order that McRoy's phone should be confiscated. "Contempt is an act tending to embarrass, hinder, or obstruct the court in the administration of justice, or to lessen the court's...

This is a cautionary tale about the perils of answering a cellphone in a theater as the movie's rolling. Taj Showers, settling in for a matinee with her 10-year-old son, did just that as The Incredible Hulk was doing his thing on the big screen. She clicked her vibrating phone and hunched forward to "discreetly" hold her conversation, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Cook County Circuit Court. But it was as she was leaning forward, her head tilted to the side that an upright armrest fell in to position -- bonking her so hard, she says, that she...

If there was nothing to the allegations, then why were four of the five Muslim soldiers discharged? It seems to me that the earliest reports were wrong that the five Muslims were plotting to poison Fort Jackson's food supply. But later reports that there were nothing to the allegations were also clarified when we learned that the investigation was not into a plot but over comments about poisoning the food.

Mobile phone allows boss to snoop By Michael Fitzpatrick, Tokyo Researchers have produced a mobile phone that could be a boon for prying bosses wanting to keep tabs on the movements of their staff. Japanese phone giant KDDI Corporation has developed technology that tracks even the tiniest movement of the user and beams the information back to HQ. It works by analysing the movement of accelerometers, found in many handsets. Activities such as walking, climbing stairs or even cleaning can be identified, the researchers say. The company plans to sell the service to clients such as managers, foremen and employment...

LANCASTER-- A man was stabbed in the neck with a meat thermometer after asking a woman to silence her cell phone in a movie theater, a sheriff's department official said. The stabbing occurred last Saturday at the Cinemark 22 theater at 2600 West Avenue I in Lancaster, according to Detective Richard Cartmill of the Lancaster sheriff's station. Deputies say that while the movie was playing, a woman was talking on her phone and the victim asked her to turn it off. The victim was attacked by the woman's boyfriend and another man. Deputies say he was stabbed in the neck...

N.Korean executed for calling S.Korea: report SEOUL (AFP) – A North Korean has been publicly executed for using a mobile phone to tell a defector friend in South Korea about living conditions in the communist state, a rights group said Thursday. The man identified only as Jung was executed in late January after security officials discovered a Chinese mobile phone in his home, said the Seoul-based Open Radio for North Korea. It said Jung, a munitions worker in the northeastern port of Hamhung, confessed under torture that he had mentioned rice prices and living conditions.

The Justice Department is poised this week to publicly defend a little-known law-enforcement practice that critics say may be the "sleeper" privacy issue of the 21st century: the collection of cell-phone "tracking" records that identify the physical locations where the phones have been. It may come as a surprise to most of the owners of the country's 277 million cell phones, but their cell-phone company retains records of where their device has been at all times—either because the phones have tiny GPS devices embedded inside or because each phone call is routed through towers that can be used to pinpoint...

8-min video presenting some of the harmful effects associated with cell phones and relating them to cigarettes.

Two years ago, when the FBI was stymied by a band of armed robbers known as the "Scarecrow Bandits" that had robbed more than 20 Texas banks, it came up with a novel method of locating the thieves. FBI agents obtained logs from mobile phone companies corresponding to what their cellular towers had recorded at the time of a dozen different bank robberies in the Dallas area. The voluminous records showed that two phones had made calls around the time of all 12 heists, and that those phones belonged to men named Tony Hewitt and Corey Duffey. A jury eventually...

In a what-was-he-thinking move, Representative Peter King (R-NY) has recently introduced H.R. 414, the Camera Phone Predator Alert Act which is aimed at preventing "predators" from taking illicit photos of others in public with cell phones. The bill will force cell phone manufacturers to make the camera feature of a cell phone emit a noise so that it will be audibly obvious when a picture is taken. As the bill summary at Thomas.loc.gov states: Requires any mobile phone containing a digital camera to sound a tone whenever a photograph is taken with the camera's phone. Prohibits such a phone from...

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - The Washington state Senate has taken action against distracted drivers, passing a measure Friday that makes it easier for police to ticket people who are driving while either texting or talking on a cell phone without a headset. On a 33-15 vote Friday, the Senate passed a bill that makes it a primary offense to be caught holding a cell phone to your ear while driving, or to be reading, writing or sending text messages. That strengthens the state's current secondary offense law, which only slaps drivers with an extra fine if they are pulled over...

CHULA VISTA — Letty Soriano and her 16-year-old daughter, Janel, made a pact for their trip to Dubai to limit their international roaming charges on the girl’s cell phone: Janel could text-message her friends but not call them. If she got lost, Janel could call or text her mom. Surfing the Internet on her smart phone was left to Janel’s discretion. As Soriano understood it from a phone call with her carrier, there would be no additional cost for that, other than the standard charges included in the family’s data plan. But two days after returning from visiting her sister...

Only three days after Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced the new rules that prohibit drivers of trucks and buses from using cell phones and texting while behind the wheel, officials at the Highway Loss Data Institute released study findings that show no reductions in crashes after hand-held phone bans take effect.

China to scan text messages to spot `unhealthy content' 20 Jan 2010, 1840 hrs IST, New York Times BEIJING: As the Chinese government expands what it calls a campaign against pornography, cellular companies in Beijing and Shanghai have been told to suspend text services to cell phone users who are found to have sent messages with “illegal or unhealthy content,” state-run news media reported Tuesday. China Mobile, one of the nation’s largest cellular providers, reported that text messages would automatically be scanned for “key words” provided by the police, according to China Daily, a state-controlled English-language newspaper. Messages will be...

LAS VEGAS - The company behind the magicJack, the cheap Internet phone gadget that's been heavily promoted on TV, has made a new version of the device that allows free calls from cell phones in the home, in a fashion that's sure to draw protest from cellular carriers. The new magicJack uses, without permission, radio frequencies for which cellular carriers have paid billions of dollars for exclusive licenses.