Bronx Officer Accused of Hiring E-Mail Hackers

But the detective was not seeking to build a case against the outfit, federal prosecutors said on Tuesday. Rather, prosecutors said, he became a client.

Using information bought from the hackers, the detective, Edwin Vargas, obtained login information for at least 43 e-mail accounts associated with 30 people, including at least 19 members of the New York Police Department in the Bronx, according to a complaint unsealed in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

The reason for the digital snooping appeared to be personal, law enforcement officials said: Detective Vargas, 42, suspected a former girlfriend — also an employee of the Police Department, an official said — had started a new relationship with a fellow officer. Detective Vargas and the woman had a child together, officials said, but had broken up.

“A 20-year veteran of the Police Department, never before under suspicion for any impropriety, let alone any criminal activity,”  James Moschella, a lawyer for the detective’s union, said of Detective Vargas, whom he represented at the arraignment. Detective Vargas was released on $50,000 bond.

“It’s my understanding that some of the victims are detectives as well,” said Michael J. Palladino, the head of the detectives’ union. “It would be inappropriate for me to comment any further.”

Prosecutors said that over the course of two years beginning in 2010, Detective Vargas contacted the e-mail hacking group multiple times and paid about $4,050 for the login information for accounts of fellow officers and some private citizens. He paid between $50 and $250 per account, according to the complaint, using a credit card or PayPal account registered to his Bronx address.

The low prices suggested that, for the hackers, the e-mail account information was not difficult to obtain.

It was not clear what was done with the information obtained. Detective Vargas is accused of gaining access to only one of the accounts for which he obtained login details. The complaint did not identify those targeted.

Prosecutors also accused the detective of accessing online records for a cellphone belonging to one of the victims.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted the investigation along with the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau. Law enforcement officials said it was during the course of a broader, continuing investigation into a Los Angeles-based e-mail hacking operation that investigators found accounts belonging to the New York police officers had been hacked. Detective Vargas, who joined the department in 1993, was arraigned on charges of conspiracy to commit computer hacking and of unlawful access to a law enforcement database.

The second charge came from what prosecutors said was an unauthorized use of a national crime database by Detective Vargas to look up information about two officers whose e-mails he had also obtained.

He did so, prosecutors said, from a Bronx precinct where he worked, though the complaint did not specify which one. Detective Vargas had worked at the 44th Precinct, where officials said some of the police officers targeted were based, but was currently assigned to the 40th Precinct.

“Of all places, the Police Department is not a workplace where one should have to be concerned about an unscrupulous fellow employee,” said George Venizelos, the head of the F.B.I.’s New York office.

Cellphone Records, Officer? In Texas, You May Soon Need a Warrant

Last month, Representative Bryan Hughes, Republican of Mineola, filed House Bill 1608, which would require law enforcement agencies throughout the state to obtain warrants and prove to a judge there was a probable cause of illegal activity before obtaining cellphone records in their investigations. It would also lift the seals on court orders for the data after 180 days. A companion bill has been filed in the Senate by Juan Hinojosa, Democrat of McAllen, and others have signed on.

Privacy advocates like the A.C.L.U. say the bill is necessary because cellphone companies are now able to determine and transmit customers’ specific locations. But some police officers and prosecutors say that the higher standard of proof would make it harder to catch criminals in certain long-term investigations. In response to a Congressional request last year, wireless carriers reported that they received thousands of requests a day from law enforcement agencies for cellphone information, including text messages and caller locations. Privacy advocates in Texas said they were startled at how common the practice is.

“Right now we’re just guessing on the numbers,” said Matt Simpson, a policy strategist with the Texas branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, “but they seem very high.”Current technology has eroded “traditional conceptions of privacy,” said Scott Henson, the writer of the criminal justice blog Grits for Breakfast, who shopped the bill around to lawmakers. “This bill ensures that government can’t track your daily movements without a good reason.” In certain situations, said Mr. Simpson, the police might track an individual simply for going to an Islamic mosque. That would be a violation of the right to freedom of worship, he said, but under current laws no judge would need to consider the issue before the cellphone records were obtained.

Steve Baldassano, a Harris County prosecutor, said that although the policy change would affect only “historical” investigations — the police already need to establish probable cause in “real time” situations involving kidnappings and chases — it could make it harder to catch certain criminals. Mr. Baldassano said that cellphone data might be the only evidence supporting or disproving an alibi at an early stage of an investigation. With this new barrier, he said, “you’d just have to let it go.”

Donald Baker, a commander with the Austin Police Department, took issue with Mr. Hughes’s requirement that the court seal be lifted after 180 days, because many investigations last longer than that.

“You don’t want that information out there,” he said.

Mr. Henson said prosecutors and the police could still keep records sealed under public information laws, which allow for information to be kept from public disclosure if “release of the information would interfere with the detection, investigation or prosecution of crime.”

Police Officer Fired For Not Having Threesome

Allegations: LaDonna Williams, a sheriff’s deputy at Clayton County Sheriff’s Office, Georgia, claims she was fired for refusing a threesome

A deputy claims she was fired for refusing a sexual threesome with a
sheriff and another female employee.

LaDonna Williams, a sheriff’s deputy at Clayton County Sheriff’s Office, Georgia, filed a harassment complaint about Sheriff Kem Kimbrough and another deputy Alicia Parkes.

Williams claims Kimbrough gave her a card with his personal number on urging her to get in touch if she ‘needed him right away’.

She also said that Parkes started sending her nude pictures of herself before the deputy allegedly grabbed Williams’ breasts.

‘I got very angry about that,’ Williams claimed to CBS Atlanta News.

‘The next thing I know she’s asking, “Would you have sex with both of us?”‘

Parkes was referring to herself and Kimbrough, according to the internal affairs report.

Williams also alleged that Parkes had videotaped another employee in the bathroom.

Parkes has been indicted but remains employed at the office.
Couldn’t be me.

Police Brutality - LAPD Officers Beat College Student On Camera

Yahoo’s Choice of New Chief Financial Officer Suggests a Plan for Deals

But two months in, she has yet to do the one thing that shareholders, analysts and advertisers so desperately seek: articulate a clear vision for the flailing Internet company, whose revenue has flattened and stock price has dropped by half over the last five years. She spoke to employees on Tuesday, roughly outlining her plans. The company, however, did not disclose any details.

An executive hiring, announced Tuesday, may offer a hint to her thinking: Ms. Mayer announced that she would replace Tim Morse, Yahoo’s chief financial officer, with Ken Goldman, the current chief financial officer of Fortinet, a public computer security company.

Analysts said the ouster of Mr. Morse, who had a history of cost-cutting, suggests Yahoo is ready to expand through renewed investments and acquisitions.

“Tim Morse was ‘Mr. Margin Expansion,’ ” said Colin Gillis, an Internet analyst at BGC Partners. “To turn the company around and compete with the big boys, Yahoo will need to spend, spend, spend.”

With 700 million users each month, Yahoo remains one of the most visited sites on the Web, but it has been ceding its share of the online display ad market to rivals like Facebook and Google.

To lure back advertisers, Ms. Mayer said she would focus on user experience and on mobile, where Yahoo has yet to dip a toe. She told employees to expect “acqui-hires” — Silicon Valley-speak for acquisitions made for talent rather than technology.

Ms. Mayer is expected to have a baby in the next few weeks, but has said she expects to return to work quickly. Previous chiefs — four in the last five years, plus two interim chiefs — have failed to carry out their own long-term plans, largely because they have been unable to articulate what it is that Yahoo actually does.

Yahoo made its name in search but lost that market to Google and then proceeded to miss the boat on every big Internet trend since. It was too focused on reinventing itself as a multimedia company to notice people were migrating to social networks and mobile devices as gateways for information and entertainment. Yahoo’s home page remains cluttered and sorely lacking a brand of its own.

Board members hope Ms. Mayer will restore some life to the moribund brand. She came from Google, where she was hired as one of its first engineers. She recently closed a $7.6 billion deal with Alibaba that gives Yahoo, after taxes and paybacks to shareholders, $625 million. She indicated Tuesday that employees should expect acquisitions, said one Yahoo employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

But Yahoo has had a difficult time persuading entrepreneurs to join. In 2009, Google’s bid to acquire Yelp fell apart at the last minute after Yahoo offered to pay 50 percent more than Google. According to one person close to the talks, both deals fell apart because Yelp’s management team refused to work at Yahoo and Yelp’s board refused Google’s terms.

More recently, the founder of a start-up, who refused to be named for fear it would jeopardize a business relationship with Yahoo, said Yahoo recently inquired about a potential acquisition.

The person, who has also been courted by Facebook and Google, agreed to a meeting but said the company was turned off by Yahoo executives’ failure to do basic due diligence.

“At Facebook and Google, they know your underwear size before you walk in the door,” this person said. “At Yahoo, it was clear they hadn’t even Googled me.”