Collegiate Times

Google announced Tuesday that it will be changing its private policy to keep information gathered when people use its products, including YouTube, Picasa, GMail and its search engine.

The new policy will begin on March 1 and is being put in place so the company can learn more about each user personally, which will lead to “a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”

However, many are not sold on what Google is doing and is calling the move an invasion of privacy.

The change will perhaps be most alarming for users of android phones, who are powered by Google and will therefore have everything they do with the phone be documented.

Read more at WashingtonPost.com

Links:

Florida primary 2012: Delegate dispute could drag on (Politico)

Netflix regains 600,000 U.S. subscribers (USA Today)

Obama and Ariz. Governor have heated exchange (Fox News)

Two buildings in Rio collapse (CNN)

A federal judge ruled that a woman in Colorado could be compelled to give authorities the password of her PGP-scrambled hard drive.

Judge Robert Blackburn argued that disclosing a password does not violate the Fifth Amendment, which says no one can “be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”

If Ramona Fricosu, who is the defendant in a mortgage scam case, does not comply, she will have to face consequences, such as contempt of court.

In the past, some judges have ruled that there is a distinction between ordering a defendant to decrypt a computer and giving a password. However, Blackburn’s opinion is in-line with the Justice Department’s stance.

Fricosu’s attorney plans on appealing the decision, according to CNET. They argue that the right to remain silent coincides with not giving a password to authorities.

Read more:

Judge: Americans can be forced to decrypt their laptops (CNET)

DOJ: We can force you to decrypt your laptop (CNET)

The newest numbers released by GOP officials have Rick Santorum ahead of Mitt Romney by 34 votes in the Iowa presidential caucus. Initially, officials declared Romney the winner by eight votes, according to the Des Moines Register.

However, votes from eight precincts are missing and will never be recovered, causing officials to declare it a “split decision.” Inaccuracies were found in 131 precincts. The official data will be released Thursday morning, according to a statement from the Republican Party of Iowa.

With South Carolina’s primary on Saturday, this could be an upset for Romney. Typically, presidential candidates who win the Iowa caucus or the New Hampshire primary win in every other states’ primary.  After Iowa and New Hampshire, and although virtually tied with Santorum before Iowa, 31 percent of Republican or right-leaning voters would vote for Romney, compared to only 14 percent for Santorum, according to the most recent Pew Research data.

President Obama announced Wednesday that he was rejecting an application from a Canadian firm to build the Keystone XL pipeline, a project that would have stretched from Canada’s oil sands to Texas.

Although the project has been lobbied against by environmental groups, they are not the reasoning for Obama’s disapproval. Instead, it was the “arbitrary deadline” set by Congress that Obama denounced, claiming it was not enough time to review the proposal. Read more at WashingtonPost.com

More National Stories:

House votes against debt ceiling increase (Fox News)

Abdul-Jabbar named State Department cultural ambassador (USA Today)

Family of U.S. couple on Italian cruise ship holds out hope (CNN)

Web protest g support ets results as for two bills slips (LA Times)

Gingrich sees a South Carolina surge (Washington Post)

At last night’s Republican presidential debate in South Carolina, candidate Mitt Romney admitted his tax was at roughly 15 percent.