Jerry Sandusky’s attorney announced on Wednesday that the former Penn State coaches newest sexual abuse allegation comes from a family member. According to his attorney the case is currently under investigation from Children and Youth Services .

The family member’s case was filed along with another accusation just 60 days ago and both cases are still in their initial stages of investigation.

According to attorney Joe Amendola the allegation stems from issues inside the child’s immediate family and the accusation has been complicated because they occurred before Sandusky’s arrest in early November.

Amendola says of the family member’s accusation:

“That doesn’t surprise me, because we believe there would be a number of copycat allegations, people who really maybe not even had direct contact with Jerry but … try to jump on the bandwagon.”

If either of the cases are proven to be true it would be the first time that currently underage accusers have been brought forward. Sandusky’s current accusers who were abused between the ages of seven and eight years old are now over the age of 18.

Jerry Sandusky was indicted on Nov. 4 and charged with 40 counts of sex crimes against boys after a three-year grand jury investigation was completed.

Newest Jerry Sandusky Accuser Is A Family Member is a post from: The Inquisitr

It took 17-hours and a group dressed in hazmat suits but investigators have finally finished up an exhaustive search of baby Lisa Irwin’s home, the 11-month old baby that went missing this month.

While the home had been lightly searched in the past with permission from the girls parents Deborah Bradley and Jeremy Irwin this was the first time that a search warrant was issued.

Investigators turned the home upside down and used x-ray technology to search for hidden objects.

Kansas City Police Department Capt. Steve Young told ABCNews.com:

“This has been an ongoing case for weeks now, and it’s safe to imagine in the course of it what we’ve learned — new pieces of information that are pushing the case forward.”

When not using an x-ray on the homes objects investigators raked and shoveled in the yard while searching for even the smallest pieces of DNA evidence including fibers and hairs.

Since the days of the disappearance police have tried extensively to re-create the window break-in scenario the parents had described.

While police have not revealed why they have returned to the home it’s likely new evidence was found to persuade a judge that a full invasive search of the home was necessary.

Currently a $100,000 reward is being offered for information that helps investigators find Baby Lisa, because of that reward they have spend two weeks clearing more than 550 tips and leads.

Investigators Perform 17-Hour Search Of Baby Lisa Irwin’s Home is a post from: The Inquisitr

In a press conference announcement today in New Orleans U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that the U.S. Justice Department is investigating BP for any criminal and civil wrongdoing when it comes to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The investigation is looking for any violations of the Clean Water Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. If the company is found to be guilty of any of those acts it could be held liable for cleanup efforts and for reimbursement to the government for any costs it may incur as a result of the spill.

The investigation comes after a growing number of critics have demanded more intense government involvement.  Scott West, the former special agent-in-charge at the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, has been reminding anyone who will listen of BP’s prior convictions, one in connection with a March 2005 explosion at its Texas City refinery that killed 15 employees and injured 170 others and two criminal misdemeanor convictions for a pair of oil spills in Alaska in March and August 2006, relating to corroded pipelines that BP had failed to maintain. “BP is a convicted serial environmental criminal,” West recently toldtruthout.org. “So, where are the criminal investigators? The well head is a crime scene and yet the potential criminals are in charge of that crime scene. Have we learned nothing from this company’s past behavior?”

Source: FastCompany

BP under investigation by Justice Department over oil spill is a post from: The Inquisitr

Steve Jobs probably isn’t a very happy camper right around now. Word is that the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are negotiating with each other about which one of them is going to start an antitrust investigation into Apple’s iPad and iPhone applications policy.

Most of remember the uproar over Apple keeping Adobe’s Flash off of the iPad and iPhone as well as forcing developers to make their applications usable only on the iPad and iPhone rather than platform agnostic. Well it seems that the two government agencies involved think that this is anti-competitive and that Apple may have overstepped.

However just because the DoJ and the FTC are trying to figure out who will take the lead in any possible investigation it doesn’t mean that anything will happen beyond the initial inquiry.

An inquiry doesn’t necessarily mean action will be taken against Apple, which argues the rule is in place to ensure the quality of the apps it sells to customers. Typically, regulators initiate inquiries to determine whether a full-fledged investigation ought to be launched. If the inquiry escalates to an investigation, the agency handling the matter would issue Apple a subpoena seeking information about the policy.

Officials at both the Justice Department and FTC declined comment. Apple did not return calls seeking comment.

The threat of Apple being the subject of an investigation would be a remarkable turnabout for a company that has long seen itself as being outside the establishment, and one that has egged on antitrust officials to blunt the momentum of larger rivals.

Source: New York Post

It’s rather interesting to see the shoe on the other foot as Apple has for the most part flown under the radar in these types of things.

Apple could face government watchdogs is a post from: The Inquisitr

Freedom of Information requests often produce a mixed bag of results. More often than not you end up pulling out your hair trying to read through blacked out pages or else the information is of the mundane variety. Something that I didn’t now about these requests is that journalists sometimes can get a quicker response to their FOIA requests than say … private investigation firms.

At least that appears to be the case of a couple of FDA high ranking officials who apparently we being investigated by private investigation firm Kroll who had been hired by a drug company, Amphastar Pharaceuticals. The company was concerned that two FDA officials who were over-seeing the drug approval process involved with one of Amphastar’s generic prescription drugs.

This is of itself it seems is nothing new in the high stakes game of pharmaceutical drugs but what is troubling is that also hired the services of a freelance reporter, Melanie Haiken of San Fransisco, to obtain FDA information about Janet Woodcock and Moheb Nasr using FOIA requests. Woodcock and Nasr are Director of FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Director of FDA’s Office of New Drug Quality Assessment respectively.

The reason Kroll hired Haiken was so that she could use her credentials as a journalist to request Woodcock’s e-mails, phone records, voice mails, calendars and expense reports – all without mentioning that she was payed by a private investigation firm.

“I am making this request as a journalist and this information is of timely value,” Melanie Haiken, a San Francisco-based freelance reporter, wrote to the FDA. “As a journalist, I am primarily engaged in disseminating information.”

Haiken did not disclose that she was working for the private investigators at the time. In an e-mail explaining its fees, Kroll told Amphastar that the expenses related to the FOIA covered “the cost of the person we are using to make the requests untraceable to you, the client.”

Source: Politico

And they call the ethics of bloggers into question.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/35212_Page2.html#ixzz0jmpQSf46

Freelance reporter fronts for PI firm in investigation of FDA members is a post from: The Inquisitr

Facebook likes to play games with member’s privacy and for the most part they seem to get away with it – except when it comes to Canada.

Back in July 2009 Canada’s Privacy Commissioner told Facebook that it was violating Canadian laws by keeping user information after members had closed their accounts with the service. As well the commissioner accused Facebook of making member personal information available to third party developers. This prompted Facebook to revamp its its data retention policy as well it first of many tweaking of their privacy settings.

It is the latest round of tweaking that has brought the company once more in the cross-hairs of Canada’s Privacy Commissioner. According to Mathew Ingram over at GigaOM our Privacy Commissioner has announced that a new investigation is being launched into Facebook’s most recent changes to their privacy policy.

At least one Facebook user has filed a complaint with the Canadian government about exactly that, and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada said this morning that it’s opening an investigation into the matter. According to the Commissioner’s office, the probe “focuses on a tool introduced by Facebook in mid-December 2009, which required users to review their privacy settings. The complainant alleges that the new default settings would have made his information more readily available than the settings he had previously put in place.”

From the press release issued by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada announcing the investigation.

[....]

In July 2009, Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart released findings of an in-depth examination of the privacy issues raised by the California-based site, which now claims 350 million users worldwide.

Key concerns highlighted in the report related to Facebook’s transparency and clarity – specifically, the need to better explain how it handles the personal information in its care. The report also recommended that Facebook provide users with increased control over their personal information.  In August, following intensive discussions, Facebook agreed to modify its site in ways that would address the Commissioner’s concerns.

Since then, however, changes to the site’s privacy information, settings and tools have sparked criticism from users who feel that personal information posted to the site is, in some instances, even more exposed now than before.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada will investigate the complaint it has received, while continuing to follow up with Facebook as it introduces new changes to its site. The company committed last August to resolving within a year all of the concerns raised in the first investigation report.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada is mandated by Parliament to act as an ombudsman, advocate and guardian of privacy and the protection of personal information rights of Canadians.

Nice to see someone cares enough about our privacy to at least investigate what Facebook is doing.

Canada cares more about your privacy that Facebook does is a post from: The Inquisitr

If there is one powerhouse on the web today it has to be Google. Sure the little upstarts like Facebook and Twitter might be grabbing all the headlines but unfortunately Google is getting a different kind of attention, that it really doesn’t want. Mr. Dana Wagner, Google’s “senior competition counsel”, would like to have everyone believe that the company is part of an industry where disruption is only a mouse click away but not everyone is falling for that line.

Over the past little while Google has found itself under the ever increasing watchful eye of the Department of Justice. Following up on the derailment of a Google – Yahoo deal the company is facing three new antitrust investigations by the government. In an effort to soft-pedal Google’s influence Wagner has been making the rounds to talk with reporters in Silicon Valley, Washington and New York, as well as any Congressional staff members who let him in the door, and industry groups. In general anyone who can influence public perception about Google is getting a visit.

However not everyone is falling for the Google-spin about how it really is just a small company in the larger scheme of things and isn’t any danger to anyone because the market they operate in can change in the blink of an eye

Eyes are rolling, especially in reaction to the idea that Google is a relatively small player in a giant market. “They describe where they are in a market under a kind of a fairy-tale spun gloss that doesn’t reflect their dominance of key sectors,” said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. “Google search is an absolute must-have for every marketer in the world.”

[….]

Hand-wringing over Google’s power is not new. But some experts say that the steady stream of headlines about antitrust investigations could tarnish Google’s image with consumers, who by and large still view the company, and its growing list of free and innovative online services, positively.

“No company, whether it is Google, Microsoft or anyone else, wants to be portrayed in a negative way,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School. “It is absolutely right for Google to be worried, to be prepared, to be paranoid and to respond accordingly.”

Source: New York Times :: Google Makes a Case That It Isn’t So Big

While little press junkets like this might have worked in the past when Google was actually a small company the fact is they aren’t a small company anymore, and they do wield a lot of power on the Web. suggesting otherwise is just plain facetious.

image courtesy of InformationWeek

Poor Google, trying to convince everyone it’s no danger to anyone is a post from: The Inquisitr

No this isn’t another Craigslist post but you’d never know it from how easy it was for investigators to buy, and then illegally export, things like military grade body armor, military grade night vision goggles or even triggered spark gaps used to detonate nuclear weapons. This was just some of the military stuff that investigators from the Government Accountability Office (GOA) were able to openly buy and then export without detection.

For the 13-month investigation the GOA setup as bogus front company and fictitious identities to go around and buy the goods that are normally in high demand by foreign governments and terrorist groups. The majority of purchases were made online with flimsy security checks by the seller to make sure the stuff wasn’t being shipped to places it shouldn’t be going to.

The distributor’s web site claims that the company always “checks for military identification” when selling the tags. “However, the seller failed to request identification from our undercover investigator.. In the end, our fictitious buyer was only required to provide a name, credit card, and domestic address for shipment to purchase these items. After purchasing and receiving the IR flags, we also obtained a price quote for an additional 400 IR flags.” Hundreds of people could have presented themselves as American forces.

The deal for night vision goggles was even looser. Not only did the distributor ship the gear to a bogus company at a fake address, Kutz reported. “During our undercover purchase, the seller certified our bogus company to be a distributor of the item by signing a dealer/reseller agreement. This allowed us to circumvent the seller’s voluntary restrictions on only selling the items to military and law-enforcement agencies.”

Source: Danger Room [wired.com]

You can read the full GOA report here

GOA Report

Wanna buy some missile guidance chips or how about some nuke gear? is a post from: The Inquisitr