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What would we do without photo comments on Facebook? How would our friends know how we really felt if we couldn't post a meme of a shocked cat on their status?

Well, prepare for our social networking to get even better.

Facebook has just added a feature to their commenting functionality - and we've all been waiting for it.

Now you can not only post pictures but also react with GIFs.

So that means that instead of a boring old picture of a cat looking shocked, you can comment with an actual moving image of a cat putting a paw to its little mouth.

This. Changes. Everything. Here are some GIFs you might like to use.

All you have to do is click or tap into the comment box as if you were writing one as usual.

On the right there are the normal icons inviting you to add a photograph to your comment (unless the page has disabled this).

Now you'll also see a small rectangle with the letters 'GIF' on it. Click on this and you'll be able to search any keyword you like.

The Giphy database, which is hooked up to Facebook, pretty much has any GIF you could ever dream of using - so fill your boots.

Watch the video above to learn more about adding GIFs to comments on Facebook statuses.

See the original post here:
How to post a GIF in a Facebook comment as social network finally adds feature we've all been waiting for - Mirror.co.uk

Do you ever feel like social media apps are a waste of time? A new app called Binky sets out to prove that point.

Open Binky and you'll find an infinite list of random stuff: Llamas. Hot sauce. Joan of Arc. Much like Twitter, Binky displays posts on a timeline. Unlike Twitter, nothing you do matters.

See an image you like? Swipe right! See an image that makes you sad? Swipe left! Do you relate to that photo of Amelia Earhart on a deep spiritual level and feel that you must, must share it? Re-bink that! Do it!

Binky is a new social media app where users can scroll, share and like random posts, but all the actions are meaningless. iTunes hide caption

Binky is a new social media app where users can scroll, share and like random posts, but all the actions are meaningless.

The options are endless and utterly meaningless.

Interacting with a Binky post does nothing. It is a false action. There is no record of it. Your friends will never know that you commented "wha-aaa-aaa-aaat that is so cool #bffs #badidea #drunkhungryandsad" on a picture of Ren Descartes, the French philosopher.

Actually, you can't even comment. When you attempt to do that, a keyboard appears, but, much like the app itself, it's meaningless. With each keyboard click, a pregenerated word appears. As soon as you click away, the comment disappears forever.

If you're wondering, "what's the point?" that's kind of the point.

"Binky is just as meaningless as other social media apps, but it's upfront about it," Binky creator Dan Kurtz tells NPR's Morning Edition.

Kurtz says his inspiration for Binky came after he scrolled through his social media feeds, only to realize he couldn't remember what he just read.

"Does that mean that like, nothing I'm seeing on Facebook actually matters? If I replaced all the stuff that I'm seeing with just random photos of chairs and condiments, would that be just as compelling?" he says. "It turns out the answer is yes."

Binky has all of the cute cat photos of social media, without the sometimes stressful consequences of it.

"[It's] the freedom to satisfy the appetite that you have for scrolling through stuff, without needing to worry about any of the consequences, because it's all meaningless," Kurtz says.

So is this ruse pointless?

Maybe this is a commentary on what drives us to pick up our phones every 20 seconds, Haje Jan Kamps writes for TechCrunch.

Kamps argues that Binky could be "a no-cost ... habit-reinforcing fidget spinner for the social-media addicts among us."

Binky is a social networking app without socializing, and yet, Binky may be "even more" satisfying than real social media apps like Twitter or Instagram, writes Ian Bogost, a contributing editor at The Atlantic.

He says Binky may even cure the ills of smartphone compulsion: a way to use smartphones without doing anything at all. "Isn't that all anyone really wants?" Bogost asks.

Or maybe it's yet another reminder of how entrenched we are in this digital world and, try as we might, we can't escape.

Laura Roman is the social media strategist for Morning Edition; Taylor Haney is a production assistant for Morning Edition.

Read this article:
Meet Binky, The Social Media App Where Nothing Matters - NPR

More than 325,000 people enter the United States via airports every day, with hundreds of thousands more crossing by land at the borders. Not only is that a lot of people, its also a lot of computers, smartphones, and tablets riding along in our pockets, bags, and trunks. Unfortunately, the Fourth Amendment protections we enjoy inside the U.S. for our devices arent always as strong when were crossing bordersand the Department of Homeland Security takes advantage of it. On the other hand, the border is not a Constitution-free zone. What are the limits to how and how much customs and immigrations officials can access our data? To help answer those questions, were offering the second in our series of posts on the Constitution at the border, focusing this time on the Fourth Amendment. Click here for Part 1 on the First Amendment or for Part 3 on the Fifth Amendment.

The Fourth Amendment forbids unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. In most circumstances, the Fourth Amendment requires that government agents obtain a warrant from a judge by presenting preliminary evidence establishing probable cause to believe that the thing to be searched or seized likely contains evidence of illegal activity before the officer is authorized to search.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has sanctioned a border search exception to the probable cause warrant requirement on the theory that the government has an interest in protecting the integrity of the border by enforcing the immigration and customs laws. As a result, routine searches at the border do not require a warrant or any individualized suspicion that the thing to be searched contains evidence of illegal activity.

But the border search exception is not without limits. As noted, this exception only applies to routine searches, such as those of luggage or bags presented at the border. Non-routine searches such as searches that are highly intrusive and impact the dignity and privacy interests of individuals, or are carried out in a particularly offensive manner must meet a higher standard: individualized reasonable suspicion. In a nutshell, that means border agents must have specific and articulable facts suggesting that a particular person may be involved in criminal activity. For example, the Supreme Court held that disassembling a gas tank is routine and so a warrantless and suspicionless search is permitted. However, border agents cannot detain a traveler until they have defecated to see if they are smuggling drugs in their digestive tract unless the agents have a reasonable suspicion that the traveler is a drug mule.

How does this general framework apply to digital devices and data at the border? Border agents argue that the border search exception applies to digital searches. We think they are wrong. Given that digital devices like smartphones and laptops contain highly personal information and provide access to even more private information stored in the cloud, the border search exception should not apply. As Chief Justice Roberts recognized in a 2014 case, Riley v. California:

Snooping into such privacies is extraordinarily intrusive, not routine. Thus, when the government asserted the so-called incident to arrest exception to justify searching a cell phone without a warrant during or immediately after an arrest, the Supreme Court called foul. Why is the Riley decision important at the border? For one thing, the incident to arrest exception that the government tried to invoke is directly comparable to the border search exception, because both are considered categorical exemptions. Given that the intrusion is identical in both instances, the same privacy protections should apply. Moreover, with the ubiquity of cloud computing, a digital device serves as a portal to highly sensitive data, where the privacy interests are even more significant. Following Riley, we believe that any border search of a digital device or data in the cloud is unlawful unless border agents first obtain a warrant by showing, to a judge, in advance, that they have probable cause to believe the device (or cloud account) likely contains evidence of illegal activity. However, lower courts havent quite caught up with Riley. For example, the Ninth Circuit held that border agents only need reasonable suspicion of illegal activity before they could conduct a non-routine forensic search of a travelers laptop, aided by sophisticated software. Even worse, the Ninth Circuit also held that a manual search of a digital device is routine and so a warrantless and suspicionless search is still reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Some courts have been even less protective. Last year a court in the Eastern District of Michigan upheld a computer-aided border search of a travelers electronic devices that lasted several hours without reasonable suspicion. EFF is working hard to persuade courts (and border agents) to adopt the limits set forth in the Riley decision for border searches of cellphones and other digital devices. In the meantime, what should you do to protect your digital privacy? Much turns on your individual circumstances and personal risk assessment. The consequences for non-compliance with a command from a CBP agent to unlock a device will be different, for example, for a U.S. citizen versus a non-citizen. If you are a U.S. citizen, agents must let you enter the country eventually; they cannot detain you indefinitely. If you are a lawful permanent resident, agents might raise complicated questions about your continued status as a resident. If you are a foreign visitor, agents may deny you entry entirely. We recommend that everyone conduct their own threat model to determine what course of action to take at the border. Our in depth Border Search Whitepaper offers you a spectrum of tools and practices that you may choose to use to protect your personal data from government intrusion. For a more general outline of potential practices, see our pocket guides to Knowing Your Rights and Protecting Your Data at the Border.

Were also collecting stories of border search abuses at: borders@eff.org

And join EFF in calling for stronger Constitutional protection for your digital information by contacting Congress on this issue today.

More here:
The Bill of Rights at the Border: Fourth Amendment Limits on ...

Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy has another twisted and complicated Fourth Amendment case for us to consider this week. It deals with United States v. Gorman and its yet another traffic stop challenge, but with several twists. This particular incident involved an officer stopping Straughn Gorman while he was driving his brothers motor home cross country to California. The officer believed that Gorman was carrying drugs and/or drug money in the RV but didnt have a drug sniffing dog with him and had no further grounds to search the vehicle so he let him go. The officer then called ahead to law enforcement in the next county and alerted them to Gormans approach and of his suspicions. A second officer (with a dog) intercepted Gorman and pulled him over on another very minor traffic violation. The dog detected drug residue and a warrant was issued, leading to a search which turned up $167,070 in cash, stuffed in white envelopes and sealed in plastic bags.

There were no criminal charges brought against Gorman, but the authorities did seize the money. The courts eventually found that the search was unsupportable and Gorman got his money back. This brings Kerr to ask the following question.

If an officer pulls over a car for a traffic violation and suspects the car has drugs, but he cant get the drug-sniffing dog to come in time to sniff it, can the officer end the traffic stop and call ahead to another police officer to get a dog and watch for the car to pull it over for a second violation? Specifically, if the second officer gets a dog and spots a second traffic violation, can the second officer pull over the car and use the drug-sniffing dog to get probable cause to search the car?

The bottom line to this lengthy discussion is that there are two conflicting elements to the decision, at least for my interest in the subject. One of them is the forfeiture of all that money and the efforts by the cops to keep it. From the sound of the police reports theres pretty much zero doubt that this guy was hauling drug money, but thats not the point here. The cops have to be able to prove their case before they should even be allowed to consider confiscating someones property. Since Gorman guilty or not in reality was never even charged its preposterous that they should keep his cash. That aspect of the challenge is easy enough for me.

But the stickier subject is the fact that the courts are once again summoning up the misbegotten fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine here. If you read the entire account of both officers in the full decision, even Ill admit that these traffic stops were dodgy at best. I have no clue what tipped off the first officer that there was money (as opposed to drugs) in the vehicle. But the fact is that something tipped him off. And it was later discovered that there absolutely was a large quantity of cash with drug residue on it. So why should the second officer be forbidden to act on that tip and have a dog sniff the vehicle? What if they had received an anonymous tip from somebody telling them the driver was trafficking drugs? Wouldnt that be suitable justification?

This fruit of the poisonous tree nonsense is completely out of hand. Theres a line to be drawn somewhere between ensuring the rights of citizens against unreasonable search or seizure and simply tying the hands of law enforcement to the point where they cant do their jobs when theres obviously a crime taking place. And cases such as this one cross that line by a fair margin.

More here:
So now "coordinated traffic stops" are a Fourth Amendment ...

A new decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, United States v. Gorman, touches on an interesting question: If an officer pulls over a car for a traffic violation and suspects the car has drugs, but he cant get the drug-sniffing dog to come in time to sniff it, can the officer end the traffic stop and call ahead to another police officer to get a dog and watch for the car to pull it over for a second violation? Specifically, if the second officer gets a dog and spots a second traffic violation, can the second officer pull over the car and use the drug-sniffing dog to get probable cause to search the car?

In Gorman, there was a twist: The first officer held the driver for too long. The officer pulled over Straughn Gormans motor home for a traffic offense and then he held Gorman for almost a half-hour. He called for a drug-sniffing dog but was told there werent any available. Twenty minutes into the stop, the officer gave Gorman his documents back and told him he was not issuing a ticket. The officer continued to question Gorman, however, based on suspicion that Gorman was carrying drug money in the motor home. The stop went on for too long under the time-limiting doctrine articulated by the Supreme Court in Rodriguez v. United States, 135 S.Ct. 1609 (2015).

The officer became convinced that there was drug money in the motor home, but he did not have sufficient probable cause to search the car. He let the driver go, and he then called ahead to a second officer in the next county to get a dog and watch the vehicle. The second officer did so, later pulling over the motor home for a second traffic violation. The dog alerted, and a warrant was obtained to search the motor home. The search revealed $167,070 in cash in various interior compartments. The government brought a civil forfeiture action seeking to keep the cash as the proceeds of illegal drug activity, and Gorman moved to suppress the fruits of the search so it could not be used in the civil forfeiture action.

Held, per Judge Reinhardt: The evidence found following the second stop was a fruit of the unconstitutionally prolonged first stop. As a result, the money was suppressed.

From the opinion:

Here, there is an indisputable causal connection between Gormans concededly unlawful detention and the dog sniff and its fruits. See id. at 245. The detention unquestionably served as the impetus for the chain of events leading to the discovery of the currency. See id. It is clear, moreover, that [the first officer]s suspicions from the first stop significantly directed [the second officers] actions in making the second stop and conducting the sniff and search. See id. The close connection between the constitutional violation (the first detention) and the seizure of the currency is apparent.

On the basis of suspicions that accrued during the course of Gormans unlawful detention, [the first officer] alerted a separate law enforcement agency, informed [the second officer] of the basis for his suspicions, and requested that he attempt to stop Gorman for a second time, this time with a drug-sniffing dog. [The second officer] promptly estimated Gormans location and made a special trip to the highway for the purpose of apprehending him and conducting the dog sniff the sniff which led to the discovery of the currency. To repeat, there was a direct connection between the Fourth Amendment violation and its fruits. Thus, any evidence obtained from the sniff and search is inadmissible under the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine.

The government does not contend that the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine is applicable only if the impetus for the second stop came from the unlawful portion of Gormans detention. Even if it did, however, our conclusion would be the same, because the facts here show clearly that part of the impetus for the second stop did come from the unlawful portion of Gormans detention. It was only after the stops mission had been completed that [the first officer developed suspicion that the car motorhome was being used to carry drug money. . . . ] Given that sequence, we need not determine whether it would be appropriate to divide an unlawful detention into lawful and unlawful parts for purposes of fruit of the poisonous tree analysis

Reinhardt adds:

The coordinated action at issue in Gormans case offers a prime illustration of the value of the fruit of the poisonous tree analysis. The analysis allows us to see the officers conduct in Gormans case as what it is: a single integrated effort by police to circumvent the Constitution by making two coordinated stops. When the result of one stop is communicated and, on that basis, another stop is planned and implemented, the coordinated stops become, in effect, one integrated stop that must as a whole satisfy the Constitutions requirements. An illegal police venture cannot be made legal simply by dividing it into two coordinated stops. . . . The Constitution guards against this kind of gamesmanship because the Fourth Amendments protections extend beyond the margins of one particular police stop and can extend to the integrated and purposeful conduct of the state.

Putting aside whether this fruit of the poisonous tree analysis is correct under Utah v. Strieff, Im more interested in whether the second stop would be allowed if the first stop had not been prolonged. That is, can officers coordinate stops, watching for new traffic violations to stop a car to make sure a drug-sniffing dog will be present?

Reinhardt drops the following footnote on this issue:

Because we conclude that the seized currency is inadmissible as the fruit of the poisonous tree, we do not consider the argument that the second stop, taken independently, was itself unconstitutional. It could well be argued, for example, that performing the routine records checks during the second stop (which in Gormans case took significantly longer than usual because the central dispatch was delayed in responding to [the second officer]s inquiry) unreasonably prolonged Gormans roadside detention because [the second officer] knew in advance what the results of those redundant checks would be, as he correctly assumed [the first officer] already had done them and knew [the first officer] had found no probable cause to search the vehicle. [The second officers] checks therefore served no purpose other than to prolong the traffic stop.

Im not sure what I think of this, but it seemed like an interesting question worth flagging for the Fourth Amendment nerds among our readership.

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Coordinated traffic stops and the Fourth Amendment - Washington Post