The city of Philadelphia has taken that age-old pastime – trying to get blood out of a stone – to a new high tech high: trying to get money out of a hobby blogger. Philadelphia may be the ‘city of brotherly love’, but it’s certainly not the city of bloggerly love, especially not with Philadelphia charging bloggers what amounts to a $300 blogging tax. Oh sure, Philadelphia officials call it a “business privilege license”, but when you require it of someone who hasn’t monetized their blog at all, well, that’s not much of a business model, is it? Of course, it’s a dandy business model for Philadelphia, right up there with states charging an affiliate sales tax.

You’ve heard of the neighborhood crime watch? That’s where the citizens of a neighborhood keep their eyes open for crimes in progress and report them to the police. Well, the police department in the town of Evesham, New Jersey, has turned this idea on its head. They are instead informing the local citizenry of people who have been accused of crimes. They are doing it by posting names and mugshots and other photos of suspects on Facebook! And these aren’t just suspects who have been booked – they are even posting pictures taken before a suspect has even been arrested (let alone charged).

Tech news and forums this week have been overrun by chatter about the legislative proposal for net neutrality that Verizon and Google jointly released on Monday. The proposal, which both Google and Verizon posted to their blogs at 1:38 p.m. EST and 1:47 p.m. EST, respectively, was, they say, intended to spark discussion, and spark discussion it did. If your head is spinning with this week’s discussions of network neutrality, wireline, wireless, a private Internet, and “differentiated online services”, read on.

While you may be familiar with the term “blood diamonds”, diamonds are not the only thing which are mined in the violent, war-torn mining regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (“DRC”). Many minerals used in the manufacturing of electronics such as cell phones and computers are also mined in the DRC. These minerals, which include gold, columbite-tantalite, cassiterite, and wolframite (from which tungsten is derived), when mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, have come to be known as “conflict minerals” or “blood minerals”, and their use in manufacturing electronics by companies based in the United States is now the subject of Federal regulation by the U.S. government. Part of the recently enacted “Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act”, which, through enforcement by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), is primarily aimed at controlling financial institutions following the 2009 financial meltdown in the U.S., the “Conflict Minerals” clause, which is Section 1502 of the Dodd Frank act, requires U.S. companies to declare whether they have used any minerals from the DRC and, if they can prove that they have not, allows them to label their products as “Conflict Free”.

In a unanimous decision today, the United States Supreme Court has held that a government worker had no right to an expectation of privacy when it came to whether or not his employer might review the content of his text messages that were sent and received on employer-provided equipment, even those messages sent while he was off-duty. In the case of City of Ontario v. Quon, the Ontario California Police Department reviewed text messages sent and received by their employee, Officer Jeff Quon, on the text pager which was provided to Quon by the Ontario PD, including messages sent while Officer Quon was off-duty. Quon objected, but the Supreme Court held that Quon had no legitimate expectation of privacy.

The court in the case of the Lower Merion School District in Pennyslvania that was spying on its students – in their homes – via webcams and software installed in the students’ school-provided laptops – has been ordered to let the students see the photos that the school surreptitiously took of them. As it turns out, the photo of Blake Robbins was just the tip of the iceberg; according to reports, there are nearly 58,000 photos taken by the school district, all by remotely accessing the webcam in the students’ laptops while spying on their students in the students homes and in other places off the school premises.

Last month, with little fanfare, an Arkansas woman lost custody of her infant son due, at least in part, to photos that she posted to her MySpace page. The tale of Robert Lipps, Kathleen Lipps (a/k/a Kathy Lipps), and Baby Lipps all began when Robert Lipps was on deployment, and his pregnant wife Kathy allegedly had an affair with one Troy Whittington. This sordid chapter of their tale ended when Kathy Lipps lost custody of the infant Lipps due to, among other things, her posting pictures of herself, laying in bed with and kissing Troy Whittington, to her MySpace account.

From our “We told you so” department, San Mateo County sheriffs have executed a warrant, seizing computers and other items from Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s residence, following the appearance of a lost secret iPhone 4G prototype both in Gizmodo’s possession, and on their blog, where they fully disclosed Apple’s proprietary prototype. Jason Chen was not arrested, although he was patted down.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was busy fiddling around online while the financial sector burned.  Those are the allegations being leveled against the SEC as a new memo by the Federal Inspector General is released, revealing 31 separate probes of SEC employees porn surfing during the past two years, more than half of whom were senior-level staff, including SEC attorneys.

Ever wonder just how identity theft and financial fraud happens? CallService.biz was a site that served as a front for thousands of bad guys to take advantage of identity theft, and use stolen financial information such as bank account and credit card numbers. Run by Dmitry Naskovets, from the Czech Republic, and Sergey Semashko, from Belarus, CallService.biz was open about what it did – providing identity theft and financial information theft criminals with service representatives who would call the financial institutions at which the compromised financial accounts were based, and pretend to be the account holders – in your choice of English or German – and would confirm the financial transactions being made by the crooks.

An Arkadelphia, Arkansas teen is suing his mother for accessing his Facebook account, posting what he claims are slanderous comments, and then changing his Facebook password, effectively locking him out of his own account.  In her defense, Denise New claims that as a mother she has the right to monitor what her son is doing.

Colorado Amazon affiliates got the news this morning – Amazon has cancelled all Amazon associate (affiliate) accounts for all affilliates who are based in Colorado. The move came after the passage of Colorado law HB 10-1193, even though – as we read it – the affilliate language was removed from HB 10-1193 before it was passed!

In an Internet law ruling that is not only the first of its kind, but that may have wide implications – indeed worldwide implications – for Internet law, privacy law, and Google and any other sites that host images, three Google executives have been sentenced to 6 months in prison by an Italian court, over the public posting of a video of a disabled boy with Downs syndrome being subjected to bullying by four bullies, in Turin, Italy. The three convicted Google executives are Google Privacy Director Peter Fleischer, Senior VP David Carl Drummond (formerly director of Google Italy), and George De Los Reyes, a retired Google financial executive.

One of the burning questions of the entire “school spying on a student in his own home through the webcam in the school-provided laptop” fiasco – which was followed closely by the “school accuses student Blake Robbins of improper behavior in his own home based on photos taken through the webcam” debacle – is just what was the improper behavior with which they confronted Blake? Read on… (Hint: It has to do with his friends, Mike and Ikes. Yes, it’s true.) P.S. Folks in the area are already calling this “WebCamGate”.

The Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania is being sued by Holly and Michael Robbins, along with their son Blake Robbins, over the discovery that the school district was spying on their son via the webcam in the school-issued laptop which their son received from the school district. The Robbins and others discovered that school administrators were remotely accessing the webcams in the students’ laptops when a student was disciplined by the school for “improper behaviour in this home”, with the school’s assistant principal producing as evidence a photo taken with the webcam, of a scene in the student’s home!