Via Huffington Post, a man in Tampa who parked outside a house and mooched off the homeowner's wi-fi network has been arrested and charged.

Sounds, ridiculous, right? The police say no, and they have a point.

The technology has made life easier for high-tech criminals because it provides near anonymity. Each online connection generates an Internet Protocol Address, a unique set of numbers that can be traced back to a house or business. That's still the case with Wi-Fi but if a criminal taps into a network, his actions would lead to the owner of that network. By the time authorities show up to investigate, the hacker would be gone.

"Anything they do traces back to your house and chances are we're going to knock on your door," Breeden said.

So if the perp outside is logging on to child p0rn and downloading it, you'll be getting a visit from the feds. How will you convince them it wasn't you? Maybe by letting them search your hard drive to show no p0rn on it. Seems too steep a price, if you ask me.

Make sure your wi-fi is secure. It's more than your finances that need protecting. Your privacy and liberty rights may also be at stake.

What does it take for the Congress to investigate one of their own? Swing State Project has put together this handy chart of the players and properties involved so far in Congressman Randy Cunningham's embroglio. As Wapo reports,now there is a second developer who both bought Cunningham's yacht and helped with financing for a house.

DNC Chair Howard Dean is raising the issue:

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is trying to get voters to hold the Republican Party responsible for the "culture of corruption" he sees in Washington, but Dean is getting virtually no help from fellow Democrats in the House of Representatives.

In the year since then-Rep. Chris Bell, D-Texas, filed the complaint that triggered the current ethics investigation of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, not one Democrat has initiated another complaint despite the pleas of outside watchdog groups.

Dr. Steven Miles has published a comprehensive analysis of medical investigations of prisoner homicides in Iraq and Afghanistan in Medscape MedGenMed e-journal. The article is available here, free registration required.

This article reviews another human rights issue -- the medical evaluation of cases of which prisoners potentially died of because of mistreatment or under suspicious circumstances.

Sources for the article include:

... government documents, including reports of US Army and US Navy criminal investigations, death certificates, autopsy reports, sworn statements, official correspondence between military personnel, and US Department of Defense policies. To a lesser degree, it cites reports by human rights organizations and well-sourced media reports.

Some of Dr. Miles' findings:

David Lemus and Olmado Hidalgo have been in jail for 14 years for the notorius 1990 New York Palladium murder. They may be innocent. A hearing will be held tomorrow, and a decision to free them, give them a new trial, or leave their convctions and sentences intact could come down within weeks.

The case has taken over the lives of three unlikely allies: A former prosecutor, a former detective and the jury forewoman. All are working to free the men.

Dan Slepian, the "Dateline" producer who has been following the case since 2002, says he finds the devotion of Mr. Cohen, Mr. Addolorato and Ms. Kramer remarkable. "The ultimate truth of what happened that night, while important, is in many ways less interesting then these three people," he said. "Here you have three former strangers who have come together to fight for what they believe is the truth."

Josh Marshall says,

But if recollection serves, there are DOJ guidelines which say that prosecutors should exercise a great deal of discretion when trying to compel testimony from journalists. They're not supposed to do it just to tie up a few loose ends, but only if there's real and significant crime they're trying to prosecute. And before they do so, they're supposed to have exhausted all other possible ways to get at the information.

He's right. There are both U.S. Attorney Guidelines (contained here and here in the U.S. Attorney's Manual) and regulations (contained here, taken from the Code of Federal Regulations.)

Josh will be on Al Franken's radio show today. (update: appearance canceled.)

Judy Keen of USA Today interviewed President Bush Monday about his choice of a Supreme Court replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The text of the interview is here.

He defended his "great friend" Alberto Gonzales. It will take him a few weeks to make a decision. He wants people to "tone down the rhetoric." Twice he said he is looking for someone who will "faithfully interpret the Constitution and laws of the country." He says his judges will not have to pass a "litmus test" on Roe v. Wade or other issues. Bush's role models for a Supreme Court Justice are Scalia and Thomas.

Bush said lobbying won't affect him: "I feel no pressure except the pressure to put somebody on the bench who will bring dignity to the office, somebody who's got the intellect necessary to do the job, somebody of great integrity and somebody who will faithfully interpret the Constitution."

That won't stop the special interest groups, who are expected to spend between $50 and $100 million on campaigns. The Christian Science Monitor today analyzes the political factors at work in Bush's decision.

Update: The UK IndyMedia has good coverage.

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After a peaceful demonstration Sunday in Edinburgh, Scotland, attended by 225,000 people supporting the "Make Poverty History" movement which is allied with the Live 8 concerts, the anti-capitalist anarchists showed up and the mood drastically changed. Today ended with 30 injured and 90 arrested. Don't miss this photo, it's the funniest.

Here's an account of how things turned once the anarchists arrived to protest:

Valerie Plame has returned to work at the CIA after a year's leave of absence. She won't, however, be resuming undercover work.

There has been so much attention paid to the leakers and reporters in the case, it seems like the fact that a woman's life was turned upside down been lost in the shuffle.

by TChris

It wasn't a happy Independence Day for U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who missed the pancake breakfast he usually attends rather than face reporters.

The pancake breakfast was to have been Cunningham's first public event since last month's disclosure that congressman sold his previous home to a defense contractor for what may have been an overinflated price. Mitchell Wade, founder of the defense firm MZM Inc., bought Cunningham's house for $1.675 million in 2003 and sold it nearly a year later for a $975,000 - a $700,000 loss in one of the nation's hottest housing markets.

Cunningham likes to have his picture taken with flag wavers, but the timing was off this year.

On Friday, the FBI searched Cunningham's $2.55 million mansion in the exclusive community of Rancho Santa Fe as well as the 42-foot yacht, the "Duke Stir," owned by Wade, where Cunningham has resided in Washington. Federal agents also raided MZM's Washington, D.C. offices.

The Indonesian high court has agreed to reopen Schappelle Corby's case and allow her new defense team to present new witnesses.

The defense has a tough job though - the Court is expecting it to produce the person who put the 4.1 kilos of marijuana in her luggage.

[Lawyer Hotman Paris Hutapea]called on Australians to write to the Government to ask them to identify those airport staff who were on duty the day Corby travelled. He also wanted the Australian Federal Police to give evidence about incidents of illegal movement of drugs through Australian airports.

[hat tip to Heretik]

John Aravosis of America Blog is a credentialed blogger for G-8, blogging from Scotland. He's got great photos up. The bloggers flew over on the Live 8 plane from JFK, Bob Geldof met them at the airport and gave an impassioned speech. The protesters were also there.

What will they think of next?

Some Wisconsin judges are making people accused of alcohol-related offenses wear special ankle bracelets to track whether they are drinking. The bracelet's maker, Alcohol Monitoring System of Colorado, believes the device can replace random breath tests.

A couple of beers can trigger the bracelet, which measures alcohol consumption through skin perspiration, according to the device's maker. The bracelet takes a reading and sends the information via wireless modem to a monitoring center. Milwaukee and Racine county court systems have joined an increasing number of systems nationwide using the bracelets.

Some experts doubt the accuracy of the device: