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California man fights DUI charge for driving under influence of caffeine

 

 

Caffeine may be the “nootropic†brain drug of choice in Silicon Valley, but an hour’s drive north in Solano County, California, the stimulant could get you charged with driving under the influence.

 

That is according to defense attorney Stacey Barrett, speaking on behalf of her client, Joseph Schwab.

 

After being pulled over on 5 August 2015, Schwab was charged by the Solano County district attorney with misdemeanor driving under the influence of a drug.

 

Almost 18 months later, Schwab is preparing to go to trial. The only evidence the DA has provided of his intoxication is a blood test showing the presence of caffeine.

 

Schwab was driving home from work when he was pulled over by an agent from the California department of alcoholic beverage control, who was driving an unmarked vehicle. The agent said Schwab had cut her off and was driving erratically.

 

The 36-year-old union glazier was given a breathalyzer test which showed a 0.00% blood alcohol level, his attorney said. He was booked into county jail and had his blood drawn, but the resulting toxicology report came back negative for benzodiazepines, cocaine, opiates, THC, carisoprodol (a muscle relaxant), methamphetamine/MDMA, oxycodone, and zolpidem.

 

The sample was screened a second time by a laboratory in Pennsylvania, according to documents provided to the Guardian, where the sole positive result was for caffeine – a substance likely coursing through the veins of many drivers on the road at any given time.

 

“I’ve never seen this before,†said Barrett. “I’ve never even heard of it.

 

Barrett has filed a motion for the case to be dismissed because the charges were not brought until June 2016 – nearly 10 months after incident. If that motion is denied, Schwab will take his case to a jury on 11 January.

 

Sharon Henry, chief deputy district attorney for Solano County, said in a statement that her office was “conducting further investigation in this matterâ€.

 

“The charge of driving under the influence is not based upon the presence of caffeine in his system,†she added.

 

Barrett counters that if the prosecution has evidence of a different drug in her client’s system, it should have to provided that to her, based on the rules governing criminal procedings.

 

“I have not been provided with any evidence to support a theory of prosecution for a substance other than caffeine at this time,†she said. “Nor I have received any statements, reports, etc documenting any ongoing investigation since the [toxicology report] dated 18 November 2015.â€

 

Henry declined to comment further, citing the right to a fair trial.

 

“It’s really stupid,†said Jeffrey Zehnder, a forensic toxicologist who frequently testifies in court cases. Over 41 years, Zehnder said, he had never seen a prosecution for driving under the influence of caffeine.

 

“If that’s the case, then they better come and arrest me,†he joked.

 

Zehnder was informed about the case by Barrett, but has not been contracted to testify on either side.

 

California vehicle code defines a “drug†as any substance besides alcohol that could affect a person in a manner that would “impair, to an appreciable degree†his ability to drive normally.

 

Making that case with caffeine would be difficult, Zehnder said, because the prosecutor would have to show that impaired driving was specifically caused by the caffeine and not any other circumstances.

 

“There are no studies that demonstrate that driving is impaired by caffeine, and they don’t do the studies, because no one cares about caffeine,†he said.

 

As for Schwab, he just wants this ordeal to be over. In a statement provided to the Guardian by his attorney, he said his reputation had been damaged.

“No one believed me that I only had caffeine in my system until I showed them the lab results,†he said. “I want the charges to be dismissed and my name to be cleared.â€

 

 

https://www.theguard...t-solano-county

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Washington Post retracts story about Russian hack at Vermont utility

 

 

The Washington Post has retracted its story about Russian hackers penetrating the nation’s electricity grid with a virus found in a Burlington, Vt., electric company laptop.

 

“Authorities say there is no indication of that so far [that Russians had penetrated the US electric grid],†according to an editor’s note attached to a corrected version of the story on the paper’s Web site. “The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid,†the editor’s note read.

 

News of the supposed hack had set off a firestorm of recriminations, with Vermont leaders calling Russian President Vladimir Putin “a thug†earlier Saturday, after one of the state’s electric utilities found a virus on a laptop computer.

 

...

 

https://www.yahoo.co...t-retracts.html

 

 

Oops, sorry about that. You can call off the war now, Obama.

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FBI dispute with DNC over hacked servers may fuel doubt on Russia role

 

 

The FBI may have been forced into a misstep when investigating whether Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee -- the agency never directly examined the DNC servers that were breached.

 

Instead, the FBI had to rely on forensic evidence provided by third-party cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which the DNC hired to mitigate the breach.

 

“The FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to servers and data, only to be rebuffed,†the agency said on Thursday in a statement.

 

The incident threatens to spark more skepticism over whether the U.S. properly arrived at its conclusion that Russian cyberspies were responsible for the breach.

 

“The FBI may have all the evidence or not,†said John Bambenek, a researcher with Fidelis Cybersecurity. “But this case has been handled so unusually, it gives everyone a reason to latch on and cast doubt.â€

 

News that the FBI failed to directly examine the hacked servers came on Wednesday, when Buzzfeed reported that a DNC spokesman said that the agency had never requested access.

 

On Thursday, the FBI contested that claim, saying the denial of access "caused significant delays and inhibited the FBI from addressing the intrusion earlier."

 

It's unclear why the DNC allegedly blocked access to the servers. But companies that have been breached are sometimes fearful of exposing sensitive data to outside parties, said Andrei Barysevich, a director at security firm Recorded Future.

 

“The FBI was investigating Hillary Clinton at the time (over her private email server),†he said. “So it’s totally possible, the DNC didn’t want them involved at any stage of the investigation because of that.â€

 

Nor can the FBI force an affected party to turn a server over, Barysevich said. However, the whole incident may raise questions over whether federal agents saw all the evidence related to the breach. “CrowdStrike is not obligated to share everything with law enforcement,†Barysevich said. “That could have potentially interfered with the investigation.â€

 

CrowdStrike didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But it wasn’t the only private security firm to examine the breach. Fidelis Cybersecurity was brought in to look at the malware samples, and concluded that suspected elite Russian hackers were behind the intrusion.

 

Nevertheless, the FBI should have conducted its own review of the hacked servers, Bambenek said. “This is a highly political case, and perception matters,†he said. "In this situation, they need to be building credibility."

 

Critics might now question if the FBI missed pieces of evidence in its investigation or if U.S. intelligence agencies rushed to blame Russia for the hack.

 

“You’re telling me the law enforcement community didn’t actually look at the (server) drives themselves? Are you trying to sow conspiracy theories?†Bambenek said.

 

U.S. intelligence agencies, including the FBI, have blamed the DNC breach and other high-profile political hacks on the Kremlin attempting to influence last year’s election. To retaliate, the White House last month expelled Russian diplomats from the U.S. and ordered sanctions against the country.

 

U.S. President Barack Obama may very well shed more light on why the U.S. believes Russia was involved. He has ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to come out with a full report that will detail the Kremlin's role in the election-related hacks. A declassified version of that report is scheduled to become public on Monday.

 

However incoming President Donald Trump remains skeptical that Russia is to blame. His camp previously rejected U.S. intelligence findings on the matter, saying “these are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.â€

 

http://www.csoonline...ussia-role.html

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