What Adam Curry is reading

Activist Post: Did the CIA give the NSA documents to Ed Snowden?
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  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 22:32
  Jon RappoportActivist PostCurrent press reports focus on PRISM, the NSA's relationships with the biggest tech companies in the world, and the spilled leaks of Ed Snowden.
  I've already laid out serious questions about Snowden's work history and whether he's told the truth about it.
  Is it likely he could have accessed and snatched thousands of highly classified NSA documents?
  ''Let's see. Who's coming to work for us here at NSA today? Oh, new whiz kid. Ed Snowden. Outside contractor. He's not really a full-time employee of the NSA. Twenty-nine years old. No high school diploma. Has a GED. He worked for the CIA and quit. Hmm. Why did he quit? Oh, never mind, who cares? No problem.
  ''Tell you what. Let's give this kid access to our most sensitive data. Sure. Why not? Everything. That stuff we keep behind 986 walls? Where you have to pledge the life of your first-born against the possibility you'll go rogue? Let Snowden see it all. Sure. What the hell. I'm feeling charitable. He seems like a nice kid.''
  Here is a more likely scenario.
  Snowden never saw any of those thousands of documents on an NSA computer. Never happened.
  Instead, he was either used or volunteered as a CIA operative to carry the endless turf war between CIA and NSA a new step forward. People at the CIA WERE able to access those NSA documents and they gave the documents to Snowden and he ran with them.
  This was a covert op launched by the CIA against a chief rival, the NSA. NSA, the agency that's far bigger than the CIA. NSA, the agency that's been taking over intelligence gathering, that considers itself superior to everybody else in the intelligence field.
  The CIA, of course, couldn't be seen as the NSA leaker. They needed a guy. They needed a guy who could appear to be FROM the NSA, to make things look worse for the NSA and shield the CIA.They had Ed Snowden. He had worked for the CIA in Geneva, in a high-level position, overseeing computer-systems security. People would later assume he had the wherewithal to get into NSA files and steal documents all by himself.
  Somewhere in his CIA past, Ed meets a fellow CIA guy who sits down with him and says, ''You know, Ed, things have gone too damn far. The NSA is spying on everybody all the time. I can show you proof. They've gone beyond the point of trying to catch terrorists. They're doing something else. They're expanding a Surveillance State, which can only lead to one thing: the destruction of America, what America stands for, what you and I know America is supposed to be. The NSA isn't like us, Ed. We go after terrorists for real. That's it. Whereas NSA goes after everybody. We have to stop it. We need a guy'...and there are those of us who think you might be that guy'...''During the course of this one disingenuous conversation, the CIA is killing 37 innocent civilians all over the world with drones, but that's beside the point. Ahem.
  Ed says, ''Tell me more. I'm intrigued.''
  He buys in.
  And what his CIA handler said, in his completely cynical self-serving way, is true. The Surveillance State isn't about catching terrorists.
  At a quite insane level, it's about a partial science trying to become a complete science. It's about the vision of systems engineers:To be able to predict and control the actions of any and every human.
  Can enough useful information on Human Being X be compiled, collated, and analyzed, quickly, that would enable overseers to know what Human X is going to do'--and to redirect his next action?
  His next action and future actions?
  To put it another way, minds who are enraptured by the Matrix want to make that Matrix even tighter and more nearly perfect.
  They want to play 100-dimensional chess with most difficult piece on the board as the main target: the human. They want to see whether they can operate that piece and work it and predict it and control it and win the game.
  Winning the game means reducing 100-dimensional chess to a closed system.
  This is what the engineers of the Surveillance State are trying to do with the global population.
  Why?
  Because they think they can.
  Because they work for men who want to own all life.
  Because they view individual freedom as a highly convincing illusion they want to invalidate and smash.
  I'm reminded of a 1982 story I did for LA Weekly. I interviewed Bill Perry, who had just quit his job as head of PR for Lawrence Livermore Labs, where they do research on building better nuclear weapons.
  Bill cited, as one of his defining moments, a conversation he had with a physicist there who was complaining that the Lab needed more funding.
  Bill said, ''Look, we can already blow up the world a dozen times. What else do you need?''
  The physicist looked up from his desk and said, ''You don't understand. This is a math problem, a physics problem.''
  That's the mindset. It's all about making a better system. Who cares about collateral human damage?
  When these scientists see freedom, they shrink away from it. It disturbs them. It reminds them they aren't free. It reminds them they don't know what freedom is.
  You can even see this in some of more astounding press comments about Ed Snowden. Yes, it was all right that he exposed NSA but'...he should have stayed in America and faced the music.
  What?!?
  A mind-boggling assessment to say the least.
  However, it's really based on a perception, true or false, that Snowden is currently running around free, uncontrolled.
  And that he has no right to be, because nobody does, outside the range and reach of government.
  Freedom is the wild card. ''Order must take its place.'' That's what the Surveillance State is all about.
  ''We've got these biological machines called humans running around out there and it's crazy. They're possibly in possession of something called FREEDOM which is too horrible to contemplate, because I, an obsessive problem solver, long ago sacrificed MY OWN FREEDOM on the altar of'...I've forgotten. Anyway, wait a minute, these biological machines don't really have freedom, they're running on faulty programs'....YES, THAT'S IT, and the programs have to be changed, ONCE AND FOR ALL!! Yes, that feels better. There is no such thing as freedom.''
  ''Yes, that's it. No one is free, it's all a delusion. There are only good and bad programs, and these billions of human machines are running on bad programs'...so we need one central program, one CENTRAL PROGRAM for everybody, and then order will prevail and coordination will prevail, and peace will prevail.''
  ''In order to develop such a program, we need Total Surveillance. We need to observe all these biological machines in their crazy lives, 24/7, wherever they go, whatever they do'....and then we can collate that information and analyze it and come up with a solution. Algorithms. A better program. An all-encompassing program. Then we can insert it into the behavior of every human.''
  The Surveillance State is based on a psychology and a philosophy that has this view of life and human beings.
  That's what we're dealing with. Nothing less.
  Mass mind control. Operant conditioning. Coercion.
  In Orwell's 1984, that's what ''Big Brother is watching you'' was all about. The Surveillance State wasn't merely curious. It wasn't merely trying to stamp out terrorists. It was part and parcel of control.
  Jon Rappoport is the author of two explosive collections,The Matrix RevealedandExit From the Matrix, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.comBE THE CHANGE! PLEASE SHARE THIS USING THE TOOLS BELOW
State Department Covered Up Pedophilia by Ambassador Who Was Obama and Hillary Donor | FrontPage Magazine
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  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 18:38
  ''So he sexually abused a bunch of kids? What difference does it make?
  When I wrote about this yesterday, I suspected that the ambassador in question was an Obama donor. I was right. And as ambassadors go, Howard Gutman is a truly repulsive character.
  In 2011, Gutman claimed that Muslim violence against Jews wasn't anti-Semitic. It was just a ''reaction'' to Israel. Maybe he can explain why his sex abuse of children isn't really pedophilia. Just a reaction to Israeli settlements.
  A State Department whistleblower has accused high-ranking staff of a massive coverup '-- including keeping a lid on findings that members of then-Secretary Hillary Clinton's security detail and the Belgian ambassador solicited prostitutes.
  A chief investigator for the agency's inspector general wrote a memo outlining eight cases that were derailed by senior officials, including one instance of interference by Clinton's chief of staff, Cheryl Mills.
  A DS agent was called off a case against US Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman over claims that he solicited prostitutes, including minors.
  ''The agent began his investigation and had determined that the ambassador routinely ditched his protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children,'' says the memo.
  ''The ambassador's protective detail and the embassy's surveillance detection team . . . were well aware of the behavior.''
  Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy ordered the investigation ceased, and the ambassador remains in place, according to the memo.
  Gutman was a big Democratic donor before taking the post, having raised $500,000 for President Obama's 2008 campaign and helping finance his inaugural.
  Bashing Jews and excusing Anti-Semitism didn't get Gutman fired. Neither did trying to hire child prostitutes. What does he have to do to get fired? Stop giving Obama money?
  Who else did Howard Gutman give money to in 2008? He donated to Obama'... and to Hillary Clinton. I guess Howie was hedging his bets to see who could get him in range of a bunch of little kids.
  And Hillary Clinton covered up his child abuse in exchange for the promise of 2016 cash. But what difference does it make?
Top CIA official departing
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  Source: CNN Security Clearance
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 18:27
  By Pam Benson
  Seemingly the perennial bridesmaid, Deputy CIA Director Mike Morell is retiring after a 33-year career.
  His successor is Avril Haines, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama who will become the first woman to occupy the No. 2 spot.
  Morell, 54, has been deputy director for the past three years and twice has been called to serve as acting chief.
  The first time he covered a two-month gap in the summer of 2011 between the departure of Leon Panetta and the arrival of David Petraeus.When Petraeus suddenly resigned late last year after admitting to an affair, Morell was considered one of the leading candidates to take over.
  Obama instead nominated John Brennan, his terrorism adviser. Brennan was confirmed by the Senate and assumed the top job in March.
  At the time, many people wondered if Morell would stay on.
  Brennan said in a statement that he had looked forward to working with Morell and thanked him for helping with his transition back to the agency.
  "Michael has come to personify the strengths and qualities of this great organization, and it is difficult for me to imagine CIA without Michael's exceptionally sharp mind, tremendous energy and absolute dedication to mission," Brennan said.
  Morell said Brennan's presence made his decision "both tougher and easier" because he expected great accomplishments during Brennan's tenure and would have liked to be at his side.
  He tried to put to rest any suggestion his departure was anything but a desire to spend more time with his family after a very demanding career.
  "Whenever someone involved in the rough and tumble of Washington decides to move on, there is speculation in various quarters about the 'real reason,'" Morell said. "But when I say that it is time for my family, nothing could be more real than that."
  Haines is a senior national security official who worked closely with Brennan when he was at the White House.
  Brennan noted that she chaired a group that reviews the CIA's most sensitive programs.
  "In every instance, Avril's command of substance, sense of mission, good judgment, and keen insights have been outstanding," Brennan said.
  Haines also held posts at the State Department, worked on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and has represented the U.S. in international negotiations at the United Nations.
  She only recently had been nominated by Obama to be the legal adviser at the State Department. But with Morell's decision to retire, she was designated to the CIA.
  Morell began his career at the CIA in 1980 as an analyst concentrating on international energy issues.
  He moved up the ranks, serving as Director George Tenet's executive assistant, and was President George W. Bush's daily intelligence briefer at the time of the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda attack on the United States.
  In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Morell led the team of analysts looking at what, if any, connections Saddam Hussein had with al Qaeda.
  They concluded there had been contacts, but no operational planning. Morell was not involved in the CIA's controversial National Intelligence Estimate that wrongly concluded Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, the reason cited for going to war.
  After a three year overseas assignment, Morell returned to CIA headquarters in 2006 to run day-to-day operations before being named as director of intelligence, overseeing the work of all analysts.
  More recently, Morell has been caught up in the flap over changes made in the talking points used by officials to publicly discuss what the intelligence community knew in the immediate aftermath of the deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.
  After a CIA draft of the talking points was sent around to other members of the intelligence community for comment, Morell oversaw some changes, which included removing a reference to al Qaeda being linked to the attacks and taking out a section that discussed CIA warnings about terror threats in Benghazi.
  Morell last day at the CIA will be August 9, and he already has one job lined up. Obama has appointed him to be a member of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board.
A picture shows Edward Snowden in 2002 pulling down his pants when he worked as a webmaster and editor for a Japanese anime company run by friends in Maryland | View photo - Yahoo! News
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Muslim Light: What's Behind Turkey's Islamization and the Protests Against It - Cinar Kiper - The Atlantic
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  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 16:23
  Erdogan has been pushing for an end to alcohol, kissing and other hallmarks of secularization, with disastrous results.
  An anti-government protester shouts for help to extinguish a burning container in Istanbul's Taksim square June 4, 2013.(Yannis Behrakis/Reuters)
  It has been a long time, ninety years in fact, since Turkey has had its latest facelift. It is about time considering it happens once every nine decades or so: after the modernizing Tanzimat reforms of the 1830s and the Westernizing Kemalist reforms of the 1920s, the 2010s are ripe for a whole new round of social engineering -- this time at the hands of the religiously conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP).
  Back when the secular republic was established in 1923, the facelift came in the form of renouncing all things Ottoman and many things Muslim, some benign -- hats instead of fezzes! -- others not as much. The idea being, to paraphrase the old adage, if it looks like a Westerner, writes like a Westerner and even drinks like a Westerner, then it probably is a Westerner. As a country that got stuck in the middle -- too European to be Middle East, too Middle Eastern to be Europe -- Turkey took its symbols very seriously; bars serving fancy cocktails and public displays of affection in one camp, headscarves and a mosque's call to prayer in the other.
  Erdogan has waged a shadow war against the visibility of the secular lifestyle. His desire to keep it behind closed doors is only matched by his zeal to erect bolder and bolder monuments to a lifestyle that is more "Islamically appropriate."
  The social reforms might have been strict, but each one served to create a secular, homogenous and above all modern nation-state; a republic that could comfortably mingle at any European party. Yet the authenticity of the revolution was questioned since the beginning: in "A Journey to China, or Things Which Are Seen," Toynbee wrote of a 1929 visit to Turkey right at the height of enthusiasm for the revolution. But even then he was distinctly aware of some of its superficiality, such as a tram in Istanbul where a curtain separating the sexes had been removed but men and women still didn't mix -- "The curtain had become invisible, but it was still there, all the same" -- or how hats had successfully replaced fezzes, sort of -- "Many a self-consciously behatted man is still wearing an invisible fez."
  Such invisible relics of Islam didn't mean the social engineering failed -- it did pave the way for Western-living, secular Turks after all -- but that even those who couldn't or didn't want to play along were adorned in the trappings of the West. Regardless, for the next 90 years Turkey's genuine secularists saw themselves as spearheading the drive towards Westernization and, perhaps more importantly, wanted the acceptance of Europe -- to mixed results. But just as Turkey may not have been readily accepted by the West, it was also too foreign for the East.
  Many throughout the Middle East perceive Turks as "Muslim Light," the casual semi-faithful. Imagine the frustration of the devout Turk, so full of religious conviction yet never really accepted as part of Club Islam. One only has to hear the indignation of an AKP deputy recounting a visit to Mecca -- where Saudi authorities were so rude as to doubt his faith and tested his knowledge of common prayers -- to see his embarrassment at being indentified with those contemptible secularists. When Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan picks his crusade of the month, whether againstabortions,adultery or the arts, it is over his frustration of Turkey's image among his fellow Muslims; the same frustration secular Turks felt for decades trying to be accepted by Europe.
  And so it is no surprise that it was in Istanbul, a city literally divided between the continents of Europe and Asia, that a nationwide clash over appearances began this weekend. Istanbul's Taksim district on the European side has always been the heart of the country's secular life: its countless bars, nightclubs, bookstores, and galleries stand as testament that there are Turks who enjoy more of life than simply shuttling between work and prayer. As the centerpiece of Turkey's window to the world, the area has been at the forefront of the country's image wars for years, with more religious elements wanting to dress it in mosques and Islamic architecture to show where it really belongs.
  The latest chapter of this tug-of-war took place last week, when the government gave start to an urban redevelopment plan to replace Taksim's main green space, Gezi Park, with a giant replica of an Ottoman artillery barracks. What began last Monday as a peaceful sit-in to save the park escalated by Friday into a stand against Erdogan's vision for Turkey. The movement quickly spread to other cities, as did the ubiquitous tear gas; coverage mainly focused on the arbitrarily violent riot policing and the solidarity between the protesters fed up with Erdogan's authoritative style, but beneath it all was a long-standing clash over two very different expressions of Turkey.
  Though he had declared his intention to " raise a religious youth " openly, Erdogan has waged more of a shadow war of sorts against the visibility of the secular lifestyle. His desire to limit it to the home, or at least behind closed doors, is only matched by his zeal to erect bolder and bolder monuments to an "Islamically appropriate" lifestyle. And while the Occupy-style protestors have been his villains of the week, Taksim has something else he has always despised: alcohol, one of the most overt displays of un-Islamic activities out there. Prohibited by the religion, alcohol's visibility everywhere is a clear message: Turkey, or at least large parts of it, is indeed Muslim Light.
  The AKP's crusade against alcohol over the years has included a set ofrestrictions passed in 2011, an official crackdown during Ramadan banning outside seating at cafes and bars, an abrupt last-minute cancellation of alcohol licenses for a music festival in 2012, not to mention years of exorbitant taxes on alcohol that have succeeded in turning off many from drinking. But the AKP took its latest great leap towards a less "Islamically embarrassing" society just two weeks ago, with parliament passing yet another comprehensive set of restrictions on drinking. The 17-hour marathon session featured harsh insults, parliamentarian-on-parliamentarian kicking and a walk out in protest by almost every non-AKP deputy -- a level of tension and tantrum that captures the determination of the religious and the anxiety of the secularists.
  The AKP's harshest critics, from the opposition parties to secular journalists to the involuntarily sober, all note how it is engineering a conservative Islamic society. It's a claim the AKP frequently denies, though its arguments aren't very believable when so much of its legislation so neatly aligns with Islamic sensibilities. Often picking and choosing the Western laws and restrictions that suit its values, the government has argued for years that its alcohol policy is one of public health, despite numbers that indicate no such health problem exists in Turkey. OECD data shows Turks only consume 1.5 liters of alcohol per capita, way below the 10.7-liter average of the EU. Similarly a 2010 WHO report shows that number hasn't changed much since 1961, and adds that Turkey has the highest rate of abstention among the countries listed; four-fifths of men (83.6 percent) and nearly all women (97.1 percent) abstain from alcohol, with 65 and 92 percent respectively having never had a drink in their lives. As for the young people -- "we don't want children drinking night and day and wandering around tipsy; they are going to be alert, their minds full of knowledge" Erdogan has said -- 83.9 percent of Turks aged 15-24 have never once consumed alcohol, according to data from the Turkish Statistical Institute.
  If Erdogan is able to point out the mistakes of 1923, he shouldn't be repeating them again in 2013.
  In the end, Turkey's alcohol restrictions are simply about Erdogan's personal biases. Defending the ban of campus sales at the Global Alcohol Policy Symposium in April, he argued "of course [students] who imbibe alcohol will get intoxicated, pick up a knife and charge their friends; they'll forget all about their computers and books." Given that he thinks the only thing standing between academic success and a stabbing spree is happy hour, Erdogan's surreal perception of alcohol's capabilities would rival even the most devout Christians of the Temperance movement. Meanwhile, back in reality, alcohol is rarely the culprit in the countless cases of violent bullying for not fasting during Ramadan or the groups who chant Islamic slogans as they attack random people for kissing in public .
  Just on Sunday, during a live interview with channel Haberturk, Erdogan fumbled a couple responses on alcohol -- first declaring anyone who ever drinks an alcoholic, then suggesting those who enjoyed the occasional cocktail but voted for him didn't count. He would later try to save it by reiterating they were not banning alcohol. To be fair, there seems to be no reason to do so: it's effectively a tax on a Western lifestyle -- the kind enjoyed by those least likely to vote for the party in the first place -- and a useful source of revenue. Erdogan isn't against drinking as long as no one can see it; "if you are going to drink, then drink your alcohol in your own house" he told the nation last week . Just as secularists once sought to sweep Turkey's religious element under the rug, it is now the AKP's turn to do the same.
  Many of his opponents, including the Gezi park protesters, warn of the Islamization of Turkey. But as the party of those left behind by the 1923 revolution, it doesn't really need to socially engineer much. The party keeps winning elections in landslides, and its values are already shared by the majority of Turks . If he is trying to gain converts, he's already halfway there, as he so graciously pointed out earlier this week when he reminded the nation how he's keeping his supporters from intervening against the Taksim protests on his behalf.
  Back at the alcohol policy symposium in April, Erdogan had dismissed how the "top-down, domineering modernization mentality" of the government back in the 1920s "encouraged and incentivized alcohol consumption with a copycat mindset of modernity and civilization." But he of all people should know how such a mindset doesn't work: "fortunately social values, the societal fabric, resisted the government's attempts to encourage alcohol, keeping it in check." It is this patriarchal attempt to impose a lifestyle on those who disagree that is fuelling much of the Gezi protests.
  And just as secularists weren't able to secularize all of the religious, it doesn't seem likely the religious can convert most of the secular-ish Turks ... but it doesn't mean they can't be swept under the rug. The lesson to be learned from Erdogan's statements in April, and the nationwide protests still going strong, is just how much resentment and antagonism can arise from having a lifestyle forced on people who don't want to play along. Marx once wrote that history repeated itself "first as a tragedy, then as a farce." If Erdogan is able to point out the mistakes of 1923, he shouldn't be repeating them again in 2013. Maybe in the 2100s, when the time for the next facelift rolls around, the country will have finally learned to coexist ... or at the very least learned to be farcical about it.
Terrorists Could Use Fire as New Tactic Against United States - Blog
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  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 16:13
  By Steff Thomas Counterterrorism experts worry about a weapon that is both easily attainable and destructive. It is not a gun, explosive or nuclear weapon. It's fire. Joseph Pfeifer, chief of counterterrorism and emergency preparedness at the New York Fire Department, said first responders and law enforcement need to be more prepared for terrorist attacks that use fire as a weapon. Such tactics were used in the 2008 assaults in Mumbai, India. ''The recognition of terrorists' interest in the use of fire as a weapon and the resulting complexities are important considerations for all first responders and security forces,'' Pfeiffer said June 12 in his statement before the House Homeland Security Committee's subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence. ''Fire as a weapon, by itself or along with other tactics, presents significant challenges that first responders and security forces must contend with in planning, preparation and drills,'' he said at the hearing, which focused on the potential of an attack on the United States by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistani terrorist organization. There is a lack of training and knowledge about potential ''Mumbai-style'' terrorist attacks on the homeland. Pfeiffer urged Congress to provide resources for research and training that could aide in the prediction of these attacks sooner rather than later. Lashkar-e-Taiba led the series of attacks against Mumbai. ''While successful attacks are instructive, it is equally important to study unrealized terrorist plots that reveal a great deal about intentions, motivations, target selection and desired tactics of our adversaries,'' Pfeifer said. Some terrorist organizations have been publishing information that instructs members how to use fire as a means of attack. One publication, Inspire, provided its readers with a tutorial on various methods, including the use of simple ''ember bombs'' to ignite forest fires, according to Pfeifer. While the LeT continues to train and cultivate new terrorists, these groups and individuals no longer need extensive training, Pfeifer said. The pressure cooker bombs planted during the Boston Marathon was one example of a relatively simple to construct weapon, he said. Meanwhile, Lashkar-e-Taiba doesn't pose an imminent threat to the United States, said Christine Fair, senior fellow with the Combating Terrorism Center at the West Point military academy. While Pfeifer agreed with Fair, he still believed that the United States could be a potential target for the LeT and other groups. While the organization may not be directly connected to al-Qaida, many militants work together to plan attacks, he said. There is no evidence that the LeT has the intention to attack the U.S. home front, said Stephen Tankel, an assistant professor at American University and expert on terrorism. Tankel shared a conversation he had with an alleged member of the LeT, who stated that there were two reasons why the organization had not targeted the United States: the fear of retribution and the price that the organization might have to pay in the aftermath. The member told Tankel that if those two things were absent, the LeT would have no issues with attacking the United States.Photo Credit: Thinkstock
Parents of Navy SEAL Killed in Afghan Crash File the First Suit on NSA Spying.
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  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 16:11
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Whistle-blower Edward Snowden tells SCMP: 'Let Hong Kong people decide my fate' | South China Morning Post
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  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:56
  Edward Snowden says he wants to ask the people of Hong Kong to decide his fate after choosing the city because of his faith in its rule of law.
  The 29-year-old former CIA employee behind what might be the biggest intelligence leak in US history revealed his identity to the world in Hong Kong on Sunday. His decision to use a city under Chinese sovereignty as his haven has been widely questioned '' including by some rights activists in Hong Kong.
  Snowden said last night that he had no doubts about his choice of Hong Kong.
  ''People who think I made a mistake in picking Hong Kong as a location misunderstand my intentions. I am not here to hide from justice; I am here to reveal criminality,'' Snowden said in an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post.
  ''I have had many opportunities to flee HK, but I would rather stay and fight the United States government in the courts, because I have faith in Hong Kong's rule of law,'' he added.
  Snowden says he has committed no crimes in Hong Kong and has ''been given no reason to doubt [Hong Kong's legal] system''.
  ''My intention is to ask the courts and people of Hong Kong to decide my fate,'' he said.
  I have had many opportunities to flee HK, but I would rather stay and fight the United States government in the courts, because I have faith in Hong Kong's rule of law
  Snowden, a former employee of US government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton who worked with the National Security Agency, boarded a flight to Hong Kong on May 20 and has remained in the city ever since.
  His astonishing confession on Sunday sparked a media frenzy in Hong Kong, with journalists from around the world trying to track him down. It has also caused a flurry of debate in the city over whether he should stay and whether Beijing will seek to interfere in a likely extradition case.
  The Hong Kong government has so far refused to comment on Snowden's case. While many Hong Kong lawmakers, legal experts, activisits and members of the public have called on the city's courts to protect Snowden's rights, others such as Beijing loyalist lawmaker and former security chief Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee said he should leave.
  Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor director Law Yuk-kai said he was surprised by Snowden's choice, adding: ''Snowden's positive view of Hong Kong no longer matches the reality.''
  Law said a possible reason for his choice could be Hong Kong's role as the region's news hub.
  ''Hong Kong remains a hub of the global media, not least because of its proximity to the economic boom in southern China and the ease of access to many other Asian cities. The publicity could complicate efforts by the United States to charge Snowden and have him deported,'' he said.
  Snowden said yesterday that he felt safe in the city.
  ''As long as I am assured a free and fair trial, and asked to appear, that seems reasonable,'' he said.
  He says he plans to stay in Hong Kong until he is ''asked to leave''.
  The United States has not yet filed an application for extradition.
  Snowden could choose to fight any extradition attempt in court. Another option open to him is to seek refugee status from the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Hong Kong.
  The UNHCR would not confirm whether it had received an application for refugee status from Snowden.
  Earlier, in the interview in which he revealed his identity to the world, Snowden explained that he had sought refuge in Hong Kong because it ''has a strong tradition of free speech'' and ''a long tradition of protesting in the streets.''
  Local activists plan to take to the streets on Saturday in support of Snowden. Groups including the Civil Human Rights Front and international human rights groups will march from Chater Gardens in Central to the US consulate on Garden Road, starting at 3pm.
  The march is being organised by In-media, a website supporting freelance journalists.
  ''We call on Hong Kong to respect international legal standards and procedures relating to the protection of Snowden; we condemn the US government for violating our rights and privacy; and we call on the US not to prosecute Snowden,'' the group said in a statement.
  Additional reporting by Lai Ying-kit
IRS Cancels Order for Spying Equipment.
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: WT news feed
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:55
  (AP Photo)
  (CNSNews.com) - The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has cancelled its purchase order for surveillance equipment, which had included coffee trays with hidden cameras and cameras that could be hidden in plants.
  The IRS issued the cancellation on Wednesday at 11:49 a.m.
  CNSNews.com published an initial story about the IRS's purchase order on Monday afternoon--and that story was linked on The Drudge Report.
  As CNSNews.com reported, the IRS had issued a rush order for the surveillance equipment last Thursday, June 6. That order originally carried a deadline of Monday, June 10. Among the items the IRS sought to purchase were four coffee trays with hidden cameras, four cameras that could be concealed in plants, and two "concealed clock radios."
  The original purchase order said that IRS already had an "Undisclosed Corporation" that could provide the items and that any would-be competitor would need to demonstrate that it, too, could furnish the type of equipment the IRS was seeking. The order said its descriptions of the items the IRS wanted to buy was "vague due to the use and nature of the items."
  "The Internal Revenue Service intends to award a Purchase Order to an undisclosed Corporation," said the original order. "The following descriptions are vague due to the use and nature of the items. If you feel that you can provide the following equiptment [sic], please respond to this email no later than 4 days after the solicitation date."
  "Vendors who can provide the required services at prices, terms and conditions equal to or better than those which can be provided by Undisclosed Corporation should submit clear and convincing data in writing substantiating an ability to furnish the entire requirement," said the now-cancelled order.
  In recent weeks the IRS has been at the center of several scandals, including the targeting of Tea Party groups and subjecting them to greater scrutiny when applying for non-profit status during the 2010 and 2012 elections.
  (AP Photo)
  A report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration showed that groups with names like ''patriot'' in their titles were singled out, required to complete lengthy personal questionnaires (often multiple times) and have their nonprofit status delayed, sometimes for more than three years.
  Last week a second Inspector General report detailed nearly $50 million in wasteful spending by the agency on conferences, in which employees stayed at luxurious Las Vegas hotels, paid a keynote speaker $17,000 to paint several portraits, including a picture of U2 singer Bono, and spent $50,000 on parody videos of ''Star Trek.''
  Neither the IRS press office nor the IRS procurement office responded to inquiries from CNSNews.com asking why the purchase order was cancelled.
Anonymous warn Greek government of cyber-attack after ERT's shutdown
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: euronews
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:53
  Hacktivist group Anonymous posted a video on YouTube warning the Greek government of their intention to launch a cyber-attack on state websites beginning on June 15th in retaliation to the shutdown of public broadcaster ERT and the dismissal of more than 2,650 employees.
  ''The Greek government continues its tactics to dismiss people who have children. This is unacceptable'' stated the Guy Fawkes-masked figure in the Anonymous YouTube video.
  ''You must know that now you are our goal'' adds the video and warns of a cyber-attack on June 15.
  The video concludes by stating that ''we will not forgive nor forget, expect us Greek government''.
  Credit photo CC BY ND Flickr/lioleiser http://eurone.ws/13D7mcz
  Watch the video
  More about:Anonymous, Cyber attack, Greece, Internet, MediaCopyright (C) 2013 euronews
E-cigarette classification as medicines plan angers industry
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: The Guardian World News
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:51
  The e-cig industry is enraged at proposals to class them as medicines. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
  Electronic cigarettes are to be classed as medicines under proposals to tighten up the regulation of products containing nicotine '' but their manufacturers say they will not co-operate unless forced to do so by EU law.
  Invitations to put their products forward voluntarily to be classed as medicines by UK authorities provoked fury in the industry, which may be worth £250m in Britain by next year. The products are used by an estimated 1.3 million people.
  Health chiefs want to put e-cigarettes on the same legal basis as gums, patches and mouthsprays designed to help wean smokers off their habit, but the trade association for the industry, Ecita, claimed this would force alternatives to tobacco out of the market.
  The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) said the government wanted to regulate all nicotine-containing products - some such as gums, patches and mouth-sprays already are - because it could not at the moment guarantee their safety and efficacy. The move will also mean that licensed e-cigarettes could be prescribed to help smokers cut down or quit.
  The UK is pressing for an EU-wide position in new legislation to be introduced next year and take force in 2016. It believes countries such as France, Germany and Denmark are likely to take a similar path. Meanwhile the MHRA encouraged e-cigaratte companies to apply for a medicines licence in advance of any law.
  Jeremy Mean, responsible for vigilance and risk management at the MHRA, said the decision that provides "a framework that will enable good quality products to be widely available. It's not about banning products that some people find useful, it's about making sure that smokers have an effective alternative that they can rely on to meet their needs."
  There is no sign of any part of the UK following France in considering a ban on using e-cigarettes in public places. The chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, said: "Smokers are harmed by the deadly tar and toxins in tobacco smoke, not the nicotine."
  "While it's best to quit completely, I realise that not every smoker can and it is much better to get nicotine from safer sources such as nicotine replacement therapy.
  "More and more people are using e-cigarettes, so it's only right these products are properly regulated to be safe and work effectively."
  The decision was backed Action on Smoking and Health and Labour, although its public health spokeswoman Diane Abbott warned that "increasing regulation on e-cigarettes while kicking standard packaging for cigarettes into the long grass is a sign the government has caved into the bullying tactics of Big Tobacco and risks sending out the wrong message that e-cigarretes pose a greater threat than smoking."
  Ecita said: "Nicotine containing products can only be considered a medicine when they claim to help users quit smoking. Electronic cigarettes do not do this: they simply allow users to satisfy their desire for recreational nicotine '' a perfectly legal drug '' without the thousands of harmful chemicals produced by burning tobacco.Courts around Europe have already ruled that electronic cigarettes marketed without such claims cannot be reclassified as medicines, because this would lead to the absurd situation of tobacco cigarettes becoming medicines.
  Katherine Devlin, Ecita's president, said: "What the MHRA proposes '' forcing all e-cigarette users to use licensed products that cannot replicate the smoking experience in the same way '' is bad news for public health. Yet the MHRA proposes to do exactly that, while toxic tobacco products which cause far more harm are left on the market."
  Damien Scott, commercial manager of manufacturers SKYCIG, said his company would wait to see how the law played out in ther EU. "We don't think this is necessary. We self-regulate, and restriction on products long-term will make them ineffective."
Why you should worry about the NSA - NY Daily News
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:49
  None of us want another terrorist attack in the United States. Equally, most of us have nothing to hide from the federal government, which already has so many ways of knowing about us. And we know that the just-revealed National Security Agency program does not actually listen to our calls; it uses the phone numbers, frequency, length and times of the calls for data-mining.
  So, why is it that many Americans, including me, are so upset with the Obama administration gathering up telephone records?
  My concerns are twofold. First, the law under which President George W. Bush and now President Obama have acted was not intended to give the government records of all telephone calls. If that had been the intent, the law would have said that. It didn't. Rather, the law envisioned the administration coming to a special court on a case-by-case basis to explain why it needed to have specific records.
  I am troubled by the precedent of stretching a law on domestic surveillance almost to the breaking point. On issues so fundamental to our civil liberties, elected leaders should not be so needlessly secretive.
  The argument that this sweeping search must be kept secret from the terrorists is laughable. Terrorists already assume this sort of thing is being done. Only law-abiding American citizens were blissfully ignorant of what their government was doing.
  Secondly, we should worry about this program because government agencies, particularly the Federal Bureau of Investigation, have a well-established track record of overreaching, exceeding their authority and abusing the law. The FBI has used provisions of the Patriot Act, intended to combat terrorism, for purposes that greatly exceed congressional intent.
  Even if you trust Obama, should we have programs and interpretations of law that others could abuse now without his knowing it or later in another administration? Obama thought we needed to set up rules about drones because of what the next President might do. Why does he not see the threat from this telephone program?
  The answer is that he inherited this vacuum cleaner approach to telephone records from Bush. When Obama was briefed on it, there was no forceful and persuasive advocate for changing it. His chief adviser on these things at the time was John Brennan, a life-long CIA officer. Obama must have been told that the government needed everyone's phone logs in the NSA's computers for several reasons.
  The bureaucrats surely argued that it was easier to run the big data search and correlation program on one database. They said there was no law that could compel the telephone companies to store the records on their own servers.
  If the telephone companies did so, government and company lawyers then certainly said, they would become legally ''an agent'' of the government and could be sued by customers for violating the terms of their service agreements.
  Finally, Obama was certainly told, if the NSA and the FBI had to query telephone company servers, then the phone companies would know whom the government was watching, a violation of need-to-know secrecy traditions.
Michael Morell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:44
  Michael Joseph Morell (born September 4, 1958) was the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and has served as Acting Director twice in 2011 and from 2012 to 2013.
  Life and career[edit]Morell is a native of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. His formal education includes a B.A. in economics from the University of Akron and an M.A. in economics from Georgetown University.[1] He joined the CIA in 1980. He was chief of the CIA's division on Asia, Pacific and Latin America.[2] Most of his work in the agency was devoted to Asian projects.[1] He also managed the staff that produced the Presidential Daily Briefings for PresidentGeorge W. Bush.[1][2] Before his 2010 nomination as Deputy Director, Morell served as Director for Intelligence, a position he had held since 2008. Before that, he served as the CIA's first Associate Deputy Director from 2006 to 2008.
  In May 2010, Morell was sworn in as the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, succeeding Stephen Kappes.[3] From July 1, 2011, [4] to September 6, 2011, he served his first stint as Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, following the appointment of Leon Panetta as Secretary of Defense. On November 9, 2012, Morell once again became Acting Director after David Petraeus[5] following a sex scandal. Obama chose John Brennan, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate by 12 to 3 vote on March 5, 2013.[6]
  Morell announced his resignation from the CIA on June 12, 2013.[7]
  References[edit]External links[edit]PersondataNameMorell, Michael J.Alternative namesShort descriptionDate of birthSeptember 4, 1958Place of birthCuyahoga Falls, OhioDate of deathPlace of death
CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell resigns - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:41
  Central Intelligence Agency Deputy Director Michael Morell resigned on Wednesday.
  "I am passionate about two things in this world '-- the Agency and my family. And while I have given everything I have to the Central Intelligence Agency and its vital mission for a third of a century, it is now time for me to give everything I have to my family," Morell said in a statement.Morell previously served twice as CIA acting director.
  In May, news broke that Morell and former CIA Director David Petraeus disagreed about how much information to disclose to the public in talking points about a terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.
  State Department officials reportedly argued against Morell removing mention of previous CIA warnings of threats in Libya, according to administration officials. Morell was not acting on pressure from administration officials to deemphasize indications that there might be a threat to the consulate, officials said.
  When Petraeus received the modified talking points, however, he reportedly said, "frankly, I'd just as soon not use this." Petraeus said the talking points did not include enough detail for Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who requested them.
  The White House announced Wednesday afternoon that President Obama would appoint Morell to the President's Intelligence Advisory Board.
  Morell will be reportedly replaced by White House lawyer Avril D. Haines, effective Aug. 9. Haines previously served as Obama's legal counsel for national security as well as a National Security Council adviser.
  In announcing his resignation, Morell also praised Haines.
  "She is extremely bright without being intimidating; she is tough while being compassionate; and she has the deepest of integrity," Morell said.
  In April, Haines was nominated to serve as the State Department's legal adviser. According to a White House official, Haines's nomination was withdrawn due to her selection to serve as deputy CIA director.
  --This report was updated at 4:39 p.m.
CIA's deputy director to be replaced with White House lawyer - The Washington Post
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:40
  The CIA's deputy director plans to resign and will be replaced by White House lawyer and agency outsider Avril D. Haines, Director John O. Brennan said Wednesday.
  Haines, who will succeed career officer Michael Morell on Aug. 9, has served for three years as President Obama's deputy counsel in charge of national security issues and as legal adviser to the National Security Council. Although she has never worked inside the intelligence agency, ''she knows more about covert action than anyone in the U.S. government outside of the CIA,'' Brennan said his first interview since becoming CIA director in March.
  The surprise move gives Brennan an ally in the CIA's executive suite who helped him rewrite the rules of the drone campaign that were recently announced by Obama. Unlike an agency insider, Haines has no direct investment in any of the counterterrorism programs that Brennan has indicated he will seek to rein in.
  In a message to the CIA on Wednesday afternoon, Brennan emphasized that Haines, 43, has worked closely with senior national security officials. ''She has participated in virtually every deputies and principals committee meeting over the past two years and chairs the Lawyer's Group that reviews the Agency's most sensitive programs,'' the statement said.
  Obama nominated Haines just two months ago as legal counsel for the State Department, where she worked previously as a lawyer. Brennan said he spoke to Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who has been slow to fill a number of vacant diplomatic jobs, about the change. Haines also worked as deputy counsel for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when both Kerry and Vice President Biden were members of that panel.
  The highly regarded Morell, a 33-year CIA veteran who twice served as acting director, said in an interview that he decided last month to resign because ''I want to and I need to devote more attention to my family.'' Morell has three college-aged children.
  In a series of high-powered jobs, Morell delivered the President's Daily Briefing to George W. Bush. He said he was ''probably the only person on the planet'' at the side of U.S. presidents during both the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and ''when we brought Osama bin Laden to justice.''
  Brennan and Morell spoke of their professional and personal closeness '-- they both started at the CIA in 1980 '-- and emphasized that the resignation was Morell's choice. Each said he had recommended the other as Obama's new CIA director before Brennan's nomination early this year.
  Brennan left the agency after 25 years for the private sector and reentered government in 2009 as Obama's top counterterrorism adviser. As director, he has moved to counteract the CIA's expansion into what the agency calls ''direct action,'' including drone strikes, and reinvigorate its core functions of intelligence gathering and analysis.
  Brennan said he turned toward Haines based on her performance at the White House, where ''I spent a lot of time on matters involving the law .'‰.'‰. [and] noticed similarities between the intelligence and legal professions.'' Both, he said, need to make sure ''facts are correct and distinguish between facts, analysis, assessments and inference. Avril epitomizes those qualities.''
ESPN to kill 3-D broadcasts by end of year
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:27
  ESPN to kill 3-D broadcasts by end of yearJavascript is currently disabled in your web browser. For full site functionality, it is necessary to enable Javascript. In order to enable it, please see these instructions.39 minutes ago by Peter SvenssonESPN will stop broadcasting in 3-D by the end of the year, the network said Wednesday, dealing a major blow to a technology that was launched with great fanfare but has been limping along for years.
  The sports network said there were too few viewers to make 3-D broadcasts worth it. It didn't say exactly how many viewers had, but the number was "extremely limited and not growing."
  Last year, only 2 percent of TVs in the U.S. were able to show 3-D programming, according to the most recent data from research firm IHS Screen Digest.
  ESPN 3D launched in 2010 as one of nine 3-D channels that followed on the release of James Cameron's "Avatar." TV makers rushed to introduce 3-D sets as well. ESPN said then that it expected a "3-D tsunami" in the industry.
  But few consumers proved willing to pay the extra $200 or so for a 3-D-capable set. The sets also required viewers to wear glasses, and many people felt the 3-D effect didn't add that much to the viewing experience.
  Optometrists say as many as one in four viewers have problems watching 3-D movies and TV, either because the technology causes tiresome eyestrain or because they have problems perceiving depth.
  TV makers have turned their focus to increasing the resolution of their sets to the "Ultra HDTV" level and getting broadcasters to take advantage of that.
  ESPN said it would be ready to provide the broadcasts again "if or when 3D does take off."
  ESPN is owned by The Walt Disney Co.
  Explore further:Who's watching? 3-D TV is no hit with US viewers
  (C) 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
  More from Physics Forums - General Engineering
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  Who's watching? 3-D TV is no hit with US viewers Sep 28, 2012
  Phil Orlins knows everything about producing TV in three dimensions. The ESPN producer has captured the undulating greens of Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia and the flying motor bikes of the X-Games ...
  One screen not enough for US viewers, survey finds Apr 09, 2013
  American television viewers are increasingly finding that one screen won't do: almost all have a second-screen device and 87 percent use it while watching shows, a survey said Tuesday.
  China test-launches 3D TV channel Jan 02, 2012
  China's state broadcaster has test-launched a 3D television channel, state media said, in a bid to draw viewers and drive consumption by encouraging people to upgrade to 3D-capable sets.
  2.1 million viewers live stream Super Bowl online Feb 08, 2012
  (AP) -- The first live stream of the Super Bowl drew 2.1 million unique viewers, NBC said Thursday.
  Disney and Comcast reach a long-term deal Jan 04, 2012
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  Recommended for youSF, NY officials wait to judge Apple 'kill switch' Jun 10, 2013
  The top prosecutors in San Francisco and New York say they are reserving judgment of Apple's new iOS7 security feature designed to make it harder to reactivate a stolen iPhone.
  AT&T extends wait for new phone to 2 years Jun 10, 2013
  AT&T is extending from 20 months to 24 months the time it takes for customers on contract-based plans to earn a fully subsidized upgrade to a new phone.
  AT&T launches push-to-talk service for iPhone Jun 10, 2013
  AT&T Inc. on Monday said it's adding a walkie-talkie-like application to the iPhone for its corporate customers, replicating a hallmark feature of the Nextel network, which is being shut down this summer.
  Obama pushes plan for fast Internet in US schools Jun 06, 2013
  President Barack Obama says he wants 99 percent of American students connected to super-fast Internet within five years. He's directing federal regulators to use an existing program to equip schools with ...
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  Cheap translations, but not replacement for humansAn Israeli startup says it has come up with a way to overcome language barriers when conducting international business: an automated service that provides quick translations between English and seven other ...
  Facebook introduces hashtagsFacebook is introducing hashtags, the number signs used on Twitter, Instagram and other services to identify topics being discussed and allow users to search for them.
  Cheaper solar panels fuel rise in renewable energyA dramatic drop in the price of solar power technology last year helped the continued growth of renewable energy, according to a U.N.-backed report published Wednesday.
  Yahoo to release IDs of inactive email accountsYahoo is trying to breathe new life into inactive email accounts by giving away the identifications beginning next month.
  SEC warns of rise in risky email stock schemesUS market regulators warned Wednesday of a rise in spam email and social media-based stock promotions that are actually "pump and dump" schemes aimed at cheating small investors.
  Cheetah's acceleration, not speed, power key to their successEveryone knows cheetahs are blazingly fast. Now new research illustrates how their acceleration and nimble zigzagging leave other animals in the dust and scientists in awe.
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  Research points to brain's 'dark side' as key to cocaine addiction(Medical Xpress)'--Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found evidence that an emotion-related brain region called the central amygdala'--whose activity promotes feelings of malaise and unhappiness'--plays ...
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  (C) Phys.org' 2003-2013
  ESPN to kill 3-D broadcasts by end of yearJavascript is currently disabled in your web browser. For full site functionality, it is necessary to enable Javascript. In order to enable it, please see these instructions.39 minutes ago by Peter SvenssonESPN will stop broadcasting in 3-D by the end of the year, the network said Wednesday, dealing a major blow to a technology that was launched with great fanfare but has been limping along for years.
  The sports network said there were too few viewers to make 3-D broadcasts worth it. It didn't say exactly how many viewers had, but the number was "extremely limited and not growing."
  Last year, only 2 percent of TVs in the U.S. were able to show 3-D programming, according to the most recent data from research firm IHS Screen Digest.
  ESPN 3D launched in 2010 as one of nine 3-D channels that followed on the release of James Cameron's "Avatar." TV makers rushed to introduce 3-D sets as well. ESPN said then that it expected a "3-D tsunami" in the industry.
  But few consumers proved willing to pay the extra $200 or so for a 3-D-capable set. The sets also required viewers to wear glasses, and many people felt the 3-D effect didn't add that much to the viewing experience.
  Optometrists say as many as one in four viewers have problems watching 3-D movies and TV, either because the technology causes tiresome eyestrain or because they have problems perceiving depth.
  TV makers have turned their focus to increasing the resolution of their sets to the "Ultra HDTV" level and getting broadcasters to take advantage of that.
  ESPN said it would be ready to provide the broadcasts again "if or when 3D does take off."
  ESPN is owned by The Walt Disney Co.
  Explore further:Who's watching? 3-D TV is no hit with US viewers
  (C) 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
  More from Physics Forums - General Engineering
  Related Stories
  ESPN, Discovery push third dimension for TV Jan 05, 2010
  (AP) -- Two major cable networks - ESPN and Discovery - said Tuesday they plan to start beaming 3-D entertainment into peoples' homes for the first time.
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  Phil Orlins knows everything about producing TV in three dimensions. The ESPN producer has captured the undulating greens of Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia and the flying motor bikes of the X-Games ...
  One screen not enough for US viewers, survey finds Apr 09, 2013
  American television viewers are increasingly finding that one screen won't do: almost all have a second-screen device and 87 percent use it while watching shows, a survey said Tuesday.
  China test-launches 3D TV channel Jan 02, 2012
  China's state broadcaster has test-launched a 3D television channel, state media said, in a bid to draw viewers and drive consumption by encouraging people to upgrade to 3D-capable sets.
  2.1 million viewers live stream Super Bowl online Feb 08, 2012
  (AP) -- The first live stream of the Super Bowl drew 2.1 million unique viewers, NBC said Thursday.
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  AT&T extends wait for new phone to 2 years Jun 10, 2013
  AT&T is extending from 20 months to 24 months the time it takes for customers on contract-based plans to earn a fully subsidized upgrade to a new phone.
  AT&T launches push-to-talk service for iPhone Jun 10, 2013
  AT&T Inc. on Monday said it's adding a walkie-talkie-like application to the iPhone for its corporate customers, replicating a hallmark feature of the Nextel network, which is being shut down this summer.
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  (C) Phys.org' 2003-2013
Why Tunisia Could Host the U.S. Military's African Command(AFRICOM)
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: StratRisks
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:25
  Source: TSLive
  The post-revolutionary Tunisian government may soon find itself inclined to host a major piece of the United States' international military architecture.
  The debate over whether Tunisia should accomodate the United States Africa Command, also known as AFRICOM, started when the U.S. declared its intentions to create the command in 2006. At the time, the discussion mainly centered on the possible consequences such a decision could have on Tunisian internal affairs, as well as on the country's foreign policy.
  AFRICOM is responsible for U.S. military operations in Africa and for military relations with African countries. Currently headquartered not in Africa but near Stuttgart, Germany, AFRICOM directly employs 1,300 personnel. It has additional military and civilian personnel attached to it in other parts of the world, including Djibouti and the U.K. The intention behind AFRICOM is to provide a base for rapid deployment to any location in Africa whenever American interests are under threat.
  As early as 2006, there were talks over whether Tunisia would accommodate AFRICOM. Tunisia's strategic location would enable the command to link up with the U.S. Navy's Sixth Fleet located in Naples, Italy when necessary. Tunisia is also in North Africa, which remains one of Al Qaeda's most important areas of operations.
  Tunisia reportedly rejected the U.S.'s request to host AFRICOM for several reasons. On a local level, Tunisia feared that fundamentalist militias would take such an agreement to be a a declaration of war by the Tunisian government. This would certainly attract retaliative attacks compromising both national security and Tunisia's main source of income, tourism. On the level of foreign policy, Tunisia feared that its relations with France may suffer. France has always considered North Africa its backyard where even its best allies cannot play, and an AFRICOM presence in Tunisia would surely aggravate Paris.
  But now a dramatic change, brought about by the revolution, may alter the fate of AFRICOM in Tunisia.
  Terrorists have already breached Tunisian national security, and they have breached it well. Secret weapons warehouses are being discovered on a regular basis, regular skirmishes between the Tunisian army and terrorist groups in border areas like Chaambi are taking place, and hundreds of well-trained Tunisian jihadists will return home from Syria as soon as the score is settled there. The Tunisian army is proving that its current capabilities do not allow it to stand against these guerillas much longer. Furthermore, the current economic situation does not allow Tunisia to enhance its military capacity to any great degree. Hosting an American base would be a less expensive, and perhaps even lucrative, option.
  Tunisian foreign relations have been affected by the revolution as well. Sarkozy's secret shipments of tear gas to the Tunisian regime during the uprisings against former president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali have scarred the government's relationship with France. France's interventionist statements concerning the political situation in Tunisia have provoked the current Islamist government's outrage on numerous occasions. Tunisian officials' recent visits to the U.S., Germany, Japan, and China may signal, therefore, a change in Tunisian foreign policy as the country seeks new strategic alliances. Irritating France may thus be much less of a concern for the post-revolutionary government.
  It seems, then, that the idea of AFRICOM in Tunisia is no longer taboo. Of course nothing will happen overnight, and it would take a few years before there is any chance that we see the command move to North Africa. Upcoming Tunisian governments are no longer bound to reject America's bid, but this is not to say that they are bound to accept it.
  This article was written by Mohammad Mootaz Bellah Ghothbani, a student at the l'Ecole Normale Superieure in Tunis. The post reflects the opinions of the author and not those of Tunisia Live as a publication.
  Tags: Africa, AFRICOM, djibouti, france, government, Irritating France, military, North Africa, policy, relations, revolution, security, student, Tunisia, Tunisia Live, U.S., United States, United States Africa Command, Upcoming Tunisian
Google Opens Up Some More: The 'Secret' Computer System It Uses To Give Info To NSA Is Secure FTP
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  Archived Version
  Source: BlackListedNews.com
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:25
  Source:Techdirt Google is continuing to open up about the supposed "secret" program by which it hands data over to the NSA that has been subject to so much attention over the last week. And, once again, the story seems to be less than what was originally reported. Google's now said that when it receives a valid FISA order for information, the "secret" computer system it uses to get the required info to the NSA isn't some crazy server setup or dropbox... but secure FTP.
  Instead the company transmits FISA information the old fashioned way: by hand, or over secure FTP.
  ''When required to comply with these requests, we deliver that information to the US government '-- generally through secure FTP transfers and in person,'' Google spokesman Chris Gaither told Wired. ''The US government does not have the ability to pull that data directly from our servers or network.''
  However, the company does say that the government has asked for more, but that Google has refused.''We refuse to participate in any program '-- for national security or other reasons '-- that requires us to provide governments with access to our systems or to install their equipment on our networks,'' he said. ''We have been asked to do things in the past and we have declined.''
  It's increasingly beginning to appear like the terminology used in the leaked PowerPoint presentation was not as clear as it should be, concerning the level of the NSA's integration with Google (and, perhaps, other companies).This does not mean that there aren't significant questions about what kinds of data and how much data is requested via FISA orders, but that puts the issue right back to the government. The specifics of how tech companies are handing legally required data over to the NSA seems like much less of an issue than the breadth of the government's requests (and the non-PRISM request for all phone call records).
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H.R. 2324: To repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force.
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  Source: Watching Congress
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:19
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A bill to authorize the extension of preferential tariff treatment for certain textile goods imported from Nicaragua. (S. 1136) - GovTrack.us
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  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:18
  GovTrack's Bill SummaryWe don't have a summary available yet.
  Library of Congress SummaryThe summary below was written by the Congressional Research Service, which is a nonpartisan division of the Library of Congress.
  No summary available.
  House Republican Conference SummaryThe summary below was written by the House Republican Conference, which is the caucus of Republicans in the House of Representatives.
  No summary available.
  House Democratic Caucus SummaryThe House Democratic Caucus does not provide summaries of bills.
  So, yes, we display the House Republican Conference's summaries when available even if we do not have a Democratic summary available. That's because we feel it is better to give you as much information as possible, even if we cannot provide every viewpoint.
  We'll be looking for a source of summaries from the other side in the meanwhile.
A bill to require the Attorney General to disclose each decision, order, or opinion of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that includes significant legal interpretation of section 501 or 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 unle
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  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:17
  GovTrack's Bill SummaryWe don't have a summary available yet.
  Library of Congress SummaryThe summary below was written by the Congressional Research Service, which is a nonpartisan division of the Library of Congress.
  No summary available.
  House Republican Conference SummaryThe summary below was written by the House Republican Conference, which is the caucus of Republicans in the House of Representatives.
  No summary available.
  House Democratic Caucus SummaryThe House Democratic Caucus does not provide summaries of bills.
  So, yes, we display the House Republican Conference's summaries when available even if we do not have a Democratic summary available. That's because we feel it is better to give you as much information as possible, even if we cannot provide every viewpoint.
  We'll be looking for a source of summaries from the other side in the meanwhile.
France says Syrian army must be stopped before Aleppo
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  Archived Version
  Source: bertb news feed
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 14:27
  Syrian opposition fighters are seen in the northern city of Aleppo on May 27, 2013. France on Wednesday urged the international community to stop the progression of Syrian troops, backed by Hezbollah fighters and Iran, towards the strategic northern town of Aleppo.
  AFP - France on Wednesday urged the international community to stop the progression of Syrian troops, backed by Hezbollah fighters and Iran, towards the strategic northern town of Aleppo.
  After winning a strategic victory by retaking Qusayr, an important town near the border with Lebanon, Syrian troops are now focusing their attention on Aleppo as they continue to gain ground against the rebels.
  "We must stop this progression before Aleppo. It is the next target of Hezbollah and of the Iranians," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on France 2 television.
  "We need to re-balance things because over the past few weeks the troops of Bashar al-Assad (Syrian leader) and especially Hezbollah and the Iranians, along with Russian arms, have gained considerable ground."
  But he did not expand on how Syrian troops, buoyed by military support from its Shiite allies Hezbollah and Iran, should be stopped.
  On Tuesday, France's foreign ministry warned that the nearly 27-month Syrian conflict, which is estimated to have killed at least 94,000 people, was at a "turning point."
  "What should we do under these conditions to reinforce the opposition armed forces? We have had these discussions with our partners, with the Americans, the Saudis, the Turks, many others," said ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot.
  "We cannot leave the opposition in the current state."
  The European Union, under pressure from London and Paris, last month failed to renew an arms embargo on Syria, leaving individual member states free from August 1 to supply weapons to the opposition, if they decide to do so.
  Fabius said France had not yet decided what to do after the deadline.
  "Bashar... used chemical weapons in an outrageous manner. We must stop him because, if there is no re-balancing on the ground, there will be no peace conference in Geneva as the opposition will refuse to come," he said.
  The United States said it is evaluating information received from France which Paris has billed as proof that chemical weapons have been used in Syria.
  The United States and Russia are meanwhile trying to organise a peace conference bringing together Assad's regime and the rebels in a bid to end the fighting.
  Amid wrangling between opposition leaders and a fierce debate over who should attend, the date for the talks initially slated for May has now slipped back to July at the earliest.
Why Germany is now 'Europe's biggest brothel'
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  Source: bertb news feed
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 14:19
  A Ukrainian prostitute in a brothel in Berlin: two-thirds of Germay's sex workers are thought to come from overseas. Photograph: Axel Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images
  With skin-tight clothes and bum bags strapped around their waists, sex workers wait by the roadside close to Hackescher Markt, one of Berlin's busiest shopping and entertainment districts. This is a familiar sight just before dark in the capital of a country that has been dubbed "Europe's biggest brothel".
  The sex trade in Germany has increased dramatically since prostitution was liberalised in 2002, with more than one million men paying for sex every day here, according to a documentary, Sex '' Made in Germany, aired this week on Germany's public broadcaster, ARD.
  Based on two years of research using hidden cameras, the film by Sonia Kennebeck and Tina Soliman exposes the "flat-rate" brothels where men pay '‚¬49 (£42) for as much sex as they want, as well as a rise in sex tourism, with men from Asia, the Middle East and North America coming to Germany for sex.
  Germany's law governing the sex trade is considered one of the most liberal in the world. It was passed by the former coalition government, made up of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens, in a bid to strengthen the rights of sex workers and give them access to health insurance and benefits.
  Since then, red light districts have become even more prominent in many major German cities including Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg, where the Reeperbahn is, notoriously, the focus for the sex trade. During the 2006 World Cup in Germany, brothels appeared close to football stadiums across the country to cater for fans before and after games.
  But more than 10 years after the law was passed, critics are becoming increasingly vocal. They argue that although it may benefit those sex workers who choose to work in the trade, it also makes it easier for women from eastern Europe and countries outside the EU to be forced into prostitution by traffickers. Two-thirds of Germany's estimated 400,000 sex workers come from overseas.
  "Migrant women who don't know the language are highly dependent on people to bring them here and to show them around," says Roshan Heiler, head of counselling at the Aachen branch of Solwodi, a women's rights organisation that helps women forced into prostitution.
  She is not surprised at the number of men now paying for sex in Germany. "I think it's just a result of the legalisation," she says. "The men are not prosecuted and prices are low."
  Meanwhile, Monika Lazar, spokeswoman on women's issues for the Alliance 90/Greens party, has defended the law, saying that making prostitution illegal again is not the way to improve working conditions. "Prostitution is still socially stigmatised, and that has not changed in the few years in which the law has been in effect," she says. "But the law is helping to strengthen the position of prostitutes and ensuring women, and men, are much better protected."
Ford Predicts 3D Printed Spare Parts - Fabbaloo Blog - Fabbaloo - Daily News on 3D Printing
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  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 14:19
  A recent Wall Street Journal article describes Ford and General Electric's experiments in 3D printed prototypes and production parts. While that's not new, we observed an interesting quote:
  The auto maker sees a future where customers will be able to print their own replacement parts. Theoretically, a customer could log onto the Web, scan a bar code or print up an order, take it to a local 3-D printer, and have the part in hours or minutes.
  We think this is possible, assuming local Staples or Kinko's offer 3D metal printing. Car owners could order parts in a manner similar to today, but behind the scenes Ford would print parts on demand instead of stocking and shipping parts. Faster and cheaper.
  Maybe they'll start with plastic parts.
Michelle Obama: Achieving the American Dream 'No Longer Possible for Too Many Families' | CNS News
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  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 13:24
  First Lady Michelle Obama (AP File Photo)
  (CNSNews.com) '' Even as her husband attempts to grow the economy ''from the middle out,'' first lady Michelle Obama says achieving the American Dream is ''no longer possible'' for many middle-class Americans.Speaking last Thursday at a fundraiser for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, Mrs. Obama said: ''That fundamental American promise that so many of us grew up with'--that no matter where you start out, with hard work, you can build a decent life for yourself and an even better life for your kids'--that promise unfortunately is no longer within reach for too many families in our country.''
  She wasn't blaming her husband. In fact, as she told the assembled Democrats, ''Because of you, we didn't just win two elections. We have made real and meaningful change in this country -- because of you. Because of you, our economy continues to strengthen with 38 straight months of job growth -- that's more than three straight years.''
  But, echoing the president, Mrs. Obama said, ''We still have so much more to do.''
  She admitted that the American Dream ''probably wouldn't be in reach" for the family in which she grew up.
  Mrs. Obama said her father's job at a Chicago water plant ''paid him enough to keep food on our table.''
  ''Now, we weren't rich by any stretch of the imagination, but we had stability and we had peace of mind. See, because when I was growing up, a family of four living on a single blue-collar salary could build a solid life without debt and without relying on any form of public assistance'...But today, for so many families, that's no longer possible. Folks are working harder than ever before and doing everything right, and it's still not enough. ''
  Under President Obama, "not enough" means more government assistance for people who aren't making ends meet.
  As CNSNews.com previously reported, when Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, the number of SNAP (food stamp) recipients was 31,939,110. By March 2013, the latest month reported, the number of SNAP recipients had increased steadily 47,727,052, the third highest number ever recorded.
  Rachel Sheffield, policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, told CNSNews.com that increasing welfare spending places an undue burden on taxpayers.
  ''The Obama Administration's approach to welfare has been to increase federal welfare spending as well as to make it easier for recipients to get on welfare'... For those who are taxpayers, a growing welfare system means greater costs. Americans are a generous people and believe in helping their neighbor -- however, they also believe that able-bodied welfare recipients should do what they can do help themselves.''
  Sheffield noted that President Obama has rolled back work requirements for welfare recipients'--a central element to welfare reform in 1996. ''On top of that, the Obama Administration has also allowed states to waive the food stamp programs' work requirements.''
  Since taking office, the economy has been at the forefront of Obama's political agenda. ''The state of our economy calls for action: bold and swift. And we will act not only to create new jobs but to lay a new foundation for growth,'' the president said in his first inaugural address.
  On February 19, 2009, newly-elected president Obama signed into law what was to be the crux of his economic reform, an $831 billion 'stimulus' spending package that, among other things, was projected to prevent unemployment from reaching 8 percent.
  However, in October 2009'--nine months after Obama assumed office and eight months after having signed the stimulus bill'--unemployment reached a record high of 10.0 percent, taking another 35 months to drop below 8 percent. Today, the unemployment rate stands at 7.6%, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
  According the Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus bill ''saved or created'' some 3.5 million jobs'--far short of the Obama Administration's original estimate of 6.8 million. That works out to more than $234,000 spent per year for each job created'--at a time when real median household income in the United States stands at $50,054.
Egypt/Ethiopia: There will be no water war in the Nile Basin because no one can afford it '' By Seifulaziz Milas | African Arguments
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  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:36
  Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has tried to dampen down embarrassing suggestions that Egypt might use military power over disagreements concerning the Nile waters.
  The comedy started last Monday when the Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi invited leading politicians to discuss the report of a tri-partite Egypt-Ethiopia-Sudan commission. The commission had recently conducted a one year study on Ethiopia's plan to build a hydropower dam on the Blue Nile; the source of most of the water reaching Egypt and Sudan. Some three days earlier the commission had reported that the hydropower dam would not significantly reduce the flow of water to the downstream countries.
  This coincided with a report that Ethiopia had diverted the flow of the Blue Nile (by some five hundred meters from its normal channel) as part of the process of construction of its $4.2bn Grand Renaissance hydropower dam, now about 20 percent complete. This provided the occasion for the politicians to engage in one of their favorite pastimes: repeating time-worn myths about the river Nile, their ownership of it and their readiness to fight over control of its waters.
  An aide to President Morsi later apologised for failing to inform the politicians that they were live on air, which allowed viewers to watch them discuss plans to sabotage the dam and undertake a variety of other hostile acts against Ethiopia. The suggestions included aiding rebels inside Ethiopia and destroying the dam itself. Ethiopian officials have long accused Egypt of backing anti-government rebels in Ethiopia.
  Getachew Reda, a spokesman for Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn, was quoted on Tuesday as saying that Egyptian leaders had unsuccessfully tried to destabilize Ethiopia in the past. Morsi did not directly react to this suggestion, but concluded by saying that Egypt respected Ethiopia and its people and would not engage in any aggressive acts against it. However, on Wednesday a senior Egyptian official was quoted as saying that Egypt will demand that Ethiopia stop building the Blue Nile dam.
  Getachew Reda responded with the following statement: ''There are on the one hand people who still think that they can turn back the clock on Ethiopia's development endeavors including of course the construction of the Renaissance Dam'...Second you have people like President Mohammed Morsi, who according to the reports, said to have stressed said that there is no point in trying to force Ethiopians, but the best solution would be to engage to Ethiopians.''
  Meanwhile, Ethiopia has summoned the Egyptian Ambassador to explain the hostile remarks and the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that it is demanding an official explanation.
  Three days earlier the report of an independent panel of experts from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan had concluded that the hydropower dam would not significantly reduce the flow of water reaching Sudan and Egypt, both of which are highly dependent on the Nile waters. Hydropower dams do not consume water '' the water merely has to pass through the dam's turbines and come out the downstream side to produce hydroelectricity.
  However, for decades Egypt has spent considerable effort propagating various myths about the Nile, including the myth of Egyptian ownership of the Nile waters based on ''international law'' and the attendant myth that Egypt would respond militarily against any upstream country that dares to interfere without Egypt's permission.
  Egypt justifies its claims to ownership of the Nile waters by reference to two treaties, neither of which is relevant to Ethiopia (the source of the Nile waters). The first is the 1929 treaty between Britain, which controlled Egypt at the time (and needed Egyptian cotton as raw material for its textile industry), and the British colonial governments in the upper Nile basin colonies of Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika. The 1929 treaty prohibited the upstream British colonies in the Nile Basin from building water infrastructure on the Nile without Egypt's permission. This, of course, was not relevant to Ethiopia (which was never a British colony); though it was the source of 86 percent of the Nile water reaching Egypt.
  The second treaty was a 1959 bilateral agreement between Egypt and Sudan to divide the Nile waters between the two of them at the rate of 75 percent for Egypt and 25 percent for Sudan. Of course they had every right to divide such water as entered their territory, but this could not affect Ethiopia, which was not a party to their bilateral agreement. This agreement was made redundant in 2010 when Ethiopia and the other upstream states signed the Comprehensive Framework Agreement (CFA), aimed at ensuring the equitable access of all Nile basin states to use of the Nile waters.
  The Renaissance Dam has been under construction for the past two years in the Blue Nile Gorge near the border with Sudan in an area unsuitable for irrigation projects, as any arable land would be at a much higher altitude than the river. The dam is expected to produce around 6000 megawatts of electricity, making it Africa's largest hydroelectric power plant.
  Egypt claims dependency on the Nile waters as the basis for its development requirements, and the source of 97 percent of its water supply. It proclaims the Nile as a strategic priority and its foreign policy focuses on the need to control the Nile flow and maintain the status quo regarding regional patterns of water distribution. From its strategic perspective Egypt has always been concerned that control of the Nile flow by others could threaten its own security.
  But Egypt has consistently tended to over-estimate its own capacities and needs, and to seriously under-rate those of the countries and peoples to the south. Had it been otherwise, it might have made a more rational assessment of the resources and potential of the Nile Basin and its diverse peoples and interests. This might well have led it to understand that its own long-term interests might lie in seeking cooperation and consensus, rather than an ultimately unsustainable focus on hegemony and confrontation. Nevertheless, it opted for hegemony that it lacked the capacity to sustain, and threats of confrontation that could only run counter to its unrecognised, but no less vital, need for upstream cooperation.
  For more than three decades Egypt's political leaders have claimed 'historic rights' to control of the Nile waters, punctuated by threats of war against any upstream country that might attempt to build dams or water infrastructure on the river. This became a prominent feature of Egypt's Nile policy after the construction of the Aswan High Dam by the Soviet Union. The late President Anwar Sadat realigned his country with the West, made peace with Israel and announced that the only thing that could bring Egypt into war again would be if any country threatened Egypt's control of the Nile waters.
  This announcement was aimed less directly at the upper Nile basin states than at the World Bank and other International Financial Institutions (IFIs). Egypt's peace agreement with Israel opened Cairo's way to aid agreements with the United States and to Egyptian access to strategic positions in the World Bank and other IFIs which they could influence against lending for water infrastructure in upstream states without the agreement of downstream states.
  Until recently, Egypt was able to derive considerable comfort from the knowledge that after decades of unrest, disasters and economic collapse, the upper basin countries had little hope of financing any significant water infrastructure on their own. To build it, they would need loans from the International Financial Institutions (IFIs), which were unlikely to be available without Egypt's agreement, especially in view of propaganda that such loans might possibly lead to war. Now however, there are many other sources of funding, like China.
  The way forward is increasingly clear. There will be no water war in the Nile Basin, because no one can afford it, least of all those who talk most about it. For Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, rural futures may be limited by constraints of land and water and rapid population increase. All three will need to focus on rapid urbanization to address these constraints, and on industrialization and urban job creation to sustain it. To make this possible, all need to develop their sustainable energy resources, and cooperate to use them as effectively as possible.
  Seifulaziz Milas is author ofSharing the Nile: Egypt, Ethiopia and the Geo-Politics of Water.
Ethiopia - Egypt: Water diplomacy or water war?
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  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:36
  Water diplomacy or water war? Which way?
  By Memar Ayalew DemekeThe politics of the Nile is full of tension, mistrust, anxiety, mystery and diplomatic confrontation among the downstream and upstream riparian countries since time immemorial.
  The basin has never seen cooperation until recent times. However, there has been cooperation between the two downstream countries (Sudan and Egypt) with the decoration of the 1959 water sharing agreement. The upper riparian countries (Tanzania, DRC, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Eritrea, and Ethiopia) which generate 100 percent of the Nile waters, were neglected from any negotiations and agreements on the utilizations of the river by the colonial powers.
  Historical records have shown evidences that demonstrate the occurrence of diplomatic struggle and direct military confrontations between the upstream and downstream countries. This is partly because of the unfair distribution and utilization of the Nile waters among the basin countries. Egypt has been attempting to ensure the continuation of the zero-sum game politics on the Nile waters by undermining the rights of the lower riparian states. Relations between Ethiopia on the one hand, and Sudan and Egypt on the other, have been characterized by love and hate depending on the continuity and the change of the colonial status quo on utilization of the Nile waters. Besides, their foreign policy orientations have been drastically shaped and reshaped by the political dynamism in the Horn region. Generally, and in Nile politics particularly. In fact, the upstream countries have exploited the Nile water resources for their socio-economic developments by calming the 1929 and 1959 colonial agreements and by weakening the upstream states. The net effect of these treaties was to deny the rights of the upper riparian countries from using the waters of the Nile without prior approval of Egypt. What is surprising is that these colonial agreements have excluded and downgraded the right of Ethiopia which contributes 85% of the Nile waters from getting its legal share from the Nile. The 1959 agreement has allocated 55.5 billion cube meters of water to Egypt, 18.5 cubic meters for Sudan, and 10 cubic meters to evaporate in the Sahara desert to keep the ecological balance of the environment. This has been the status quo of the Nile politics in the past. However, due to geo-political, security and environmental transformations in the region, the colonial status quo has been challenged in a way that generates mutual benefits to the basin countries. Hence, the basin countries have strengthened their cooperation for regional joint planned growth under the framework of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) for the last decades.
  The NBI provides a wide-basin framework to fight poverty and to promote socio-economic development among the ten Nile basin countries. It is a historical phenomenon in Nile politics in the sense that it is the first institutional regime on a shared and equitable use of the Nile Waters and for meaningful negotiations as well. Apart from real negotiations, the signing of the Comprehensive Framework Agreement (CFA) by the upstream countries in 2010 became instrumental in bringing new dynamism to Nile politics that significantly changed the colonial status quo and the zero-sum game politics. This dynamism which challenged Egyptian apartheid policy on the utilization of the Nile waters has led to new political and diplomatic development. Issues surrounding the Nile have become the agenda of the Egyptian public after the official announcement of the diversion of the normal flow of the Nile water by the Ethiopian government. Following the redirection of the water, discussions among Egyptian politicians and policy makers in Egypt indicated possible foreign policy strategies and approaches to the Nile to quickly respond to the new dynamism. These possible foreign policy and security strategies that Egypt will put in place have direct or indirect implications to Ethiopian. Egypt may resort to either water diplomacy, water war, or the combination of the two strategies simultaneously to tackle the new development in Ethiopia.
  Egyptian strategies
  Egypt, in spite of its geographical location in the Sahara desert and its absolute dependence on the Nile waters for its very existence, has been following a foreign policy and security strategy that ensures the uninterrupted flow of the Nile waters. The Nile water has been a key national interest concern of Egyptians, and thus is the central element in the circle of Egyptian foreign policy towards the Horn of Africa and Ethiopia as well. With the recent diversion of waters by the Ethiopian government, Egypt may take the following foreign policy and security strategies which have solid messages to the people of Ethiopia.
  Water Diplomacy
  Diplomacy has been described as the weapon of weak and poor states. In fact, it is important to transform the emotions and positions of opponent parties by imposing all possible diplomatic pressures. This includes sanctions at political, economic and diplomatic levels. Many states used to apply diplomacy in matters of national interest before resorting to war. In this regard, hard diplomacy has been frequently used by Egypt to ensure the perpetuation of the zero-sum game politics in the Nile basin. However, Ethiopia has been insisting on a win-win approach in dealing with matters of the Nile.
  Egypt may use the hard diplomacy to react to the current diplomatic and security developments in Ethiopia as part of their propaganda. For instance, it may:
  'Attempt to divert the diplomatic negotiations by presenting a distorted image of the dam and by magnifying its negative socio-economic and environmental impacts. Egypt may also present the construction of the dam to the Arab world and the international community at large as a planned strategy by Ethiopia to damage its national interest. By doing so, it will create confusion and ambiguity.
  'Take the matter to the Arab League using its influential position as the seat of the League, so as to impose diplomatic sanctions on Ethiopia and to reduce the flow of foreign currency income by disconnecting its trade ties. It may also convince the Arab countries not to export oil, which will gradually aggravate inflation and living expenses and could be translated in to a political crisis.
  'Submit the case to the AU, UN, UNSC and ICJ arguing that the construction of the dam severely reduces its ''historical share'' of the water, for the sake of bringing hard diplomatic pressure on Ethiopia.
  Water war
  Successive Egyptian governments have had a negative perception of Ethiopia, and have been engaging both in diplomatic battles and proxy wars to damage the economic and political potential for Ethiopia not to exploit its resources. This negative perception is rooted in their idea that ''peace in Ethiopia means war in Egypt''. As a result, they never want to see an economically strong and politically unified Ethiopia. This is because they fear that a strong Ethiopia will deny Egyptian access to the Nile waters.
  Proxy war
  Evidence has shown that destabilizing and weakening Ethiopia through proxy war has been one of the Egyptian security strategies in the past in order to ensure the sustainable flow of the Nile waters from its source. To this end, instead of directly confronting Ethiopia militarily as it did during the reign of Emperor Yohannes IV in 1875 and 1876 at Gundet and Gura respectively, it has opted to support anti-Ethiopian government dissident forces operating in Somalia and Eritrea. Needless to say, Egypt has been extending its diplomatic and financial assistance to Islamic extremist groups and opposition political movements in Somalia and Eritrea. Above all, Egypt never wanted to see the formation of a pro-Ethiopian government in Somalia.. because peace in the war-torn country will have its own trickle-down positive effect on Ethiopia.
  Egypt fear that any peaceful relationship between Ethiopia and the government of Somalia would negatively affect its regional interest. Thus, it has been actively involved in Somali politics, directly or indirectly, to turn the outcomes of peace negotiations on its side. Moreover, it has been working to change the political equation of Somali politics to counterbalance Ethiopia's influence in the region. To mention ''Egypt was the main lobbyist in the Arab world in favor of granting financial assistance to al-Ittihad'' as Medhane Taddesse clearly stated in his book ''Al-Ittihad: Political Islam and Black Economy in Somalia (2002)''.
  I strongly argue that Egypt will continue backing, training and equipping heavy military weapons to dissident political movements operating in Somalia and Eritrea to put Ethiopia in the bottle of challenges and to divert its development energies to war. Even the current public debates in Egypt reinforced that Egyptian politicians have the interest to attack Ethiopia by supporting rebel movements. Associated Press and the BBC reported that radical pro-Morsi Islamic Wasat Party leader, Abu al-Ila Madi, suggested a rumor that ''Egypt planning to destroy the dam could scare the Ethiopians into cooperating with Egypt on the project''. A liberal politician, Ayman Nour, proposed spreading rumors about ''Egypt obtaining refueling aircraft to create the impression that it plans an airstrike to destroy the dam''. This clearly proves that Egypt has intentions to attack Ethiopia through proxy war. I don't think that Egypt will keep its hand away from Ethiopia as long as there are political forces that are willing to attack Ethiopia. Hence, Somalia and Eritrea could be used as a springboard.
  Therefore, the government of Ethiopia has to continue its positive contribution in the construction of peace and political stability in Somalia in order to counter balance Egyptian influence. In addition, it has to strengthen its trade and commercial ties more than ever in a way that integrates the two countries economically. Supplying cheap electric power and connecting the people of the two countries by establishing infrastructures can also be one way of keeping its diplomatic and political relations fresh. This eventually minimizes the possibility of threats coming from the Somali side. And the position of Eritrea has to be examined as the government officially recognize the ''historical rights'' of Egypt to use the Nile waters even after the signing of CFA. As a result, the government in Asmara may give a green light to Egypt to use its territory to attack Ethiopia. Eritrea may use this opportunity to seek revenge on Ethiopia and to externalize internal tension and instability. Thus, we need to rethink our relations with Eritrea.
  Military attack: political suicide
  Declaring war and launching a military attack on Ethiopia could be one of the possible Egyptian strategies in approaching the new developments.. In fact, it seems obsolete to think of war among the Nile basin countries in the 21st century. In the era of globalization, Egypt may not be successful in securing its water interest by directly launching a military attack unless it colonizes and controls the basin countries as the colonial powers did. But, it would destabilize the political networks of Ethiopia and be able to divert its attention by keeping it fighting with dissident groups. Nevertheless, war has never achieved its objective, instead causing human misery and chaos as the American intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan has proved. Yet our historical relations with Egypt demonstrate elements of war and military confrontation in their attempt to control the source of the Nile. History reveals that Egypt has fought more than 15 wars with Ethiopia with this aim in mind,, only aborting its ambition with the devastating defeat at the battle of Gundet and Gura. In fact, it was successful in controlling Harar for ten solid years. This was an indication of the Egyptian appetite to attack Ethiopia by waging war.
  Egypt may consider the diversion of the water and the construction of the Dam as a declaration of war and thus may take military action to destroy the dam and to attack Ethiopia. If Egypt does so, the consequences will result in political suicide. Egypt could justify its pre-emptive military actions by arguing that the construction of the Renaissance Dam not only affects its socio-economic development but also its survival. States under international law have the right to defend themselves from any external threat which could damage their territorial integrity and political sovereignty. One of the legal instruments that the government in Cairo may use as weapon for its pre-emptive military action could be Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.
  This article states: ''Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security''. In fact, the Charter gives utmost priority to mechanisms of peaceful settlement of disputes such as negotiations, mediation, conciliation, and arbitration. Nevertheless, states often opt to use war as a last resort in self-defense to acts of aggression. For instance, America lunched a pre-emptive strike on Iraq in 2003 claiming Article 51 of the UN Charter as a legal justification. Ethiopia also intervened in Somalia in 2006 following the declaration a jihad war by some Islamist fundamentalist groups, and attacked terrorist groups operating in Eritrea in 2012 relying on the above article. In the same manner, Egypt may attack Ethiopian on the basis of this justification. But the consequences of military action will be very severe for Egypt at least for one reason - its action will provoke public hunger in Ethiopia and may compel the government and the people of Ethiopia to take more radical action even to the extent of stopping the flow of the river.
  Generally, the current political development in Egypt concerning the diversion of the Nile, reflected through Egyptian media,clearly indicate that Egyptians intend to use either water diplomacy, water war or a combination to stop the construction of the dam or to attack Ethiopia. Thus the Ethiopian government has to be aware of the changing foreign policy and security strategies of Egypt, and should adjust its foreign policy orientation regarding the new geo-political and security development in the Horn region. In addition, it has to give considerable attention to the possibility of military confrontation with lower riparian countries (Sudan and Egypt) either directly or indirectly through proxy, and has to strengthen our military apparatus so as to avert potential dangers. This will enable the government of Ethiopia to take pro-active measures. Knowing the Egyptian approache to the current political and diplomatic Nile crisis will help us to rethink and re-evaluate our position and the foreign policy strategy that we have adhered towards the Horn region for the past two decades. Finally, I would like to suggest some pro-active policy actions that theEthiopian government could take to handle the new developments in the downstream countries.
  'Strengthen internal cohesion and economic development to increase power when negotiating with the lower riparian states.
  'Build internal military capacity to quickly respond to any anticipated attack from downstream countries. We should not be too idealistic. The possibility of water related war between Ethiopia and downstream countries should not be neglected from political and academic discourse. This is because we cannot avoid war by simply wishing to be eliminated.
  'Organize public discussions to make sure that the people are aware of the current developments in Nile politics, and to consolidate national unity.
  ' Invite opposition political party leaders, civil society representatives, university intellectuals and influential personalities to discuss the report of the International Panel of Experts as the lower riparian countries did; and the Egyptian position, to frame foreign policy direction and create a common national stance.
  'Send diplomatic missions to selected Arab League member states to dispel fears and confusion regarding the dam's potential impacts, stressing the project would ultimately benefit all the riparian states. This will also counterbalance Egyptians hard water diplomacy.
  To conclude, the only solution to the Nile is a win-win approach. The late Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, in his interview with the Egyptian TV in 2010 clearly told the Egyptian people that ''utilization of the Nile waters is not a zero-sum game. It does not mean that if the upper riparian states benefits, Egypt and Sudan should lose. It does not mean that Egypt and Sudan benefit, the upper riparian countries should lose. There is a win-win alternative and the only solution to the Nile is a win-win solution''. He also underlined that ''Ethiopia do not accept the principle that some people have which says the Nile water belong to Sudan and Egypt and Ethiopia and the rest will not have a share in the Nile. That concept is a 19th century concept. Egypt must accept that the source of 85% of the Nile water must benefit from the Nile, and unless they accept this principle then the win-win solution will be closed.'' This is the concept that Egyptians failed to recognize. They are living in the 20th century, while thinking with a 19th century mind setting.
  Memar Ayalew is lecturer of Political Science and International Relations at Addis Ababa Science and Technology University. He can be reached at ayalewmemar@gmail.com.
Xbox One, PS4 Hacker SuperDaE Releases 1.7TB Worth Of Damaging Information
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  Archived Version
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:30
  published: 2013-06-11 17:42:32
  Well, it looks like it happened...SuperDaE, the guy responsible for informing the gaming world about the Xbox One's system specs and DRM measures, has been unable to get to his FTP in time and the files leaked to the public, just as he promised after he was arrested. The traffic is so heavy on his site right now that it seems to have shutdown.
  The file contains 1.7 terabytes worth of data and LevelSave's Austin Griffith managed to take a look. Kotaku asked what was in the files (since apparently Gawker doesn't pay them enough to afford 1.7tb worth of download bandwidth) and it contains information about the following...
  The FTP also apparently contains software development kits for the PS4, Xbox One and Wii U as well as possible old code for unreleased games such as Company of Heroes 2 and WWE 14. The Epic directory includes folders for Unreal Engine 4 and UE4 projects called Fortnite (an announced game), Kilo, Lima and Orion.
  Any idea what Kilo, Lima and Orion are?So how did SuperDaE get these files? He's a hacker and he got them the way any 17-year-old Aussie hacker would get them...listening to Deadmau5 while snorting crack.
  Anyway, the kid was arrested after being raided by the FBI for trying to sell devkits on eBay. He was hit with charges of "possession of cannabis and drug paraphernalia", "possession of a prohibited weapon", "possession of identification material with intent to commit an offence", and "possessing and copying an indecent or obscene article, possession of child exploitation material", as reported by Gizmodo.
  I don't understand the thing about these young hackers being into loli-porn? What's up with that? Maybe they've been hanging around the smelly parts of 4Chan for too long and it permanently corrupted the parts of their brain where common sense and decency is contained.
  Anyway, I'm excited to see what the near 2TB worth of data looks like assuming there's no child porn on it or some perverse, dirty Sanchez version of Peter Molyneux's What's Inside The Cube?.
  The chaps at Neogaf have been trying to get people from /v/ to get the file and download it because the people who propagate a website too dark for the Darknet obviously have the bandwidth and time to check over the files, and potentially crack the password to access all the data.
  As soon as someone has the iron bandwidth balls to defy their ISP and grab this file from the Superdae website and expose it all to the world, the sooner we can all rest easy at night knowing that dev kits for the next-gen consoles are out and available to the public. We can also sit easy knowing that damaging information to some of the top publishers in the software industry will cause their executive board members to stare at the ceiling every night, drenched in the cold sweat of knowing their proprietary code is completely and entirely available to the public, Tron Legacy style.
  Good luck and good hacking.
Lego faces are getting angrier, study finds | Life and style | The Guardian
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  Archived Version
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:04
  Lego faces are becoming more angry, a New Zealand researcher has found. Photograph: Corbis
  Life in Legoland used to be so simple '' smiling doctors helped cheerful patients, contented petrol pump operators filled the tanks of satisfied drivers and classrooms of ecstatic children were taught by beaming teachers.
  But then life became more complicated. Anger, puzzlement and confusion started to set in '' the beatific existence of the Lego figurine was over.
  The number of happy faces on Lego toy mini-figures has been decreasing since the 1990s, and the number of angry faces has increased, giving rise to concerns that children could be affected by the negativity of the toys.
  In a study of 3,655 figures produced between 1975 and 2010, Dr Christoph Bartneck, a robot expert at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, said the manufacturer appeared to be moving towards more conflict-based themes in its toys. Bartneck's study considered the range of facial expressions across various Lego sets '' now often in themes such as Star Wars, pirates or Harry Potter.
  "It is important to study how to create appropriate expressions and how these expressions are perceived by the users. Children's toys and how they are perceived can have a significant impact on children," said Bartneck. "We cannot help but wonder how the move from only positive faces to an increasing number of negative faces impacts on how children play."
  A smiling Lego pirate. Photograph: AlamyThe first Lego figures were developed in 1978 and had a classic yellow face with a broad, simple smile, but from 1989 onwards facial expressions began to be more complex as new themes '' such as the early Little Pirates '' were added to the range. Now a range of expressions including happy, angry, surprised, scared and enigmatic are included in the range.
  "It is our impression that the themes have been increasingly based on conflicts. Often a good force is struggling with a bad one," said Bartneck. "The number of new faces that the Lego company introduces every year is increasing steadily. Lego started producing a greater variety of faces in the 1990s. Happiness and anger seem to be the most frequent emotional expressions."
  Bartneck added that both "good" and "bad" characters now carried a larger range of facial expressions '' giving rise to speculation that the figures may just be more in touch with a greater range of emotions. "The facial expressions are not directly matched to good and evil. Even the good characters suffer in their struggle and the villains can have a smug expression. In any case, the variety of faces has increased considerably," he said.
  But there were risks involved in exposing children to a variety of emotions, with small fans likely to remember the anger and fear in their figurines' faces, as well as their happier moments. Designers of toy faces should take great care to design the expressions and to test their effect since toys played an important role in the development of children, said Bartneck, who will present the paper on his findings at the First International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction in Sapporo, Japan.
  Roar Rude Trangb...k, communications manager for Lego, said every toy developed by the manufacturer was tested by a range of expert children, while child psychiatrists, parents and teachers were also consulted. Research conducted for the company found that children, especially boys, enjoyed playing out conflicts between characters, he said. "The conflict between good and evil is nothing new," said Trangb...k. "But the characters always have classic Lego humour '' the good guys always win in the end."
  Trangb...k would not comment on Bartneck's research directly but added that there was a solution for parents worried about the impact of angry Lego figure faces. "Of course, they can always just switch heads with another figure," he said.
To Protect and Defend... - By Micah Zenko
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:56
  When asked last September if he personally chose which individual terrorist suspects could be targeted with lethal force, President Barack Obama gave a response that would have astounded the founding fathers: "What is absolutely true is that my first job, my most sacred duty, as president and commander in chief, is to keep the American people safe." This is false. As the presidential "Oath or Affirmation" in the Constitution reads: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
  It is troubling that someone who lectured on constitutional law for a dozen years at the University of Chicago Law School would misidentify the president's primary pledge and obligation. To be fair, his predecessor was similarly guilty. George W. Bush told a cheering crowd at the 2004 Republican National Convention: "I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people." This interpretation was supposed to be corrected with the 2008 presidential election; then-Senator Obama had declared during the campaign: "I was a constitutional law professor, which means, unlike the current president, I actually respect the Constitution."
  Now in his second term, President Obama insists that his counterterrorism policies differ markedly from Bush's. However, there are far more similarities than differences with regards to: non-battlefield targeted killings (an estimated 50 under Bush, and 387 under Obama); indefinite detention of suspected terrorists (approved by both through executive orders); broad surveillance authorities (as former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden admitted on Sunday, "NSA is actually empowered to do more things than I was empowered to do under President Bush's special authorization"); and overclassification of government information (largelyunchanged). Ari Fleischer, Bush's former spokesperson and now public defender, recently tweeted: "Drone strikes. Wiretaps. Gitmo. O is carrying out Bush's 4th term. Yet he attacked Bush 4 violating Constitution. #hypocrisy."
  The essential and enduring feature of both post-9/11 presidents has been their shared contention that their core objective -- and by extension, that of the executive branch -- is to protect U.S. citizens from one particular form of harm: terrorist violence. Both success and failure at achieving this objective have justified the expansion of additional authorities and tools. If there are no terrorist attacks, then all policies in place must remain, but when terrorist plots are revealed or the rare attack occurs, then additional tools and secrecy are mandated. Like a ratchet wrench, it only works in one direction. It does not matter if these presidential powers erode individual civil liberties or the ability of citizens to comprehend or evaluate the activities of the national security state. Again, the executive branch's obligation is less to protect citizens' constitutional rights than it is to protect citizens' lives, but only from terrorists.
  The White House's response to the serial NSA revelations last week vividly showcased this mindset. Press secretary Josh Earnest declared: "The top priority of the president of the United States is the national security of the United States and protecting this homeland." The president, meanwhile, defended the status quo by making a classic straw-man argument: "If every step that we're taking to try to prevent a terrorist act is on the front page of the newspapers or on television, then presumably the people who are trying to do us harm are going to be able to get around our preventive measures." Obama also noted that if this information is "just dumped out willy-nilly, it's very hard for us to be effective." (This echoed his straw-man characterization of drone strikes: "There's this perception that we're just sending a whole bunch of strikes willy-nilly.")
  Of course, nobody has argued that "every step" of every counterterrorism activity should be made public. Interestingly, the Obama administration makes the reverse argument that every activity it says should remain classified is nobody's business. Moreover, the revelations published in the Guardian and the Washington Post involved the collection of metadata of U.S. citizens' phone records, emails, website visits, and credit card transactions. The American public was never made aware of this monitoring of their personal activities, and when Sen. Ron Wyden asked James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, in March, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" Clapper responded: "No, sir." It turns out they have been, for at least the past seven years.
  Although Obama has yet to be asked if Clapper will be investigated for apparently lying to Congress under oath, the president further defended the NSA's surveillance programs by claiming, "Not only is Congress fully apprised of it, but what is also true is that the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] Court has to authorize it." Last week, when Attorney General Eric Holder attempted to make this same argument before a Senate appropriations subcommittee, Sen. Barbara Mikulski stopped him flat:
  This "fully briefed" is something that drives us up the wall, because often "fully briefed" means a group of eight leadership. It does not necessarily mean relevant committees.'... So "fully-briefed" doesn't mean we know what's going on.
  Subsequent statements from senators and congressmen of both parties revealed that most elected representatives were -- like the general public -- unaware of the scope of data that was being collected, and disagreed about its effectiveness at disrupting terrorist plots. Meanwhile, the FISA Court has rejected only 11 of the more than 33,900 surveillance applications made by the federal government since 1979. Therefore, the congressional and judicial oversight of these only just-now-revealed NSA surveillance programs appears to be both confused and sparse. Obama claimed: "On balance, we have established a process and a procedure that the American people should feel comfortable about." Many Americans are not, because they were kept in the dark about what "telephony metadata" was being collected from them, and the processes and procedures are nearly as opaque.
  Bush's and Obama's expansive executive branch powers and attendant secrecy are all allegedly in service of protecting the homeland from foreign terrorists. All the justifications provided by former and current government officials for maintaining every NSA program are centered on just one mission: countering terrorism. It is as if the NSA's collection priorities and programs -- detailed in the National Intelligence Priorities Framework that Obama signs every six months -- has the word "TERRORISM" stamped across it. Two months ago, Clapper claimed that cyber was the No. 1 "distinct threat area" facing the United States. However, officials did not mention cyberattacks -- or, for example, listening into Chinese military communications -- when defending the NSA, because public discourse privileges preventing terrorism over any other national security task.
  You might notice that you never read on the front page of the Washington Post about an expansive and highly classified program to limit vaccine-preventable deaths, even though 1.5 million children under age 5 die each year. There are no investigative journalists who report from "inside the ultra-secret world" of the sprawling U.S. Agency for International Development. Likewise, you will never hear about a Department of Energy official who blows the whistle on a massive, multiyear effort to expand renewable energies or improve carbon-sequestration technologies. Or, of contractors in Virginia being showered with money for a crash program to answer all outstanding Freedom of Information Act requests. Or, of course, of a plan to reduce the 31,672 annual firearm deaths within the United States.
  The president and executive branch are entrusted with secret sweeping authorities -- used with minimum oversight -- only to protect Americans from the minor and statistically insignificant threat of foreign terrorism. During his 2009 inaugural address, Obama claimed: "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." Given the continuation of the safety-first mindset and sustainment (or expansion) of counterterrorism programs from his predecessor, apparently there was precious little choice to be made.
PA-SitRep.com (NBEMS/FLDIGI Emergency Communications for Western Pennslyvania)
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:26
  PA-SitRep.com (NBEMS/FLDIGI Emergency Communications for Western Pennslyvania)1) Download and save CheckSR.exe to your desktop. This is a small, standalone, application that consist of a single exe file. When you double click on it, once it's saved to your desktop, it provides the capability of analyzing your sound card offsets and gives you the corrections in parts per million (ppm):
  http://www.pa-sitrep.com/checksr/CheckSR.exe
  2) Open NBEMS/FLDIGI, go to configure, defaults, sound card, audio devices tab and make sure you have the sound card you use for your interface properly selected from the capture and playback drop down choices. Then click the audio settings tab.
  3) Under the audio settings tab, you should see a sample rate drop down box for capture and playback. Under each drop down box, select the sample rate that has (native) listed after it and take note of this figure. Click save config, then click save. Close FLDIGI.
  4) Going back to CheckSR, open the application (if it's not already open, double click on the desktop icon now) and from the drop down boxes for sound card settings, Input and Output, choose the sound card you are using with FLDIGI. Next, select the sample rate from the drop down box in CheckSR for the sample rate that FLDIGI showed as "Native" then click start.
  5) Let the application run for about 15-20 minutes. You will notice that the numbers will progressively stabilize. After about 15-20 minutes, click stop then write down the resulting figures on input and output for the measurements in Hz and PPM. Keep this record.
  6) Open FLDIGI, go to configure, defaults, sound card and click on the audio settings tab. Enter the PPM figures for RX ppm (CheckSR ppm Input figure) and TX ppm (CheckSR ppm Output figure). If you had a figure that resulted in a minus from CheckSR, enter the PPM setting with the minus symbol followed directly by the figure with no space. Then click save config, then close.
  Although this procedure does not seem to be necessary for MT63 2k long on FM, it is advisable that anyone using FLDIGI, regardless of modes used, should perform this procedure immediately following setup. Once these calibrations are applied to the software, no changes should ever have to be made again, unless you change your software to radio interface sound card.
  Back to WPA NBEMS/FLIDIG Page
  PA-SitRep.com (NBEMS/FLDIGI Emergency Communications for Western Pennslyvania)1) Download and save CheckSR.exe to your desktop. This is a small, standalone, application that consist of a single exe file. When you double click on it, once it's saved to your desktop, it provides the capability of analyzing your sound card offsets and gives you the corrections in parts per million (ppm):
  http://www.pa-sitrep.com/checksr/CheckSR.exe
  2) Open NBEMS/FLDIGI, go to configure, defaults, sound card, audio devices tab and make sure you have the sound card you use for your interface properly selected from the capture and playback drop down choices. Then click the audio settings tab.
  3) Under the audio settings tab, you should see a sample rate drop down box for capture and playback. Under each drop down box, select the sample rate that has (native) listed after it and take note of this figure. Click save config, then click save. Close FLDIGI.
  4) Going back to CheckSR, open the application (if it's not already open, double click on the desktop icon now) and from the drop down boxes for sound card settings, Input and Output, choose the sound card you are using with FLDIGI. Next, select the sample rate from the drop down box in CheckSR for the sample rate that FLDIGI showed as "Native" then click start.
  5) Let the application run for about 15-20 minutes. You will notice that the numbers will progressively stabilize. After about 15-20 minutes, click stop then write down the resulting figures on input and output for the measurements in Hz and PPM. Keep this record.
  6) Open FLDIGI, go to configure, defaults, sound card and click on the audio settings tab. Enter the PPM figures for RX ppm (CheckSR ppm Input figure) and TX ppm (CheckSR ppm Output figure). If you had a figure that resulted in a minus from CheckSR, enter the PPM setting with the minus symbol followed directly by the figure with no space. Then click save config, then close.
  Although this procedure does not seem to be necessary for MT63 2k long on FM, it is advisable that anyone using FLDIGI, regardless of modes used, should perform this procedure immediately following setup. Once these calibrations are applied to the software, no changes should ever have to be made again, unless you change your software to radio interface sound card.
  Back to WPA NBEMS/FLIDIG Page
NBEMSham : Message: FLDIGI Olivia Decode Problems
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:23
  Feel free to drop me an email at kb3fxi at yahoo dot com if you ever want to schedule a test sked and I'll also try to make the SATERN skeds when I can.Here's a check list for troubleshooting FLDIGI decode problems:- If you run Windows OS, run CheckSR.exe and apply the sound card correction figures to FLDIGI. Here's a page with the directions including an embedded youtube video:- Make sure DSP, noise blanker, notch filters and any other signal processing is disabled on your rig.- Find the advanced settings for your sound card. This is not the operating system settings, but the settings for the particular sound card manufacturer in your computer. The settings can usually be found in the control panel screen. Go to the advanced settings for both record and playback and disable any and all DSP, noise reduction or special effects.- If you're running a laptop, disable your wireless and bluetooth devices.If these don't work, maybe try uninstalling everything NBEMS/FLDIGI and starting fresh, but that should not be necessary.Of probably at least 100 installs between W3YJ and myself, we may have only had one or two computers we could not get working with FLDIGI and I think one just had a bad sound card and the other was a virus-ridden machine.I'd be interested to see if anyone else has any troubleshooting suggestions to add to this list.From: steve_ve6vs To:NBEMSham@yahoogroups.comSent: Sunday, August 14, 2011 11:01 AMSubject: [NBEMSham] Re: SATERN ops and Digi Skedsfldigi of late seems not to decode Olivia, switch to BPSK31 and it is fine. Unfortunately I can't seem to find any Olivia stations to do tests with. And my JT65-hf seems to want to drop out the sound card. I get black horizontal bars on the waterfall that are not there on HRD or fldigi. My Dell 670 is tricked out with W7 Pro N(?) two sound cards and 2 monitors and this problem is just recent. I may have to play with ports.
Before police could plan for a terrorist attack, the real thing happened - Metro
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 03:17
  The scenario had been carefully planned: A terrorist group prepared to hurt vast numbers of people around Boston would leave backpacks filled with explosives at Faneuil Hall, the Seaport District, and in other towns, spreading waves of panic and fear. Detectives would have to catch the culprits.
  Months of painstaking planning had gone into the exercise, dubbed ''Operation Urban Shield,'' meant to train dozens of detectives in the Greater Boston area to work together to thwart a terrorist threat. The hypothetical terrorist group was even given a name: Free America Citizens, a home-grown cadre of militiamen whose logo would be a metal skull wearing an Uncle Sam hat and a furious expression, according to a copy of the plans obtained by the Boston Globe.
  But two months before the training exercise was to take place, the city was hit with a real terrorist attack executed in a frighteningly similar fashion. The chaos of the Boston Marathon bombings disrupted plans for the exercise, initially scheduled for this weekend, forcing police to postpone. Now officials must retool aspects of the training.
  ''The real thing happened before we were able to execute,'' said a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the planned exercise. ''We've already been tested.''
  This would have been the third year for Urban Shield, a 24-hour federally funded training exercise meant to test the response of police and other public safety personnel in a large-scale emergency, such as a toxic spill or a natural disaster.
  Last fall, a slew of agencies including Boston police and other police departments, the Coast Guard, and the MBTA joined forces to confront a simulated armed bank robbery in which the robbers were trying to escape with hostages.
  For this year's training, the agencies wanted to test the investigative skills of their detectives, as well as their ability to work with detectives in other cities, and share intelligence, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the planned exercise were confidential.
  The training, funded by a $200,000 Homeland Security grant, will probably be rescheduled to early next year, said Transit Police Chief Paul MacMillan, whose agency was slated to participate.
  He said he anticipates the new training scenario will be similar to the one already planned.
  ''Why wouldn't we do it?'' MacMillan said. ''Just because we had one event doesn't mean that we might not have another one. And it behooves us to continually work together to investigate these types of incidents.''
  Cheryl Fiandaca, spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department, said the agencies had no choice but to postpone this year's Urban Shield.
  ''The resources and logistics of putting something of this magnitude together in light of what just happened would be challenging,'' she said. ''To put together an exercise that would be a really valuable training and teaching tool we need more time.''
  Officials from a dozen agencies had been meeting for months to plan the scenario. They behaved much like movie producers, recruiting students from Northeastern University and the Boston Police Academy to play the parts of terrorists and witnesses.
  They scouted warehouses and homes around Chelsea and Winthrop that could be used as a terrorist safe house.
  The basic plot was this: Half a dozen members of Free America Citizens wanted to gauge police response to a bomb scare. They would plant hoax devices, then stay on the scene to watch and record the bomb squad and detectives as they responded, as a dry run to a larger attack.
  The participating detectives, however, would not have known they were being watched. They would only be told that they were responding to an urgent terrorist threat. The goal of the training was for them to figure out the motives of Free America Citizens as they investigated the case, the official said.
  The planned exercise has eerie similarities to the police investigation that led to the capture of the alleged Boston Marathon bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose images were caught on video cameras and who were captured after a car chase and shoot-out with police.
  In the training scenario, investigators participating in Urban Shield would have to track down footage of the bombers caught by street surveillance cameras and the phones of ''witnesses.''
  They would have to call on intelligence analysts to figure out which terrorist cell might be threatening the city.
  In the scenario, the terrorists would flee police in stolen cars they would dump in cities outside Boston, which would compel detectives from different jurisdictions to cooperate and share intelligence.
  One major clue would have been the body of one of the terrorists found near a stolen car, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. There were also false leads to keep investigators guessing, the official said.
  ''We'd have detectives running ragged,'' the official said. ''The main goal of this was to arrest as many of the people as possible and absolutely identify where the cache of bombs was being kept.''
  Fiandaca, the police spokeswoman, declined to say what a new training might look like.
  ''We can't talk about what we're doing for emergency preparedness,'' she said. ''The people who participate in this don't know what the scenario is.''
  Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.Follow her on Twitter @GlobeMCramer.
DHS Admits Boston Drill Using Backpack Explosives Planned Before Marathon
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  Archived Version
  Wed, 12 Jun 2013 03:12
  The Department of Homeland Security has gone public with an admission that an exercise was planned months before the Boston Marathon bombings that involved backpacks being used to detonate explosives by rogue terrorists.
  According to the DHS documents acquired by the Boston Globe, the agents were planning on conducting training exercises centered around a fictitious terrorist group called 'Free America Citizens', a group that would plant backpacks full of explosives around Boston that the detectives would be forced to track down. Ultimately, of course, this ended up happening at the Boston Marathon itself with precise accuracy. The Globe report reads that ''the city was hit with a real terrorist attack executed in a frighteningly similar fashion.''
  And the DHS isn't denying that the training exercise manifested itself at the Boston Marathon, as detailed in the back-end article on the Boston Globe that I discovered while browsing the news.
  ''The real thing happened before we were able to execute,'' a Boston police official told the Boston Globe in the report.
  The exercise, labeled as ''Operation Urban Shield,'' was funded by a $200,000 Homeland Security grant. It was planned months before the Boston Marathon, and it was scheduled to 'take place' in official capacity this weekend, according to the sources. But the exercise admission lends further credence to the ignored eyewitness account of bomb sniffing dogs and bomb squads running a training exercise during the morning of the Boston Marathon. Was this training exercise part of Operation Urban Shield?
  Interestingly, they specifically detailed that this terrorist group (that presumably is based off of 'right wing extremists' and the sovereign citizens movement) would carry a logo of a metal skull wearing an Uncle Sam hat. I'm not claiming there's a relationship, but I find it funny that even their logo matched up with real events from the Boston Marathon bombings. It was in fact the apparent security at the event that was spotted wearing clothing adorning the image of skulls that turned out to be the logo for the Craft International private security firm.
  I will be reporting more on Operation Urban Shield as more information becomes available.
  Tags:backpack, boston, featured, latest, secondary, training drill
  Category: Injustice, Mainstream media, US
Activist Post: IRS buying tiny surveillance equipment hidden in plants, coffee trays, clock radios
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:51
  Madison RuppertActivist PostApparently the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has branched out from just reading e-mails and other electronic communications without a warrant into the realm of physical surveillance.
  A purchase request for cameras and recording equipment small enough to be concealed in everyday household items was submitted by the IRS recently, showing that it isn't content with the many scandals already plaguing the agency.
  Interestingly, the IRS apparently needs the equipment quite urgently. The solicitation was posted on June 6 and is looking to have it fulfilled by June 11, according to the solicitation.
  The descriptions of the items in the solicitation ''are vague due to the use and nature of the items,'' according to the posting.
  The items the IRS is purchasing include four ''Covert Coffee tray[s] with Camera concealment,'' two ''Concealed clock radio[s],'' and four remote surveillance systems with built-in DVD burners and 2 internal hard drives along with cameras.
  The IRS also wants, ''(QTY 4) Plant Concealment Color 700 Lines Color IP Camera Concealment with Single Channel Network Server, supports dual video stream, Poe [power over Ethernet], software included, case included, router included'' along with ''(QTY 4) Color IP Camera Concealment with single channel network server, supports dual video stream, poe, webviewer and cms [content management system] software included, audio.''The original solicitation was only available to private companies for bids for 19 business hours, according to CNS News.
  The purpose for the equipment has not been revealed and the company fulfilling the also remains unknown, even though a provider has been secured, according to the Daily Caller.
  This latest expansion of the U.S. government's spying program comes after the massive NSA surveillance program known as PRISM was uncovered which involved tech companies working with the government.
  Obama himself along with others in Washington have defended the program while others have attacked the press for disclosing the existence of the program along with related software known as Boundless Informant. Edward Snowden, the man responsible for exposing the program is now apparently on the run and the Senate is slated to hold a closed briefing on the program.
  Based on what we've seen when it comes to the defense of the NSA surveillance, one can assume that IRS surveillance will be treated similarly.
  I'd love to hear your opinion, take a look at your story tips and even your original writing if you would like to get it published. I am also available for interviews on radio, television or any other format. Please email me at Admin@EndtheLie.com
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  This article first appeared at End the Lie.
  Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. Madison also now has his own radio show on UCYTV Monday nights 7 PM - 9 PM PT/10 PM - 12 AM ET. Show page link here: http://UCY.TV/EndtheLie. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com
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Julia Gillard's 'small breasts' served up on Liberal party dinner menu | World news | guardian.co.uk
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  Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:40
  A Liberal National Party fundraiser menu which served up Julia Gillard quail with ''small breasts, huge thighs and a big red box'' has been labelled tacky and scatological by the opposition leader.
  Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey was the guest of honour at the fundraiser which was held in Brisbane in March for LNP candidate Mal Brough who has apologised for the menu and admitted it was sexist, according to the ABC.
  Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has called on Brough to donate the money raised to an animal charity.
  ''It's snide, dirty and, I think, a sexist trick,'' he said.
  ''It's wrong, inappropriate and he (Brough) should donate every dollar raised to the RSPCA.''
  Opposition leader Tony Abbott said the menu was ''tacky and scatological'' but confirmed Brough's candidacy was safe in a press conference on the Gold Coast after he spent the night in Queensland.
  ''I condemn it,'' he said.
  ''I think we should all be bigger and better than that.''
  When asked if the menu would damage Brough's pre-election in Fisher Abbott replied ''absolutely not''.
  The menu began circulating on social media websites and before it was confirmed as authentic. Hockey composed a carefully worded tweet saying he was not aware of the ''offensive'' menu's existence.
  ''I don't recall ever seeing any such menu. It is offensive and inappropriate whenever it was put out and it is now,'' he wrote.
  It was first posted by a Brisbane chef who claimed he used to work at the unnamed restaurant which hosted the Liberal National Party soiree and a staff member who was catering the dinner had taken a photo of the menu.
  The menu also included ''Rudd's a Goose Foie Gras'' and instructed guests to eat up all their greens ''before they take over''.
  The prime minister's office, along with Hockey's, have been contacted for comment.
Milk Fluoridation | Global Child Dental Fund
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 11 Jun 2013 20:32
  As fluoride in milk targets children, the World Health Organization (WHO) supports milk fluoridation as an alternative to water fluoridation. This is currently practiced in some countries including the United Kingdom (UK), China, Peru and Thailand.
  While the monitoring of fluoride levels in milk is challenging, considering the poor attitudes and low levels of awareness associated to oral health, should the Indian government have a scheme where children, particularly the vulnerable population, receive fluoridated milk as part of the ongoing 1 meal/day program in government schools?
  Let's discuss:
  Professor Raman Bedi raman.bedi@kcl.ac.uk
  The following brief note (below) has been agreed by a global expert group and is taken from the website Alliance for Cavity Free Future.
  Description and use:The addition of fluoride to milk and milk-based products is called milk fluoridation. Currently milk fluoridation programs exist in several countries including Bulgaria, Chile, China, Peru, the Russian Federation, Thailand, and the UK.
  Effectiveness:Decreasing the mean DMFS by 85% in the Budapest study and 43% in the Glasgow study. However more data is needed to provide the highest level of evidence for practice.
  Safety:In a review on safety milk fluoridation was reported to be safe and fluorosis, if any, was mild. No other adverse effects have been reported. The regulation of fluoride in milk and monitoring the levels of fluoride in milk are challenging.
  Cost:The cost effectiveness of fluoridated milk has been reported to be $5 savings per diseased tooth after four years.
The Domestic Surveillance Directorate
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 11 Jun 2013 20:22
  Welcome to the Domestic Surveillance Directorate
  The National Security Agency is responsible for carrying out three of the country's most important intelligence activities - Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), Information Assurance (IA), and Domestic Surveillance (DS). SIGINT involves intercepting, decrypting, and analyzing foreign adversaries' communications. IA involves the protection of America's U.S. government information systems. DS involves the collection and warehousing of all domestically-generated information streams.
  The mission of the Domestic Surveillance Directorate is simple: Collect, process, and store U.S. citizen data for the good of the Nation. We cope with the overload of information in our environment and turn that overload to our strategic advantage. We provide the ability for ubiquitous, secure collaboration both within our agency and through its interactions with various partners. We penetrate into the "hard" targets that threaten our nation wherever, whenever, or whomever they may be.
  We're building a new data center to process the growing volume of information more quickly. Working closely with our partners, we are finding new ways to detect, report, and respond to all domestic threats. As the information age transforms the nation, we will also transform to keep our nation secure. We are the Domestic Surveillance Directorate. We work through you. For you. For our Nation.
PBS NewsHour Closes Offices, Lays Off Staff, Turns to Freelancers
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 11 Jun 2013 18:30
  by John Nolte11 Jun 2013, 11:11 AM PDTpost a commentAlong with sending our own teams in the field, we anticipate building new relationships with a variety of locally-based freelance video journalists around the country,'' Winslow wrote to staff. ''Under no circumstances do we intend to abandon the mini-documentary reports that have become so critical to our broadcast. The NewsHour remains committed to delivering the same kind of in-depth reporting our viewers and supporters expect from us.''
  Freelancers, eh? Sounds like PBS is trying to avoid the ObamaCare they championed.
  No doubt that all those losing their jobs are certain they have nothing to worry about in the Obama economy their network has been happy-talking for the last five years.
  It is called funemployment, right?
  Follow John Nolte on Twitter@NolteNC
A.C.L.U. Files Suit Over Phone Surveillance Program - NYTimes.com
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 11 Jun 2013 18:08
  WASHINGTON '-- The American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration over its ''dragnet'' collection of logs of domestic phone calls, contending that the once-secret program '-- whose existence was exposed by a former National Security Agency contractor last week '-- is illegal and asking a judge to both stop it and order the records purged.
  The lawsuit, filed in New York, could set up an eventual Supreme Court test. It could also focus attention on this disclosure amid the larger heap of top secret surveillance matters that were revealed by Edward J. Snowden, a former N.S.A. contractor who came forward on Sunday to say he was the source of a series of disclosures by The Guardian and The Washington Post.
  The program ''gives the government a comprehensive record of our associations and public movements, revealing a wealth of detail about our familial, political, professional, religious and intimate associations,'' the complaint says, adding that it ''is likely to have a chilling effect on whistle-blowers and others who would otherwise contact'' the A.C.L.U. for legal assistance.
  A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.
  The A.C.L.U. has frequently assisted other plaintiffs in challenges against national security policies, but the government has generally persuaded courts to dismiss such lawsuits without any ruling on the legal merits after arguing that litigation over any classified program would reveal state secrets or that the plaintiffs could not prove they were personally affected and so lacked standing to sue.
  This case may be different. The government has now declassified the existence of the program on domestic call record ''metadata.'' And the A.C.L.U. itself is a customer of Verizon Business Network Services '-- the subsidiary of Verizon Communications that was the recipient of a leaked secret court order for all its domestic calling records '-- which it says gives it direct standing to bring the lawsuit.
  The call logging program is keeping a record of ''metadata'' from domestic phone calls, including which numbers were dialed and received, from which location, and the time and duration of the communication, officials have said.
  The effort began as part of the Bush administration's post-9/11 programs of surveillance without court approval, and, it is now known, it has continued since 2006 with the blessing of a national security court, which has ruled in still-secret legal opinions that such bulk surveillance was authorized by a section of the Patriot Act that allows the F.B.I. to obtain ''business records'' if they are relevant to a counterterrorism investigation.
  Congress never openly voted to authorize the N.S.A. to collect logs of hundreds of millions of domestic phone calls, but the administration notes that some lawmakers were briefed on the program. Some members of Congress have backed it as a useful counterterrorism tool, while others have denounced it.
  ''The administration claims authority to sift through details of our private lives because the Patriot Act says that it can,'' Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Sunday. ''I disagree. I authored the Patriot Act, and this is an abuse of that law.''
  Over the weekend, in hope of preventing a backlash, James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, also disclosed details about privacy protections built into the program. Among them, officials may access the database only if they can meet a legal justification '-- ''reasonable suspicion, based on specific facts, that the particular basis for the query is associated with a foreign terrorist organization.'' To deter abuse, queries are audited under the oversight of judges on a national security court.
  Timothy Edgar, who recently left the government after serving as a privacy and civil liberties official on intelligence matters in both the Bush and Obama administrations and who worked on building safeguards into the phone log program, said the notion underlying the limits was that people's privacy is not invaded by having their records collected and stored in government computers, but only when a human extracts and examines them.
  ''When you have important reasons why that collection needs to take place on a scale that is much larger than case-by-case or individual obtaining of records, then one of the ways you try to deal with the privacy issue is you think carefully about having a set of safeguards that basically say 'O.K., yes, this has major privacy implications, but what can we do on the back end to address those?''' he said.
  Still, even with such restrictions, privacy advocates say the mere existence of the database will inevitably erode the sense of living in a free society: from now on, whenever Americans pick up a phone, before dialing they now face the consideration of whether they want the record of that call to go into the government's permanent files.
  Moreover, while use of the database may currently be limited to terrorism, history has shown that new powers granted to the government for one purpose often end up being applied to others. An expanded search warrant authority that Congress granted in the Patriot Act justified by the Sept. 11 attacks, for example, was used far more often in routine investigations like suspected drug, fraud, tax, weapons and extortion offenses.
  Executive branch officials and lawmakers who support the program have hinted in public that some terrorist plots have been foiled and intelligence leads have been identified by using the database. In private conversations, they have also explained how it is used: investigators start with a specific phone number that is already believed to be linked to terrorism, and scrutinize the ring of people who have called that number '-- and other people who in turn called those in the first ring, and so on '-- in an effort to identify any co-conspirators.
  Still, that kind of analysis may generally be performed without keeping a wholesale library of call records, since investigators can instead use retail-scale subpoenas to obtain relevant calling logs from telephone companies. Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee who issued cryptic warnings about the program before its existence was revealed and who have examined it in classified hearings, have claimed that the evidence is thin that the program provided uniquely available intelligence.
  But supporters of the program privately say the database's existence is about more than convenience and speed. They say it can also help in searching for networks of terrorists who may be taking steps to shield their communications with one another, for instance by using different phone lines; if calls are going to and from a different number at the same address or cellphone towers as the number that is known to be suspicious, for example, having the comprehensive database may be helpful in a way that subpoenas for specific numbers cannot match.
  It remains unclear, however, whether there have been any real-world instances in which a terrorist network that tried to evade detection was identified in that way, and so the existence of the database prevented an attack that otherwise would have occurred, or whether that advantage is to date only theoretical.
  A 1979 ruling over a small-scale collection of calling ''metadata,'' Smith v. Maryland, held that such records were not protected by the Fourth Amendment since people have revealed such information to phone companies and so have no reasonable expectation of privacy. However, in a 2012 case involving GPS trackers placed by the police on cars, the Supreme Court suggested that the automated collection of people's public movements may raise Fourth Amendment privacy issues in a way that nonbulk surveillance does not.
bunny/proposal.txt at master · mothran/bunny · GitHub
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 11 Jun 2013 17:39
  Bunny.py:
  Bunny is intended to act as a layer 1/2 technology for near unsignaturable wireless mesh communication.
  Bunny wraps all data in and out in a layer of obfoscation, it does this by passively listening to
  the local wireless and building a model of 'average' traffic. Then using this model it hides small
  snippets of data within various fields of the 802.11 protocol, that are either poorly defined or
  prone to contain data that mutates a lot. These fields will include but are not limited to; vendor
  data, data packets of encrypted networks, duration fields.
  Nodes will be able to find bunny specific packets with the preshared information of a modulus and
  remainder value that will be applied to the packet length of each read packet. Bunny will
  have two layers of communication, one being a transport and routing protocol that will be able to be
  read with just a AES key, modulus and remainder value. This layer will handle data routing and the
  backbone of a Bunny based network. Then within that channel, many seperate communication channels
  can exist with a second round of block chipher encrypted data. This provides for a 'russian doll'
  model of commuincation channels, thus allowing for a properly layered privacy scheme.
  So far the project depends on 3 external libraries:
  1. pylorcon (802.11 injection)
  - and the underlying Lorcon library
  2. pcapy (802.11 reading of packets)
  3. pycrypto (cryptography)
  The overall architecture will have classes for all major sectors of the programs:
  - encryption
  - send / recv
  - traffic modeling
  - templates
  - configuration
  The structure of the application is as such:
  - The AEScrypt class is just a container for 2 functions, encrypt and decrypt.
  - The SendRec class is the backbone of the IO in the application. When init'd,
  both a lorcon object and pcapy instance are created and the interface is set into
  monitor mode.
  There is a function for updating the channel on the interface, testing packet
  capturing and grabing raw packets that include a RadioTap header.
  - The TrafficModel class is the brains of the obfuscation functionality.
  What is does is when created it captures a 3 second long packet capture using the
  SendRec class then analysis's the distribution of packet types and mac addresses.
  Then it stick most of that data into two lists, type_ranges and mac_addresses.
  type_ranges contains information about the types, their distruibution and an object
  for each type from a subclass of the Template class.
  These subclasses are then called dynamically when ever a packet needs to decoded or
  encoded with injected data.
  ** A word about how injecting data into 802.11 packets works in Bunny**
  802.11 is a complex, partially implemented, leviathan of a standard and thus we
  can easily abuse that complexity to hide data within 802.11 packet types without any
  easy way to detect it.
  This is done by selecting key fields of different 802.11 packet types that are prone
  to chunks of psuedo random input. Then breaking up the original message and stuffing
  it into these fields, the revease is done to get the data out of these packets.
  To detect a bunny specific packet, each outbound packet is resized to match pre determined
  pack_len % mod = remainder values. Then when looking for packet bunny just tests each
  packets length against the modulus and remainder values. (idea from: Optyx, KIS root kit)
  - The Templates class is a super class that contains many subclasses, one (hopefuly)
  for each major packet type. Each subclass contains the fields and decoding mechanizums
  A subclass is instaciated for each detected packet type in the TrafficModel, when a
  object is created it decodes the raw packet and stores a 'template' version of a packet
  captured off of the 3 second capture window. Each subclass also can decode and resize
  packets.
  Bunny order of operations upon start up goes as follows:
  1. create trafficmodel
  2. search for bunny packets
  if other bunny instances found:
  1. send and recv packets in the mesh using the packet templates and distributions found
  within the trafficmodel
  When a packet is send, the data (including routing info) with be encrypted with AES256 then
  chunks of the packet will be injected into the packet types contained with in templates, but at
  distributions of packet types that match the model (EX: beacon packet 60% of the time, data 40%)
  A single bunny packet can be broken up into many different 802.11 packets. Because of this, the
  meshing/routing layer will need to act like TCP to ensure delivery.
CryptoKids® America's Future Codemakers & Codebreakers
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  Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:57
  2010 National Security Agency Links | Parents & Teachers | Trademark | Privacy | Terms of Use | NoFEAR Act | FOIA | DNI.gov | DOD.mil | USA.gov | Contact Us | Site Map
Article
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  Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:52
  There is a lot of reaction on WLS this morning to the identification of the man who leaked information last week, about the U.S. Government's secret surveillance program, which allows the National Security Agency to monitor the phone calls and emails of Americans.Former U.S. Ambassador John Bolton told Bruce Wolf and Dan Proft on WLS that he thinks admitted leaker Edward Snowden, is guilty of treason:
  "Number one, this man is a liar. He took an oath to keep the secrets that were shared with him so he could do his job. He said said he would not disclose them, and he lied. Number two, he lied because he thinks he's smarter and has a higher morality than the rest of us. This guy thinks he has a higher morality, that he can see clearer than other 299-million 999-thousand 999 of us, and therefore he can do what he wants. I say that is the worst form of treason."
  The 29-year-old Snowden spoke with the British newspaper "The Guardian." The paper says Snowden is a former CIA covert employee and has been an NSA contract employee for four years, working for the consulting giant Booz-Allen.
WLS 890AM - Bolton
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  Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:52
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LEO.GOV
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Understanding Liberals and Progressives - Capitalism Magazine
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  In order to understand the liberal and progressive agenda, one must know something about their world vision and values. Let's examine some of the evidence.
  Why the 1970s struggle to ban DDT? Alexander King, founder of the Malthusian Club of Rome, wrote in a 1990 biographical essay: ''My own doubts came when DDT was introduced for civilian use. In Guyana, within two years, it had almost eliminated malaria, but at the same time the birth rate had doubled. So my chief quarrel with DDT, in hindsight, is that it has greatly added to the population problem.''
  Dr. Charles Wurster, former chief scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, was once asked whether he thought a ban on DDT would result in the use of more dangerous chemicals and more malaria cases in Sri Lanka. He replied: ''Probably. So what? People are the cause of all the problems. We have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them, and (malaria) is as good a way as any.''
  According to ''Earthbound,'' a collection of essays on environmental ethics, William Aiken said: ''Massive human diebacks would be good. It is our duty to cause them. It is our species' duty, relative to the whole, to eliminate 90 percent of our numbers.''
  Former National Park Service research biologist David Graber opined, ''Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. '... We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth. '... Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.''
  Speaking of viruses, Prince Philip '-- Duke of Edinburgh and patron of the World Wildlife Fund '-- said, ''If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.'' The late Jacques Cousteau told The UNESCO Courier: ''One America burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangladeshes. This is a terrible thing to say. In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it's just as bad not to say it.''
  That represents the values of some progressives, but what about their predictions? In 1972, a report was written for the Club of Rome to warn that the world would run out of gold by 1981, mercury and silver by 1985, tin by 1987, and petroleum, copper, lead and natural gas by 1992. It turns out that each of these resources is more plentiful today. Gordon Taylor, in his 1970 book, ''The Doomsday Book,'' said that Americans were using 50 percent of the world's resources and that ''by 2000 (Americans) will, if permitted, be using all of them.'' In 1975, the Environment Fund took out full-page ads warning, ''The World as we know it will likely be ruined by the year 2000.'' Harvard University Nobel laureate biologist George Wald in 1970 warned, ''Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.'' Former Sen. Gaylord Nelson, quoting Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, warned, in Look magazine (1970), that by 1995, ''somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.'' In 1974, the U.S. Geological Survey said the U.S. had only a 10-year supply of natural gas. The fact of the matter, according to the American Gas Association, is that there's more than a 110-year supply.
  In 1986, Lester Brown, who had been predicting global starvation for 40 years, received a MacArthur Foundation ''genius'' award, along with a stipend. The foundation also gave Dr. Paul Ehrlich, who predicted millions of Americans would die of starvation, the ''genius'' award in 1990. Note that these $300,000 to $400,000 awards were granted well after enough time had passed to demonstrate that Brown and Ehrlich were insanely wrong.
  Just think: Congress listens to people like these and formulates public policy on their dire predictions that we're running out of something.
  About Walter WilliamsBorn in Philadelphia in 1936, Walter E. Williams holds a bachelor's degree in economics from California State University (1965) and a master's degree (1967) and doctorate (1972) in economics from the University of California at Los Angeles.Please contact your local newspaper editor if you want to read the WALTER WILLIAMS column in your hometown paper.
  The views expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of Capitalism Magazine. Capitalism Magazine often presents views that we do not entirely agree with, because they may still contain information of value to our readers.
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OPERATION TROLL THE NSA
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  Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:35
  They say they don't read or listen to the contents of our messages. Why not test it out?
  It'll be fun.
  Hey! How's it going? I'm all right.
  My job is so shitty I wish I could overthrow my boss. It's like this oppressive regime where only true believers in his management techniques will stay around. I work marathon-length hours and he's made all these changes that have made it the worst architecture firm to work at in Manhattan. Like he moved the office to the Financial District and fired my assistant. She was the only one who knew where the blueprints were! I need access to those blueprints to complete my job! F my life, right? And he keeps trying to start all these new initiatives to boost revenue, but seriously we just need to stick to what we do best. There's only one true profit center. I seriously feel ready to go on strike at any second.
  I just read this article about how these free radical particles can cause the downfall of good health and accelerate aging. These could actually cause death to millions of Americans. If these particles are flying around undetected everywhere, does that mean we're all radicalized?
  Have you seen the second season of Breaking Bad? I just finished it. I couldn't believe that episode where they poison the guy with ricin! That was the bomb! I won't say any more because I don't want to reveal the earth-shattering events to come.
  Oh! So I've been planning a big trip for the summer. I'm thinking of visiting all of the most famous suspension bridges in the United States. So probably like the Golden Gate Bridge, The Brooklyn Bridge, and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. I'm gonna bring my younger brother and I know he'll want to go to bars, so I'm thinking of getting him a fake drivers license, but I hope that doesn't blow up in my face.
  Okay, I gotta run! I'm late for flight school. I missed the last class where we learn how to land, so I really can't miss another one. Talk to you later!
Nicaragua congressional committee OKs giving Chinese company concession to build, run canal - The Washington Post
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:31
  By Associated Press,MANAGUA, Nicaragua '-- A Nicaraguan congressional committee has approved giving a China-based consortium the concession to build and operate a canal between the Pacific and Caribbean, fast-tracking the huge development project over objections from the opposition.
  Infrastructure committee president Jenny Martinez says the bill was immediately sent to the National Assembly after Monday's vote.
  Opposition lawmakers voted against it, saying the initiative is being rushed and has too many obscure points.
  President Daniel Ortega's Sandinista Front controls the national legislature, which is expected to vote on the bill Thursday.
  The Chinese company HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co. Ltd. is working with the Nicaraguan government on the canal project. Experts say it could take 11 years to finish, cost $40 billion and require digging about 130 miles (200 kilometers) of waterway.
  Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Why Many Retirees Could Outlive a $1 Million Nest Egg - NYTimes.com
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:28
  A MILLION dollars isn't what it used to be.
  In 1953, when ''How to Marry a Millionaire'' was in movie theaters, $1 million bought the equivalent of $8.7 million today. Now $1 million won't even buy an average Manhattan apartment or come remotely close to paying the average salary of an N.B.A. basketball player.
  Still, $1 million is more money than 9 in 10 American families possess. It may no longer be a symbol of boundless wealth, but as a retirement nest egg, $1 million is relatively big. It may seem like a lot to live on.
  But in many ways, it's not.
  Inflation isn't the only thing that's whittled down the $1 million. The topsy-turvy world of today's financial markets '-- particularly, the still-ultralow interest rates in the bond market '-- is upending what many people thought they understood about how to pay for life after work.
  ''We're facing a crisis right now, and it's going to get worse,'' said Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. ''Most people haven't saved nearly enough, not even people who have put away $1 million.''
  For people close to retirement, the problem is acute. The conventional financial advice is that the older you get, the more you should put into bonds, which are widely considered safer than stocks. But consider this bleak picture: A typical 65-year-old couple with $1 million in tax-free municipal bonds want to retire. They plan to withdraw 4 percent of their savings a year '-- a common, rule-of-thumb drawdown. But under current conditions, if they spend that $40,000 a year, adjusted for inflation, there is a 72 percent probability that they will run through their bond portfolio before they die.
  Suddenly, that risk-free bond portfolio is looking risky. ''The probabilities are remarkably grim for retirees who insist on holding only bonds in the belief that they are safe,'' says Seth J. Masters, the chief investment officer of Bernstein Global Wealth Management, a Manhattan-based firm, which ran these projections for Sunday Business. ''Because we live in this world we tend to think of it as 'normal,' but from the standpoint of financial market history, it's not normal at all,'' Mr. Masters said. ''And that's very clear when you look at fixed-income returns.''
  Several rounds of intervention by the Federal Reserve and other central banks, aimed at stimulating a moribund economy, have helped to suppress rates, and so has low inflation. Low rates have led to cheaper mortgages and credit cards, helping to balance family budgets.
  But for savers, low rates have been a trial. The fundamental problem is that benchmark Treasury yields have been well below 4 percent since early in the financial crisis. That creates brutal math: if your portfolio's income is below 4 percent, you can't withdraw 4 percent annually, and add inflation adjustments, without depleting that portfolio over time.
  And with rising life expectancies, many people will have a lot of time: the average 65-year-old woman today can be expected to live to 86, a man to 84. One out of 10 people who are 65 today will live past 95, according to projections from the Social Security Administration.
  ''If you're invested only in bonds and you're withdrawing 4 percent, plus inflation, your portfolio will decline,'' said Maria A. Bruno, senior investment analyst at Vanguard. ''That's why we recommend that most people hold some equities. And why it's important to be flexible.'' In some years, investors may need to withdraw less than 4 percent, she said, and in some years they can take more.
  Clearly, such flexibility depends on individual circumstances. Billionaires can afford to be very flexible: just 2 percent of a $1 billion portfolio is still $20 million. With economizing, even a big spender should be able to scrape by on that. But $20,000 '-- the cash flow from a $1 million portfolio at 2 percent '-- won't take you very far in the United States today.
  And if you're not close to being a millionaire '-- if you're starting, say, with $10,000 in financial assets '-- you've got very little flexibility indeed. Yet $10,890 is the median financial net worth of an American household today, according to calculations by Edward N. Wolff, an economics professor at New York University. (He bases this estimate on 2010 Federal Reserve data, which he has updated for Sunday Business according to changes in relevant market indexes.)
  A millionaire household lives in elite territory, even if it no longer seems truly rich. Including a home in the calculations, such a family ranks in the top 10.1 percent of all households in the United States, according to Professor Wolff's estimates. Excluding the value of a home, a net worth of $1 million puts a household in the top 8.1 percent. Yet even such families may have difficulty maintaining their standard of living in retirement.
  ''The bottom line is that people at nearly all levels of the income distribution have undersaved,'' Professor Wolff said. ''Social Security is going to be a major, and maybe primary, source of income for people, even for some of those close to the top.''
  Professor Munnell said that in addition to relying on Social Security, which she called ''absolutely crucial, even for people with $1 million,'' other options include saving more, spending less, working longer and tapping home equity for living expenses. ''There aren't that many levers we can use,'' she said. ''We have to consider them all.''
  THE bond market has always been a forbidding place for outsiders, but making some sense of it is important for people who rely on bond income.
  Low bond yields have been a nightmare for many investors, but that's not the only issue. Today's market rates aren't stable. Steve Huber, portfolio manager at T. Rowe Price, said, ''Current yields are an anomaly when you consider where rates have been over the last decade or more.''
  Rates are expected to rise. While that will eventually mean more income for bond buyers, it will create a host of problems. Already, the market has been rattled by speculation that after years of big bond-buying, the Fed may soon begin to taper its appetite. In May, a half-point climb in the yield of 10-year Treasury notes produced the biggest monthly bond market losses in nine years. (Yields and prices move in opposite directions.) Yet yields remain extraordinarily low on a historical basis. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note is just under 2.2 percent, compared with more than 6.5 percent, on average, since 1962, according to quarterly Bloomberg data.
FISA Court Has Rejected .03 Percent Of All Government Surveillance Requests | Mother Jones
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:17
  After last week's revelations extensive National Security Agency surveillance of phone and internet communications, President Barack Obama made it a point to assure Americans that, not to worry, there is plenty of oversight of his administration's snooping programs. "We've got congressional oversight and judicial oversight," he said Friday, referring in part to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which was created in 1979 to oversee Department of Justice requests for surveillance warrants against foreign agents suspected of espionage or terrorism in the United States. But the FISC has declined just 11 of the more than 33,900 surveillance requests made by the government in 33 years, the Wall Street Journalreported Sunday. That's a rate of .03 percent, which raises questions about just how much judicial oversight is actually being provided.
  "The FISA system is broken,"Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told the Journal. "At the point that a FISA judge can compel the disclosure of millions of phone records of US citizens engaged in only domestic communications, unrelated to the collection of foreign intelligence'...there is no longer meaningful judicial review."
  But according to Timothy Edgar, a top privacy lawyer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Council under Bush and Obama, it's not quite as simple as the FISC rubber stamping nearly every application the government puts in front of it.
  The reason so many orders are approved, he said, is that the Justice Department office that manages the process vets the applications rigorously... [S]o getting the order approved by the Justice Department lawyers is perhaps the biggest hurdle to approval. "The culture of that office is very reluctant to get a denial," he [told the Journal].
  Still, the entire process is closed. The FISC court hears evidence for surveillance applications presented solely by the Department of Justice. The court does not have to release its opinions or any information regarding such hearings.
  In February, Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), wrote a letter to the FISC asking the court to consider releasing portions of its opinions to the public by "writing summaries of its significant interpretations of the law in a manner that separates the classified facts of the application under review from the legal analysis, so as to enable declassification." After the revelations on the spying programs last week, Sen. Al Franken called the same thing.
  In response to the senators' letter, the FISA court's presiding judge, Reggie B. Walton, said in March that it would be very difficult to release summaries of the court's opinions to the public, because the legal analysis in most opinions is "inextricably intertwined" with classified information.
  This post has been corrected. A commenter pointed out that a previous version stated that the FISA court has rejected .0003 percent of all government surveillance requests. The correct percentage is .03. Apologies for the bad math.
Obama's Director Of National Intelligence Jokes About Reading Americans Emails'...
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  Archived Version
  Source: Weasel Zippers
  Tue, 11 Jun 2013 10:17
  More of that extreme arrogance we've come to expect from the Obama regime.
  Via GovExec:
  No one planned it that way, but the twin blockbuster stories exposing national security agencies' collection of domestic telephone logs and foreigners' Web traffic made for some surreal juxtapositions on Friday at the annual banquet of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.
  With the current and past directors of national intelligence at the Omni Shoreham to honor former CIA and National Security Agency chief Michael Hayden, the result in speeches and interviews with intel professionals was a gumbo of outrage, worry and humor.
  Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the black-tie crowd of more than 700 he would ''address the elephant in the room'' and proceeded, to applause, to denounce ''the unauthorized leaks as reprehensible and egregious.'' Clapper characterized the program as completely legal, debated and reauthorized by Congress under strict oversight and by court order ''to make our nation safe and secure.''
  He then cracked a few jokes. ''Some of you expressed surprise that I showed up'--so many emails to read!'' Clapper said. Greeting fellow banqueter John Pistole, the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration who recently reversed a planned policy to permit air travelers to carry certain knives on planes, Clapper said, ''John, can I borrow your pocket knife?''
  HT: DRUDGE
NY Times Admits ''Plateau'' In Global Warming Over Last 15 Years'...
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  Archived Version
  Source: Weasel Zippers
  Tue, 11 Jun 2013 10:16
  Al Gore hardest hit.
  What to Make of a Warming Plateau '-- NY Times
  The rise in the surface temperature of earth has been markedly slower over the last 15 years than in the 20 years before that. And that lull in warming has occurred even as greenhouse gases have accumulated in the atmosphere at a record pace.
  The slowdown is a bit of a mystery to climate scientists. True, the basic theory that predicts a warming of the planet in response to human emissions does not suggest that warming should be smooth and continuous. To the contrary, in a climate system still dominated by natural variability, there is every reason to think the warming will proceed in fits and starts.
  But given how much is riding on the scientific forecast, the practitioners of climate science would like to understand exactly what is going on. They admit that they do not, even though some potential mechanisms of the slowdown have been suggested. The situation highlights important gaps in our knowledge of the climate system, some of which cannot be closed until we get better measurements from high in space and from deep in the ocean. [...]
  Now, here is a crucial piece of background: It turns out we had an earlier plateau in global warming, from roughly the 1950s to the 1970s, and scientists do not fully understand that one either. A lot of evidence suggests that sunlight-blocking pollution from dirty factories may have played a role, as did natural variability in ocean circulation. The pollution was ultimately reduced by stronger clean-air laws in the West.
  HT: Tom Nelson
NSA leaker: are there serious cracks in Ed Snowden's story?
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  Archived Version
  Source: Dprogram.net
  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 20:51
  (NoMoreFakeNews) '' First, I'm not doubting the documents Ed Snowden has brought forward. I'm not doubting the illegal reach of the NSA in spying on Americans and the world.
  But as to how this recent revelation happened, and whether Ed Snowden's history holds up'...I have questions.
  Could Snowden have been given extraordinary access to classified info as part of a larger scheme? Could he be a) an honest man and yet b) a guy who was set up to do what he's doing now?
  If b) is true, then Snowden fits the bill perfectly. He wants to do what he's doing. He isn't lying about that. He means what he says.
  Okay. Let's look at his history as reported by The Guardian.
  In 2003, at age 19, without a high school diploma, Snowden enlists in the Army. He begins a training program to join the Special Forces. The sequence here is fuzzy. At what point after enlistment can a new soldier start this training program? Does he need to demonstrate some exceptional ability before Special Forces puts him in that program?
  Snowden breaks both legs in a training exercise. He's discharged from the Army. Is that automatic? How about healing and then resuming Army service? Just asking.
  If he was accepted in the Special Forces training program because he had special computer skills, then why discharge him simply because he broke both legs?
  Circa 2003 (?), Snowden gets a job as a security guard for an NSA facility at the University of Maryland. He specifically wanted to work for NSA? It was just a generic job opening he found out about?
  Also in 2003 (?), Snowden shifts jobs. He's now in the CIA, in IT. He has no high school diploma. He's a young computer genius?
  In 2007, Snowden is sent to Geneva. He's only 23 years old. The CIA gives him diplomatic cover there. He's put in charge of maintaining computer-network security. Major job. Obviously, he has access to a very wide range of classified documents. Sound a little odd? Again, just asking. He's just a kid. Maybe he has his GED by now. Otherwise, he still doesn't have a high school diploma.
  Snowden says that during this period, in Geneva, one of the incidents that really sours him on the CIA is the ''turning of a Swiss banker.'' One night, CIA guys get a banker drunk, encourage him to drive home, the banker gets busted, the CIA guys help him out, then with that bond formed, they eventually get the banker to reveal deep banking secrets to the Agency.
  Snowden is this na¯ve? He doesn't know by now that the CIA does this sort of thing all the time? He's shocked? He ''didn't sign up for this?''
  In 2009, Snowden leaves the CIA. Why? Presumably because he's disillusioned. It should be noted here that Snowden claimed he could do very heavy damage to the entire US intelligence community in 2008, but decided to wait because he thought Obama, just coming into the presidency, might make good changes.
  After two years with the CIA in Geneva, Snowden really had the capability to take down the whole US intelligence network, or a major chunk of it? He had that much access to classified data?
  Anyway, in 2009, Snowden leaves the CIA and goes to work for a private defense contractor. Apparently, by this time, he knows all about the phony US war in Iraq, and yet he chooses to work for a sector that relentlessly promotes such wars. Go figure.
  This defense contractor (unnamed) assigns him to work at an NSA facility in Japan. Surely, Snowden understands what the NSA is. He knows it's a key part of the whole military-intelligence network, the network he opposes.
  But he takes the job anyway. Perhaps he's doing it so he can obtain further access to classified data, in advance of blowing a big whistle. Perhaps.
  Snowden goes on to work for two private defense contractors, Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton. In this latter job, Snowden is again assigned to work at the NSA.
  He's an outsider, but he claims to have so much sensitive NSA data that he can take down the whole US intelligence network in a single day. Hmm.
  These are red flags. They raise questions. Serious ones.
  If The Guardian, which has such close access to Snowden, wants to explore these questions, they might come up with some interesting answers.
  Again, I'm not doubting that the documents Snowden has brought forward are real. I have to assume they are. I certainly don't doubt the reach and the power and the criminality of the NSA.
  Although I'm sure someone will write me and say I'm defending the NSA. I'M NOT.
  But if Snowden was maneuvered, in his career, without his knowing it, to arrive at just this point, then we have a whole new story. We have a story about unknown forces who wanted this exposure to occur.
  Who would these forces be? I could make lots of guesses. But they would just be guesses.
  Perhaps all the anomalies in the career of Ed Snowden can be explained with sensible answers. I realize that. But until they are, I put the questions forward. And leave them there.
  Jon Rappoport is the author of two explosive collections,The Matrix RevealedandExit From the Matrix, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com
Yemen air strike 'kills six Qaeda militants'
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Gitmo Nation News
  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 20:48
Greek stocks hit by sale failure
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  Archived Version
  Source: BBC News - Europe
  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 20:22
  10 June 2013Last updated at12:55 ETGreek stocks have plunged almost 5% after the government said it had not received any bids for natural gas firm Depa, marking a setback to its privatisation programme.
  Russia's Gazprom had been expected to bid for Depa.
  Depa's sale is key to Greece meeting a privatisation target set as a condition of its bailout by the EU and the IMF.
  The news came as EU and IMF officials arrived in Greece to assess progress on its deficit reduction.
  Depa had been expected to sell for around 900m euros.
  Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said it had not submitted a bid, due to concerns over Depa's financial viability. He said the firm was already experiencing difficulties with users' unpaid bills.
  "We did not receive adequate guarantees that Depa's financial situation will not deteriorate until the deal is concluded," Mr Kupriyanov said in a statement.
  The Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund, the privatisation agency, didn't receive any bids for Depa'--and only a single offer for its sister company, gas grid operator Desfa, government officials said.
  "The DEPA sale surprisingly failed and that's very bad for investor sentiment at a point when Athens looked like it was meeting its targets," said Takis Zamanis, an Athens-based trader at Beta Securities.
  Slow progressGreece started the sales process last year and the deadline for bids was Monday.
  In exchange for two EU-IMF bailouts, Greece has agreed to raise 9.5bn euros in asset sales by 2016.
  The target was originally set at 50bn euros in 2010, but has been repeatedly reduced due to Greece's slow progress on privatisation.
  If Greece fails to meet its privatisation target it would struggle to meet its debt targets, meaning it could be forced into further austerity measures.
  The Athens Stock Exchange General Index closed down 4.69% at 939.78.
'There are things that should remain secret': Washington Post, Guardian withhold PRISM slides
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  Archived Version
  Source: Twitchy » US Politics
  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 20:20
  Now that Edward Snowden has come forward as the leaker of the details behind the National Security Agency's PRISM program, people are beginning to line up in two camps; some call him a traitor, while others have declared him a hero for spilling the beans to the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald. There are other players in the mix, though, and the middle ground they've chosen to occupy is interesting.
  Take Barton Gellman, who reported on Snowden for the Washington Post, for example. The Post, together with the Guardian, published five PowerPoint slides regarding the government's PRISM program. However, both papers chose to withhold 36 more slides leaked to them by Snowden. That puts both papers, rather than the government, in the position of deciding what the public needs to know, and what it shouldn't know about the government's Internet surveillance infrastructure. Is everyone comfortable with that?
  The guarantee to which Gellman refers in his tweet is Snowden's demand that the Post publish all 41 slides within 72 hours of receipt, which the paper has not done. The Guardian also refused to publish the complete set. Why? If you saw them, you'd know, Gellman told the New York Times' Charlie Savage.
  Hang on now '... how many people at the Washington Post have seen the complete set of slides? If he's not going to tell us everything, could Gellman at least suggest a good cell phone carrier, knowing what he apparently knows?
  Before anyone rushes to declare Snowden a hero, it's worth getting a better picture of just how he shopped around the information he hoped to leak, and where it might end up next. China? WikiLeaks? That latter doesn't seem to think the press has done its job.
Telegraph Decoder Kit by Spikenzie Labs
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  Archived Version
  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 20:16
  Description Some say the telegraph is a thing of the past, but Spikenzie Labs dusted off the design and brought it back to the present! This kit blends a nostalgic telegraph style keyer with an Arduino based decoder. As you successfully key in letters they are shown on a 16 segment alpha-numeric LED display. Two LEDs flash indicating 'dots' or 'dashes' and a piezo provides audio feedback for the telegraph. After a pause, the display flashes back the last set of characters received.This kit is a fun, educational way to learn Morse code and soldering. Since you can re-program the chip with the Arduino IDE, you can hack it for additional functionality (like hooking it up to a ham tranceiver or sending automated messages.) Another well done, great looking kit by Spikenzie Labs!FeaturesLaser cut acrylic keyer,17 segment alphanumeric LED displayDot and dash indicatorsPiezo speaker (with mute jumper)Pre-programmed with Arduino bootloaderRelated Products:Solder: Time II Watch KitOur Price: $59.00
  Add You might also like...LED Art KitOur Price: $19.95
  Add Make an Arduino-Controlled RobotOur Price: $19.99
  Add 26 Piece Bit Driver KitOur Price: $19.95
  Add MAKE Arduino Powered Robot Kit - 2WDOur Price: $169.99
  Add MAKE Branded Alchemy Goods HaversackOur Price: $98.00
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The New Normal America: A Country Where Eating And Drinking Is The New Manufacturing
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  Archived Version
  Source: Zero Hedge
  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:01
  For a long time we have been seeking a chart that captures the pure essence of America's transition into its "new normal" mutant clone, in which record high stock markets coexist with record high foodstamp usage; in which record public debt amounts coexist with record low interest rates; in which the Fed is responsible for 20% of the US GDP but which is forgiven if it means the second coming of a housing bubble giving people the false hope of another "flip that house" get rich scheme. We believe we have found it.
  On the chart below we show the numberof US manufacturing workersover the past decade (currently at levels first seen in 1941) on one axis; and the number of bar and restaurant employees - currently at an all time high - on the other. For those asking, in the past year the US has added 366,700 "food service and drinking places" employees and a whopping... 41,000 manufacturing workers.
  And that, in a nutshell is the new America: a nation in which more than ever eat out, in which almost nobody actually produces anything.
  Source: BLS
  Average:Your rating: NoneAverage: 5(7 votes)
Kazakhs launch 'Silk Road' China-Europe rail route
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: StratRisks
  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:53
  Source: Reuters
  Kazakhstan has launched a new transit railway linking China to Europe, aiming to beat rival routes for journey time in the competition to handle a growing flow of goods along the ancient Silk Road trade route.
  ''Kazakhstan is a virtual bridge linking the East and the West,'' Yerkin Meirbekov, deputy railway department chief at Kazakhstan's Transport Ministry, said in an interview. ''You can actually say this is the revival of the Silk Road.''
  Centuries ago, it would take months for caravans of camels and horses from China to reach Europe across the sun-scorched steppes and deserts of Central Asia to exchange silk for medicines, perfumes and precious stones.
  Now it takes just 15 days for trains carrying containers with electronic goods, construction materials and other cargo to cover the 10,800 km (6,750 miles) route from Chongqing in southwest China to Duisburg in Germany's industrial Ruhr region.
  Late last year, Kazakhstan completed construction of a 293-km (183-mile) stretch from Zhetygen to Korgas at the Chinese border, looping it in to the existing national railway network and opening the second China-Europe link across its territory.
  Meirbekov said that the annual volume of freight turnover along the new route, guaranteed by China, was set to total 2 million metric tons (2.2 million tons) this year and would rise eventually to 15 million metric tons.
  ''The Chinese side, as well as the Kazakh side and European partners '' everyone is ready (to handle these volumes) already tomorrow,'' Meirbekov said.
  ''All railways, as well as customs and border guards, are ready to assist fast passage of cargo across their territories.''
  Europe-bound trains from China cross from Kazakhstan into Russia. Then they go via Belarus and Poland before reaching Duisburg in Germany.
  LUCRATIVE BUSINESS
  Transit routes are a major earner for Kazakhstan's fast-growing economy, already established as a route for pipelines to pump Central Asian oil and gas to China, reducing the region's dependency on former colonial master Russia.
  ''In railways, transit cargo is considered to be net profit, because there are no costs involved '' you take in cargo at one border and hand it over at the other. This is a tasty morsel, and all nations are vying for transits,'' Meirbekov said.
  Kazakhstan, the world's ninth-largest nation by area which is populated by just 17 million, inherited another railway route to China from the Soviet Union.
  This railway, with the Dostyk-Alashankou crossing at China's border, handled a record 16.5 million metric tons of cargo to and from China in 2012, Meirbekov said, predicting that it would reach it maximum annual capacity of 25 million metric tons soon.
  ''If you look at China's prospects, large-scale and intensive development of western China is under way, and output produced there should be exported elsewhere,'' he said. ''This is why the second (transit) route was built.''
  ''Sending goods by sea is very cheap '' of course, if the client agrees to wait for 45 days,'' he said. ''But markets are fickle, and you have to move fast.''
  Goods to be delivered to Europe from China via Russia's Trans-Siberian railway would cover 12,000 km and transit time would take between 18 and 20 days, the Kazakh government says, touting its own route.
  Oil-rich Kazakhstan, Central Asia's largest economy, forecasts its gross domestic product to expand by 6 percent this year after a 5-percent rise in 2012.
  Kazakh state railway company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ) has estimated that cargo transit via its network would reach 35 million metric tons by 2020 and eventually rise to 50 million metric tons.
  KTZ handles 90-95 percent of all Kazakh transit cargo.
  (Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Douglas Busvine and William Hardy)
  Tags: 2012, Belarus, border, Central Asia, Central Asian, chief, china, China Europe, Dostyk Alashankou, economy, Europe, exchange, germany, Kazakhstan Transport Ministry, KTZ, Poland, russia, Silk Road, Soviet Union, Yerkin Meirbekov
Jordan wargames: Patriot batteries, F-16s and 4,500 US troops near Syrian border
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: BlackListedNews.com
  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:53
  Source: RTMultinational military exercise 'Eager Lion' has been launched in Jordan amid condemnation from neighboring Syria and its ally Russia. The US brings Patriot missile batteries to the Syrian border, which could remain deployed afterwards.
  The exercises will last for 12 days, bringing together about 8,000 personnel from 19 countries, mostly Arabic, but also including the US and Europe. The maneuvers will also involve some 3,000 Jordanian and 500 British troops.
  'Eager Lion' '' which is being conducted only 120km from the Jordan-Syria border '' is aimed at training personnel for the possibility of the Syrian civil war spilling into neighboring countries.
  Russia has raised concerns over the deployment of US Patriot missile batteries and F-16 fighter jets to Jordan: ''We have more than once stated our opinion on this '' foreign weapons are being pumped into an explosive region,'' Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Aleksandr Lukashevich said last week.
  ''This is happening very close to Syria, where for more than two years the flames of a devastating conflict are burning that Russia and its American partners are trying to stop by proposing to hold an international peace conference as soon as possible,'' Lukashevich said.
  The organizers of 'Eager Lion' say that the troops involved will also train for the possibility of a chemical attack, as Syria's neighbors fear that Damascus may lose control of its chemical weapons arsenal, which could then fall into the wrong hands.
  ''We all have chemical training from any activity, so we continue to build those objectives into any exercise that we do,'' said US Major General Robert Catalanotti, the Director of Exercises and Training.
  Last week the US military revealed it may indefinitely leave behind the Patriot batteries and F-16s deployed in Jordan due to the threat of the violence in Syria crossing into Jordanian territory.
  Jordanian Army Major General Awni el-Edwan, Operation Chief of Staff, told reporters on Sunday that no US troops, Patriot missile complexes or F-16s would remain in Jordan after the exercises conclude: ''The drills have nothing to do with any objective related to what is happening in Syria.''
  ''No forces will stay after the exercise unless there is a request by the Jordanian government to keep the Patriots and F-16 jets, this is a political decision,'' General el-Edwan said, adding that Amman has no intention to ''attack anybody.''
  US Major General Robert Catalanotti echoed el-Edwan's remarks, saying that ''If the government of Jordan decides to make that request that would have go back through Washington, DC, for decision, and they would have to plan the numbers to support that.''
  ''But as of right now, in the exercise, I am not working that issue at all, I'm simply using those instruments here for our objectives in the exercise,'' Catalanotti said.
  General el-Edwan also stressed that the Syrian opposition will not participate in the exercise: ''We are dealing with countries, we are a neutral country.''
  The Syrian army is continuing its push to retake control of rebel-held regions in the country. Forces loyal to President Bashar Assad recently forced rebel militants to withdraw from the strategic western Syrian town of Qusair.
Huxley vs. Orwell '' the comic inspired by Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death
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  Archived Version
  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:43
  by Anorak | 10th, June 2013HUXLEY vs. Orwell: the comic, by Stuart McMillen adapts Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death argument that Aldous Huxley's vision of the future in Brave New World was more prescient than George Orwell in 1984:
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More staffing changes at IRS - Kelsey Snell - POLITICO.com
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  Archived Version
  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:37
  At the IRS, Holly Paz is being replaced as director of the rulings and agreements division. | AP Photo
  CloseThe new leadership at the IRS is making more staff changes in the wake of the agency's tea party targeting scandal.
  The agency told employees that Holly Paz is being replaced as director of the rulings and agreements division, according to a memo distributed to staffers on Friday and obtained by POLITICO Monday.
  Continue ReadingDarrell Issa: IRS is 'maliciously self-indulgent'
  Paz is one of several staffers House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has interviewed as part of his investigation into the agency's targeting practice. She's come under fire from Issa for, among other things, sitting in on interviews between agency employees and the inspector general who was investigating whether the IRS wrongly subjected conservative groups to extra review.
  (PHOTOS: 8 key players in IRS scandal story)
  In a memo to IRS employees, Heather Maloy, the new deputy commissioner for services and enforcement, said Karen Schiller will now lead the rulings and agreements division.
  ''She carries a strong track record along with extensive knowledge of exam and management issues,'' Maloy said, adding that Schiller would help the division ''during this difficult period.''
  The memo doesn't provide details about whether Paz was fired, placed on administrative leave or moved to another position inside the agency. The IRS didn't immediately respond to questions about the personnel change.
  Paz assumed her position after Lois Lerner '-- the IRS official at the center of the scandal '-- became the director of the division that oversees tax exempt organizations. Lerner was placed on administrative leave last month after she refused a request from acting IRS commissioner Daniel Werfel to step down.
  Lucy McCalmont contributed to this report.
UDR56k Discount Ends this Week
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  Source: NW Digital RadioNW Digital Radio
  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:30
  Thanks to the nearly 300 early adopters that have pre-ordered.
  Make sure to take advantage of this opportunity before it ends June 15th, as you won't be seeing these discounts on low volumes again.
  Pre-orders have the right to increase their quantity or cancel at confirmation time.
  10% for a single UDR, save $40Get a club buy together and save even more:15% for two or more, save $60 eachPre-Order Discount Extended
Hong Kong hotel says Edward Snowden was there, but checked out Monday - The Washington Post
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  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 15:25
  HONG KONG '-- Out of all the places Edward Snowden could have chosen to hide, he selected this city, with its towering buildings, glittering nightscape and reputation for protecting free speech.
  But some in Hong Kong aren't sure what the man who has admitted leaking information about a top-secret U.S. surveillance program is doing in this semi-autonomous jurisdiction, which has a strong extradition treaty with the United States.
  ''Hong Kong is definitely not a safe harbor for him,'' said Regina Ip, a current legislator and chair of the New People's Party.
  The U.S Department of Justice has said it is in the first stages of investigating the unauthorized disclosure of classified information about the surveillance programs, and some U.S. lawmakers are calling for Snowden, the self-declared source of the leak, to be prosecuted.
  If Snowden, 29, remains in Hong Kong and the U.S. government seeks to arrest or question him about the leak, the former NSA contractor's fate would depend on a 16-year-old treaty that guarantees extraditions between the United States and Hong Kong except under rare circumstances.
  The treaty says that Hong Kong can refuse to transfer a suspected criminal to the United States if giving up the person ''implicates'' the ''defense, foreign affairs or essential public interest or policy'' of the People's Republic of China.
  Experts said based on the facts so far, that did not appear to be the case '-- and if the United States wanted to charge Snowden with breaking espionage laws, Hong Kong was likely to transfer him to U.S. custody.
  ''This agreement has been enforced for at least 10 years,'' said Ip, who said Hong Kong has also benefited from the U.S. government's assistance with fugitives over the years.
  The treaty with Hong Kong says that any request to extradite must originate from the U.S. Department of Justice, and would be channeled through the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong. A spokesperson for the consulate declined to comment, deferring questions to the Justice Department in Washington.
  Snowden has not revealed to reporters exactly where in Hong Kong he was staying, although he told The Washington Post he was holed up at a hotel near the CIA base at the consulate, which is located in the heart of Hong Kong island.
  A receptionist at the Mira Hotel, in a neighborhood just across the harbor from the main island, said a guest named Edward Snowden had been staying there, but checked out Monday. Citing guest privacy rules, the receptionist declined to say how long Snowden had stayed in the hotel in the Tsim Sha Tsui neighborhood, which is known for a popular promenade overlooking the harbor and offering gorgeous night views.
  In an e-mail to a Washington Post reporter on May 24, he said he would consider applying for asylum in Iceland or some other country ''with strong internet and press freedoms,'' although ''the strength of the reaction'' to the leaked information ''will determine how choosy I can be.''
  Hong Kong has its own legislative and legal systems but ultimately answers to Beijing, under the so-called ''one country, two systems'' arrangement, established when oversight of Hong Kong was transferred from the British to the Chinese in 1997. The extradition treaty between Hong Kong and the United States was established at the time of the British-Chinese handover, since the treaty also needed the blessing of Hong Kong's new sovereign rulers, the Chinese government.
  Given the touchy nature of China's relationship with both the United States and Hong Kong, however, experts said the Chinese government was likely to stay in the background with Snowden's case.
  ''I don't think the central government will deal with this incident directly,'' said Jin Canrong, professor and associate dean of the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China. Jin said the government would probably let Hong Kong handle Snowden, although he said the Chinese might still have the final say, given its power over the semiautonomous city.
  The situation is tricky since Hong Kong residents easily chafe at any perception that Beijing is encroaching on their rights. Every year, thousands of residents hold a candlelight vigil on June 4 to mark the date of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. At this year's event, gatherers called for Chinese President Xi Jinping to expand democracy.
  Given this legacy, a few in Hong Kong cheered Snowden's selection of Hong Kong, saying it was flattering to the city.
  ''I'm not surprised because Hong Kong is famous for our freedom of expression and our defense of press freedom,'' said Alan Leung, a legislator who heads Hong Kong's Civic Party. ''We should take [Snowden's arrival] as complimentary.''
  Liu Liu in Beijing contributed to this report.
CIA-funded upstart: THE TRUTH about Prism and NSA's web snooping ' The Register
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  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 13:57
  Free whitepaper '' SaaS data loss: The problem you didn't know you had
  Palantir Technologies has denied its Prism software is related to the NSA's controversial and massive PRISM web surveillance system.
  The Big Data startup, backed in its early stages by the the CIA's In-Q-Tel venture capital arm, has insisted that its data-mining Prism software in question is for banks, not governments. Palantir's legal counsel, Matt Long, supplied Forbes with a more detailed denial along the same lines.
  Meanwhile, PRISM is America's computer system for snooping on foreigners' online activities by tapping internet giants for their records, as revealed last week.
  "Palantir's Prism platform is completely unrelated to any US government program of the same name. Prism is Palantir's name for a data integration technology used in the Palantir Metropolis platform (formerly branded as Palantir Finance). This software has been licensed to banks and hedge funds for quantitative analysis and research," Long said.
  An overview of Plantir's Prism software by the company itself provides graphs and examples illustrating its financial analysis applications without, perhaps, excluding other potential applications of the tool.
  Y Combinator partner Garry Tan backed up Palantir's denial of spooky iterations of Prism in a Twitter update:
  Palantir's data analysis platform technology grew from software originally developed at PayPal in order to detect fraudulent activity. The security upstart is nonetheless known for its governmental and national security work. This, and the naming coincidence, inevitably led to early speculation by Business Insider and others, since denied.
  The NSA's PRISM system allows the Feds to tap "directly into the central servers" of the nine largest internet companies to extract audio, photographs, emails, documents, and connection logs to allow intelligence analysts to track foreign targets, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. Blighty's GCHQ may also have had access to this system, The Guardian added on Friday.
  US director of national intelligence James R. Clapper has confirmed the existence of PRISM, while decrying unspecified inaccuracies in media reports.
  The tech firms whose data is harvested by PRISM - Google (Gmail, YouTube, etc), Facebook, Microsoft (Hotmail, Skype, etc.), Apple, Yahoo, PalTalk and AOL - have denied providing government with direct access to their servers or a backdoor.
  It may be that the original direct access claims, which came from a leaked PowerPoint deck, are technically inaccurate and PRISM actually involves direct access to a Dropbox-like system (potentially hosted by Amazon) which fulfils wiretapping requests made by spooks under the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
  We don't know how much data is sucked into these systems, how long it is retained, or how many people are affected but earlier revelations about a secret court order to harvest call data (but not content) of all Verizon customers suggest a possible obtain everything, analyse later approach. On the other hand a leaked budget of $20 million a year points to a much more modest system, or an incredible elegant and efficient Panopticon.
  All this leaves how PRISM works and its architecture as open questions.
  Alex Stamos, CTO of Artemis Internet, has put together a taxonomy of PRISM possibilities here. Meanwhile, Robert Graham of Errata Security has put together more ideas on what PRISM might mean, based in part on his own experience with the old Carnivore email surveillance system, on the Errata Security blog. ®
  BootnotePalantir and HBGary Federal worked together to develop a strategy for Bank of America to deal with the threatened exposure of secret documents from the bank. HBGary Federal proposed a smear campaign against journalist Glenn Greenwald as part of these proposals, a move Palantir repudiated and said was solely HBGary's idea. They severed their links with HBGary Federal in February 2011, soon after the infamous LulzSec pwnage of HBGary Federal and its chief exec, Aaron Barr.
  Two years later Greenwald worked together with a source, revealed over the weekend as NSA contractor Edward Snowden, to expose secret information about PRISM and secret a court order requiring Verizon to supply call log data on all of its customers on a daily basis.
  Free whitepaper '' Cloud based data management
Morse Code App for Iphone and Android OS - Logo,Graphic- Design- London
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  Archived Version
  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 13:51
  This is a sneak-peak of my app for Iphone and Android OS, currently in development stage.Below I present a short overview what this app does:-converts written text to Morse code and viceversa.-has ability to send a Morse code message continuously(SOS)-converts light signals to Morse code and viceversa using device build-in camera flash.-converts Morse sound signal to written text and back to sound version.For now app is early development stage, however I will inform you about progress on my website.I will also publish some presentation explaining how it works soon, so stay tuned.
Protests Show Turks Can't Tolerate Erdogan Anymore - Aaron Stein - The Atlantic
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  Archived Version
  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 13:22
  The Turkish leader's opponents lacked a unifying way to denounce his "Ottomania" and heavy-handed leadership. Until now.
  A man wears a makeshift gas mask during protests in Turkey on May 31, 2013 (AP)
  In the early afternoon Friday, Turkish police surrounded a peaceful group of protesters, and, shortly after the end of Friday prayers, began to volley a slew of tear gas canisters to disperse the crowd. The protesters had been camped in Gezi Park -- a small leafy park wedged near the bustling Taksim square -- for days to prevent the ripping out of trees to make way for the building of a shopping mall.
  Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has chastised the protests, claiming that the hundreds of people were unfamiliar with Ottoman history, and that the projects would continue unabated. In turn, the police have been using tear gas to forcibly evict the protesters camped in the park. As the use of force has escalated, the protests have morphed from an occupy style movement into a larger-scale rebuke of the AKP's heavy-handed rule. The protests have now spread to Kocaeli, Edirne, Afyon, Eskisehir, Bodrum, Antalya, Aydin, Trabzon, Mugla, Mersin, Ankara, Adana, and Konya.
  Despite having its genesis in the Gezi Park movement, the dynamics of the protests now reflect many of the fundamental antagonisms in Turkey's imperfect democracy. Erdogan's divisive rhetoric and his penchant for authoritarian rule have steadily eroded the party's support from small constituencies that it could once count on. While the AKP's voter base is often simplistically assumed to be religious conservatives, the truth of the matter is that AKP supporters include a small number of liberals eager to do away with the undemocratic constitution, a business sector happy with the party's handling of the economy, nationalists who are pleased with what they perceive as Turkey's re-emergence as a global power, Turkish Islamists obsessed with the proliferation of Ottomania (a growing desire among the Turkish population to reconnect and reacquaint themselves with the country's imperial past), and some members of Turkey's Kurdish minority who are pleased with AKP's democratic reforms.
  Of these interests, the only group to leave the party en mass during the AKP's rule has been the handful liberals that bounce from party to party in search of greater freedoms. Turkey's main opposition, the Republican People's Party (CHP), ostensibly represents the secular segments of Turkish society but has failed to expand their political base beyond the country's western coast.
  Thus, during the early years of Erdogan's rule, which were characterized by a sustained push to reform Turkish laws along European Union standards, the ruling party was able to co-opt some parts of the more liberal segments of the population. Lots of people that did not compromise part of the AKP's core constituency, for example, would lambast Erdogan publicly but would quietly vote for him because he was handling the economy well and they were pleased with the growing liberal freedoms.
  This dynamic has ended. After winning the last election, Erdogan's purposeful buoying of a sagging economy with massive infrastructure projects has allowed for these disparate sections of the non-AKP elements of the Turkish electorate to channel their growing anger behind one symbolic political cause. This anger has only intensified as the violence from the police has escalated.
  Moreover, it is impossible to separate the demonstrations on the streets from the anger at the process for passing recent legislation. Erdogan has recently paired his environmentally questionable policies with more stringent restrictions on the sale of alcohol. The law, as is typical in Turkey, was passed quickly, and with little insight from the main opposition. The party brought the socially divisive issue to the Parliament and within two weeks passed it with little regard for how it would be interpreted by voters. The process reinforced the growing sense amongst non-AKP Turks of their disenfranchisement and their lack of real power in the political system. The Gezi protests, therefore, are an extension of this dynamic.
  Erdogan's handling of the crisis thus far suggests that he remains confident in his ability to weather the storm. Undoubtedly, the powerful prime minster is confident that his core supporters will associate the protesters with the secular movement and blame them for causing trouble. This attitude is reflective of the major problem with Turkeys' troubled democracy: Namely that the Prime Minister refuses to compromise, or at least take into account, the demands of those who do not vote for him. Turkey's political agenda therefore reflects, by and large, the AKP's more conservative constituency.
  Before the protests, the non-AKP voting bloc had not had a unifying cause to channel their growing anger at Erdogan's political agenda. The protests have unleashed this anger. In turn, this suggests that the only way for the government to appease the protesters is to compromise. Everything about the AKP's history, however, suggests that this route is unlikely. Thus, moving forward, the government is likely to offer a series of half-steps aimed at appeasing the people marching in the streets, like the recent court decision to halt construction on the park. While the government is bound to restore order at some point in the future, unless Erdogan is willing to make some concessions, the dynamics that have underpinned the protests will continue and clashes could erupt at any time.
Adrafinil | Smart Drugs
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  Archived Version
  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:40
  Adrafinil (Olmifon®) a French stimulant and antidepressant belongs to a unique class of drugs called ''Eugeroics'' (meaning good arousal).
  Adrafinil helps to improve brain chemical processes without affecting heart rate or pressure and was specifically designed to treat narcolepsy (sleeping in the daytime), as such it can enhance awareness, mental clarity and alertness, allowing the individual to remain both alert and awake during the day.
  Adrafinil's unique feature is that it only arouses when stimulation is required. This is achieved by increasing the receptiveness of brain alpha-1 receptors to noradrenaline. This unique action even allows the individual to sleep if he or she so requires.
  One or two tablets (300mg each) are taken twice a day, as required (also see Modafinil).
  ''Adrafinil changed my life giving me drive and direction.''J.C., California
  Home to order adrafinil research
  ADRAFINIL (Olmifon®)
  CompositionAdrafinil; Corn starch, modified sodic carboxymethyl-cellulose, polyvidone excipient, glycerol, magnesium steate, talc, lactose, polyoxyethylene glycol 4000, titanium dioxide, polymethly acrylate glycerol.
  Information for the UserThis product is a psycotonic. It is recommended for elderly patients who have difficulty staying alert and who suffer from a general slowing down of mental activity.
  Warning1. The effectiveness of Olmifon® has not yet been tested on the non-elderly.2. This preparation contains an active ingredient, which could induce a positive result in anti-doping tests for athletes.
  CautionIf you suffer from epilepsy, or serious hepatic or renal disorders, consult your doctor before taking this product. Do not hesitate to seek advice from your doctor or chemist, if there is any chance of an interaction-taking place between different medicines. Any additional treatment should be reported, especially if you are taking neuroepileptic medicines. Keep this and all other medicines safely out of the reach of children.
  Side EffectsAs with any active product, this medicine may possibly cause side effects. Headache, stomach pains and skin irritations have been reported in clinical tests, and in certain cases, inner tension.
  Directions2 to 4 tablets daily. Please follow your doctor's instructions.
  Prescription ConditionsThis product has been prescribed for you in order to remedy a particular medical problem. Do not use it to treat other ailments. Do not use it again without first consulting your doctor. Do not use it to treat another person. Consult your doctor.
  to order
  A unique psychopharmacologic profile of adrafinil in miceRambert FA, Pessonnier J, de Sereville JE, Pointeau AM, Duteil J
  The following psychopharmacological effects of adrafinil have been observed in mice: increase in locomotor activity (64-256 mg.kg-1), antagonism (16-128 mg.kg-1) of the hypnotic effects of barbitone but not of pentobarbitone, reduction of immobility duration in the forced swimming test (16-256 mg.kg-1); slight antagonism (256 mg.kg-1) of electroshock-induced convulsions; no modification of rectal temperature; no stereotyped or climbing behaviour; no increase in lethality in aggregated mice (LD50 isolated = 1022 mg.kg-1, LD50 aggregated = 859 mg.kg-1); lack of effects on the provisional tests for antidepressants: no interaction with reserpine-, oxotremorine-, or apomorphine-induced hypothermia but potentiation of yohimbine-induced toxicity; lack of peripheral sympathetic effects (no mydriasis, no salivation, no contraction of the pilomotor muscles, no antagonism of reserpine-induced ptosis); lack of peripheral anticholinergic effects (no mydriasis, no antagonism of oxotremorine-induced salivation or lacrimation). As compared to no analeptic, anticholinergic or antidepressant drugs, adrafinil shows a unique behavioural profile in mice defined on the one hand by a specific stimulant activity associated with antidepressant-like effect s that do no seem related to a beta-adrenergic mechanism and on the other hand by a lack of dopaminergic effects. Most adrafinil-induced effects (increase in locomotor activity, reduction of immobility duration in the forced swimming test) may correspond to a central alpha 1-adrenergic stimulation, but the unexpected lack of peripheral sympathetic effects remains unexplained.
  PMID: 3713198, UI: 86229117
  J Pharmacol 1986 Jan-Mar;17(1):37-52
  to order
Military told not to read Obama-scandal news
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  Archived Version
  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:21
  President Obama has said the outrage over the federal government's decision to monitor citizens' phone activity is all ''hype.''
  He might want to share his opinion with the U.S. Air Force, which is ordering members of the service not to look at news stories about it.
  WND has received an unclassified NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) that warns airmen not to look at news stories related to the data-mining scandal.
  Want to know how and why America has so rapidly come to resemble the totalitarian society described by novelist George Orwell in ''1984,'' one characterized by universal surveillance? It's all exposed in a special issue of Whistleblower magazine '' titled ''ONE NATION UNDER SURVEILLANCE: Big Brother is watching in ways Orwell never dreamed.''
  The notice applies to users of the Air Force NIPRNET (Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network), which is the only way that many troops stationed overseas and on bases in the U.S. are able to access the Internet.
  The last line of the executive summary states:
  ''Users are not to use AF NIPRNET systems to access the Verizon phone records collection and other related news stories because the action could constitute a Classified Message Incident.''
  Cindy McGee, the mother of an airman stationed in the UAE, spoke with WND.
  ''The fact that our government is attempting to censor our service members from the truth of what is happening here at home is truly frightening and disheartening,'' said McGee.
  Her son received the same notice.
  McGee continued, ''I am outraged that our government is attempting to censor the information from our military that every citizen in this country is potentially being targeted by our government in a massive overreach of their constitutional powers by unconstitutional surveillance of all Americans and storage of that data.''
  There have been a multitude of reports already on the latest exploding scandal of the Obama administration.
  Last Wednesday, the Guardian broke the news of the top-secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all of its call data on an ongoing basis to the National Security Agency.
  On Friday, the Washington Post reported that the NSA and FBI are gathering data from the servers of nine U.S. Internet companies.
  Then reports came out that there are 50 companies from which the government is collecting data.
  During a press conference, the president dismissed what he called ''hype'' over the surveillance programs.
  But concern over this broad surveillance is causing legislators to look into what they can do to enable more oversight of these operations.
  The latest news detailing how the government keeps track of this massive amount of data and its origins was posted by the Guardian, for everyone in the world to read, except members of the Air Force.
  See the memo:
Google CEO On Privacy (VIDEO): 'If You Have Something You Don't Want Anyone To Know, Maybe You Shouldn't Be Doing It'
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  Archived Version
  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 10:20
  Yahoo, Verizon, Sprint, and others have recently come under fire for sharing customer data with the authorities, and admitting to "spying" abilities that would "shock" and "confuse" customers.
  A CNBC interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt suggests the search giant Google shouldn't get off easy, and users should be wary of what Google knows about them -- and with whom they can share that information.
  CNBC's Mario Bartiromo asked CEO Schmidt in her December 3, 2009 interview: "People are treating Google like their most trusted friend. Should they?"
  Schmidt's reply hints that if there's scandalous information out there about you, it's your problem, not Google's.
  Schmidt tells Baritoromo:
  If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.
  He expands on his answer, adding that the your information could be made available not only to curious searchers or prying friends, but also to the authorities, and that there's little recourse for people worried about unintentionally "oversharing" online:
  But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time. And [...] we're all subject, in the US, to the Patriot Act, and it is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities.
  Leaked documents revealing Yahoo's guide for law enforcement officials, which explains how they can obtain consumer data, highlights the type of information internet companies may have about their users -- and can share with the authorities.
  Silicon Alley Insider notes,
  For example, Yahoo's document helpfully alerts law enforcement that if they'd like to read a user's instant messanger logs, they better ask within 45 days and come bearing a 2703(d) order. That is, unless there's "imminent danger of death or serious physical injury." If that's the case, there's another letter to fax entirely
  See a video clip of Schmidt's below.
  WATCH:
Carahsoft | Adobe Government GSA Events: Acrobat, ColdFusion, Connect, Creative Suite, Flex, Defense Connect Online, LiveCycle
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  Mon, 10 Jun 2013 10:15
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Edward Snowden: Why did the NSA whistleblower have access to PRISM and other sensitive systems?
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Sun, 09 Jun 2013 20:27
  National Security Agency Director Gen. Keith AlexanderPhoto by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
  Edward Snowden sounds like a thoughtful, patriotic young man, and I'm sure glad he blew the whistle on the NSA's surveillance programs. But the more I learned about him this afternoon, the angrier I became. Wait, him? The NSA trusted its most sensitive documents to this guy? And now, after it has just proven itself so inept at handling its own information, the agency still wants us to believe that it can securely hold on to all of our data? Oy vey!
  According to the Guardian, Snowden is a 29-year-old high-school dropout who trained for the Army Special Forces before an injury forced him to leave the military. His IT credentials are apparently limited to a few ''computer'' classes he took at a community college in order to get his high-school equivalency degree'--courses that he did not complete. His first job at the NSA was as a security guard. Then, amazingly, he moved up the ranks of the United States' national security infrastructure: The CIA gave him a job in IT security. He was given diplomatic cover in Geneva. He was hired by Booz Allen Hamilton, the government contractor, which paid him $200,000 a year to work on the NSA's computer systems.
  Let's note what Snowden is not: He isn't a seasoned FBI or CIA investigator. He isn't a State Department analyst. He's not an attorney with a specialty in national security or privacy law.
  Instead, he's the IT guy, and not a very accomplished, experienced one at that. If Snowden had sent his r(C)sum(C) to any of the tech companies that are providing data to the NSA's PRISM program, I doubt he'd have even gotten an interview. Yes, he could be a computing savant anyway'--many well-known techies dropped out of school. But he was given access way beyond what even a supergeek should have gotten. As he tells the Guardian, the NSA let him see ''everything.'' He was accorded the NSA's top security clearance, which allowed him to see and to download the agency's most sensitive documents. But he didn't just know about the NSA's surveillance systems'--he says he had the ability to use them. ''I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities [sic] to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if I had a personal email,'' he says in a video interview with the paper.
  Because Snowden is now in Hong Kong, it's unclear what the United States can do to him. But watch for officials to tar Snowden'--he'll be called unpatriotic, unprofessional, treasonous, a liar, grandiose, and worse. As in the Bradley Manning case, though, the more badly Snowden is depicted, the more rickety the government's case for surveillance becomes. After all, they hired him. They gave him unrestricted access to their systems, from court orders to PowerPoint presentations depicting the crown jewels of their surveillance infrastructure. (Also of note: They made a hideous PowerPoint presentation depicting the crown jewels of their surveillance infrastructure'--who does that? I've been reading a lot of Le Carr(C) lately, and when I saw the PRISM presentation, I remembered how Le Carr(C)'s veteran spy George Smiley endeavored to never write down his big secrets. Now our spies aren't just writing things down'--they're trying to make their secrets easily presentable to large audiences.)
  The worst part about the NSA's surveillance is not its massive reach. It's that it operates entirely in secret, so that we have no way of assessing the sophistication of its operation. All we have is the word of our politicians, who tell us that they've vetted these systems and that we should blindly trust that the data are being competently safeguarded and aren't vulnerable to abuse.
  Snowden's leak is thus doubly damaging. The scandal isn't just that the government is spying on us. It's also that it's giving guys like Snowden keys to the spying program. It suggests the worst combination of overreach and amateurishness, of power leveraged by incompetence. The Keystone Cops are listening to us all.
US Drone Strike Kills Six in Northern Yemen
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: News From Antiwar.com
  Sun, 09 Jun 2013 20:24
  A US drone strike attacked northern Yemen today, killing at least six people. None of the victims were identified, but all the dead were dubbed ''suspected al-Qaeda militants'' by Yemeni officials.
  The attack destroyed a pair of cars in the al-Mahashma area of al-Jawf, and officials said they assumed they were carrying al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) members, though al-Jawf is a predominantly Shi'ite region and the AQAP is almost exclusively active in the southern portion of the country.
  Though the level of outrage is still minor compared to Pakistan, drone strikes in Yemen are increasingly controversial, with locals in the targeted areas saying they feel the attacks are killing random people and that they are drumming up more support for AQAP.
  Yemeni ruler Maj. Gen. Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has repeatedly endorsed the drone strikes, and his aides have claimed ''9/11'" obliges Yemen to allow US attacks, even though AQAP didn't even exist at the time.
  Hadi came to power in a US-backed election last year, an election notable primarily in that he was the only candidate and ''no'' votes weren't allowed. Despite every vote necessarily being in favor of Hadi, he only managed to carry 99.8% of the ballots cast.
  Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz
Elijah Cummings Claims Mystery ''Conservative Republican'' At IRS Says White House Not Involved In Targeting Conservatives'...
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Weasel Zippers
  Sun, 09 Jun 2013 19:53
  Not buying it.
  WASHINGTON (AP) '-- The top Democrat on the House's watchdog committee says a self-described ''conservative Republican'' has told investigators that no one at the White House directed the Internal Revenue Service to target tea party groups.
  Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings Sunday released a transcript online Sunday of the House Oversight Committee investigators' conversation with a manager from the IRS' Cincinnati office. During that interview, the unidentified manager said he was unaware of any political motivation in giving extra scrutiny to tea party groups' applications for tax exempt status.
  The manager was interviewed Thursday and says workers in Cincinnati instigated the applications' reviews. The manager says he has no indication of White House involvement.
  Republicans have suggested tea partyers were targeted because they disagree with the Democratic administration.
  HT: JWF
Erdogan losing patience on protests
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: BBC News - Home
  Sun, 09 Jun 2013 19:52
  9 June 2013Last updated at16:27 ETTurkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned his patience "has a limit" as anti-government protests continued for a 10th day.
  Mr Erdogan dismissed the protesters as "looters", in a defiant address to supporters in the capital, Ankara.
  Thousands of protesters gathered in Istanbul's central Taksim Square and Ankara's Kizilay Square on Sunday.
  The anti-government unrest was sparked by a police crackdown on a local protest over an Istanbul park.
  The initial protest has since spiralled into nationwide demonstrations, with protesters accusing Mr Erdogan's government of becoming increasingly authoritarian and trying to to impose conservative Islamic values on a secular state.
  For a second night in a row, riot police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse the demonstrators in the centre of Ankara on Sunday.
  Continue reading the main storyIn Taksim Square there has been one of the largest demonstrations since this unrest began over a week ago. Thousands came for concerts and speeches, chanting for the prime minister to resign.
  But Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rallied his troops too. He told his supporters in Ankara that his patience was running out, that the protesters were "looters" and "marginal elements", warning them: "You have started this fight against us, you will pay the price very heavily."
  Turkey is becoming ever more polarised. While the prime minister has lost control of the centre of Istanbul, his supporters now plan large rallies in the days to come. The divisions here are deepening, which could lead Turkey into paralysis and dangerous waters.
  "If you look in the dictionary, you will see how right a description this is,'' Mr Erdogan said addressing cheering supporters as he arrived at Ankara airport. "Those who burn and destroy are called 'capulcu' (looters or vandals). Those who back them are of the same family.''
  "We remained patient, we are still patient but there's a limit to our patience," he continued.
  The prime minister also told supporters to prepare for pro-government rallies in Istanbul and Ankara next weekend, Reuters news agency reports.
  'Restraint'As Mr Erdogan spoke, some of the largest crowds gathered in Istanbul's Taksim Square - near to where the original protest took place over the planned demolition of a park.
  As well as two nights of unrest in Ankara, clashes reportedly erupted on Saturday in the southern city of Adana, between pro-Erdogan supporters and anti-government protesters.
  In a statement on Sunday, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged the need for restraint on all sides.
  "Open and sustained engagement of the authorities is essential to reinforcing democracy, building confidence and avoiding escalation," she said.
  The nationwide protests were sparked by claims of police brutality against an environmental protest over plans to redevelop Gezi Park, near Taksim Square.
  However, the prime minister has vowed to push ahead with the redevelopment of the park, a rare green space in Istanbul's densely built-up core.
  He has also ruled out early local and presidential elections, saying they would go ahead next year as scheduled.
  Four people - including a police officer - are reported to have died, thousands have been wounded and hundreds arrested in the unrest which began on 31 May.
Jordan hosts U.S. jets and missiles in drills in Syria's shadow
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Reuters: World News
  Sun, 09 Jun 2013 19:52
  U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Robert Catalanotti (R), director, Exercises and Training Directorate J-7, U.S. Central Command, speaks during a news conference with Maj. Gen. Awni el-Edwan, Chief of staff of the Jordanian Operations and Training Armed Forces in Amman, June 9, 2013.
  Credit: Reuters/Muhammad Hamed
  By Suleiman Al-Khalidi
  AMMAN | Sun Jun 9, 2013 4:56pm EDT
  AMMAN (Reuters) - U.S. troops equipped with Patriot missiles and fighter jets began military exercises in Jordan that have drawn condemnation from Russia, which accuses the West of fanning the conflict in neighboring Syria.
  Washington confirmed last week it was sending the F-16 jets and missiles - which can be used against planes and other missiles - to its ally Jordan, and said it may consider keeping them there after the drills.
  Both Washington and Amman said on Sunday the Eager Lion exercises were not related to the war in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad's air power has given him an edge over lighter-armed rebels.
  But the Damascus government, and its most powerful ally Moscow, have been sensitive about any transfer of Western arms closer to the conflict, particularly any gear that could be used to enforce a no-fly zone.
  More than 4,500 American troops, around 3,000 Jordanians, and 500 soldiers from Britain, Saudi Arabia and other countries were taking part in the exercises, less than 75 miles from the Syrian border, said military officials.
  "The drills having nothing to do with any objective related to what is happening in Syria," the top army commander in charge of Jordanian troops, Major General Awni al-Adwan, told reporters during the launch of the exercises on Sunday.
  U.S. Major General Robert G. Catalanotti told a joint news conference the Eager Lion events would increase "our ability to operate together in any upcoming contingency".
  The exercises also involved a number of F-18 jets from bases in the Gulf and drills on handling chemical strikes, which Syria's government and rebels have accused each other of carrying out.
  PRIVATE REQUESTS
  Jordan is one of a number of Arab countries that have lent support to the Syrian opposition, caught up in the two-year-old civil war.
  Jordan, like Syria's other neighbors, is increasingly nervous that the fighting will spill over and ignite a regional conflict.
  U.S. President Barack Obama has been reluctant to become involved despite having called for Assad to resign and hinting at military action if the Syrian government crossed a "red line" by using chemical weapon. He has shown some willingness to protect friends in the region.
  Jordanian officials privately say they requested that at least two Patriots are kept after the end of the exercises to guard against any missile attack from Syria.
  Western diplomats say Washington has favorably responded to the request to bolster its ally's security.
  Moscow complained vociferously last year when the United States, Germany and the Netherlands deployed Patriots on Syria's northern border in Turkey, a NATO ally.
  Russia complained again after Washington confirmed its deployment of missiles and jets to Jordan last week.
  "We have more than once stated our opinion on this - foreign weapons are being pumped into an explosive region," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement on June 4.
  "This is happening very close to Syria, where for more than two years the flames are burning of a devastating conflict that Russia and its American partners are trying to stop by proposing to hold an international peace conference as soon as possible."
  (Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Sun, 09 Jun 2013 19:48
  XS-OB1 Oat Box Radio - Pack 1
  Build an inexpensive radio out of an oat meal box. The pack includes 1 Spool (100 feet) #24 wire, 1 IN34 Diode, 1 100 pf Capacitor, 1 47K Resistor, 3 alligator clips, 1 ceramic, hi impedance ear piece, 56-32 by ½ machine screws, 10 6-32 nuts, 5 #6 solder lugs -- you provide the box (eat the oatmeal, it's good for you!) and an antenna. The plans for this radio are on our website at www.midnightscience.com/oat-box-project.html. Great for classes, scouting, and science fairs -- easy for kids to put together, with adult supervision.
  If you need an antenna, then order the Oatbox Pack 2. This pack includes everything in Pack 1, above, plus another spool of 24 gauge hook-up wire (100feet). The extra wire can be used to make a bigger coil, to cover more of the broadcast band, or it can be used as antenna wire. You'll need to buy and eat the oatmeal.
  Attention beginners and mentors. J. K Fenton has written "Building Your First Crystal Radio," See picture and to order below.
  Building Your First Crystal Radio
  This small booklet is written in easy to read language for the true beginner to our wonderful hobby. It has pictures and symbols for basic parts and gives the reader basic information to get started with that first building project. 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 x 15 pages. Cat#XBGN $ 2.95.
  MK484 AM RADIO KIT
  This kit provides you with a great place to start for exploring and building kits for reception of AM broadcasts. The parts and instructions supplied with the full kit support reception of the broadcast band, roughly 550 to 1500 kHz. Increasing/decreasing the turns on the ferrite coil shifts reception down to a minimum of 180 kHz/maximum of 3,000 kHz, supported by the MK484.
  The heart of the kit features the ubiquitous MK484 IC in a TO-92 transistor package coupled with our old friend, the 386-4 audio amp in an 8-pin DIP. Coupled with an external antenna, FT82-61 ferrite toroid (for tuning coil) and air-variable capacitor, the MK484 AM Radio Kit gets surprising results. The MK484 IC features stable operation and low current drain, while providing a complete RF amplifier chain, AM detection and AGC circuitry. The 4.0 by 2.5 inch PCB houses all of the electronics for the receiver except for external tuning coil, air-variable tuning capacitor, panel and chassis. Parts shipped with our full kit support reception of the standard AM band. Adding a fixed capacitor in series or parallel with the variable tuning capacitor and/or decreasing or adding turns to the ferrite core (or a combination of the two) allows for the reception at 180-550 kHz or above at 1500-3000 kHz. As with most of our kits, this one can be ordered 2 ways: 1) a Partial Kit based on the PCB and its components and 2) the Full Kit including the Partial Kit along with a laser engraved front panel, chassis, ferrite toroid and 365 uuf air variable capacitor. You must supply your own 8 to 32 ohm headphones or a small 8-ohm speaker, assembly tools, masking tape, 9 volt battery and enthusiasm! The set can be operated without an external antenna and grounding system if you use a ferrite rod or loop antenna (neither provided).
  Partial Kit: PCB, PCB Parts & Full Manual: $39.95. Full Kit: PCB, PCB Parts, Ferrite Toroid, Air Variable 365 Capacitor, Laser Engraved Panel, Chassis & Full Manual: $64.95. See the parts page to purchase individual parts.
  GALENA DETECTOR KIT
  Step back in time with our galena detector kit and experience the soft detection that comes from minerals. Marconi would be proud of you! Delight in the first broadcast reception using the galena with any of our crystal radio kits or as a replacement for those 1N34 diodes you may have been using.
  No soldering required in this simple assembly of mechanical parts. Kit contains 2.5 by 3.4 by 3/4 unstained but predrilled wood base, mounted galena, phospher-bronze cat whisker, 3-inch brass rod, compression spring, and brass parts. Assembly time is about one-half hour. CAT # XSGDK $29.95.
  See the parts page to purchase individual parts.
  JFET DETECTOR KIT
  Experience some of the operational qualities of a high-impedance DX crystal set by replacing that ordinary germanium diode in your basic set with a junction field effect transistor (JFET) detector circuit. You'll notice sharper tuning and higher volume due to the high input impedance of the JFET, which preserves the Q of your tuning coil. The 2n5484 JFET is supported by a printed circuit board (PCB), a handful of resistors, capacitors, low-current LED, 9V battery & holder, battery clip with wires, and SPDT switch. You'll mount the parts on the 2.0 by 1.4 inch PCB, as shown on the picture. All parts required are included except for the 9V battery and any necessary hookup wire.
  Manual includes schematic, step-by-step assembly instructions, and suggestions for installing the detector assembly in a crystal set in place of your diode. The power switch, bias pot and LED can be mounted on the board or on your set's front panel with wires running to the board if desired. The 9V battery clip leads insert at connector 3 (CONN3) at left; earpiece or headphone leads insert at CONN2 at right, and your paralleled coil and tuning cap tank leads insert at CONN1 at bottom left.
  JFET AM CRYSTAL RADIO KIT
  This AM crystal set is built around a Junction Field Effect Transistor (JFET) and when coupled with a separate antenna tuner performs a good bit like a Hi-Z DX set. Hi-Z sets generally make use of Litz coils, HI-Z diode, matching transformer, and sound-powered phones. With this set, you experience some of the same results but at less cost and procurement time. Background material on this set can be found in the May and July 2011 newsletters of The Xtal Set Society.
  This set uses a 3.5-inch PVC formed 250 microhenry (uH) coil, consisting of 61 turns of # 24 plastic coated wire. Our standard 365 uufd air variable capacitor is placed in parallel with the coil to resonant it at the desired AM band frequency. A 2 by 1.4 inch printed circuit board (PCB) is provided for the detector. The source-follower output of the detector can drive a crystal ear piece or old-style high impedance headphones, such as a Baldwin pair. The high impedance of the ''gate'' input of the detector helps to preserve the Q of the input coil, thus preserving selectivity that would otherwise be reduced by the load of a simple 1N34 and phones. The ''source'' output voltage maintains most of the signal level presented by the tuned circuit too, thus providing a bigger signal to the phones than with a diode detector. The result is generally better selectivity and volume than with a simple low-cost set. For weak signal reception, best results are obtained when using a good antenna and an antenna tuner that is lightly coupling to your crystal set.
  AM BAND ANTENNA TUNER KIT
  This AM Band Tuner will work with most any crystal radio set. Tuners are attached to the antenna and inductively couple the signal captured into your crystal radio set. By adding the tuner to your station, selectivity and volume can generally be improved.The backside of the tuner is shown at right. A dual-gang 365 pf capacitor is used to resonate the tuner coil and the antenna system as a whole. The result is an increase in the signal gleaned from the antenna and coupled to the set magnetically. The tuner uses a 6 by 5 inch front panel and a 6 by 8 in chassis. Two switches are used to configure the tuner. In addition, a nylon shaft is added to the tuning capacitor to reduce ''hand capacity'' while tuning. Kit time is less than one hour experienced builder and should add performance to your crystal radio station.
  XS-402 The Little Wonder Crystal Radio Kit
  Our ''Little Wonder'' is a super starter kit for kids and beginning adult builders! It tunes the entire broadcast band. The extra large solder pads make it easy for beginning builders to have a successful first radio. There are only a few solder joints, and the pads are spread out making it clean and simple to assemble. The ''Little Wonder'' was designed especially for the XSS by our founder, Grampa Phil, WXI. We tried to combine everything we've learned about building radios with beginners and kids to create a radio that everyone can build the first time. There is no coil to wind, a high resonant frequency molded choke have been used in place of the coil. A nice photo diagram is included showing all the parts and their placement on the printed circuit board (PCB) . This radio is perfect for parents and grandparents to build with kids. It is also priced right for classroom use, and can be used to teach basic radio theory, soldering, and handling of electronic parts and PCB's. Kit includes a high impedance crystal earplug. A super performer and a great little kit; you've got to have one! XS402 $18.95.XS-500 Basic Crystal Radio
  The XS-500 Basic Crystal Radio is a tapped-coil crystal set, designed for those who wish to wind their own coil and for solder or non-solder assembly. Set tunes the AM broadcast band and requires, as usual, an antenna and grounding (antenna wire not included). One-hundred foot wire spools are available via mail order or our web site. We like the assembly flexibility of this set: a bit of a challenge in winding the coil and the alternative for non-solder assembly. This basic kit includes a pre-drilled wood base, pre-drilled PVC coil form, 50 feet of enamel wire, 1N34 detector diode, ear piece, capacitors and a resistor, alligator clips, Fahnestock clips, 6-32 mounting hardware, and manual. Cat # XS500 $19.95.
  XSS-MM My Marconi Radio Kit
  The My-Marconi 2106 Crystal Radio Kit is described in some detail in the May issue of the Xtal Set Society Newsletter. It's a double-tuned set using toroid-wound coils and includes an antenna tuner. These pictures present a quick snapshot.
  The kit tunes the AM band. The primary and secondary LC ''tank'' circuits each utilize a 365 pf air variable capacitor with a 250 uH coil wound on an FT82-61 ferrite toroid core. A third air variable cap is used for antenna matching. The tank caps and coils mount on a 10 x 7 x 1/8th inch hardboard chassis. The antenna cap and ¼-inch phone jack mount on the 10 x 6.625 by 1/8th inch hardboard front panel. Nylon shaft extenders connect the tuning caps to the front panel knobs. The kit includes: chassis, front panel with lexan graphic, side rails, metal and nylon hardware, pointer knobs, 3- 365 air variable capacitors, 2 FT82-61 toroids, hookup wire, two earplugs, and composite manual, including kit instructions, circuit detail, and operating instructions.
  The 10 mil thick Lexan Panel plastic sheet, with screened graphics and (3M) peel-off adhesive matches up with the front panel. The textured surface includes white and black graphics screened on the back side.
  If you wish to wrap a case around the bottom, sides and top, plans are included with the radio kit. Case dimensions are: Top: 8.25 x 7 x 0.75 pine, Two Case Sides: 7 x 5.875 x 0.75 pine, and Beveled Case Bottom: 11 x 8.5 x 0.75 pine. See your local home supply store for the wood.
  XSS-MMSW My Marconi Shortwave Radio Kit
  (Out of Stock).
  The My Marconi Shortwave Crystal Set Kit is an offshoot of the popular ''My Marconi 2106'' AM band Kit. This shortwave set is described in some detail in the September 2009 issue of the Xtal Set Society Newsletter. It features a single-tuned front end followed by a two-transistor audio amplifier, and accepts a dual-earphone assembly or high-Z headphones. The set is reasonably selective for having only one tuned circuit. The set covers the 49 meter band, with selected tuning from 4.8 to 6.5 MHz and from 5.9 to 7.5 MHz. Reception is primarily at night, when the ionosphere provides signals of a sufficient power level to be heard on a crystal set. Cutting a vertical end-fed wire antenna to roughly 38 feet and providing a good ground via a copper rod enhances performance. The antenna is not provided with this kit. The LC ''tank'' circuit utilizes a 365 pf air variable capacitor and a fixed capacitance network with a 7 uH cylindrical coil wound on a 1.95-inch form as the tuner. A small secondary coil, wound on the same form is used for antenna pickup. A 10 mil thick Lexan plastic sheet, with screened black and white graphics and peel-off adhesive on the back dresses up the front panel.
  The kit includes: chassis, front panel with lexan and graphics, side rails, metal and nylon hardware, power switch and ¼-inch phone jack, large pointer knob, a 365 air variable capacitor, two earphones, necessary resistors capacitors and transistors, wire, audio amplifier printed circuit board, and 20 page manual (including step-by-step assembly instructions). Assembly time is less than 2-hours for the frequent builder.
  If you wish to wrap a case around the bottom, sides and top, plans are included with the radio kit. Case dimensions are: Top: 8.25 x 7 x 0.75 pine, Two Case Sides: 7 x 5.875 x 0.75 pine, and Beveled Case Bottom: 11 x 8.5 x 0.75 pine. See your local home supply store for the wood.
  Out of Stock.
  CW REGEN FILTER, (Alias: The Scrubber)
  This kit was inspired by the inhibiting galactic noise encountered when listening to HF CW. Many proficient CW operators turn the AF gain full on and manage the audio signal and noise with internal rig filters and the RF gain knob. Even with these techniques band-limited cosmic static is present along with some man-made noise. There isn't much one can do to copy CW notes that are simply too weak; but, one can scrub away a portion of the static that makes its way into our consciousness with an audio regenerative filter. (See the feature article on the CW Scrubber in November, 2012 CQ Magazine.)
  For example, when tuned to a quiet spot on 30-meters, regen's output shows a reduction in noise compared to the signal at the phone jack of the receiver. In bypass mode one simply listens to what the rig has to offer. In scrubber mode, the multiple-op-amp filters and regen work together to remove a majority of the remaining white noise. The processed signal sounds clean with a slight echo-chamber quality. For most this is an improvement, reducing stress and improving copy.
  For experienced kit makers, assembly and alignment is about two hours. You can use a meter or scope to align the filters and the audio delay line. If you have neither of these you can align the filter by ear. Download tuning by ear instructions by clicking on this link.
  Download those instructiions by clicking here. If you don't have a signal generator, you can use CW from your rig, a code oscillator or download 600, 700, and/or 800 Hz wavefiles from our "downloads" webpage. In addition, you'll supply the connectors and cabling for your specific radio and the following tools and supplies: pliers, cutters, knife or wire stripper, soldering iron & solder, masking tape and your enthusiasm! The filter can be supplied with a well regulated and grounded +12VDC supply or 9V battery. A well grounded station is necessary when external high gain audio-based accessories are added to prevent or substantially reduce any ''ground loop'' interference. The populated PCB fits in a plastic case that is W 3.700, H 1.450, and L 6.100 inches.
Booz Allen Promptly Condemns Snowden's "Grave Ethical Violation"
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Zero Hedge
  Sun, 09 Jun 2013 19:36
  Well that didn't take long. It took precisely two hours for damage control #1 to hit following the PRISM-blower's self-revelation. Edward Snowden'scurrent employer - Booz Allen - has very rapidly issued a statement distancing itself from this lone rogue data assassin.
  Booz Allen can confirm that Edward Snowden, 29, has been an employee of our firm for less than 3 months, assigned to a team in Hawaii.
  News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm.
  We will work closely with our clients and authorities in their investigation of this matter.
  Average:Your rating: NoneAverage: 5(8 votes)
School Holds Toy Gun Buyback Program
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: BlackListedNews.com
  Sun, 09 Jun 2013 19:32
  Source:Guns.com >>
  It's looks as if the firearm buyback craze has turned a new page '' targeting toy guns.
  Apparently Strobridge Elementary School in Hayward, CA will host a toy gun buyback this Saturday. Kids who turn in their plastic pistols, Nerf shooters and rubberband rifles will be entered to win a bicycle. So, actually it's more like a raffle, but who's splitting hairs?
  Charles Hill, the school's principal, explained, ''Playing with toys guns, saying 'I'm going to shoot you,' desensitizes them, so as they get older, it's easier for them to use a real gun.''
  Dubbed '' Strobridge Elementary Safety Day, the event will feature a Hayward police officer talking about gun and bike safety. But the pro-gun group, Responsible Citizens of California aren't sold on the event's rationale. A spokesperson for the group, Yih-Chau Chang says,
  ''Having a group of children playing cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians is a normal part of growing up. While the intentions are obviously good on the part of the school administration, this doesn't really educate children about guns or gun safety. Guns are used in crimes, but they are more often used in defensive ways which prevent violent crime from occurring in the first place.''
  Ultimately, Hill said getting toys guns out of the hands of babes would also prevent potential accidents.
  ''Some of the guns I've confiscated, if they're stuck down in a waistband, the average person would think it's a real gun. I could easily see one of our sixth-graders wanting to fake out someone at a 7-Eleven by walking in there. They would think it's funny, but it could turn into tragedy.''
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'Another Phony Jobs Report From a Government That Lies About Everything'
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: BlackListedNews.com
  Sun, 09 Jun 2013 19:32
  The 179,000 jobs created in May and boasted about by the Obama administration are no more than ''the usual lowly paid non-exportable domestic service jobs'--the jobs of a third world country,'' former Assistant Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts writes.
  According to Roberts' number crunching, here's how the bulk of those jobs break down: retail, 27,700; wholesale trade, 7,900; ambulatory health care services, 15,300; servers and bartenders, 38,100; local government, 13,000; amusement, gambling and recreation, 12,500; temporary help, 25,600; business support services, 4,300; services to buildings and residences, 6,400; accounting and bookkeeping, 3,100; architecture and engineering, 4,900; computer systems and related, 6,000; management and technical consulting, 3,200.
  ''For a decade this has been the jobs profile of 'the world's most powerful economy,' '' Roberts points out. ''It is the profile of third world India 40 years ago. The jobs that made the U.S. the dominant economy have been moved off shore by corporations threatened by Wall Street with takeovers if they did not increase their profits.''
  The United States now has more hotel maids, bartenders and servers than manufacturing workers, Roberts notes. ''The U.S. has twice as many people employed in government than in manufacturing,'' and virtually no new jobs for the ''vast number'' of recent college graduates.
  '--Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.
  Paul Craig Roberts:
  Today President Obama's economist said that the notch upward in the unemployment rate was because the economic outlook was so good that more people were encouraged to enter the labor market than there were new jobs available.
  The conclusion is inescapable: The same government that lies about weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein's al-Qaeda connections, Iranian nukes, and so on, also lies about jobs, the unemployment rate, the inflation rate, rigs every financial and commodity market, pretends that terrorism is such a threat that the US Constitution must be set aside and that Americans are safer without the protection of habeas corpus and due process.
  Read more
  >>>>
[liberationtech] Why didn't tech company leaders blow the whistle?
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:21
  [liberationtech] Why didn't tech company leaders blow the whistle?Search Mailing List ArchivesYosem Companyscompanys at stanford.eduSun Jun 9 11:41:07 PDT 2013
  From: John Gilmore Subject: Re: [IP] Re corporate governance and surveillanceDate: June 9, 2013 4:31:05 AM EDTTo: dave at farber.netDave asks some great questions about why the people who had power overthese networks didn't blow the whistle instead of some anonymousinsider having to do it. Here's one possible answer.> How far up the chain of command did the decision-making process> reach? Did the NSA contact the CEO of Verizon, the chairman of the> board of Google, etc. and say, "Do you mind if we take a peek?" or> did they target some VP of operations and say, "Do this for us, and> don't tell your boss"?>> If the decision to comply with the request reached the executive> levels, why were there no mass resignations, a la Nixon's Saturday> Night Massacre? Why did no one take a stand and say, "I will not> sign off on doing this"? If some number of executives all tendered> their resignations with no explanation, Wall Street would have taken> notice.We know what happened in the case of QWest before 9/11. Theycontacted the CEO/Chairman asking to wiretap all the customers. Afterhe consulted with Legal, he refused. As a result, NSA canceled abunch of unrelated billion dollar contracts that QWest was the topbidder for. And then the DoJ targeted him and prosecuted him and puthim in prison for insider trading -- on the theory that he knew ofanticipated income from secret programs that QWest was planning forthe government, while the public didn't because it was classified andhe couldn't legally tell them, and then he bought or sold QWest stockknowing those things.This CEO's name is Joseph P. Nacchio and TODAY he's still serving atrumped-up 6-year federal prison sentence today for quietly refusingan NSA demand to massively wiretap his customers.This has ugly parallels with the Aaron Swartz case and with thefederal persecution of hundreds of state-legal medical marijuanaproviders. In this case a corrupt federal prosecutor (is there anyother kind?) did the dirty work of the NSA by performing an "ordinary,everyday" legal rape of an innocent person: find any of the half adozen federal felonies that every person commits every day, andprosecute them for it. Not because their "crime" was terrible orheinous. But because they didn't kowtow to some smiling bastard in anout-of-control agency.See:and the files 1 thru 7 attached to this 2007 Denver Post story:and, of course:Three felonies a day: how the feds target the innocent, by Harvey Silverglate"Three Felonies a Day is the story of how citizens from all walks oflife -- doctors, accountants, businessmen, political activists, andothers -- have found themselves the targets of federal prosecutions,despite sensibly believing that they did nothing wrong, broke nolaws, and harmed not a single person. From the perspective of both alegal practitioner who has represented the wrongfully-accused, andof a legal observer who has written about these trends for the pastfour decades, Three Felonies a Day brings home how individualliberty is threatened by zealous crusades from the Department ofJustice. Even the most intelligent and informed citizen (includinglawyers and judges, for that matter) cannot predict with anyreasonable assurance whether a wide range of seemingly ordinaryactivities might be regarded by federal prosecutors as felonies." John GilmoreMore information about the liberationtech mailing list
  [liberationtech] Why didn't tech company leaders blow the whistle?Search Mailing List ArchivesYosem Companyscompanys at stanford.eduSun Jun 9 11:41:07 PDT 2013
  From: John Gilmore Subject: Re: [IP] Re corporate governance and surveillanceDate: June 9, 2013 4:31:05 AM EDTTo: dave at farber.netDave asks some great questions about why the people who had power overthese networks didn't blow the whistle instead of some anonymousinsider having to do it. Here's one possible answer.> How far up the chain of command did the decision-making process> reach? Did the NSA contact the CEO of Verizon, the chairman of the> board of Google, etc. and say, "Do you mind if we take a peek?" or> did they target some VP of operations and say, "Do this for us, and> don't tell your boss"?>> If the decision to comply with the request reached the executive> levels, why were there no mass resignations, a la Nixon's Saturday> Night Massacre? Why did no one take a stand and say, "I will not> sign off on doing this"? If some number of executives all tendered> their resignations with no explanation, Wall Street would have taken> notice.We know what happened in the case of QWest before 9/11. Theycontacted the CEO/Chairman asking to wiretap all the customers. Afterhe consulted with Legal, he refused. As a result, NSA canceled abunch of unrelated billion dollar contracts that QWest was the topbidder for. And then the DoJ targeted him and prosecuted him and puthim in prison for insider trading -- on the theory that he knew ofanticipated income from secret programs that QWest was planning forthe government, while the public didn't because it was classified andhe couldn't legally tell them, and then he bought or sold QWest stockknowing those things.This CEO's name is Joseph P. Nacchio and TODAY he's still serving atrumped-up 6-year federal prison sentence today for quietly refusingan NSA demand to massively wiretap his customers.This has ugly parallels with the Aaron Swartz case and with thefederal persecution of hundreds of state-legal medical marijuanaproviders. In this case a corrupt federal prosecutor (is there anyother kind?) did the dirty work of the NSA by performing an "ordinary,everyday" legal rape of an innocent person: find any of the half adozen federal felonies that every person commits every day, andprosecute them for it. Not because their "crime" was terrible orheinous. But because they didn't kowtow to some smiling bastard in anout-of-control agency.See:and the files 1 thru 7 attached to this 2007 Denver Post story:and, of course:Three felonies a day: how the feds target the innocent, by Harvey Silverglate"Three Felonies a Day is the story of how citizens from all walks oflife -- doctors, accountants, businessmen, political activists, andothers -- have found themselves the targets of federal prosecutions,despite sensibly believing that they did nothing wrong, broke nolaws, and harmed not a single person. From the perspective of both alegal practitioner who has represented the wrongfully-accused, andof a legal observer who has written about these trends for the pastfour decades, Three Felonies a Day brings home how individualliberty is threatened by zealous crusades from the Department ofJustice. Even the most intelligent and informed citizen (includinglawyers and judges, for that matter) cannot predict with anyreasonable assurance whether a wide range of seemingly ordinaryactivities might be regarded by federal prosecutors as felonies." John GilmoreMore information about the liberationtech mailing list