Informers

Privacy rights groups on Monday filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles County's two major law enforcement agencies after they refused to turn over information collected by electronic license plate scanners, the suit claimed. The Los Angeles Police Department and L.A. County Sheriff's Department have made use of the plate-reading technology for several years. Typically mounted on patrol vehicles, the small cameras continuously scan license plates and check them against criminal databases in search of stolen cars and cars registered to known fugitives.

SACRAMENTO - Social network sites such as Facebook would be required to remove personal information about minors when asked to do so by their parents under a measure approved by state senators Thursday. Separately, the lawmakers voted to allow misdemeanor rather than felony charges in cases of simple possession of heroin, cocaine and other hard drugs. The two bills were among several sent to the Assembly for consideration. The Internet measure was approved despite opposition from firms including Google, Facebook, Zynga and Tumblr, which called the proposed rules unnecessary, unworkable and in violation of teenagers' free-speech rights.

Prosecutors are considering whether to file criminal charges against a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy accused of assaulting an inmate who was helping federal authorities investigate a suspected international drug trafficker, according to records and interviews. The inmate accused Deputy Michael Camacho of targeting him, at least in part, because he was cooperating with detectives as an informant, internal records show. The records indicate that in July, the inmate told his sheriff's handlers that Camacho punched him in his torso and ribs.

Two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies say the department hid an inmate working as a federal informant from the FBI, according to a lawsuit they filed this week. The allegations are the latest development in the ongoing question of whether top sheriff's officials obstructed an FBI investigation after learning that an inmate at Men's Central Jail was secretly collecting information on allegedly abusive and corrupt deputies. In the summer of 2011, sheriff's deputies discovered the inmate's cellphone with a history of calls to the FBI. In an unusual move, sheriff's officials responded by transferring the inmate, a convicted bank robber, to a different jail under aliases, including Robin Banks.

In the late 1960s, Judy Juanita was a college undergraduate in the Bay Area and editor of a Black Panther Party newspaper. Now her new novel, "Virgin Soul" (Viking, $26.95), recounts the story of Geniece, an undergraduate who joins the Panthers. But "Virgin Soul" is not thinly veiled memoir. "This young woman and I are two different people," Juanita says. Unlike many books written by former radicals, "Virgin Soul" isn't aiming to settle old scores. Instead, Juanita - a poet, playwright and academic based in Oakland - has penned a witty and deeply engaging coming-of-age story about ideas and the passions generated by revolution and romantic love.

The caller stood at a pay phone outside a Carl's Jr. in El Monte and warned police: Bombs will explode in two hours, he said. One at Cal State L.A. , the other at UC Berkeley. The reactions of the two public universities, though, were markedly different. At Cal State L.A., administrators sounded fire alarms across campus, evacuated dorm rooms and classrooms and canceled school for the rest of the day. UC Berkeley police officials deemed the same threat "low credibility" and the campus proceeded with business as usual.

BOSTON - The FBI appealed for the public's help Thursday in identifying two men wearing baseball caps and backpacks, one of whom was seen placing a backpack at the site of the second Boston Marathon bombing. As President Obama traveled to the shaken city with a promise that it would "learn to run again," the FBI released photos and a video of two men seen walking through a crowd outside a restaurant near one of the two deadly explosions. "They appear to be associated," Boston FBI chief Richard DesLauriers said as he detailed the most significant break yet in the investigation into who was responsible for the bombs that exploded Monday near the marathon's finish line, killing three people and injuring more than 170. PHOTOS: Explosions at Boston Marathon FBI officials believe they may have captured the planting of one of the crude pressure-cooker bombs outside a crowded restaurant near the finish line.

Ted Kamp wanted to make sure his daughter received the medical treatment she needed. That was his first priority. His second was making sure his insurance would cover things and that he'd pay a fair price for any procedures. The fact that this proved so difficult highlights one of the crazier aspects of the U.S. healthcare system: the inability of patients to know how much their treatment really costs. "It's infuriating and it's exhausting," Kamp, 50, told me. "It's clear that the entire system is designed to bully you into submission.

What would J. Edgar Hoover have to say about this? NBA Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman said Monday that, in the wake of his trip to North Korea in February, the FBI wants to use him as an informant. "I have been contacted by the FBI and I met with them. They wanted to know what went on and who's really in charge in North Korea," Rodman told the Miami Herald . "I have been invited back to North Korea in August and I want to go. " Rodman also had a message for those who think he is being used by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. "I'm not a total idiot.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department will continue to respond to inquiries about incidents about false reports of emergencies but would not publicize them as so-called "swatting incidents," a department spokesman said Monday. The statement by Steve Whitmore, spokesman for Sheriff Lee Baca, came several days after the Los Angeles Police Department took the unusual step of announcing it would no longer acknowledge such incidents through news releases. The LAPD told news organizations to make public records requests about specific addresses.