We've looked a lot at privacy from the Big Brother standpoint: how the National Security Agency or corporate giants like Google track us online, say for political reasons or to make money from ads. But there's another kind of privacy concern that is a lot more intimate. You could call it Little Brother, though it's really more like husbands and wives, lovers and exes who secretly watch their … [Read more...]

The state has begun a comprehensive evaluation of the entire child protection system, calling on a national authority on social services for help, Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson said Wednesday. Gov. Mark Dayton said in an interview Wednesday he “absolutely” supports the review, and wants county and state leaders to come together to determine how child protection can be improved, and … [Read more...]

Legislators want to change bill they voted for, saying they didn’t know it would restrict past abuse reports. The state’s top child protection official wants to scrap a law her agency helped pass four months ago that made it more difficult for social workers to investigate maltreatment cases. In May, the Legislature overwhelmingly approved a bill that forbids county child protection agencies … [Read more...]

Kristi Shelloner wears her grief around her neck like an anchor in a world rapidly filling with water. During her employment as a family support worker at a Humboldt County community resource center, she has experienced rage, frustration, sorrow and depression. Shelloner has seen the worst: gutter slugs and night crawlers that molest their own children, depraved parents who have done things … [Read more...]

Last year, an Oklahoma family court judge ordered that a six-year-old girl’s father be given sole custody even though he’s a registered sex offender. The decision was so egregious it made headlines around the world, but experts in protecting children call it just another example of judicial sex trafficking in the United States. “We think of human traffickers as sleazy characters evading the … [Read more...]