Judge orders unencrypted copy of hard driveA federal judge has ordered a woman to provide an unencrypted version of her laptop's hard drive in a ruling that raises the question of whether turning over a password amounts to self-incrimination. According to the Denver Post, U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn decided requiring Ramona Fricosu to provide the contents of her computer doesn't violate her Fifth Amendment protections. Blackburn says the content of the computer adds nothing to what the government already knows. Friscosu's attorney, Philip Dubois, says he plans to appeal Monday's ruling.
Two views offered at R. Allen Stanford trialThe dreams of people saving for retirement or for their children's education were ruined as Texas financier R. Allen Stanford used money they deposited in his Caribbean bank to instead support his lavish billionaire lifestyle, a prosecutor said Tuesday in opening statements at his fraud trial in Houston. But one of Stanford's attorneys told jurors the financier was a resourceful businessman whose financial empire, which spanned the U.S., the Caribbean and Latin America, was real and paid investors every penny that was promised to them. Stanford, 61, is on trial for 14 counts, including wire and mail fraud. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Safety firm sues NHTSA for records on PriusConcerned that regulators are dismissing electronic problems in Toyota vehicles, an auto safety firm said Tuesday that it has sued the federal government to get records of its investigation into the unintended acceleration of a Prius last year. The freedom-of-information lawsuit by the firm, Safety Research and Strategies, said that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was withholding documents and videos that may depict an acceleration incident caused by electronic systems in a Prius instead of the floor mats or pedals covered by Toyota recalls.
Facebook Timeline to go live for all usersFacebook users who have not changed their profiles to the company's new Timeline feature won't have a choice much longer. The Menlo Park, Calif., social network announced in a blog post that Timeline, Facebook's most expansive change to its profile pages, will go live for all users in the next few weeks. Users will be informed that their profile is being switched to Timeline by a message at the top of Facebook's home page. Then they'll have seven days to view and edit their past posts, photos, videos and more to ensure that only the information they want to appear will show up on the new profile page.
For Japan, 2011 brought $32B trade deficitJapan marked its first trade deficit since 1980, a 2.49 trillion yen ($32 billion) shortfall for 2011 caused in part by last year's tsunami and the rising value of the yen, the Finance Ministry said. Government data showed the value of Japan's exports fell 2.7 percent to 65.55 trillion yen ($843 billion) for 2011. In December, the trade balance was a deficit of 205.1 billion yen, according to the Finance Ministry figures.
Japan might ease trade curbs on U.S. beefU.S. farmers, poised to ship record beef cargoes for a second straight year, may get a further boost as Japan, once their biggest overseas customer, considers easing trade curbs imposed after an outbreak of mad-cow disease. Sales to Japan may jump 43 percent to 202,100 metric tons, the most since 2003, should the restrictions end in the second quarter, Global AgriTrends, a Denver-based research company, estimates. Increasing sales to Japan would help shore up farm income at a time when the U.S. Department of Agriculture is forecasting a drop in wheat, corn and soybean exports.
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