Officer Sean Harrington has been charged with stealing and distributing private images from the phones of women he had arrested.

A now former California Highway Patrol Officer was charged with two felonies last Friday. His crime? Stealing and then distributing nude images that he lifted off the phones of female suspects.

He got caught when shortly after being pulled over for a DUI last August, the first victim noticed from her iPad, thanks to Apple’s iCloud service, that someone had sent nude images of her from her phone to another phone. After investigating the phone that received the nude pics was that of Officer Sean Harrington of the California Highway Patrol in Dublin, Calif., who in turn passed the photos around to his fellow Officers of the law.

Via The San Jose Mercury News:

MARTINEZ — A Dublin-based CHP officer has resigned from the agency and was charged Friday with two felonies for allegedly secretly forwarding himself explicit photos from female arrestees’ phones and then sharing the images with colleagues.

Officer Sean Harrington, 35, of Martinez, faces up to three years and eight months in prison under the two counts of computer theft filed against him Friday afternoon in Contra Costa County Superior Court. Harrington submitted his resignation to the CHP on Wednesday, according to a statement released by his attorney Friday afternoon.

Contra Costa deputy district attorney Barry Grove said his office is declining to file charges at this time against CHP Officers Robert Hazelwood and Dion Simmons who, according to court documents, each received stolen photos from Harrington.

Grove called the conversation between the officers about the women and their stolen photos in text messages “unethical, unappealling, and maybe immoral,” but not in violation of the penal code.

In a statement from his attorney, Michael Rains, Harrington offered “his deepest apologies to the women whose cellular telephones were accessed or reviewed,” and apologized to law enforcement colleagues, saying he was ” embarrassed to have tarnished the reputation of the California Highway Patrol and law enforcement generally.”

An attorney for two of the women arrested welcomed the charges. Read More…

To “protect and serve.”

Barack Obama was touted as the first truly 21st century President, more in touch with the youth of America then any man ever before him to hold the highest office in the world. His campaign masterfully used every technological advancement at their disposal to get his message out to potential voters, and it worked masterfully propelling him into the Oval Office.

From Wired 2/14/2008:

The use of technology like blogs, mass texting and online phone banks has been key to Sen. Barack Obama’s surprise sweep of recent primaries.

The Illinois senator’s campaign has been making use of a range of technologies — from ringtones to SMS — to inspire Obamamania. And it’s working. Obama’s recent parade of victories in the primaries has given him a slight lead over Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“They’ve been using [texting] to get out the vote, which is incredibly smart because it gives people a way to take immediate political action,” says Julie Germany, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. “It’s just what mobile technology is suited for.”

The Illinois senator is not the only candidate whose campaign is using online technology and mobile phones, but his has been one of the most effective in its embrace of new tech strategies.

From Barack Obama’s own campaign site:
[link opens .PDF file]

Barack Obama understands the immense transformative power of technology and innovation and how they can improve the lives of all Americans. He sees that technology offers the tools to create real change in America. Obama’s forward-thinking 21st century technology and innovation policy starts by recognizing that we need to connect all citizens with each other to engage them more fully and directly in solving the problems that face us. In tandem with that goal, Barack Obama understands that we must use all available technologies and methods to open up the federal government, creating a new level of transparency to change the way business is conducted in Washington and giving Americans the chance to participate in government deliberations and decision making in ways that were not possible only a few years ago.

Barack Obama is already using technology to transform presidential politics and to help unprecedented numbers of citizens take back the political process. Obama’s Internet campaign is only the beginning of how Obama would harness the power of the Internet to transform government and politics. On barackobama.com, voters have connected not only with the campaign but with each other; the campaign has used technology to engage those who have not been able to participate in prior presidential campaigns. More than 280,000 people have created accounts on barackobama.com.

Now the man who embraced technology like no other candidate before him, the man who even in campaign ads mocked his opponent John McCain for “not knowing how to use a computer” The same man whose Blackberry is practically another appendage, claims he doesn’t know how to work modern Ipads, Ipods, Xboxes or Playstations. Yet when he was President-elect Obama, he had this to say about his Blackberry:

“I’m still clinging to my BlackBerry,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday in an interview with CNBC and The New York Times. “They’re going to pry it out of my hands.”

Now the same man who used technology and the rise of the information age to elevate himself to the highest office in the world, is claiming that too much media “…is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy.”

No information is not putting too much pressure on our nation Mr. Obama, Information is putting too much pressure on your agenda to brainwash the masses into allowing you to destroy everything that is great about our nation. Now you are scared of an educated populace, because you know that the more that the people know about your nefarious plans to destroy the founding principles of our great nation, the weaker your grip of power gets.

Obama is a savvy politician, he knows that knowledge will set you free. That fact scares the crap out of him.

More on this from Nick Rizutto.

The blogpress app at the iTunes app store was on sale for $1.99, down from the regular price of $9.99. So I decided to go ahead and buy it.

So here is my first post using my iPhone, with if this app works, what should be a picture of one of my cats, Tiger.