Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us was sent a subpoena by the Justice Department, demanding details of visitors on a certain day. Declan McCullagh at CBS News says that the Department also asked that the website not to disclose the existence of the subpoena.

The subpoena from U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison in Indianapolis demanded all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us on June 25, 2008. It instructed Clair (Kristina Clair, provides free server space for the website) to include IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information, including e-mail addresses, physical addresses, registered accounts, and Indymedia readers' Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and so on.

Although the subpoena was later withdrawn, the action of U.S Attorney Tim Morrison and Assistant U.S Attorney Doris Pryor raises serious questions about an independent media's right to operate freely and also violates the media's First Amendment rights.

Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represented Ms. Clair questions the government intention in conducting such fishing expeditions

This story is an an important example of how government abuses breed in secrecy, and an argument for Congress to step in and require meaningful reporting about how the government uses its surveillance authorities. How often does the government attempt such illegal fishing expeditions through internet data? How many online service providers have received similarly bogus demands, and handed over how much data, violating how many internet users' privacy? How many of those subpoena recipients have been intimidated into silence by unconstitutional gag orders?

A female baseball fan has been charged after allegedly offering her body in exchange for sought-after tickets to the World Series.

Susan Finkelstein, 43, from Philadelphia, was arrested after meeting an undercover policeman in a suburban bar with the intention, it is claimed, of exchanging sex for admission to a finals game between her beloved Phillies and the New York Yankees.

It follows an advert placed on internet site Craigslist which her lawyer admits may have included a couple of double entendres but fell way short of prostitution. William Brennan described his client as a nice lady overcome with Phillies fever. As to the advert he said: If someone read into that posting a sexual connotation, that's on them. There's no overt sexual reference.

The online ad led to a rendezvous between Finkelstein and an undercover police officer snitch. Over a few beers she told the man that she needed two tickets, one for herself and one for her husband. Before prices were discussed she was arrested by several officers on a nearby table and subsequently charged with the misdemeanour charge of promoting prostitution.

Finkelstein has protested that this was not what she intended. I was hoping to get cheap tickets, she told local station WPVI-TV, adding: Maybe meet someone, and talk, and bat my eyelashes and maybe get some tickets.

But there was a silver lining for the Phillies fan. A local radio station and car dealer took pity on her plight, offering a pair of tickets for a weekend game in the process.

Just how funny was that story of the man in Fairfax County, Virginia, who got up early on Monday morning, October 19, and walked naked into his own kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee? The next significant thing that happened to 29-year-old Eric Williamson was the local cops arriving to charge him with indecent exposure.

It turns out that while he was brewing the coffee, a mother who was taking her seven-year-old son along a path beside Williamson's house espied the naked householder and called the local precinct, or more likely her husband, who turns out to be a cop.

Yes, I wasn't wearing any clothes, Williamson said later, but I was alone, in my own home and I just got out of bed. It was dark and I had no idea anyone was outside looking in at me.

The story ended up on TV, and in the opening rounds the newscasters and network blogs had merciless sport with the Fairfax police for their absurd behaviour. Hasn't a man the right to walk around his own home dressed according to his fancy? Answer, obvious to anyone familiar with relevant case law: absolutely not.

Williamson will be lucky if they don't throw a cobbled-up indictment at him

Peeved by public ridicule, the Fairfax cops turned up the heat. The cop's wife started to maintain that first she saw Williamson by a glass kitchen door, then through the kitchen window. Mary Ann Jennings, a Fairfax County Police spokesperson, stirred the pot of innuendo: We've heard there may have been other people who had a similar incident.

The cops are asking anyone who may have seen an unclothed Williamson through his windows to come forward, even if it was at a different time. They've also been papering the neighbourhood with fliers, asking for reports on any other questionable activities by anyone resembling Williamson.

I'd say that if the cops keep it up, and some prosecutor scents opportunity, Williamson will be pretty lucky if they don't throw some cobbled-up indictment at him. Toss in a jailhouse snitch keen to make his own plea deal, a faked police line-up, maybe an artist's impression of the Fairfax Flasher, and Eric could end up losing his visitation rights and, if worst comes to worst, getting ten years in jail and being posted for life on some sex offender site.

You think we're living in the 21st century, in the clinical fantasy world of CSI? Wrong. So far as forensic evidence is concerned, we remain planted in the 17th century with trial by ordeal, such as when they killed women for being witches if they floated when thrown into a pond.