55,000 Twitter account names and passwords were, it was claimed last night, published on Pastebin on 7 May. The list ran over over five separate pages on the document publishing platform. Twitter confirmed it was looking into the situation and said it was resetting the passwords of affected accounts. Later examination of the list by Twitter revealed that it contained 20,000 duplicates, suspended spam accounts and incorrect login credentials.

Federal investigators “identified vulnerabilities in the screening process” at domestic airports using so-called “full body scanners,” according to a classified internal Department of Homeland Security report. DHS has spent nearly $90 million replacing traditional magnetometers with controversial X-ray body scanning machines that are intended to detect items that could be missed by a metal detector.

In the battle to prevent law enforcement from collecting data about the activities of users online for fishing expeditions, there are few tools available in the arsenal of accountholders. Which makes it all the more important for internet companies like Twitter, Google and others to fight back on behalf of users. That’s exactly what Twitter did when it filed a surprisingly feisty motion (.pdf) this week in New York City Criminal Court to quash a court order demanding that it hand over information to law enforcement about one of its account holders — an activist who participated in the Occupy Wall Street protests — as well as Tweets that he allegedly posted to the account over a three-month period. The company stepped in with the motion after the account holder lost his own bid to quash the order.

About a dozen U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents who cannot fly to or from the United States because they are on the so-called “no-fly list” will finally have their case heard by a federal appeals court Friday. The two-year-old suit claims the plaintiffs, who include two retired U.S. military veterans stranded in Egypt and Colombia, have been unconstitutionally barred from flying without being told why or provided a meaningful chance to clear their names.

Hey Listen: There WAS no fucking Google.

In 1986, when my crew of eleven-year-olds discovered The Beasties’ encrypted vinyl doctrine, we had our work cut out for us. We couldn’t just type their lyrics into some futuristic machine and have the meanings handed back—each crass little Easter egg had to be decoded by perverted detective work, or by relying on older brothers and irresponsible doormen to tell us what the hell it meant:

• How can he recognize a girlie from the back of her head?
• They all switch places when he rings the bell? Sounds fucked-up like naked Twister maybe?
• Rolled up to Wooley? Who the fuck is that?