Imagine filing your tax return and learning that someone else got your refund. With your name and Social Security number, no less. The IRS is grappling with a nearly five-fold increase in taxpayer identity theft between 2008 and 2010, a Government Accountability Office official plans to tell a House hearing Thursday. There were 248,357 incidents [...]
May 25
Residents, experts call for stricter air-pollutant limits
When West Philadelphia resident Candice Cheatham was pregnant with her daughter Micaiah, now 7 months, her nurses never mentioned the dangers of mercury poisoning. But Cheatham did some research and learned that mercury spewing from power plants could work its way into the fish she normally ate, which could lead to birth defects. So, she [...]
May 25
Loan modification scams expected to rise
The White House is considering a plan to beef up national home loan modification efforts to the tune of $30 billion in credit to struggling homeowners (it wants big banks to pay for it, but that’s another story). If the government gets its way, expect loan modifications to rise exponentially, but homeowners should temper their enthusiasm – [...]
May 23
Charity scams ask for Mississippi flood relief money
The Better Business Bureau and federal authorities are warning consumers to be on their guard against fake charities trying to scam money in the name of Mississippi flood relief. While neither the BBB’s Wise Giving Alliance nor the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team released specific details on possible scams, but both issued general warnings for consumers. US-CERT [...]
May 16
Battle brewing over massive trucks on interstates
A battle is brewing in Congress over allowing heavier and longer trucks on U.S. interstate highways, with some lawmakers from New Jersey and Pennsylvania on opposite sides of the debate. As Congress inches toward a vote on a new transportation-funding law this year, both supporters and opponents of bigger trucks are lobbying to make their [...]
May 11
New limits proposed for teen drivers
Two bills to put additional restrictions on young drivers and distracted drivers are moving to the state Senate after approval by the House Tuesday. One limits the number of passengers that junior drivers, those age 16 and 17, can have in their car, and requires junior drivers to wear seat belts or risk being stopped [...]
May 11
Apple, Google try to ease lawmakers’ privacy concerns
Senate panel members remained skeptical during a hearing as executives defended their companies’ practices of collecting location data through cellphones and other devices. Executives from Apple Inc. and Google Inc. had a tough time trying to allay the fears of federal lawmakers that location data collected through cellphones and other mobile devices are anonymous and not a [...]
Apr 25
Pa. House again takes up distracted driving bill
The Pennsylvania House is once again taking a look at a distracted driving bill. But the measure in front of the Transportation Committee doesn’t go as far as the cell phone ban passed by the chamber last year. Last session, nearly 200 House members voted for a measure making talking or texting while driving a [...]
Apr 25
Your Phone, Yourself: When is tracking too much?
If you’re worried about privacy, you can turn off the function on your smartphone that tracks where you go. But that means giving up the services that probably made you want a smartphone in the first place. After all, how smart is an iPhone or an Android if you can’t use it to map your [...]
Apr 22
Watchdogs slam Apple over iPhone, iPad location tracking
Privacy watchdogs are demanding answers from Apple Inc. about why iPhones and iPads are secretly collecting location data on users — records that cellular service providers routinely keep but require a court order to disgorge. It’s not clear if other smartphones and tablet computers are logging such information on their users. And this week’s revelation [...]
